What a great day!

Finally, we have internet again! It's been off for a few days here at the campground. The owners have a man in Homer on retainer to come fix it whenever it needs fixing, however, he works on Alaska time, which is whenever he can get to it. It looks like he got to it sometime today while we were gone, thank goodness!

Anyway, Ian's nephew Bill from Virginia, along with his wife, Jean, arrived yesterday and are staying in the B&B here. I guess Ian and I are kind of used to things done the Alaskan way already, so by the time I showed them their room, I wasn't taken aback to see the old claw-foot bathtub right in the middle of the bedroom and the toilet stuck in a corner with a knee-high book case separating it from the rest of the bedroom. JoAnne, the matriarch of the family that runs this campground lives at the B&B with her husband Carroll, and had no hesitation to tell Bill and Jean that the TV in the room doesn't work, they were free to watch the one in the "common" area, but not during her taping of her soap opera (unless they wanted to watch the soap opera itself). She showed us the skin of the musk oxen she killed years ago. The hair supposedly is the softest of any animal, and she pulled off a pinch for us to feel to prove it. The guest in the other room, Ray, was very talkative and we couldn't tell if he was drunk, just a happy guy, or what. Lucky for Bill and Jean, Ray was fast asleep by the time they got back to their room last night.

This morning Bill and Jean came for breakfast (oh yeah, JoAnne also wasn't too enthusiastic about making breakfast today at the B&B since Ray would be gone early to go fishing, and why bother for just 2 people??). When we finished eating, little Ian took B&J out back to see the chickens and check for eggs. I heard some traffic out front, so glanced out the door. A Fish & Game Law Enforcement van, pulling a boat, drove by and stopped in front. I thought that was a bit odd, but odder still was a second Fish & Game Law Enforcement van, pulling a boat, following the first one, and stopping in front. I mentioned to big Ian that Fish & Game police were out front, getting out of their vans, wearing flack jackets, and one was walking towards our Montana! "What in the world? I wonder if it has to do with little Ian's bald eagle feather, " I said. "No," big Ian said, as he watched out the window, the menacing Fish & Game policeman coming closer and closer. "It has to do with that feather!" I said. "We haven't done anything else!" At that point, Ian non-chalantly walked out the door, faced the "force" head on and said as if the man was his new best friend, "Hey, how you doin'? What can I do for you?" "We're looking for the Martin's," he replied (the Martins being the owners, our bosses). Now, we're in a dilema. Does Ian stall them while I call Ronna, warn her so she and Blair can grab their five kids and duck out the back door, or act like we never heard of the Martins, or fess up and reveal what we know about the where-abouts of the Martins? We chose the latter, but as soon as the policeman (I don't think they're really police, but some obscure branch of law enforcement allowed to wear flack jackets) turned his back to head to the Martin's house, I hit Ronna's speed dial number on my cell. When she picked up immediately, I said, "Ronna, Fish & Game police are up on your deck!" (I had a quick reminence of years ago when I worked for a road construction company in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, and my boss, the owner of the company, was expecting the feds to show up, and told me to warm him when "the coats" were coming. Sure enough, one day a dark car drove up, men looking like their nick-names would be "the coats" emerged, I yelled to Cloyce, "Cloyce, I think "the coats" are here, and Cloyce headed out the back door. The "coats" came in the front door as he drove off, they asked for Cloyce, I said they just missed him, they left, and that was the end of it as far as I knew. I never did find out whay "the coats" were looking for him in the first place.) Anyway, back to Ronna and her deck. In the moment it took to warn Ronna, 5 animal policemen were on her deck, and Blair was already out there, talking to them. Ronna then told me that they probably were going to get a citation for letting the cows go down by the river. Now, that's the Kenai River, one of the famous ones that get the salmon running in it, fishermen will be lining the banks before long in hopes of hooking one of the thousands of the great fish, but it also has sweet grass lining it's sides, and the cows love that. Like parents who can't refuse sweets for its child, the Martins can't refuse the sweet long grass to their cows. So, they'll pay the citation, wait a while, and the cows will "get lose" once again, but hopefully not in the fishing season when anybody really cares.

OK, so after that bit of excitement, we five (two Ians, Jean, Bill, and me) piled into their rental car and headed to Cooper's Landing where we would take a raft ride down the Kenai and Russian rivers. We were a bit early, so took a side road to show Jean and Bill the lake we found last week when just the two Ians and I went for a ride. It was down a dirt road about 10 miles, and last week we had the thrill of having a black bear run across the road just in front of us. Of course, just seconds before the bear appeared, I had shut my eyes for a short snooze, so by the time big Ian yelled "Bear!" and my eyes flew open, the bear was already 3/4 of the way across the road. It was still a thrill, though, and luckily, little Ian got a good look at him. It was his first real bear siting, as when the same thing happened to Yvonne, Don and Ian a couple weeks ago, Ian only got to see the bear's rear end.

Anyway, we got to Alaska River Co. just beyond Cooper's Landing, had a good look around before it was time to get our water boots and life jackets on. We were to be part of a group of 12 people, plus our guide, who was a 20-something girl who has been a river guide in various places including the Grand Canyon, Colorado, etc. She was well toned, to be polite, and wore a pair of those leotard-like pants, skin tight, with no underwear. Unfortunately, for us women (the men in the group didn't seem to mind), it was obvious whenever she bent over in front of us that no one informed her that she was in a "no crack" zone. Once under way, though, her rowing skills and managing the large raft full of people from different countries, all throwing questions at her, little Ian wanting to "help" her row, big Ian trying to be the comedian of the group, we forgot about the attributes we could do without and were grateful for her upper body strength and patience! She even passed out chocolate chip cookies mid way through the trip, allowing us women to completely forgive any lack of modesty.

