Mddale's Blog

Monrovia, MD: Home At Last — Another Trip In The Record Books

mddale — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:42:00 +0000

At last! After an incredible trip we are back in Maryland, our starting point almost 9 months ago. Actually we were gone for 226 days, 8 hours, 23 minutes and 36 seconds. Ok, Ok, I’m guessing on the minutes and second however the number of days and hours are correct.

We arrived back in Maryland last Wednesday and what a great feeling to see our children after all this time.

What an incredible trip! Mary Lynn and I went through 21 states including Alaska, 2 Canadian Providences and 1 Canadian Territory. Along the way we visited countless communities, monuments and parks, including more National Parks than I can count (unless I take my shoes & socks off). We saw numerous mountain ranges, some of which have so many mountains and are in such remote areas that many of the mountains have not been named.

Of course who could forget our flight around Denali National Park and landing on Ruth Glacier, which is located on the flanks of the largest mountain in North America, Mt McKinley.

We put 10,000 miles on the RV, all the while towing the CR-V. Plus, once we parked the RV, we put another 2500 miles on the CR-V exploring the local area/communities. That’s roughly 1430 gallons of diesel. Using an average of $3/gallon (we paid much more than that in Canada) that works out to ~$4300 in diesel fuel, just for the RV. Just don’t tell my financial advisor…

As you may know we tried to sell our house in Maryland two years ago just as the market was disintegrating. We took the home off the market after two months. We decided to try out living in our RV full time to see if we liked it as much as we thought we would.

If you have followed much of the blog you know we love traveling in the RV. Therefore, despite the incredible decline in housing prices we are putting our house back on the market.

So far we have been immersed in getting the house ready to go on the market. Life the last few days has been a blur of arranging landscaping, house staging, cleaning, movers, car repairs, insurance agents, car rentals, etc.

Hopefully we’ll be able to list the house within two weeks.

Know anyone who wants a beautiful house about 45 minutes outside of Washington, DC at the bargain price of $625K? If so, have them contact me. It’s a lot less than it was worth two years ago but we no longer need the house.

Meanwhile Mary Lynn and I are cleaning, packing, and planning a few short RV trips. We will mostly be in Maryland until the house sells or until after the holidays. In any case, it sure is good to be back with so many family and friends.

See Ya!

Davenport, Iowa: Escape From Iowa

mddale — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 06:10:00 +0000

You know our dilemma. This was our third day stuck in Davenport, Iowa, as we waited to get the wiring on our RV repaired and the AC fixed. Sunday we arrived at the Freightliner dealer only to be told they couldn’t get to us that afternoon however, they said, if we made an appointment for Monday at 8 am the dealer would be working on resolving the issues by 9 or 10 at the latest.

Monday morning we arrived at the designated hour, filled out the paperwork, and were told the next available mechanic would be working on our RV. Excited? yes we were. Only the next available mechanic didn’t get started until 1:30 pm, and he turned out to be the least experienced guy working.

He got the lights working (more on that in a minute) and then started trouble shooting the AC problem. Around 4 pm he was hopelessly lost and they pulled him off, telling us another ‘more knowledgeable’ mechanic was just finishing a job and would be with us shortly, certainly within the hour.

Well, by now you can see where this is going. The ‘new’ mechanic didn’t start working on our RV until well after dinner, however he did finally determine the problem was a bad dryer. Didn’t even know I had a dryer for the AC but I do and it was no good.

They could have one shipped normally and it would arrive in a week or so or I could have it overnighted for $35. They told me I would have to pay the shipping because Freightliner warranty did not cover expedited shipping. It was now around 9 pm and, having been stuck for two days, I said I would gladly pay shipping.

They spent two hours putting everything back together and at 11 pm, Mary Lynn and I pulled the RV out of the garage and onto the parking lot where we hatched our escape plan. No way were we going to spend another night. We got everything else ready to roll so that once the dryer was installed we could boogie out of town and head for the Illinois border, which was only a few short miles away….

Long story short, even though the part arrived by 11 am, we had to wait for a mechanic until 1 pm, and we discovered the lights were still not working correctly.

