July 27

This was the day to explore the Kenai Peninsula from Soldotna south to Homer and across Kachemak Bay to Halibut Cove. There are too many neat pictures to post but here are a few. We first visited the quaint little fishing village and clamming beach of Ninilchik. There we first visited an old Russian Orthodox Church with its accompanying graveyard filled with unique crosses at each grave site. We then went to Anchor Point and had lunch on the beach as we watched huge tractors retrieved incoming charter fishing boats. The tide was considerably low. While there we also visited the westernmost point that can be reached by road in North America. Following that we drove to Homer where there is a beautiful view of the town below and at least six glaciers in the mountains to the southeast across Kachemak Bay. Across Cook Inlet to the West on a clear day you can see five active volcanoes, Mount Douglas, Mount Spurr, Mount Redoubt that recently erupted, Mount Iliamna and Mount Augustine but due to clouds we could not see any of them. At near the end of the “Spit” which is a narrow peninsula that juts out into Cook Inlet south of Homer we boarded the quaint little Danny J and cruised at about eight knots for the five miles across Kachemak Bay to the beautiful Halibut Cove. Here private homes, art galleries and a few businesses are located on and around the rocky islands in the Cove. Nearly all have boardwalks built on pilings in the water for access due to the sheer cliffs of most islands where they meet the water. We had a delicious Halibut dinner at the Saltry Restaurant and strolled around the island on which it was located, taking lots of pictures along with visiting the art galleries. On the way over we watched a Sea Otter and on the way back we cruised past Gull Island where thousands of sea birds nest. We spotted several Puffins and also saw at least three Bald Eagles along the way. We returned home by midnight.

July 26

We went to church this morning and stayed to all meetings. The Sunday school lesson covering D&C sections 121-123 could not have been better taught by a general authority and I was spiritually very touched. One of the members invited anyone, and especially visitors, to a pot luck lunch at her home after meetings. We decided to go and she and her husband, Bobbie and Harold Jackson, had a beautiful ten-acre property outside of town with a huge greenhouse and an incredible garden of vegetables, flowers, fruit trees and berries. The lunch was awesome with ribs, salads, salmon chowder, desserts and drinks. Many showed up and we had a great time getting to know some of the local members as well as several visitors. These people were so warm and friendly that it really made this a memorable day. We will be traveling with Don and Glenn for the next few days. We made reservations to take the cruise across Kachemak Bay from Homer to Halibut Cove on the "Danny J" tomorrow afternoon where we will dine at the Saltry Restaurant, walk around to see the sights and art galleries and return (Google them). Then to finish off the day we got to talk with Dave and Laurene Gardner at length for the first time on our trip and they told us of their recent purchase of a beautiful new motor home. We are anxious to see it and wish they were here with us.

July 25

Today we made our trip to Hope. It was very scenic with some of the most spectacular mountains we have seen. The town was bustling with fishermen and had several very old small log cabins in which it was obvious that people were living. The picture is of the town Social Hall that was built in 1902 and is still in use. On the way the views of the mountains and the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet were breathtaking in spite of the low-hanging clouds. You will notice that the tide is going out in the picture across the Arm. Tides in the Cook Inlet can vary by more than twenty feet. On the way back near the junction with Highway #1 there is an old highway bridge just above the current bridge shown that is crossed with a paved hiking trail. In the stream below we spotted a pair of Chinook or King salmon spawning. It was very interesting to see the female turn sideways and swish the creek bottom with her tail to lay eggs and then the male would come over the spot to fertilize them. They had the deep reddish color on their backs that is typical at this end-of-life ritual. A little later, in the stream just below, we spotted the dead and decaying body of a Chinook salmon that had completed its mission. It was sad to know that their life cycle is to be born, swim to the ocean for three to five years, return to the stream in which they started life to start the cycle all over again for the next generation and then die. In a sense I guess that is true of all life forms on earth including ourselves. However, aren’t we happy to know that we have a higher potential and purpose?

