We spent the night at Kepler Bradley State Recreation Area on Matanuska Lake. Brooke had another chance to be in a boat.  We rented a canoe for an hour.  Scott paddled with her for a half hour while I watched the sleeping Cody and then he watched Cody and I paddled.  Since Scott paddled with her first, Brooke was like a student with a substitute teacher when I came into the boat, “That’s not how we do it normally.”  According to Brooke I didn’t paddle the right way and I apparently didn’t put the boat through the lily pads just the way Daddy did either.  All in all she had a great time on the water and she’s even starting to get the hang of paddling.

Little Yoda with Brooke’s walking stick while Scott and Broke were fishing.

The sun was actually out so Scott caught some rays at lunch.  We also took in the kids first baseball game.  The Matanuska Miners Minor League Team had a double header and it was Fan Appreciation Day, so not only was the game free, but they also gave us a bag of free stuff!  Kudos to Scott who saw the info on the team in the Milepost and then called to discover Fan Appreciation Day.

Scott has kept in contact with a couple we met while cooking in Homer.  Dennis and Wendy are on the left side of the table.  They are traveling from Michigan.  Sheila is on the right. We met Sheila at the campground last night.  She is a heavy machine operator from Kansas.  Sheila has been grounded in Alaska for a month waiting for a new motorcycle engine to come in.  Her journey actually started in Key West, Florida on a motorcycle race that ended in Nome.  Her engine went out on her way back home.  Cody took an instant liking to Sheila who also has a son, but he is grown and working on a US submarine.

The Miners won against the Fairbanks team 10 –0.It was an amazing sunny day at the ballpark.

The picture on the left is of a lily pad flower.  Brooke and I are canoeing on the right.

Sheila was staying with a lady named Jamie and her son James.  They happened to meet at a campground and have been hanging out together ever since.  Sheila made Brooke a wreath of beautiful flowers.  Brooke really loved having someone to play with.  She and James played ball and hiked around together.

It was another day that started rainy, but ended beautifully.  Cody and I are a little under the weather, but hopefully that will clear soon too. I brought his car seat into the tent so that he could breathe a little easier sitting up.  It worked for a few hours and then he seemed to be able to sleep laying down.  I had a lot more sleep too since it was difficult to sleep while holding him sitting up without a chair or wall the night before.

Scott went for a two hour bike ride on the trail that started right by our tent.

The following was paraphrased from Scott, so hopefully it is sort of accurate:

There was a lot of good single track woven together with some double track/ horse trails.  The long rides at home are nothing compared to the long trails in the mountains out here. “There were some seriously killer hills in there.” The trails were in shockingly good condition considering all of the rain.  Some of the trails were littered with roots and some parts were very tight with vegetation.  He was thankful there were no resting bears along the trail hiding in the vegetation after his close encounter yesterday.  After an hour of riding he wound up at the trailhead for the equestrian trail.  He spent fifteen minutes trying to make his way on the trail he had come out on.  However, the trails were quite a spider web and he had trouble making his way back.  Thankfully he had his GPS with him and eventually made his way out to the road.  He rode along the Glenn Highway for a half hour to get back to the campsite.  All told he rode about fifteen miles.  He was thankful to get back just as it was getting dark at 11 pm.