RAIN...RAIN...DELUGE!

Yesterday was a fairly nice day at the coast. Just a couple showers, but mostly cloudy with some wind. We barely got wet while in Lincoln City at a Celebration of Honor GPS Event, and even got quite warm racing around the town viewing various sites collecting stamps in our "passport" in order to win a prize. We had ten sites to visit and it took us about 2 hours to complete, but we "earned" a couple very nice GeoCoins for our effort. There were many 'cachers' from the Salem area who showed up for the social aspect and the chance to earn the prize.

Today became another matter. It started raining last night around 9 p.m. and hasn't yet stopped. The whole park has become a lake and it seems most of the camp sites are surrounded by water. We are warm and cozy in the coach, but the poor tenters must be freezing and miserable.



These two pictures show us sitting high and dry, but most of the road and some of the grassy areas are underwater.

The weather forcast is rain for the next several days, so I guess, we are going to get pretty wet tomorrow hooking up and dumping tanks before our drive back to Salem.

Will keep you all posted.

South Beach in Newport

What fun it is to spend a long weekend at South Beach State Park in Newport, Oregon. This is one of our favorite state parks where there is plenty of room to park our coach in comfort. We got here on Thursday, the 27th, before it started to rain. Our friends, Lynda & Rod showed up about two hours after we did.

Did I mention rain? Well, it was beautiful (some clouds, but mostly sun) until 10 in the evening, then it first started sprinkling, then it poured. Friday, it started out damp, but cleared until Lynda and I drove north to Lincoln City to do some browsing and shopping at the outlets. Just as we got parked, it started raining, then it again poured. It rained so hard the gutter downspouts were overflowing. Naturally, after we got under cover, (totally soaked) it slowed down and didn't really rain again until we were headed back to get in the car. Oh well, we had fun and enjoyed the area (also spent a tiny bit of money).


This is us just after getting set up and Ken is washing the bugs off the coach's windshield.


Here comes Rod & Lynda!


They are in their site and just getting settled in.

Today, Ken & I are going back to Lincoln City (20 miles north of Newport) for a geocaching event. Actually, it is a city wide celebration in honor of the American Veterans with a little geocaching thrown in.

More later.

Around the town of Yakutat

More pictures from around Yakutat.


It is hard to believe, but Yakutat is also known for its great surfing. There is a neat surf shop there called Icy Waves. You can find more pictures on the web by going to glacierbearlodge.com and checking out the links.


The Small Boat Harbor is a very small part of a huge bay. The bay will accommodate a large cruise ship, but they don't stop there on a regular basis. If there is a large storm or an emergency, the cruise ships will pull in. We saw one once, but didn't have the camera with us to get a picture.


This is the Sheriff's Office in the middle of town. Next door is the Magistrate's office and court room. The judge travels from town to town and comes in when there is a trial taking place.


The General Store is called Mallotts. They are not the only grocery store here, but is the oldest and the only one still owned and operated by locals.


It used to be if you wanted to view the local bears (coastal grizzley) you could just go to the garbage dump. There were several Junk Yard Junkies that hung out there just waiting for a handout. Now, the town passed an ordinace banning all fish refuse being dumped there. All fish scraps have to be ground up at the grinder and then disposed of in the bay. These were some of the "junkies" we ran into a couple years ago.


Eagles are harder to get pictures of, but they are quite numerous in Yakutat. We see several every day when out fishing. This year we saw two pair hanging around the lagoon watching us fish. Tried to get pictures of them, but they stayed high and too far away to get a good shot. We spotted this Eagle eating a Salmon along the bank of a ditch near a local road; when we got close, he flew up into the nearest tree. He didn't want to lose his meal, so didn't go far, and we were able to get a fairly decent picture.

Well that is all from Yakutat, hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did. The next post will be from South Beach State Park (Newport, Oregon), where we will be camping out with friends for a nice long weekend.

Glacier Bear, Yakutat, Alaska

More pictures from The Glacier Bear Lodge, where we stayed.


This is a shot of The Glacier Bear's main building from one of the older rooms. Note the lovely rental van ($75 a day).


This one shows part of the second floor looking toward the office.


One thing I didn't say earlier is how we take care of the fish. First we have to catch them, then we bring them back to the lodge's cleaning station and filet them (cut heads & tails off, then filet each side). Depending on how big the fish is, we will cut them in thirds or half. After that, we vacuum pack the filets and place them in fish boxes (up to 50 lbs per box) and fast freeze them in this lovely freezer.


This is the cleaning station.


Here is a shot of the newer section (two story) of the lodges rooms.


This is what our messy room looks like. The rooms are set up for three men (or three people). There are two full sized beds and a roll away cot. The beds are very uncomfortable because they tend to sag toward the side where a single person sleeps. For years, not many women ever went there. Now, we see more and more couples showing up. The new owners of the lodge are trying to upgrade things, but because of the weather during off season, they can't get much done fast.