July 24

It’s Pioneer Day back home. We hope all of you have fun watching parades and celebrating this weekend. Our day got off to a slow start but around 4:00 PM we took a drive intended to go to Hope, a tiny old mining town on the south side of the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet. On the way we took the Skilak Lake road off from highway #1 between Sterling and Cooper Landing which turned out to be a very scenic and interesting drive. The road was unpaved but well worth the washboards and dust from passing vehicles. Early on the Skilak Lake road we saw a huge cow moose. Skilak Lake is very large with two very picturesque campgrounds on the lake shore about 4 miles apart on spur roads. In addition there were a number of unnamed lakes and then Hidden Lake with another nice campground. There were also plenty of rugged snow-capped mountains in the background for pictures. Some Sockeye salmon pass through Skilak Lake from the Kenai River and then up Hidden Creek to Hidden Lake. We stopped to look for fish in the creek where the creek passes under the road but did not get to see any. But while looking at the creek a bear crossed the road for a little excitement. Our trip totaled 88 miles and we returned at about 7:30 PM.

July 22-23

These last two days we basically laid back to recuperate from the many long days and late nights fishing. A leak under the kitchen sink on the motor home had to be repaired and typical domestic duties were taken care of. We played greed (a fun dice game) with the Liljenquists until late Wednesday night. Gene won three times and Mom once. At about 7:30 AM Thursday morning we were still in bed when a ringing began that we did not immediately recognize. Finally we figured out that we were getting a Skype call. Without remembering the web camera I ran into the front of the motor home where the computer lives to answer and heard, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry I got you up. I totally forgot about the time difference. I’ll call back after Carter’s swimming lessons.” About then I realized that I was in my undies and my hair looked like, well, that I had just gotten out of bed. It’s OK Lindsy, we should be out of the sack by 7:30 even if we are on vacation. Then on Thursday afternoon we took a drive of about 85 miles through the city of Kenai and up the Kenai Spur Highway to it’s end at the Captain Cook State Recreation Area on the Cook inlet north of Kenai. It was a pretty drive and we saw a couple of pretty lakes and then came back to Kenai and talked to a Kenai resident about fishing in general while we watched people dip net fishing along the Cook Inlet shore below the bluff where we were standing. On the way back to camp we saw a mother moose and her calf along the highway.

July 20-21

These were the final two days of our fishing licenses and we have tried to make the most of them. Catching fish also means there are fish to clean, vacuum pack and freeze which is quite time consuming. Tuesday morning, our last day to fish, we were on the river at 6:00 AM. Everyone did well except me and I had the worst time I have had all week with snagged fish and lost tackle and I caught none that I could keep. To be legal a sockeye salmon must be caught in the mouth but because there are so many fish in the river and due to the method of fishing for them it is not uncommon to snag a fish elsewhere in the body. A fish thus caught is turned loose or you risk confiscation of fishing gear and a hefty fine. At a little after 9:00 AM we headed for Clam Gulch where a -4.2 tide this morning permitted vast areas of ocean floor to be exposed off from the beach of the Cook Inlet. This enables digging for razor clams which is quite an art in itself since the little critters bury themselves in the wet sand and make their presence known with a small hole in the sand but when they sense the disturbance of digging them out they can burrow deeper at an amazing rate. Anyway we did not do a professional job but we did come back with about seventy clams that then took the next four hours to clean. We then packed 56 pounds of frozen salmon to ship to Leslie and Matt to keep in their freezer until we return home. After that I went back to try to improve my fishing luck from this morning and I caught my limit in a matter of less than one half hour. Wow, what a reversal of fortunes from this morning and it made a nice end to the day. As a weather note is was cloudy and rained off and on with plenty of wind and a high temperature of about 60 today.

