Denali Bus Tour

It was a long and fun day. Today we took a bus from the Visitor Center just inside Denali National Park 63 miles towards the interior of the park to Eleison Center. Along the way we saw a huge variety in elevation, vegetation, and animals. Here are some of the pictures we took. Many of the animals like the Doll Sheep and Caribou were high in the mountains and the pics we took with the camera didn't work well.

Here are some of today's pictures:


Here's a picture of a moose about 1/2 mile from our B&B on our way to the park this morning. We have seen lots of moose and no deer. A cow and calf moose ran right in front of our car yesterday.

We sat in the front seat of the bus. This picture and the following picture are of a Grizzly sow and her two cubs. Although we probably saw a dozen Grizzly bear today, these were by far the closest we came.

This is a second picture of the bears. They did not show any fear of us and in this case there were about five loaded busses with folks clicking away with their cameras.

Yep, these are the busses. The roads are narrow and mostly gravel and occasionally you can look down a few thousand feet!

Ok, when you look at this picture you might say, "Why did they put this picture in?". Well, if you look above the hill on the right and see a small crescent of white to the left, this is the top of Mt. Mckinley (Denali). This is what we saw today, just pieces. Denali is visible only about 30% of the time and usually around winter (March). We are considering a plane ride around Denali tomorrow.

Here's another shot where above these white capped mountains, you can see more of Denali in the background.

This is Eleison Visitor Center and the turn around point for our trip. We saw lots of Caribou and Dall Sheep, some Ptarmagan (like grouse), tons of beautiful flowers, rivers, pine trees, Golden Eagles, and hares.

Here's a Caribou we saw on the way back. They like to stay on the ice to keep away from the bugs.

That's it for today.

Hope you are all well.

Bob & Sue

To Denali, Denali, Sled Dogs

Hi everyone,

This morning we left Wasilla about 9:00 a.m. to drive north to Denali National Park. The trip is about 200 miles and took us about four hours.

Here are some pictures from today.



If you click to enlarge this picture, you should see Mt. McKinley (Denali). To get some idea how big the mountain is, we are over 100 miles away at this point. We hope we get a clear picture of the mountain tomorrow when we are less than 25 miles away.



This is a picture from the front of our B&B lodge, Denali Touch of Wilderness B&B Inn.



This is a lady , Lori Yanuchi, and her son, who have an interesting life bringing supplies to the north side of Denali for mountain climbers. These supplies are called caches that the climbers don't have to bring in themselves. About 1500 climbers a year try to climb the mountain.

Here is a book Sue bought which was written by Lori Yanuchi.

Tomorrow we will go on an 8 hour bus ride into the interior of the park. Hopefully we will have more pictures and stories to tell you then.

Bob & Sue

Wasilla, AK

Well, here we are in Wasilla, AK, home of Sarah Palin. Wasilla is a nice town with two lakes and mountains in the background. We're staying at the Best Western which is located on the shores of Lake Lucille. Many of the homeowners on this lake have float planes.

We didn't see Sarah at McDonalds, but maybe she eats later than we do.

Our trip from Homer to Wasilla today has been perfect. We saw a cow moose with her baby, and later, another adult moose. The weather has been perfect....about 65 and sunny. In the Cooper River Recreation Area we watched lots of people fishing....they were lined up on both shores and in the middle of the river at about every 5 feet. The same area was busy with rafters going through rapids. We also watched kite sailing?!?

We left Homer and the Bay Avenue Bed and Breakfast after a yummy breakfast this morning. We would recommend this B&B to anyone traveling to Homer. Laurie, the owner (originally from Sleepy Eye, MN) is great and has connections to the fishing industry. She had a full house while we were there, and did a great job of introducing all her guests and making them feel welcome.

We've been on the road a week. At times it's hard to believe it has only been a week since we've done so much in that short period. We also realize we only have a few more days before we head for home. Tomorrow we will head for Denali, about 200 miles north.

It has been nice to stay connected with phone, email, blogs, and internet. The Blackberry is so nice!

Bob & Sue

Cranes, Saltry, Gull Island, Time Bandit

Hello everyone. We have had a busy day. We'll show you the day with these pictures. The picture below is a Sand Hill Crane and its baby.

Here's the baby. These are in the yard of the B&B we are staying at.

This a picture of one of the many glaciers we noticed across the bay.

We took a boat across the bay to Halibut Cove. On the way they showed us Gull Island. It is absolutely covered with birds.

Here's a picture of an eagle attacking seagulls. We saw this several times while we went around the island. The eagle is a very good hunter even if the pickings are good.

Across the bay we stopped and ate at a small restaurant called The Saltry. It is where they used to salt herring.

Next to the Saltry, they had a very nice intertidal pool with the animals and vegetation found . . . all were live. Here's Sue with a starfish.

