July 29 & 30, 2008

We didn't do much of anything on Tuesday. It was another yucky, rainy day. We went to the rec center and played racquetball. HA! Mike played and I was just in there, mostly ducking the ball!!!

Wednesday we hiked on the beach for about 3 miles. Saw several bear prints but no bear. We did see 2 moose when we can back to the campground. They just kinda ambled around in no big hurry. Beautiful animals!

Check out places to board CoCoa while we go to Denali. Think we have narrowed it down to 3 that we will visit tomorrow before we leave her. Am so looking forward to htis trip!!

July 28, 2008

We have been out of internet for a week so will try to do some catch up and see if we can get some pictures posted.

Justin left the 22nd. We had Tyler until yesterday. Because Tim is a pilot, Ty gets to fly standby free. We had 2 chances this week, yesterday and Tuesday as a backup. We were lucky and he got the only standby seat yesterday. Whew!!! We had so much fun with the boys but we are exhausted....not as much energy as a 12 year old!

We are at Fort Richardson RV park. Have had moose and black bear walk thru our campsite. CoCoa doesn't like the smells but she doesn't bark so haven't had any problems. Not much of a watch dog!!

We ended up buying a small freezer because we have so much fish. The RV freezer would hold it all but that's about all it would hold and I didn't want fish every day for the next month. We have 75 pounds of fish fillets and 24 pints of canned salmon. A very successful fishing trip at Seward! We sent over 20 pounds of fillets home with each boy.

July 21, 2008

Today was a travel day. We left Seward and returned to Anchorage. We are staying on Fort Richardson at the Black Spruce RV park. A really nice site with FHU. Of course, it is raining. There is a lot of bear activity here so we will need to keep a close watch on both the boys and CoCoa. Tomorrow we are going on a moose search!

July 20, 2008

We went on our charter fishing trip today. WOW!!! I caught the biggest halibut -- 52 1/2 pounds! Such fun. We all limited out on halibut. We also caught several rock fish and a couple of large silver salmon. The boys had a great time, actually we all did. The other boats went to a different area and caught their limit of salmon but not halibut. We were all exhausted when we got back to the RV.....long day 5am to 5pm and then had to clean the fish.

July 18 & 19, 2008

July 18th -- We FINALLY caught salmon. We all caught our limit today. We were snagging in the bay. That is hard work but fun and worth it. We canned salmon last night. The boys had a great dinner!! We also hiked to the falls again. GREAT DAY!!

July 19th -- This was our glacier cruise day. Such a good day. We saw sea otters, sea lions, harbor seals, humpback whales, orcas, porpoise, puffins and several other birds! SO MUCH FUN!! We also saw the Hubbard Glacier and the Bear Glacier.

July 17, 2008

Cold, rainy and just plain yucky!! We went to Soldotna. Beautiful drive even in the rain. We went salmon fishing while we were there...caught some fish but were not able to land them. That is really hard work. If you tug to hard, it tears their month...if you don't tug hard enough, they get away! We are learning all of this the hard way. Did have a great time with the boys.

Then we played cards all evening.

July 16, 2008

Today has been a stay inside day. It has been cooler and rainy all day. The boys are having a movie marathon. All 3 "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies and "Fools Gold" for Grammy. We have played several card games, also. Had forgotten how hard it is to keep 12 yr olds occupied. They have really been good considering!!

Today is my mothers 92nd birthday. If you saw her, you would not believe she is that old. Hope I am as healthy and look that good when I am her age.

July 15, 2008

Today was a searching for bear day. We hiked about 4 miles back thru the woods to a stream where they are known to hang out but no luck. We saw lots of evidence of recent activity but no bears. We did see lots of salmon spawning and some great waterfalls. We plan to take the boat out tomorrow morning to try again.

Today was Ty's first day here so we showed him the sea lions and sea otters. Still looking for moose for Justin. So far, our best place to see them was in town and on the base in Anchorage.

We'll be up there a couple of days before he leave so maybe!!!

With all of this hiking, you'd think that I would be shrinking to nothing but no such luck. Oh well, such is life!

July 13 & 14, 2008

The flowers up here are absolutely gorgeous! Got so many ideas for different hanging baskets but have no permanent place for them. The ONLY bummer about full-timing! Well, not really... sure miss seeing the kids and grandbabies on a regular basis! Thank goodness for cell phones and the internet.

We went fishing on Sunday but didn't catch anything. The sea lions were cruising the area so no fish! It was fun watching the sea lions. We also saw several sea otters munching away....such cute little critters!


Monday we stayed close to the RV to find out exactly when Tyler was coming in. They missed the connection to Las Vegas so he had to fly out of Phoenix. His plane arrived in Anchorage at 12:30 am. Since it is a 2 1/2 hr drive to Anchorage, we decided to leave about 8:30 pm so we would have plenty of time.....NO SO!!! We sat in traffic on the Seward Highway for 2 1/2 hrs because of a fatal accident. We were late pickup Tyler. The airlines was so great. They called us to tell us not to worry as they had heard of the accident of the news. We finally got home around 4 am.

July 12, 2008

Whew!! Today we hiked to Russian River Falls....5+ miles. Justin has so much more energy than we do, don't know how much longer we can keep up with the kid. We are having so much fun with him and he has been so good.

July 10, 2008

The hike to Exit Glacier was great. It was a little over 4 miles (NOT the short 1 1/2 miles we were told). We did the entire glacier viewing walk....had to cross a couple of streams balancing on the rocks....Surprise!!! I didn't fall in. Got to actually get close enough to touch the glacier.

This afternoon we went looking for salmon. They are slowing coming up this year. We did find several streams that are starting to get quite a few showing up. Tomorrow we are going to try fishing in Bear Lake. The guys parked next to us fished there today and limited out. Fresh salmon for dinner tomorrow night.

July 9, 2008

Beautiful weather in Seward. I wish our TX family would remember the time change!!! Our daughter-in-law called this morning at 5:30!! She did have exciting news so she is forgiven.

We watched a sea lion steal the remains of today' catch, and the sea gulls try to steal pieces from him! So much fun. Also, saw both sea and river otters, eagles and a fox. There was supposed to be a black bear in town but we didn't see him. We did see several beautiful waterfalls.

Tomorrow we are planning to hike to Exit Glacier. Short 1 1/2 hike. Should be fun!

July 8, 2008

All of the charter boats caught their limits yesterday....good news. As long as Justin can fish, he is a happy camper!

The flowers here are beautiful. We are used to things being burned up by this time of year. No rain in TX and daily showers here. Everything is so pretty and green.

Time to leave to go pick up Justin from the airport. YEA!! We are about 2 1/2 hrs from the airport.

July 7, 2008

We are at the Military Resort in Seward. We have done so much during the time we have not had internet. We have seen several moose (up close and personal) as well as black bears. We didn't have any bears in our camp site but some of out neighbors did.

Justin will be here tomorrow for 2 weeks. We have lots of fishing planned. Tyler will be here next week for 2 weeks. We have a charter fishing trip planned while both boys are here. Hope we catch lots of fish!

July 3, 2008

WOW!! We haven't had good internet for sometime so haven't been able to keep up the blog. Will catch it up with pictures when we are able. We are in Anchorage at Elmendorf AFB FamCamp until we go down to Seward on the 7th. Tyler and Justin will join us there for the good fishing.

Yesterday, we had a moose amble right thru our camp site. CoCoa didn't even bark....some watch dog.

Will try to keep up from now on.