Kenai

On Thursday, August 1st we traveled  by motorcoach from Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge near Talkeetna to Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge. BTW, the local people pronounce it as kee-nigh.

Our first stop along our drive was to the Iditarod Headquarters in Wasilla about an hour north of Anchorage.  The Iditarod National Historic Trail is 2,300 miles running from Nome to Seward and is the traditional route of the infamous Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.  These sled dogs have amazing energy and just love to run. We were able to hold a puppy plus take dog cart rides. We met several mushers in our travels through Alaska and all were dedicated to their sled dogs.  The couple who provided the dog cart rides at Wasilla owned 68 sled dogs.

Bev gets a puppy kiss

OK. Another two old farts looking for a ride

All cushy in this"sled"

And off we go...and we did go fast.

We stopped for lunch in Anchorage and had 2 hours to explore the city on our own. Anchorage is the biggest city in Alaska but is not the capital.

statue in Anchorage of Captain James Cook

We traveled down the Seward Highway to the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet before entering the Kenai Mountains and the Kenai Peninsula.  The Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge is a lovely lodge!  Very few visit it but it was our favourite of the Princess lodges we stayed at.  With only 86 rooms, 4 rooms to each cabin.  The rooms were all spacious -- large beds, seating area and woodstove. The lodge even had an RV campground on site!

Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge

our room

Our tour guide Eve hosted cocktails for Happy Hour and while standing on the deck of the main lodge we got a close up view of the resident bald eagle, who is affectionately knows as "Eddie the Eagle".

There was a laundry room just 2 cabins past ours so we got a chance to do some laundry after being on the road for 8 days and about to cruise for another 7 days.

The next day Vic and Bev headed out on a half day optional excursion of sockeye salmon fishing on the Kenai River.  Picture Bev in waders (!!!) and lucky enough to find appropriate sized boots to fit her!  We geared up, piled into a truck with 2 other experienced fisherman and a guide who took us to the launch site for the boat.  We drifted down stream until the guide found a good fishing spot.  We stood in the stream about knee deep and fished there for about 2 1/2 hrs.  We had to be very careful stepping on the rocky bottom. One mis-step and you would be floating down the stream...without a paddle.
It took a while to get the technique of Flossing with a fly fishing rod for sockeye salmon but we were successful. Vic caught 2 fish and Bev caught 5 but between us a dozen more got away! The fish were swimming around our feet!  The sockeye are not hungry and they do not feed in the streams on their path to the spawning grounds. So with the flossing technique you are trying to catch them by the mouth with a bare hook as they swim by with their mouths open. You flick out the weighted line and let it drift downstream across in front of you. Then you pull the line out and repeat repeat repeat.

Vic's best fish! A Sockeye already turning red.

The keeper that we ate! A female Sockeye without eggs.

fishermen along the river

We were lucky.  2 other couples from our tour group went out with other guides.  The women each caught one fish and the men caught none!  We definitely had the best guide!

We kept one of the fish Bev caught and the rest were released.  Our guide filleted the fish for us and the lodge cooked it for us for dinner that night.  There was enough for 6 people so we shared it with our traveling companions Bill and Linda plus our waitress (who was the wife of the chef).  We all agreed it was the best tasting salmon of our trip (and we ate plenty on this trip!)