Vegas

Here I am on the plane to Las Vegas, we left this morning at 1am. Alaska Airlines now has free wifi on their planes!

This is a bit surreal, last weekend we were on the Copper River collecting salmon for the winter and now we're off to Vegas...Figuratively about as far away from Fairbanks as you can get.

Mike will be attending the annual Cisco Networkers conference and I'm tagging along for fun. I'll be spending time by the pool while he is in his classes/ seminars.

The kiddos are spending the week with Gramma, should be fun for all!

Bounty from the Copper River

We drove down to Chitina Friday afternoon with some friends of ours from Fairbanks, arrived about 7pm and got camp set up. There were a TON of people all scattered around on the gravel/ silt bar. There was the full gamut of folks ranging from the giant RV people with generators, TV and martinis; to the families with tents like us. The wind was blowing like crazy, so it was a bit of a challenge to set up the tents, get the camp stoves lit and keep silt out of the food….but that’s just how the Copper River valley is sometimes. 

We drifted (used our dipnets out of the boat) for a couple hours Friday evening and picked up about 5 fish, it was pretty slow, so we decided to get a decent night’s sleep and start up again first thing in the AM. There were 11 other boats also drifting along the bluff, that’s the most people I have seen drifting over there in the last 5 years since we’ve been fishing that area.

So by 7am on Saturday Mike, Dan and I were back on the water (Margaret stayed w/ the sleeping kiddos) and on the second drift I netted a nice king! Yippee! We kept fishing in 2-3 hour blocks, then we would come in, cut fish, eat/ snack, swap crews and go back out. Our best drifts on Saturday were after lunch (15 sockeye in 2 hours) and after dinner (14 socks & 2 kings in 2 hours). We pulled the boat out on Saturday night and left Chitina yesterday morning.

After we got home we got the boat cleaned, fish all divided up, the king steaked up & frozen, some sockeye prepped for canning & smoking and collapsed into bed. Whew……

Tonight we’ll do the canning, smoking and finish freezing the remaining sockeye. Plus we’ll grill one up for dinner, YUMMMMMMM!!!

The four kids all did great, they would swap jobs (subduing the fish & clipping tails) and were big helps rinsing fish (after we did the gutting/ gilling) and loading the coolers….and they were total troopers about the wind and silt. None of the adults could wear our contacts, and the zippers on both tents took a beating….pretty funny looking at our zipper configurations by Saturday night.

We ended up with 48 sockeye and 3 king salmon, we split the sockeyes between the families and each family kept their own kings. It was a good steady weekend for us. There were a lot of people who weren’t having very good luck. We talked to a couple groups who were fishing the same area as us who only picked up a dozen or so fish ALL weekend long. Bummer.

June 11-13

One of the guys at the boat launch on Friday said it perfectly…..”It is always a good day when you are heading upriver, and Sunday always comes way too quickly!”

Saturday was a kind of rainy off and on, but the rain was very welcome since the last time we were out the ground was cracked and crunchy. We got the roof put on the shed, those clear panels are very nice, saves us from putting in windows! Mike figured out a nice double door design too, that’s going to be great for hauling things in and out, including a snowmachine if we ever have to work on one out there in the winter time!

Piper brought a friend up this time, they had a great time together and they didn’t pick on Travis TOO much….actually all three of them played very well together. Saturday night was very cute, Mike and I were out working on the shed and the kids were up in the loft playing games & trying to stay up for dessert (pie-iron-pies). We came in about 11pm and the cabin was silent….”Are you guys awake?” no answer, so I went up and all three are curled up on the rug w their sleeping bags and Travis still had his glasses on….needless to say we postponed PIPs to a Sunday snack.

We also got the well thawed, when we started it in May we weren’t really thinking and left water in the pipe, since the ground was still frozen it formed an ice plug in the line…..all fixed now though!

Yesterday was beautiful, sunny & the river was high….makes boat driving much more pleasurable. We stuck around enjoying a fire and the pleasant weather until 7:30, but we still made it to Monderosa before they closed the grill for the night.

We saw a partially white cow moose on the way back downriver.  She had a white circle on her side, it seriously looked like a bullseye. A couple other little white patches as well.  First time I have ever seen one in person. Very cool. Too bad I didn't have the camera ready!

Solstice is only a week away!! Where is the summer going??

Memorial Day Weekend

What a beautiful weekend! Temps in the 80s and relatively minimal smoke from the wildfires.

We headed up to the cabin on Saturday morning instead of Friday night because we thought we might have to reload the lumber at the launch and we knew Friday night was going to be a zoo with everyone else trying to get an early start on the weekend. We initially tried a boat load with ALL the lumber (16 sheets of plywood & siding, 42 pieces of various lengths of 2x (2x4, 2x6) and roofing), but during the drive down from Fairbanks it had shifted to the back of the boat; and with all the tools, coolers, people & dogs we just couldn’t get up on step; so rather than reshuffling EVERYTHING we left most of the 2x material at the launch, ran up to the cabin, off loaded, had lunch, then zipped back down to get the rest of the materials. It was a glorious day to be running on the river! Plus we were able to get an ice cream treat when we went to get more boat gas at the A-Frame (gas station).

Saturday night we got the rim joists & floor joists constructed, leveled & squared, then Sunday we finished the floor & framed the walls. Yesterday we were able to get all the siding done before it was time to leave.

We took a few breaks to visit w/ neighbors, plant more willows and go mushroom picking. The morel population significantly increased this year! We found the first couple in the yard, then headed back into the burn area where we found more. If we would get some more rain I think there would be even more…..funny that we’ve been out there all these years and never seen morels until last year when we found ONE. We cooked some up Sunday night and everyone agreed that they were great! Most are drying out right now at the house…

We got home about 9:45pm last night…..