June 27, 2017

Well my friend Brian has left and my Uncle Rick has arrived. After a great prime rib dinner at Ray's in Seward, Brian left on the 22nd on a bus for Anchorage. After a nights stay he boarded the train to Fairbanks with stops at Denali as well as others. Brian toured many areas around Fairbanks before boarding his red-eye flight back to Wisconsin. My Uncle Rick arrived on time at the Anchorage airport Monday morning at 1:00 a.m. Once back at camp we took a short nap before getting ready to go out fishing. Fishing continues to get slower every day, but we continue to put a fish or two in the freezer every day. The current count count is 96 with about 90 in the freezer, Brian took 43.5 pounds home with him. Here are some pictures from the past week. The one with Brian, Bill and I is downtown Seward when we dropped Brian off for the bus. One is of the mountains on my drive to get Rick. note the Lupines in the foreground. Brian was the primary picture taker, so I need to get in the habit of taking pictures since he is gone.

What We've Been Up To

Between internet connectivity issues and fishing I haven't had much success posting to the blog. I spent 1+ hours today on the phone with Verizon trying to resolve our issues with no guaranteed results other than he will submit a work order for Verizon to contact GCI with the issues. Anyway, we have been catching some fish, Bill continues to out-catch all of us most of the time, I guess I have lost my touch. Brian has good and bad days, but is now hooked on salmon fishing. Sunday we took the day off and drove to Homer with many stops in between. It was our first day off from fishing and felt good to do something besides FISH. :) This morning we woke up to a steady rain and 47 degrees so decided to put off fishing until this afternoon. Brian left to tour the SeaLife Center and I did some administrative tasks. Here are some pictures of what we have been up to.

Fish On!

Well, the fishing has picked up, yesterday we did ok at low tide in the morning and Nancy caught her first Red and the first fish on the day. Last night we went back out and had pretty good luck fishing high tide. This morning we went out and all four of us caught our limits, but it took 4 hours. Spirits are higher with the nicer weather and higher fish counts. The internet service continues to be problematic and I am posting to the blog while at the Park office and on their internet. We heard there was a big brown bear roaming the perimeter of the Park a couple of nights ago, but haven't seen it. We are eating good, Bill did his famous fish fry with fish, fries and hush puppies a couple of nights ago and today Nancy made BBQ'd ribs, potatoes and a salad with Strawberry cake for dessert. It may be time for salmon again tomorrow night. I know our followers like to see pictures, so I have attached some, hopefully no repeats.

Sunday June 11, 2017

Fishing remains slow, today we only caught one Red Salmon after fishing about 3 hours. The weather is in the 50's and light rain. The highlight of our fishing trips is watching the wales in Resurrection Bay. Our friends from Merrill, WI arrived today after only a seven day driving trip from WI. We had Shredded Venison BBQ, Potato Salad and baked beans for supper. Internet access is slow and sporadic so I'm not sure how many posts will happen. I hope to start taking my camera on our trips to get some more pictures, but the weather has not cooperated recently.

On the road again!

It has been a busy last few days, but we are in Seward Alaska and have fish in the freezer. After the truck was dropped off at the GM dealer they got to work on it about 8am the next morning and by 10:30am called to say they had found the problem, had the part in stock and hoped to have us on the road by noon. They called a short time later to say the truck was done and came to pick us up. We left the dealer about 11:45am and were back to the trailer, hooked up and heading north towards Whitehorse by 2:15pm. We pushed hard and pulled into the Discovery Yukon RV Park about 9:00pm. The next morning we got on the ROUGH road and made it into TOK about 11:00 a.m. Alaska time. We drove on to Palmer where we stayed at Mountain View RV Park. Thursday morning we left Palmer on the last leg to Seward. We got to Seward about 12:20pm and hooked up with Bill who had a great Gumbo lunch ready for us. After lunch we got the rig set up and after a short break thought we should do some fishing. We fished for about 1 1/2 hours and were lucky enough to all catch a Red. This morning we got up and did some house cleaning and camp chores and then went out fishing. We fished for about 2 hours without any luck, but we did have salmon for supper. Brian seems to be getting hooked on Alaska and fishing. We plan to leave camp at 6:30am tomorrow and try to put some more fish in the freezer.

