Summer Evening in Anchorage

One of our last evenings before going east . . . and a beautiful one.  We had dinner and spent time on Carl and Diane's deck with Carl's children, Ian and Margot.  Shrimp and salmon, how could you go wrong with that?  It started out as a really nice night, and then the dark clouds began to build.  We had thunder!  First time that I've heard thunder in Anchorage, as it's unusual to have thunderstorms!  It was 71 according to our car thermometer yesterday, which is the warmest that we think we've seen it in Anchorage - we missed most of the summer being east last year, and by the time we were back, it was definitely cooler in August (and rainy!).

Hopefully going to Kakwik after work today for one last time on the boat til August.  Went for a hike yesterday that we'd intended to be longer, up in Prospect Heights.  We didn't get there til 5 but figured we still had at least 7 hours of daylight!  We hiked for about 1/2 hour and it started raining and continued another 15 minutes til we reached the fork for Wolverine Peak.  We wanted to know how far it was from that direction as we'd gone that far from another direction just the week before - they were about the same distance.  At that point it was raining hard, and we hadn't even brought rain gear, so we turned around and hiked back - oh well, 1 1/2 hours isn't NOTHING, it just isn't MUCH!

Getting Ready for the Trip East

Slow weekend Brian says - no pictures of anything, but we took a long, long walk yesterday along Ship Creek, paved trail the whole way, and then watched the fishermen fishing for salmon along the creek when we walked back.  One man had a pretty big salmon he'd caught, probably a King, but most were catching it looked like.   Wikipedia says that Ship Creek is an Alaskan River that flows from the Chugach Mountains into Cook Inlet.  The Anchorage Museum website cites Ship Creek as the site of a "Tent City" in the early 1900s and says "Anchorage was established as a railroad construction camp early in 1915. The Alaska Railroad was being built by the federal government to develop Alaska’s resources, particularly coal. Many construction workers and entrepreneurs first lived in “Tent City” along Ship Creek. In the summer of 1915 a town site was laid out on the bluff above tent city, lots were auctioned off and people built homes and businesses in what is now downtown Anchorage. Between 1920 and 1940 the Alaska Railroad remained the largest local employer and the population slowly built up to about 2000 residents, making Anchorage one of the five largest towns in Alaska. The military (and population) build-up caused by World War II and the Cold War changed Anchorage from a small town to Alaska’s largest city."  


Today we took another walk but stopped to listen to music, have a beer and some salmon chowder in the Town Square, where there is free music every Friday night for the summer from 5-8 pm.  Then we walked along the coastal trail from 5th Ave. and back home before watching Series 2 of the Wallander series (Swedish detective stories, BBC production).  Judy has read all of the books by Henning Mankell about Detective Kurt Wallander, and the movies are good too!  


Lots of packing up and getting ready to go at this point, and Judy's in The Wisdom Course this weekend.  We will be leaving early morning on the 21st, so right at the peak of Summer Solstice.  It's 10:00 pm now and broad daylight, so when our plane takes off at 12:30 am on the 21st, we'll be able to see the view still for an hour or more, maybe longer - it will be light til almost 2 am!  And light again by 4 or so, so not much darkness at all - a lot to get used to!  


See all of you in the east soon, and we'll look forward to it but also look forward to our return to Alaska!  

First Year Dip Netting as Alaska Resident!

Had to make this bigger to make sure you didn't miss the lineup of coolers along the bank here.  This is the drop off point at the Copper River for dip netting (personal use) for Alaska residents.  Sal-mon, sal-mon, sal-mon - it's that time of year! The coolers are there to hold a place in line for the boat shuttle to take you out and drop you off along the cliffs for "your spot" - not quite shoulder to shoulder but closely lined up designated spots along the shore!

First dip netting!  First King salmon for dinner!  First time to the Copper River!  Did we mention how delicious the salmon was cooked on the grill, shared with Mary and Lance downstairs?  By the way, it was Lance that fixed the salmon!  We've kept hearing the king salmon are the best, and it seemed that way tonight!  It turned out the salmon hadn't made it up the river in quite the time they were expected, so instead of the 40 Copper River reds Brian was allowed, he came home with 8, but with a king salmon too, and so did Ben who was there as his fishing partner!  Still better than the two guys just below them who caught NOTHING the whole day.  Now Brian's got the experience and he thinks he'll go back when he comes back from out east.

What else?  We've both been working and getting ready to move out and settle in to upstate NY again for about 5 1/2 weeks.  We hope to sail for two of those on Petrel, across Lake Ontario to the Thousand Islands - I hope Petrel doesn't get jealous that we've put Kakwik on our blog - not even a sailboat, but more practical on Prince William Sound out of Whittier!!

Judy's still finishing up work, Brian has a couple of jobs to complete, and we head out on the Summer Solstice, late late late on the 20th, or early on the 21st -- that'll be cool because it'll still be light as we flyout of town - good views of the mountains, glaciers, etc.

Looking forward to seeing all of our friends on the EAST coast!!