Use these links to jump right to the stories on this page!

• 1999 Alaska Trip: Snowmobiling and Exploring in Alaska
• the Big Adventure 2002: From Baltimore to Michigan by Boat
• Nederland, CO 2005: A Final Journey Into the Mountains with a Friend
• 2005 Alaska Trip: Bowhunting and Fishing in Alaska

March 23, 1999 7:00 p.m. Wasilla, Alaska

Hi everyone, Denny Bergers and I arrived into anchorage last night about 8 p.m. It was about 35 degrees out, we stayed in downtown anchorage and hit a couple of local bars downtown, I would say downtown anchorage is a little aged and there were quite a few local natives kind of just hanging out in front of a few certain spots, almost made us a little nervous. This morning we made our way thru the downtown stores to get a few cards off to home and then we headed out for a tour around town, we went over behind the airport and saw a bald eagle right away up high in a tree, after lunch we headed south out of town toward portage lake and glacier, the road follows the cook inlet which with the tide goes up and down 30 feet twice a day. The sun rises and sets in the south here, that is pretty wierd. You probably saw on the news about the avalanche that happened and killed 4 and 5 are still missing, this is the area we went to this afternoon, we went to the end of the road by the glacier and there is one store there at the end, the girl working there said they have had 35 feet of snow this year, unbelievable how high it was piled up around their building., she said it has been record snowfalls, there is no where near that much snow on the ground by anchorage or here in wasilla. On the way out of the glacier we saw 3 moose walking in the river too, that was pretty exciting. The snow here is very thin and we are only about 15 miles from where we are supposed to rent sleds in the morning, if we really get to ride I wlll be suprised, I am on the hotels computer here so I will update again when I can this week, if all goes well we will ride for 2 nights and spend the night on the trail somewhere. This is as slim pickings as frederic, they need the snow here like they have down at the glacier. It is only about 100 miles from the glacier to here but there sure is a big difference in the snow.

Thanks for checking in, Pete

P.S. The rest of the scenery and mountains here are awsome, we took the old glen highway up here and it took us thru some pretty old towns and buildings.

Wednesday, march 24, 1999 Cantwell, Alaska

Well we went to big lake this morning and the snow was just about gone, we have gone now past Mt. Mckinley and about 150 miles past wasilla, we have met a guy named scott mayo that has grayjay snowmobile tours, he is going to take us out tommorow morning to lingcod lake and he says there is tons of Snow out there and it is located by mt. Hess and hayes, in the alaska range, so we are looking forward to tommorow. You can check out scotts web page at www.grayjay.com, it is really pretty out here and we saw another moose today, so I will let you know how it goes. We are staying at the lazy j café and hotel which is a pretty cool place. Scott says we should see more moose and caribou on the ride and maybe a wolfe too. He has showed us the pictures.

Thanks for checking in. Pete

March 24,1999 7:00 p.m. Cantwell, Alaska

How does going 30 or 40 miles per hour on a 600 powder special sound? How about if you are doing it thru 2 to 4 feet of untouched powder! That’s what we have been doing all day. Un believable, we got here this morning at 8:00 a.m. to our hosts home Scott & Vivian Mayo’s, they run grayjay snowmobile tours and what a day it has been. We left here first thing this morning and headed up the Nenana River for about 10 miles and cut into the hills heading to their camp which is on lincod lake about 36 miles from here. Keep in mind they have been running people back here all winter and I would say 80 percent of today we did nothing but break new untouched snow. By the time we got to the camp we needed to gas up. The camp sits on the lake shore and consists of a large cook tent with all the comforts, fuel oil heater, gas cook stove, solar powered littled fans in the ceiling, the other large army style tent has sleeping cots for 4 along with the same style heat . They have a nice fire pit and they have to haul all their supplies including the gasoline too.. To explain todays whole riding experience is almost impossible to do, The snow was incredible and I learned first hand it is hard to get the powder special unstuck, but luckily I only did it once. You know when you see the snowmobile videos show them blasting thru the powder, that was us all the way. We were totally surrounded by mountains all day and we saw 5 moose and at least 12 caribou maybe 20, I lost count but there was a big herd of them and I never new it but the females have horns and this whole herd had horns. We took a lot of pictures and hopefully we had some great shots in there. There isnt one marked or groomed trail here and Scott is amazed that we all ride on trails in michigan. Scott and his wife were great guides, we never would have seen anything like that on our own, you can go hundreds of miles without a fence or a road. After we filled up at the camp we went up a little higher and were gone for a couple more hours and rode 35 miles just busting trail and then we went back to the camp for more gas, in that 35 miles I burned up just about a full tank of gas in the powder special, Denny and I took turns on the special and the other sled we had was a 440 Bearcat. I never saw one before but Scotts sled is a 500 Skandic with a 24 inch wide track, that thing will go thru anything and does not get stuck. I would do this again in a instant and maybe next year we can have a sledheads trip to alaska and do it again. Words really don’t do justice to the experience we had today.

Now I want to throw a little about the town of Cantwell, We stayed at the Lazy J Lounge and cabins, they too are very nice people, Jim and Mary run that place they have a restaurant on one side a bar on the other and 10 rooms. The town of cantwell has about 110 people in it . there are still many people that live here that don’t have electric or water, Kelly the bartender at the longhorn bar, partystore, laundromat, and town gathering place is one of them, she came here from virgiina 8 years ago and never left, she is very content with her life here and like she said this winter she didn’t have to worry about frozen pipes, It got down to 120 below with the windchill this winter and everybody had trouble with frozen everything, the lazy J has there water line 12 feet deep with 1 foot of blue styrofoam on that plus wrapped in heat tape, Jim said if the heat tape isnt on that it will still freeze. The School here has 32 kids in it in grades kindergarten thru 12th and they have 23 computers in the school. It really has been a great experience to meet the people of this town they have made us feel very welcome. There isnt anything even close to here and the people talk about running into town for supplies, well town is in fairbanks, and that is 157 miles from here. They talk about it like it is no big deal. Well that about it on this town and we will be off tommorow for our next stop which I will let you know what that is when I find out myself. Denny says hi to Jaye Lynn, Alex and Joush, they are watching our adventure here too.

Thanks for checking in. Pete and his buddy Denny Hey Alex & Joush, big pete says hi. Hi to Cathy and Melissa too.

P.S. It was a beautiful day out all day about 40 and sunny and on the way back in we could see mount mckinley too.

March 27, 1999 11:00 a.m. Fairbanks, Alaska

Well here I am at the library in fairbanks, its about 25 degrees out, nothing new exciting since we left cantwell yesterday morning, but I did remember a few things to tell you about cantwell that I missed , when we were out riding we had a group of 3 moose come out of the thickets on the river and 2 of them crossed over to the other side and the third one stopped right in the middle of the river and turned and stared us down, he was very intent and had his tounge out as if to tell us to get away, they will charge you and I have to say I think it was on his mind. Another thing thats is hard to get used to is that you cant get any radio stations at all in cantwell and the news only seems to filter in to town by people who might bring a paper from fairbanks or anchorage and word of mouth. They do have satellite t.v. but no local stations on it. Mary at Lazy J also has a beauty shop upstairs and until she opened that up there there had never been a beauty shop in cantwell. Now on fairbanks we got here yesterday afternoon and on the way here we stopped at a bar called skinny dicks halfway inn, that was an interesting stop, I think more people stop there to get dicks t-shirts than anything and he proudly showed us all he had. Fairbanks just had their world ice carving championships just get over and it is amazing the things they carve out of ice, alot of them have started melting but there were things from a full size horse and rider to a dragon , igloo (a really big one with a chapel inside it) and a 5 foot around ice ball with a angel carved inside that. When the ice show is actully going on the sculptures are lit up at night with colored lights and it is really a sight to see. I have a customer here who has bought t-shirts from me for a long time so I hand deliverd them last night. Connie & Barbie run Reflections Lounge & Shenanigans Sports bar here. We had a good time there last night and gave us a grand tour of their establishment. Reflections is the only place we saw any wild life today and they really have a nice place there. Today we are of to the north pole.

Talk to you later. Pete

Monday March 29, noon Valdez, Alaska

Here we are in the home of the big oil spill, I want to go back to Saturday when I was at the library updating the only rude person I found in alaska told me to get off her computer, I didnt realize that I had gone over my time limit and I told her it would be just a minute and she said that was not o.k. and to get off now, so I did. Anyways everybody here seems to be overly friendly and willing to help you out. Saturday afternoon we went to North Pole to Santa Claus house and saw there was a sport show in town at the North Pole high school, well it was really a gun show which I thought they were trying to discourage people from taking guns to school, I was really looking for old bear archery bows and arrows and I found 5 bows and bought them. Denny & I started talking to a couple of guys who were asking us about all the bows and they were also telling us a old Fred Bear hunting story when another guy walked up and we got to talking and he was originally from grayling too. Ward Buron was his name and although I new of him I had never had the chance to meet him. He was just in grayling a couple weeks ago and I had heard he was there but it is funny how you can run into someone so far away. After we left the north pole we went to Chena Hot Springs about 60 miles from fairbanks, we thought it would be something to see but it really was a waste of time so back to fairbanks to the comfort inn which incidently has the only swimming pool in town. When I went down to the hot tub I was sitting in there with a couple and we got to talking about where we were from and the lady was from Cantwell and turned out to be Scott & Vivs next door nieghbors. Don & Krystie was there names and it just shows again how big alaksa is but everybody seems to know everyone else. Don went and called Scott just to tell him he ran into us already. Saturday nite it the Silver Spur was the evening entertainment with a good country band and alot of good dancers. On Sunday morning we left fairbanks and got about 50 miles south on the richards hiway and saw some people fishing on a lake so we stopped to see what they were catching . Another good example of nice people in alaska, they told us to go get a license and they would hook us up. We went back up the road and got a one day license for 10 bucks and went back to the lake. The 8 people were college student from University of Fairbanks, Alaska. They were Duncan, Heather, O'Rien, Eric, Laura, John, and Brook the german shorthair. Oh yes how could I miss Monica & Rob, monica was telling us about her dream with sally fields and her built in port a potty in her car, she is a very nice but maybe a little demented lady. Anyways we fished for about 4 hours and that came out to about 1 fish per hour. Silvers and rainbows is what normally comes out of that lake but all we caught were silvers. The ice was 4 to 5 feet deep there and the power auger would just barely make it thru. Monica & Heather were a little more energetic and had a hand auger, first they augered as far as they could and then chopped a wider area about a foot deep into the ice with a ax so they could auger down into the water, that took them about 45 minutes. Good Job Girls. Well after fishing we went on south and we had noticed sleds all day heading back toward fairbanks. The people we talked to said they were all coming from summit lake which is at the top of the mountain. It was a pretty drive to summit lake but the problem when we got there is nobody rents sleds. We went about another 25 miles south past there to Paxson where we spent the night. Paxson is about 140 miles straigt east of Cantwell so if you had sleds and enough gas you could ride to cantwell pretty easily, riding here is not like in michigan, you break your own trails and make sure you have enough gas to get back where you came from. NO BARS Or Gas Stations to stop at. The hotel at Paxson was old but a o.k. place to stay until the generator died about 6 this morning. They were trying to get a back up generator running when we left. We headed for Valdez and we got here about 1 hour ago. What a beautiful drive into valdez and there is a ton of snow here, Denny is out right now trying to get us sleds lined up for tommorow. Another thing about alaska is the word here is snowmachine, every body says they are going snowmaching. We also stopped up the road about 20 miles from here at Valdez Heli Skiing. They had 3 choppers taking people to the mountain where they get to ski 6 runs for the day for about 500 dollars. She said they try to do 6 runs of 3 to 5 thousand vertical feet for a total of about 20 thousand feet in a day, it looked fun but not for me. I told her I would look like a snowball. Everybody wore beacons in case they were in the bad situation of a avalanche. On the way here today we saw 1 eagle , 2 caribou 1 big fox, and a bunch of snow shoe rabbits. So thats about it for now so hopefully I will have a new riding tommorow. I probably wont get to do update again till wednesday.

