July 4, Homer to Soldovia

Happy Independence Day Everyone! Thanks to all our Veterans! Just when we think it can’t get any better---it does. Our neighbors in the RV Park are from Anchorage and have a 28 foot fishing boat here so they invited us to ride along with them to Soldovia, a small fishing village about an hours boat ride from Homer. The only way to reach Soldovia is by boat or airplane. We left Homer about 9:00 a.m. with Andy Anderson and his wife Gerry and their friends from Soldotna, Andy, (little Andy) Kelley, their 2 daughters Victoria and Anna and Grandma. It was a wonderful boat ride and Soldovia is a quaint little town. We watched the parade, looked in a few shops (all they had) and had pulled pork sandwiches for lunch. We found it hard to believe that they didn’t have salmon or halibut but maybe they get tired of it and pulled pork is a treat for them. Don’t really know. We stayed in Soldovia until about 1:00 then headed back to Homer and secured the boat in a slip. We saw several sea otter on both trips, they were just laying on their back floating in the water. Cute as they can be.

July 3, Homer

This morning we went to the Islands and Oceans Visitor Center in Homer. The Center is part of the National Wildlife Refuge System and is full of exhibits and displays concerning wildlife in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. We attended a session about glaciers that was very interesting and informative. Time for lunch so had a wonderful small wood-fired stove pizza at a little place called Fat Olives. From there we headed towards Anchor Point (about 10 miles) to Norman Lowell’s Art Gallery. Norman was born and raised in Iowa and after getting married homesteaded in Alaska. His paintings are fantastic. He and his wife were both at the Gallery so we got to visit briefly with Norman. He said “Alaska captured me so I have tried to capture Alaska”. He has done a beautiful job of it. While we were there a woman bought a painting for $40,000. I saw another priced at $125,000 but decided we really didn’t have a place that it would look good. Later this afternoon we found a local winery where we just had to test their wares. Turns out a couple aren’t too bad so will be taking some home. It’s a good thing we went to the winery last or we might have bought a painting at the Gallery. NOT! Met a woman and her daughter today from Wisconsin that are tent camping in Alaska for 2 months, no heater, small propane stove, eating mac and cheese, and they were cold. They have more courage (or something) than I have.

July 2, Homer

Checked my emails this morning then we went to the Pratt Museum, which was exceptional. They had a lot of information about the Homesteaders and Pioneers of the area. The Museum has an inventory of over 30,000 items and has about 30,000 visitors a year. McNeil River Falls Brown Bear Sanctuary is on an island near Homer and the Museum has a remote camera on the Falls so they can watch and study the bears. It is also on the Internet at prattmuseum.org. In the afternoon we drove around Homer and did some standard sightseeing, later we stopped at Land’s End Resort at the end of the spit for a bowl of clam chowder for supper. Not too exciting of a day was it? Not everyday is full of fun and excitement. We still had a fun day.

July 1, Soldotna to Homer

Finally ran out of battery power this morning after 5 days of dry camping so had to start the generator to get coffee going. Left Swiftwater Campground and stopped at Fred Meyer to dump all our tanks and fill up with water before heading to Homer. Short drive but very pretty. Cloudy and much cooler today which we expected being on the ocean. (currently 7:00 p.m.and 55 degrees) Tomorrow is to be mid-to-upper 60’s and sunny. Homer, like the rest of the Kenai Peninsula, is full of fishermen as this is the height of the Halibut season. We are parked on the spit so we saw several boat loads of fish come in. Some weighed over 100 pounds. The Spit RV Park is nothing to write home about, but I guess I’m doing it anyway. Spaces are quite close together and are all fine glacial gravel, tracks in badly. They quoted me $30 per night when I made the reservation and when we checked in they charged us $37.50 for electric only. Too much but we’re staying anyway because we need to hook up to recharge our batteries. Makes up for some free nights at Wal-Mart and Fred Meyer. We stopped at the Visitor’s Center and got some good information about things to see and do while we are here. Have our 5 days here pretty well planned.

