Monday July 26, Quartz Creek Campground, Kenai Lake, AK

120 Miles

Rain, rain and more rain…it never stopped all night, and it was mid afternoon before a very watery sun appeared. This was some of the heaviest rain we have been in all our travels. We were retracing our steps today so the lack of vision didn’t affect us too much, although I had wanted to go into the old village of Ninilchik to take some photos, we have called in briefly the other day and it looked delightful.

Over breakfast we watched the boats heading out to sea again for more halibut fishing, there must have been more than 50 all being towed out by the tractors who then parked the trailers on the beach ready for their return.

First stop was to collect our bagged, frozen halibut from the charter company…..

thankfully just enough room in the freezer to store it all. It is the most beautiful fish to eat, firm, juicy and very sweet.

We had plenty of time today so visited a huge big Walmart at Kenai and got some odds and ends. Looked down on the river mouth at Kenai and there were still big crowds dip netting for the red salmon, in the pouring rain. Although saw and ad in the Anchorage paper tonight….For Sale:  Red Salmon $2.50 per pound. They obviously had a good catch!

We have a fabulous day ahead of us tomorrow – Keith and Holly are meeting us a few miles south of where we are camping to take us rafting down the Kenai River. The river is supposed to be just spectacular and we are thrilled to have this opportunity to raft it….or float it as Americans say. The forecast is for some rain again, but hopefully it won’t be very bad.

The lake that we are camped on is a glorious turquoise colour, evidently the red salmon come right up and spawn in Quartz Creek. ….and the bears roam in this area looking for the fish. A recent photo on the notice board shows one wandering through the campground! It is something that we have a job getting used to.