June 30, 2011

Today’s drive was a long one, from Ft Richardson to Talkeetna, for a total of 107 miles.  We are located in the Talkeetna Camper Park.  The sites are close, but it is a nice park, one half mile from town.

I usually do not plagiarize, but Dennis Hill explained today quite nicely in an email that he sends out to many to show where he is.

Note from RV Driving School Dennis Carol:
Now in Talkeetna at Talkeetna Camper Park for 5 nights. W/E pull thru $35, free WiFi, too many trees for mine.  Will try to do some tourist things here. We tried to eat at West Rib Cafe & Pub. 10 of us sat and ordered. Only 8 eight due to ??? They never brought our food, Carol & mine. When everyone finished they brought ours out.  A short sorry and you will still have to pay for it. I just laughed...Pooooor service.  No one should go there under any conditions. I had a street vendor buaffalo dog. see ya

I do have a three pictures, one of a gift shop, and two of signs at the end of Talkeetna’s runway.

Monday & Tuesday, June 27 & 28, 2011

Monday, we moved from Seward back to Anchorage, AK.  It was a short drive, and we stopped at Karen’s RV Service Center to see about spending the night since we had an early Tuesday appointment to try again to fix the refrigerator.  They had a spot for us in their alley, but we had to come back at 5:30 so they could put away some rigs that they had been working on.  We went to Target and walked around Best Buy.  Then we read for a while, finally returning to Karen’s RV for the night.  Marilyn baked one of our fresh halibut fillets (a little salad dressing and topped with bread crumbs), and it was delicious.

Rupert suggested Kriner’s Diner on C street for breakfast.  It was delicious, with large portions.  Definitely a be back if we are in Anchorage again.  We will be.  The cooling unit in our refrigerator is toast.  Our extended warranty will cover the cooling unit replacement.  They even covered the work Karen’s did on our rear A/C that fixed it.  However, Rupert strongly suggested that we replace our current refrigerator since we have had so much trouble with it.  So for $2K above what the extended warranty is paying, we will have a brand new refrigerator with a new warranty.  However, we will not have it until the 20th of July.  In the meantime, we bought a small refrigerator from Lowe’s and put it next to the dinette.  It will cut down on the 2 bags of ice we were purchasing each day.

While we were waiting for Karen’s to determine what to do with our refrigerator, we went to the Alaska Zoo.  It is a really nice zoo, with a nice selection of animals native to Alaska.

Dennis Hill brought us back to Ft Richardson for the next two nights.  Marilyn can do laundry, and I can look for some more fuses to replace.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Three of us went out on an all day halibut charter from Seward, AK today (Dennis Hill, Gary Olson, and myself).  We had a good day, and I had a great day.  I caught 2 halibut (64 pounds when filleted); Dennis caught 1 halibut plus a rock fish, and Gary caught a rock fish).

My big 99.2 pound halibut.

Dennis before he caught his halibut, plus a picture of his fish.

And Gary doing his thing.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

This morning, we stopped to take a picture of the sign that represents Mile Post Zero of the original Iditarod, then we met the Olson’s and Del Rosario’s at the Alaska Sea Live Center.  There, Mary, Marilyn and Gary can be seen near the gift shop looking at what was available.

This center displays all types of marine life found in and around Alaska.

The Forbes, Fradettes, Olsons and Del Rosario’s had lunch at Ray’s which was okay, but a bit expensive for the quality and quantity of food.

Then we all went to see Exit Glacier which is located just north of Seward in the Kenai Fjord National Park.  Exit Glacier is one of many in the Harding Ice Field.

Type at you later.

Friday, June 24, 2011

We had a busy day today with lots of activity and pictures.  We all walked to the tour boat a few minutes before nine, so Dennis, Gary and I could make our fishing arrangements for Sunday.  We will be taking a full day charter for halibut, rock fish, etc.  The tour boat left the dock at 10:00am.  A few minutes after we started, Dan’s Mobile RV called to tell us he had finally talked to Norcold about our refrigerator.  He said that they might not warranty another one since the one we had put in last year was 13 months ago.  He suggested we call Karin’s RV Service in Anchorage when we got off the tour to set up a service appointment.  We made that call about 6pm, and set an appointment for Tuesday morning.  After setting that appointment, Marilyn got a message on her phone from Dan’s RV Service saying that they would like to set an appointment for Monday morning for 4 hours.  I called and left a message that we were confused, and hoped they would call us back.  If they can put a cooling unit on our refrigerator on Monday or Tuesday, it would be great.  Keeping our fingers crossed.

Now for our Kenai Fjords National Park tour on one of Major’s tour boats, the Kenai Star.  Note that a fjord is a valley carved by glaciers, and filled in with sea water.  Resurrection Bay on which sits Seward is also fjord.  They had a buy one get one coupon in the Tour Saver Book.  The tour was $149, and lunch of salmon and prime rib was an additional $20 per person.  The lunch was a wonderful buffet.  On the tour, we saw 7 glaciers, 6 humpbacked whales, a sea otter, many Stellar sea lions, puffins, murrres, of course there were sea gulls, and a few eagles.  Now for the pictures.

