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The quote of the trip is “I know it's night because the sun is in that part of the sky” (said by our friend and hostess Dawn Conn). Neil and I started laughing and Dawn said “What?” Neil said “In Hawaii, we know it is night because it's dark.” But how true Dawn’s statement is when we only had three to four hours of darkness each night (more like dimness). At first we were very energized but eventually we found it hard to sleep with all the extra light. A big plus is we did get to do so much more with the extra sun time. And I was pleasantly surprised to be in short sleeves much more than I expected!

Our friends John and Dawn Conn and their daughter Jessica visited Maui in April, and encouraged us to come see them in Anchorage. I think they thought we would wait a year or so to plan the trip but we decide why not just do it! Dawn, John, and Jessica were so gracious to us—opening their home, spending vacation time with us, and loaning us one of their cars to tour inland.

We arrived in Anchorage as the sun was setting at 11:30 pm! From the plane we viewed beautiful pink and golden tinted cloud tops and snow capped mountains. Waiting for luggage I was amazed at the number of blue coolers arriving from Maui as we watched for ours. We took our blue cooler from Maui full of frozen mangos (53 pounds) for our hosts and hoped to return with it full of frozen fresh salmon. Dawn and Jessica picked us up in the middle of the night but Dawn insists she is always up this late in the summer! (Of course it had only been dusk for ½ an hour.) The next day we headed out to Kenai Peninsula with Dawn and Jessica where we stayed five days at her Uncle Mike’s weekend home on the Kenai River. It is a magnificent home with incredible views and only 40 steps down to the fishing platform. Dawn’s Uncle Mike and John joined us a few days during our fun filled week.

I had been to Alaska before with Mom and Madison on a cruise but Neil had never been. Neil and I scheduled a Kenai Fjord National Park boat cruise so we could get up close with some marine wildlife plus to see the tidewater glaciers calving into the ocean. It was a perfect day with flat seas and calm wind. Plus, as our captain put it, the weather was “cloud challenged” which means it was one of the rare partially sunny days for Seward and Resurrection Bay. On the way out of the harbor we watched two cute otters playing, rolling, diving. As we sailed round a point into Aialik Bay, we were passed by a small group of Dall's porpoise. We sailed the length of the bay right up to Aialik Glacier, the largest tidewater glacier in the park, fed by the Harding Icefileld (one of the largest icefields in the US and spawns up to 40 glaciers). The glacier didn’t look that big to me as we neared but once we stopped close enough that the wall of ice towered over our head I got a whole different perspective of the massive amount of ice. Calving is the phrase used for chunks of ice falling off the front of the glacier. When it happens, it sounds like a gun firing or a firecracker going off. After a loud bang then you look around for ice plummeting into the sea followed by a large splash and wave.

We then sailed to the puffin and murre (closest relative to the penguin in Arctic) rookeries where there are so many birds flying around stony mounds in the middle of the sea that they call them the “beehive” rocks. Everyone was looking up at the nesting birds as we hovered by one rock, but Neil noticed movement in the water and filmed a sea lion catching, playing with, then eating large salmon!

We got a view of a solo humpback whale breathing and doing fluke-up dives so at least we can say we saw them in their summer home. I had hoped to see humpback whale feeding behavior but I guess that will wait for another trip. What I really wanted to see was Orcas, also known as Killer Whales, and my wish was granted on the way back in. The boat suddenly turned about 60 degrees from our heading and Neil and I looked at each other, got up without a word and headed to the front of the boat (we were sitting in the back for wind protection.) We have done enough Maui whale watches to know what sudden course changes mean. After about 5 minutes the captain said he was told there were Orcas in the area and right on cue they surfaced in front of us. It was a “superpod” (multiple orca pods gathering in one spot) and it was amazing to see about 40-60 of them swimming together.  They were swimming so fast together that the captain said he was cruising flat out to keep up with them. They stayed with us about ten minutes and then they changed direction and headed out to sea. We were really thrilled (totally dude)!

We went in mid July because the red salmon usually “run” during those weeks. But they were not arriving in numbers yet this year so we continued sight seeing. Driving to Homer, Alaska, is so scenic, looking out over Cooks Islet and across at the mountains which are the beginning or the end of the Rocky Mountain range depending on how you want to look at it. Homer is on a sand spit extending into Kachemak Bay and home of many fishing derbies and halibut fishing charters. We watched them displaying and processing their huge halibut catches, and of course we had halibut fish and chips for lunch!

On the way back, Uncle Mike called to say the salmon numbers were up, so buy your fishing licenses! That night we were taught the correct technique for weighting, dragging, and flicking the line to catch red salmon running upstream along the edge of the river. No salmon stuck on our lines although a few were snagged. We consoled ourselves by the outdoor fire pit roasting marshmallows and following Jessica’s directions building s’mores till near midnight. The next day we focused on fishing but only John and Neil pulled one in. The salmon numbers were just not up or else we would be catching them left and right we were assured. We were consoled with wonderful food the whole week: smoked turkey, blackened salmon, BBQ chicken, and Uncle Mike's homemade raspberry rhubarb pie (fantastically yummy) which was served with candles as Dawn’s birthday cake complimenting our second night of midnight s’mores.

Our last day on Kenai, John learned his neighbor was also out on the peninsula with a boat. Neil and John joined Rob and his son Mike for dip-net fishing. Altogether they caught 52 salmon and came home with their share, 26 fish! It was a real team effort to process them and pack up two coolers of salmon for the trip back to Anchorage. And now we had some fresh caught salmon to pack in our blue cooler for returning to Maui (48.5 pounds)!

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