Finally, finally, the work was completed around 4 pm. As I was hooking the car to the RV the service manager comes out and says ‘BY the way, the AC repair is not covered by warranty’. If I had been sitting in a chair I would have fallen out of said chair.

He goes on to tell me Freightliner will pay $550 and I’ll have to pay the other $550. I was flabbergasted (love that word if not the feeling) and immediately called Freightliner Custom Chassis, spoke to a young man who said he would take care of it, and he did. Within 10 minutes the dealer was saying the AC WAS covered by warranty.

I quickly paid for the wiring and RAN to my RV, yelling all the way for MLA to start up the diesel. I climbed up the stairs, sat in the drivers seat, put her in gear, released the emergency brake and high tailed in off the dealer’s lot. We didn’t slow down yet alone stop until we had crossed the mighty Mississippi river and found ourselves in Illinois.

Yep, we had finally escaped the Iowa vortex.

That was at 415 pm; it’s now around 2:30 am. We’re parked at a Walmart in Ohio. We went all the way through both Illinois and Indiana just to make sure we didn’t get pulled back into the Iowa force field.

I’ll add pictures later; if you are nice maybe I’ll show you my new dryer…

See Ya!

Davenport, Iowa: Out Like A Lamb…..

mddale — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 02:01:00 +0000

Ever heard the saying “In like a lion; out like a lamb”?

I’m beginning to think that saying is an apt metaphor for our Alaska trip.

I mean, this trip started off with a bang and just got stronger over time. IN April we started in Arizona heading quickly into the various national parks of Utah. Lake Mead, Zion, Bryce, Moab, etc. etc.

Each experience building on the previous experience. Wow!

Then we headed up into Montana, where the scenery is beautiful. Then into Canada’s British Columbia, where we spent time in Canada’s Banff and Jasper national parks. again, simply spectacular scenery. A quick trip along the Yellowhead Highway (which is infested with bears, moose, deer, etc) to Prince Rupert followed by the trip north through Alaska’s Inside Passage.

OMG! The Inside Passage has to be one of the most beautiful and peaceful places on earth.

And so it went. Alaska unfolding before us and sharing it’s beauty and grandeur at every turn.

After two and a half months however, Mary Lynn and I were experiencing sensory overload. Too much beautiful and expansive wilderness. Mountain range after mountain range, all bejeweled with cascading streams and rivers. At some point you realize you have reached your limit when you know longer grab the camera at every turn for yet another spectacular vista or amazing wildlife.

And ever since our tow bar broke in Minnesota it seems as if we are moving in slow motion. First we had to wait for a replacement tow bar to be sent to us and then we had to wait another two days for MLA to start feeling better.

We left on Saturday only to discover that the tow lights are not working correctly. I spent about four hours trouble shooting the problem, tracing the problem to a couple of blown fuses and thought I had it solved. Well, it’s still blowing fuses so I need to take it into a Freightliner dealer and have them find and fix whatever is blowing the fuse.

So we spent another day in Davenport, Iowa, waiting for the Freightliner dealer to open on Monday. Why Davenport? Well, that’s as far as we were able to get on Saturday before not having brake lights/turn signals on the tow car went from an intermittent problem to totally not working. Or flashing. Or whatever it is that you want the lights to do…

In any case, we now have an appointment at 8 am tomorrow and hopefully the dealer should have us on the road by mid-day. At that time I hope to put a lot of miles under us so we can (finally) get back to Maryland. We expected to be there last Thursday and now it’s probably closer to this Thursday.

Normally a delay of a few days is no problem for MLA and I however at this point MLA is pretty homesick and wants to see our kids, as do I. So once this problem is fixed we’ll put in a few more hours driving than our normal 4-5 hours at the wheel.

See Ya!

Faribault, Minnesota: Headed Back To Maryland (Soon)

mddale — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:46:00 +0000

We left Missoula, Montana on Saturday. We were originally leaving on Friday however our ‘overnight’ mail from the post office turned into ‘over two nights mail”. For some reason the post office couldn’t get our package there in the allotted time.

