The rain is no longer cool it’s cold and wet.  The weather cost me a bear flight.  I was able to get a flight for Saturday morning, it is supposed to be partly cloudy.  Please keep fingers crossed.  I got some cool camera tips from a friend Lisa Langell an awesome photographer. She does an annual trip to Alaska to teach how to photograph wildlife.  I learned some tips via text messages.

We ended up driving around the island and took some pictures of base housing for someone who was stationed at Kodiak 20 years ago.  The camp site we are at used to be base housing they are set up in parking spaces. 

We stopped at Java Flats for coffee and a cookie. On the way home we decided to drive through the fairgrounds and saw some deer.  They must be comfortable around people because they didn’t run just gave us a wierd look

Tomorrow we are going to tour Air Base Kodiak news tomorrow.

Another rainy day ugh!!  That’s ok, we made it work.  I woke up to the sound of rain, so I was lazy inside.  Once Roy got up we discovered humidity warm inside air and cold air outside cause condensation on metal.  I took paper towel to wipe off the metal.

We drove down one road that went to the back side of the island did not go to the bottom probably do that on Thursday.  Wednesday I am going bear watching, I hope the weather clears up. We put bags over both cameras to protect when I shoot.  I don’t know if I mentioned this but I was able to fix the Nikon so I have a back up.

Roy and I picked up a couple of caches today one was fairly easy the other one I had to hike to.  I stomped through a few puddles on the way because I don’t get to do that often.  Remember it never rains in Southern California or if it does it doesn’t make puddles. Once I found the cache I hiked to we drove down the road to the float plane air base.  I saw bear viewing flights went in and asked, sounded exciting.  Told Roy about it asked if he wanted to told him 3/4 of a mile walk in 2 hours on the ground 3/4 of a mile walk back he said go for it.  I know I can do it, they said they would help if I need it.

I have time when I get back you will see pictures.

For my battle Shelby, I get to eat at the DFAC or as the Coast Guard say the Galley.  I do miss military food.  Spending the week camping at the military campground on Kodiak. It was so cool this morning because waiting for Roy to get off the boat I was able to get numbers to tour the air and boat portions of the base.  I went over to thank 3 Coasties for their service, as I always do when I see our men and women in uniform.

I woke up with a migraine which really sucked.  I was not able to enjoy the morning, oh well.  I was worried for Roy getting sick he was great.  I guess the sea was calm, I was sleeping.  Once the migraine passed I felt better.  I have a picture of Roy driving off the ferry.  Once we arrived headed to the base to register.

The campsite has 4 electric sites and 4 non-electric, the sites are asphalt and level.  Since we are here for the week I put up the shelves and put out food so I am not digging in a box every ten minutes.  This took about an hour to do.

We ate dinner and looked at gift stores then went to Wal-mart to get some draining things for the sewer.  We now have full hook-ups.  It has been rainy and foggy since we got off the ferry so no really good pictures.  I hope it clears up.

This could also be titled OMG what was I thinking.  Today is ferry day.

We checked out of the campground about 10:30am drove into Homer to do a late breakfast early lunch.  I had to check out a couple of gift stores nothing struck my fancy except for a shirt with a moose as a minon saying despicable moose.  The shirt was in kid sizes.  We then parked to wait for the ferry.  I did a bit of walking on the shore took some pics.  The whole trip so far was amazing.

Once we checked in we got into a space more waiting lol.  Roy and I decided to ask if they still had a cabin available they did, we upgraded.  This turned out to be a good thing, sleep in a bed is good.  I tried to finish on the boat but could not handle writing and rocking.

We met a couple who was moving from D.C. to Kodiak they also upgraded to a cabin.  Two people from the Coast Guard who are getting stationed here.  I did wake up with a migraine but am now feeling better.

I will write about the island tonight.  

Or the glamming boondocking to great view not so great camp. 

I have now been on the most westerly road in the US that can be reached by not going to HI. This is at Anchor Point AK.  This is amazing because when we got to the Spit in Homer we have traveled every major road on the Kenai.   

Speaking of Homer I stopped by the Salty Dawg which is one of the smallest bars I’ve ever seen unless you count my kitchen growing up.  Many have also seen the bar on Deadlest Catch.  I did not put up a dollar bill.  The Dawg has come a long way from Homer’s first post office.

I went t-hirt and gift shopping found a few things but if I buy much more Roy will put me on the roof rack.  It was an amazing walk around town although the stores were very small and way to many people. It was Saturday though. 

