Alaska 2008

This morning dawned bright and a little windy. I shouldn't say dawned because we have not seen dawn for several weeks. This morning the sun rose at 5:18 AM and will set at 11:04 PM. It never seems to get fully dark between those hours and there is always a hint of light (not from street lamps). This is why we left Susie's telescope at home. We learned in our last trip that looking at the stars is something you do during the Alaskan winter when you have plenty of darkness.

We decided to follow the Kenai Spur Road to its end at Cook State Park, about a half hour ride. A little north of Kenai City , you start seeing companies engaged in the oil business. Schlumberger and Halliburton (Dick Cheney's old company) are two of the better known oilfield service companies with operations here. In addition there is a small Tesoro refinery, a Conoco/Phillips liquefied natural gas plant and few other processing operations. All of these operations are here because of the oil field located in Cook Inlet.

When we got to the end of the road, within the boundaries of Cook State Park, we turned into a picnic area that overlooks the inlet. There was only one oil rig visible well to the west, but we got a great view of the Mount Redoubt volcano which is located almost due west of Kenai. Mount Spurr, another volcano north of Redoubt, was visible from the road as we approached the park, but clouds covered it by the time we got to the overlook. The park also has a number of lakes and beach access. We saw some people walking on the beach, but none in the water. The temperature at this point was in the upper 50s and the wind had started to pick up... not exactly beach weather.

By the time we got back to the campground the wind was really gusting and it has continued all afternoon and in to the evening. We are getting gusts up to 35 MPH and they are really rocking the trailer. These winds and the wind driven surf have not deterred the dipnetters on the beach below the campground (although there are not as many of them). I don't think anything will stop these guys from standing almost up to the neck in the water except reaching their limit or when the beach closes at 11 PM. Like I said yesterday, it is an unbelievable sight.