It finally arrived Saturday at noon and we hit the road. We drove until dark and spent the night in a Walmart. In the year and half we have been on the road in an RV we

have stayed in a Walmart parking lot four times. Some people do it more frequently however we only use it when we need a couple of hours of sleep before taking off early the next day.

And that’s exactly what we did; we were on the road by 8 am the next morning. We drove across the rest of Montana, all of North Dakota and into

Minnesota. All of it beautiful country. And the amount of open space in Montana and North Dakota is incredible.

Minnesota is called the land of 10,000 lakes and sure seems to be true — lakes everywhere. Some big, some small, but lots of beautiful, fish filled lakes.

We were making pretty good time

until Mary Lynn saw a sign advertising “The Mall of America”, the largest mall in the US. Of course we had to stop, if only for a few hours.

So we stayed in St Cloud on Sunday night and drove to the Mall of America Monday morning. The mall is really something, complete with an amusement park, underwater aquarium, and of course tons of stores. It’s said that if you spent only 10 minutes in each store it would take you 86 hours to visit all of them. Over 4.5 miles of storefronts. Wow.

We left the mall, headed south, intending to drive until dark. And then it happened.

Just as we were going through a highway construction zone, I heard a loud bang, looked in the rear view camera and saw our tow car swinging wildly from side to side. Obviously not good.

Turns out our tow bar broke. And at the worst possible time although to be accurate, there is no ‘good time’ for your tow bar to break. And thank goodness for safety cables. That was all that kept the tow vehicle from taking off on its own. All in all, a real mess.

That said, nobody was hurt or hit by our toad. We finally got stopped and surveyed the damage. The car hit the motorcycle carrier several times and has a lot of damage on the hood and both sides of the hood.

The tow bar company is sending a replacement unit so we are camped beside a small lake is a peaceful little campground waiting for it to arrive.

It shook both of us up however we quickly realized just how fortunate we were in that no one else was involved and no one was hurt. All the other ‘things’ can be repaired.

It’s Mary Lynn’s birthday on Friday and I had hoped to get her back to Maryland in time to celebrate with the kids. That probably won’t happen however we should be back in Maryland in the next week or so.

Can’t wait to get back to Maryland and enjoy some steamed crabs!

See Ya!

Missoula, Montana: Pinball Wizard

mddale — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:58:00 +0000

Well, after over two months travelling in and around Alaska, Mary Lynn and I made a mad dash through the Yukon, Alberta, and British Columbia, crossing over the border back into the USA on Sunday night. We dropped down through Canada so quickly it reminded me of a pinball machine where the ball is fired from side to side, bouncing off of everything it touches even faster than before, until it zips between the flippers and is gone.

That’s about what Canada looked like to us, especially the area around Banff and Jasper,

Turns out it was another long Canadian holiday and all of the RV parks wee completely full. We ended up at a rest stop one night, arriving about 4 am after searching for an open campsite and then finally driving through the night. At least Canada has large rest stops with plenty of parking for cars, trucks, and RV’s.

Canada is a beautiful country, especially in Alberta and British Columbia. we did not spend nearly enough time there — there is so much more to explore. Lots of small campgrounds along lakes and streams. Canadians flock to out of doors venues so be prepared for crowds on big weekend.

Oh yeah, we did stop for dinner in a small town where the “Deathfest” was being hosted. When we asked what the heck was Deathfest we were told it was a 24 hour marathon on a mountain course. The objective (in addition to surviving) is to run up and down the mountain as many times as you can in twenty four hours. We saw quite a few runners and many did indeed look like they were embracing the ‘death’ part of the festival.

We stayed in Missoula long enough to have the RV’s oil and air filter changed. The conditions in Alaska and Canada were incredibly dusty and the roads were rough in spots so having the RV serviced seemed prudent. They also (supposedly) fixed the air conditioning. I should say they

charged me for fixing the AC. We later found out it was still not working correctly. (When I called the Missoula, Montana dealer from Minnesota they said if I came back they would take a look at it! — gee, thanks).

