This one was the absolute best thing we've seen so far. Tons of tiny waterfalls falling of the mountain right next to a glacier.
It was really windy here because of the glacier winds, currents of wind that are formed from the melting glaciers. There was an especially strong wind here because there are three glaciers in the area. Unfortunately we couldn't see Portage glacier because you had to take a boat onto the water to actually see it, but what we did see was awesome. 
Everytime we come across a river I try to get a picture of it because they all are such a pretty shade of blue. As the glaciers melt, they scrape the mountain underneath and this glacial silt ends up in the water. These pictures finally do them some justice.
We stopped at a little town called Hope that was a gold rush town back in the day. We ate some fireweed-honey icecream. Fireweed is a flower that grows wild here, they make it into jams, syrups and I guess icecream. It tastes like honey. It was really good. 
Matt finally got his fishing license around 8 pm on Monday night. At 9:30 we went out with our neighbors at the campground to try out some fishing. Its fun that you can go fishing at 9:30 at night. Both Dave and Wade caught rainbow trout but they got away as they were getting them to the shore. And we saw our first bear! It was on the shore opposite us, bearly visible... Matt didn't get any fish but it was a fun outing.
The next morning Matt went down to the Russian river again with our other neighbors for some more fishing. As we got down there a female brown bear was wading in the water on the other side of the shore. There were several fishermen and the bear could probably smell the fish. Ok, warning moms, the next part gets a little scary. If you don't want to hear about the bears, then skip to the next section. When I returned with lunch around 1, Matt wasn't at the river but up in the parking lot where you walk down from. He said that he had to stop fishing because of all the bears. Several more bears came, including another sow and her cub and Matt and the other fishermen had to keep running across the river to get out of their way. This part of the river is much more narrow- maybe 20 yards across. This means the bears were like 20 yards away. They stole several fish that people had caught, even sticking their paws underwater and getting to the fish that the fishermen tied up. The bears didn't seem to care about the humans being there at all, they just knew how to get an easy meal. People were telling us that if the bear keeps going around humans and it habituated to them, it will be put down. Too dangerous. I guess there is 1 black bear per square mile in the kenai peninsula, some places are even closed for fishing because of the high population of bears.
This is where the Russian river and Kenai river come together. There is a russian ferry to take you from one side to the other.
This is our campsite at the Russian River. We had a great view of the mountains in the background and could even see a little of the Kenai River.
That night we went for a hike up to the Russian Falls and Russian Lakes. It was about 9 miles round trip. We set out to do just a little stroll, but ended up walking the whole way. We started at 6pm and got back at 9.
The Russian Falls are famous for the salmon that jump up the waterfall to get to their spawning ground. As we got to the waterfall, I walked out to the viewing plank and couldn't believe what I saw. 
There was a brown bear on the shore eating a bright red salmon. The sea gulls were swarming around, hoping to get the scraps. After the bear was done with the fish, it got into the river and proceeded to go fishing. There is a video for you to watch. It is amazing!!!
In the next picture you can see the dark shadows of the fish in the water. They are resting in the more calm areas of the current before heading farther upriver.
So, as we continued on our hike Matt got pretty hot. So he rolled up his pant legs to cool himself off. We had put bug spray on, but Matt didn't have any on his legs. I kept telling him he had mosquitos on his calves and swatted them a couple of times. Just looking at the mosquitos around him made me shiver. Also, he had a small following of gnats around his head. He must have smelled pretty tasty.
This mushroom was bigger than my face!
Here you can see some of the glacier behind Matt. It looks like a very still lake. I guess it kind of is.
When we got back from our hike, it was pretty late, but still light out. So Matt decided to go fishing. A couple of hours later, when I was about to go to sleep at midnight, Matt returned and asked if I was hungry. He had been the only fisherman down at the river, where all the bears had been earlier. He caught a fish and filleted it right there. The seagulls came and he kept waiting for the bears to arrive, but they never came. We grilled the fish and ate the whole thing. Delicious.
The next day I noticed Matt's calves. They were covered in mosquito bites. We counted 58 mosquito bites! But lucky for Matt, he doesn't feel the bites and they didn't bother him at all. It was still pretty disgusting.
Driving to Kenai from the Russian River, we passed by a medical clinic owned by one of the guys Matt was fishing with. We recognized it by the sign he had been telling us about. Cheaper and faster than going to the ER.
We passed by a Sawfest, wood carving done by chain saws. It was a festival and we stopped there to watch the guys at work and grab some food. We had a delicious reindeer dog (big juicy sausage with, yes, reindeer meat) and homemade cheesecake. Best we've ever had!
We arrived at Kenai and it was a bright beautiful day.
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