We declined to make our way over to Hope, and instead went to Kenai city north west of Soldotna. (While in Soldotna we got groceries at Fred Meyers, spent the night, and used the convenient dump and fill station right in their parking lot.) While dumping the guy behind us had been talking to Gary about fishing. He asked if we fished and when we replied no, he brought us a lovely package of fresh salmon. Boy were they good. Just outside Soldotna is a very nice nature center with a short hiking trail. That's where we disturbed this spruce grouse (say that quickly 3 times). He sounded like a wild turkey flapping in that very still and quiet area.
There don't seem to be too many pictures of Kenai we want to share here, the weather being overcast doesn't lend itself to nice shots. All the same it is a nice area to visit. Our first stop took us out to the edge of town to the Erik Hansen Scout Park, and a shot of some of its flowers. We headed up the coast shooting for the end of the road where there is a state park. We had been told that there were agates and fossils on that stretch of beach. Well, we weren't sure what agates were supposed to look like, but we didn't see anything unordinary. Eloise pretending to be Lucille Ball did pick up several small stones she sort of liked, but not the boulders Lucy got into her Long, Long Trailer film. It could be that our problem was that the tide was in at the time we were there but we don't know. There are 40' tides in the Cook Inlet. We only stayed one night here at the state park. There would be room for large rigs in the camp, and the sites were somewhat level. We shy from state parks as a general rule.
Back out on the road to Anchorage we came on the Skilak Wildlife Rec Area with its many lakes and hiking trails. We were both down with severe head/chest colds and simply wanted to shut down for a while. We found a large parking area at a trail head and just 'existed' for 3 days until we felt some better. I have to admit to getting the cold first, but I shared it with Eloise as soon as I could. Did he ever!
After that 'relaxing' stay, we ventured further down the dirt road to a camp run by the National Park Service called Hidden Lake Campground. Here's where a major adventure happened. Shouting "get outta here", the volunteer camp host began blowing one of those boat horns, emptied a whole can of mace, trying to scare off a black bear sow and her two cubs. The sow had killed the host's small dog as it was tied to the patio. A shiatsu (well, I don't know how to spell that dog breed, but this try is better than my first effort). Our site was not far away, and we heard the host call on the radio for help from the rangers, since the bears wanted to get at their kill. He told us later that the little cubs kept going toward the dog to get their mother's kill. One of the other campers hurried over with his pistol and fired shots to scare them off. When the ranger came he tracked them over to the rear of our site where he shot the sow. Yep, right out Gertie's back window! Then the ranger simply waited for the cubs to come to the mother's side, which they did pretty soon, and they were shot also. We asked why couldn't they farm out the cubs for adoption. We were told that they simply didn't have the facility to hold them until a home could be found. Further, since they had been with the mom's raids on the campground in the past and successfully got people food, then the dog killing, that there was no way the bears could be relocated. Well, here are some sad shots of the mama bear and one of the cubs being hauled off. We had to pull out of our site to allow the ranger to back in for the load. Well, that was pretty exciting! We felt so sorry for the camp host losing their "Winnie" that way. They were from Wisconsin.
As we approached Anchorage again, we took the turn-off to Potters Marsh which is on the Turnagain Arm. A new and impressive boardwalk has been constructed to allow viewing of wildlife throughout the marsh. We saw several dead salmon there, but also a couple still alive...but not for long!
E took a picture of a dragonfly posed on the boardwalk.
We made it back to Elmendorf AFB campground for the next 2 nights while we took care of getting Gertie fixed. A front vibration had been bugging us for a while. We had tried a couple times to balance the front wheels, but that wasn't making any difference to the shimmy. Johnson's Tire Center in town says they found that the lower ball joint on the passenger side was shot. Usually replaced in pairs, but they said the opposite one was really tight and good. They moved the front tires to the rear, and balanced ALL the wheels. Expensive, but hopefully will take care of the problem finally. We haven't been able to test it on the highway yet, since it happens at speeds above 50. Only teenagers and drunks are allowed to drive that fast in town. The second problem was the radiator leaking again. Remember that we had it repaired in Fairbanks some weeks ago. We found a new radiator available nearby in our part of the city, picked it up and installed it at the Fort Richardson family campground.
I'd suggest to any military that they stay in the Fort Richardson fam camp instead of the Elmendorf AFB. The Fort's is newer, 30 amp, all pull-thru's and will accommodate any size rig. Full-hook-up sites are $18 per night, W/E are $16 (same as Elmendorf), but the laundry is FREE. Eloise has done 5 loads...didn't know we had that much stuff on board!
The final picture taken out a side window is of a moose that wandered close enough to Gertie to touch her on our last night at the AFB. Camping is fun!
Today, August 21, we're heading for Valdez, all caught up on our blog for the first time in weeks!!
No comments:
Post a Comment