Cooper Landing, Alaska: Quick Trip To Anchorage

My dear wife Mary Lynn was having withdrawals from not shopping during the last few weeks so we had to make an emergency trip to the 'big city': Anchorage.

OK, OK. The truth is, with three of our kids (well, young adults) flying in to join us for a week we needed to stock up on a few essentials at Costco & Walmart.

We had hoped to combine our shopping with picking the kids up in Anchorage however as our shopping list continued to grow it was quickly apparent we could not get the 3 kids and their luggage plus MLA & myself plus the groceries/supplies all into the CR-V. Well, I could have done it but MLA vetoed my idea of strapping one of the boys to the hood...

So we made a quick trip into Anchorage, did our shopping and then a quick trip back. Truthfully, it helped keep us busy so the day passed by relatively quickly. The anticipation of seeing the kids has MLA as giddy as a schoolgirl at the Sadie Hawkins Dance. I tell you, now would be a good time to ask her for just about anything.... however she normally says yes to any of my requests anyhow so I have everything I need and more.

All the pictures are from the Kenai River on the Kenai Peninsula. Truly one of the prettiest places in Alaska.

Oh yeah, MLA and I just joined Facebook and have been having a great time learning our way around the social networking world... it's easy to use and I've been surprised how much more you learn about what's going on with your friends and family than you do with regular e-mail. No interest in twitter at this time however Facebook is very cool!

Tomorrow the kid's flight gets into Anchorage around 7 pm; I'll have to find something to keep MLA occupied or she'll drive me crazy. Although many of my friends would tell you that driving me crazy is a short trip...

See Ya!

Cooper's Landing, Alaska: This Place Is For The Birds

Our trip to the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward, Alaska yesterday showcased only a few of the birds that live in Alaska for at least a part of the year. There are major flyways in Alaska that birds use to migrate between the summer nesting rookeries and the winter nesting grounds. Millions of birds migrate into Alaska.

We spent the day in camp getting ready for Scott, Christopher & Rachael to arrive on Saturday. Lots to do on our end. Mary Lynn and I have become pretty adept at living in our RV full-time; it fits us like a glove.

That glove however is tailor-made for two people in our RV. I have always said our RV 'fits' six for drinks, four for dinner and sleeps two. That's been a pretty good rule for us so far. When we invited our sons and daughter-in-law to join us in Alaska for a week we had planned on renting a cabin for them to use.

Come to find out, cabins are pretty scarce here in Alaska. Unlike their counterparts in the lower 48, most campgrounds do not rent cabins. The few cabins that are available are oriented to (and already rented by) fishermen. Many fish camps have a few cabins and allow fishermen to park their own RV's at the fish camp.

Alaska campgrounds are already a no frills version of campgrounds in the lower 48. For a place that has as much land as Alaska has, the campground spaces are downright small. Usually just long enough for the RV and very narrow so that by the time you extend your slides you can literally touch the RV next to you.

In addition, many campgrounds do not have hook-ups. Even basics like electricity and water are rare. With five of us staying in the RV we definitely need to have hook-ups.

That said, we have found a great campground attached to one of the Princess Hotels in Coopers Landing. Princess has five lodges in Alaska that are offered to their cruise passengers as excursions. In fact, the lobby of the lodge has an excursions desk where you can book additional activities here in Alaska. Reminded me of the cruises we have taken in the past. Except for the dog sledding and glaciers hikes which are pretty rare on the cruises we've taken to the Bahamas, the Caribbean and Mexico.

Tomorrow we head into Anchorage to get everything stocked and ready to go. Anchorage and Fairbanks are like just about any other large town/small city in the lower 48: plenty of Walmarts, Costco's Sam's Club, grocery stores and malls to meet your needs. As soon as you get out of Anchorage or Fairbanks the shopping options change dramatically. Small general stores are the rule, and they over flow with tons of the typical tourist offerings.

