Day 6 Fish Camp 23 - Breaking Camp

Everyone has left the campground except Danny and Krista G, CoRielle and us. CoRielle plan an early getaway. G's and us plan more like 1100. 

Our final camping breakfast...CoRielle and Bachan. 

Camping Brekky

Charles and Danny are ALWAYS so excited and surprised when I pop out of the RV. "BACHAN! It's Bachan!" Charles greets each morning with, "Say good morning!" when he opens his eyes. Sweet memories. 

The girls and Michael hoped to sleep in until 8 a.m. - which they pretty much did. The boys ate. I helped Cory and Arielle begin to get things together to load into the truck. Cory and Benny made sure the fire was truly and totally out. 

Safe camping - way to go 

Michael got up to help and was promptly "surprised" and pranked by Benny. I purchased a whoppie cushion as I knew the boys would get a kick out of it at some point. Beware y'all you never know where the cushion may show up next.... family gatherings, life group, Sunday a.m. (surely NOT), picnics, park dates...beware. 

Oh, Papa. 

Having determined our work of cheer was done at the campsite, I loaded the boys into the "WAAAGon!" and off we went on a rabbit hunt. 

The boys were more than happy to help Arielle get all the air out of the air mattress. 

Any chore can be a game. 

Stacia had found quarters and decided to get up early to surprise the boys. While Michael and Cory loaded the truck, we headed off to the animals. She was going to let them buy real FEED (as opposed to grass) for the animals. This seemed like a perfect plan. They wouldn't know about the wonderful possibility until the end of the trip. Unfortunately, when we walked down, they had removed the food stand. The boys were still happy to visit the animals.  This white one kept climbing up and resting his head in my elbow. I thought his sweet goat cuddles were charming. Then Arielle pointed out he was trying to get to my chai. ::snort:: 

We wandered down to the park and made it back to camp just in time to pray and send the van and truck down the road. 

The height of Alaskan Camping Fasion...camping hair, cuppa, and a thermacell attached to the lapel...

Bachan, Benny and Stacia 

The girls and Michael got breakfast and then we began our final preparations to leave. Danny and Krista G stopped by to pick up the 3 bags of fish in our freezer.  We were pulling out before 1100. We decided to go try out Burger Bus, a Scott recommendation. 

Parking was surprisingly easy to find. The line was non-existent...wait a minute! They were closed for some family time. Bummer. Next year.  We grabbed a few photos and headed on down the road. The trip home was better than the trip up...less odd drivers. 

Me, Allie, Stacia and Mike in the back 

MEA had told me they were going to cut our trees. We're perplexed why OURS need to be taken to the ground when the man down the road has spruce directly UNDER the line and they just keep topping them at 6 feet. Nonetheless, our view has changed. The thing is...when they told us 5 years ago, they would do this...they told us the trees were "on the line" and we could build a fence closer to our house and it would be fine. NOW, they've tagged our fence. This makes NO SENSE, and we will be calling them to figure it out. I watched the contractor "measure" the distance and he was haphazard. Shoot. they have weeds and trees closer to the line than our trees on our property which they left. If the fence truly is in their easement they need to come back and finish clearing out their easement. LOL  The MEA rep that stopped in the morning we were leaving town said "just the trees" were coming down. He also suggested I plant lilacs or low growing trees in the SAME PLACE the spruce were. I'm leery of taking his advice if the practice is to come back 5 years later and tag for removal what they said could be done. 

Ah well - Cory and Arielle arrived before we did and had MOWED OUR YARD. They bless us so lavishly. Cory helped Michael get the freezer out of the RV. We got all their fish transferred to their coolers.  The girls and I hauled things inside and began putting things up. We began the mountains of laundry. Michael put things away in the garage and started bleaching coolers...and a couple of trash cans I hauled out...because I'm an opportunist. 

We "watched" an episode or two of something...and then I followed GG to bed. I'm not sure how long the girls and Michael stayed up.  I am once again so glad we took Monday to play before coming home. It makes all the work of unloaded back at home much more bearable. LOL  

Day 5 - Fish Camp 23 - PARKS & FEESH

 Did I say we were done fishing? Krista and Danny G came fishing this year. They had fished 4 or 5 tides and had 17 fish. They decided to try one more tide this morning. The hope was to get at least 3 more and make 20.....the tides turned, and they caught 24 salmon in one tide! They got to experience the fun of what we had been telling them - and not just the work. This brought their household total to 41.

