Seward

Kenai Peninsula Part II – Seward, Alaska

August 10-12,2013

Days 28-30 of our Alaska Adventure, still moving along! Leaving Homer we saw more of the same beautiful roadside scenery today; the mountains were cloaked in what looks like beautiful green velvet, they are accompanied in their splendor with more picturesque waterways; the Kenai River was full of fisherman. The views were postcard perfect for many miles of our travel today. Arrived in the town of Seward mid-afternoon. Our campground was right on Resurrection Bay, looking across at some rugged mountains topped with clouds. It is fishing derby week, so there are a lot of fishermen out on the bay trying their hand to win the big prize. Little boats are constantly zigging and zigging across the water to go to their fishing sites. Our afternoon activities included visiting the Alaska Sea Life Center – a nice aquarium and rehabilitation center for sea life, built after the oil spill in the 1980’s.  We completed our downtown visit with a sample of suds from the Seward Brewery and a couple blocks stroll to check out the local tourism shops and stops.

Kenai River

Kenai Lake

The weather changed from gray and a bit dreary to WET and gray and dreary.  That did not stop us from taking a short hike up to see the Exit Glacier in the Kenai Fjords National Park.  About a mile up the trail we stood within a few feet of this beautiful blue ice flow.  You could feel the cold blowing off of her as we stood staring at her.  This is a spectacular view, even though she continues to recede several hundred feet a year on warm years.  As we stood at the view point we wished that there were a way just to “freeze” time so that all who travel this way will be able to take the majesty of this sight.  Exit is a relatively small glacier off of the Harding Ice Field above, but it is the only one that has a road that you can drive up on to get close to on a hiking trail.  We returned to camp to dry out and warm up.  The tour arranged a boat trip out on Resurrection Bay to Fox Island for dinner and some wildlife viewing.  Dinner was good and we enjoyed a presentation about the area by a local park ranger.  The wild life viewing was negligible because of the weather conditions – Mike did his best to take pictures of few sea otters, sea lions and birds in the distance, but the rain was really not very cooperative, he got soaked trying to snap some pics off the deck of the boat.

Exit Glacier

Seward has a deep harbor and as such is a docking location for some cruise ships.  There were two in town while we were here.  It not the glamorous sort of town that you picture ships coming into, but there still is a lot of fun to be had.  We drove down to the Mile 0 of the historic Iditarod Dog Race – it traveled over 2000 miles from Seward to Nome in the early 20^th century.  The race now starts In Anchorage and goes to Nome – shorter safer run for the dogs and mushers.

Seward River and Port

another broken down cruise ship

We will be leaving the Kenai Peninsula and heading east to our last 4 Alaskan stops: Palmer, Valdez, back to Tok, and eventually to Skagway, (after traveling through a part of the Yukon Territory again). This continues to be a fantastic trip!

Miles for the day: 175   Total miles for the AK Adventure: 2354.2

Homer

The Kenai Peninsula: Beluga Point, in Kenai and Homer Alaska

August 6-9, 2013

Day 24 saw us in yet another incredibly beautiful area of our 49^th state.  This Alaska Adventure continues to thrill us, we know we really are “living the dream” on this trip.  We now are on the Kenai Peninsula it is 150 miles long by 70 miles wide and yes with more incredible landscapes to be seen.  Our first stop was Beluga Point in the town of Kenai. On the route to our night’s stop we visited the Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center – we were able to drive through (yes w/ the MoHo and dolly and Prius) There were nice pullovers where you could get out and view the rescued critters up close. We got to see several moose, caribou, elk, bison, musk ox, black bears, bald eagles, and barn owls up close and pretty personal. The only residents we missed were the 3 brown bears (grizzlies) that are there, they were being quite shy during our visit.  Just a few miles down the road we stopped at the Portage Glacier Interpretive Center. It was rainy, windy and pretty darn miserable so we skipped the boat ride that would have taken us out to the glacier (it has receded so much that you can no longer see it from the center on Portage Lake). We did see a good movie about the area and got a sense of how it was.  Into camp at Beluga Point we watched for whales off the point, saw some otters and seals, but no whales. Across the Cook inlet we had a good view of the 4 Sleeping Giants: Mt. Redoubt Volcano (last erupted 3-23-09), Mt Spurr the tallest volcano in the Aleutian Arc, Mt. Ilamna, and St. Augustine an island formed by Augustine Volcano, last erupted in 1986. The sun was just shining on the tops of these mountains through the clouds and giving us a gorgeous view.