July 19

They tell us that it has been unseasonably dry and warm this spring but last evening it began a light rain that has continued pretty much all night and today. I don’t know what “warm” is for Alaskans on the peninsula but it hasn’t been much over 70 in the daytime and is down around 50 every night so far. Even though we climbed into the sack (again) after 1:00 AM after we finished vacuum-packing smoked and freshly-caught fish we got up before 7:00 AM to get ready for church. They announced that about 50% of the attendance was visitors at the Soldotna Ward. The high councilmen spoke and they both gave very good talks even though it was hard to stay awake to listen to them.

July 15-18

These first few days in Soldotna could be summed up with clean vehicles, vehicle repair and maintenance, take care of accumulated business when forwarded mail arrived, then work, fish, clean fish, work, fish, clean fish, and smoke and pack fish. With long hours of daylight it has been common to climb into the sack at 1:00 AM or later (fish have to be cleaned, filleted and cared for after the fun of catching is over and as long as it's light it's hard to stop fishing). The first night here we bought one-week fishing licenses Tuesday night and at midnight Wednesday morning we started fishing. We have been fishing for Sockeye or "Red" Salmon exclusively and they vary from around 6 pound to over 10 pounds. The largest we have caught so far was 9 pounds 12 ounces. Mom is having the time of her life and seems to be really enjoying herself fishing and conversing with her brothers, Dixie and all the friends and family of Don and Dixie that are around constantly. Glenn is also here with us (he flew up before we arrived).

July 14

Well today was the big day we arrived at our destination after logging 3669 miles. The scenery from Anchorage to Soldotna is by far the prettiest of the trip. Don and Dixie’s RV park is very nice and we have WiFi available thanks to someone nearby with an unsecured router. We had a great buffalo steak dinner and then Gene and I helped Don do plumbing and electrical work on the guest cabin they are building. I washed off the first layer of dirt from the Elantra and Mom and Lynn did laundry. After helping Don it was nearly midnight and by then Dixie had taken Lynn and Mom to Kenai to buy fishing licenses and we fished until 1:30 AM. I caught two Red’s and Mom caught one and we cleaned them in the small amount of lingering daylight and turned in for the night after a great day!

July 13

Today we drove the Hatcher Pass Road the rest of the way to Willow then to Wasilla and back to camp. The pass was beautiful with Summit Lake at the summit and rugged mountains all around. The terrain was pretty much tundra at the top above the timber line at an elevation less than that of the city of Pocatello. You have to remember though that the elevation in the valley is only a couple hundred feet. From the pass on was Willow Creek, a pretty stream with occasional beaver ponds but nothing out of the ordinary. After returning to camp and a quick lunch we drove on to Anchorage where we are camping with more than a dozen other outfits in a mall parking lot just off the Old Seward Highway in the south end of town. We did a little grocery shopping and turned in. Tomorrow we plan to be at Uncle Don and Dixie’s place to end our trip up here.

July 12

This morning we got up to discover that the initial damage to the rear of the motor home early into Canada was apparently expanded by the frost heave bouncing yesterday to form a crack from the outside into the dresser in the corner of the bedroom that let copious amounts of fine dust in all over its contents and to a lesser extent throughout the motor home. After extensive vacuuming, wiping, dusting and applying a temporary patch of rags and caulk into the crack from underneath we hope it will hold until we can get the damage repaired. After the cleanup and patch job we traveled the Glenn Highway to Palmer. Along the way we saw some beautiful mountain scenery. It was a little disappointing though because haze from some distant fire obscured much of the view of the mountains. We could plainly see Matanuska Glacier at some distance and later the Matanuska River along the highway. This river seemed very brown and muddy. We stopped for pictures at the west end of Long Lake. Another stop was for a short drive up to Ravine and Bonnie Lakes. After gassing up in Palmer we went looking for a camp site on the Hatcher Pass Road north of Palmer and Wasilla. It is very scenic and much of the road follows the Little Susitna River which is glacier fed and has the beautiful milky color of glacier melt. Tomorrow we will finish the loop over Hatcher Pass to Willow, Wasilla and back.