Krista G, Danny & salmon 📷by Krista

For the rest of us this was a day to relax...no more fish to clean, we did clean up the campground, washed equipment and waders, stowed as much as possible. 

I got up and went out with CoRielle and the boys today.  Michael and the girls slept in. The girls did get up and enjoy some hot drinks and Jesus time. 

KENAI MUNICIPAL PARK 

CoRielle and I headed to Kenai Municipal Park. This park is on a bluff. It's a fun park, and we like the walk down to the beach.  We had visited this area in years past and the beach was usually deserted. Today, there were cars and people on the beach and they were bringing in quite a few salmon. This is when we began to have big hope for Danny and Krista fishing down the beach in the "better" spots. 

📷by Arielle

Benny in the spider web

Pretty proud of catching the whole family in one shot

The boys📷by Arielle

Benny on the Beach

Alas, no duck sculptures.

Fun play structures, wide open fields, pavilions, paths to the beach and wooden sculptures throughout the park. This is a great park. I was commenting it, "Had to be the best park in Alaska," when a gentlemen told me, "NO - drive up to Nikiski. They've got the best park and then eat at Charlie's Angels Pizza...2 slices for $5." ::snort:: 

Around 11:00 we went back to camp for lunch and naps for their family. Michael was up and moving. The girls were ready to jump in the van. They had a list of three stores they wanted to visit. A music store, an antique store and the other one was closed. They each found great gifts of this week's youth Christmas in July. I found amazing china, but common sense prevailed when I remembered all the teacups I have yet to unpack in the basement. 

We got back to camp, and everyone was napping except Benny and Papa. Papa was reading a chapter from The Mad Scientists Club to Benny. 

Reading with Papa

Eventually everyone was up at once. We decided to drive out to Nikiski. We knew the pool was closed but the boys would be just as happy at another park....and we had it on authority of the man who works at the Park and Recreation Department that THIS would be the best park in Alaska. LOL 

NIKISKI COMMUNITY PARK

Arielle, Cory, Michael, Me

Danny & Bachan

Arielle, Stacia, Allie, Danny, Cory, Charles, Benny, Papa

We liked both parks. This one did have the rubber around the structures, and it was all fenced with plenty of room for tag. Everyone got involved in a rousing game of tag. 

Charles and I were on the other end

Man down!

Allie and Benny - Tag! 

EVENING AT THE CAMPGROUND

We drove back to the campground where we discovered a Rally/Caravan of 26 RV's was in the process of arriving to our loop. Ye' Gads! That's a whole lot of snowy hair, big rigs and maneuvering. They were putting two RVs to a site...I get they were a bit tired after the drive. But some of them are simply GRUMPY. I would say don't do an RV Rally if you don't want to sing karaoke around a big bonfire in the middle of a campground. ::snort::  The one furthest away that I saw was from Pennsylvania to Alaska! That's a ROAD TRIP. You've never seen this many jeeps with various vanity plates to the effect of "mytoad" "RVpull" etc. 

Danny and Krista G were back from their adventure getting their recent haul bedded down. They came over for dinner....BBQ meatballs, salad, rice, fruit.... We set around and talked....Stacia convinced the kids she was a magician. 

Michael and Cory cut up the last two or three pallets Michael found on the side of the road.  We knew we didn't want to leave the pallets here or return them to the side of the road. We also didn't want to carry them back to the Valley.  We had hoped for a fire tonight, after the boys were in bed. 

We thought the wind was a bit much for a fire...and then the campground employees came over to the big RV gathering and built a ginormous bonfire. Well - if they could have a fire, we figured we could too. We had a hose beside the blue chair you see in the corner. The fire stayed in the ring well. 

For those who worry about such things, Michael removed the ash with nails from our fire ring. We enjoyed relaxing with Danny and Krista. 

When they went back to their site, we threw the rest of the wood on the fire....and called it a night... once that burned down. 

I LOVE that the last few years we have deliberately stayed past our fish catching needs to have a day to play, connect, relax and have fun together. This is a perfect balance of work and play. 

From the park, but it won't post there....taken by Allie. LOL