Are We Really in Arizona?

Wednesday we hiked the Saguaro Lake trail with our friends Ron and Barbara. The temps have been really cold for Arizona, as you can see in these two pictures.

The trail, which is 4 miles out and back, goes along the lake but sometimes we could see it and sometimes we couldn't. When we could see it, there were great views.

We also saw folks fishing and ducks, including these lesser scaups.

The views weren't too shabby when we were away from the lake, either. There were incredibly green hillsides because of all the rain we have had, great rock formations and beautiful saguaros and other cactus plants.

We also saw snow on some mountains on the horizon

It was a fun trail and a good time with good friends.

Swap Meet or Flea Market?

Flea market, swap meet. Are they the same thing? I always thought so. I thought they were like garage or yard sales on steroids. But after spending several winters in Texas and Arizona, I have decided that swap meets are just a large setting for shopping mall kiosk sales, small commercial spaces for new and/or popular items. This week we attended a flea market that truly was like garage and yard sales. Where do you think we are?



That's right. Wisconsin, home of the cheeseheads, Green Bay Packers fans. And we weren't in a dusty field or open building. We were in a forest.



What is big in Wisconsin? Fishing. These are antique trolling motors.



Lots of fishing poles. And most of them don't look like fly rods.



There were even fishing pool covers.



Look at these fishing lures.



You would only find birch bark baskets in the north woods.



There were lots of old and antique snow shoes and skis.



Old wooden boxes



Fun signs





Beautiful flower arrangements



The usual cute dogs



Of course, there were some commercial booths--or people whose collections have gotten out of control.



After sauntering along for an hour or two in the flea market, we escaped the crowds and walked a couple of miles on a beautiful hike/bike trail in St. Germain.

Alaska–Day 85

Alaska and Alaskans. 

Alaskans are tough.  When we are inside with the heater on, they are inside with the windows open.  When we wear a heavy coat outside, they are often in short sleeves and flip flops.  When we come inside as the temperature hovers in the low 50s, they sit outside—talking, eating, relaxing.  They love being outside in summer.  Is it because of the long, cold, dark winters?

Fishing and being on or near the water is really important.  It seems everyone owns knee-high rubber boots.  I wonder if we could even buy them in Colorado or Arizona?

Alaska is our largest state, with 571,951 square miles.  It ranks 47th in population with 686,293 residents in 2010.  With all that territory, there are only 1,747 miles of highway that most tourists drive (us included).  There is an additional 160 miles of the Taylor Highway which those people who go to Chicken and Dawson City also drive.  (We didn’t.)  So, this part of the road trip isn’t that great.  It is just getting here from anywhere in the lower 48 that entails so many miles.  We spent one month driving through Canada.  We will have been in mainland Alaska almost seven weeks when we leave here Tuesday.

A whole lot of people come here mainly to fish.  Here in Valdez there are lots of campsites that include outside cooking equipment to smoke fish and can it.  The same is true near the Kenai River.  We see large chest freezers, as well as and smaller ones, next to RVs and in the bed of pickup trucks.  A lot of Alaskans do that, but so do people from the lower 48.  Two sites from where I sit, there are folks from Nevada with a smoker and several cases of canning jars.  Others, of course, take their catch to the local fish processing plant to have it frozen and shipped home.

Our time here is coming to an end.  We leave Valdez tomorrow, enter Yukon Territory Tuesday, and Thursday go to Haines in Southeast Alaska on the Inside Passage.  On Aug. 20, we board the Columbia, one of the Alaska ferries, for a three-and- a- half day trip to Bellingham, Washington.  We’re ready.  It has been a wonderful trip.  I would say the trip of a lifetime, but it is our second time here.  We have seen and experienced so much and loved almost every minute of it.  We also look forward to going to familiar places, Colorado and Arizona, where we can sit still, rather than travel.

It will take a week or two or more before I can effectively blog on the overall experience.

Today was a work day—laundry, groceries, yoghurt making, propane.

Alaska -- Day 74

We had another quiet day at home in our trailer. After lunch we did drive into Seward to look around the small boat harbor. There are lots of small boats, ranging from commercial fishing boats to sail boats to small pleasure boats.



We walked down one dock, where we saw mostly sail boats.





This one looked especially nice.



This one appears to have been named after John's oldest sister, Kendal.



