Our Last Day with Our Alaska Family

We mostly hung out at the RV and Ian’s house today.  We did take a brief trip into town to get fuel in the truck and pick up enough groceries at Fred Meyer to give us the $.10 per gallon discount for when we fill the motorhome in the morning.  Nicki is going to be spending a week with her dad, so Kimber drove her up from Kenai along with little brother Grant.  We all decided to go out for an early dinner at Jalapenos in Eagle River.  I didn’t bring the good camera, so have only some so-so cell phone photos, but I guess they’re better than nothing.  Here’s Summer and Nicki.

Corey and Grant always have a smile for the camera.  They love to be in photos!

Ian always seems to have a smile for the camera, too.  And that blur in the bottom left corner of the photo is Grant trying to get into another photo.

Nicki had to hold Jennifer’s head up for the camera.

The entire family is full of smiles.  Kimber had to lean back a little since she was sitting next to me.

Since having the repairs on the RV completed at Cummins Northwest in Anchorage, we’ve driven it to Kenai and then back to Eagle River without the check engine alarm coming on, so we’re good to go.  We will be start traveling toward the lower 48 in the morning and will probably overnight in the Glennallen area tomorrow night.

Saturday Night Live in Eagle River

We had a late breakfast this morning, but we didn’t mind since it was prepared by Ian and Jennifer.  A meal is always much better when I’m not having to do the cooking.  We had sourdough strawberry waffles and turkey bacon.  It was delicious!  And I may be bringing some of Jennifer’s sourdough starter home with us.  While Ian was mowing the lawn, we drove into town to complete some of the shopping for things that we would need once we’re on the road again and away from the big box stores.  The fireweed still haven’t finished blossoming out, but there was fresh snow in the mountains today.

This evening, Jennifer’s friend Claire came over for dinner along with four of her kids.  After dinner (and after many delays), they put on a play for us and we had their version of Saturday Night Live.  Summer and Michael were the only ones in costume and they were a nightmare for Fiona who was in a sleeping bag during the whole play.

Even after removing his mask, Michael still had red war paint on his face.

It was a very entertaining evening!  Tomorrow Kimber is driving up here with Nicki who is going to be visiting her dad for a week.  He’s picking her up at Ian’s house.  So it looks like we’ll be getting in some more visiting tomorrow before we say goodbye to our Alaska family on Monday.

PS --  I was just checking some of the statistics and settings on the blog and I had forgotten that I made some changes regarding comments and just approved several.  We really do appreciate the nice comments we get and I feel bad for delaying publishing them.  When we were here two years ago, we received some very negative comments when I reported visiting a certain site and didn’t want that to happen again.  We were there again this year, and once again received some very negative comments which I’m choosing not to post.

Corey on the Zip Line

We left the Moose Lodge in Kenai this morning and headed to the Holiday station to dump our holding tanks and fill the propane tank.  Hopefully, the propane will get us much further south before we need to fill it again.  We stopped for lunch along Turnagain Arm and then continued on to Ian and Jennifer’s house where we will be staying for the next 3 nights.  I went out to the backyard to watch Corey playing on their zip line.  I’ve got one movie clip and one still picture.  It sure looks like a lot of fun!

Corey riding the zip line.

Ian cooked up a fantastic jambalaya dinner with turkey Italian sausage and shrimp so we didn’t return to the RV hungry.  For the next two days, we’ll just be taking it easy and probably take stock of our supplies needed for the remainder of our time in Alaska and Canada.  No doubt, we will have a return trip to the store to take care of that.

Another Last Day in Kenai

Today was another last day in Kenai for us.  I’ve lost track of how many times we’ve been in Kenai and left this summer.  Although once again, we hate to leave Kimber and her family, we know it’s time to be heading to the lower 48.  This morning we went to the laundromat and got caught up on the laundry, went to lunch in Soldotna, and then returned to the RV for the rest of the afternoon.  Around 5:30pm we drove over to Kimber and Gale’s house for the evening to visit and have dinner with their family.  For most Alaskans, the summer months mean salmon fishing and stocking the pantry and freezer with salmon fillets and smoked salmon.  As dinner was prepared, canning jars were filled with salmon to put in the pressure cooker after dinner.

There was also a pile of smoked salmon that would be put through the food saver.

