Alaska - First Week (plus a couple)

We made it across the border and to the town of Tok, Alaska on the 1st of July.

Whew, we made it. The RV and van are in the background. You can't tell how filthy they are from this distance.

There isn't much to Tok, but it does have a restaurant, a couple of RV parks, and some gift stores. We celebrated the arrival, my birthday, and my retirement at the best place in town - Fast Eddies. Being pretty much the only place in town, there was a line of people waiting. We had our burgers (mine was a halibut burger), fries including beer battered ones, and onion rings and went to the RV for cake and ice cream.

Fast Eddies wasn't very fast since it was the only place to eat - John

We drove out the next morning and I saw a fox that ran off before anyone else could see it. We were just a tic past Tok when I saw it. I told John about that and he didn't get the tic-tock joke. We saw two black bears and a whole lot of trees during the drive. The enormity of Alaska was apparent to us. There were very long views with just tree tops going on and on with no civilization in sight. The roads were much better, not great compared to normal standards, but pretty nice compared to what we had been through. The challenges of frost heaves tearing up the roads is still present, but they do a much better job of repairing and marking the bad sections. You could tell the engineers just powered through and made it work.

We stopped at a park in Glacier View. It turns out they have a glacier for you to view there. We took Maui and walked right out onto the 27 mile long Matanuska glacier. It was muddy and messy, with hard ice covered with mud and rocks up until the area where the white ice begins, closer to the blue ice. Maui had a blast walking around the mud, and he carried a bunch of it back with him. We took him back to the campground and let him run around in the deep wet grass and flowers for a while, and he came out clean - like nature's doggy carwash.

(Michael - In Glacier View, Alaska we went to the Matanuska Glacier and went gold panning. The long hike to the glacier looked like the underworld. All the rocks were black and jagged. When we got to the glacier it was really slippery and fun walking around on the rocks. We took a picture and then headed back to the RV. )

It didn't look like it was icy, but this was all black ice - Michael.

My paws are cold- Maui.

The campground was right at the base of a big hill with a trail to a bluff with views of the glacier. There were big mountains around us and we were able to see Dall Sheep on the top of one nearby. We were able to see a moose cow and her calf right on the hill with the walking trail. All we had to do was step out into the big outdoors. It doesn't really get dark, so Michael and I walked out to look for the moose at midnight one night when he couldn't sleep.

Looking for moose at midnight. No flash required for the photo. The dark hill on the right side had three Dall Sheep on it.

(Shelli  - Walking back from a trail walk one morning with Maui... John said to me.....”I think this trip is the best thing our family has ever done. The worst part is not being able to really get away from one another for very long, but I guess we have to take the cons with all of the pros?” At that moment, I thought to myself.....all the effort, money, planning and stress of the idea was worth it. The value should continue to grow as the four of us age and look back at the memories we are making!)

The next day we went to Caribou Creek just a couple of miles from our park. Because we saw a sign that showed gold panning as an activity there, we took our pans, a bucket, and a shovel and walked down a very long, steep and really muddy trail. Because it was pretty remote, we also took the bear spray. We made it to the creek's edge and tried our luck at panning while Maui ran through the mud. The current was very fast and we had to make sure Maui didn't get swept away like one of our gold pans. The water was cold and Maui started shivering a lot, so we packed up and headed back before we found the mother lode gold. We didn't have the right gear for panning and it was our first attempt, but we actually found some tiny flecks, so the hunt for Alaska gold was successful. I also found a very nice agate in one of the shovel scoops. Maui had so much mud and dirt on him, Michael said he thought Maui probably had some gold on him. We gave Maui a warm shower outside the RV and took a long time to wash out all the grey dirt.

(John - When we went to Caribou Creek, Dad, Michael and I panned for gold. I also made lots of mud pies in the pond next to the creek and threw rocks for Maui. I got very dirty but Maui got even dirtier, he looked like a brown dog with gray spots. We found a little gold but it was all small flakes that we could barely see. )

(Michael - The hike down to the creek was extremely muddy with lots of flying insects. The creek had a very dangerous current, it was too strong for Maui. So, he played in the pond next to the creek and got very dirty. We found a few specks of gold but this is just the beginning. )

This is where I threw the gold pan in on accident. The current took it away and it was out of sight in two seconds - Michael

This was when we found the first tiny gold flake - John

I was fishing and Maui was watching, but the current was too strong and we didn't catch anything - John

The mud was like quicksand. Maui was very puzzled - Michael

Maui was cold and shivering when he came to sit right beside me. It was time to go.