 I did not see many eagles in Homer which was a disappointment, however I did see some large halibut, even ate some later.  The eagles we did see were at Deep Creek State Rec area on the way down.

RANT BELOW STOP READING IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ IT.  Tomorrow we head to Kodiak for a week.

 Now on to our first bad campground experience, been very lucky this trip.  It started when we could not find the campground considering it was right where we had gotten gas.  The place was not well marked.  When I go to check-in no reservation under that name or Roy’s.  I say I have an email confirmation, my reservation appeared.  I pay for the night in cash got to our site, got distracted by eagles.  No pictures of those unfortunately.  We get the trailer level then plug in the surge protector and find out the electric polarization is reversed. It was not worth ruining the electronics.  I go to the office and am told it works we are just having problems with people’s surge protectors.  Long story short after trying 4 differant sites and pulling teeth we got moved.  She goes why are you given up this view.  My response was I do not want to fry my electronics.  It was an amazing view.  The moral of the story is if you camp buy a surge protecter for the outside.  This one we bought just paid for itself.  Thry are between $100 to $300 but worth every penny.  For those of you who read my rant thanks.

Sorta we did drive up there in the sprinkles.  The drive over was loaded with crazy traffic, the  salmon are running so lots of fisherman.  We drove along the Kenai river and saw where the Russian river meets.  I took a picture of the Kenai it has a color you can’t describe blue green but not quite.  

We broke camp today in the rain, so glad we had a pop up quick take down.  Seward also had a cruise ship in so good day to get out of Dodge. It rained on and off so we made a back up plan, more on that later.

We drove through Soldotna today this is the Anchorage of the Kenai.  Way too many people and cars in a small area.  We were going to stop here for lunch decided not too.  11 miles up the road is the town of Kenai, a growing community but not as busy.  It has a Wal-Mart. We ate at a Greek-Italian-Mexican restaurant, interesting.  Then we headed to old town where I saw a Russian Orthadox church from the early 1900’s.  

It had stopped raining so we headed up to Capt Cook, the sites are secluded but it was a place we would have to unhook so we did not stay.  The result of the journey up there makes sure we have driven every main road on the Kenai.  

So we are boondocking at Wally World in Kenai

Our home for tonight

Rainy day today, so I couldn’t play with my new camera.  We did do some caching found 2 out of 3 we attempted.  Ate a very light breakfast because I was saving myself for dinner.  The breakfast was at a coffee shop with real good donuts. Roy had a fritter and I had a maple bar.

Our sight seeing was a bust today.  The first stop we tried was the Iditarod sled dogs from the Seavey kennels.  We had just missed the 11:45am tour and the next one wasn’t for 2 hours. We decided not to wait.  The cost was $90 per person and you had to walk to the kennels.  I wanted time with the puppies and based on the tour description and amount of people I would not have got that much time.

Strike two was Exit Glacier the place was invasion of the flies plus long walk to see it.  I did get a walkimg stick medalion.  After that we went to the end of the road.

Dinner made up for it.  Roy had King Crab legs we split an order of clams. I had Copper River Red Salmon.

Tomorrow we head to Captain Cook for boondocking

Short run picked up a cache on the way out of town, I like park n grabs.  It was a hilly drive but pretty. I can’t believe how green it is up here.  The first thing we see pulling into town is a cruise ship is in town.  I was surprised it wasn’t that busy.  

We are at a city run rv park right on the water.  Nice views of the mountains and Resurection Bay.  I did tacky tourist things today and topped it off with a trip to Sea Life Discovery Center.  I saw a Puffin at last.  Tomorrow we are going to see sled dogs. 

Even though it wasn’t planned this way having multiple night stays back to back it is working for both of us.  I have lost track of what day it is but that’s ok, I do it at home too.  

Today lunch was ruhburb pie for me and an apple pear for Roy we were saving ourselves for taco night.  Roy and I wanted to learn gold panning today and Peck the guy who does it was gone for the day.  I tried to get a trinket from Hope and settled on a magnet.  The story to that is Sourdough Dru gift shop on main street was not opened yesterday so today we went to the other gift stores and kept checking back at Dru’s.

In the middle of all this we went to the post office to mail some post cards.  I started talking to the post mistress and asked if she knew when Dru’s would be open.  She said 5:30 because they were having a haircutting party.

The campsite was amazing we had a view of the turnagain arm and the fire.  Hope was good tomorrow onto Seward