Bear with me, folks, I will eventually finish all my planned posts from our Alaska trip! We woke on Wednesday, 8/10 to a chilly but clear morning, so bundled up and walked through the adjacent campground to find Coopers Lake. Near the path, we saw tons of hilariously cartoonish, bright red mushrooms. Jim fished while we drank our coffee on the shore, then we explored a bit, wandering to the other side of the lake where Bill found the (very stinky) skeleton of a large fish and Ruth practiced skipping stones.
Next up, we headed to the Russian River so Jim could fly fish for salmon. It's a popular destination for salmon fishing, enough so that we had to park in overflow parking. Bill and I dropped off the others near the trailhead, then went back to the overflow parking with the RV and hiked back up to meet them at the river. The trail near the river was beautiful - raised foot path over the foliage with frequent exits to the shallow, rocky river. Bill and I eventually found the others and we played around the pretty rocks while Jim fished. After a while with no bites, we moved further down to the confluence where the Russian River meets the Kenai River. There were tons of people fishing here and we saw several pull huge salmon out of the water. Despite all the warning signs, still no bear sightings.
After a quick lunch in the RV, we started on the scenic drive to Seward, about 50 miles. The city manages several campgrounds right along the shore on Resurrection Bay. Though the campground was basically an RV parking lot, it was a beautiful spot with views of mountains and glaciers across the bay and the harbor nearby down the beach. We lucked out this first day here that it was clear enough to see across - our first and last clear view of the opposite shore.
After meeting our neighbors, former Michiganders, we checked out the rocky beach and almost immediately saw both a sea otter and two bald eagles. The sea otter was floating on its back, so adorable. The huge bald eagles flew over to a post nearby, so Bill and I walked over to get a closer look. We pointed them out to several nearby campers, some of whom ran over to see. Our MI neighbors were unimpressed - apparently the eagles are always there, no biggie. :)
Zadie's favorite creatures on the beach, however, were the snails. She found a snail and asked if we could keep it in the RV as a pet (um, no), so we recommended she find a snail friend for it since it couldn't stay with her. She gathered an entire "snail family".
I think Zadie would have stayed down by the water playing with the rocks and snails all night if we'd let her, but we eventually pulled her away to walk downtown for some dinner at the Highliner.