Day 85: Kenai Peninsula

July 08, 2014

Today has been another beautiful day in Alaska. At least the Kenai Peninsula has been beautiful. It was still long sleeves for most of the day, but no jacket required and sunny.

We went back into Fred Meyer's this morning for fresh pastries for breakfast. Cinnamon Swirl with Cream Cheese Frosting or Marion Berry – hard choice. Both very good! We also walked around the parking lot and found these rules posted. From what we have seen, some people here cannot read. We had been wondering where the dump station was and found it on the south end of the parking lot, along with a potable water fill.

We then went on a road trip or “car trapping.” Not like the trip to the Arctic Ocean, but road trip anyway. First we left Soldotna headed back north a few mile to Scout Lake. We just had to go there and get Scout's picture by “his” lake. The lake really wasn't that great but it was fun anyway.

Afterwards we visited Morgan's Landing State Recreation Area close by. This is a very pretty area. We drove through the campground and as usual there are no hookups, but there are pit toilets and potable water is available. The sites were pretty nicely separated. We could stay there for a while. When we parked in the day use area to check it out we met the day use camp host. She was very nice, and quite informative. She told us about the $40.00 annual pass for the day use fees at the state parks and recreation areas so we purchased that pass. We should have already done that as it would have saved us some money, but we had been told that non-residents could no longer qualify. That is NOT correct and so if you like the state parks and recreation areas you should consider the annual pass. While there we saw a gentleman who came up from the river with his bag of salmon having already caught his daily limit – currently 3 but should go to 6 per person per day this weekend. We then walked down to the river and met a really nice couple from California who come to Alaska salmon fishing every year. They taught us so much about salmon fishing and we watched her hook a couple that got off but then saw her land a nice Sockeye salmon. Wow – what fun! We had said we weren't going to the expense of buying license, gear, etc. but we may be changing our minds.

 

 

We then headed to the City of Kenai. Our first stop was at the Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center. There we looked at the very informative displays, watch a video about the area and picked up some reading material. We highly recommend stopping here if you are in the area.

 

Kenai is one of the areas that have dip netting for salmon. Dip netting is only for Alaska residents to help them get fish to preserve to have adequate protein for their families during the winter. Dip netting starts on Thursday and lasts just a short time – depending on the number of fish. We probably will not be here Thursday but will be back through this area and hope to have the opportunity to watch this. We found the area in Kenai where this is allowed so we would know where to go when we return. They were readying the area – setting up tents, bringing in Port-A Potties, etc. at the beach. It should be very interesting to watch. In Kenai we also found the Russian Orthodox Church. It is one of the oldest Russian Orthodox Churches in Alaska and a National Historic Landmark. The church was founded in 1846, and continues to have regular services today. Across the street is the St Nicolas Chapel build in 1906. It honors Father Nicolai and his helper for distributing the first smallpox vaccine in the territory.

From there we drove on to he end of the road – dead ending into the Cook Inlet. No that interesting of a drive except we did see a moose along the way.

This evening we had a wonderful time meeting and having dinner with Sue and Dominic, some fellow RVers that we meet via RV.net and our blog. Also there were Donna and Lee and their son, whom Sue had previously met. We had a great time meeting over dinner and then went down to the Visitor's Center in town to watch some people salmon fish. We met a very sweet local lady, Heidi, who talked with us a long time about fishing, living in Alaska, canning salmon and all sorts of other things Alaska. What a wonderful way to finish the day. She also told us where she always fishes in the late afternoon and said if we would come back if she caught one she would give it to us. How great would that be! We will have to try to get back by there when we come back.

Today was a really fun day, meeting some really nice people. RVers are usually a great group of folks and don't think we have met an Alaskan we didn't like. We are so blessed.