Boys fish, Girls play

On the last day of the tour the men went fishing and the girls went out to lunch. First stop was the Visitor's Center to find out where to go to eat. They had a nice display of Alaskan birds.

Went went to a lovely place to eat. The food was good and the flowers out front were outstanding.

Tonight will be our last dinner together.

Crab legs and fun

Well here it is the next to last day of the tour and I am finally getting my last pictures of the people on the tour. Jeanne is Mike's cousin and she flew into Fairbanks while Patty went home for a week and then she stayed on to the end of the tour.







This is our trusty mechanic, Roger, and his girlfriend, Teresa. He was always too busy to pose for pictures before now.

This is looking down from our RV park at the netting on the Kenai River. Alaskans are allowed to use a big net and get enough fish to feed their family for a year.

Here is our group gathering for dinner the crab leg feast. We each brought a king crab for dinner and the fixings were all provided by Roger.

A good time was had by all.

This is looking across the inlet at Mt. Redoubt.

I can't believe that the time has passed so fast. Tomorrow will the the last day of our tour.

Old Russian Orthodox Church

After we got settled in we walked over to Old Town Kenai to see the Holy Assumption of the Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Church.


On the way we saw the old manse. It was in pretty bad shape but they were getting ready to paint it.

Notice that all of the buildings surrounding the Church were painted white with blue trim. This may have been the caretaker's house or someone else who worked for the Church. Check out the height of the lupines on the left side of the house. They are kin to the bluebonnet.

Here is the Church itself. It is quite unique and beautiful

This chandelier is original and they actually light the candles on special occasions.

The inside of the church was beautiful. The altar is behind the doors in the center.

The 80 year old Rector talked to us about his life and about the life of the Church. He was very interesting but a little hard to understand even though he was born in the USA.

We later walked over to the cemetery.

This is the chapel.

It was built over the graves of the founders of the Church.

This evening we will have a crab bake with us supplying the crap and our mechanic, Roger, supplying everything else.

Homer to Kenai

Morning on the Homer Spit.

Today we move a short distance to Kenai.

We had to drive over a narrow one-way bridge. Thankfully the flagger allowed our whole caravan to pass together.

When we looked over the bridge we could see a working fish wheel.

We saw some caribou along the way.

We are staying at Beluga RV Park.

It is on a cliff overlooking Cook Inlet and the Kenai River confluence.

Famous Salty Dowg Saloon in Homer

After the halibut fishing we had to check out the famous Salty Dawg Saloon.

There is money from everywhere stuck to the walls and ceilings.

The saloon is famous because it is the only bar in the world with a National Ocean Survey medallion in their floor. Seems that the men who were doing the surveying in this area spent so much time in the bar that they decided to put a medallion there.

It was too smoky to stay long so we didn't have anything to drink.

Halibut Fishing

We arrived at the dock in time to see a summer Alaska sunrise. It's not a typical sunrise since it never gets dark in the summer in Alaska.

There were 21 on board. Nineteen were from our group and two other peoples. There was room for a lot of us to sit while we went out about one hour.

Spike had provided donut holes for us to enjoy and the boat provided coffee.

We enjoyed just sitting and visiting.

It was beautiful looking back at the mountains from the water.

As soon as we dropped anchor we started catching halibut. Here is Wayne getting ready to catch one.

These were the crew boys who helped us bring the fish up and put bait on our hooks.

This was the catch for the day. We each got a giant safety pin and our two fish were pinned together so that they could figure out whose fish was whose.

Here is Wayne with his two.

Here am I with my two.

It was a good day fishing.

Seward to Homer

While we were in Seward, some friends that we met at Red Bay (Tiffen's Allegro RV Park) came by to see us. We have been keeping up with Lorraine and Chuck through emails and their blog and they have been doing the same for us. This was the first time that we were in the same place at the same time.

We left Monday for Homer. As we traveled along the Kenai River we saw more combat fishing.

As we were approaching Soldatna we stopped at this woodcarving area.

They had some beautifully carved pieces.

They had this huge "Edith Ann" chair that several people sat in to have their picture taken.

I loved this cute bear in a log.

They even had a carousal with carved Alaskan animals.

This one was one of my favorites.

Here is a peek inside one of the workshops.

And this was another work area.

There is a bench similar to this one on a river with the plaque engraved honoring someone.

This is what distinguishes Alaska from other places--flowers, water, and snow covered mountains all in the same picture.

We were out on Homer Spit. We drove over to the boardwalk to pay for our halibut fishing trip that we will take tomorrow.

Here is a boat coming into port. This is where the "Deadliest Catch" boats go out of and there was even a "Deadliest Catch" store on the boardwalk.

Can't wait until tomorrow.