Thanks for checking in. Pete (and hi to Cathy & Melissa)

March 31, 1999 Valdez, Alaska

Hi, Coming at you from downtown Valdez at Captain Joes gas station, here is another good example of nice alaskan people, right after I updated on Monday we met Jeff & Laura Saxe who own captain joes and we told them we were looking to go riding, Jeff said he was going in about an hour and he called another friend Steve Hood who loaned me his polaris 700 RMK and Jeff loaned Denny Lauras 600 xc. Talk about extreme riding, he took us into the mountains and there is no margin for error on a trip like that, we went up and over forever , first we got up so high that the truck looked like a ant down on the highway and then we went higher to the point that the highway looked like a ant down there. When you go up those hills you go full tilt and dont look back, you have to take them as they come. We did alot of sidehilling and if you dont keep on the machine just right by the time it stops rolling at the bottom it would look like a total yard sale. We went up into some bowls and we broke fresh snow the whole time we were out which was about 3 hours. That was an experience I will never forget. The mountains and scenery here around Valdez are probably the best in the state. Jeff said that a couple years ago he rode up in one of those passes in July. Right now is prime riding season here and they will continue to ride into May here. There was about 5 inches of snowfall here last night and it is not unusual for them to get 3 feet here overnight. Nobody here uses snowplows on there trucks because they get to much snow it is all moved with loaders. Now on to our ride on Tuesday. We hooked up with Mike Buck of Remote Access, LLC , he does guided sled tours into the mountains, we met him in the morning at Tsiana Lodge about 35 miles north of Valdez, he too had 700 Polaris RMK which stands for Rocky Mountain King. We took off out of the lodge about 10:30 and headed up a glacier , our first stop was at this ice cave in the glacier, absolutely beautiful, when you go inside it the ice crystal are like giant snow flakes and glimmering in the light. You can run your hand across them and they fall like shaved ice. From there we went on up the glacier and like Mike says he hates following other peoples tracks, it took us about 10 miles and we were up into valleys where nobody had been and we broke our own trail for most of the rest of the day. You know when you see the new snowmobile videos and they show all the perfect powder with no other track in it, thats what its like riding up here and Mike says you can do the same thing everyday and not hit other tracks. The ride with Mike was not quite as spine tingling as with Jeff, but we did have a few straight down heart pounding moments, We circled around a couple more mountains and came out about 25 miles up the road from the lodge and rode the Alaskan pipeline back down toward the lodge and on the pipeline we did pass 4 other machines and we saw 1 moose and 1 eagle and we came across a helicopter in trail that was waiting for skiers to come down the hill. By the time we got back to the lodge we had gone 84 miles but it was only 3:30 so we took off again and did some nice riding thru more gullys and trees, I managed to get stuck 3 times and when you get those things stuck in waist deep snow it isnt alot of fun getting them out, the last time I got stuck was going straight up a hill and I almost crested it and stuck it almost standing up. We worked along time to get it out almost rolling it in the process and then after that I couldnt get it started, after drying the plugs out and pulling on it like crazy Mike came over and pulled twice on it and got it started. Before we left in the morning Mike put an extra 5 gallons of gas on the back of each machine and he has hoses that run under the seat so the gas can suck out of the 5 gallon cans first and then use up the gas in the machine, anyways right after we unstuck the machine on the straightup hill and Mike ran out of gas, luckily we were on our way back to the lodge and it was only about a half mile aday so Denny ran back and brought some gas. All in all it was another awsome day of riding and a Mike took us on a great ride, it was almost 7 by the time we got back. You can check out Mikes web page at www.snowmobile.cc or call him at 907-835-3182. One other thing if you thought going to town from cantwell was a long drive at 150 miles, Valdez closest big town is Anchorage and its only 300 miles away. We are heading out of here this morning and back to anchorage.

Thanks for Checking in. Pete

March 31, 1999 Anchorage, Alaska 5:30 p.m. Alaska time (4 hours behind Frederic)

After about a 6 hour drive from Valdez we got back here to Anchorage, It was snowing hard thru the Thomson Pass and was slippery and hard to see. We came up on Emil The mail man and his side kick Bill, they had a flat tire and were trying to get the spare undon and couldnt figure out how to lower the tire. Emil has been the mail man there for 38 years and hasnt had a flat on one of these new fangled cars. We got him fixed up and off they went with the mail. We met Emil and Bill yesterday morning just before we went out riding. His mail route is 130 miles long and he used to go 1/2 way to anchorage everyday. I forgot to put in about the highmarking we were doing with jeff on monday nite, that is a rush and a half, all you have to do is find a giant mountain with lots of fresh snow on it and go as fast and high as you dare and come back down in one piece making a nice big half circle, I watched Jeff do one and I thought he was crazy going that high but then of course I thought I would try it, once you get going on it it doesnt look as steep and you just keep going for it, I still didnt make it quiet as high as Jeff but it was pretty cool. When you think a valley or canyon stops you just look and most of the time you find a way thru it and keep going & going. We are at the diamond center mall right now and they had a library here so I thought I would throw in another update.

Thanks for checking in. Pete

April 3, 1999 Frederic, Michigan

After a long flight home I got back late thursday nite and pretty much tried to relax and catch up on some sleep. Overall the whole trip was great. Riding here in Michigan just doesnt compare. The riding in the Cantwell area was great powder and anyone could handle the terrain and area around there, Scott & Viv's camp is a really great setup and would be a great place to stay. The riding in Valdez can be from intermeiate to extreme and is very scenic too, the snow there was not quite as powdery as the snow the week before but I am sure it is constantly changing. Mike Buck took us on a great ride with all types of terrain. If anyone would like more info on any of these places I will have info in the store this winter or just e-mail me at greekone@frederic-mi.com

Thanks for checking in. Pete

Midnight late on May 2 but darn close to May 3, 2002

The first leg of my big adventure has begun, It started at 3:30 today in Grayling when I bummed a ride off 4 friends that were going to the pistons game in auburn hills tonight, "Parnelli" Mark Hartman his son Scott and his sidekick Larry "Wimpy" Raymond put me and my overpacked Arctic Cat bag into the van and we headed toward Auburn Hillls. We picked up Marks son Paul in flint but he couldnt find his way very well and we had to wait an hour for him. We got off at the great lakes crossing exit and Mark turned us the wrong way for the palace, after getting his bearings and getting back on course we came across my spot in heavy traffic where I was supposed to get out. The traffic was busy and I jumped out at a red light grabbed my bag and laptop and they drove off towards the palace leaving me standing there in pontiac at the corner of walton and perry only to find out I missed my bus by 5 minutes, so I flagged down MoYen, a local cab driver from russia who took me to downtown pontiac and dropped me at the phoenix center, a ride in a rickety old cab for only ten bucks but he told me he made me a good deal cause he didnt turn the meter on. Anyways there I stood for the second time in an hour looking like an arctic cat refugee, my bag must wiegh 80 pounds, but soon the 450 bus that heads straight down woodward into downtown detroit for only 1.50 and gives a whole new meaning to cruising woodward. The bus came at 8:15 p.m. and I got on. Its amazing the different type of people from all walks of life that you can meet on a inner big city bus ride. There was a young kid that got on with me who when we first talked was pretty down and out, he came running down from the phone he was on and was all happy that he found a job in Indy and hollering that life was great and was heading to get on a bus to his new life and job, he had just arrived in detroit this morning from florida but for some reason or another his family didnt want him. There was a lady sitting across from me with scabs all over her face and she was picking them, not a pretty sight, It was really entertaining listening to the lady bus driver who was black talking to another black lady, they were carrying on talking about everything, really fast and really loud and there expressions just had to make me smile, you know things like , you go girl, and constantly girl this and girl that and just plain laughing, I ended up talking to the one lady for a while, the bus was packed as we got closer to downtown detroit and I got up and asked the driver if we were getting close to the train station, she told me we werent even close to downtown and that we had already talked about where I was getting off and she was doing her job and would let me know when my stop came up. She was funny but stern. They must go thru alot of brakes on those busses cause they sure get going fast and them slam on them. Anyways we made it to the Detroit Train Station and I got off there and went across the street to the white castle, you know the one with the guard at the door and the really thick glass at the order window. I had to wait at the train station for a while and then a really nice amtrak shuttle bus came and and that brought me to where I sit right now which is in the Toldedo Train Station, They just said our train is about a half hour late. It was supposed to leave at 12:45 a.m. but we are up to 1:15. Thats about it so far so the adventure continues till..................

9:30 A:M Friday

Its a great sunny morning here just east of pittsburgh as I ride this train east, we have been thru cleavland and many other small stops in between, I slept pretty well in my seat and it was just getting daylight before we got into pittsburgh, the train ride is nice and smooth and you can hear the train whistle up in the distance as we come up to the crossings. The tracks have followed the river since pittsburgh, I dont know what river it is but its fast and white water in many spots. There is a nice lounge car that is all glass on the second level and you can sit there and watch the scenery which is where I am at. I saw a big trestle that we went by where there were concrete like caves underneath and you could see where there were blankets and boxes laid out where homeless people stay. I am sitting here right now with a bunch of kids from Milwaukee Wisconsin. They are here on a 7th & 8th grade trip to Washington D.C. There are 15 students and 6 adults in their group. They are excited about going to see all the sites and even get a private visit with Bob Dole. They got on the train yesterday at 3 in the afternoon, so all total for them its about a 24 hour ride. I am sitting here with Ricky Burton, Emily Reetz, Heather Rahn, Bethany Kuntz, Chrissy Turner and her mom Ginger, Justin Thomas, Katelynne Klein, Kelly Walls, Mike Tank, A.J. Wofford, Shannon Rahn, Sarah Harper, Maria Reetz, Jessica Weber, and Tiffany Burton they are all having a good time and look forward to getting off the train. Thats about it for now so.........................

Noon Friday

Its up to noon now and I have been playing who wants to be a millionaire with the school class, Now I have met the principal of the school, Darin Kindle, he says he has the best and greatest group of kids that a principal could ask for. You can tell by talking to him that he is proud of his students and even the man that runs the cafe on the train told him what a well behaved group he has. Their school is The Good Hope Christian Academy. The scenery has changed alot and now its really pretty mountains with lots of flowing streams everywhere you seem to look, cattle, trees, occasional junk piles, the water all looks pretty high but this is definetly a laid back and easy way to go cross country, the train is quite and the clickety clack of the tracks is kind of soothing if you want to take a nap. I only have one song saved on this laptop and its Fred Bear, its good background music to type by. It seems to be pretty nice and warm out, alot better than the cold , windy, rainy stuff we have had at home. I think I will go try to grab a nap................