And this one comes from our home state, Colorado. I wonder how it reached the body of water it sail on to Seward?



We saw several boats carrying kayaks.



We spotted these beautiful lilies around some of the shops.



Eight years ago we returned from a salmon fishing cruise and stood next to our catch right here. Today, John wondered where our fish went. Oh, that's right, we didn't go fishing.



We had parked near the Icicle Seafoods processing plant and, when we returned to the truck we saw them bringing in today's catch. I think the fish came from one or both of these boats.



Somehow, the fish get from the boats to this area. Most of them go on a conveyer belt into the top box-like area you see here.



The fish are then dumped into the carts below.



A few fish from each area continue on the conveyer belt, down to the man you see in the corner of the photo before the photo above.



He cuts out the brain of the fish. Tests on the brain can determine if the fish are farm raised or wild salmon, apparently.



It is all very interesting.

Alaska–Day 70

Our drive today to Seward was beautiful.  But first, if you catch or harvest a whole lot of salmon, what do you do with it?  Freeze it, of course.  But you can also can it.  I saw these two pressure canners in a camp site this morning.

Our 100-mile drive took us through mountains and along rivers and lakes.  This is Tern Lake.

When you are inching your way through a construction zone, it isn’t comforting to see a tractor above you, like this.

This is what the tractor was moving, either up or down.  Glad none of it hit us.

We like this sign on the main street in downtown Seward.

We arranged an all-day cruise through Kenai Fjords National Park for Friday, using our buy one-get one free Toursaver book.  The park has glaciers, wildlife and mountains.  It should be fun.

Tonight, I prepared some of the salmon we were given as we left Scenic View.  I used a recipe in a book of salmon recipes that I bought the last time we were in Alaska.  The meal, while good, helped us decide we didn’t want to spend $200 to $300 for a fishing charter.  We are here to enjoy Alaska and Canada, see wildlife and scenery.  We don’t enjoy fish enough to go fishing and have all that fish to eat.

Alaska–Day 69

Today we had a fairly relaxed day.  We were out just after 7:30 am to go shopping at Fred Meyers in Soldotna.  Yesterday, when John drove through Soldotna he saw the parking lot at the store so crowded, he didn’t think you could even find a place to park, much less shop in the store.  We decided to beat the crowd.  For anyone who doesn’t know about this chain of stores, they are much like a Super Walmart, but with a better selection of items and brands. They are somewhat higher scale than Walmart or Target.  Since everything here is so expensive, I really can’t do any price comparisons.  But we love these stores.

On the way to the store, we passed this RV park.  There are many more than normal in town right now because the salmon are running.

We stopped by the Soldotna Visitor Center.  They had beautiful hanging baskets filled with petunias.

Then we walked down to the boardwalk along the Kenai River.

We saw what we thought then was a lot of people fly fishing for salmon along the river, both young and old.

These signs were posted next to the boardwalk.

This fellow brought in a large salmon.

After lunch we drove to the nearby town of Kenai, It was established in the early 1800s by the Russians, who were the first outsiders to settle in this part of Alaska.  We walked through the RV park we stayed in the last time we were here, then looked down at the mouth of the Kenai River, where it flows into Cook Inlet.  Wow.  Look at all those people fishing!

These are the Alaska residents that are harvesting fish with dip nets.  Those who are staying in RVs are camped in tents by the river.

This is certainly a different way of fishing than what we saw in the morning.

Look at the long handles on the nets.

The air temperature was 54 degrees and I imagine the water was even colder.  These guys are up to their armpits in it.

And they bring in a lot more fish.

Some of those we saw fishing this way are Native Americans (First Nation).

I will do a second post today with more images of the dip net fishing.  But first, let me tell you about our visit to the Russian Orthodox Church and other old buildings in Kenai.

Here are the three crosses on the roof of the Church of the Holy Assumption of the Virgin Mary, established in 1846 and built in 1894.

When we went inside the church, John talked to the local priest, who lives in the rectory across the street.

Also across the street is the Saint Nicholas Memorial Chapel, built over the graves of very early priests or church members, one who died in 1867  and another in 1878.

 

Another old building didn’t stand up as well.

Also, the clouds dissipated and the sun came out today.  We even saw part of Mt. Redoubt, which has been hiding since Thursday.

To learn more about dip netting for salmon, go on to the next post.