The plan was to end today with cooler full of rainbow trout, but instead we ended with sore legs from a couple of beautiful hikes. Pivot and Adjust!Michael and I researched hikes and found a few close by that we could all do. (Still keeping things easy to moderate for Mike’s ribs.)

We start the day nice and slow. Our Dolly Varden Cabin has a room with 2 full sizes beds and a queen size Murphy bed. Since Mike and I are always up first, we took the Murphy Bed. I have to say it’s pretty cool pulling the bed out of the wall 😀

I was too sleepy to finish the blog last night, so while I finished the blog this morning, Mike fixed a delicious breakfast of grits and bacon. I did not realize until later that I looked like the crazy lady with my bed head. Between Mike’s cuts and black eye and my crazy hair, we were quite the sight 😂

After breakfast was finished and cleaned up, we were off to hike the Russian Lakes Trail. The hike was gorgeous! And the weather was crazy… if the sun was out and no breeze, it felt like 60 degrees. If the clouds came in and the breeze started, it would drop to 40 degrees. Of course, we found lots of plaques about different disaster, and even info on limited fire burns specifically for moose. Who knew moose prefer young birch, aspen and willow trees? And of course, these two had to find a way to make some kind of competition – pull ups on a bridge in a forest? Yes, please.

We can add tiny little brown mouse to our animal check list.

Thankfully, we didn’t see any live bears, but we did see some scat.

We made it to the Falls… not a waterfall but more like a series white water falls. Either way, it was beautiful, and definitely worth the hike!

We went a little further to see the sport fishing area… which was a tiny trail down to the water’s edge for net fishing and catching salmon.

Of course, 2.5 miles in means 2.5 miles out…

We made it back to the car just in time for the opening of the latest Mom’s Cafe location at Russia Lakes Trailhead.

After our late lunch, we decided to try another trail Michael found – Skilak Overlook Trail. It was supposed to be a beautiful overlook of Skilak Lake.

We started the trail with no problem and then about a quarter of a mile in, we saw a pile of bear scat. Not just scat, but fresh scat…

This trail was much more narrow with dense woods, so it was much harder to see through the woods compared to the last trail. We went on for about half a mile and then decided, after bruised ribs and stitches, we didn’t want to risk an up-close encounter with a bear. So we headed back to our car, and checked out the overlook in a bear free environment!

Plus we learned (from a plaque) that bald eagle come back to the same nest year after year adding to the nest each year. Bald eagle nests can weigh up to 2,000 pounds!

The drive back was just as pretty so here are ever more landscape pictures 😉

When we got home, we decided to go ahead and bake the cookie batter we got yesterday so they would be ready tonight after dinner.

We found a local place for dinner, the Cooper Landing Brewery. Great little place with homemade beers, and pretty good food – well, we guess it was all good. We all got chicken wings and fries, and they were good 🤷🏻‍♀️

We walked down to the water at our cabin when we go back, since it still daylight at 9pm. Seriously, these pictures are from almost 9pm!

With sore legs (well at least the adults have sore legs) and full bellies, we are in for the night with a movie rolling and heavy eyelids 🫩🥱

Tomorrow we head down to bottom of the Kenai Peninsula to check out Homer, Alaska and any other adventures we find along the way.