Seward

Un

Sunrise over the mountains

We get up early and have breakfast in the RV. Getting ready to check in on our cruise to the Kenai Fjords National Park which leaves at 10:00am for the day.  I wonder why they send me an email to rate how our trip was. I thought that was a little premature, until I checked in.  Oops, I had booked the cruise for yesterday not today and today they are full. They kindly rebook us for tomorrow, Saturday.

I walk the docks and am surprised to see all the recreational sailboats here. Some pretty hardy sailors. Also, I was surprised to see lots of Catalina 36’s like our sailboat, back home. I have been in contact with a member of the Catalina 36 Facebook page, Cherish Jordan, a local Alaskan who keeps their sailboat in Seward and often posts some very impressive photos of trips that she and her husband and children have taken. Hardy bunch of people, I feel like such a sailing weenie.

Seward harbor

Cherish’s Catalina 36 they do a lot of kayaking

After a visit to a very impressive bakery across from the National Park visitors center, we walk over to the center. We then drive to the Exit Glacier about 10 miles away for lunch and a hike. Late afternoon we drive back to our Campsite, now dry and sunny. Sit out side in the sun. We haven’t done that since a brief sunny period back at Dawson City in BC, Canada. Hopefully tomorrow will be a repeat.

I am a little confused, Exit, Where is the Entrance ?

Exit Glacier, in 1900 I would be standing at the foot of the Glacier

Scrape marks from the glacier flowing over this rock, was covered 20 years ago.

Cruise ship arrived this morning, leaving in the evening

After dinner clean up

Seward

We wake up to another rainy morning with low clouds covering  the surrounding mountains. After breakfast we start the drive south to Seward on the Kenai Peninsula, a very scenic ride through the mountains still with streaks of snow on them. 

The ride starts running along the Turnagain Arm, a long narrow bay south of Anchorage. Lots of turnout for cars to view wildlife out in the bay.  Rain, low clouds limits being able to see much of anything. Lots of road construction widening on this narrow cliffside highway shared with railroad tracks to Seward. After ½ hour or so, we leave the waterside highway to head up the Resurrection Pass Trail through the mountains. Coming down from the pass to Seward is the Sargent Icefield to the east and the Harding Icefield to the west. Even though there were much higher mountains in the Alaska interior, the cooler year round average temperatures on the coast and higher precipitation enabled these glaciers and Icefields. Unfortunately these glaciers are rapidly retreating, in some places a couple miles in the last twenty years. Glaciers that calfed icebergs in bays 60 years ago have retreated back up valleys and now end miles from the ocean. Not only are they retreating, their width and cross section is a small fraction of what they were 20-30 years ago.

Yuk day in Seward

We arrive to a very wet and rainy Seward.  The coastal mountains disappear into the clouds.  We find our RV campsite at the municipal campground, which is riddled with puddles. We just park and rest, before we drive into town for dinner. Then back to our RV site, still raining. Forecast for tomorrow is partly sunny, rain is suppose to stop around midnight

Anchorage

The occasional truck going by last night did not keep us from sleeping through the night. Of course heading south in the morning we immediately find some much better fully paved rest areas that would have been better boondocking sites. 

We have light rain as we have a two hour drive south to Anchorage.  We do take a detour to Talkeetna which is actually closer to Denali than the Denali Park Visitor Center.  The airfield here flies climbers to the base of Denali and tourists around the mountain. Our main reason to stop at Talkeetna is the “Flying Squirrel Bakery & Cafe”, which is a mile south of town down a dirt road.  Off by itself, it obviously pulls in a lot of business.  For a good reason. We get a bunch of goodies for the road.

About ½ hour north of Anchorage we drive through Wasilla, home of Sara Palin.  It has not been raining this far south.  Our first stop is Costco for gas. We are here in Anchorage to pick up Linda’s sister, Sabrina at the Airport at 8:00PM. She is traveling with us for a couple days to the towns of Seward and Homer on the Kenai Peninsula. After getting gas we head to Snow City restaurant downtop that has very good reviews.  We must have hit a bad day. We were not very impressed. After lunch we spend a couple hours in a parking lot at Earthquake Park working on our computers. We run into an ex-Vermonter who has been living here for 25 years.

Sabrina’s flight is 30 minutes early and we pick her up shortly after 8:00. We head downtown to “5th Street Station”, bar and restaurant recommended by our Vermont friend.  We get a parking spot right in front. As we get out of the RV, this small car trying to parallel park behind us hits the rear driver side of the RV.  Linda asks him to pull over to exchange insurance information. The passenger says sure and they then turn up a one way alley the wrong way and drives off.  Linda fortunately got a picture of the car and their license plate.  There were a number of witnesses. I check to make sure the rear door operates OK, which it does. The damage was to the two lower plastic body panels.  Unfortunately for our hit and run driver the heavy metal door hinge on the RV creased his rear door and quarter panel pretty badly.  The damage to him was much worse.

The RV

The hit and run care

I call the police to document the incident for our insurance company for what I assume will be an uninsured driver.  Half an hour later a policeman arrives and takes the information to file a report. I guess I should consider the response time very good. The bouncer at the door said there was a shooting two blocks away a couple weeks ago and it took 2 hours for the police to show up.

Dinner, finally, Sabrina, Linda, Nile

After we have dinner we head to Cabelas store parking lot to park for the night.  Cabelas allows RV’s to park overnight. When we get there, there are 25 or so RV’s parked.