July 11

We started the day today with a steep 1½ mile (each way) hike from the campground up to a lookout over the valley. It took us about and hour to hike up and forty minutes to hike back. The view was very nice. (The trip was up, up, up again. I though that I would have to quit till I put Dad in the back. When I could take my own pace, it was better. I still could only see my feet because I had to watch to keep from turning an ankle on many tree roots. Now you have to know that Dad fell and hurt another rib. I need to make him wear a pillow around him. Even then he is still like a mountain goat the whole walk.) (Thanks Mom) Now on with the story… After the hike we drove down the Tok Cutoff Highway to a brief stretch of the Richardson Highway before turning onto the Glenn Highway to a rest area about 30 miles past the town of Glennallen as we headed toward Anchorage. Along the way we saw more forest, lakes and streams and even some large snow-capped mountains off in the distance. A number of the rivers seemed very brown and muddy, not the milky color of glacier-fed streams we remember from our prior trip. The road has been a real roller coaster all day from frost heaves which keeps speed down to around 45 mph most of the time. We got one little shower but for the most part it has been quite warm the last few days.

July 10

Dad took a picture of the ship grave yard. He climbed to the top to get a picture. He fell and buggered up a rib again. This was before we left the camp from the night before.Today we found the Top of the World Highway and the Taylor Highway to be somewhat anticlimactic based on our expectations. It was pretty but nothing more than rolling hills and a long, bumpy drive of about one hundred and ten miles of dirt and gravel roads. For those who have been with us on the “hundred-mile ride” in the Stanley area the road and scenery was very similar with the road being two lanes for the most part. There were places off and on for many miles in one stretch where a fire burned in 2004. Fireweed fills in large hillsides of fire-burned areas to help restore the beauty as it is truly spectacular. We also took a walk across some tundra and photographed a number of tiny wildflowers that we found. Walking on the tundra was like walking on an eight to ten inch deep sponge everywhere except where there was rock. It was a strange experience. The border crossing was also interesting but uneventful because it was so small and isolated on a mountain top. Mom mailed some post cards in Chicken, Alaska at a tiny post office where they said the plane would take the mail out next Tuesday. We then passed through Tok and went on down highway #1 to find a camp site at the Eagle Trail State Recreation Site.

July 9

Today was a tour Dawson City day. We first took the ferry across the Yukon River to a government campground on the far side and then returned in Gene and Lynn’s Honda for the day. The ferry ride was a bit nerve racking, having never done such a thing before and with close quarters on deck. The “docks” are just gravel that is built up, I understood daily, on the river banks with earth moving equipment. We first visited Dredge #4 on Bonanza Creek which is the largest dredge ever built in North America. It was a super-sized version of the Yankee Fork Dredge with which we are familiar near Stanley. We missed the guided tours for the day so we drove on up the road another couple of miles to the “First Discovery Claim” where gold was first discovered on August 16, 1896 by Robert Henderson that started the Klondike Gold Rush. Just above that is a legal gold claim along the creek belonging to the local visitors association that is open to the public to pan for gold where we tried our luck but lack of time and rain left us with the experience of panning for gold but with no “color” was found in our short visit. After this we returned to town to pass by and take pictures of Jack London’s cabin (Call of the Wild, White Fang, etc.) and Robert Service’s cabin (The Cremation of Sam McGee, etc.). We then took in a mini driving tour of the town and visited a number of gift shops and other commercial establishments. The town is quaint in that many of the buildings are over a hundred years old, the streets are unpaved and the sidewalks are board walks. We saw another restored paddle-wheel steamer called the “Keno” but did no tour. At a visitor center we met a native (they are called First Nation people in Canada) who now makes CD’s and films about the Far North and explained much about their culture along the borders of the Beaufort Sea. He was also explaining that he was preparing with his three-year old son for a fishing expedition to hunt Beluga whales along with other family members. To finish the day we took a hike, first up the sandy shore of the Yukon River and back, and then around the campground. At the end of the river hike we found the remains of three very large stern-wheeler ships that had apparently been pulled up onto the shore for their final resting place. Tomorrow is the big one we have been waiting for, to travel the Top of the World Highway and then the Taylor Highway back to the Tetlin Junction with the Alaska Highway to Tok, Alaska.