Every gift remotely associated with Alaska or anything that has enough of a flat surface to be engraved with the word ALASKA is available. T-shirts of course plus the ubiquitous ULU knife (handy type of knife with a rounded blade used by native Alaskans), hand made knives, many featuring antler handles, lots of carved ivory, carved wood, carved bones, carved antlers (you get the idea that carving is popular and the winters are long), hand made dolls, furs, fur coats, fur hats, fur gloves, fur scarves, fur earmuffs, clothing made from animal skins (political correctness is very much a lower 48 construct) along with the usual assortment of tourist offerings.

The places to get food, gas, and groceries are few and far between so you need to plan accordingly. It's not a big deal during the summer however it's obvious you need to very careful and thoughtful about items that most of us take for granted if you live outside Anchorage, Fairbanks, or Juneau. Making sure you have adequate food, shelter, fuel for home/vehicles, etc. during Alaskan winters is serious business.

God, it's beautiful here. Even with the haze from the wildfire's smoke, the beauty of the lakes and mountains hits you every time you step outside or round another bend.

See Ya!

Seward, Alaska: Alaska Sealife Center - Rescue & Rehabilitaion

What a great day! Currently there are several wildfires in Alaska which is typical for this time of year, or so I'm told. Apparently lightning is the main culprit, especially in the interior. And with all of the good weather, conditions are ripe for fires to start easily and spread quickly.

So, despite lots of smoke in the air for the last two days we continue to have a great time. A little hazy in the distance and there is a distinct smell of smoke when you first go outside. They weather here has been very warm and dry.

Today we drove over to Seward which is about an hour away. We wanted to see the Alaska Sealife Center, which has a terrific reputation in the area -- especially for their Rescue and Rehabilitation programs.

Mary Lynn and I took the behind-the-scenes tour at the Sealife Center. We've done that before at various attractions (like the Biltmore in Ashville NC) and it has always been worth the few extra dollars. The Sealife Center's behind-the-scenes tour was very well done; our guide was Mereth and she knew a lot about the center as well as the rescue & rehabilitation programs.

Rescue & rehabilitation is an important part of the Sealife Center's responsibilities. Wounded or abandoned seals, sea lions, etc. are brought to the center and nursed back to a point where they can be released back into the wild. Every effort is made to separate the animals from all human contact as well as interaction/contact with the other animals.

Human contact is avoided so the animals maintain their fear of humans. This includes not talking around the R&R animals and feeding remotely. Feeding remotely can be a simple as throwing food over the wall to using something they call a fish cannon, which fires food through a 'cannon' directly into the animals pool.

There are three main exhibits: Stellar Sea Lion, Sea Otter, and Seabirds plus several smaller displays including a very cool 'touch me' exhibit filled with anemones, sea cucumbers, starfish, spiny urchins, small crabs, etc. Loved touching these animals; the feeling is something you have to do for yourself although MLA declined. She's a little squeamish about touching anything a little 'squishy'. She did touch the spiny urchin so I have to give her credit; that was a big step for her!

The Stellar Sea Lion exhibit had both a male and a female. The male weighs in at a whopping 2200 pounds while the female is 'only' 500 pounds. The male was fun to watch as he thundered around the exhibit but most of all it was very cool to hear his bark booming throughout the area.

The Sea Otter exhibit normally houses seals however it is currently home to a sea otter named Skittle that has been nursed back to health. Unlike most seals and seabirds that are returned to the wild after rehabilitation, sea otter requires so much human contact that they

become attached to their handlers. So Skittle, who was found abandoned and half frozen to a float plane dock, will be sent to the New York Aquarium on Coney Island.

Best of all for me was the aviary, which holds ten varieties of Alaskan seabirds: Red-legged Kittiwakes, Pigeon Guillemots, Harlequin Ducks, Common Murres, Black Oystercatchers, Tufted Puffins, Horned Puffins, King Eiders, Rhinoceros Auklets and Long Tailed Ducks.

What a great opportunity to take some great bird photos.

