My 4th of July weekend - Part One

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. It was kind of messed-up having the 4th on a Tuesday this year; so I did the only thing I could. I took Monday and Wednesday off and made a mini-vacation of it.

The original plan was to camp a couple nights on the Kenai and end up in Seward for the last two days. Turns out that we spend Saturday buying last minute things and getting ready so we pointed our little Kia south on Sunday afternoon. The first choice for a campsite was Hope. No luck. I didn't reserve any campsites in advance and Porcupine in Hope was booked up. We saw some tents and lots of space down on the grassy Hope mud-flats, so checked that next. Nope. Dusty, with flies everywhere, and only one port-a-potty for the whole camp. No way. We headed out of town. We did, however, pull over to investigate a 'check engine' light (disconnect neg batt cable.... wait a few sec's and re-attach. light went out). And since my cell decided to have coverage in Hope, made a call to check up on our teen. Then back on the road.

Plan B was to find whatever we could along the highway. In less than an hour, we were approaching Summit Lake and a campground sign that I had never noticed before. Tenderfoot Creek. Once again, we drove the campground loop. Reserved. Reserved. Reserved. Occupied. Occupied. Reserved. Open.... wait - open? Cool! We snagged the only remaining campsite and it was perfect for the tent and close to the bathrooms. We set-up our new tent for it's first night out; and spend the afternoon walking around the lake and checking things out. It was my wife's B-day Sunday, so I made dinner and chocolate brownies in the skillet over a backpacking stove. Dinner was okay. The brownies rocked. Pulled out a B-day gift that was stowed for the trip. Afterwards a campfire (Micki, forget you just read that part), and played cards. Also took in a movie. Well... not so much a movie-movie. More like video podcasts on the iPod. Roughing it '06 style.

Monday AM was pancakes, break camp and hit the highway. We showed up at my stepfather's house in Seward in mid-afternoon. I'm allergic to their cats so we set-up the tent on their gravel-covered front yard. Thank god for sleeping mats. I also learned that the car's floor mats make a nice entry rug in a pinch. It was windy, but no sign of rain. We guyed the tent down. My step dad left the house open with a greeting note, but it wasn't needed. He and his wife (my mom's his ex) arrived when we did. They were happy to see us and pumped to have us BBQ with them. Main menu item? Angus beef from his wife's ranch in TX. Hmmm. I KNOW we told them that Jul's vegan. They didn't know that I have been leaning that way. We ended up buying some salmon for my wife and I took one for the team and ATE BEEF. Yeah, I'm not proud of it. But they were so proud of their ranch and were making such a BFD about it, that I didn't want to insult our hosts.

The rest of the weekend went pretty well. Lots of walking around Seward. Lots of eating crappy food. We found an excellent coffee shop with free wi-fi named the Sea Bean. They opened this week. It's like a Kaladi store. Saw the fireworks. Took lots of photos (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/somewhereinak/ for those). Watched the Mt. Marathon race. Walked around town some more. Had one nice dinner at Ray's. (nice being fish that was baked, not fried). We stayed a 2nd night to avoid the mass exodus of Seward, and headed to Anchorage on Wednesday AM.

Unpacked. Hot shower. Nap. :) Now today I'm back at work.