Soldotna

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Our good friends had to leave early to go home. We finally let them go after much hugging. Madeline couldn’t find her purse when she left, so we said we’d meet up with them if we found it later (which we did). Before they could actually leave, Mary had to move all the seaweed from the carseats, where it had been drying, into a big plastic bag. We waved them good-bye.
Then we loaded up to go. On the road, we called a few charter services to make arrangements for Rich to go salmon fishing tomorrow. Here we are in the middle of world class fishing when the salmon have started running. Our friends would never forgive us if he didn’t give it a try! Vivian has dibs on a frozen salmon to be sent to New York City. On our way to Soldotna (Hi, Sheila and Mo) we tried to get a glimpse of the volcanoes across the inlet, but it was too rainy. Darn. When we set up again, we found that a lot of things at the end of the camper inside were soaking wet. Hmm. We discovered that when our sliding room on the camper is out and it’s raining, the top of it has a puddle on it when we bring the slide in to go down the road. As we drive along, the puddle makes a waterfall into the camper. New wrinkle for us desert rats.
The salmon charter people said for Rich to wear warm clothes and bring a raincoat. We went to Wal-Mart and bought a heavy green slicker. There was a section in the store that sold boxes with Styrofoam insulation in them for people to send home their frozen fish. We remembered the woman standing at the store in anchorage with about ten boxes to buy. We asked her about her fish, and she said they had caught 800 pounds of fish, mostly salmon. Hmm. At 50 pounds apiece that’s only 16 fish. Hoooweeee! Back at the camper, we made him a lunch to take in the boat. Then we drove out to the rendezvous point so that he would know where it was. A woman was just getting ready to go out in her boat. We asked if it was about the size of the charters and she said, yes. It was like a rowboat with a high prow. She said the boats go out and go down to where the incoming tide meets the river water. We could imagine tomorrow. Now he was ready. Since he had to get up at 4:00 to meet the guide at 5:00 AM, we fell into bed early. Excitement!

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