Lazing on the Kenai Peninsula

 

This is the fish walk on the Kenai River at Soldatna. It was built to preserve the river banks which are so important for the salmon, and also to provide handicapped access to fishing. You may recall that earlier on the trip we met a family coming up to pastor a church in Soldatna. I thought it was the wilderness. Actually, it is a well developed community with TWO grocery stores. The world comes to fish their Kenai River in the summer.

Fishing Fishing Fishing. The state sport is dog mushing, but in the summer, all the world turns to fishing. Tides, runs, limits, netting permitted or not, opening the river to fishing, closing the river because the escapement rate is not high enough, summer long contests for the biggest halibut or king (you have to buy the $10 ticket before you catch the fish. Sports pages are filled with fish stories, although they do have an Alaskan baseball league with great college players making their mark. They play their night games without lights. On the solstice, the Fairbanks team starts their game at 10:30 pm. I am enjoying the sports page.

Yesterday we went to a swimming pool at Nikiski, indoors under a big gold dome, nice and warm, with a hot tub and a really big slide. Carl had to pay $2 as a senior citizen, and I told him I would buy him a ticket to go on the slide, but …..he said no thanks. All the natives were really white except for their faces. Like Willow Pool the first week of May.

After we soaked in the hot tub, I selected an RV park for the night. I was surprised to realize that we had settled in only 5 miles down the road from the night before. That's progress, yes? We needed a break from vacation. That's as much an oxymoron as retired people taking a vacation, no?

Carl rode today, nice bike path from Kenai to Soldatna. Daisy and I took a couple of walks at the RV Park/aka Ranch. Near the barn was a nice embankment, and Daisy got a great workout diving in the bushes up and down the slope to the pond. She is so funny in the bushes. Daisy and I were saving our big walk for a hike into the Russian River falls where you can see salmon jumping, and maybe even a bear. Unfortunately, the line to get a parking place was once again about a dozen deep. When the salmon are running in the Kenai and Russian Rivers, you have to yield to the folks in the hip waders.

On the way back to Anchorage, where we are waiting patiently for the full moon so we can watch the bore tides, we stopped in Girdwood, the cutest little town at the base of the Alyeska Ski slopes. Carl tried Musk Ox burger. (I tasted it and I prefer buffalo. Musk Ox is kind of chewy.) The trip back along Turnagain Arm was incredible, mountains covered in snow on both sides for miles and miles. On the way down, we had rain and mist covering the mountains. Today the sky was blue and the sun was out. We are grateful for this wonderful place.

Epilogue: The bore tide was there, but not a roaring bore tide. Maybe in a couple of days when the moon is full. Meanwhile, we had some more wonderful bike rides on the Chester Creek Trail, a great trip to Flattop Mountain to see the city below on a drop dead beautiful day, and fine time waiting for the little bore tide at Beluga Point. Daisy went to a baseball field, fenced, for a little off leash romp. She knows when the gates are closed, and she doesn't run like she does when freedom calls.

We'll probably be moving on.....Valdez is calling.