We pressed on to Anchorage and spent the next several days just getting supplies, hair cuts for Michael and John, and my retirement ID card at Elmendorf Air Force Base. We went to a scenic overview near the Anchorage International Airport. It was 10:00 at night and the sun was shining strong. We had a nice view of the water and downtown Anchorage. We didn't stay long because there was a very steep drop-off and birds were flying all around us. Maui has begun chasing birds like crazy, running around even when they are way above him, and we were afraid he would run right off the cliff, looking up the whole time.

10:00mp view with downtown Anchorage in the background. See the birds to the left swooping around the cliff drop-off?

With oil changes, new tires on the van, Costco, Wal-Mart, Target, GameStop, and Sports Authority runs complete, we headed down to the Kenai peninsula. The view along the Seward and Sterling Highways was really magnificent. The Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet has the largest tidal range in the United States and we could tell the tide was rushing out as we drove by. There were mountain peaks, waterfalls, valleys, grassy hills, rivers, creeks, and three moose for us to look at along the way.  The weather was very sunny and nice. The sunlight on the water in the creeks made them look very light blue. When we were driving along the coast of Cook Inlet, we could see a very big mountain on the other side of the water. It seemed to be much taller than surrounding mountains and really got my attention. I saw another one to the North of it and thought it was farther away and it appeared to be even bigger. It had a cloud around the middle, but we were far enough away to be able to see the top poking through. I thought we were too far South to see Denali (Mount McKinley) but this sort of fit the image I had in my mind. It turns out it was two volcanoes, Mount Iliamna and Mount Redoubt, both with peaks just over 10,000 feet. Denali is twice as high as them.

Mount Redoubt

We went all the way down to Homer, past the Russian River and Kenai River which are world class salmon fishing spots. Homer is known as the halibut fishing capital of the world. It has a long stretch of land called the Homer Spit, that juts out into the bay. We stopped at an RV park on the spit and parked just yards away from the water. From our front windows we had views of the water, eagles, seals, and snow covered mountains. We were right by the famous "fishing hole" which is a saltwater pond with an opening to the bay. Salmon come into the hole and circle around while seals swim around and bald eagles fly over. Shelli and I took Maui out for a walk along the top of the fishing hole area and two bald eagles flew by pretty close. We could hear their wings pushing the air as they went by. There were so many eagles, we took them for granted and didn't even take pictures of them. As luck would have it, I thought about this the last morning and decided to take some, but I didn't see a single one before we packed up and drove away. Driving up the hill on the way out. I stopped to take a picture of the spit sticking out into the bay, and a bald eagle flew by.

Our RV site was right on the water with views of mountains. This was low tide. At high tide the water was up much closer.

I was throwing rocks and Maui was chasing them and jumping into the bay - John

The fishing hole. There is a seal head poking up in the bottom on the left side.

The Homer Spit, and a bald eagle on the left.

(Shelli - One morning down on the Homer Spit while I was taking Maui out, we couldn’t help noticing the HUGE bald eagles hanging out between the front of our RV and the shore. They were semi-circling us and then meeting back up on the ground for discussion with lots of squeaking between the two of them. I really think they were trying to decide whether Maui was a doable meal for the two of them. They were huge, their wings were enormous and their beaks looked rather sharp, so I am not really sure myself if they could have had a successful go at the idea. Therefore, we didn’t stick around any longer to find out.)

John had been wanting to do a fishing trip with just me - sort of like Michael got to go diving with me in Hawaii. We went on an early morning launch for a half day halibut charter with Rainbow Tours. After an hour and half ride out we put the first line in the water and John caught the first halibut of the boat. We caught them until our arms were shot and we had picked out our favorites for our limit of two per person. it was a great experience and was well worth it.