Days 5, 6, & 7 - June 4, 5 & 6

Well, things have took a change for the worst. While driving in the mountains between Summit Lake BC & Laird Hot Springs we heard a "clunk" and had felt a "jerk/bump" immediately afterwards we started get messages about Stabilitrak & traction control along with other weird goings on. There were no visible problems and the truck and trailer were rolling along. We kept going and Brian started reading the owners manual, one option said to shut the truck off and then restart, we tried that at Shell Lake after stopping for gas, but it only seemed to start the truck out in a lower gear so we could only drive 50 mph. We made it to Watson Lake and stayed at the RV Park there for the night, while there we checked the fuses and disconnected the battery. First thing Monday morning we contacted a local mechanic who said he could look at the truck and read the code right away (nearest GM dealer at this point was 300 miles away). The code read the transmission and computer had lost contact. The guy checked for loose wires etc and couldn't see anything. The truck instrument panel also looked normal and the truck was doing what it was supposed to do, so we started north. We only made it about 2 miles before everything acted up again, but we were able to drive 60 mph and made good time to Teslin. We stopped for gas at Teslin and left the truck running, when we went to leave, the truck stalled out before we could make it out of the parking lot, so we started making phone calls and using Onstar. Bottom line, after a 4 hour wait a flatbed arrived and took us and the truck to Whitehorse 2+ hours away where we ended up at the Gold Rush Inn, Best Western. After a good nights rest we are now making phone calls, reading/sending emails and waiting to hear what comes next. We are keeping each others spirits up and trying to not dwell on the current, but look forward to making it to Alaska to catch some fish. Stay tuned for more....... Stone Sheep along the Alaska Highway, Brian's rendition of a Ken/Brian Selfie at Teslin, Sign Village in Watson Lake, and Ken with his truck

Day 3 & 4 - June 2nd & 3rd

We drove 472 miles on Thursday, 469 on Friday and 595 on Saturday. We stayed in Mundare, Saskatchewan Thursday night and are at Sikanni Rive RV Park tonight between Pink Mountain BC and Fort Nelson BC. We are officially on the Alaska Hwy now and Brian is enjoying the new scenery. Our rig is not enjoying the rougher roads and we had the microwave shelf come unmounted and a small door shelf in the frig break today. We hope to make repairs in AK. The microwave still works. :)

Ken and Brian planned to cross the border into Canada late this afternoon. Ken called from Lignite, ND about 4:00. That is just 10 miles from the Portal crossing. Hope they were passed through the border without issues. Then they planned to stop around Weyburn, SK for the night (another 90 miles). This is the start of several days of limited contact. Ken may be able to get internet access along the way, and might post or e-mail, at least 2 or 3 days yet.

Day Two - June 01, 2017

Woke to a chilly 52 degree trailer this morning, but we both slept pretty well.  We were awakened by a train at 2:22 a.m., but quickly got back to sleep.  It was a nice day, with mostly sunny skies, but temperatures rose into the 80's.  We stopped in Bagley, ND for some DOTS famous ND made pretzels and got fuel as well. We got to Lignite ND about 3:30 p.m., to early to stop for the night so we continued to the border and crossed without hassle. After a couple more hours drive we stopped for the day at Weyburn Saskatchewan and are staying at the Rivers Edge City Campground. It is a nice small park with electric and water hook-ups. We also are now in the Mountain time zone. We had Pasties for supper and now Brian is out for a walk. No pictures to post as we are driving through a lot of agricultural area dotted with potholes. We are see lots of ducks like in years past. We'll see where tomorrow takes us.....