June 30, Soldotna

We had planned to leave this morning and drive to Homer but after getting the fishing equipment and lesson last night from Scott and Kathy we thought we should stick around one more day and see what luck we might have. We stopped at another carving shop on our way to get our licenses, this time Moose and Caribou antlers. Tim Cooper is the carver and he gave us a quick lesson in how he carves eagle heads on the ends of antlers. I bought some Caribou antler pieces and am going to give it a try. Think I will practice on wood first though as antlers aren’t readily available in Panora. Bought our fishing licenses and headed back to our park and the river. Fished for a couple of hours in the afternoon and a couple more after supper with the same results I usually (read always) get. Nothing, not even a nibble. Maybe next time. Gave it a try so now we can leave and head for Homer. Will be back here next Friday sometime for our fishing charter on Saturday morning. Hope that goes better. We have a very nice couple parked next to us that gave us supper last night and again tonight. Last night we had delicious stir-fry over rice and tonight she gave us BBQ short ribs, salmon and fried rice. We only nibbled on last night’s meal as Scott and Kathy were coming over so we have that left over.

June 29, Soldotna

Not much going on today. We did laundry, rather Sandi did laundry while I checked emails and surfed the net. The Laundromats are very nice. There are 2 in town (maybe more) that advertises 70 and 80 machines, fulltime attendants, drop-off service, free WIFI and showers. We went to a fish processing plant to price fish and inquire about how much we could take across the border. Apparently there is no limit but we aren’t too sure. Also stopped at a greenhouse and looked at some incredible flowers. We spent the afternoon hanging around the campground watching the Kenai River go by, carving and reading. Scott and Kathy Romain (Orville Terry’s daughter) came over this evening for gourmet hotdogs cooked over the campfire. They brought us a couple of fishing poles to use and taught us how to fish for salmon. Going to give it a try tomorrow and next week. They also made arrangements with a friend for us to go on a guided fishing trip for King Salmon next Saturday morning. That will be fun.

June 28, Soldotna

Today we visited Mike and Liz Chase’s family owned and operated commercial fishing operation. I was surprised to learn that most commercial fishing operations are actually quite small and their window to harvest fish is very short. The industry is very tightly regulated, as is sport fishing, which they said is a good thing and is necessary to make it sustainable. We first got a brief history of the commercial fishing industry then we got to watch their crew in operation from a bluff overlooking their designated fishing area of Cook Inlet as Bald Eagles circled overhead. Each “permit” is allowed only 3 nets, which are 200 feet long and 8 feet deep and they can only fish Monday and Thursday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for 8 weeks. This family has 4 permits, one each for Mike, Liz and 2 sons so they had 12 nets in the water. Today the total catch was 86 fish. Sandi won a Flounder as she guessed the closest to how many fish they would bring in today. We grilled it over the campfire for supper. We weren’t too impressed with it and decided we like salmon better. We bought some salmon from them, right off the boat, which they cleaned and packaged for us. It doesn’t get much fresher than that. We bought a King and a Sockeye and put them in the freezer. We just had a great day with the family and learned a whole lot about fishing here in Alaska.

June 27, Soldotna

Found the city Library this morning so we could update the blog and gather some travel information via the internet. That took about an hour and we drove from the Library to the Visitor’s Center in Kenai. We found out that the Official Balladeer of Alaska, (designated by the legislature and Governor) Hobo Jim, was going to be performing at 3:00 p.m.. Went for lunch at Victoria’s, (I went for the lingerie but didn’t see any), then back to the Center for the show. He is a legend around Alaska and he sang songs that he has written about living in Alaska. In the off-season he has a 2nd home in Nashville and is a songwriter there. He played for an hour we enjoyed the show. Drove to the end of the Kenai Spur highway to a beautiful spot at Captain Cook State Park where we looked across Cook Inlet at some snow-covered volcanoes. Back to an old cannery that they are trying to get started as a shopping destination and ate supper. Guess what we had, King Salmon! Haven’t found a bad one yet.