Saturday July 31

Arctic Thunder!!!!!

Making the national news was the tragic deaths of 4 American servicemen killed as their C-17 aircraft plunged into the woods 2 miles short of the runway at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage. The C-17 was to be part of the air extravaganza at this weekends scheduled Arctic Thunder air show.

The show went on as scheduled and I was there. Highlight of the day was not the highly touted Navy Blue Angels but the incredible show put on by the Canadian Snowbirds. They were fantastic. There were 9 planes on the team and when 5 or so were doing some type of cool formation one or two would sneak attack the crowd by blasting wicked low over the spectators. The red and white colors showed brightly in the blue Alaskan sky. The whole scene was made better with the usual back drop of snowcapped mountains and a light line of low clouds that the planes would shoot right through.

There were some great bands playing and tons of aircraft on display. All day long these unbelievable jets would crank through over the airstrip at full volume. They even had one of the new marine harrier jets that could take off strait up vertically off the ground.

Also providing hours of enjoyment was the people watching. The air show was completely free of charge and the locals were out in full force. You could sit in your chair and take the whole scene in. Massachusetts is sort of a waspy white place to live. Alaska is a total hodgepodge of races.....Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Eskimo, White, Black....you name it. I'm not even sure who the minority is. It was fun to watch everyone enjoy the day in their own crazy way.

Having the camper was nice because I could take a nap when I got back instead of waiting in traffic for 4 hours. I was one of the last out of the lot.

And with that, it was goodbye to Anchorage. I drove north in the direction of Willow Creek and what I hoped to be the place where I ticked off the last type of salmon off the list, the Chum salmon. Hammered down some pancakes at IHOP in Wasilla and called it a day at the Fred Meyers. Again I was woken from my slumber around 1am when this Fred Meyer's employee got to his truck, two spots from mine, and shared Jay Z with the entire parking lot while he cleaned every window in his truck with a rag. Nice goin' bro. I should sleep in the woods more....it's way more quiet.

Friday July 30

The Mission is Fishin'

On a great tip from a patron of Mossy's fly shop named Greg, I decided to fish the mouth of Jim Creek where it meets the Knik River. This area is famous as being the home of Robert Hansen, the serial killer who murdered at least 17 prostitutes in the early eighties. Wonder if Bob was a fly fisherman......Not only was the area home to complete nut cases but Greg told me that it would be a great place to catch a silver (coho) salmon. He called it the mullet spot (as in the hair cut)......business in the front (fishing), and party in the back. If you looked strait forward you saw, between two snow capped mountains, the Knik Glacier where the Knik River started as it flowed to a point right in front of you. It was a beautiful setting. The party part comes in when you turn around. It was beer drinking, 4 wheelin', dirt bikin', mud boggin', madness! The trail alone down to the river was a maze of muddy tracks hammered into oblivion by every type of of 4 wheel drive vehicle known to man. It was like a scene out of Mad Max's Beyond Thunderdome minus Mel Gibson and Tina Turner, where everyone drives around in these wacky vehicles in search of gasoline. No kidding, I even saw two full on Peterbuilt tractor trailer rigs down there on the beach. How they got there I have no idea...the roads were gnarly. Check the trails in the photos.

But the fishing was spectacular! I must have caught over 20 salmon....some over 10 pounds. After all was said and done, I'd caught 6 beautiful silver salmon. Mission accomplished. Special thanks to Greg from Mossy's for the perfect spot.

Just to add to the mayhem some guy gave me a ride back to the parking lot (at least a mile over hellacious terrain) in the bed of his pick-up truck. At times the mud was above the the rims. The guy was a saviour. I gave him and his dad each a handful of mini snickers and NAPA baseball hat's I'd been carrying around.

A little pizza party celebration of success back at the Mooses Tooth (corny) where I talked to this guy who pitched for the Mets and the Indians before wrecking his shoulder. He told me that the players used to hang candy bars near the end of this mysterious pipe in the visitors dug out at Fenway........and the rats used to come out and snatch them.

Thursday July 29

Took another day to pretty much relax.

Looked around a bit for a small radio for the camper. Something with an antenna that takes batteries would be cool. It'd keep you entertained while keeping you informed of local stuff wherever you go. Even just an AM radio would be fine. Everything I'm finding is either too big (CD player attached), or is somehow a clock radio. I'm struggling to find the simple, old fashioned, transistor type.

Tried to watch the Legion Baseball State championships but they wanted $8 to get in.....no way.

