Weekend Warriors

We have been doing a lot of biking this summer. On average, we ride about 8-10 miles a day. This last Friday, we drove about 20 miles down south on the Seward Highway and parked at Bird Point. Then, we got on our bikes and rode about 8 miles to a small town called Girdwood. Every year (around the 4th of July) they have their Forest Fair, so we enjoyed the typical fair food, live entertainment and beer garden. They also have a lot of vendors who sell great handmade (artsy) items.

On Friday night we ventured out to go king salmon fishing with our friend, Heath. Fishing started at midnight (there are so many fishing rules and regulations up here) so, at 11:30 p.m., after setting up our tent and getting on our gear, we walked about a mile through the woods (bear territory) and down to Sheep Creek. We claimed our fishing spot and, while other fisherpeople filled in spots around us, waited until midnight to cast our lines. This was my first "midnight" fishing adventure so I was pretty impressed with myself when I fished until about 1:30 a.m. Thank goodness for Rockstars and power bars!! Neither Andy nor I caught a king. I do have to say, though, that just listening to the intoxicated fisherpeople around us was very entertaining. Around 2:00 a.m. we started walking back to our campsite. It was dusk and made for some difficult lighting through the woods. Our friend, Heath, had a shotgun with him (not unusual up here) so we felt pretty safe. About 1/2 way back to camp we heard a gun shot from behind us. My heart started pumping a little faster and we picked up the pace a bit. Not a minute later, we heard a gun shot coming from up ahead of us. Okay, so now I was a bit more nervous. I don't think I could have even seen a bear if one was near us, due to the lighting. Well, we made it back to camp safely but the adventure did not end there. We got to bed around 3:00 a.m. and, just as I was starting to fall asleep, some other people in the campground decided to start letting off fireworks (even though they are prohibited). People were nicely asking for them to stop. That lasted for about an hour. Finally, some peace and quiet. Not so lucky. So now it's about 4:00 a.m. and some other campers decide to play their stereo as loud it goes. I'm not talking some soft elevator music; this was some hard core music. People were yelling for them to turn it off and have some respect for the other campers. Well, the people playing the stereo had obviously been drinking quite heavily because that didn't go over too well. Swear words were exchanged for a while, the cops were called, and all was silent again, about another hour or so later. So, I think I finally fell asleep around 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. and then we got up at 9:30 a.m. to try our luck at fishing again. We didn't catch anything but I think I can say I've never had a camping experience quite like this one.

I don't have many photos to post right now. Here is one of Andy and I right before we started our trek down to our fishing spot at 11:30 p.m.



My dad flies in tomorrow so I'm sure we'll have some more photos to post soon.
I hope everyone had a fun and safe 4th of July.