Kenai Peninsula - Soldotna

Last night was our first night at the River Raven Lodge in Soldotna on the Kenai Peninsula which is about 185 miles southwest of Anchorage. Its a great bed and breakfast that they have here. Amazing small lodge and the food is just excellent.

Today we took a 7 mile hike up the Russian River to some falls and viewed salmon which are spawning this time of year. We were told that they would be jumping up the rapids trying to make it to a lake where they lay their eggs. The hike was pretty easy, it was drizzling a bit so we had our rain gear on. When we got to the falls we did see about 20 salmon, non were jumping, to our dissapointment, however it was still pretty cool to see them. There were sea gulls there flying around and literaly taking bites out of the salmon as they were only in a few inches of water. Salmon have a tough life, use all your energy and smarts to get around, birds, bears and fisherman, work your way miles up waterfalls, just to spawn and die.

We came back to the lodge for an excellent meal of prime rib, and baked potatoes, so so good. After dinner we stayed ound the table and told stories. Defiently a lot of fun. Tommorow we are off for our first day of fishing. Matt and I are very excited. We bought our Alaska fishing license yesterday and are hoping to put them to some good use. We still have not seen any moose or bear anywhere in Alaska, although the family that owns the lodge said they they had seen a moose right in front of the lodge in the morning. Hopefully we will see this when we wake up.

Wish us good fishing tommorow!

Bryan & Matt