June 18, 2010

We picked a good week to take a break from our Alaska summer since Alaska summer seems to have taken a break.  The rain and cool weather haven’t made me feel like I am wasting my time finishing up at the condo.  We have been working nonstop to wrap things up.  We have disposed of most of our furniture now.  I sold a couple of quick items on Craig’s list.  We have moved out much of our furniture and are in the final stages of packing.  It is reminiscent of our last move.  Everything has exploded.  Every room is a mess, but soon we will be compacting it all into boxes and dumpsters, and moving out the last few pieces to friends and charities.  It is exhausting and I keep changing my mind about whether or not it is all going to fit.

Our vacation with our friends ended on Monday.  Our final weekend included a quick tour up in the Hatcher’s Pass area.  They had obtained some bad information about the pass road being open.  We knew the road doesn’t normally open until early July, but each year can be different so we thought it was possible.  We weren’t too concerned since it is still a spectacular place to visit.  We parked at the mine, although we have all seen it enough now that we didn’t really spend any time there.  Instead, we found a nice hike up to an alpine lake.  The lake was in a beautiful setting and the green water was still mixed with ice from winter.  It even snowed briefly while we were up there, even though the temperature seemed to be comfortable.  The beauty of the location was a little hampered by the accessibility and it being a weekend.  We had to put up with noisy children and busy dogs, but it was still another day in paradise.

On Sunday, we departed for our final adventure in search of red salmon.  The Russian River had just opened and somehow we managed to score a campsite at the campground for Sunday night.  Jim and Joyce headed down early on Sunday while Kris and I tried to time our departure so that we would arrive around the 2:00 check-in time.  By the time we arrived, they had already tried the river and had seen no fish being caught.  We hopped on our bikes and rode up to the falls.  We saw a few salmon leaping up the falls which was running heavier than I have ever seen.  From there, we continued on to Lower Russian Lake where we tried our luck for rainbows and dollies along the shore.  I caught one small rainbow on my fly rod and Jim caught numerous tiny critters on a tiny fly.  Kris and Joyce watched as the numerous small fish followed their lures that were simply too big for the tiny fish.  We enjoyed the bike ride, especially the mostly downhill exit.

After a pleasant campfire to celebrate the last evening of our great vacation, we still managed to get up early to take one more shot at the reds.  This time we headed way down river, hoping that if it was too early at the Russian, that it would be the right timing on the Lower Kenai.  Unfortunately, we only saw a few fish roll, some of which were probably kings.  We fished for a couple of hours before we had to head back to pack up the campsite that was surprisingly spacious and private for such a popular location.  Joyce and Jim had to run a few errands and made it back just in time to get cleaned up, packed, and to the airport for the flights home.

This shifted the gears for Kris and I.  We are tired of packing, moving furniture, and organizing.  We have completed critical errands like getting our furnace inspected, turning off the cable, buying a small printer for the trailer, getting our kayaks registered so we can use them in other states, and getting a new mailing address.  We found a mail forwarding service that appears to be friendly and knowledgeable so we will be using them to forward our mail to us as we bounce around the country.  It is strange having a new address.  I was even confused briefly at the gas station when I punched in the wrong zip code and was denied authorization as Kris has been busy with address changes.  We have had friends pick up large quantities of furniture and we have delivered some other furniture as well.  The condo is getting empty and we are now sleeping on the inflatable mattress.