Some info got garbled up here, so I'm not sure what the story is missing.

to look, cruised about 70 m.p.h. and the guy told me it has a top speed of 125 m.p.h. I got off at the station in Baltimore and hopped 3 different inner city busses, it was about a 90 minute ride to where I got off on a corner. I had to walk about a mile carrying my overloaded arctic cat bag and a guy was in his yard and offered me a ride, His name is Steve Krannebitter and his son Jeff was with him. He asked me what I could possibly have in that bag so heavy and I told him to try and pick it up, after that we thru my bag in his truck and he brought me down the road and lo and behold I ran into my buddy Bob Terry and Lenny Lobsinger also from grayling along with Ray Ingalls and his wife Jenny, they are also from grayling. All total it took me about 27 hours to get here. We are heading out to dinner tonight so thats about it for now. I will update again as soon as I can, I am trying to get the cell connection to work.

Saturday night May 4, 2002 Essex Maryland

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip,
That started in this eastern port,
Aboard this tiny ship,
The mate is not a mighty sailing man,
His name I know is Pete,
The Skippers brave & sure, (we hope)
3 Passengers set sail tommorow for
a really long tour,
The weather might get really rough,
We dont know what it will bring,
All we know is were heading out on
a really long outing,
The Skippers name is Andy,
With Pete & Lenny too,
My Buddy Bob,
No Millionaire,
No Ginger or Marianne,
But I'm sure this will be fun.

So anyways we are here on this 50 foot Ocean Yacht, and are heading out tommorow, This thing is as plush as you could imagine for a boat. It is more like a nice house with everything you need, washer, dryer, garbage disposal, dish washer, full kitchen, 2 bedrooms, nice big living room, 2 t.v.s , and some great couches, I only wish I could get the cell phone connection to work so I can do these updates from onboard. We head out I believe into Chesapeake Bay, I am not sure of the route yet.....

Yesterday as I rode the bus here it passed thru Greek Town in Baltimore, I really wanted to get off and gothere but I think I will go back there today.

Well its 6:30 saturday night. Lenny and I hopped a bus this morning and went down to greektown and checked it out. The greeks are all getting ready for the big day which is tommorow and it is greek easter. We saw the church and they were getting things ready for service tonight. If I was a good greek boy I would be there tonight. From there we went onto downtown Baltimore and checked out the Inner Harbor area. Its a really nice area and was packed with people with lots of shops, Aquariam, museums, with the backdrop of lots of boats and activities. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe, and the ESPN Zone, they were both good to see too. After another inner city bus ride we made it back here to the marina. Captain Andy was here talking to Bob and he says we are shoving off at 7:00 a.m. So things should get interesting after this. I am going back down to my new friends Steve's house to put this update on tonight. His wife Barb last night was a little leary about him inviting a stranger into their house. She asked me if I was a ax murderer but I assured her that I wasn't. I also tried to reassure her by telling her my big heavy arctic cat bag that I was carrying did not have a body in it. She must have believed me because she and her son Jeffery came down here to check out the boat tonight. There is a really huge yacht parked across from us that looks really nice but it has big U.S. Marshall signs on it that say no tresspassing on it. It looks more like something you would see in a movie. Thats about it for today so Iam heading down to Steves to post this and hopefully I can make another new friend to get the next post on... who knows where we will end up so as the old song goes were gonna Head out on the Highway, Lookin for adventure... Pete

Sunday Morning May 5, 9:00 a.m.

Its a beautiful calm sunny morning as we cruise here in Chesapeake Bay, with the constant roar of the twin 450 horsepower detroit diesels in the background. Captain Andy got here this morning about 8 and we fired up and headed out here into the bay. Andy says you could spend 20 years everyday around this bay and still never see it all. Its 160 miles long. Lenny is making us a biscuits and gravy breakfast. Our first dilemma was trying was trying to get the burners on the stove to come on. The captain came thru and had to show us the saftey switch on the stove. You couldnt ask for a better morning to be at sea, we are actually heading out of the bay into the Atlantic. Overall the average depth of the bay is 6 feet but it does have some spots where it hits 200 feet. Last night when I went down to Steve & Barbs to post my report Steve came home with a dozen steamed crabs. They had been trying to talk me into staying for crabs and I said I am not to fond of sea food but then I thought of how many times I tell Melissa she needs to try new things so I walked into the kitchen and Barb is spreading newspapers out all over the kitchen table, and I was wondering what she was doing, well Steve put a few crabs out on the table and started breaking, cracking, pulling, shaving and pounding on the crabs and it sure makes a mess. The biggest surprise to me was that I actually liked those maryland steamed crabs. Steve just kept tearing them apart and putting pieces in front of me. He said it was just like feeding a kid. You have to aquire the knack for figuring out how to eat the crabs right, but boy oh boy, a cold beer and that crab meat just hit the spot right. Thanks again to Steve & Barb and their kids for taking in a stranger and opening their home up to me like they did. It proves there are still good people in the world. Also Steve said he had gone to church and was telling somebody about me and he said the person said that, that was how those ax murderers work, they act nice and get into your house and then thats the end, but like Steve said he just knew that wasnt me.

11:30 a.m.

Now Iam sitting up here on the bridge with Bob, Lenny, & Andy, Its still a beautiful day and calm, we have been crusing about 3 and a half hours and Andy has been educating us on boating out here in the big water. We are in the Delaware Bay right now. We have passed a couple big ships and barges. We also passed a nuclear plant that was spewing smoke like a big chimney. Its about 38 miles across the Delaware Bay and we come to the Cape Bay canal in New Jersey.

6:15pm

Its now 6:15 p.m. and we made it past Cape May into the mighty , but calm North Atlantic ocean, we headed north 48 miles and stopped for fuel in Atlantic City, I have been to atlantic city many times by car but it sure looks different from coming at it from the ocean. We pulled into a marina right by Trump Casino and fueled up. Only 370 gallons to fill up. After that we were off again and now after about 2 hours of still cruising north, New York City is just coming into view on the horizon. We will be coming right past the Statue of Liberty and The World Trade Center site. It already looks not quite right not seeing those twin towers up ahead. I lived in New Jersey for 9 months in 1980 and went to New York many times.. Andy says it doesnt get much better than this cruising on the ocean. The sun is still nice and bright and starting to lower itself into the western sky.

0700 hours Monday May 6, 2002

I am getting into the marine mode of talking now, Andy is teaching us alot and the proper lingo for being on board. Last night as we were making our way into the harbor in New York City the sun was just starting to set and we were at the base of the Statue of Liberty, we stopped the boat out front to take pictures of all of us there and we got some great ones of us out on the bow of the boat with a beautiful sunset in the background. You could see the vacant hole in the buildings where the Trade Center stood, still an erie sight. The sun was reflecting off the buildings and it was a great place to be. We ended up dropping the anchor in the Hudson River just north of the Empire State Building and just south of the George Washington Bridge right next to a big flying lit up American Flag on the Jersey shore. It was just about dark when we did that and I cooked us a gourmet dinner of frozen pizzas while Captain Andy tried to make the cellular connection work on my computer. It just doesnt seem like we will get the cellular link going but I will just have to updates when we stop for fuel. The darker it got the prettier New York City got, Its hard to imagine we spent the night within 6 miles of ten million people and it was quiet and alone as can be at our little corner. The Empire building was a lit up red, white, and blue at the top. You couldnt hear cars or anything and even the planes that flew overhead were way up there. There were alot of planes going overhead and the route they all followed seemed to be straight north up the hudson river along NYC. All total we covered about 250 miles on sunday so it was great day of smooth running. At 0500 Captain Andy was up and making coffee and went down into the engine compartment to make everything was oiled up and we set out at 0600. Andy is a great and knowledable captain, he was in the navy and logged twoand a half million miles underwater in a submarine and has captained ships of all sizes, he says he averages about 50,000 miles a year on boats and has run them all over the world. He has been teaching us about navitgating the waters, reading charts and longitude and latitude, and how to read the cool thing spinning around ontop of the bridge better known as the radar.

1421 hours Monday

We pulled into the marina at Troy, New York about one hour ago, Troy is just north of Albany and we have gone about 130 miles north of NYC. We came all the way up the hudson river and there was some nice scenery along the way. We passed West Point Military Academy and its built into the rocks on the river and is all granite, and the Vanderbilt Estate. There were alot of unique and different shaped really old light houses too along the way. Lots of boats out fishing today to and we saw alot of people that had caught really big striped bass. We are full of fuel again (only another 385 gallons) and are ready to head out again. We have to get supplies for the boat so Bob & Lenny headed to the hardware store and I am at the Troy County Library on there computer. I couldnt get to one yesterday, so if you dont see an update its because I couldnt get on line yet. I bet Ohio Mike wishes he was here with us. And like my friend Captain Ed Bilderback in Alaska says, Over & Out. ~Pete.

Tuesday May 7, 1255 hours

Captain Andy fired up the motors at 0530 this morning and he already had us pushed off by the time I jumped out of bed. We went just north of Troy to a lock we had to pass thru, just north of that we turned into the Erie Canal System. So far we have been thru 8 locks and have been raised by the locks a total of 225 feet. We are in the base of the Adriandok mountains and the Erie Canal is only a few hundred feet wide. We are keeping pace with 3 other boats that we all fit into the lock and go thru at once. The locks are about 40 feet wide by 300 feet long. Some have brought us up 8 feet and a few have brought us up 35 feet. Its amazing the amount of water those things move thru them and when you pull into a dock you better have all hands on deck and be ready to secure your boat to the walls or ropes to keep in position till the water you get up to the top and watch to make sure you dont scrape the wall or the boat next to you. The captain says the boat that has been next to us all morning, is a 72' sunseeker and costs about 2.6 milion dollars, so they probably wouldnt like to get bumped. The first 5 locks were all with in maybe 3 miles and now they are spread out a little more, we are somewhere a little north of Schenectady, NY.

1500 hours

We just passed thru our 12th lock and are heading to #13 about 10 miles. We have lifted up a total of 278 feet so far. Yesterday when we got into Troy we got a hose hooked up and washed the boat down to get the salt off of it. We have gone from salt water to fresh water and you could see the salt marks on the windows outside. Then Bob and I took a taxi ride across town to get a new element for the hot water heater. There are so many things to check on and make sure things keep going well on board, its a big learning experience and on the other hand you really have to watch the water out in the river for floating logs, tires, branches etc.

1715 hours

We just pulled into St. Johnsville, Ny at lock number 16. All total we covered 75 miles and 15 locks with lifts from 6.5 feeet to 43 feet. We have raised a total of 302 feet. The mountains are bigger up this way and its just been hurry up and get thru the lock. We lost 2 of the 4 boats we were cruising with about 8 locks ago and it was just us and the sunseeker. Now we are tied up with the sunseeker here at this lock and I just got a tour of it. Unbelieveable inside, first class everything, 3 b.r. with 3 baths, and polished cherrywood everywhere inside with electronics that look like they should be on a 747. We had to stop because the locks close at 1700. Lasagna is on the menu for tonight. I tried my luck at fishing this morning and as usual I didnt catch anything. Thats about it for now.