On the way back we learned that the captain of the Time Bandit, Captain Jonathan was going to be at their store on the Homer Spit. We stopped over and Sue got an autographed picture.

Here's Bob getting his shirt autographed. He seemed like a nice guy.

So, tomorrow we will check out and head towards Anchorage. It's about 250 miles but its on a two lane road with lots of RVs, boats, and construction so we will just take our time.

We hope you are all doing well.

Bob & Sue

Homer

Hello from Homer,

We left Soldotna this morning and drove about an hour and a half to Homer. We checked out a very nice museum, the Homer Chamber of Commerce, and the Homer Spit. We found a nice B&B to spend the night.

Here are some pictures from today.


This a picture from our B&B. In the foreground you might be able to make out the Homer Spit. This is a five mile long chunk of land that juts out into the bay. A lot of the fishing charters are based here.

This is a picture of part of the marina on the Homer Spit. Apparently this weekend Homer is sponsoring a sailing regatta. I'm not sure what we'll see. Also while here someone caught a 341# Halibut which is the current record holder for the season so far. We also walked by another big fish that was about 120#. Apparently they average 20-25 lbs.

This the famous Salty Dawg Saloon. Sue noticed they have a sign out front which says, "No Dogs Allowed". Hmmmm.

We walked on the beach earlier this afternoon. The tide swing from high to low is currently 22-24 feet. Because of the strong currents, this adversely affects the Halibut fishing. I think this is a great picture of Sue.

Sorry, but Sue insisted I have a picture of me.

This is just a nice picture of a scenic overlook before we got into Homer. Can't tell if the small spit you can see out in the water on the left side is the Homer Spit or not.


So, we aren't really sure what we'll do tomorrow. We will let you know when we blog tomorrow. One of our preconditions for where we stay is internet.

Hope you are all well.

Love,

Bob & Sue

Last Day on the Kenai

This was our last day fishing on the Kenai River. We worked really hard for the Kings but sorry to say, we didn't even get a "hit". Our guide, Brent, has been doing this for 9 years and worked really hard but today wasn't a day to catch this fish. We did, however, enjoy the beauty of the Kenai River and met some nice folks from Homer.

Here are some of the pictures taken today

This is boat launch for us this morning. You can see the fog over the river. It was 40 degrees when we got up. If you look carefully, you can see Brent in the back of the boat getting ready. Brent fell as he got into the boat since it was covered with a thin layer of ice! He actually had to wash down deck of the boat with water so we could get in without slipping.

Part of the welcoming committee at the boat launch. You can kind of see the water moving around the rock at 10-12 mph.

I'm sorry my lens wasn't strong enough to zoom in properly on this pair of eagles. We probably saw a dozen or more eagles today and it is always a majestic site to watch them.

So from left to right we have Kathy, an artist (abstract), Lora, a nurse, Brent our 29 year old guide who guides in Alaska for 5 months and moves back to his home in northern California for the rest of the year where he works in a Steelhead fish hatchery.

So what's next?

Tomorrow we will check out by 11:00 a.m. We are going to Homer and likely spend the night there. When we blog next, we should know what we plan to do for the next day.

Take care,

Bob & Sue

Eagles, Moose, Rainbow and Dolly Vardon

Today was a great day. The weather was perfect, the fish were biting, and we saw some wildlife! Early this morning we left for Sterling, a town about 10 miles up river, where we parked our car at Bing's Landing and met our guide, Mark, and Roxie and Bob, a couple we would spend our fishing excursion with on the Kenai River. Before we got two minutes from our cabin two young moose crossed the road right in front of us. Later, while we were fishing, we saw a baby moose taking a snooze in some grass and waiting for his mother to return. Eagles were everywhere and we saw many eagle nests.

We both enjoyed seeing the sun today! When there was a break in the fishing action, we could gaze at the beautiful mountains, or the wilderness along the river.

The biggest catch of the day went to Bob Thorpe, but "our Bob" caught the most fish by a wide margin.

Sue caught a couple nice rainbow trout and a Dolly Vardon or two.

Bob's Dolly Vardon.

Bob caught too many Rainbows to capture on pictures, but each one was fun. These fish jump and fight while being reeled to the boat. We lost our share of nice ones, too. All the fish we caught today were released with care, so someone else can enjoy catching them another day.

We will have salmon for supper again this evening...yum! Then we'll get to bed early so we can get up early again tomorrow for another try at KINGS!

We wish you could all experience Alaskan fishing.

Alaska - Anchorage, Quake, Sockeye Susan

Hello Everyone,

We arrived in Anchorage yesterday afternoon. We had barely picked up our rental car when Chris called to tell us about the 5.1 earthquake in the Anchorage area. Although we both thought it would be exciting to feel it, neither of us did.
It took us about three hours to drive to Soldotna. We did some grocery shopping in Soldotna before we drove out to the fishing lodge which is about 5 miles west of town.