Black Bear - "What are you looking at?"

Sunset on the Kenai Peninsula

Mt. Redoubt, Kenai

Miles for the day: 173   Total miles for the AK Adventure: 2084.2

Days 25-27 – Homer - a place we have anxiously waited to visit. Our daughter Kristin has been here twice and has always told us how much we would enjoy it. SHE WAS RIGHT!  Today’s route was a relatively short drive with only a couple of construction hold-ups, and a few bumps along the way, but again there was such amazing scenery to distract one from any road concern. We made camp early in the afternoon and were overjoyed at our accommodations. All 23 rigs are parked on the spit of Homer, sitting less than 30 ft. from the water at high tide on Kachemak Bay. This place is simply WONDERFUL, many of us think we are done with the trip - we will just stay here!  Guinness and Corona are in 7^th Heaven. They got to run on the beach, smell the smells, run through the water and enjoy a bit of rough and tumble play that they miss most days while on this trip. After enjoying our beautiful campsite we went down on the “SPIT” and walked along the shops, restaurants and waterfront. We had happy hour at the famous Salty Dawg Saloon. kind of a fun & funky place – dollar bills, bras, hats, panties decorate the walls, ceiling etc.  Dinner was great; we ate at the Fresh Catch, recommended to us by a couple of locals at the bar. We ordered king crab legs (market price – nope didn’t ask what the $$ was – YIKES $70. A pound) they were GREAT as were the much more reasonable mussels we also shared. PB&J tomorrow J!

Homer Spit

Salty Dawg, we are regulars!

Mike went on a half-day fishing excursion for halibut and brought home his limit!! He caught two 15-20 lb. fish that gave us over 10 pounds of cut and flash frozen fillets. Phew the little freezer is stuffed with the CATCH. Mike said it was hard work, glad he did it, but it was pretty chilly, the water was rough, and the labor of pulling up the fish was pretty intense. So glad he caught some for all of his effort.

Halibut, Mike's two are third from the right

Eagle spotting was good – we had one right outside our MoHo on a light post and saw a nest with a couple of birds in a tree downtown. Breakfast was at the Spit Sisters Café’. What fun: we walked in and Mike said “we know Melissa Keevel” and we were supposed to say “HI”.  They all knew Melissa and said she had been in Homer to visit but was working up north.  We then told them we were friends of Melissa and her family and our daughter had been there a couple of summer’s ago to visit Melissa. When we mentioned Kris—they all immediately knew our girl.  “Funny Kris?”  They asked, “from Oregon?”  Yes that’s the one. 2 more women walked in and the shop owner said, “Kris’ parent’s are over there”—pointing a finger towards us, well my gosh one might think we were celebs.  Laughing hugging and chatting took place as we all agreed what a great person Kristin is.

Spit Sisters Cafe, Homer

Bald Eagle outside our motor home

Took a drive to see the spit and beautiful surrounding mountains from a good vantage point above the city. Nice to get a general lay of the land, enjoyed seeing some of Homer proper too. Definitely is much more of a tourist influence here than is some of the other towns we have visited. Guess it won’t be long before the visitors and support network are gone and all that will be left are the “sourdoughs” that call Alaska home all year long.

