found Joe a friend

Portage

Do you wont to see the rest of the photos? If so, I will try to download them to photo bucket this week.

Joe tried to kill the dog

This is Trail River, as you can see it's not a stream. Joe thought it would be fun to throw a stick in the river for my dog Chai to chase. Apparently, he had no idea that a Retriever would swim out and get the stick. Well the dog went for a long swim through rapids then out into Kenai Lake. She swam several hundred feet and we were afraid she might not make it. Well she retrieved the the stick, brought it back and dropped it at his feet. The photo below is Joe. After his Failed attempt to kill my dog. Mother nature summoned the good witch of Alaska who turned him into a beetle for the rest of his life. LOL

From West Montague Island to Chena Hot Springs

It’s been a busy past few weeks. On the 28th of June Heidi and I drove to Moose Pass to camp at Trail River Camp ground in Chugach National Forest. It seemed like a quiet place to sleep close to Seward, where we had a charter the next day. Later in the evening Joe and Karen joined us in the camp site next to ours. It was quiet and still, a nice place to camp; but I was a bit disappointed to find the feds had increased their camp fees by Seven $ over last year. Eighteen dollars a night seems like a lot given the increase in gas prices to go camping. Needless to say, I slept way better than I would have in Seward. The Halibut trip was a bit of a debacle. I still don’t know if it was miss communication between Alan and the Captain of Silverado charters, or the Captain Silverado was trying to screw us. From what people have told me he’s an honest guy but I just don’t know. For a time we thought that the trip might not happen, as Alan called to get the slip number for the boat on Friday only to be told that our trip was canceled because the captain was in Seattle picking up a new boat. Alan tried to call him several times only to be told by the Captain that he was busy or not near his books and would call back in a few hours. Unfortunately, he would not call back and Alan would have to hunt him down. So here it was, Saturday we had a fishing trip for Sunday only no boat and no money. Heidi and I were plumb broke, as I had a root canal that ended up costing several thousand dollars the day before. If this Captain doesn’t pull through we wouldn’t be on a boat. In the mean time Alan and Tami found a room at a bed and breakfast in Seward. Apparently the secretary there had a second job scheduling fishing trips for charter boats in Seward. After he called to make the reservations the secretary of the B&B got a call from Captain Silverado asking her to find a charter boat for a client that happened to have the same name as Alan. She called Alan back to tell him she found a boat for us. Now we had a boat, unfortunately we still had no $$. Luckily Saturday evening Alan got a hold of Captain Silverado and talked him into paying for our new charter and calling it even. Unfortunately since we did not make the new charter reservation early we each had to pay one hundred more dollars. I think Captain Silverado should have paid that also as his business practices were completely unprofessional. Well the good news is that we got on a boat Sunday just like planned. The captain’s name was Meridey (Mare-i-dee) on the Jillian Dawn. She did a great job. She had a new deck hand that was a bit nervous but did her best. She took us out of the bay to Montague Island. The seas were as good as could be and the weather was overcast without any rain. Heidi did great. At the end of the day she was glad she went. With the help of ginger and Dramamine she actually stayed on the boat the whole day and did not throw up. Several years ago she went out on Jim’s boat but after a short time she turned as green as a person can get, then spent the rest of the day in Thumbs Cove. She was leery of getting on a boat but she did it for me. It was funny to watch her and Karen work together to reel in Halibut. She actually caught the biggest fish of the trip. Unfortunately it was a big Skate. The fish were all small in the thirty’s. I think Alan, Joe and I must have reeled in 15 each before we kept our limits. We also caught a few Pinks and some Rock fish. While we were out fishing Barbara drove down with Diane and Aunt Betty, Patience, Jonathan and Gay took the train. We met them at the dock after the fishing trip and they went to Exit Glacier with Heidi while I ate dinner with my brothers and their wives. (Heidi ate with her mom while I took care of the fish) The next day Barbara, Betty, Diane and Jonathan took the all day glacier trip with the park service. Heidi, Patience and I took some hikes around the camp ground, played some games shot the bee-bee gun and relaxed. It was a nice day to be out and not at work. On Thursday we drove to Chena Hot Springs. If you go I found the gas was 15 cents a gallon cheaper at Keith’s gas station in Healey than at Chevron. It was scorching hot up there. We slept with the windows open in the camper. We stayed at Granite Tors campground. I was surprised at how quiet it was being the fourth. On Friday Heidi, Brittany and I hiked to the tors, while everyone else went to lay in the hot springs. We had a great hike although it was a bit hot. The girls walked slowly but they made it all the way up and back to the camper. It was a 16 mile hike half of which is up hill. Brittney was starting to wonder why she decided to go. She doesn’t hike much and seven and a half miles up hill in 85 degree weather with no shade beat her down like a small dog. But she persevered and when she made it to the tors at the top she was happy she made the hike. Heidi did not complain at all she wasn’t fast but she kept her own pace. Her shoulders look like scorched earth and she won’t let me rub her sun burn. Last year she and Diane walked up the second half of the trail but did not cover the first part of the trail so she was happy to complete the circuit this year. The next day we went to the Hot Spring. That chlorine and hot water really cooks sun burns and is not too comfortable on all the scraps you get while hiking. Heidi got dizzy while sitting in the hot water. I think that it might have been due to her body being exhausted from the hike. She chose to do the eco tour of the resort which has a trip through the green house where they explain how it works. It’s 30 miles from the resort to the closest end of a power line; they power the whole resort with the water from the hot springs and well water. They also grow their own vegetables in the green house year around. On Sunday we slowly got out of bed and readied the camper for the trip back. After we were through it started to rain. We had a safe trip back to Anchorage.