July 8

It is 11:00 PM and the sun is still well up above the horizon. We just returned from a six hour, two hundred mile round trip up the Dempster Highway which travels North across the Arctic Circle for about four hundred seventy miles of gravel road to the remote village of Inuvik, Northwest Territories. We got to view some beautiful mountains, valleys, streams and a stretch of arctic tundra devoid of virtually any trees. At the end of our trip we saw the trails left by caribou on their annual migration route over many years across the face of a bare mountain side. We are now camped at the Klondike River Lodge at the junction of the Klondike and Dempster highways. On the way here we went through considerable construction today and the motor home and Elantra are coated with mud. The scenery along the Klondike highway was pretty mundane as scenery goes around here. There were a couple of burned areas many miles long from past forest fires and the first fifty miles or so the air was filled with haze from some forest fire currently burning somewhere, apparently West or Southwest of us.

July 7

Unlike most of the beginning of our trip which was very cool and wet, the last two days have been sunny and quite warm with temperatures in the eighties. We spent most of the day today touring Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. It is a city of a little over 20,000 and the largest we have seen for some time. We started with a ride on a trolley that travels up and down the waterfront along the Yukon River. It was interesting because it was made from a narrow gauge electric trolley that was brought from Portugal and retrofitted with a small diesel engine to pull/push it along. The sign inside indicating seating capacity was in Portuguese and it very much reminded me of the little trolleys in some Brazilian cities that we called “bondes.” The operator/tour guide explained much about the area and city’s history as a transfer port from the railroad coming from Skagway to the gold fields of Dawson City to the north via paddle-wheel steam ships. These ships were the only significant means of transportation of cargo and people up and down the Yukon River to Dawson City during the Klondike gold rush days if 1897 through to 1955 when the road was completed to Dawson city. It took a ship 36 hours to travel downstream to Dawson City and five days to return upstream back to Whitehorse. We next visited the MacBride Museum across from the old railway station which had a lot of Klondike history artifacts, geology and wildlife of the area, Royal Canadian Mounted Police history and much else to see. We then had a fish and chips lunch at the Klondike Rib & Salmon BBQ, recommended by everyone we asked, that was truly delicious. Following lunch we did a guided tour of the SS Klondike paddle wheel steam ship that was retired in 1955 and has been restored and made a national monument. It is some 240 feet long and the largest such ship ever to ply the Yukon River. The ship burned one cord of wood per hour that had to be loaded from stock piles along the river bank periodically. Again, a film was shown and much history was told that was very interesting. We then headed on up the Klondike Highway #2 toward Dawson City. Along the way we took a good hike down a long set of stairs and a trail to the “Five Finger Rapids” on the Yukon River that we had learned earlier was a major hazard for the steam ships. Finally we found a cozy little spot to camp on a turnaround just off the highway right at a bridge across Tatchun Creek.

July 6

Today was fairly uneventful. No wildlife was sighted and no particularly significant sights, just the “usual” forested land, lots of lakes, some mountains and small communities and businesses along the way. The only significant town we passed through after crossing the continental divide was Teslin on our way to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory where we shopped for groceries and camped at Wal-Mart. We finished the day by seeing a huge old restored paddle-wheel steam ship called the SS Klondike that used to travel the Yukon River. The river was the primary method for transporting goods and people to the interior prior to land roads and railroads. After that we took a long walk along the Yukon River that flows through the city.

