This map shows where we traveled on day 5, there were a few towns we checked out that were a little out of the way, but worth it :-)
When we woke up it was POURING, so instead of riding a boat over to Seldovia just to walk around in the rain, we decided to get on the road and head north toward our next destination. We stopped at a few towns on the way and even took a few scenic "loop" roads... We put on a good deal of miles today and at between $3.86 and $4.21 a gallon our wallet felt it, but we saw some COOL stuff.. so it was worth it!
If it wasn't so cloudy we would have been able to see the entire elutian chain.. it is partially visible, but not completely. Two of the mountains in the picture (again only partially showing) are volcanoes...both of which have been active in the past 20 years..
On one of our scenic "loop" roads, we stopped and saw the Kasilof river.. It was beautiful, however, the mosqetios were bad so we couldn't stay long..
Jeremy, Connor and the Kasilof river in the background..
Connor and Nicole in front of the river
Just another example of Alaska's beauty!
There is a town on the cook inlet all the way north called Nikiski. They are known for several things, but they have an indoor pool worth bragging about, so while I forgot our suits (BUMMER) we still wanted to go check it out for future reference :-) I didn't get any pictures of it... oops but on the way back from the pool we saw a Momma and baby Moose!! We got questioned and written up by a TSA security guard in the process.. but it all adds to the story right? (basically what happened was saw the Moose, went to pull off on a side road to get a better look, realized we accidentally pulled off at the Tesoro oil refinery. Normally we'd have just flipped a U turn, but it was obviously when everyone was getting off work because there was a solid stream of cars coming out for a good 20 min. So Jerremy decided to just go up the road a little further to find a turnaround and just wait until there were less cars.. well we were "suspicious" and parked in a Homeland Security Protected area, so they had to question us, take our info down etc. kinda a pain, but the security guard was super cool and actually gave us a great tip o nwhere to camp that night to see bears.... So it was all worth it, plus we were in an even better spot to see the Moose :-)
A Cow Moose and her Calf!
After visiting these other towns, we went to the campground the security guard had suggested, the Russian River Campground.
We decided that after we got settled in we'd go for a quick stroll on the fishing walks just to see what it looked like....This was at about 7:30-8ish.. we were only on the fish walk for about 20 min when we spotted this:
We are about 75 yards away from this Sow and her Cub.. She spotted us and "huffed" until she eventually got her cub to take leave.. (notice she has a radio collar on.. kinda unique)
This is the best picture I got in the short time frame we had..and with a shaky hand :-) It's of the cub... Pretty amazing creatures!
Not long after the Sow and her cub left, we saw this one just up river.
I saw another VERY large one a little later across the river from the walk, but he must have seen us first because he was gone before Jeremy even got a look. So total we saw 4 Brown Bears that evening.
Day 6- When we woke up we decided that we'd like to stay at this campground another day, so we had breakfast then went to town for a while (needed diapers if we were going to make it another night). When we got back from town we went for another walk on the fish walk, but it was too soon to see any bears. I did get some cool photos of the river, fishermen and fish though:
The Russian River is one of the many rivers where life begins and ends for salmon. These ones are spawning, then will die. The river is so thick with fish you can literally reach in a pick these up! (they wouldn't be good eating as they are basically dieing, but the bears and seagulls etc don't mind, that's why they are so attracted to this area, easy meals!)
Very cool to see!
Red EVERYWHERE!!
The famous Russian River with a few fishermen.. NOTHING compared to "combat fishing" when fishermen stand shoulder to shoulder in this river... what beautiful scenery
Connor didn't mind the walk..... for most of it.. by the end he had had it and let us know!! even if there were bears in the area, with our built in "bear alarm" they were gone! :-)
Also while at this campground Jeremy spent several hours with his spotting scope on the mountain sides looking for Dall Sheep and Mountain Goats, he found SEVERAL! He was at least a mile and a half away from them, but with his scope and camera he is able to get decent video footage and pictures. I'll add a video later, but here is a few photos of what he was seeing:
We ended up going out again that evening for a short walk, but didn't see any bears again, so we had a realaxing evening. Tomorrow we plan to get to Seward, another coastal town, known for being surrounded by glaciers.. We will be in Seward a few days, one of which we will be taking a day cruise of the Kenai Fjords National Park and Prince William Sound. The other day we will just be checking out the town and maybe walking out to a glacier, we'll see which day looks best for weather to determine when we'll do what :-)
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