Next stop.....The Golden Corral for lunch. If you've never heard of the GC, it's a super buffet type place that is usually pretty good. In today's case, not so good. Excellent variety but nothing exceptional. What was exceptional were the exceptionally huge people that were dining at the buffet......holy moly, the Golden Corral may have taken a loss of profits the day I was there. There were 2 dudes who easily went 4 bills each that were staying the afternoon. Even the kids in there were giant.

Bought my first ever fleece vest at Sports Authority then sat in my truck and listened to the Howard Stern IQ test results by some fluke of reception.

Started watching yet another Streep film called Julie and Julia before I fell asleep. Bone head move of the day? Parking for the night near the exit of a 24 hr McDonald's drive-thru. Stupid.

Wednesday July28

Got some gas, headed back to Mountainview Sports to complete my jacket purchases, then drove to Lake Hood to check out the float planes flying in and out. I've been thinking of doing the classic Alaskan fly out type fishing trip and I wanted to check things out. Turns out it's pretty expensive...and even many of the places the planes take you are, believe it or not, full of people. I'll probably let that idea die.

Time to clean......completely cleaned and organized the the truck and camper. Restocked some stuff at Wal-Mart. Did laundry at a laundromat conveniently located next to a fly shop. (Where that suspected silver salmon I caught the other day was properly identified as a pink salmon.) Then showered with the rec basketball players at a local community/rec center. The shower was seriously high pressured. That sucker nearly took my skin off. 3 bucks. It was the kind of shower where you needed to press the button every 10 seconds to keep the water flowing. There was this weird dude in there who made showering look like a ballet. It went something like this.......button-armup, pit- twirl-button-other arm up, pit-spin-button-face-spin-button-chest-dip-button-hair.....and so on. The dude was the Barishnakov of bubbles.

Watched some hoops afterward, typical teens, it's not about who's better, but who's cooler......no one passes, ridiculous shots, etc.

Highlight of the day of cleanliness was a pizza shop called The Moose's Tooth, (corny). It was the first place to serve up a normal pizza at a normal price. Free refills to boot.

Need a cab in Anchorage? Hit the number 2....... seven times.

Tuesday July 27

Back to civilization.....

Bought some more split shot at Sportsman's Warehouse in Anchorage. The guy at Sportsman's told me about a better shop for fishing stuff and he was right......Mountainview Sports. The KTP of Anchorage. They had the nicest outdoor clothing section, all the good stuff....Simms, Patagonia (Patagucci), Columbia, etc....the sale started tomorrow so I had them hold a few items under the counter until then.

Had a cheeseburger at this Coney Island type classic Anchorage burger joint called The Arctic RoadRunner. They had 8x10 photos on the walls of all their best customers, pretty weird but kinda cool I thought. Better the customers photo's then the owners hero shots.

Then, for a little luxury, I snuck into the pool at the posh local Embassy Suites, took a dip and worked on the blog. Not having a toilet in the camper, I've been in every kind of of bathroom, porto, outhouse, woods with leaves, etc. there is, and the bathroom in the Embassy Suites was the nicest so far on the trip. Actual cloth face towels to dry your hands with. It was comfortable.

Hit another ball game. Another one of those wacky 7pm double headers. There's a kid on the Oilers named Garrett Wittels who, when he returns to college, needs four more games with a hit to break the all time Div 1 baseball hitting streak. Former major leaguer Robin Ventura currently holds the record. You can Google Garrett Wittels if you want to read more. It's kind of a big deal I guess.

Also at the game was Hall of Fame pitcher Fergie Jenkins. He pitched for the Red Sox for a couple of seasons, but did his longest stints with the Cubs and the Texas Rangers. He had no less that 7, 20 win seasons. His stats are pretty staggering. He was firing up a bunch of local high school kids with some funny stories. Coolest thing about Fergie? He grew up in Ontario, Canada and is a huge Habs fan. He still plays men's league hockey.

There were about 10 fans left in the stands for the second game as it was getting pretty cold. The park gates were wide open and this neighborhood drunken woman and her boyfriend found their way into the seats. She was hammered and clueless about baseball so her guy was telling her all these things to yell. It was pretty much dead quiet in the place aside from her so she was making quite a scene. Even the players were laughing at her. It was pretty funny.....she eventually got tossed out of the park by none other that the home plate umpire. I'd never seen an umpire throw a fan out of a baseball game before. He took some serious heat from the remaining fans for doing it. She's the nutty looking one in the photo above.