0810 hours Wednesday May 8, 2002

Last night I got the update posted by using the emergency phone at the marina and unplugging their line and plugging into the laptop. I got connected easily but it started raining right away and I was sitting in a little plastic chair outside trying to balance this thing on my lap, so anyways I got the update on and went back into the boat and tried to dry out the laptop, it must be o.k. cause its going o.k. right now. That little town we stayed at was about the size of grayling but I think there is more that goes on in frederic. There wasnt anything open and we couldnt even get anything on t.v. We got to sleep in this morning all the way to 0545 and didnt fire up till 0625. The locks dont open till 7 and we were the first one in lock 16 which was great great but now its 0815 and we are on hold at lock 17 because they are having mechanical problems. We have already been here a half hour. I have tried my luck at fishing a couple times again this morning but still nothing. We already are having our first mutiny on board, It seems that the sunseeker has asked for assistance when we get into the big locks. You have to have 3 people on board to go thru the big locks and they only have 2 and we have 4 so one of us has to spend a day on their boat helping out. I think it should be me because I am already familar with the lay out of their boat. We will have to wait to see if its Pete, Lenny, or Bob that ends up on that task. We dont know how long we are going to be stuck at this lock.

1333 hoursWe made it thru lock 17 and 18 and stopped off in Ilion, NY to tie up because lock 19 is the real one with the problem. We got here about 1100 and figured it was better to moor up at a good spot instead of heading up to the jam up the canal. The problem at the lock happened when a boat came in to fast when the doors were opening and created a big wake that pushed hard on the door and blew the teeth of the gear that turns it open. Bob, Lenny and I went into town to get groceries and as we came out I stopped a guy in the parking lot in his truck and asked him if he would give us a ride back to the dock, he said jump in so we didnt have to carry all that stuff back. Another nice helping person. There is a little dockside cafe where we are tied up and Bob and I went up and ordered chili dogs, there were a few police officers there getting lunch too and we were talking with them and they were filling us in on the town. The lady called our order and Bob and I came back to the boat, Bob looked in the bag and said hey what did we order, there was a burger and onion rings in the bag , so I started walking with it back to the cafe and I could see the police cheif walking toward me, he told me it was the first time he was going to arrest anybody for stealing his lunch. I talked him into letting me trade back for our chili dogs and I got away without getting arrested. Ilion, NY is the home of Remington Firearms and they have a museum at their factory that Lenny and I went thru. Its pretty interesting seeing all the different styles of guns they have built over the years. They started out in about 1820 and at their peak employed about 12,000 people, now they have 1,500 employees. When we got back from that tour it was time to push off for lock 19, they have it operating now, only with one door opening and there is a big line of boats there. So today we certainly havent made the time like we did yesterday and anywhere we end up on the other side of lock 19 will be good for us.

1638 hours

We made it past lock 19 and into 20, there was a big distance to number 20 and the lockmaster there was kind of a jerk, we got hollered at because we got there 10 minutes early. The speed limit on the canal is ten mph and everybody is in a hurry to try to make up for all the time we had to spend waiting. That guy made us wait extra and we should have made it thru in 10 minutes and it took about 35. I could see lock rage brewing in some of the other boat owners. They are planning on keeping the locks open later tonight to try to help the boats pass thru, they are supposed to close at 5 but we will have to wait to see how much later, its 18 miles between 20 and 21.

1845 hours

Lock 20 was our last lock of going up which put us up a total of 420 feet, now we have been thur locks 21 and 22 and have dropped about 60 feet in those two. We just hit Lake Onieda which is 30 miles long. Andy has the hammer down and hopefully we can make it across here tonight for the next lock in the morning. The lake is like glass and the radar screen is clear, he says the boat has slowed down now a couple knots from what we were cruising in the ocean because the boat is more bouyant in salt water than in the fresh water. Its amazing how fast a 12 hour day passes you by out here. Its now about 1945 and we made it across the lake and are tied up for the night. All total we covered about 83 miles today so it didnt turn out that bad.

Thursday May 9, 1305 hours

We were up early as usual but never left the dock till 1000. We are heading up the Oswego Canal now and only have a few more locks to go and thats as far as we are going today. The end of the Oswego Canal puts us at the east end of Lake Ontario and the Captain says the Great Lakes are nothing to mess with. They are calling for 6 to 8 foot waves out there today and we have about a 120 mile run to do on it. So we are just taking our time getting there. Andy cooked us a good breakfast this morning of french toast and bacon and the only other thing of interest is that Lenny and I got to watch Jerry Springer , a judge show and Jenny Jones. Last night update was posted from behind the bar at this restaurant next to where we moored the boat. The lady was nice enough to let me hook in the laptop into her phone line so I could get the story posted. A guy that was sitting on the other side of the bar from where I was standing asked me what kind of beer salesman I was.

1600 hours

We are fueled up and tied up here at Oswego marina right at the mouth to Lake Ontario, its blowing hard out and is supposed to keep it up all night. The Oswego library is only a couple blocks from here so I am going to check it out to do an update at. Andy said the last time he came thru here it was the same thing , he had to wait for the lake to calm down. We went thru 8 locks today and only traveled about 24 miles Dinner tonight is steaks on the George Foreman Grill. . I also found out that Ohio Mike really does wish he was here because he called today and you can tell he had a tear in his eye....... If anybody reading this has the time, give Cathy a call for me on Friday at the Sledheads number and tell her Happy Mothers Day for me, She puts up with alot with me being gone all the time especially with our little Dennis the Menance AKA Haley, and Melissa .The number is 989-Dig Snow (989-344-7669).Thanks for checking in. Captain Andy, Pete, Bob & Lenny

Friday May 10 1400 hours

Here Bob, Lenny and I sit at the laundromat in Rochester , NY. We kind of slept in this morning because we werent planning on leaving, at about 0800 the Captain looked at me and said You better go take your dramamine. We headed out of Oswego and the water wasnt to bad only 2 to 3 footers , but as we kept cruising they kept getting bigger and had turned to 6 to 8. We were really rocking and rollin and by the time we made it inot Rochester it looked like a tornado had been thru the back deck and a mirror had broke off its hinge and fell onto the forward bed. Andy said its the biggest water he has been in in quite a while. He said the only time we had to worry is if we saw him putting on a life jacket, so it was no problem. All 3 of us are sitting here waiting on our clothes kind of weaving like we are still on board. The tiny shipped was tossed and thats no joke little buddy. The wind is howling now so hard at the marina that the cables on the sailboats are whistleing. It seems like we have been in NY for a long time considering we got here the first day we set out. I checked the statistics on on my page and there have been 5700 hits on this since the first of the months so I figure thats about 600 people looking at this everyday. Thats about it for now, it looks llike my computer is moving on me, . Thanks for checking in. Pete

Saturday May 11, 1120 hours

What a beautiful sunrise over Lake Ontario this morning. We set out about 0545 and it was nice and calm and the sun was just coming up over the lake, I counted 11 people with tri pods and cameras along the outlet and beach taking pictures of the sunrise. It was smooth running all the way to the west end of the lake and off in the distance about 40 miles north you could see the Toronto skyline, it looked like an island off in the distance, just like it was floating there, you could see the CN tower come into view in and out of the haze. One thing that I thought was interesting is that in lake ontario we have been cruising in about 330 feet of water and the 150 miles that we covered on the atlantic we were in only in 60 feet of water. Andy said that you have to go about 60 miles east of shore on the atlantic to hit the deep water. We are now in Canadian waters and are in what is known as the Welland Canal. We had to check in with customs and have to check out again when we head out. This is big freightor territory and the locks we are going into now are about 4 times as big as what we were in before. Where the locks we were in before would hold about 6 boats our size, they would hold about 30of them here. There are 8 locks in this system, and we have all had our share of locks and are glad they are almost done. The 30 or so locks we went thru on the erie canal cost about $40. but in canada you get a better deal, 8 locks for $130, U.S. good deal eh!! We lost track of the Sunseeker 2 days ago after we got hit by the bad weather, this is where they would have needed help so nobody got to ride with them. I talked to my short friend Denny in Rockford, Mi yesterday and the first thing he asked me is why were we at the laundry when we have it on board. The answer is that the washer is small and we havent tried it and all the marinas have laundries at them so it was just easier. The dishwasher hasnt been tried out either, I think becuase nobody knows how to use it, but the trash compacter and the garbage disposal work great. Andy whipped us up some great chili last night and we all were asleep early.

1545 hours

Waiting here at lock number 8 for a ship to come through. Things were going smoothly but then came a delay at locks number 4,5,6, & 7. They are kind of one giant long continuos lock that keeps stepping you up about 75 feet at a time in 4 different chambers. They sure move alot of water in a hurry. I dont think I will ever want to visit the Soo locks again for a long time. Lake Erie lays just ahead of us on the other side of number 8.

1730 hours

After making it thru the locks with another delay for a freighter we pulled into Port Colborne, Ontario and filled up with fuel. The guy at the fuel dock said that the sunseeker was in here this morning for fuel so it looks like they made better time than us. This is just west of Niagra Falls and are finally out of New York, It seems like NY went on forever. Another 11 hours on the water just flew by. Now my next big obstacle is to find a computer to put this update on because my service doesnt connect in Canada. I keep looking at this and thinking I use the word we to much, I try to cut down on it but it is a we trip. Hopefully the Captain will have US pushing off early in the a.m. Thanks for checking in. Pete, Lenny, Bob & Captain Andy Davison.........EH!!

1900 hours

Here I am at the Port Colborne hospital......only to use their library computer to post this days events, the nurses said they never saw me but they were pretty nice to me.... this is my first ever update from out of the country too, so here goes...........Pete

Sunday May 12 0955 hours

The Captain set us out on course early as usual this morning, so far we have traveled about 110 miles west this morning. It is raining , and very foggy but thank goodness the wind is from the east so its not to rough out here. The auto pilot is on and Andy & Lenny are both up on the bridge wrapped up in blankets and watching the radar close and watching for logs or debris. You get a funny feeling being out here surrounded by fog and cant hardly see a couple hundred feet in front of the boat. I loolked at our location on the chart and we are right in the middle of Lake Erie.

1145 hours

Still cruiing, the fog has changed and is thicker, cant even see 50 feet but our able Captain pushes on and says that this crossing isnt for the faint of heart or the inexperiened and he is on the bridge wrapped in an electric blanket now on some of the swells we come into it just blasts the water all the way over the top and is pretty wild looking. The amazing thing is the good feeling that we know the Captain knows what he is doing. We still have 100 miles till we hit the west end of the lake.........the fog horn on the boat is sounding every 30 seconds

1500 hours

The fog has lifted some and you can see about a mile all around now, we have been going solid since this morning and are now only about 20 miles from the Detroit River.

1700 hours

We made it to the Detroit River and thru the big lake, as you first come into the river we came up on BobLo Island. I have fond memories of my grandma taking me there when I was a kid. You would get on one of to BobLo Boats in downtown Detroit and go to the island. It was an amusement park with a rides and I can remember being plenty scared on some of them. There was a nice big park with huge trees in the middle. The old dock is still there and it looks like a ghost town where the amusement park was but the far end of the island is being developed into big new homes. When we were still out in the big lake Andy wanted to come down below to get something to eat so Bob and I stayed upstairs on lookout. It shouldnt have been much of a problem because the boat was on auto pilot. Well I was at the wheel and I was looking at the compass and then I saw a island off in the distance and then a bouy that looked familiar and then a ship that we had just passed and the compass course didnt seem right. We were doing a big circle, somehow just as Andy went down below the auto pilot decided to go on strike. I hollered for Andy and he came and got us back on course. I can see how people can go out into the waters and lose there way. Always believe your compass.