See Ya!

Watson Lake, Yukon, Canada: Falling Out Of Alaska

mddale — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:42:00 +0000

After spending two months in Alaska, our trip south feels as if we are falling out of Alaska through the Yukon and into British Columbia.

We left Valdez, Alaska last week and drove to Tok, Alaska. In Tok we washed the RV (finally, it was a mess), re-visited a favorite restaurant (Fast Eddy’s) and spent the night in the Tok RV Campground.

The next day we took off for Chicken Alaska, a small outpost 80 miles off of the ‘beaten path’ that consists of two campgrounds and a couple of small stores. Chicken got its name from the miner’s that were working on gold claims in the early 1900′s. They wanted to name it ptarmigan, after the many chicken-like birds that inhabited the area.

No one was sure of how ptarmigan was spelled so they finally settled on a name where they could agree on the spelling: Chicken. So that became the town’s name: Chicken, Alaska.

We did see a moose just outside of Chicken. She was standing in a pond and eating the vegetation that grows there, about 30 feet from the road. We watched her for a few minutes before leaving her to her business. Mary Lynn also saw a Lynx however I was too busy driving the RV – go figure. Did I mention the roads, even the mountain roads, did not have guardrails?

We had heard a lot about Chicken and wanted to visit however, if you go to chicken you have to make a decision. Do you back-track the 80 miles and then take the Alaska Highway to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory or do you proceed on the Taylor Highway and take the Top Of The

World Highway to Dawson City and then (eventually) to Whitehorse?

We had heard a lot, good and bad, about the Top Of The World Highway. Everyone talks about how beautiful the scenery is and about how bad the highway is. Eventually we decided we would take The Top Of The World Highway and just take our time traveling through the last bit of Alaska, through Canadian customs and down into Whitehorse.

Let me tell you; taking an RV over this highway is quite an adventure, especially a class A RV. See, in a class A RV you are in the RV and can hear every bump, sway, bounce, and bang that occurs. In other RV’s you ride in your tow vehicle and are (somewhat) isolated from the bouncing and jostling.

In any case, none of the RV’s were making record time although the class A’s definitely went the slowest. We averaged 25-30 miles-per-hour on this highway and many times, when we hit gravel washboard surfaces we were only able to travel between 5 & 10 miles per hour.

After crossing Canadian customs the road was paved and smooth (you don’t always get both) and it felt like we were flying (especially without guardrails). Flying that is for about 10 kilometers. Just as I was remarking about how good the road was and how much faster we were able to travel we hit, you guessed it, gravel roads with washboard surfaces. Some of the worst roads of our trip.

It was pretty cool as we eventually neared Dawson City. From high up on the mountain you suddenly get a glimpse of the Mighty Yukon River and Dawson City. Then you notice Dawson City is on the other side of the Yukon River and there is no bridge.

Turns out the city of Dawson City runs a free ferry across the Yukon – very cool. Especially the free part because at that point you would be willing to pay almost any amount of $$$ to get to civilization rather than backtrack 100′s of miles of poor roads. And yes, you can call a town with only 2800 inhabitants ‘civilization’….

Dawson City is the town established when gold was discovered on Rabbit Creek. Don’t recognize Rabbit Creek? Well the gold miner’s didn’t feel the name Rabbit Creek didn’t quite capture the magnitude of this gold discovery. So they renamed it Bonanza Creek. And the creek above was named Eureka Creek.

Still not sure? How about the Klondike Gold Rush of ’98.

The town has done a great job of keeping the look and feel of Dawson City close to the original; not one fast food business in town or along the highway.

After exploring Dawson City for a few days we headed south again with the town of Whitehorse in our sights. Saw a couple of grizzlies along the way although both were some distance away.

Whitehorse is a town of ~ 28,00 so it’s quite a bit bigger. We spent two nights there, resting and stocking up before leaving this morning for Watson Lake. We arrived here in Watson Lake around 4 pm and are just getting settled.