As we approached the Russian River, where the salmon have just begun to swim in the last couple of days, we came upon hundreds of fishermen and fisherwomen lined up along the bank, 5 to 10 feet from each other. It really was an amazing sight. Each was either throwing their line in, reeling it in with a fish attached to the end, or patiently standing in the waist-high water, wearing waders up to their chests. What an astonishing sight, knowing the majority of them would leave with a trophy fish in their cooler. Bill is an avid fisherman and was just itching to be part of the line-up, so plans to return Sunday to do just that. As we floated dreamily along, the sun finally beating down on us, my eyes focused on two round, brown lumps that moved. I rose from my seat on the side of the raft, pointed, and yelled, "Bears, bears!!" Sure enough, two brown bears were approaching the fishermen! As our blond tour guide shouted, "Stay calm, don't panic!" we boat people, being safely out of the bears' reach, all grabbed our cameras and started shooting. My shouting had alerted the fishermen, who now were run-walking backwards into the water to get away from the bears, while shouting at them and making any noise they could to scare them away. Our last sight of the bears as our raft drifted around a bend was as they seemed to head back away from the water. Tour guide/crack woman (she chose to not ask us our names because she said she couldn't remember them, anyway, so I don't remember hers even though she did tell us) proceeded to tell us that she thinks they were 2-year old cubs that have been seen several times in that area, still with their mother. We didn't see the mom today, but who knows - maybe she sent then ahead to scout out the "feed." It was exciting, and now we've all had a brown bear siting - we've been told the brown bears are more dangerous than the black ones. It was great that Bill and Jean got to see them, too, on their first full day here!

The float lasted a couple hours as we drifted around bends, through light rapids, past Bald Eagle nests high in the trees (we even saw an eagle sitting in one), got buzzed by a v-formation of some kind of small, beautifully colored bird, watching hundreds of seagulls sunbathe on their own little island, all while being surrounded by the still snow-capped mountains reaching to the blue sky above. Tour guide/crack woman told us the water was glacier water, accounting for its color of tarnished copper. (I thought that was a great description of the color, as both Jean and I had commented on how hard it would be to describe its color, but tarnished copper is exactly right.) (So, now whenever we get our belongings out of storage and I come upon all my copper which will be very tarnished by then, I'll think of the Russian River in Alaska.) The rafting trip ended by a van from Alaska River Co. picking us up at their "take out" site and driving us back to our cars. It was really a wonderfully relaxing way to spend the afternoon. We were blessed with the excitement of the bears, eagles and seagulls, intrigued with the site of hundreds of fishermen lined up to catch the big one, blessed once again with the gentle quiet of the river and the beauty of the mountains that could only be God-given. As we drove away from Cooper's Landing, we thought it was the end of a perfect day. But, it wasn't over yet!

After we got home and were putting stuff away, Blair called out to little Ian. I opened the door as Blair was saying to have little Ian come to the pasture with him and the other kids, as a new llama had just been born. Of course, I had just finished telling Ian that he had to get a shower and get to bed early since the men are going fishing in the morning and have to get up at 4:00 a.m. to get going. Well, I didn't want him to miss seeing a brand new little being, and I knew how exciting it would be for him, as a llama was born the day after we first got here, so I told him to come right back after seeing the baby. An hour later, I went looking for him. Naturally, he'd been riding bikes over by the barn with the other kids and ended up helping Josiah, the oldest Martin son, do his chores. Couldn't get mad at him for that, but let him finish up putting the cows in the barn, then herded him home. Got him his shower, let him eat the dinner he didn't want earlier, big Ian was already sound asleep, got little Ian in bed with his eye covering on (yes, it's so light until after midnight now that we have to cover our eyes to get to sleep!), and Mallory, the young housekeeper from Florida came over to get a drink of her milk. She lives with the Martins, but they only have the cow-fresh milk there, which Mallory doesn't care for. So, she keeps a half gallon of the real store-bought in our refrigerator and sneaks over here to get a drink now and then. Of course, little Ian was wide awake once again, and had to ask Mallory questions, but once she had her fill of milk (it never tasted so good until you can't have it), she left, he rolled over and finally fell asleep, I got on the computer, and here I am. So, the day has ended. Tomorrow Jean and the men are going halibut fishing from 6 am to 12 noon. They're leaving out of Ninilchik, about 45 minutes south of us, and returning there. So, I'll meet them there at noon and then take Bill and Jean and little Ian on to Homer while big Ian comes home with the many huge halibut they will have caught. That's the plan, but we've learned, you just never know........! (As a postscript, the raft trip today for Ian and me was free, as a freebie from the Martins for working here. We and the other campground hosts have been given many freebies from them, such as our glacier cruise and B&B stay in Seward, as well as the Ididerod Dog Race tour, a couple dinners and lunches, and even tomorrow's halibut fishing trip will be free for Ian. We are expected to "suggest" to our customers at the campground these various vendors in return for these free trips, but that's a very small price to pay. Especially since every one so far has been outstanding and worth every penny that a regular paying customer would pay. It's really a great perk with this job! Good night, all!