1800 hours

We are at Keans Marina here just a little past downtown Detroit. We caught the guy just as he was leaving for fuel and we were on fumes. We ran about 250 miles altogether today. Thats about it for today and onward again in the morning. Thanks for checking in. Pete....

Monday May 13 0945 hours

We were up early but cooked up a nice breakfast and were waiting for the marina to open. We are still tied up to the dock here right next to the Detroit River and the entrance to Lake St. Clair. The engines were losing some rpm's yesterday so the Captain said the fuel filters should be changed and thats what is happening right now. Its kind of hazy out and I can see the old Ren Cen which I think is the GM building now come in and out of view. We should be heading out of here shortly. It seems nice and calm out but it looks like another day when the radar will be real handy......

1300 hours

We pulled out of detroit about 2 hours ago, it took a while to get the air bled out of the fuel line on the starboard engine, anyways it really is pretty nice out and visibility has been good, Captain Andy says he will be glad to get back where it's warm. We made it thru Lake St. Claire no problem and are cruising north in the St. Claire River and coming up to Port Huron. Unfortunately this is where my leg of the Big Adventure ends. Its also the end for Captain Andy but it was just a regular old 9 days at work to him. I am taking him to the airport in Flint and he's heading for home to his next job which is going to Fort Lauderdale and running a boat up to Boston. This has surely been a great ride and experience. Bob's wife Pam is getting on here in Port Huron and they are heading on North to Mackinaw and down Lake Michigan to Lake Charlevoix and to the marina where Bob is going to keep his new boat parked in Boyne City. He is going to keep me updated on the last leg of the trip which shouldnt take more than another couple days. I sure would like to ride it to the end but I suppose I should get back to my family and to work. We have met and talked to alot of people along the way and learned about the waters of the U.S. that I never even knew existed. Captain Andy was a perfect match and a great guy to spend this time with, he fit right in with Bob, Lenny and myself. Now if I can only get Andy to let me be his helper on some of his future trips.

1341 hours

We just pulled into Black River Marine here in Port Huron, Pam and her sister Debbie which is Lennys wife and Nick and Justin their boys were here to meet us. This is where the crew changes, darn it. I am heading out of here shortly with Pams van to take Andy to the airport and I am heading back to good old Grayling.

Friday June 24, 2005 12:25 p.m. central time

I am at ohare airport, got in here about an hour and a half ago on a short puddle hop from traverse city. As luck would have it I called my sister that lives in chicago and she was driving right towards ohare so she said she would pick me up lunch and we met out front and she drove me around the airport loop while I ate my lunch. It was nice to get to see her and my neice and nephew. She is leaving for Greece next wednesday with her family so I wont hear to much from her in the next couple months. My next flight has been delayed by about 50 minutes but the next unbelieveable bit of luck happened. I had just left my sister and went thru security again and stopped to look at some things and I couldnt believe who I saw, it was my friend Hannah that I am going to meet in Denver. She was on a different flight then me, she is going straight to denver from here and I have to go to desmoines and then on to denver. We tried to get me switched on to her flight but it was full. What are the chances of running into someone like that not even knowing that either one of us would be here. So she gets into Denver a couple hours before me and I will have to catch up with each other later tonight. We plan on staying in Denver tonight with her 2 kids, I say kids but they are in their 20s......before you think I up and left Cathy, thats not the case. This is a story that will get explained by the end of my trip. Cathy and the girls are working the archery show in grayling this week and I am off on this adventure that I really wish wasnt happening for a long time yet.

1:30 p.m. central

still here at ohare, my flight to desmoines got to be so late that they put me on another direct flight to Denver that doesn't leave here for another hour and a half, so I have time to sit here and ramble on….. I just found out yesterday that the sledheads forum hasn't been working for a couple weeks, Rebecca Is working on getting that fixed. I happened to go to the safety sight the other day and saw that the Fatality count ended at 26 killed this past snowmobile season. I believe that's down a few from last Year but still to darn many. That one weekend there were 5 people killed in sled accidents within 25 miles of Frederic. I would hope that people continue to learn more about safe riding. I saw that the last accident of the season happened downstate where a man was riding on a lake and hit an ice push up.Now that's its 90 plus out I don't think we have to worry about any ice for a while. Once again the Frederic boy in the big city is awed by the sights. The underground tunnel here in terminal that takes you from one terminal to another reminds me of a futuristic movie, where it is all full of pulsating neon lights up above and changing pastel wall colors along the walk way along with futuristic sounds, pretty different. I just finished a 4 dollar hot dog and guess I will sign off for now till maybe the next stop.

8:28 p.m. Denver time, Friday night

the flight to Denver went fine and my luggage arrived at the same time that I did so that was lucky. Went to meet my friends Taurin and Mackenzie and we are heading out todinner soon. My sister called me To tell me there is a big greek festival going on at the greek church here and as luck would have it I am only About 5 blocks from there, so after we go out to dinner I am going to go mingle with some fellow greeks. It was hazy as I left the airport and you could just barely see the mountains off in the distance. We are heading north out of Denver in the morning and plan on doing some exploring. Taurin has a jeep and he said we can hit some trails, I have a little cavalier I rented from the airport.so that's it for now..I have To get used to the mountain air and the 2 hour time difference, coming into that airport reminded me of being here 2 years ago on my way to Sturgis in south Dakota I just came back up from the office of The motel we are at and the lady working the counter, her parents live in grayling and I know some of her Cousins from grayling Bob & Grizz Annis..sure is a small world, heck about 10 years ago I was walking down main street during the rally in Sturgis and I heard somebody holler out hey greek, and it was grizz. he must have family everywhere...

Saturday morning , June 25

Saturday night June 25

coming at you from the best western in Nederland about 50 miles from Denver. I started the day out by checking out downtown denver and boy do they have the shopping down there along with lots of public transportation. Lots of really neat looking places. After downtown I went to the greek festival which was of course full of greeks. It was at the church in Denver and what a beautiful cathedral they have there. After getting back together with the other 3 we headed out of Denver and spent time in Boulder, another really neat town with lots of uniqe shops and street preformers. One guy had about 10 different horns on his body and he would play songs by honking them and he was pretty good. Once again this frederic boys eyes are opened to the wonders of the world outside frederic. What a different lifestyle and choices of places to eat and do things......after leaving boulder we came up the canyon to nederland which is at 8300 feet. We also stopped at boulder falls which is an incredible waterfalls and we got some nice pictures including the big rainbow in the mountains tonight. I just wish I could get up into the snow that I see up there. In the morning we are heading up from here to take a big hike. This best western we are at is all made out of log and as I type here outside my window I hear the roar of the rushing water down the river from me. Very soothingand I plan on sleeping with the window open all night to have it put me to sleep..... The rooms are nice and big and divided in 2 with a queen size in the big part and a set of bunk beds along with anohter single too....Mackenzie has been sicker than a dog all day and she has been sleeping and hoping to be ready for our day tommorow....Thats about it for not so good night for now. Pete

Monday June 27, 2005 6:00 a.m.

Picking up from where I left off saturday, we went to dinner to a place called Katmandu which featured Indian & Nepali foods, I have to say thats the first time I have ever ate at a place like that because for some reason or another I didnt think I would like the food. I ordered lamb in creamy tomato sauce and it really was quite good even though I think its possible it could have really been beagle instead of lamb, the music they had playing in there sounded like monks chanting the same thing over and over and I also learned that they eat with there hands,,,no silverware, just grab it and eat it...we did have silverware though at our table, interesting experience to say the least.

After a good nights sleep with my window open so I could hear the roaring river I was up at 6 yesterday morning and went for a walk around town. There is a bicycle rental place right next to the motel here so I went and rented a mountain bike for a couple hours figuring everybody else wasnt going to be up for a while. Well the key word there is mountain bike and we are in the mountains, I hadnt ridden a half mile from here and I was off pushing it up hill. I found out that if you just peddle it real easy almost walking speed worked best. I looked west of town at the Eldora ski resort which was the highest point I could see and thats where I headed. Peddling and walking and even trying to hitch a ride with a passing truck but nobody felt sorry for the chubby bald guy walking his bike. I figured the only way to make it up there was to keep pecking away at it and after an hour and a half of walking I made it to the top of hill just before the entrance to the ski park. The view was great up there as you could look down over the town of nederland and see it all. This road had many curves in it and was extra steep so I figured I could make it back to town in less that a half hour. I headed off down the hill and it only took me about 5 minutes cruise at incredibly fast bicycle speeds to get to the bottom of the first part, the drop was so sudden that my ears popped. I headed out on to the flat part still a couple miles from town and I couldnt believe what I was seeing and feeling......FLAT TIRE......the best part of the ride that I had worked so hard for and I was pushing my bike to town..downhill.... but as luck would have it the next truck that did come by picked me up and gave me a ride back......

I got back to the room and Taurin was just getting up as were the girls.....so we got ready to take our big hike. I was kind of worried that I shouldnt have exerted myself so hard so early in the morning when we had the big hike planned. We headed up out of Nederland which is at 8300 feet up thru Ward and to the Brainerd Lake area which starts at 10300 feet. We all had our back packs and were ready to start up from there. The weather was nice and as we pulled in there were spots with snow piles here and there. As we left the jeep I decided what the heck I will throw my jacket and big hat on my pack just in case because we were heading up from there.....little did I know that was definetly the right thing to. Hannah, Taurin, Mackenzie (who was feeling pretty well finally) and myself started the track up the mountain. The first sign we came to said that the trail to where we were going was snowpacked and muddy. Lots of beautiful scenery and streams and as we kept going more snow. We made some snowballs and took alot of pictures along with making a mini snow man.....here we were in shorts and short sleeves playing in the snow, but the higher up we got the cooler it was getting. Beautiful and sunny, muddy and snowy, The hiking path being dirt and big rocks to navigate around and thru, streams to cross then more of the same. We got further up the trail and got the first glimpse of where we were heading a huge valley with big magnificent peaks and in the middle of it a peak that was not quite as tall and surrounded by the larger peaks. All covered with snow you could see snowboard tracks coming down some of the bigger peaks thru the binoculars and we even talked to one guy coming back down the trail that had used his snowboard up in there. At the top where we were going to was a lake which spilled over the side of the mountain with two big rivers that flowed down thru the melting snows. Each of these rivers were maybe a hundred feet wide each and pouring down thru the melting snow on the side of the mountain, they had cut a big hole in the top of the snow and then went under the snow for a while re emerging down stream before forming another lake at the bottom of that mountain. Just on the other side of the taller peaks is the continental divide. We kept climbing and got up to the top crossing another smaller stream just before we reached the lake at the top. What a view when we made it to the lake, so calm and serene with the snow covered slopes but it was alot cooler up there. Now we had to figure out how to cross the to rivers pouring out of the lake because the spot we wanted was on the other side of the rivers. We made some walking sticks for support and balance and went from rock to rock to get to the other side, one slip and it wouldnt be a pretty picture, we all just made it to the other side of the first crossing and looked up and big dark menacing clouds and a storm coming at us quickly. Right where we had crossed there was a little gully kind of like a cave covered by trees with a hole big enough for us to fit in to....we all crawled into that and it rained, we all put on warmer clothes and had some sandwiches and water while we were waiting for the storm to pass. This is where I was glad I thru on my hat and jacket, I would bet it wasnt fifteen minutes to a half hour the storm had passed and it was sunny and nice again. So we got ready to make the second crossing which was a little worse than the first one. We all made it across and headed up to the peak that was our goal. That was our mission to make it to that spot.