Tomorrow we need to choose between staying on the Alcan Highway or taking the Cassiar Highway. Cassiar is again a little more scenic and has section of road that are poor. Not as poor as the Top Of The World Highway but poorer none the less.

Not sure which one we’ll take. May ask around to see if any of the fellow RVers here at the campground have just come north on the Cassiar to get a ‘real time’ update.

I’ll give another update when we get to an RV park with Internet.

See Ya!

Valdez, Alaska: Liquid Sunshine In Abundance

mddale — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:36:00 +0000

We have had an abundance of ‘liquid sunshine’ each of the two days we’ve been in Valdez, Alaska. We can’t really complain about the rainy weather given the almost four weeks of above average temperatures and below average rainfall we experienced while on the Kenai Peninsula.

The weather here is about average for this time of year in Valdez: cool and rainy.

As a consequence, this place is beautiful. The many islands, fjords, and mountains are covered in lush, deep green vegetation and forests. The waterfalls, and there are many, are bursting with water, falling rapidly down steep, glacier carved slopes.

Top it off with a few extra helpings of wildlife and you have the Prince William Sound and it’s surrounding glaciers.

Today we took a cruise to the Meares and Columbia Glaciers following a scenic round-a-bout path that let us get an up close and personal view of the scenery and the wildlife.

First we motored out to the Meares Glacier located at the end of the Unakwik Inlet. We were able to get within a quarter of a mile of the glacier; there we sat watching and listening to the glacier. If you watched the face of the glacier closely you were rewarded with a portion of the glacier sliding into the sea. Followed shortly thereafter by the sound of the glacier calving.

Everything happens so quickly that unless you are watching the face of the glacier closely, those thunderous cracks announce you have missed another glacier calving.

The Meares Glacier is the only tidal glacier that is advancing; all the other tidal glaciers in Alaska are in their retreating phase.

Including the Columbia Glacier, which holds the distinction of being the last of Alaska’s glaciers to go into retreat.

These days the Columbia Glacier calves about 13 million tons of ice per day; when it first started retreating in 1978 it was calving ~30 Million tons of ice per day.

In fact, we couldn’t get any closer than 9 miles to the face of the glacier, which was barely visible in the distance.

I highly recommend the tour of Prince William Sound and it’s surrounding glaciers. Spectacular beauty combined with lots of wildlife made the day fly by.

Tomorrow we start heading out of Alaska and Canada, which should take about two weeks or so.

See Ya!

Anchorage, Alaska: Another Fanastic Visit

mddale — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:52:00 +0000

Our sons Christopher & Scott and Christopher’s wife Rachael spent the week with us and boy, did the week ever fly by…. I have been too busy to do much in the way of posting so let me recap what happened since the last post.

Christopher, Scott and I went deep

sea fishing on Wednesday for Halibut & Salmon. We left the dock in Seward around 7 am and didn’t get back until 5 pm. In addition to salmon and halibut our captain took us fishing for Lingcod and Black Rockfish. We only caught four silver salmon however we caught our limit of halibut, lingcod and rockfish. Halibut, lingcod and rockfish are all good eating white meat fish and OMG are they fun to catch.

There were the three of us on the boat plus two other fishermen and the captain.

We spotted a male Killer Whale (Orca) on the way out of Resurrection Bay, that was truly beautiful in the early morning light with the glacier carved mountain in the background. The captain made a little detour for us to enjoy the beauty of this magnificent animal and somehow, spotting that

Killer Whale let us know we were in for a fantastic day of fishing.

Scott got the day started right by catching the first fish of the day within minutes of putting the lines overboard for the first time. After that Christopher caught three silver salmon in a row. From then on, everyone was busy catching fish the rest of the day. The only breaks in the action were when we moved form one fishing ‘hole’ to another and when we headed home.

The picture shows the fish we kept; we probably released about the same number of fish. Halibut and Lingcod put up an amazing fight; Black Rockfish are a lot of fun, especially when a huge Lingcod follows then to the surface. The Lingcod are so big the Black Rockfish look like ‘bait’ to them. It’s pretty common to find an entire salmon or rockfish (18-24 inches in length) in the stomach of a Lingcod.