Fishing in Alaska

On Sept. 10, we drove the Jeep to Seattle and spent the night at the Airport EconoLodge. Early the next morning, we flew to Yakutat, Alaska for our annual Silver Salmon fishing. Earlier that week, we took a 6 horse Johnson (boat motor) and a box of needed fishing essentials to the Portland Airport for shipment to Yakutat. Shipping them is easier than taking them as luggage and paying the extra fees. They are always waiting for us when we arrive.


This picture is just before we pulled out of the gate. Not a lot of activity near by, but lots of planes were flying at that hour (7:30 am).


Our one and only stop was at Juneau, the capitol of Alaska. The flight from SeaTac to Juneau was 2 hours and 15 minutes. We got a couple sodas and some chips while in route (yea....reminder for return flight was to bring on goodies). Take a look at the picture and notice the huge glacier looming over the town. That is called the Mendenhall Glacier.


Here is another picture of the glacier just after we took off.


After leaving Juneau, it was just a hop over the mountains (45 minutes) and we were landing in Yakutat. "Yak" is located half way between Juneau and Cordova on a bay called (of course) Yakutat. Ken has been traveling to Yak every September since the late 1960s. I was finally "allowed" to go fishing there after I retired in 1999. The only way to get to Yakutat is either by air or boat. The whole time we were there, we had no cell phone or Internet service. There is Satellite TV in the lodge, but we are usually so tired after fishing, we don't go over there.


This is the Glacier Bear Lodge where we stay. The rooms are in the smaller building in back. On one side of the main lodge is a two story building with rooms, but we always stay in the "older" portion that is on one floor. We like not having anyone moving around over us...the walls are paper thin, so even on one floor, things can be noisy.

Yakutat's rainfall averages around 270 plus inches every year. This last winter, they had 12 feet of snow, which hasn't happened for several years. For the first four years I went fishing, I never saw the surrounding mountains because all it did was rain. However, the last five years, we have had many nice days, and the views are spectacular.



Mt. St. Elias (shown here) is the second tallest mountain in North America. It is very impressive when you can see it. The snow is so white, it almost looks like a painting.

This year, we had several cloudy days, but only one really nasty rainy day with high winds. When it isn't raining, the mosquitoes and other flying and biting critters are out. My "perfume" while in Alaska is called DEET. Deet, and Skin So Soft, are pretty effective in keeping the swarm of skeeters and "no see ums" from biting...but they still tend to hang around your face and just "bug" the heck out of you.

It is always hard to get in the swing of fishing because we have to get up before dawn, dress in layers; thermals, other wear, then waders (mine are neoprene...boy are they fun to put on) then rain gear or a jacket depending on what is happening at the moment. After putting on all those clothes, you feel like mr/mrs dough boy/woman (but they sure keep you nice and warm and above all dry). Yep, I have taken a tumble in the water and didn't even get wet!



We have a John Boat waiting for us on a tidal river called The Ankau (rent is $75 a day). The drive to the river is about 5 miles from the lodge, which takes all of 20 minutes over a gravel, pot holey road. We have seen bears along the road in the past.

Once to the river, we "pull" the boat to the river's edge, place motor on the boat, then motor about a mile up river to some narrow chutes that flow into and out of a beautiful upper lagoon. We like to fish the chutes and sometimes the lagoon. The chutes flow both ways depending on how high or low the tides are. The best fishing is on an incoming tide, but this year we caught the most fish on the outgoing tide (go figure).



This is the lagoon looking toward the chutes.


This picture is one of the chutes we like to fish. Normally the flow out is much rougher, but the tide is coming in, so the chute is starting to fill up and will soon flow into the lagoon.

While out fishing we see many Eagles, Sand Hill Cranes, Seals, and an occasional bear. There are many black bear in the area plus the brown bear (coastal grizzly). The local "Sitka Deer" are growing in population, and we saw a mama with two fawn our second day out. They are a small deer and not afraid of anyone. Last year, Ken had one walk right up behind him while he was fishing. Good thing it wasn't a bear because he didn't even hear it. Ken does carry a short barrel Smith & Wesson Model 500 (we ship it up) on his belt. That is one powerful gun and we feel very safe in bear country.

My first year in Yak, there was an orphaned female Moose hanging around the lodge. The guides named her Muffin and hand fed her until she was able to live on her own. Of course she was gone by the time we went up the following year.

We spent the next six days fishing and made our limit each day.


This is Ken with half of a day's catch. After six days of fishing, we had over 3 fish boxes full of Salmon filets and had to quit. We ended up with 180 lbs of Salmon filets, plus a large amount of Clams. We did de-shell them to keep the weight down.


