Today

MP and I both agreed, the best part of having this wonderful property at Mile 14 of the Kenai River was today. And through the years we've had a lot of 'todays'.  After sleeping through another snoozer football game we decided that after the high water we finally had enough shoreline for one of our exploration trips and then a sauna. All of you that know this place know how the road down kind of reveals the river a bit at a time....we see some white, bigger than gulls....

The whole Trumpeter family. They weren't scared of us and never flew, they just swam on down to the next feed bed, no worries. At the tip of the island we used to have 10 'eagle trees' , big cottonwoods that the beavers were systematically knocking over and of course the Eagles love. This is the last survivor, the one that me and MP wrapped chicken wire around the base of about 10 years ago.

And again the birds were never scared of us, I guess they know....and I guess they notice us as much as we notice them . This one here was sitting in the tree at the launch that we call ' Rays Spot' ....its still yours Ray Gavalak.

Then we found our first really cool find of the new scavenge season, a red jet unit from unit the 70's. I ran these things myself as a young guy and let me tell you, anybody that's run them knows they're temperamental buggers.  The jet unit would vibrate so much that they would eventually shear the bolts and walla....adrift on the wild Kenai. And I'll bet back in the era when this poor guy lost it the adventure was just starting, he rowed to shore, walked to the launch, got help from Loren Stewart and then shared Scotch with him, that's the way I figure it happened.

The rivers still way higher than normal for this time of year but with patience and knowing the route we picked our way downriver just fine.

I fired up the sauna as Mp rode the wheeler up to the house to get water, by then Jacques special French bubbly was good and cooled.  It took a bit to get to our optimum heat of 180 and walla, the perfect way to end the day. MP washes my hair for me and we both agree.....today's the best day.