Saturday, July 16, 2011

Day 2 - 4th of July!

Not your typical 4th of July, eh?
No fireworks... heck no NIGHT... but we're settling into the camp and visiting and eating - so life is good!



 This is Dad and Mike talking to our host and owner of the fish Camp, Mr. Joe Conners.  He was definitely a man's man... I didn't see him with the exception of when we checked in and got all our licenses in order.




 Angela caught our one and ONLY fish from the shore  It was really a snag, but such a lucky snag it was - reverse through the gills (thus all the blood, I'm sure!)


Girls hanging and sketching down by the water... they had a blast down by the river, IN the river on the river and around the river... made for some cold wet toes on occasions too!

Friday, July 15, 2011

Day 1 - settle in, feel our oats, meet the neighbors

This is the first thing the girls did - shed shoes... and get into waders and boots and hit the river...
 Waders are SO fashionable :o)
 this looks like an accident waiting to happen, doesn't it?  They never did fall in though!
 Badger came to say "Hi" and see what all the fuss was about. Not quite enough to interest her!
 Note PJ pants - Nope, I didn't even care!
 Fishing from the shore.  Due to regulations, no bat was allowed as far up river as we were.  It was spinners only, so needless to say we didn't catch anything!  Bummer.

 This is Earl and his friend - I don't remember the name the girls gave the 2nd one, however Earl is there almost every day sitting and watching and swooping down for fish on occassions.
 And perhaps duck as well.  When we first got here there were FIVE ducklings.  When we left, there were only four babies... hum, maybe eagles like duck for dinner too? 
Mom warming on the fishing platform over the river.  It's a good 12 foot above the shore on the water side and about 2 foot on the shore side - quite the steep bank!
 Angela
 Liz
Sarah 
 The catch of the day!  LOTS of minnows... maybe we should have snuck them on our reel to get a fish from shore?

 The fishing dock as seen from the main lodge.
 And as seen by us the first few days.  It lost it's draw towards the end and we moved to the big cabins porch and the picnic tables there around the fire pit.
 Now THAT's a BIG fish!
(horseing around!)
 Nice shot of Earl and Company

Big Sky Charter and Fish Camp

The Main Lodge
(note: Butch has sprouted horns!)
Seen again from down on the fishing platform by the river 
 The main cabin by the river:
 You have to admit, it has charm.  The only issue I had was THIS was the one touted as having the bath downstairs - and with two rooms up... well, it had two "rooms" up (curtained off with sheets), however the bath was upstairs. 
 seen from the fish gutting station :o)
 The fish gutting station in question:
 This is the Hawaiian Hut: We were relegated to the place with the loft and many, many bunks shoved into it... and I didn't get a picture of that. There were two futon bunks upstairs AND a roller bed - folded in half. I have to say they did come in handy for making a "cave" to darken the room :o)
 Right across the street was the community "out house" now you would think we would be offended, but we weren't.  It was very handy when our bathroom was busy and I hear it had the better shower of the camp as well.  I didn't try the shower :o)  The cans in front are garbage - the upside to 60 degree weather?  The garbage never stinks!
 Dave and Mike near the cabins - overlooking the parking area by the Hawaiian Hut.
 Side view of the main lodge from the Hacienda.
 Walking down the hill from Hawaiian Hut to the Hacienda (not that we EVER called them this) - to the right is the main lodge (if that puts it into perspective?)
view of the river and fish gutting station from the main lodge deck 
 To the left as you walked out of the main cabin we had (Hacienda) there were quite a few of the metal docs.  They are put in place to help with erosion and bank loss.  They had a nice set up to walk along the banks for a bit and get to the river to fish. (not sure what direction by N/E/W/S)
 This is to the left behind the Hawaiian Hut - this is one of the fishing guides dogs (Bailey).  His wife, three kids and dog came to see him the last day we did Salmon fishing. His "boat" dog will be seen later - Badger.  Seems it's common to have a dog on just about every boat on the river.
 Some of the "custom" cabins they had their own baths
 More of the custom cabins.. you can see the first ones had upstairs, these did not.  The "exchange" on the far left of the picture is where we would pick up rain gear, sweaters, boots, generally nice things to have on the water.
Over head bar entrance to the camp.
 A view of a float plane taking off on the river right in front of us.  This happened at least twice on our stretch of river.