Many of you remember me talking about my old friend Charlie over the years, he died this past February and thats the reason we came to this mountain. You see Hannah is Charlies daughter and Taurin and Makcenzie are his grandchildren. We came to bring Charlie to the mountain and put him in the place he wanted to be. We had a nice ceremony for him up there and took turns placing his ashes in this spot that he had found and been to many times years ago......What a beautiful spot to be. The winds were strong and will take him into the place he loved most. We stayed up there a while and the hole time on the way up we were all taking pictures like a crazed bunch of japanese tourist.........

We looked up over the big peak behind us and wow a storm coming at us big dark and furious. The snow and sleet started hitting us and the winds picked up and it was darn right scary. Thunder and lightining and here we were on a tall peak. We rushed to get back to the river crossings. The rocks were getting wet climbing back down to the rivers and we all made it with the girls going across first, it was sleeting and snowing hard and I still pulled my camera out to grab more pictures, Hannah was ankle deep not being as careful as we were coming across and got her feet wet but we all made it back across and high tailed it back into the cover of the woods. I was covered with snow and sleet on my pack and a little wet and we all headed down the trail back to the jeep. Taurin and Mac really got out ahead of us other 2 old people but within about a half hour of starting down, the sun was back out again. After we made it down to the start of the trail I read the sign that said be prepared for any type of weather out there as it can change anytime to anything......we sure found that out. As close as I can figure we were about at 11,500, to 12,000 feet in eleveation according to the maps and it took us about 6 hours to do the hike. Of course coming down was alot easier that the journey up. When we got back here to the motel we all hit the hot tub. Now that is morning its nice and sunny and we all head back towards home, my plane leaves this afternoon from Denver at 4.......Thats about it for now till I get back to good old grayling. ~Pete

Wednesday June 29, 11:15 p.m.

Just came in off the lake after a beautiful sunset and canoe paddle along the shore line....wierd thing is that the lake is dead calm, warm and beautiful and there were no other boats out there so I had the lake to myself. Got home at 1 in the morning late monday night. Smooth and quick flight from Denver. In my door 6 hours after leaving denver.....All in all it was a great trip and adventure. Charlie was a great friend and I was proud to help him go to where he wanted to be. In his lifetime he fished all over the world except in asia and bowhunted thru out the united states. As he said to one of his friends he had done more in his lifetime than 50 people had done and even though I miss him and we had a lot of fun and adventures together he gave me one last adventure with him by going to the mountain with his family. Its been busy at the shop since I got back as people were looking for me for signs and shirts so its back to work to try and make a buck.....Big news in frederic is that the weekend of July 9 or so there is a Frederic Days being planned along with a parade in Frederic. As luck would have it of course I will be off somewhere else that weekend but I do want to help support our first parade in years. I will give you more details on that as I get them. Have a safe 4th of July...Thanks for checking in. Pete

Thursday September 29, 2005 7:00 a.m.

Things went smoothly yesterday as I left the airport in T.c., on to detroit, then to minneapolis. When I got to minneapolis I had a 3 hour layover but as I got off the plane I checked the flight schedules and saw there was a plane leaving for anchorage in 15 minutes, so I high tailed it across the airport and made it there as they made last call and sure enough they got me on that flight. I figured I would rather spend another 3 hours in anchorage than in minneapolis even though I knew my baggage would be on the other flight. On all 3 flights to anchorage I was holding my gps in the window of the plane, it was pretty cool to see exactly where you were while up in the air plus I learned a couple things, those big planes take off about 150 mph and land at about 130, cruising speeds were between 400 and 540 and the highest elevation we were at was 40,000 feet. When we left detroit I would have thought they would shoot straight for minnesota but they went north to saginaw where I could see the midland airport and across mt pleasent, big rapids and ludington..... on the way to alaska we flew over north dakotak, up past edmonton, white horse and the northwest territories. The snow capped mountains and frozen rivers and glaciers were awsome looking as we flew over the northwest territories, the sky was clear and sunny and I took alot of pictures that I think turned out o.k. from the plane.

It was 3 alaska time when I got here so I hopped a bus and went downtown, its been 6 years since I was down there but still seems to be a lot of panhandlers working the streets, they mostly look like they are I would say eskimoes. Got back to the anchorage airport to get my baggage and grab my next flight to Fairbanks. Checked my bags thru and made it up to fairbanks by 8. It was 50 degrees and rainy in anchorage but 30 and snowing when I got here. It was there first snow of the season and it just made things a little white overnight. I have a customer here who has bought shirts from me for a long time and I came here to deliver her order to her. She picked me up at the airport last night. She has a bar here in fairbanks called reflections. So today Connie is taking me back to the airport and I am heading back to anchorage this afternoon. We stayed at reflections till about midnight which is 4 michigan time so I was ready for some sleep, but the 4 hour change still had me up at 4 here this morning and I tried to get back to sleep but finally gave in and came out for a walk which put me at this coffe shop in downtown fairbanks....... Getting here went so perfectly until I went to get my baggage in fairbanks, one of my bags didnt make it so they are bringing it the motel this morning, so thats about if for now, just out walking and window shopping..........

One other thing, on the gps when we left minny, it said 2519 miles to anchorage and I could watch it count down all the way to the landing, only off by about 500 feeet.........

Thanks for checking in. Pete

Thursday, September 29, 2005 9 a.m.

Now it's 9am and as luck would have it I went to upload this update and the wireless server here is not working right so I will have to find another place to upload this, I had to go back to the motel to grab my flash drive and took a cab back there as it was a couple mile walk to here, so after I left the motel to come back downtown being the cheap guy that I am I thru my thumb out to hitch a ride back downtown and a nice old black guy in about a 72 cherokee that I can best describe as Fred Sanford stopped and picked me up. He was on his way to the post office and to the beer store to get his lady friend some beer. He said she likes to have beer when she wakes up.....so anyways off again to see if I can find another way to upload this story...............

Friday September 30, 2005

After yesterday mornings last stint at the coffee shop trying to get the update on I met a guy named Justin who came into the coffee shop and he was delivering weekly papers to places in fairbanks, we got to talking and next thing you know I was heading off with him as he made his rounds dropping off papers. His hobby that he liked to do is called skijouring.....Its the use of sled dogs but not with the regular mushing sled, they hook a harness to the dogs and get pulled on skis or in the summer they practice by having the dogs pull them on a bicycle. The morning went by fast and my bag was finally delivered to the room from the airlines. It was now early afternoon and I went back over to reflections to give Connie the rest of her order and so she could take me back to the airport. She made me a really nice fleece blanket with geese and ducks on it that she had just finished making. So off we went back to the airport where I checked in for my flight back to anchorage. Its about 375 miles between the 2 cities but only a 50 minute flight. At anchorage I switched planes again and headed for Cordova. You cant drive to Cordova, only fly or come by boat as it sits about 200 miles southeast of anchorage on Prince William Sound. I was picked up at the airport here by my friend Ed Bilderback and his friend John from north carolina. We came back to the house here and had a great dinner of baked silver salmon that John had caught earlier in the day. Later on another John and his son Mike came in from goose hunting. We stayed up late telling stories and looking at pictures. The time thing still has me messed up as its 6:30 a.m. right now and I have been up a long time already and its still pitch black out. The flight over here was over many more snow capped mountains and glaciers and I cant wait to get out there and see things today. Ed has a little Jack Russel named nugget who likes to tangle with the bears, he lets you know if there is one out in the yard and little nugget thinks hes tough enough to take them on..... So till later on and as Ed would say over and out.........

Friday 30th 10:00 p.m.

Its been a rainy day here in cordova, early this morning we took a walk around town and checked things out and looked at the boats in the harbor, mostly fishing boats and the big fish cannery is in town. John,Mike and I went out in early afternoon looking for ducks and explored along a river. No ducks but I did find a eagle feather and saw some seals and sea otters. I looked down from a bridge and said wow I cant believe all the way out here in the wilderness and there was plastic bags floating in the water. Well forgive me for being new in town but I was informed those werent plastic bags they were jelly fish......we headed out again around 5 tonight looking for ducks, still no ducks but we did see several eagles and 2 moose. The one moose was about 30 yards from us.....saturday morning we are heading out on a boat to hawkins island just across the bay here to deer hunt. There are some tall mountains on that island and hopefully we can land a deer or two.....The first John left to go back home tonight to north carolina, he was an interesting guy, a professor of fisheries, ecology, & zoology with NC State University. Ed filled us full of his countless stories of his life all day. This morning it was duck breasts and eggs for breakfast and tonight Ed cooked up some great moose steaks.....time to hit the sack and hope for the best for morning......over & out.....from the bilderback camp....

Sunday October 2, 2005 6:30 a.m.

We were up yesterday morning and headed out with McKenna on his boat to go to Hawkins Island. Cordova is primarily a commercial fishing town and the boat we were on is a 30' gill netting boat. He runs 900 feet of netting on it and can carry 20,000 pounds of fish. It was a nice calm morning as we headed out of the harbor, and even though hawkins seems pretty close it decieving on how big that island is. Its about 20 miles long by 3 miles wide and we went all the way around to the far south side which was about a 45 minute run to a spot called whiskey cove. It was low tide so McKenna said if we just leave the boat up close to shore we would be o.k. by the time we got back in the evening. John, Mike and I were bowhunting and Mckenna headed out with his rifle. I started out up this stream and quite a ways up it turned to a canyon with a waterfall, which then made it hard to make it up the sides but I found a small stream that I pulled my way up thru the trees to start heading up the mountain. The forest was thick and covered with hanging moss all over. It reminded me of pictures that my friend Charlie had showed me of him hunting out here years ago. As I made my way thru the trees I finally came into a meadow and worked my way along the meadows from one to the next trying to call a deer in to me. Ed had showed us the right way to call the deer into us. The calling seemed to work for everyone but me as I never saw a deer all day. I did see alot of signs of deer but not even a hair and also found fresh evidence of a bear in the area. When I did sit down to rest I would move out a ways to the middle of the meadows so nothing could sneak up on me. John,Mike & McKenna had all hunted with Ed over the years and they all said that even though they had all hunted bear and been close many times that the bear they dont think about encounters till they happen and mostly they just scare them off if they are not hunting them. Those guys are all Alaska residents and had tags for black and brown bear but never saw any. When I first got up to my first meadow I thought for sure I saw a brown bear down the way staring at me, I watched and swore I saw it move and my heart rate picked up,,,but it just turned out to be a short tree filled with moss. At the top of the mountain the view was great with the ocean in the back ground and more snow covered mountains. When I got back down to the boat the other guys were there and they were all wet, it seems that the tide had come in and was going back out, they got there just in time to be able to push the boat back into the water otherwise it would have been high and dry and according to the tide charts we would have been stuck there till tuesday when the tide came in that high again. When we parked McKenna had read the wrong tide chart so it would have been interesting. Those guys each got a deer and we loaded up to head back to the harbor. Coming back around the island and just before the harbor is a little island call spike island, this spot is where Ed sunk his boat that he called the Valiant Maid about 2 years ago. He had that boat for over 50 years, anyways there were hundreds of sea lions at that point and we stopped and took some pictures. So it was a great day on the island and even though I didnt see anything it was alot of fun. Unfortunately I have to leave here today and another of Eds friends called this morning and offered to take us back to the island for another day of hunting.....sure wish I could go....Ed is a great guy and is a great and gracious host and has shown me a great time. We really wanted him to go out with us to the island but he says now that he is getting older he needs to get his legs back in shape...he is 79....So I need to get my stuff packed up and head back to anchorage today............

