Kauai

After a long flight last Monday, Patty and I arrived in Kauai. We spent a couple of nights just north of Lihue and then started our backpack trip along the NaPali Coast. The weather has been great, 75, low humidity and no rain. The 11 mile hike on the Kalalau Trail was a tough hike with lots of ups and downs and a couple of spots where if you were afraid of heights it would not be good. The exposure was pretty great and a slip would result in a fall of over 1000 feet and put you in the ocean. The views along the coast were fantastic and we arrived at the end of the trail and our beach campsite after about 6 hours of hiking. We spent two nights and partied with the locals who "live" along the beach and in the valley, illegally, I should mention. Some have lived back there for up to 6 years. I don't think this happens much in Minnesota State Parks. After hiking out on Sat. we spent the night on the north shore and today we drove to the south shore and are at a Military resort on the west shore. We have another week on Kauai before we begin our duties on the big island of Hawaii on March 1. I do not seem to be able to upload pictures with this post. I am going to try to load some pic's seperately. Take care for now.

August 23, 2009

Jeff and I took a one day cruise in Prince William Sound out of Whittier. We had a great day of sunshine and sight seeing. Posted are a few pictures of the humpback whale we were fortunate to see, some stellar sea lions, and a glacier.

We also took a drive to Denali National Park. We saw the Alaska big five wildlife animals - a moose, several grizzly bears, lots of caribou and sheep and a wolf. I have posted pictures of the wolf, caribou and grizzly.

We also had a grizzly bear swimming in the pond off of our deck. I was able to watch her for about 45 minutes and then she left the pond and pushed down a few trees on her way back to the woods. That is the grizzly that has been living near our cabin all summer. I have seen her so often I have named her Brownie.

Take care and see you soon. Our time here is getting short.
Patty

More Pic's

Here are a few more pictures from our family vacation.

Family Trip

Hi Everyone

I thought I would post a few pics of our family vacation. Jason flew up and we picked up Chris at Moose Pass and promptly took a hike up to his secret Greyling Lake. We caught and released as many Greyling as we wanted and then hiked back down. We spent a couple of days in Seward and took a halibut charter, but the weather was to rough for good halibut fishing but we did catch some nice silver salmon and some pacific cod. Chris did catch a small halibut. We stayed at the military resort in Seward, which I would recommend highly. They had a fantastic fish processing facility that we used to vacume bag our fish. We then hiked into a cabin on the Russian river trail and spent two nights. It was a nice to be in a cabin as we had a fair amount of rain. We fished the Russian River on our way out and had a couple of bear encounters. We had a Black Bear sow with two cubs fishing directly across from us and then we had to take the high ground as a Brown Bear, (Griz) with two cubs came wandering down the creek. They were about 10 yards away when I first saw them and I thought we should give them the river bank so we just went up the hill and let them pass by.

We caught our red salmon and then came back to Bird Point where we were able to catch some Pink Salmon in Bird Creek. Pinks are on the low end of the scale in the salmon eating contest, but, are not bad if eaten fresh. We were also able to show the kids the bore tide and actually watched someone trying to surf the tide. Check out the pic.

We hiked up to Crow Pass and also up Mount Aleyeska and had a great dinner at the Double Musky. This restaraunt was named one of the 10 best in the nation on the food network. They have great food and an Alaskan atmosphere. It was fun to have the family together for a family vacation.

We dropped Jason off at the airport and then took Chris back to Moose Pass with another stop at the Russian River. The bears were even thicker. We saw a Black bear as soon as we got there and then saw the Brown Bear with cubs and a little later saw two juvenile brown Bears. The good thing was that Chris caught a Chum or Dog Salmon and now has caught each of the Alaskan Salmon, Red or Sockeye, King or Chinook, Silver or Coho, Pink or Humpy, and Chum or Dog Salmon. I am sure he has a picture of each posted on facebook for all to see.

I hope you enjoy the pictures.

July 17, 2009

We just had a wonderful week with Jeff's mom and dad visiting us. We had great weather the entire week. I have posted some pictures of a few of the things we did which included, hiking up to the top of Flattop Mountain, fishing, touring a gold mining village, seeing wildlife, fishing with Chris, going on a picnic and watching the bore tide come in.

July 17, 2009