Oh yeah, did I mention I caught the largest halibut of the day — right around 50 pounds. It was at the end of the day and all of us were pretty exhausted; then I tied into this whopper (for me) and just about died getting him aboard. After we landed him all I could do was grin — I was too tired to do anything else.

We were fishing 280 feet down when I caught this bad boy and I thought the fishing pole would break he fought so hard. Halibut get much, much bigger up here — the current Homer Fishing Derby winner is 346 pounds. They call them “Barn Door Halibut” because — wait for it — there as bug as a barn door. I was plenty happy with my ‘little’ 50 pound’er!

After cleaning the fish, Scott, Christopher and I had 115 pounds of halibut, lingcod & rockfish fillets! Then we had to figure out what we were going to do with that much fish! That’s the kind of problem every fisherman wants to have at the end of a day of fishing!

We kept a third fresh and shipped the other two thirds back to Maryland;

don’t even ask what it costs to send 100 pounds of fish back to the lower 48 using FedEx overnight delivery.

And if I tell you please don’t tell Mary Lynn who does not like fish.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. She now enjoys the occasional halibut and lingcod when prepared in the ‘fish and chips’ style. Delicious.

While the men went fishing, Mary Lynn and Rachael too a scenic float trip down the Kenai River and had a great time. They even had a quick

glimpse of a grizzly bear while floating by an island.

Friday morning we moved from the Kenai Peninsula to Anchorage. Turns out Christopher has a friend Johnny whose parents live in Palmer, about 40 minutes north of Anchorage. Johnny’s parents invited us over Friday afternoon for dinner. Don & Cindy, plus Johnny’s sister Rebecca are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. Like most Alaskans they take advantage of all that Alaska has to offer by fishing and hunting.

They pulled some halibut and rockfish from their freezer and prepared a real feast for us. We had a great time sitting around the table and sharing stories about each others lives.

After a terrific evening of food and fellowship we headed off to Walmart to replenish our supplies.

Saturday we explored a few of the sights around Anchorage and , all too soon, found ourselves at the Anchorage airport saying goodbye to our kids. We had such a great time with them the week literally flew by….

Today is Sunday and we’ve spoken with them; all arrived safely back in the ‘lower 48′ as planned.

Tomorrow is Monday and we will leave Anchorage headed towards Valdez. Valdez is only about 100 miles away as a bird flies however, because of several mountain ranges it’s about 375 miles away by road.

See Ya!

Kenai Peninsula, Alaska: Rainbows & Dollys (Trout That Is) Plus Kenai Fjords National Park

mddale — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:56:00 +0000

What a great time Mary Lynn and I are having with our two boys, Christopher & Scott, and Christopher’s wife Rachael. They arrived in Anchorage Saturday night and we’ve been running ever since. We gave them a quick tour of downtown Anchorage and then drove the two hours back to our RV in Coopers Landing at the Princess Lodge & RV Park.

Their sleeping schedules were way off on Sunday morning so we went to the lodge for breakfast. Terrific breakfast followed by a lazy morning.

Scott & I went fishing Sunday afternoon with a guide from Drifter’s Lodge. These folks take fishing pretty seriously. Along with our guide we drifted the Kenai River from just below the Kenai Lake bridge all the way down to the Russian river.

That portion of the river is “Trout Fishing Nirvana”. It’s a catch and release river famous for its large trout. Trout fishing peaks in late August through late September, maybe a week or two in October. Drifter’s Lodge has eight guides running full time during that part of the year.

This was the first time I went Fly Fishing and boy, is it fun. If you don’t know, fly fishing uses a involves whipping a fly rod back and forth to place a small fly in the exact location required to get a trout to bite. I managed to swing that fly around all afternoon without ‘catching’ myself or anyone else with the hook. I considered that a major accomplishment even if the other folks on the boats were just a wee bit nervous.