We spent this evening finishing our plans for next week. Our oldest son Christopher and his wife Rachael plus our second oldest son, Scott, all arrive in Anchorage Saturday evening. Mary Lynn & I are so excited we can hardly sit still. Traveling full time in an RV is terrific and has many rewarding pluses; one drawback has been having much less contact with our four children. Our daughters visited us in Arizona last fall and we really enjoyed ourselves.

In any case, having our boys and our daughter-in-law here will be a real treat. We have tentatively planned to take them deep sea fishing, on the Kenai Fjords Wildlife & Glacier Tour, a raft trip, a drift fishing trip, and, if they are not too tired, a few hikes. Actually, it's much more likely that MLA & I will be too tired for the hikes!

In any case, towards the end of next week we will move up to Anchorage where we are getting together with the parents of a young man that Christopher works with. We have only spoken with Cindy and Don via phone however they have been incredibly helpful, offering advice on activities and information on what's happening in the area. We are really looking forward to meeting them in person.

Sounds like a ton of fun.

See Ya!

Kenai, Alaska: Fishing For Bears -- Another Alaskan Tall Tale?

The people in Alaska enjoy Fishing For Bears. Or rather they fish and the bears feel comfortable with 'taking' the catch. The bears are not really interested in people, just the fish people catch.

Let me start at the beginning and then I'll tell you about -- Fishing For Bears...

My buddy Dave & I went salmon fishing yesterday on the Kenai River. Actually we were fishing at the confluence of the Kenai River and the Russian River, one of the hottest salmon fishing spots in Alaska. This area is known for its Combat Fishing.



If you are not familiar with the term, Combat Fishing refers to a uniquely Alaskan style of fishing where fishermen stand shoulder-to-shoulder and flip their lines in front of the salmon swimming upstream. Seriously, folks line the river banks on both side of the river for a mile or more, standing roughly 10-12 feet apart.

And you don't cast the lure/bait and then reel the line in. Nope, that would be fishing, not combat fishing. Here you flip the line and bait out 8-12 feet about 45 degrees up river, let the line float downstream and then pull like crazy to set the hook. The salmon are not hungry and do not 'eat' the bait, Actually they get annoyed with anything that gets in their way of accomplishing the monumental task of spawning, the first step of which is to swim long distances past all sorts of wildlife predators, then commercial fishermen using nets, then sports fishermen using fishing poles in order to return to the exact location where the fish hatched a couple of years ago.

So if you cast your line and let it drift down river properly, the angry salmon snaps at the line and, if you are setting the hook at the same time, you snag them in the mouth.

Snag them anywhere else (back, belly, tail, etc) and you have to let them go. That's if you can get them in. An improperly snagged fish usually breaks the line. Unless you hook a fish in the mouth its almost impossible to beat the combination of their strength and the flow of the river. Do it right and you have a real fight on your hands with these big fish.

When hooked properly, the salmon put on quite a display, leaping and splashing as you pull them to shore. The fish that are running on the Kenai/Russian river right now are the Red Salmon which range in size from small (5 pounds) up to large (20 pounds). These fish are huge and truly an amazing sight (King Salmon are even bigger; I saw a 59.8 pound King Salmon when we were in Petersburg).

The best part of the 6 hours Dave & I spent fishing was when a large brown bear wandered out of the woods, calmly selected a nice salmon someone had caught moments earlier, and then wandered back into the trees to enjoy said salmon. About 30 minutes later, here comes the same bear, walks along the shore, selects another fresh salmon and takes it into the woods. It reminded me of the way you or I would walk along the seafood counter at the grocery store and take a few minutes selecting the freshest and best looking fish to take home for our meal. Except his fish choices were a lot fresher than ours...

Apparently, walking out of the woods and back into the woods involved far too much effort because about 30 minutes after taking the second salmon the brown bear emerges from the woods after eating his second huge salmon and strolls down the river's bank until he finds a stringer of about five salmon. Despite a number of people shouting at the bear and someone banging pots and pans together, the bear sat down and began enjoying all five of the salmon. And there he sat for over an hour before he strolled back into the woods for a well deserved late morning nap.