Fish sizes

July 5, 2011
Donna 11 lbs King
Mike 7 lbs Sockeye

July 7, 2011
Sarah 24 lbs King
Rob 18  lbs King
Donna 36 lbs King
Martin 46 lbs King
Linda 40 lbs King
David 10 lb Sockeye
Mike 16 lb King


July 9, 2011
Rob 40lbs King
Linda 10 lbs King
Mike 26 lbs King

Halibut - who knows... BIG.


They didn't weigh them individually, however doing the math, we took home about 47lbs of fish between 20 lbs each of Halibut and 27lbs each of Salmon.  That's a LOT Of fish

Note that Dad has officially out fished me for the first time since I was 12.  I did, however, catch the first Salmon - although dinner side, still the first.  Robert caught the most in overall weight in Salmon.  Dad the overall largest.

Sightseeing stuff will be posted in the days to come.  I have three HUNDRED photo's I deemed as photo worthy... so watch out Bloggers!!

The life of a procrastinator!

OK, I have been back from the Alaska vacation for 4 days now… officially since we touched down at 7:30 am on Tuesday.  Have I accomplished ANYTHING?  Hum… let’s see.  No, not really.

Half the laundry is done.

Half of the video disks are burned for sending to the siblings.

Half of the suitcases (less really) are in the attic, or ready to GO into the attic.

What have I been doing?  Making up for lost sleep it would appear.  I was so paranoid to sleep during the day in Alaska for fear that the trouble sleeping I was having would become worse at night…   So what am I doing here?  Sleeping.  I got home from the trip, started laundry and SLEPT most of the day.  I went to work the next day (Wednesday), came home and actually DID accomplish one thing, I finished my vinyl orders for the week that I was gone. And cleaned the hot tub that was GREEN from the heat of the week and no filtering – yuck!  Rescued a frog from his death in there as well… he seemed quite happy in the green water, however.  I’m amazed at how well our filter works on that pool – within about 20 minutes the water was crystal clear and looked inviting once again.  Amazing!

Thursday, I went to the dermotologist for a chiropractic visit.  Ha!  I signed in and everything… they called me up and said “uh… we don’t have you scheduled for today”.  Hum… blonde moment!  So, I trotted off to the chriopractor with time to spare.  Got all re-aligned and headed to BFK to deliver the vinyl – and obligatory stop in Target to scope the summer stuff – still there and at 30% clearance but SCHOOL stuff is showing up, so I think they’ll clearance summer stuff in a hurry… this means daily stops to Target to “check” and watch for 90% off.  Darn – ha!

Then I headed home.  I started to watch some TV and fell fast asleep.  A thunder storm rolled through and I remember Angela coming into snuggle a few times… and I snored away.  ZZZZZZzzzzz.  Three hours later, I woke up and finished a few more DVD’s for delivery… and back to bed at 10pm… zzzz

What’s with the sleeping stuff?  I honestly slept through a very good storm 1.5 inches of rain in a few hours… so it was a gully washer and there I was snoozing away!  How sad.

Yesterday I found that Linda had updated her blog… me?  Hum… again – this sleep thing getting in my way – ha!

The Goal this weekend?  Stay awake long enough to post pictures to the blog!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Vacation prep

Just how much stuff can I "gather" in prep for this trip?  Hum... let me see....
Thought I would share this, it’s fun to see the STUFF I’m accumulating for this trip over time…
There are:
Binoculars – 2 each – one large, one small (because butch lost my small ones, I bought more!)
A gray TINY messenger bag for my purse for the trip.  I can’t wait to try this out for trips – I think it will work well.
4 trail mixes (to be vacuum packed in time)
A head “lamp” – that would be Butch – don’t ask.
Salt and pepper from my shopping list. 
Skipbo game
Small farkle (Texas farkle at that!  Thanks Laura )
4 decks of cards – because you NEVER know :o)
Three neck pillows – the 4th is my drawer – need to put that one out here too
Paper copies of the trip info, the cabin info, the letter I just sent to Joe detailing billing
5 – yes, count them 5 bull frog with bug repellant – we will NOT burn this trip!
1 Bactine spray – I’m building a first aid kit with some blister Band-Aids as well
1 purple rain jacket for Angela.
And a Large pack of gum – double mint
Think that’s a good start?
Ha!  Good thing there are four bags to pack all this in, right?  Ha!

And this started WAY too early on the gather... and is still growing and changing. (started in June)