Kimber is putting the final touches on the jars of salmon prior to placing them in the pressure cooker.

As usual, Grant was the entertainment committee.  I’m not sure what exactly it is he’s doing here, but earlier he had been talking about being a storm trooper for Halloween.

Grant’s hair has been styled by Nicki.

Tomorrow we will be driving back to Eagle River for 3 nights at Ian and Jennifer’s house.  We’re hoping that the RV will get there without any low voltage problems so that we continue on our southbound trip.

Kenai Cannery

We went for a drive this afternoon to the old cannery area of Kenai.  As the sign indicates, Libby had a large cannery in this area in the early 1900’s.  Today it is pretty much unused.  When we were here a couple of years ago, I can remember that someone was making a move to improve this area and make it a tourist attraction.  There is an area for RV parking with electric (if it’s actually working), but we saw nothing to indicate that there has been any additional progress made here.

This evening we went back to Kimber’s house for visiting and dinner.  Ken finally caught Grant in a Kodak moment without him actually hamming it up for the camera.  He has a fort in the area behind their house and was out there earlier in his tree stand watching for intruders.  Go get ‘em Grant!

And here is Nicki…she is going to be a junior this year although she’s not too excited about school.  Kimber and Gale are going to being chasing off the boys chasing after Nicki for sure!

To be continued tomorrow.

RV Repaired and Return to Kenai

The technician at Cummins got a replacement digital circuit breaker and replaced the old one before 10am this morning.  It took another half hour to get the bill worked out and Ken said they cut about 50% off the labor costs due to the new alternator not fixing the problem.  Anyway, we decided to get some miles on the repair by driving back to Kenai to see Kimber and her family for another 2-3 days.  This way, we’ll feel a lot more assured that the problem has been resolved as we certainly don’t want to have a breakdown in an area that is miles from a good service location.  As we headed out along the Turnagain Arm, it was very windy and pushed the RV around some and there were lots of whitecaps and large waves in the water.  And, it was also raining heavily for most of our trip.

We set up again at the Moose Lodge and due to the rain, have large puddles of water throughout their parking lot.  After driving around the area for some sightseeing, we went to Kimber’s house for dinner.  Gale had finished his smokehouse and was in the process of smoking salmon.

He also had this nice looking King salmon to fillet and prepare for freezing or canning.  One nice fillet was left out for our dinner tomorrow night.

Here it is again with Ken holding it up alongside Grant.  As a comparison, Grant is now about 45” tall.

We were sent back home with some canned salmon and smoked salmon.  That’s something that we couldn’t turn down.  Thanks Kimber and Gale.

Hanging Out at Cummins Northwest in Anchorage

We left Ian and Jennifer’s house a little after 8am this morning to arrive for our 9am appointment at Cummins Northwest in Anchorage.  They told us the mechanic would get to us shortly, so we waited and I got to do some reading on my Kindle.  After waiting a while, Ken went in to the office to get an idea how long it would be before the mechanic could get to us.  When we found out it would be 12:30pm, we went for a ride to pick up a few items at Sam’s Club, get gas in the truck at Costco, and had a quick lunch at Subway.  When we returned to Cummins, they had Ken move the RV into the repair bay and the mechanic left for lunch and returned at 12:40pm.  After close to 5 hours of diagnosing the problem, they finally decided that there was something wrong with a digital circuit breaker in the battery compartment.  So tonight, we’re parked in Cummins lot and they will be making some calls in the morning to see if they can find the needed part.

I got a lot of reading done this afternoon, and right before we moved to our overnight spot, we got some free entertainment.  A tractor and trailer was backing into a bay next to us to pick up one of their trucks which had apparently blown an engine.  We’re guessing they were taking it back to the shop to get the specialty equipment removed before bringing it back for repairs or whatever.  The first part of my entertainment is when the tractor/trailer tried backing into the bay…he must have made at least a dozen attempts to get it backed into the right spot.  Then they went to load the truck.  All went smoothly until a fuel tank hung up on a high spot.

Not letting the fuel tank bother them, they continued pulling the truck onto the trailer successfully

The truck is finally up on the trailer.

The lift is raised and they’re ready to go.  After watching their activity, I’m glad to not be following them on the road somewhere.

After getting set up in our site at Cummins for the night, we had our dinner and just relaxed watching tv and doing our computer stuff.