Florida to Alaska Trip: Thursday July 7, 2011

Thursday morning we got a slow start leaving the Carlson’s place. First off we had forgot where we placed the camper keys last night. We could have traveled with the spare set however we didn’t want to leave until we knew that we had all the keys. After searching and praying Marie remembered that she may have put the keys in her coat pocket before packing the coat away under our bed; we raised the bed and sure enough we found the keys. On to Glennallen library to update our travel information while Marie and Mary Jane wrote some post cards; the internet connection was very slow so we moved on after about an hour. Soon after we left the library Mary Jane couldn’t find the notebook that she writes our travel notes in so we stopped, unhooked the car, Stanley and I rode back to the library; sure enough it was there right where we left it. We as senior citizens might as well laugh at ourselves over these frivolous mistakes; it certainly doesn’t do any good to get upset or blame others. It was about 1:15 and we were just getting on our way of traveling for the day. We stopped at a roadside pull off and ate lunch about 2:00. The road between Glennallen and Tok is one of the main routes here in Alaska; however due to frost heaves the roads get very bumpy. Road construction to improve the road is in progress and we had long stretches where we had to drive slow and were completely stopped for about 10 minutes where there was only one way traffic. We traveled a total of 67 miles for the day and found a very nice place to “dry camp” beside the Indian River. One camper was there ahead of us; turned out to be a very nice couple from Ca. who were into fishing with all the necessary fishing gear. Indian River is noted for the red salmon running up stream at this location but when I talked to our camping neighbors; the gentleman told me that no salmon are running this river yet (too early in the season). As we were preparing supper and building a camp fire we spotted a red salmon swimming upstream soon several others followed. I went over to our neighbors and told them what we saw and they came with fishing gear preparing for the big catch. Grandma as she preferred to be called hooked several large salmon and Grandpa had a dip net in hand ready to help her bring them in. We enjoyed watching the action including Grandma falling into the stream when she hooked a big one and lost her balance but it tore her line and got away. About 9:30 “fishermen” Grandma and Grandpa called it quits. The next morning I ask her if she ever got a salmon, she said “the salmon got her”. It was a lot of fun watching the action however we were all pulling for them wanting to see them “bring in the salmon”. This was one of the best camp sites on our whole trip and it was free.