Happy Birthday Deb!!

Mike contacted us for a 'surprise' trip for his wife's 29th birthday.......What a great trip it was!

Mike had been to Alaska before, but this was Deb's first trip, and boy did she see Alaska!

We left Lake Hood and flew through the Chugach Range on our way to McCarthy and the famed Kennicott Copper Mine. We landed on a 'road', (I'm sure this still makes Deb laugh!) and talked to some nice folks about their fish wheels and how they work.

After exploring the mine and surrounding area, the next morning we headed for Prince William Sound and our next stop of Seldovia. We were joined for the rest of the trip by the amazing Kelli, and her bag of tricks...er, uh....wine. Seldovia was another hit as we drove ATV's into the mountains. A lot of fun sampling the town's hospitality and all of the sudden a game of Leap Frog breaks out by obviously some of the town's professional leap frog team practicing for some up coming event, I'm sure.

We then flew across Homer and Cook Inlet headed for Katmai National Park, where we flew past Mt. Augustine volcano that was very active last summer. We toured the Valley of 10,000 Smokes, and landed to get a closer view of this devastated terrain, that both Deb and Mike referred to as " Landing on the Moon". We landed at one of our 'secret' area to walk and see the coastal Brown Bears, where we saw lots of bears.....males, females, cubs...lots of bears.

Next we were off to Lake Clark, where we stayed at an exclusive wilderness fishing lodge, 'roughing it', with wake up coffee brought to our rooms, cheese trays waiting for us at the end of the day in our cabins while we get ready for an amazing dinner, of New York steak, or all you can eat King Crab! We flew out for a day of salmon fishing where Kelli and Deb caught fish 'til their arms fell off! Mike, well....let's just say we are lucky there are no salmon in the green house business, as he caught his fair share as well....even lassoing one by the tail! I guess anyone can catch them with a hook....but try it without one! We saw more bears. A mother with her three cubs were trying to catch fish in front of us across the creek and was exciting to watch them.

We ended the trip flying back to Anchorage through Lake Clark Pass, with a few scattered clouds inside the pass and spectacular scenery around every corner!

We look forward to seeing them again. Both are are awesome people!

Happy Birthday , Deb!

Joe

P.S. I will try to post more photos on the next one, and re-post some of this trip as I get them loaded.