Near Talkeetna

Cold night at this elevation was in the high 40’s in the morning. Double banket night and I havd to turn up the heat in the morning.

Today is laundry day and showers too.  But first we go to the Sled Dog Kennel.  The park service maintains 30 or 40 sled dogs for winter travel through the park's backcountry.  No motorized vehicles are allowed by law there. They serve scientific studies.  We get to interact with the dogs and get a demonstration of a few of them pulling a wheeled sled.

After that, we head to the main campground to do laundry, shower and organize RV storage. Linda does the laundry and I reorganize storage,  In our rush to leave Vermont, I haphazardly stowed stuff away. I had a storage area that I created under the rear passenger bench seat that was empty when we left. Also I have a number of storage totes that were not full. Linda’s sister is joining us in Anchorage and I need to better organize storage and free up space.

After our chores are done with, we head back to the Cafe for a very late lunch, unfortunately they are out of Salmon Stew so I have to settle for Tomato Bisque. Then one more stop to empty tanks and take on more water and get Linda an Ice Cream cone, which I help her with. We finally get on the road around 5:00PM to drive halfway to Anchorage. Linda’s sister, Sabrina flies in tomorrow at 8:00PM

We listen to “Audio Tour of Alaska” which is pretty good. It tracks your GPS on your phone and serves up stories and information of what is along your route. It has musical interludes between stories and is actually quite good at calling out information on what is just ahead.  A Lot more relaxing than listening to the news. Surprisingly we have fairly good cell reception for the next 3 hours.

View of Denali from roadside viewing area, we are probably never going to see

One interesting road side “Attraction” is the “Igloo” a defunct gas station that had a short life. Multiple owners have not been able to reopen it.  It had the distinction of fueling military helicopters flying between Anchorage and Fairbanks, as there were no other airfields to service them.

The Igloo, rainbow in background

We stop around 8:00 pm at a roadside gravel stop for the night. There is one other travel trailer and pickup here for the night. It's a little noisy close to the road with occasional trucks going by.

Denali - Savage River

Boondockers

By morning there are 8 RV and Cars that had pulled in for the night.  We are only about 10 minutes from the Denali park entrance. Just before the entrance  to the Park we pass the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, kind of an oxymoron.  Nothing wilderness about this area. A long line of touristy shops, a rather ugly area, typical of what springs up outside of many national park entrances. 

Another super duper RV

We head to the visitor center in the Park. Watch a couple movies and walk through the museum.  Most national parks, you pay the entrance fee at a booth when you drive in.  Here there is no collection booth or even a sign with the fees on it.  We eventually go to the Visitor center front desk and wait in line behind most people just asking questions. When finally we talk with the ranger at the desk we ask about where people are supposed to pay and she says right here.  No signs here stating that, and we don’t see any folks paying the park fees.  They don’t give out any receipts to prove you paid. I am sure most people are not aware there are any fees to use this park.. The Park Service must lose a lot of money, with their lazy-ass honor system.

We have lunch at the cafe here and I have an excellent Salmon stew and Linda has an excellent beef stew. After lunch we drive 15 miles west in the park, as far as you can drive in your own vehicle. You can do a day long bus tour to the end of this road which goes on for nearly 70 miles on a gravel road. This is the first fully sunny day we have had in a while, but not clear enough to see Denali.

Denali out there in the clouds

We return to the entrance to check in on our campground reservation. I thought we were in the main campground, but it turns out we are in the Savage Campground which is about 8 miles in on the access road and we had passed on our way back. Beautiful spot, secluded and quiet. Sites are in a cluster of trees, but the surrounding area is open to expansive views.

Alpine meadows at Savage Campround

10:30 PM Sun

Denali, Almost

Light rain this morning, Linda sleeps in and I work on disputing some bogus tax penalty from the State of Vermont. One more trip to Fred Myers and we head to the Denali area.  I have a campsite reservation for tomorrow night, but tonight we will be boondocking.

At a rest stop I see what I thought was this huge 4 wheel drive RV that I saw a Pioneer Park.  It turns out it is a similar one, both from Germany and shipped over.  Linda and I have a long talk with the owners, very interesting. They know about their  “Twin”.

We stop for the night just short of Denali at a popular roadside boondock site.

Pioneer Park

Today we get moving and are out by 8:00 AM with the tour bus folks. We decide to have Saturday breakfast out at the “Cookie Jar”, a local favorite, before we drive out to Chena Hot springs for the day. Fortunately the day is more seasonable in the 60’s. Going to a hot spring when the temperature is in the 80’s is not very appealing.

We have a good time relaxing at the outdoor hot spring and met an interesting couple from Texas, Virginia and Octavian Rahaian, who had emigrated from Romania 50 years ago.  After the hot springs, we visit the Ice Palace on the Chena Hot Spring property. 

Chena Hot Spring

Apple Martini in an ice glass at the bar

The 60 mile road to Chena Hot Spring could make a non-sailor sea sick. The frost heaves make for a very rolly drive in places. 

Could not find a Klondike Bar in the Klondike, but Alaska has them.

We head to Pioneer Park for the night in Fairbanks, because they allow RV’s to spend the night in the parking lot for $12. There must be nearly 30 RV’s of various sizes.

Super RV