Homer, AK to Cooper Landing, AK
We are settled in at Cooper Landing and really like this area. Tim is mentioning ?buying a lot?. Hummm, I don?t want to be this far from the lower 48.
The first couple of days in Homer were full of some sunshine and cool temps, but not uncomfortable weather. We cleaned the coach, did several (lots) of loads of laundry, which became a frustrating and a longer than normal process. The washer/dryers in the campground were slow?some broken?and some beginning to break. A wash was $4.00 and a dry was $2.00 with some machines taking twice as long to dry. I washed one load then figured out how lousy everything was; packed up my laundry jumped in the car and headed to a Laundromat which was much better and faster but ended up taking much of my day.
The next day we tackled grooming Charlie. I had called a local groomer but they were booked, so with Tim?s help we bathed/dried him and I clipped.
He now looks more like a poodle than a wooly bear, but he was getting so hot with all the hair, something needed to be done.
On the night before our fly-in bear viewing we had packed and were all ready to go, then got a call at 6:15 that they were going to do a delayed departure and not leave until 10:30. It looked like it was going to clear off. However at 9:30, they cancelled the flight and sent a notice via email that they were refunding our money. Darn?drats?whatever. But we were glad they wanted to be safe.
On Sunday we pulled out from Homer and headed to Cooper Landing. Man, traffic was bumper to bumper as all the Anchorage folks were going home for the weekend. It was only a 120 mile drive, quick and easy except for the traffic. We are staying at the Kenai Princess RV Park which is affiliated with Princess Cruises. It?s a very nice park, full hook-ups with cable TV and is $35.00/nite with Good Sam. No ocean/bay view; but nice.
Monday I spent the morning lining up all sorts of activities for the next week. We have noticed lots more campers and more campgrounds being full. I did hours of internet searches and found a fly-in bear viewing trip out of Anchorage. It?s a float plane which is something Tim wanted to do. Several people had mentioned they had trouble making bus reservations for Denali, so I arranged the bus tour. Also in Denali we are doing a float trip down a river through the glacial plains and a dinner theatre on a Friday night. I thought I better get campgrounds lined up so we had a place to stay.
Although we don?t like long bus rides, we are going to do the 11 hour trip to the end of Denali road. II needed to make arrangement for someone to take care of Charlie. One of the campgrounds has a service that will take him for a walk two times during the day. Now that?s done.
I used up all of the morning just getting stuff organized. That afternoon we took a drive back towards Sterling so that Tim could visit a carving store. He has brought his small carving tools with him and is working on a project, so he wanted to see what they had made. On the way home we drove through the Skilat National Preserve and right at the end saw a Black bear who ducked back into the forest the minute he saw the car?.but he did have a cute brown nose.
On Tuesday we set the clock and got up at 4:30 am in order to meet the fly fishing guide for a ? day fly fishing float trip at 5:50 AM. It was supposed to be sunny, but as we have discovered weather forecasting is not an exact science up here in the ?Last Frontier?. Got into the float boat by 6ish; he wanted to see what we knew and to give some pointers on the river and safety so we spent some time right at the mouth of the Kenai River.
It was a beautiful float trip even with the clouds, but very cold. The water is 38 degrees; Tim and I both had on at least 4 layers of clothing. Within the first hour I caught a 24? rainbow trout, weighting about 6 lbs; which was a ball to catch. Shortly after that I caught another rainbow the guide called a ?Sparkled? trout. The trout here are a little difference coloring; but fun to catch just the same. Tim enjoyed his normal Trout fishing luck?..his line remained fishless. I reminded him he caught more fish than I did on the charter trips. That didn?t seem to help any! <smile>
All the trout fishing on the Kenai is ?catch and release? which is what Tim and I are used to, so all we have are pictures. Oh, wait, all I have are pictures. But we did see something fun right at the end of the float trip; a juvenile grizzly bear eating salmon. Then on the drive back to the campground we saw a lynx, which was very beautiful. Both of us thought it might have been a bobcat, but the host here at the campground said that several campers have reported seeing it. One thing else that was interesting to see towards the end of the trip were all the salmon fishermen. The red salmon also call coho salmon are coming up the rivers in drowse. You stand in the water along the bank and hope to snag one. The salmon are not feeding so you cast your line into the water and slowing reel back in hoping they will gulp it into their mouths. Apparently they swim with their mouths open and you just hope to catch it. We saw several people pull in huge ones.
That afternoon we hiked 6 miles round trip to see the Russian River Falls where salmon are swimming upstream and jumping the ?stair-stepped? falls trying to get home to spawn. I know it?s only fish, but when you think of how they struggle to get back to where they were born just to deposit eggs, recreate and then die, it?s a true representation of ?life going on?.
After such a full day, we both fell asleep in front of TV and slept like rocks that night. This morning dawned bright and SUNNY??YEA!!!!
We plan to just relax today, take in the sun and go out for dinner. Tomorrow we head to Anchorage and the fly-in bear viewing on Friday. I?m also trying to find a place to have my hear cut and colored, I?m getting shaggy.
Oh forgot, we had a bit of good luck the other day. When we were boondocking (dry camping) in Seward, I had the creative idea of emptying dirty dish washing water down into the toilet to keep the grey water tank from filling up so fast. Well, I dumped a small spoon down and thought, oh boy, this will be fun, especially if it gets blocked and causes a problem. When Tim emptied the tanks while we here, he found it. The spoon had come out of the tank and was in the hose. He found it when he was putting the hose away! Thank you God for small favors.
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I have no idea how to cook BBQ salmon. The only way I know how to fix salmon is to put it in an aluminum foil "tent" smothered with butter and lemon juice. Sometimes I sprinkle "boil ??" seasoning on it, then put everything on the grill. 