July 5

With no church available to attend we hit the road. The scenery today was back to a wide, forest-lined highway and rolling hills with the usual lakes and streams. The first number of miles showed where a recent (this spring) wildfire had destroyed much forest at least along the highway that we could see. We drove to near Rancheria Falls Recreation Site, about half way between Watson Lake and Teslin, Yukon Territory for a total of just over 200 miles. We are just reaching snow-capped mountains again. We gassed up in Watson Lake soon after entering the Yukon Territory. Watson Lake has a huge “signpost forest” with signs and personal notes left from all over the world. It probably covers well over an acre and there were over 61,000 signs posted at last count in 2006. One has to ask, “How did they all get there.” The day started out with a lot of wildlife sightings with a fox, a couple of buffalo herds and three black bears in the first few miles. Later we met a sage hen with a chick on the trail to the Rancheria Falls which were actually two falls on the same stream, one on each side of an island. They were not very high but were nevertheless quite pretty. Earlier we also visited a place on the Liard River where a huge eddy creates a whirlpool where an unbelievable amount of trees and logs are piled up that have been carried down the river to this “cove” at high water.

July 4

Happy birthday USA! Today we logged close to 200 miles to Liard River where Liard Hot Springs is located. It is a natural hot spring that has been partially developed in that there is a boardwalk constructed to reach it with bathrooms, a changing room and board walks around the pools but the pools are pretty much natural with gravel bottoms. The pools were warmest at the top and cooler in lower pools. We spent about two hours turning into prunes before we gave it up to the mosquitoes and horse flies but it was a very enjoyable soak. We are camped across from the campground, which is full, in a large graveled parking area. Here we met a couple that have sold their home and been full time RVers for 23 years. The road today was spectacular mountain scenery almost every mile. We also saw a caribou, several groups of stone sheep, two bears and two buffalo.

July 4

Happy birthday USA! Today we logged close to 200 miles to Liard River where Liard Hot Springs is located. It is a natural hot spring that has been partially developed in that there is a boardwalk constructed to reach it with bathrooms, a changing room and board walks around the pools but the pools are pretty much natural with gravel bottoms. The pools were warmest at the top and cooler in lower pools. We spent about two hours turning into prunes before we gave it up to the mosquitoes and horse flies but it was a very enjoyable soak. We are camped across from the campground, which is full, in a large graveled parking area. Here we met a couple that have sold their home and been full time RVers for 23 years. The road today was spectacular mountain scenery almost every mile. We also saw a caribou, several groups of stone sheep, two bears and two buffalo.

July 3

This was pretty much a traveling day with about 325 miles logged to Fort Nelson. The road seemed to go on forever between incredibly dense forests trimmed back about 100 yards on each side of the road with pretty much rolling hills terrain. There was almost no sign of civilization other than an occasional store or gas station. There are beautiful lakes and streams everywhere. Everything was so very green and beautiful. The varieties of pine trees are very different from all the ones back around home. We hit a number of rain showers on the way and it continues quite cool in the 50’s and 60’s. We also saw our second bear cross the highway just ahead of Gene today. It is now 10:30 PM and still just dusk.

July 2

Today we tripped into Dawson City to see and take pictures of the mile zero marker of the AlCan Highway built starting in 1942 and completed in 1944 from there to Fairbanks, Alaska some 1523 miles away. The rest of the day we rested, took a long walk and caught up on email and our blog then watched a movie and went to bed.

July 1

Today we got an early start after another minor mechanical problem (tightened a fan belt on the motor home). We traveled to Chetwynd, BC. This town is the chain saw carving capital of the country and there are truly some amazing carvings at the visitor center and elsewhere around town. Along the way we saw our first bear along the highway, visited the beautiful Bijoux Falls at a rest area and started to see some beautiful mountains again. Thus far, since just after crossing into Canada there have been mostly rolling hills. The country has been awesome with lots of pine and other trees and rivers and streams but no real mountains. We also stayed at the Westwind commercial RV Park where we have wi-fi access for the first time in several days. Today was Canada Day which is a national holiday similar to the US July 4th. Since it gets dark so late the local fireworks display did not begin until 11:00 PM. It was short but sweet. (Editor's note: This wi-fi site does not seem to like uploads of any significant size so pictures will have to wait for later.)