our family on the way to Denali

Go to pictures of family in other locations:

Seattle/Vancouver • Boat trips (Homer/Halibut Cove and Kenai Fjords) • Denali • Glaciers (Exit and Portage)

Go to other pictures of the Kenai Peninsula: wildlife • scenery

Go to sections of this page: Hidden Lake • Clam-digging • Cook Inlet • Elsewhere in Kenai

We took several enjoyable excursions with Nelson and his family in the Kenai area.

There was a day trip to Skilak Lake, reached by a pleasant, if a little mosquito-y, hike...

Nelson & Tim on the trail
Sally & Kathy on the trail

 

family at the lake
Tim at the lake
...but the scenery at the lake was worth any bites we got...
Sally and Chris
Sally and Chris
...and we all enjoyed a relaxing afternoon lakeside...
Kathy reads, Hal clowns
Nelson
Sally
Sheila & Katherine
Chris and Tim
Chris
 
Another trip took us to Hidden Lake, where we made a more elaborate camp, amid more of that spectacular Alaska scenery...
family and trailer
kids in camp
Sally in Alaska
Katherine & Sally climbing
A great playground feature of the campsite was this nifty big rock, which many of us enjoyed clambering over and up...
kids on the rock
Sally & Katherine climbing
 
Hal in a tree

The photos at the left and below are so cute I wanted to include them even though I don't know where they were taken.

Judging from their position in the slide trays, it was early in our visit, and in the Kenai area, but that's all I can tell you.

family at a lake
Sally with bare feet
Sally @ gift shop

On one of our trips across the Kenai Peninsula, we had an "errand": pick up Tootsie at the end of her cruise/tour.

The cruise line's lodge had a gift shop, which Sally of course had to visit (see left)

And below are pictures of Tootsie with traveling companions, including Uncle Paul and Aunt Florence, at the lodge where she bade them adieu ...

cruisers at the lodge
Near the end of our time in Alaska we took a walk to a nature preserve, also right outside of Kenai. Here are Kathy and Sally on the wooden walkway that lets you get closer to marshy ecosystem.
Kathy & Sally on the walkway

 Of course, we didn't have to go out "on excursion" to see great things in Alaska...

kids on the beach
kids on the rocks
Hal on the beach
kids on the cliff
...just a block from Nelson's house was the Cook Inlet. And there was a great sandy cliff down which you could climb to get to the beach...
visiting the refinery
And even some rather mundane sights were fun...
...like visiting the refinery where Nelson worked...
watching the salmon
... or joining the locals to watch salmon running in the Kenai River...
 
One of the most fun, and most memorable, of our Alaskan activities was the clam dig we undertook just outside of the town of Kenai. Here we are heading out to the clams. That's Tootsie waving to the camera. Hal and Kathy are in the foreground: