Soldotna, June 30th thru the 5th of July

Today we left Anchorage, driving to the little town of Soldotna, halfway down the Kenai Peninsula.  Due to a mix-up on our reservations at Klondike RV Park, we ended up dry camping in the Fred Myers parking lot for the first night.  FM encourages this with security patrol, dump sites and water; allowing a 3-night stay, but we stayed only one.  There were about 30 RV's there that night; busier due to the 4th of July weekend!  We did pick the wrong side of the parking lot.  Air Conditioner or some kind of compressor noises kept Pauline up part of the night.  We will know better next time...
On the road here we saw a bit more of the beautiful "hills" of Alaska.

The deciduous trees are still displaying their yellow-green, spring green colors--contrasting nicely with the darker greens of the conifers.

Winter snow patches are gradually disappearing.






The next day after getting settled in to the Klondike RV Park we stopped at the Visitor Center.  Nice displays.

Record Salmon








 

Record Rainbow trout

Eagle did all right too

Moose

Rocky Mountain Sheep







Soldotna is like a Headquarters for fishermen and supplies on the Kenai Peninsula.  The Kenai River draws people from all over the world with its famous fishery and charter services. 

The boardwalks run beside the river for a couple of miles in town.  Note how stairs lead right down into the river waters.  This is to reduce trampling of the riverbanks, which would destroy the Salmon spawning habitat.  After going down the stairs, the fishermen in waders are in the very cold & swift waters, instead of the riverbanks.  Interpretive panels review the fish life cycles, and the importance of protecting riverbank vegetation. 
The boardwalks also function very nicely for just walking or hiking, plus being completely wheelchair assessable.    Here are more of the walks.

Looking upstream from the waters' edge

        

Several places along the walk they have Life Jackets for kids marked like this.  Good idea.  There were no rails between the river and the walks in a lot of places.

In front of the Soldotna Visitor Center we found this intriguing bench.  
(An aside:  As you may know, Chuck is a talented woodworker.  I've hinted to him that any of a number of wood bench styles we saw in our travels would make a wonderful, much-appreciated addition to our back yard creek walk at home! ) 

This is a Log Cabin at the Historical Museum

And displays in the Museum which was a large Log cabin.

A bear also got Pauline there. Doesn't she look scared?















 Flowers at the Museum were appropriate for the Fourth of July.







After this we went back to the RV for more of that great pie.

All decorated for the Fourth of July.  You can't see it but the flag has lights.

Not very far from our campground was the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, and Visitor Center.   In coming years visitors there will enjoy an even larger new Center, which was just under construction.

 "We" decided it would be nice to hike the few miles to the Headquarter Lake.  The procedure was:

• hike--- 
• read--- 
• wave

 





Since the little trail traversed many wetlands on the way to the lake--guess what..... the mosquitoes were fierce!  Pauline is doing a defensive move called "the mosquito wave".

Lovely native white flowered Bunchberry groundcover (Cornus canadensis) was blooming profusely along the trail.  






The lush mix of vegetation carpeting the forest floor was so beautiful!

The Visitor Center Ranger identified this low growing berry for me.  It is Rubus chamemorous, a.k.a. Salmonberry, Cloudberry and Baked Apple Berry!

This pretty wetland plant is found blooming in roadside ditches, wetland meadows, and lakesides.  It is a nice addition to dried arrangements.  Cottongrass, (Erophorum chamissonis)

A burl growth

Yellow pond lily

Headquarter Lake

Arctic Tern








It was a nice trail buttttt. D'Bugs were bad.  We wanted to go inside so we headed for the City of Kenai Visitor center.

This is what we view as we went in the front door.

Everyone in Alaska loves these big hanging flower pots.  Can't say I blame them.  This one was outside the VC.
















While at the City of Kenai Visitor Center we heard of their Big Parade on the 4th of July, the next day, so we planned on being there.

There was the High School Marching Band

  

A unit from the National Guard 

Some Hot rods

Some old cars

Some marching groups, who sat down when the parade stopped  

And whatever this is.

The Officials were happy

The crowds were excited..

 All in all--it was a nice small town parade.  Remember I did not show you the tractors, the stock cars, the dancing girls and other thing.  My Dear Bride thought that would overdo it.

So we took pictures of the dewy flowers.  We went and walked more on the Kenai River walk and found a fisherman.

 And the salmon he just caught.  No matter how hard I tried he would not let me "borrow" his pole, just for a minute.  Darn.

On the way home we saw this sign that I wish Oregon would use.  Good idea.  
We took another walk of the River walk.

  





Private dock across the river

 Herring Gull with a fish in his beak.

Erosion Control beside the river so Fishermen would not tear up the banks too much.





Tomorrow is our last day here in Soldotna area, so we decided to backtrack a little and see places down little dirt roads, etc., where we didn't want to drive our RV.  One of the advantages of a toad (translation:  "towed vehicle", our Honda).

 We drove on a really rough road a few miles and found the Skilak Lake Wildlife Refuge.  We were looking for wildlife.  No luck. 
Further down Sterling Highway we found a woodcarving shop that did some really nice work.  They spend the summer up here and the winter in Northern Washington.  They do there work in both places.

Bear Hug







The other side of the hug

It came in like a log...

They were all good carvings.  If you want to see which one we got, it is in the entryway at home.
Tomorrow we head for Homer and all the sights between here and there.  See you later..