On Monday morning, Mike and I packed up the camper and drove down to Eagle River, which is 12 miles north of Anchorage. The drive was beautifully surrounded by snow-capped mountains and trickling streams and an abundance of wild-flowers.
We decided that Eagle River was just the perfect place to camp for the night before pushing on to Ninilchik on the Kenai Peninsula. While searching the internet, we found the PERFECT campground in the Chugach Mountains State Park. While it was beautifully nestled along a river, it was also nestled up next to a Women's Correctional Institution. As we were driving into the campground, we passed a sign that said, "Correctional Facility this way" and "Campground that way." That should have been enough to make Mike and I want to turn around. However, we didn't, as we were just too tired. For crying out loud, we had a can of bear spray if one of those women from the "institution" were to happen to stroll by our campsite. We were certainly capable of handling any situation that may arise! As we entered the campground, there was one other disturbing sign that said, "This is bear country! Lock up all your food or you will surely die!" Okay, I don't think it went quite like that, but it might as well have!
Well, after cooking dinner and getting a good night's sleep, we awoke with absolutely no disturbances from jailbirds or bears. So, we packed everything up and drove from Eagle River to Ninilchick, which is 200 miles away. We encountered lots of rain and cold weather as we were driving. In fact, as we were driving along the passes, the snow was still deep all the way down to the roadside. However, once was passed Cooper Landing on the Sterling Highway, the weather turned sunny! We were on our way for our "dream" salmon and halibut fishing trip!
Arriving in Ninilchik at 5:30 p.m., we dropped off the camper and headed down to the beach. There we found bald eagles soaring over the cliffs and hanging out on the beach. It was awesome! We watched them for a long time and then took a stroll down the beach to find more eagles. Then, we decided that it was time to get some dinner and then turn in early so that we could be up early to go fishing.
6:00 a.m. came a little too early for some of us, such as me! Mike's alarm went off and I was not ready to even move. However, fish were calling our names. So, I forced myself to get up and get going for a day of "dream" fishing! Well, the fishing was not quite dreamy. The chop was so bad that Mike lost his breakfast and dinner several times over the side of the boat. No fish were going to go hungry on this trip! Regardless, Mike reeled in two of the bigger halibuts that were caught and I brought in two little ones. After getting back to the beach, the captain filleted the fish and we came back and vacuum packed and put them on ice. We will be enjoying halibut for a LONG time!
Tomorrow morning, we are packing up and making the long 12 hour drive back to Fairbanks. We would love to sleep in our bed and see our kitties tomorrow night!
Disclaimer: I typed this while desperately needing sleep. I did not check it for typos, but will do it later this week. So, if you find one, just ignore it!
The Drive to Eagle River
The mountains were beautiful!
You betcha! We locked up our food!
Oh, hello!
The cost of premium gas in Cantwell.
The Ninilchik Beach
The beach was windy and very cold.
Mike tries to stay warm! No such luck!!!
It was our first time at an Alaskan beach.
Not very sandy, but definitely lots of rocks.
The sun and clouds made the water look beautiful!
Eagles on the Beach
Fishing in the Cook Inlet
Kristie hopes to reel in the big one!
Mike hopes to keep from feeding the fish!
No, we did not catch all of these.
Kristie caught her limit of two.
Mike caught his limit of two.
