Salmon!!!!

Day 16 – Seward…

We woke up to a rainy day, no surprise on the Kenai Peninsula.  We were thinking about going kayaking again today but it was kind of dreary out and we decided to take a rest day.  We went into Seward and walked around town and checked out the boat harbor and the Kenai Fjords National Park office.  Also did laundry, by the time we hit the laundry mat, the skies had cleared… but how often does a person do laundry where they can sit out on a deck while their clothes are being washed and dried and look at glaciers, awesome mountains and a beautiful bay?  So even laundry in Alaska is pretty amazing!!

There is a custom among salmon fisherman in Alaska.  They always give away some salmon before they eat any that they have caught.  It’s a good luck thing.  The people in the campsite next to ours went out fishing this morning and brought back 35 lbs of fresh silver salmon.  Much to our surprise, they came over with a huge salmon filet.  OMG!!!!! I have never in my life had such good salmon!!!  If you know me well, you will know that I’m not much of a cook and definitely not a gourmet cook.  So how to cook the salmon?  We could broil it but then the camper would probably smell for the next couple of days.  I met a couple of people a few campsites away that had also been out fishing and were grilling salmon and asked them a few questions, and they offered us their grill J not only that but they gave us a lesson in grilling salmon. WOW!!  It was just totally amazing… They happen to be from Wasilla, AK and guess who their babysitter was some 30 years ago?

Tomorrow we head to Homer on the western tip of the Kenai for 3 nights.  While we’re there we have a trip booked to Katmai National Park.  This is a park on the eastern Aleutian Islands that is only accessible by air or boat.  We’ll be doing some hiking to a river with a salmon run to hopefully see brown (Alaskan grizzly) feeding on salmon. It’s a 1.5-hour flight each way on a 10-person plane and will be a 12-hour day.  Oh how I wish my good camera hadn’t died!   Tom may go out on a salmon charter while we’re in Homer and we may also do another kayak trip.  On our way to Homer tomorrow we’re planning to stop at Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords NP for a short hike to the glacier.

kate

Small boat harbor in Seward