Bill and I are laying over in Denver right at the moment. Our flight out of Branson was flawless. We have 2 hours to kill before our 5.5 hour flight to Anchorage.

It's hard to believe we'll be on the Kelly River tomorrow. Air flight in this day and age is amazing.

The Healing Water Event kept us hopping. We both were 99% packed since Thursday and it was a good thing. Coordinating guides and meals for the guys has a full time job. But it was all worth it.

I'd been packing, or thinking about what to take, for the last 3 weeks. I'd run through potential problems and situations on the river and think... what would I need. Add it to a small list and then run to Walmart and pick up stuff. Made a couple of trips to Springfield, Sams, Bass Pro and Lawrence Photo among other places. I made trips to other outdoor outfitting places but couldn't shell out the bucks for the real good stuff.

The weather in Kotzebue has improved the last few days. The forecast for Monday-Wednesday is 55 and partly cloudy!! Oh man is that going to be nice!!! As Bill put it, that's great picture-taking weather.

We were told the area had gotten quite a bit of rain so we were afraid the river would be high and muddy. Nothing we can do at this point but we think we'll be ok now that the weather is better.

We get in Anchorage at 10:45 pm which is 1:45 am at home. We won't be calling our wives till in the morning.

Our flight leaves Ted Stevens Int at 11 am tomorrow. We have a 1.5 hour layover in Nome which is going to be cool. Hopefully we can get out and walk around alittle.

This might be the last entry until we get off the river and back to Anchorage on 9/6.