Yesterday, on the way from Soldatna to Seward, AK, we stopped to see some chain saw carvings.  There are some wonderful carvings, so you get to see several pictures.

Marilyn even put me in jail.

First, there was a cruise ship in town when  we got up this morning, and this evening, we watched it leave.  It backed quite a ways out into Resurrection Bay,  Then it did a 180 degree pivot before starting forward.  It was quite a sight.

Here is a picture of the tour boat, Kenai Star, and our entrance pictures.

The first mammal we saw was a sea otter.

Next, we got to watch a glacier calving.

We have Carol Hill driving the tour boat, and Don Del Rosario sleeping because she was at the helm.

Next we have a humpbacked whale tail, some Stellar sea lions, murres, and puffins.

And here we are coming back into Seward.

Type at you later.

Tuesday & Wednesday, June 21 & 22, 2011

Tuesday, the refrigerator does not seem to be much better.  Dan’s RV Repair is going to stop by again this morning.  It was afternoon before he stopped, checked the codes and decided that we would run it on AC power all night.  We had another good social hour, followed by chicken on the grill.  About 12:30am, Marilyn woke me up saying the refrigerator alarm was going off, and she could not sleep.  I had her write down the code, shut it off, and we went back to sleep.

Wednesday, I woke up about 6:30 and restarted the refrigerator.  A little while later, people were running through the rv park, saying that there was a moose.  By the time we got outside, the moose had left.  During lunch the refrigerator alarm went off again with the same code.  Dan’s RV was supposed to stop sometime today, but I called and advised his wife about the status.  Dan came by about 4:30 and pronounced the cooling unit DOA.  He said he would have one ordered from Elkhart and shipped to Anchorage where he would have another shop put it in for us.  After social, Marilyn & I, Dennis & Carol, and Don & Sharon went out for Chinese.

For about the next 3 weeks, we will buy ice for our ice box that used to be a refrigerator.

Sunday and Monday, June 19 & 20, 2011

Sunday morning Marilyn and I went to the Islands and Oceans museum in Homer.  They have a nice boardwalk on the beach.  Next we went to the Pratt Museum where they had Alaskan art along with aquariums of shell fish and an octopus.  Then it was time for lunch.  We went to the local McDonald’s for quarter pounders with cheese because I had a coupon for buy one get one.  While standing in line this lady says “Marilyn”, and it turned out she was Melba with her husband.  She was the secretary at Brookwood Elementary School, where Marilyn worked before retirement.  After lunch we said our goodbye's and drove the house to Soldatna, AK.

Monday morning, I called Dan’s Mobile RV Repair, and he came in the afternoon to look at the refrigerator.  He thinks it is an air bubble in the gas line.  He turned it off, and said after it cools down for two hours we should be able to turn it on and have it cool by morning.  We shall see.  Hope it works, and we can go on about our travels.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Today was a nice day.  We took the ferry to Seldotna, AK.  It is an interesting little Alaskan fishing village.  The people live a primarily subsistence living, fishing and the tourist trade.  The village name comes from the Russian word for herring.  There were some gift shops, a church, and a couple of restaurants.  We ate lunch at Tide Pool Café.  We would not go back.  My fried halibut was good, but a little under done.  Originally, the villages’ buildings were built on pilings, with a boardwalk facing the bay as a street.  The 1964 earthquake caused the town to be rebuilt, and only a portion of the original boardwalk remains today.  After the ferry ride back to Homer, we all decided that we were too tired to do anything, so we all went back to our houses.  We had chicken salad and soup (mine was onion, Marilyn’s was clam) for dinner.  Dennis deep fat fried some halibut and gave us a taste – delicious.  Don and Sharon came over to give us a couple of pieces of halibut fillet for tomorrow night’s dinner.  We look forward to that.  So now I am working on the blog.  I have pictures from the past few days on Marilyn’s camera, so get ready for several.

The first is the guy water skiing using a para-sail on Tuesday, the 14th.

Yesterday was our fishing day, so I had to take a picture of the sun at 9:07am.

Then there are those fishing with us, along with the mate filleting the halibut that was lying on the deck.

Then we come to pictures from today.  The first is a picture of our ferry boat, Katchemak Voyager, to Seldovia, AK., the crown waiting for the ferry, and a picture of Gull Island which was a stop on the way to Gull Island (as can be observed the sea gulls leave it covered with ****.

Here is a picture of the Seldovia sign framing our ferry.

The village of Seldovia has a chain saw carving festival and competition, so there are many carvings about town.  The sign on the saddle says “do not sit here”.

Some climbed up on top of this hill.  You could not see much of the town, but there was a nice looking church up on top.

There were more carvings in a little park.  Dennis even found Carol at the Gathering Place.

We found large dandelions, strange rocks, and flowers we did not recognize.

Before we quit with the carvings, here is one that won the competition last year.  She is kind of strange.

As we returned to Homer Spit, I had to take a picture of the Salty Dog.  It looks a little like a lighthouse, but is a saloon, and the only surviving building on the spit after the 1964 earthquake and tsunami.