(John - Dad and I went Halibut fishing and I caught a fifteen pound halibut. We both caught at least 7 fish but we could only keep two. Two was the maximum for each fisherman per day. We have 22 pounds of cleaned, filleted fish. It was very hard to pull the fish up. The water was 162 feet deep and it was like pulling a huge piece of cardboard through the water when I was pulling in the fish. Once we got our keepers, the deckhands cleaned and filleted the fish. The deckhand even let me keep one eyeball! Dad cooked it that night for a great dinner, it tasted really good. Ha Ha. Halibut fishing was one of the most fun things I have ever done. I will never forget it)

On the way out to start fishing.

This was one of the smaller fish we caught so we threw it back - John

These were my two keepers. I was holding the smaller one because the bigger one was hard to hold - John

I was trying to find Dad's fish, in a mound of halibut. It had gaff mark but it was still almost impossible to find - John

We kept four fish, in this picture Dad's other one was being cleaned - John

When we were out on the boat and they were cleaning the fish, I kept an eye out for Michael - John

We had our fish vac packed and frozen, but kept out about two pounds for dinner that night. We are RV living, so we had to make do with what we had to prepare the meal. I took some cornbread mix, Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and for a panko like topping crushed up cheese-its (four cheese flavor). With a soak in milk and a roll in the breading mix, it was pan fried in olive oil while we fried sweet potatoes that we topped with sugar. It was kind of a redneck/Italian feast and it was really pretty good.

Michael joined us for fishing from the boat docks the next day. He caught a big ugly Irish Lord (also known as a sculpin).  After no luck catching other fish, we moved to the very end of the Homer Spit and ended up catching flounder and cod. The fish processing remains from the commercial fishing is pumped through a pipe and out into the bay right in front of where we were fishing. It attracts a ton of seagulls and a lot of fish. The pipe is underwater, so at first we didn't know what was going on when we would see a big swirl of bloody water and seagulls and fish feasting of parts. It looked like a shark had come through and ripped up something. After the third time this happened, I had to ask someone to find out what it was. Although I didn't have my waders, I decided it was worth it to walk on out into the water to be able to cast right by the feasting zone. We started catching a lot more fish and even landed one seagull.

(John - Once Dad had reeled the seagull in, we used my jacket to calm it down by putting it over the seagull's head. Luckily, the line had just wrapped around it's legs and tail feathers. Once we let it go, my jacket was soaked, rocky, muddy, and very smelly, but now it has a story.)

(Michael - At the dock we caught one fish and three crabs. When we were catching the crabs they would always let go right when we were getting them up.  So, when John was catching the last one,  he yelled I've got a crab and yanked the line up as hard as he could. When he yanked, the crab let go and went flying in the air. It landed on the deck of the black and yellow boat behind us where the guy who had been talking to us just left. It was really funny for us, but not the crab because it smashed on impact and died.)

We were stuck with a dilemma. Leave a dead crab on the guys boat, or go on the boat to get it without permission. Either way was wrong. As we discussed it, a lady on the other big boat beside us, who had apparently seen and heard the whole thing said we could go get it. I hopped on and retrieved the smashed crab.

The only fish we caught here was this Irish Lord. The spikes were really sharp - Michael

I think this was a cod I was catching.  The blood circle where the fish discards came through a pipe was just to the right of the picture - Michael

We tried our luck a few times at the fishing hole, but never caught anything there. The last night there, we saw some guys catching a few salmon by using herring for bait. Like playing follow the leader, we had been using lures because that is what everyone else was doing when we got there. None of them had caught anything either. Glad they weren't jumping off cliffs.

The last morning John and I went to the end of the spit again and took our surf pole we had used in Oregon for crabbing. We figured we could cast farther with it and might get a halibut from the deeper water. We caught something on almost every cast. We had several flounder and bunch of big cod that we threw back because we were really hoping for a halibut. We saw an otter on his back just floating by as we fished. We didn't have the camera with us to take any pictures of our catch or the otter.

After leaving Homer, we drove to Kenai, where we will be staying for a week. On the way up, we saw a big moose right by the road.

This moose was very big, but it was a cow, so it had no antlers. I took the picture as we drove by - John

We arrived in time for the pot luck dinner at our RV park, the Diamond M Ranch. They grilled halibut and salmon for us, and everyone brought a side dish. It was a pretty good feast followed by some fresh hot rhubarb crisp and ice cream. It has been a good 9 days.

We will shoot for an update post each week on Sundays.