Sunday Night October 2, 2005

I sure hated to leave Captain Eds this morning in Cordova, he showed me such an incredible time. What a great guy and host, he even said that he wished he would have hunted yesterday with us on hawkins island.. He took me out to the airport and I caught the flight back to anchorage where I met up with the guys from Grayling. I had about a 2 hour layover to catch the next fligth on the journey to Kodiak Island which is where I am typing this at. I met up with Randy Thompson, Terry Bloomquist, Dave & Curt Jansen and Marco Cucco who is fresh out of Italy a few years ago till he met up with and married Randys daughter. We left anchorage and had about a 250 mile flight south to Kodiak. We are here at the Beaver Creek Lodge which has incredibly plush accomodation. I am typing this on their beautiful sportsman room. Just in this room, there is a nice big brown bear rug on the wall, a mountain goat, nice fish mounts, moose antlers, cozy firelplace and nice big screen....You can check out the place online at www.BCLODGEKODIAK.com Ron and Judy are our hosts here. All of the guys have been busy repacking their bags as monday morning we all head out on 4 wheelers to ride out to a camp which will be our home for the next few days. Dale Stratton will be our guide down at that camp and will take the other 5 guys fishing while I still lurk out in the woods waiting for the deer to come by so I can get an arrow off....the big catch is that there are brown bears here too,,,,actually Kodiak Brown Bears, the biggest meanest most ferocious bears in the world. Now after spending a few days with Captain Ed and listening to his words of wisdom I feel like I am prepared for the encounter. I guess thats easy to say but I wonder how much my feelings on that will change if the encounter really happens. I am supposed to stay calm, face him, talk to it, and dont back down, supposedly they are scared too but they have dignity and dont want to show it so you face them down, dont run, if they continue to approach fire a warning shot into the ground in front of them, then if that doesnt work dont miss on the next shots. All this happens with a 1600 pound bear 20 feet in front of you in a matter of seconds, so hopefully it will go as it should, or maybe I wont see any at all......There wont be any updates while we are out at the camp till either late wed or thursday.....I will be righting notes out there and then update after we get back into Kodiak. Seem to me that if I wanted to shoot a deer so bad with a bow I could do it right in frederic and there isnt the fear factor there......nah, thats no fun, I just hope I can come back to do an update this week......Over and Out, Pete

Wednesday night October 5, 2005

We made it back here to the lodge tonight about 7 oclock and headed out for dinner. Its been a great 3 days, I have kept notes the past few days so I will put them down under here by day by day, in looking at some of the other updates I have done I see that I have alot of spelling mistakes, I do know how to spell but I get in a big hurry so please forgive my incorrect grammer........ so here it goes...

Monday October 3, 2005

We started out this morning by loading up and going to reload where Dale had the 4 wheelers parked. We were like a mule train getting the seven machines loaded with all our supplies. We headed out down the saltry creek trail. It was 16 miles of 4 wheelin thru rocky river beds and trails up thru the mountain pass and then back down to saltry cove. Incredible scenery and rough bumpy riding. We passed thur many stream crossings and up and down steep terrain. It took two and a half hours to travel the 16 miles and its some tough going getting there. We got to the cabin that was back there and thru our stuff off. Randy, Terry, Curt, Dave and Marco headed out fishing and I rigged up my bow to head out and look for deer. I had my 44 magnum side arm at my side to ward off any unwanted encounter with a bear, so off I was heading down the trail and not 100 yards from the cabin I came across bear tracks on the road. I worked my way down the trail and it went along the river. Lots of dead salmon that have completed there cycle and alot of others swimming by. I came to a river crossing that I thought was to deep to cross so I rested for a bit and was regrouping my things when thru the bushes I could see something brown in the river just up from me, my heart rate immediately shot up. The brush was thick and I couldnt believe this was happening already,,,but as I looked at the brown spot harder I figured out that it was a rusty 55 gallon barrel,,,I still wonder how out there in the middle of supposedly no where that could be there. Back on down the trail I found a big tree with an arm sticking out on it that looked like a good spot by a deer run. It was so covered with moss that I thought I would hop up there and watch that trail for a while. I got pretty comfy up there and after a while I heard a 4 wheeler coming and the guy had 3 deer on it...he never saw me and I was wondering when my turn would come. After standing in the tree for a while I decided to go down to the river and see if I could shoot some fish with my bow. Lots of dead ones along the banks and I must have shot 20 times and never connected with a fish. The erie thing was that there were lots of bear tracks and fresh piles from bear along there, many of the fish had been freshly stripped and you just know the bear had just recently been there. After a while of being down there I had the feeling that I should get out of there, well just as I was getting ready to head out of there a guy came along on a 4 wheeler and told me that there was a bear just down around the bend heading my way....I was glad he stopped and was there but something before that told me to get out of there. I went back up to my tree and never saw a deer but in a while the guys came back by from fishing and I hitched a ride back to the cabin with them. They had caught their limit on Silver salmon and did catch and release on arctic char and dolly varden plus they had seen one bear. We went back and got settled in at the cabin and it rained hard all night long.

Tuesday October 4, 2005

We got up in the morning and the guys were ready for fishing and I was itching to head out with my bow and climb the mountain...I took the 4 wheeler down a couple miles from the cabin where you could see the trail heading up into the clouds....I headed off and it took me about an hour and a half to reach what I thought was the top, As luck would have it there was a pot hole up there and I hunkered down in there for a rest and a sandwhich, it was blowing upbelievably hard and had been raining all morning. I had on full rain gear and my feathers were shrinking up on my arrows because they were soaked even though I had plastic bags on them. The trouble with wet shrunken feathers on your arrows is that they shoot faster and higher and makes it harder yet to make a shot....After a while in the pot hole I saw the next peak up which I figured to be the real top of the mountain, moving slowly along I made it to there, no signs of deer or bear because they were probably smart enough to not be there in weather like that. This peak after peak thing went on for about 10 or 12 more and another 5 hours, then I finally figured out that hey there probably is no real top, it just goes on for ever, the higher I got the harder it blew and the rain was still coming, from some of the peaks I could look down over the valley and see the roof of the cabin and saltry cove and the ocean way out there, then the clouds and fog would move in and there would be just ghostly images out there, still no signs of wildlife of any kind out there. When I finally decided that I wasnt going over any more peaks I was to a part where it was like shear cliffs going straight down. I sat there for a while for another rest and down in the ravine below me I spotted 2 deer walking, I got out my binoculars and checked them out. I made a couple deer calls and they heard and turned and looked and then kept on up the hill, then I saw another one coming along behind them, they all took the same trail and I thought I could get up around and in front of them, so off I went after them and not 100 feet from where I started from the strong winds blew my hat off my head down into the ravine. It took me a while to spot it down there and I thought I should just let it go, well then looking at it I figured I could get down there to get it if I was careful. I lined my se lf up on some shrubs in case I started to slide that they would catch me and its a good thing I did that because I did slide and they did catch me. That happened twice and then I was down lower than the hat and I had to climb back up to it. After getting back to it I pretty much had to follow the exact same path that I had seen the deer on and it seemed like a well traveled path. I had to pull myself back up to the plateau only to find that I had gone down far enough that when I got back on to what I thought would be good ground there was another deep crevase and I had to climb up and around that one. By now I figured those deer were long gone. Made it to the top of the crevase and then started out again and came into another one.....That must have taken me another hour and after working around that one I could see the hill with the pot hole on it off in the distance, the gps said it was only .24 miles away but it took a little over an hour to get to it.....all working sideways on the hill trying to head for it.....if I would have had a shot at a deer back in there it would have taken a helicopter to get it out,,,made it back to the pothole for a rest and trying to warm up a bit, the rain stayed mostly all day long and I was pretty wet by this time. Made it back to the 4 wheeler after almost 8 hours on the mountain and headed back, had a deer cross me on the trail and it stopped almost long enough for me to get an arrow out after it but I wasnt quick enough. Got back to the cabin and the guys had caught lots of fish again. It was time to get dried out.

Wednesday October 5, 2005

We got up and I decided I should try a day of fishing with everyone. I have never been very good at fishing but we had breakfast and headed out but of course I had to bring my bow along too. The first hole we stopped at on the river I rigged up my rod and it didnt take long and I had a nice big silver salmon on. We got it on video, my first fish caught in alaska, it must have weighed 10 to 12 pounds. It was pretty exciting , what a fight that thing gave me. The banks of the river are so covered with dead and rotting fish its a pretty ugly sight and smell, but those fish are really biting. All of us were catching fish and repeatedly, Marco did very well as did most of us....those things fight and pull and tire you out but it is alot of fun. We had our limit in no time, I didnt see anything to use my bow on and by lunch time we were back at the cabin. It was time to start getting packed up and clean thing up to come back into Kodiak. Saltry Cove is about 25 to 30 miles southeast of Kodiak. We had most everything ready and the guys were still getting thing together so I decided to head out on a 4 wheeler ride by myself to see if I could find a deer. I figured I had about 45 minutes before everybody was ready to go, after about 10 minutes out I saw a bear about a hundred yards out high tailing down along the river banks, I dont know if he was running because of me but the good part is that he was running away......so I continued down along the trail and off to my left I saw a deer standing in the woods. I stopped the bike and got off, walking toward the deer it ran in front of me and stopped in the brush, I sent an arrow after it and it hit a branch and shot off into the air, so the deer moved a little more and I sent another arrow, again a richochet, I did this 2 more times and it just moved a little further and I only had 4 arrows, I couldnt belive I just had shot so many time and not a decent shot at all. I was pretty excited and nervous and was now looking on the ground for my arrows. The deer had moved offinto the field behind the brush about 25 yards out, besides having shrunken feather it was a tough shot thru the brush but now I had calmed down enough to check out the brush where I found a hole I figured I could shoot thru so now I took my time and aimed thru the opening in the brush and wow,,,I connected with the deer.,,,, I did everything right that time thinking about my shot and aiming low because of the shrunken feathers. I saw it run off and waited a bit then went down and looked and found blood right away. I went back and got the guys, I didnt want to lose the blood trail because it was raining and would wash it away. Randy, Terry and I started tracking it and darn if that Italian Marco didnt walk across the field and found it before we followed the trail to it. So I didnt think that I was but they said I was pretty excited. The other thing with getting a deer here is that you need to get it out of the woods before a bear picks up on it or you have no deer. So we took pictures and got it ready for the ride back. I tied it to my bike which was already loaded and ready for the track back to kodiak. We headed off back down the rocky trail towards town, with all the rain in the past few days there was lots of water to cross thru. Even riding thru those crossing on the 4 wheelers with waders on the water would come half way up to your knees. The trail built thru there was built a long time ago and what culverts there are along it are made out of wood and many of them are broken apart and hard to get across. It must of took us 3 hours to get back out there and I had to retie the deer on my bike several times. One thing about alaska is that you can shoot 6 deer so I hope to get out in the morning and try again. As many of you know I collect old bear bows and the bow I used was a 1954 Bear Polar. It's a 54 pound bow and it proved that even though its 51 years old ( yes thats older than me) it still does the job. That deer didnt go 30 yards. We made it back to the lodge for some dinner and I hit the hot tub for a while and then go to this update. It seems that Dave and I are the last ones left awake, all the other guys are in bed.

