No sun for a week, fog and light rain, cool temps, no mosquitos, whales, sea otters, so many eagles and sea gulls waiting for a meal. Up at 7, to bed by 10. Great place to stay. Sure is wonderful not to have to clean the fish at the end of the day. Roger says he could get easily spoiled and so could Carolyn as she hasn’t had to cook all week. We are going to miss the weather as we head back to Kansas and look forward to seeing all of our friends again. And drying out our clothes in the hot Kansas sun. After spending all day on the boat, we have to hang on to something when we close our eyes so we don’t fall over.
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Two days since our last message. More fishing and sightseeing. The 77 # halibut was caught by Carolyn and Roger caught the two smaller ones. The only King Salmon caught was by Roger. The sea lion we photographed a few days ago, was off fishing somewhere when we passed his hangout. Today only 2 halibut we kept but otherwise uneventful except for a black-tailed Sitka deer running along the beach in search of kepl. Haven’t tried it myself but apparently they find it tasty. We saw whales blowing and feeding near us. Quite a sight
Two days since our last message. More fishing and sightseeing. The 77 # halibut was caught by Carolyn and Roger caught the two smaller ones. The only King Salmon caught was by Roger. The sea lion we photographed a few days ago, was off fishing somewhere when we passed his hangout. Today only 2 halibut we kept but otherwise uneventful except for a black-tailed Sitka deer running along the beach in search of kepl. Haven’t tried it myself but apparently they find it tasty. We saw whales blowing and feeding near us. Quite a sight Misty rain, snow-capped mountains, great family running a small lodge, gourmet meals, a small stream a half a block away full of Coho Salmon. 2 days of charter fishing and sight seeing. Sea otters, sea lions, whales, eagles, large colony of Black-legged kittiwakes in the world, and, of course, halibut and salmon. Despite the reported density of 220 bears per square mile on Kodiak, we have yet to see one. Not sure if we are disappointed yet but hope to see one prior to leaving.
It is cold on the boat, as you can tell by looking at our pictures. More cold today because it was rainy all day. Thank goodness we brought enough clothes. Looking for more sunshine tomorrow.
Understanding better the life cycle of the salmon and how it impacts every aspect of life . I would have to say the God was the first one to recycle on a large scale. Love from the islands From Fairbanks 90 degrees to Denali 60 degrees and raining, then on the Anchorage, cool and raining. We have been reassured that Denali also known as Mt. McKinley hasn’t moved but even at 20,000 ft from Anchorage to Kodiak we saw only clouds. Sunday morning in pouring rain we unloaded the RV into the airplane and turned the RV in to the dealer. Our only mishap was a 3 ft. pine tree which grabbed a piece of trim on the motorhome as we glided along a narrow road. Otherwise Roger managed to not take out any other cars or signs with 32 ft. RV. I’m surprised they don’t ask for a commercial driving license, like driving a bus. We are now on Kodiak Island where the bear population averages 220 bears for square mile. Denali Park averages only 1 bear for every 32 square miles. They are twice as big as grizzlies. I’m looking forward to seeing them from a distance. We spent our anniversary in Fairbanks. We went on the sternwheeler Discovery and visited an Athabascan Fishing Village and saw sled dogs and sailed down the river. In the afternoon we went to an old time mining operation and saw how they used water and the sluice box to separate out the gravel from the gold. Then we got to try panning for ourselves. We decided we would keep our day jobs. For dinner we went to a salmon bake, halibut fry and prime rib dinner. Out in the open air. Then we went to an old time revue about the old days. Quite a celebration. We stopped to go fishing on the way. Roger caught a couple, thought he would get more, released the biggest one so we ate soup for supper. It was a wonderful day on the river. We did that Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday we made it to Fairbanks. Unfortunately my blood pressure was high so I tried 1/4 of new pill. Wrong move. My pressure got so low all I could do is lay down and try to sleep it off. It is now midnight and guess who is back up. It is very light out. The black out curtains don’t really do the job. I turned the light on to see the keys, otherwise I don’t need extra light. Forget about a flashlight this time of year. It was fun to see the oil pipeline. The fins warm it up. It goes under roads and some streams so you see it for awhile and then you don’t. We stopped at a gift shop where they had all the burl wood animals and a free scoop of ice cream for each person. We did buy one thing but I think they lost money on us. We tried to get pictures of some places and they were disappointing. The mountain didn’t look near as high as it did in front of it. The views are unbelievable. We’ll try again Well, we are getting used to our Motorhome. It only has 7000 miles on it! We thought as we went to bed that we had the heat on, only to wake up feeling cold. Finally we got up and have tried all the suggestions for why it is blowing out cold air. Roger has gotten dressed and gone outside to check the propane tank and I am sitting here in my parka, a cup of hot chocolate by my side. The temperature is at 58 degrees in here. Ah, Roger found the valve slightly closed, opened it all the way, and now we have heat. Yeah. People have been very nice. We met two 747 pilots yesterday. One couple stopped as we were parking our plane, asked could they take us anywhere. They were going to take us to the terminal to catch a taxi, but instead drove us to the motorhome rental. They invited us to come back next weekend and do some biking or hiking with them. We are driving up to Fairbanks today. We have been following the Matanuska River and just passed the Matanuska Glacier. Very pretty scenery. Since we got up at 5 am, I think I am going to take a nap this afternoon. We were just getting used to the 3 hour time change. Maybe tomorrow. We flew safely to Glacier National Park for lunch. Beautiful valley with rivers running through it. Then we flew on to Juneau, AK. Got here about 7, found out it was only 4 pm. Sure has been a long day. We are overnighting here and going on north tomorrow. We have now finished our trip and are back in Wichita. Snow now covers our tracks in Alaska and Canada where we were 2 weeks ago. The warm fall has ended and winter has started. We ended up our trip by visiting friends in the Twin Cities and Wisconsin. Carolyn also “dug up the site” of her Great Grandfather’s grave in LaCrosse. We arrived on Sunday evening at home, washed a few clothes, met our son, Roger Jr., packed our clothes, and flew to Angel Fire, NM. Roger Jr. painted the whole house on the inside in 3 days, played some golf with his dad and then we left on Thursday morning. Roger Sr. started his 3 days of recurrent training on our airplane and Roger Jr. and I went to visit my parents. Finally we are actually home and settling in.
Carolyn starts chemotherapy on the 15th of October and Roger has started back into his practice of cardiology . If we are both feeling good next summer and somebody wants to put together a convoy, we will be glad to retrace our steps. We put on 8000 miles on the RV plus another 1000 on the ferry. Thinking about our offer, maybe we’ll fly and join you along the road.
Roger & Carolyn Evans Dear friends and family-Since our last message we lost and then gained an hour. Like back to the future? We had changed time zones a few hundred miles back, Carolyn was looking at the map as we changed from AlbertaProvince to Saskatchewan and moved all the clocks forward an hour last night. This morning realizing our mistake,back went the clocks. Not sure if we gained or lost an hours sleep! Only 200 miles by vehicle and 7 on foot today but a great day with a wheat farmer north of Battleford. Carolyn got a name of a family who had a B and B,and gave tours on their working farm. In the midst of cutting about 3000 acres of wheat. We spent several hours, rode the combine and met his 91 year old dad who showed us the original 2 room farmhouse..As he said you didn’t know how poor you were when every one was poor. A lot to be said for a more simple life. Reminds me of garage sales with my “longed for treasures” bringing so little. On the road again. Roger and Carolyn
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