This picture is just a few of what we gathered.


Since we didn't fish on the 7th day, we had time to get our gear dried out and Ken was able to go pick cranberries. This year they weren't very big or plentiful, but he still managed to get a good bag full. He has a yearly order to bring cranberries back for Thanksgiving because they are so much better than what you buy in the store.

On Sept. 19, we finished packing our bags and took the boat motor, a box of our gear, and a seabag full of dirty fishing clothes to the airport and shipped them back to Portland. We then took the rest of the morning, which was very rainy, to check out another place to hide a geocache. We already have a "cache" hidden in Yakutat, but thought the town needed another. We located a neat spot and will place it on line in a few days. Check out geocaching.com to see what it is all about. Our handles are "Snobird & Mountain Goat." Guess who the Mtn Goat is??

Later that afternoon, we gathered up our 4 fish boxes and headed for the airport.


Our plane arrived on time and we took off just before 7 pm. Look at that stormy, dark sky. At least it wasn't raining when we left, but it was raining in Juneau when we got there. The flight was uneventful, but we did have to wait in Juneau for some delayed passengers from another incoming flight. However, because of a strong tail wind out of Juneau, we landed in Seattle ahead of time (10:30 pm). We placed the fish boxes in a freezer at the airport and again spent the night at the EconoLodge.

Early the next morning, we loaded the fish boxes in our Jeep and headed for Salem. While on the way through Washington, we had a call telling us our 92 year old lady friend, who we take care of, was in the hospital with Congestive Heart Failure. When we got home, we loaded fish in the freezer and went to see how she was doing. We were told she was doing better and possibly could go home the next day (today). We picked her up this afternoon and took her home. She is doing better, but still very weak.

That is enough news for now, but I will post more pictures of Yakutat tomorrow.

WOW, Labor Day already!

Here it is Labor Day already! What on earth happened to our summer? It seems like it was only yesterday that we arrived back in Salem after spending the winter in Queen Valley, AZ. On May 6, we decided to drive back to Salem via Laughlin and Reno instead of spending the next couple months on the road because a 92 year old lady friend (Naoma) needed our help. Ken is her POA (power of attorney) and we took her under our wing several years ago because she has no one else to rely upon.

Long story short, she took a hard fall late January and cracked a couple bones (one in upper hip and one in left shoulder) and was placed in a skilled nursing-rehabilitation facility for 100 days (Medicare’s maximum time). After that amount of time, she still was not in good physical condition to go home alone and would need 8-10 hours daily care if she did. However, her home was so squalid the caregivers said no to her going home (even with help) and recommended assisted living. She wouldn’t go to assisted living until we, and the doctor, said she had no choice. We found a very nice place and got her settled on the 21st of May. After getting her settled, we left town and went camping along the McKenzie River with friends, Rod, Lynda, and their family, for a week. After being involved with Naoma’s condition on a daily basis since January, it felt so good not having to deal with cell phone or Internet service. Of course that all changed once we went back home.

Back home, we still had to work on getting Naoma’s house and miscellaneous “stuff” sorted out and figuring out what to do with everything. We worked on that off and on during June then took off over the Fourth of July holiday. We spent June 28-July 8 at South Beach State Park on the Oregon coast and had a great time. We even managed to do some geocaching, which we hadn’t done much of since being back in Oregon. But once again, we had to go home and get back to working on our stuff along with taking care of Naoma’s stuff. Of course during the next couple months, we had several doctor appointments for us and for Naoma, plus managing to take her out to lunch and shopping at least once a week, if not more often.

In August, we took time to attend a couple RV Rallies: One was the Monaco Pre-FMCA Rally in Salem (five days) and the FMCA (Family Motor Coach of America) in Redmond (5 days). Instead of driving our coach to the rallies, we just walked into the one in Salem (extremely small and quiet) and drove the Jeep over to the one in Redmond and stayed at a local hotel. By driving the Jeep, we were able to do more geocaching to and from that event. It was great meeting up with old friends at the event in Redmond and of course checking out the huge array of vendors, educational seminars, and some really neat entertainment. Of course, viewing the new coaches of all makes and brands was a treat…..that just made us more determined to hang on to ours for a while. It is unbelievable as to what some of the new coaches are going for now….even with the gas and diesel prices the way they are.

So now here it is Labor Day and we are once again preparing for our annual Salmon fishing trip to Yakutat, Alaska. We leave on Sept. 10 and will be back in Salem late the 20th. The latest news from Yakutat is the fish are in the bay and waiting for rain before moving up in the streams. Of course, it is going to start raining just before we get there, so hope the fishing will be good. Also, have heard there is a chance of some very wet snow while we are there…..now that is very hard to believe. Again, we will have no Internet or phone service (except through the lodge) while there, so hope the emails don’t get too plentiful while we are gone.