Quick Trip South

On Friday morning we packed our “wedding clothes” into the car and headed to the Anchorage Airport, about two hours north of Cooper’s Landing. From there, we caught a flight to San Francisco, about 4 hours south. After a 1.5 hour layover which gave us the opportunity for a quick dinner, we took off again on a 1 hour flight to LAX. We got into LA about 10:30 at night, and caught a shuttle to a nearby hotel for a night’s rest.

Saturday morning we shuttled back to the airport to pick up a rental car. From there, we headed up the highway to Thousand Oaks, and Debbie’s brother John’s home. The reason? We were there to attend John and his fiancée, Deborah’s wedding. They’ve been together for ten years, and decided that this is the time to tie the knot.
Most of the family was there for the celebration, including Debbie’s 94 year-old Grandma, shown here riding with Debbie's dad on the way to the wedding. The wedding was at 4 PM at a beautiful golf course nearby.

John and Deborah’s children, Brian, 20, Sarah, 17, and Brandon, 15, served as the attendants, and the minister who performed the ceremony did a beautiful job. The whole thing was a very special event. An open bar, a fabulous dinner and dancing followed for the 200 guests. Finally exhausted by all the festivities, we caught the last limo back to John and Deborah’s home and fell into bed.

Sunday morning we had the chance to visit again for a couple of hours, and then had to leave for the airport to catch our 12:40 PM flight back to Alaska. After a two-hour flight to Denver, we were prepared for a two-hour layover, then a 5-hour flight back to Anchorage. Well, that didn’t work out. When we got to Denver, the departure board said we would be delayed from 6:10 until 8:10 PM. Then, it changed to 8:30, a little later to 9:10, followed by 9:35, 10:05, and finally to 10:30 PM. While we were still groaning about all the delays, it changed again, this time back to 8:15 PM. Hooray! About 7:45, they called the flight; we lined up, then they told us that while the plane was ready, the flight crew hadn’t arrived, yet. Rather than slip in more details, I’ll just tell you that we finally got off the ground at 9:35 PM for a 5-hour flight to Anchorage.

Even with the two-hour time change, we got into Anchorage at 1:05 AM, Monday morning. We had contemplated checking into a hotel for a few hours sleep, but once we got off the plane we felt pretty good, so we headed back to Cooper’s Landing, arriving at about 3:15 AM. We quickly fell into bed and didn’t move until about 10 AM.

Once up and dressed, we traveled with Bob and Diane to Soldotna, about 50 miles west, for lunch with Marvin and Mary, the camp hosts at Seward, who were having a fun day off. After lunch, we drove about 10 miles farther, to the town of Kenai and the mouth of the Kenai River. There’s an opportunity for all Alaska residents to fish for salmon for a short season using ‘dip nets’. Fishermen stand in water above waist high and stick a 10-12 foot net on a 15-20 foot pole into the water, hoping that migrating salmon swim into the net and are thus, caught. When the fish are migrating heavily, the fishermen are able to catch lots and lots of fish. Each head-of-household can keep 25 fish, and also 10 additional fish for each member of his family. Our friend, Ed, who we met at Eagle River, caught and kept 165 fish in June during another salmon run.

Anyway, a few fish had started their run, but while we watched for about 30 minutes, we only saw about 5 fish landed by the 40 to 50 fishermen at the river’s mouth. We’re told that during the main run, fishermen are lined up shoulder-to-shoulder, and they are all catching fish as fast as they can.

We’re leaving our spot on the beautiful Kenai River on Wednesday, heading for a few days in Palmer, not far from Anchorage, before heading down the east coast of Prince William Sound to Valdez, the southern terminus of the Alaska pipeline. More on that later.