When in Alaska in 2006, while we were in Cooper Landing, I drove down to the confluence of the Kenai and Russian Rivers where I watched what is termed to be combat fishing. This is where fishermen are lined up along the bank shoulder to shoulder fishing for Red (Sockeye) salmon. Once I had seen this, I was hooked. As soon as Tricia and I got home, I began planning my next trip to Alaska. Only this time, I would not be flying…It would be a 6500-mile (one way) drive in my 28’ Allegro motorhome aka “The Blue Goose”. I spent a lot of prep time trying to figure out what I would need to have with me on this six-month trip. The longest I had ever been out in the RV was about 2 weeks, where if you forget something, you’re only a week away from getting it.
This was to prove a much different trip than all my two previous trips. I began by meeting up with a group of people I had met thru an RV website for people who travel alone. We met in Wilmington NC for a few days, and then I left for east Tennessee to visit my friends Paul and Dee Cleveland in Seymore. After I left their place, I stopped in Oak Ridge to have lunch with my mother’s surviving sister, Alle, and her daughter, Ann. At 97, Alle was still driving and mowing her own yard. Hope I got her genes. At this time, I had been gone about a week, and was still east of my starting point. I’m sure I needed to be going in a westerly direction, so I headed to Springfield Mo where my son Kevin and his family live. I stayed in Springfield four or five days and then started north and west…no real time frame or specific destination other than getting to Alaska.
The next week I spent rambling thru Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. Now it was time to leave the “Lower 48”. Tricia and I had set up a trip where she would fly into Calgary AB and we would spend a week in Banff National Park and Lake Louise BC. We stayed a campground in the park at the base of Mt Rundell, visited Lake Louise, and the Columbia Ice Fields, a one mile thick glacier. After taking Tricia back to Calgary and spending a day touring the city, she flew out and I continued north to Alaska.
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| Mile 0 of teh Alaska Highway - 1474 to go |
I left home in early April, and I got to Dawson Creek BC, in Mid-May. A little early as there was a heavy snow on May 16 just as I was pulling out of town. Then on up the Alaska Highway to Ft Nelson BC, Watson Lake BC, and Whitehorse, the capital city of the Yukon Territory. I was still about 400 miles from the Alaska border at the north end of the Canadian Rockies. I traveled on down to Glenallen and to Valdez where I stayed a few days. Valdez is a great little fishing town which is the southern terminus of the Alaska pipeline. As I traveled from Glenallen down the Richardson Highway, I saw spectacular Ponytail and Bride’s Veil waterfalls, each about 500 feet tall, and drove thru Thompson Pass, the snowiest place in Alaska averaging 550 inches per year…550 inches, that’s 45 feet. I only stayed in Valdez a couple of days because I figured to be returning on my way back out of Alaska when the Coho or Silver Salmon were running.
Leaving Valdez, I motored on down to Anchorage, about 400 miles where I fished for King Salmon in Ship Creek which runs thru the downtown area, just behind the train station. I also needed my fix so it was back to Humpy’s for fish and chips and a Pale Alaskan Ale.
Next it was on to the Kenai Peninsula where I would stay for a couple of months. I visited the town of Hope that Tricia and I found a year earlier. There is a small RV park at the end of the main street in Hope that has a small creek about 15 feet wide next to it. This is a Pink Salmon run later in the year, but I was able to haul in a couple of trout that made it to the skillet about 20 minutes later. It takes some imagination to call the place an RV park. There are water and electric hookups for about 10 units, and a sign at the end of the road stating the rules…”Select your site and pay the Bartender”. The bartender is the owner of the bar and the park, who I had talked with a year earlier.
I left Hope the next day and was back in Seward that afternoon. The next day I went out on an all-day Halibut trip and caught my limit of 2 fish…one 46 lbs., the other 64 lbs. I spent that night fileting, shrink wrapping and freezing about 60 lbs. of fish.
After a couple of days in Seward, I drove the 90 miles up the Seward Hwy and then down the Sterling Hwy toward Soldotna and the Kenai River. A super drive that Parallels the river for about another 90 miles. I couldn’t stand not spending time on the river, so I spent one night in a small state park in Cooper Landing, the place where my friend Charles and I had stayed 12 years earlier. Little did I know that I would be spending the next two months even closer to the river than the location in Cooper Landing.
When I arrived in Soldotna, I went directly to Centennial Park and found a campsite in a great location. I stopped and spoke with a Swedish couple, Henry and Maryanne who said they were from Texas. As I began setting up next to a couple who I came to know as Jack and Anita from northern California, I met others from all over the US. On the other side of my site were Sam and Leon from Michigan, Carroll and Carolyn from Minnesota, and Gary and Mary from Colorado. I would get to know all of these folks and many more as we would fish and tell lies every day at the 4:00 pm cocktail hour. We would all return in 2009 and do it all over again.
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| Days Limit |
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| Kenai Krew |
Fishing was great, but I needed a vacation from my vacation. So, it was back to Anchorage, put the RV into storage, and fly home for a week on the beach with my girls, Sally and Kelly and their two girls, Ally and Jaylee, in Ft Myers Beach. I was limited to 2 50-lb pieces of luggage, and boarded the plane with a 46 and 48 lb box of frozen Fish. After the beach, it was back to Anchorage, and down to Soldotna. The fishing got even better and everyone usually got the 3-6 daily limit of Sockeye Salmon. Daily fishing was interrupted only by trips to Clam Gulch for clams of course, and Homer for a ½ day Halibut trips.
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| Will and Me in Danali |
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| McKinley 20,320 feet |
We stayed in Valdez for about 3 weeks and topped the freezers with Silver Salmon. Then Will and I left Alaska for the 7-day trip thru Canada. We stopped in Whitehorse, at the Liard Hot Springs, and other places along the way to the lower 48. Will had said that he may drop off and fly home once we got to Montana, but when I told hip I wanted to see Mt. Rushmore, he said he would stay on until after that. Before we got to Rushmore, we stopped at the Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. Then as we headed east in South Dakota, I told Will I was going to stop for a couple of days at my son’s in Springfield MO for a couple of days, and as may have been scripted, will said “I haven’t seen Kevin for a while, I think I’ll stay on”. And of course while In Springfield, I mentioned I was going to stop for a day or 2 in New Orleans, Will quickly came back with his usual response, “I guess I’ll stay on for the New Orleans leg of the trip”. As it turned out, I dropped Will off in Brooksville where his friend, Peggy, picked him up to return to Orlando.
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| Washington, Adams, Roosevelt, Lincoln and Howard |
It was a great trip. About 13,000 miles. No major RV problems…the Blue Goose held up fine. Lots of fantastic scenery. Plenty of fish. And a whole bunch of really nice people. I visited 17 states, 3 Canadian Provinces, and an unrecorded number of state, national and provincial parks. I’m really glad I had an opportunity to make this trip, and see places I have only dreamed of, and it didn’t take long for me to begin planning my 2011 trip.
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