Seriously, it worked pretty well. Bothe of us caught a trout 18-20 inches long; Scott caught an amazing Rainbow Trout that was nice and thick. I caught a Dolly Varden that was not quite as full however it was a beautiful fish that put up quite a fight. We released them both to fight another day…

In the fall they pull 30+ inch monsters from this river. In fact there’s a special club for people that catch a Trout that is 30 inches or more. I think the record is a 37″ Rainbow; simply and amazing size for a trout. Down south a 12 inch trout is considered an excellent catch.

On Monday, all of us took a cruise to the Kenai Fjords National Park on a large catamaran. These trips specialize in spectacular scenery including tidal glaciers plus lots of wildlife. We saw Stellar Sea Lions, Harbor Seals, Tufted Puffins, Horned Puffins, Dall Porpoise and all kinds of other sea birds. However, whales eluded us…. until the last 90 minutes of the 6 hour cruise.

Actually our cruise went a little longer which was fine with us because the captain found several Humback Whales and Orcas, also called Killer Whales. OMG — what a sight. Some of the whales put on quite a display.

Several humpbacks were spotted by their spouts, which is caused by the whale expelling air. A few even showed us their tail as they went for a deep dive. Seeing the whales tail was a real thrill. One of the ‘humpies’ slapped it’s flipper on the water repeatedly very close to the boat. Spectacular.

The Killer Whale pod was a male and four females. They were simply majestic as they worked their way across Resurrection Bay.

All too soon we had to head back into the dock in Seward. The day started off pretty foggy however the sun was blazing in all it’s glory by the time we arrived at the dock.

Today we played some games this morning and then went for a hike to the Russian River Falls. It was supposed to be a 2 mile round trip hike however when we arrived we found out it was 2.3 miles ‘each way’!

The hike was beautiful even if it was a bit hot and buggy. We spent about an hour at the Russian River Falls overlook hoping to see some bears feeding on the salmon however they didn’t put in an appearance while we were there.

I spoke with a wildlife photographer who showed us pictures he took this morning of a male brown bear. He had spent about 8 hours at the falls. He also carries a huge sidearm strapped to his waist…

All too soon we had to make the return hike before we spotted any bears.

Tonight we had a delicious dinner. The kids played card games while Mary Lynn and I went to the hot tub. I had to soak my old bones after that hike!

Tomorrow Christopher, Scott, and I are going deep sea fishing for silver salmon and halibut. The ladies are going to go on a scenic float trip.

Gotta go now; we have to get up at 5 am — Ouch!

See Ya!

Cooper Landing, Alaska: Quick Trip To Anchorage

mddale — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 03:30:00 +0000

My dear wife Mary Lynn was having withdrawals from not shopping during the last few weeks so we had to make an emergency trip to the ‘big city’: Anchorage.

OK, OK. The truth is, with three of our kids (well, young adults) flying in to join us for a week we needed to stock up on a few essentials at Costco & Walmart.

We had hoped to combine our shopping with picking the kids up in Anchorage however as our shopping list continued to grow it was quickly apparent we could not get the 3 kids and their luggage plus MLA & myself plus the groceries/supplies all into the CR-V. Well, I could have done it but MLA vetoed my idea of strapping one of the boys to the hood…

So we made a quick trip into Anchorage, did our shopping and then a quick trip back. Truthfully, it helped keep us busy so the day passed by relatively quickly. The anticipation of seeing the kids has MLA as giddy as a schoolgirl at the Sadie Hawkins Dance. I tell you, now would be a good time to ask her for just about anything…. however she normally says yes to any of my requests anyhow so I have everything I need and more.

All the pictures are from the Kenai River on the Kenai Peninsula. Truly one of the prettiest places in Alaska.

Oh yeah, MLA and I just joined Facebook and have been having a great time learning our way around the social networking world… it’s easy to use and I’ve been surprised how much more you learn about what’s going on with your friends and family than you do with regular e-mail. No interest in twitter at this time however Facebook is very cool!

Tomorrow the kid’s flight gets into Anchorage around 7 pm; I’ll have to find something to keep MLA occupied or she’ll drive me crazy. Although many of my friends would tell you that driving me crazy is a short trip…

See Ya!