Thanks for checking in. Pete

Friday morning October 7, 2005

Its early morning here at the Beaver Creek Lodge and we are all just starting to get moving. Yesterday I got dropped off on the way towards town where there were deer up on a mountain. I started out up the mountain known as old woman. It didnt take me very long to figure out that it was going to make and old man out of me. It was some of the thickest area that you could ever possibly find. A constant struggle all the way up of pushing my way thru 5 foot tall brush, briars, and scraggly short trees that grow along the ground. Only making it 5 to 10 steps at a time and trying to get around countless gorges and ravines. About half way up in a small clearing one deer appeared just out a little ways. Theres know way I would have ever taken a shot at anything in there as there would have been no way to get it out plus anything that can survive in that environment should be left alone. I cant believe that even a bear could have made it thru that stuff. Each time I would rest I would wait for my heart rate to come back down and my bow had become more of a cane and walking stick. Trying to walk at an angle and up on the hill it was finally looking like I was a few hundred feet from the top and here came a big gorge again so the only way left was up a 60 degree bank which was grabbing things and pulling my way up, at least the brush was a little thinner towards the top, then the angle went to 75 to 80 and it was litterally crawling,pulling and pushing to make it to the top. Boy was I a happy camper when I made it to the top,and a peanut butter sandwhich was a great thing to have then.The altitude was about 1100 feet and it took 4 and a half hours to get to that point. By now it was 2 oclock and I figured I had 6 hours of daylight to work my way back to the bottom. Walking along the top ridges there were lots of deer runs and you could see Kodiak off in the distance, it was pretty easy walking for the next hour thru canyons and passes, very quite scenic and serene. I was heading south and down hill a bit and then down below I could see buildings and the road I came off of. It was the Kodiak Island fairgrounds. I was at about 800 feet and started heading down that way only to start running into the thick brush again. Beating my way thru I finally decided the easiest way down was to follow a mountain stream which the way it would flow down the rocks they were the easiest things next to steps, but stil it sure wasnt easy, still pushing thru things and trying not to slip for the express route to the bottom. Somewhere in there my deer call got lost along with my heavy jacket which must have gotten pulled off by brush somewhere along the lines and there was no way I was going back looking for it. It was just as hard working down that stream as it was going up and just hoping that there was no hundred foot waterfall at the bottom. Finally made it to the bottom about 5:30 and was darn glad to be down. The mountain walk from tuesday was a cake walk compared to this one. I always wanted to hunt a mountain but I think when I do it again I will check it out closer. Made it back to the lodge and hit the hot tub for an hour as the guys were still out. Terry, Randy, Curt, Dave and Marco went fishing the along the road systems, they fished local rivers called the american, olds, rosalyn, chiniak. Marco said the american river looked like a swimming river of the dead as most of the fish were ready to die. They ran into horses on the road that just wouldnt move out of the way and they saw 3 deer,,,,,I think I will have to hang with those guys today. Somehow I think if you put all us guys together it makes a start of a good joke....that would go something like this....There was a real estate broker, a lawyer, an insurance saleman, a plumber and a greek and an italian..... Now I just need to come up with the rest of the joke. Marco is our resident techy and city boy and guides us thru all the electronic mumbo jumbo things that we all have. We have all said several times that city boy saves the day.... He has that italian accent and likes to call me "baby gorilla" or as he puts it baaaybeeee gohrrrhillla and I like getting him to say "cock ah roach" from the old al pacino movie..Heading out today to look for more places to fish and maybe fling an arrow.

Thanks for checking in. Pete

Friday night October 7, 2005

We just came back in from a day of checking out rivers and kodiak. We started out going downtown for a quick drive thru then back to the lodge to head out to find some fish....I caught a nice silver salmon at the first stop and nobody else had much luck either there so we headed on up in thru the mountain pass, the road has just been paved in the past couple weeks so before that it was just gravel. It was about 28 miles to the end of the road where there is a missle launch base that is owned by the state of alaska. They had some huge buildings there like the ones in Cape Canaveral and there sign out front said Cape Narrow, the other cape. At the end of the road there was fossil beach where tons of kelp were washed up on shore. Just pile after pile of it, pretty thick and wierd looking stuff. We made sandwiches in the van and headed back out to a stop where the only fish there were pink salmon which are wicked looking with their mouth and teeth and Randy caught some dolly varden which we are going to have for dinner along with venison from my deer. We had most of the tenderloins last night. ,Also we saw guys surfing in the ocean near fossil beach, looked pretty chilly to me, it was about 50 today. Then at another stop there were the most incredible rainbows over the sky. There were 3 at once and then they kept getting more itense with a full reflection of the rainbow in the water. We got some great pictures there. Now its way later in the night and we just came back from town from a great dinner at Henrys. Plans changed and we decided to let someone else cook. You know how you go into some places where they eat peanuts and throw the shells on the floor, well Henrys wasnt like that, instead they have a seperate bar in a corner and its lined with people playing pull tabs and all the losers are spread on the floor about 2 feet deep. About half of us spent about 5 bucks there each and only Marco the city boy broke even. Also along our route earlier today we had the horses blocking the roads and also buffalo too and even a bunch of pigs that the farmer came down to crack a whip at them to make them go home. In the morning we have to get up and head out early as Randy has chartered us a Halibut fishing trip out into the ocean. I hope that I can keep my composure on the boat and not get sick as the name of the boat is Up Chuckin One......so we will have to see how we all come thru that trip.....

Thanks for checking in. Pete

Saturday night October 8, 2005

You couldnt have asked for a more perfect day to spend on the bays of the pacific ocean. Calm and smooth waters all day. We started out the day by heading for Larsen Bay and met with our charter boat and captain Scott Phelps. His boat is about a 30 footer commercial sport fishing boat with twin 225 horse mercs on the back. When we first got to the dock we were nervous because there were lots of cars around and no boats. We were about 10 minutes early and Scott was along shortly. The sun was shining and we headed out into the fishing areas. Basically we fished between Kodiak, Whale, Afognak, & Rasberry Islands. We had just started out and Randy caught the first fish, a small halibut. Then things ran dry for a while we went by and saw an island full of sea otters and then we were in the midst of many humpback whales. What a spectacular sight they were, you could just feel the power of them when they would surface within a couple hundred feet of the boat and they would blow threw their blowhole. You would hear and see the blow and then hear them suck back in. One time they were so close Dave got sprayed by one. What a sight when they come back up and dive and their tails head down. We took lots of whale pictures and the most there were at once was 11. Steamy trails of spray would hover above the water as they blew. We fished in waters from 75 feet to 360 feet and its a real workout when you reel up from that depth and its even harder when you have a halibut on. Its about like reeling in a mattress. Terry caught the biggest one, it was 50 inches and 60 pounds. Dave had the second biggest one at 48 and I had the 3rd biggest one at about 42 inches. We caught red sculpin, yellow sculpin, cod ,flounder, and great sculpin. The sculpins look like a prehistoric fish, kind of like a dinasour. Dave caught and reeled in a rock and Curt caught an octopus. Very pink and lots of suction cups on him and where there mouth is they have a beak that is like a birds beak. Marco the city boy was the slowest on getting going on catching fish but he finally started hooking some. We all caught a variety of fish and it was a great day out there. Scott cooked us up some halibut sandwhiches for lunch and they were very tasty. Randy is whipping us up dinner tonight, dolly varden and venison.....We did see 2 bucks on the way to the bay this morning but I didnt have my arch with me......Thats what Marco says they call a bow in Italy...... so hopefully tommorow I can get out with my arch and do some more arch hunting......

Thanks for checking in. Pete

Sunday Night October 9, 2005

Things started out this morning as Curt and Dave dropped me off a few miles from the house and I started up a trail. It seems that I only learn things the hard way, this trail I started up on was along sargent creek and it wasnt to long before I came along 2 guys camping along the creek, they had been kayaking and said that the trail was a nice one that I was on..so I kept heading along it and it kept going up but was definetly a cake walk to a couple days ago. Great views and going up between the mountain passes. It snowed last night in the far south mountains and that was a pretty backdrop. Watching my gps I could see that I was following the same route as a couple days ago except that I was about 3/4 of a mile west and things were going smoothly. At lunch time I found a nice spot and had a little campfire and some peanut butter sandwhiches and then continued along the way, never seeing a sign of a deer.....after 6 hours of walking I came out right across from the Kodiak airport. I did get into an area where there were monster sized spruce trees and lots of deer runs but no deer in sight. I also ran across these old military bunkers in the hillsides, big domed concrete things built with huge steel doors in the sides, they have been abandoned for a long time and the big doors were welded shut....I was walking along thru the hills thinking about Marcos parents in Italy that have been reading this and hoping maybe someday I could get his mom to cook me a nice spaghetti dinner. Anyways after making it to the airport I got a ride back to the house and the guys had just been out and about a bit today and trying a little fishing here and there. This is our last night here and there is an new dilema brewing as I type, You see our city boy Marco's wife is alot pregnant, and she is due next week but as luck would have it he is on the phone right now trying to get out of here tonight so he can make it home in time. Angie called and her labor is starting, they live in Southfield and Randys wife just got back to grayling from being with Angie only to get the call that the time is now, so she turned around to head back and I just heard Marco tell the lady from the airlines that this is the birth of my child and I need to get home NOW! So hopefully he will make it back home in time. This will be the last update from Kodiak as we all have to leave tommorow night and I will update again once I get back to grayling. So for now the best to Marco and his family and we all have to say good bye to alaska. This has been a great trip and adventure and we all are looking forward to getting back to our families. Thanks for following along. Pete, Randy, Curt, Dave, Terry, & Marco (father to be).......Well now its 11:00 p.m and we all just got back from the airport, Marco got on the last flight out of Kodiak at 10:45 p.m., there were a whole 3 people on the flight and he is heading to anchorage to try to hop any flight he can to get back to detroit, so will he make it before the baby comes?? I might try one more update before heading out tommorow, we arent due to leave Kodiak till 6:00 p.m., I would think we will have more info as the night goes on.

Thanks for checking in, Pete

Monday October 10, 2005

ITS A GIRL!!! Angie had the baby at 6 a.m. this morning and Marco is still working his way back to michigan and wont get into detroit till 9 tonight. Little Sophie wieghed 6 pounds 3 oz. So the rest of us guys leave tonigh at 6:30. Congratulations to Marco & Angie..........