When you look at the pictures I took of the bear you can almost feel the fisherman's frustration of losing the fish he had worked so hard to catch.

This bear reminded me of the politicians who run our country. He only took a part of what the people had earned by working. Just like politicians know if they take all of our money we would quit working for them, the bear was careful to take just enough so people would keep working on his behalf. By just skimming off the top keeps lots of people coming out and fishing hard & in the process make sure the bear is well fed.

All those pictures you see of a bear standing in the freezing water waiting for a fish to leap into his mouth or chasing a fish through ankle deep water must happen in areas where fishing is restricted or prohibited. Bears are too opportunistic to work that hard when they can steal the fish -- from a person or another animal.

Seriously, the state of Alaska is working hard to reduce the number of bear/people interactions however its difficult to make that happen when the bear and the people are drawn to the same item like moths to a flame. The state has reduced the number of fish cleaning stations so any waste (basically anything other than the salmon fillets) can be thrown into the fast moving river.

And the Kenai River is fast. Wander too far into the current and you will be swept away. The current flows so hard that it can be harnessed to move the people ferry across the river; no engines required, thank you.

It seemed everyone was out fishing as the banks were literally filled with people standing 10 feet apart. And there is apparently more skill required than first meets the eye. I walked about a mile along the river and paid close attention to the stringers where people keep the fish they catch. You would go past five people in a row who had no fish on their stringer and then the sixth person would have 4 or 5 big salmon on his stringer. And then I realized that each of the fish on that guy's stringer had swum past the other fishermen, none of whom had the skill/equipment/luck to catch any of those fish. And yet the sixth guy had whatever it takes to catch fish and was well on his way to fulfilling his daily limit of six fish. Really amazing.

Oh, so how did Dave and I do? Lets just say the bears were disappointed with the results -- however I plan to keep Fishing For Bears.

See Ya!

Kenai, Alaska: Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge & RV Park

Anchorage has been experiencing a period of excellent, warm & sunny weather for the last couple of days. Can't really call it a heat wave if the temperatures just make it into the mid-70's. That said. mid-70's in Alaska is somehow different from mid-70's down south (south being a generic term for anywhere in the US outside of Alaska).

Perhaps mid-70's seems warmer in Alaska because of the contrast with the cooler temperatures that exist September through May. I'm not sure why but it's true. Today was another glorious day with lots of sunshine albeit a little hazy across any distance.

Yesterday while out exploring Anchorage on my own I stopped at a

couple of wildlife sanctuaries, mostly bird flyways where migrating birds flock in great numbers in the spring and the fall. Not as much happening there at this time of year but a lot of fun in any case.

Today we moved to Cooper's Landing on the Kenai Peninsula. Cooper's Landing is near Kenai Lake, a beautiful aqua marine colored lake. From here we'll be able to explore Whittier, Portage, Hope, Soldotna, Kenai, Ninilchek, Homer and Homer Spit. Home Spit is a 5 mile long sandy spur that extends from Homer out into the bay. Just a few hundred feet wide in many places, that area offers some of the best Halibut fishing in Alaska. And that's saying something...

Dave and Mary Anne are staying at an Alaskan State Park right on Kenai Lake; truly a beautiful spot. However there are no hookups and MLA enjoys her hook-ups. Maybe we'll slide over there for a couple of nights late next week.

We are staying at the Princess Wilderness Lodge & RV Park. Princess seems to own a lot of the sea/land cruise market here in Alaska, especially if you are interested in staying in Alaska. They have several Wilderness Lodges and a multitude of excursions you can take all over the state. Really quite impressive. The RV Park is OK, the view of the mountains are really something. Located on the Kenai River, the lodge has terrific views as well.

I plan to go salmon fishing tomorrow and maybe catch the fireworks display in Whittier, which is held at midnight on July 3rd or technically at 12:01 am July 4th. Have to hold the fireworks late at night since it doesn't really get that dark.

See Ya!