This morning we were up and down to the dock at 5:30 a.m. We were joined with a nice man and his son who are from California. The primary focus of the day was to catch King Salmon although we were somewhat forewarned that there hadn't been many caught recently.

Here are some pictures of today's fishing:


The boat and the skipper, Mark Glassmaker

This is a 21 foot aluminum boat powered by a 50 horse Yamaha outboard. Most of the Kenai river is about 4 feet deep and moving at 10-12 mph and you have to dodge a lot of boulders. The fishing process uses small dipsy divers and either "j" type plugs or small poppers. Mark called the process "back trolling" where the motor is always in forward gear and although it's pushing upstream, you are slowly moving backwards. BTW - Mark has 2000 hours on this motor and expects to get 10,000 hours before he has to replace it.


Sockeye Susan

We didn't catch any King Salmon but the biggest fish of the day was caught by Mom. This is a 8-9 lb fish that we are about to have on the grill as soon as I finish this blog. This fish is about the best of the salmon family to eat; very deep red meat. Mom did a great job pulling this fish in and you can see she is pretty happy. Next to her is the skipper, Mark. Mark worked hard all day to try find Kings. Of all the boats we saw (over 50) and all the calls Mark made to other skippers, we only heard of two Kings being caught today. We did see a boat with a King on but they later lost it.




Rainbow Trout
Although you can't keep them, it was fun to catch this fish that was maybe 6 lbs. Tomorrow we are going trout fishing with the same skipper we had today. He expects us to catch lots of trout so stay tuned to tomorrow's blog.



Drift Boat

This boat is called a Drift Boat because except for the oarsman, this boat drifts down the river. This oarsman worked hard to keep boat situated correctly and away from rocks. He looks a little like Floyd and could be something he would do. Today, by the way, is Floyd's 85th birthday. Happy Birthday Floyd.

Young Bald Eagle

We saw many Bald Eagles today including this young one. It takes eagles 5 years to finally have a white head and tail. This was fun to see.


So, it was a great day on the Kenai river. Tomorrow we will also be on this river but about 24 miles upstream when we fish for trout. Thursday we will be back at the lodge to spend our second day fishing for Kings.

Hope you are all well,

The Travelers

Cecelia Ann!

Although there have been several blogs that have announced the arrival of Cece, it is still no less thrilling for Sue and I to blog as well. The birth of a baby is something that can only be described as a miracle. We were so excited when Jeff and Bridget announce Cecelia Ann was born May 30th, at 4:12 p.m. at Fairview Riverside Hospital. She weighed 8 lbs 14 ounces and was 21 1/2" long. Although she doesn't have a lot of hair, it seems to be fair colored, much like both Jeff and Bridget when they were born.



Here she is!

She is just a bundle of joy. We are so thankful that baby, mom, and dad are all fine.

The Family

Dad, Mom, and Cece . . .

John's Project - A new patio door.

John & Heather live near Como Park and like most houses there are opportunities for improvement. Not long ago John, his brothers and I build a garage. The next project was to replace an old sliding patio door. This involved cutting out the old door sizing the opening for the new but smaller patio (swing) door and complete the interior and exterior walls.

There are some pictures of this project:

Making Things Fit

This room had been remodeled some years ago and the original walls were plastered. Additionally, the work was done be someone who was learning how to finish sheetrock so John had to spend a lot of time making sure the result looked professional and as you can see it looks really good. Here he has just finished painting the trim. The previous sliding door was largely inoperable and had serious air leaks until John did some serious gap coverage (Great Stuff) to prevent winter from entering this room.


Looks like it's always been there.

A person doesn't realize all the work that's required to do this from pulling out the old door, repairing any lumber that has become unusable, making sure the resulting door is rain proof and weather proof from the outside. So here's the finished door that perfectly fits the style of the house.

It really expands the house
As you can see by replacing the old patio door with one which is very functional you can see how much easier it is for John and Heather to use this room and the outside patio.

Boat

We have been considering an additional boat. A boat that could handle bigger water and a few more people. We finally found one and picked it up last night. Since it was built in 1987, we will be going over it stem to stern which is also part of the fun. The boat seems to have been extremely well cared for.

The boat has a 4 cylinder inboard and when we were out on a "check ride" on Big Marine Lake, it seemed to run fine. We also had no problems loading it.

Don't think it will fit in the garage!
Although the boat is only 21' it handles much bigger than the 19.5 ' boat we currently use.

Here's a side view. We are evaluating the travel cover and well as the camper cover, which are likely 22 years old.

The Cuddy

It's not very big but large enough for someone to rest. There's also a small toilet as well as lots of storage space.

Marine on St. Croix

This was the building it was stored in on a small farm near Marine on St. Croix. The father passed away a year ago and none of their three sons wanted the boat so they decided to sell it. We feel pretty fortunate to have it.