Denali National Park & Surrounding Area

Saturday we dropped Mitch off at the airport and then headed south towards Denali Park. The weather was the typical July Alaska weather with rain showers and dark clouds holding over us.

The park is about a two hour drive, but I felt it was neccessary to drive a little farther to the town of Cantwell to explore a few of the small mountain run off streams I found on a map.

As we drove through the town of Cantwell, the storm clouds dropped over us and a few showers poured down upon us. I had all of my cold weather gear, but I would have fished anyways. The streams were running high, cold and clear. After a few casts I managed to land one of several Graylings. All of them were fairly larger fish around 15" one or two were exceptional at 18". I fished for about two hours and then we decided to eat lunch in the truck to avoid the rain and watch the river flow by.

After lunch, we drove up the Parks Highway to the enterance to the Denali National Park. This is one of the places I have always wanted to go to, but I always thought it would happen after I retired. The park is clean & busy but the roads were nice and few people driving as you can actually go farther into the park if you ride one of the tour buses. Since this was just a day trip we chose to ride into the park in our truck up to the turn around area at Savage River.

The only downside is the long drives. Most of the things I want to see are a few hundred miles away. If we are doing day drives you only spend a few hours where you want to be. But let's face it, the drive is usually faster going there than comming back. I know when we get the house I will not be able to do these things so it is better I get to do them now.

My First Trip to the Kenai River

As you can imagine, I cannot wait for the weekends to explore the great state of Alaska. I was invited down to a fishing tournament that the Anchorage, Wasilla & Soldotna branches of United Rentals puts on every year. I jumped on a plane and flew down with my boss and try my luck for some Big kenai River Kings.

The tournament is set up so each sales rep or branch manager has three of his clients on the boat with a guide. Our guide has been fishing the Kenai area for 25 years. I felt pretty good about our luck but as we started to line up to get on our assigned boats we got hit by heavy rain storms and high winds. Not a good start to the day but were wearing rain gear and had a thermos of hot coffee.

After traveling a few miles down river we started to fish and the water was high and off color. There were Bald Eagles everywhere and that was worth the trip alone. But as you well know I want to fish! As luck would have it, I spent eight hours in a boat and never touched a fish. I enjoyed the day, but wished we would have found some fish.

After the tournament, we went back to the lodge and ate steak and shrimp. I managed to talk to the only people who caught fish and it was strange that five people on the boat all caught fish. There were twenty five boats and one boat caught fish! I headed home instead of staying one more night to go Halibut fishing. I would have stayed, but I had things that needed done so I drove the nine hours back to Fairbanks. I will not be doing that again anytime soon! I left the Kenai River at 5:00 p.m. and arrived to our RV park at 2:00 a.m. I had been up for twenty two hours that day and it was too much.

As I was going to say I really wasn't going to miss much, I was wrong.......

My boss sent me the photos of his fish this afternoon he caught on the Kenai River today & I feel obligated to include them on this post as these are truly the fish we have dreams about on a nightly basis.

Tim did release this fish and as you can tell what an animal!

Our First Fourth of July Weekend

On Saturday we all woke up early, loaded up the cooler and headed out at 6am for our day trip adventure. We headed south so the boys could fish the Gulkana River.

We saw 7 moose in the first hour and a half. They are so strange looking. They have these super long skinny legs and these big 'ole bodies and heads. We saw most of them in the area of Eilson Air Force Base so we couldn't take pictures. The zone around the base is a no stopping or picture taking area for security reasons. A little further up the road we saw 2 bull moose fighting over a territory. Deven was able to snap this picture before they ran off into the hills......

You Lookin at Me????

Between Summit Lake and Paxson Lake, we stopped at a rest area. They had a viewing platform that hung over the little stream that ran by. When we went over there to check it out, there were hundreds of salmon in the stream. They were getting ready to spawn and just hanging out. It was amazing to see that in real life. The were turning the beautiful red color. (It's hard to see in this pic but they are there....)

As we headed further south, we ran into rain showers. By the time we got to the fishing spot of choice it was about 11:00. And the bummer was that the rain had blown the river out. It was not fit to fish that day :o( The boys were good sports and just happy to be out of the RV for a bit. We decided we'd try to find an area to fish on our way back home. We found a little gravel road that led to a great fishing stream. The water was clear so out came the fishing gear. They all fly fished and were catching Arctic Graylings.






A little after 2:00, we loaded back into the truck for the 4 hour trip back. We had to get home to the doggies who can go about 12 hours without needing a potty break. The scenery was totally different on the way home. We got to see a glacier......

The middle section is the frozen glacier.


It was a fun day. All together we saw 11 moose, about 30 rabbits and a bald eagle. Along with some great scenery and good fishing. Who could ask for more???

Home Sweet Home

After driving all over the place (some roads not really fit to be driving on - had to put it in 4 wheel drive in the summer), we found a house we really loved and made an offer on Wednesday. This afternoon the realtor texted me with the good news.....the seller accepted our offer. WooHoo!!!! Here are a couple pics:

It's 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 1852 square feet, almost a full acre of land and was built in 2007. There are trees around our whole acre so we don't see neighbors all around us. Just the one right across the street. Our house is one of 2 houses on a cull-da-sac. We'll have plenty of room to park all our stuff (Deven gets mad when I call it crap). The town we'll live in is North Pole :o) We are really between Fairbanks and North Pole so we won't have to see Christmas decorations every day! LOL We need to build a fence for the doggies right away. Deven says he'll finally give me my white picket fence!!!! Later down the road, we'll build a shop so all the toys stay nice and warm and dry. I asked the realtor what the building codes were. His answer....."What building codes?" He was not teasing!!! Gotta love Alaska.

We both survived our first week of work at our new jobs. Everyone has been very nice and very helpful. They all can't wait to see our reaction in winter!!!! Think they know something we don't???? He He He He