Foodies, Fishing & Fun - Exploring Cooper Landing, Soldotna, and Homer Alaska

From Seward, we headed to Cooper Landing for some fishing for sockeye (red) salmon. I (Jason) had good luck and had a close encounter of the grizzly kind at Sportsman's Landing. Fortunately, the brown bear was happy to eat the salmon just downstream from where I was fishing and was not aggressive toward anyone. We also enjoyed Cooper Landing Brewing (multiple times) They had great beer, delicious food, and a very nice dog-friendly outdoor area. during our stay, we took a hike to the Russian River Falls. We got to watch the salmon work their way up the falls employing various tactics. We didn't get to see any bears, just some signs (scat and claw-marks on some trees).
From Cooper Landing, we made our way to Soldotna, just a 45-minute drive along the Kenai River. There, we met fellow Oliver owners parked near us at Swiftwater Campground, then I did some more fishing and broke my fly-rod on a nice sockeye. We then tried the breweries in the area - Kenai River Brewing and St. Elias Brewing - and did some shopping for a new generator. They had a Honda EU3200i in stock, so we finally pulled the trigger to replace our two Honda EU2000 generators, free up some bed-space, and reduce maintenance. I just wish I had realized it didn't come with oil, so that required an extra trip to the store.
Next, we drove to Anchor River Recreation Area, in Anchor Point, and found an open site at Halibut Campground just steps away from Cook Inlet. we were only there for a short time, but were able to enjoy walking along the beach, watching the goings on of the tractor boat launch, and see some folks kiteboarding during an especially breezy day.
Finally, we went to Homer for a few days and to celebrate my 51st birthday. I had planned to do some fishing there, but my charter was canceled due to bad weather :-(. Then I had to deal with some issues with the inverter, so a bit of a rocky start, but things turned around as soon as we got out and about in Homer.
We had a site that backed up to Kachemak Bay with a beautiful view of Kachemak Bay State Park. We spent our time there walking along the multi-use path, watching folks fish at the Nick Dudiak Fishing Lagoon for the Coho (pink) salmon that were running, and wandering the docks. We ate our way through Homer enjoying fares from PikaPika Bento, Swell Taco, Finn's Pizza, Wild Honey Bistro, Carmen's Gelato, and Sea Sweets. We also imbibed some libations at Grace Ridge Brewing and Sweetgale Meadworks and Cider House.