Glacier on the bay near Homer

Miles for the day: 95   Total miles for the AK Adventure: 2179.2

Anchorage

Anchorage, Alaska:

August 3-5, 2013

Days 21-23 were spent in Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage; home to 44% of the state’s population nearly 300,000 people. Interesting bit of trivia is that there are more espresso stands per capita here than anywhere else in the world (more than Seattle?) It is a huge city geographically 1961 square miles are within the city limits. On a clear day one can see 6 mountain ranges (No, not Russia, Sarah) and Anchorage is as far north latitude as Helsinki Finland, and as far west as Honolulu.  Who knew?

Anchorage

The group had a city tour and drove through the down town area and into Earthquake Park where you could see some of the consequences of the 1964 massive earthquake that hit this area. It was 9.2 on the Richter scale, it lasted nearly 3 minutes, some of the land near the water’s edge dropped nearly 12 feet.  The route then took us on a drive around Lake Hope; there we saw an amazing array of seaplanes tethered to shore. Most of them moored there had small garages for tools, and spare parts-looked a lot like a boat harbor, but for planes. Most of these planes had their pontoons on for summer, but switch to all-terrain tires in spring and fall and skies for winter.  Over 90% of Alaska is not served by roads; so approximately 1 in 11 of Alaska’s population have a pilot’s license, and there are 16 times more planes per capita than anywhere else in the U.S. From a nice viewpoint up on a ridge we looked across the Cook Inlet and Turnagain Arm.  In 1778 Captain Cook, was looking for the infamous Northwest Passage, thought he had found it, until he sailed into this narrow waterway, realized he had not and told his ships that they would have to “turn again”.   From this vantage point we also had a pretty good view of Mt. Susitna at 4,396 feet. The mountain is also referred to as the Sleeping Lady: the story goes that many years ago on the shores of the Cook Inlet lived a local people (giants) that were peace loving. There were being bothered by another band of natives who did not share this life style. To try and solve their differences a band of men led by Nekatia approached the marauders. Unfortunately Nekatia died in his attempt. Susitna waited and waited for her lover to return, and finally fell asleep. Supposedly her tears and those of the other villagers brought the first snow fall to the area – when the mountain is snow covered she is snuggled under a fluffy white blanket, and as the weather warms up her blanket is beautiful green with flowers. Susitna is still waiting for her lover to return and the story says that she will only wake up when peace returns to our land. The afternoon was enjoyed with a lunch and a bit of souveniring: went to the ulu knife factory and the Wildberry Sweet shop with the world’s tallest chocolate fountain.  An Alaska video showing the beauty and uniqueness of Alaska finished the tour.

Karen meets Merry the Reindeer

Visitors center in Anchorage

Anchorage is home to the Alaska Native Heritage Center – Changing lives, living values: They had an excellent interpretive center explaining the differences and similarities of the 11 distinct cultures. We walked through the 6 native villages and got a little better understanding of the native peoples of the state of Alaska. We enjoyed watching a display of Alaska Native Games – 2 young women demonstrated a kicking game: they kicked a ball that was suspended on a rope about 7feet off the ground. The kicking was amazing, but the way they hopped up in the air both feet off the ground whacked the ball with their foot and then landed on the foot that they had kicked with. We just stood watching for several minutes couldn’t believe what we were seeing. Amazing athletes.

Alaskan Native Heritage Center

the summer door

Our Anchorage visit was topped off with a wonderful salmon barbeque hosted by our wagon masters. John and Arleen are quite the “Alaskans” and do a lot fishing and hunting.  The group consumed almost 30 pounds of tasty Coho salmon.  Yummo, we really enjoyed it.  Mike tried his hand at salmon fishing, but they were just not biting his lures and fishing hole he selected was crazy with other fisherman.

Salmon fishing

Miles for the day: 239  Total miles for the AK Adventure: 1911.2

Denali

Denali, Alaska

July 31- August 2, 2013

Days # 18-20 of our Alaska Adventure. Well here is a very important question. Can people have too much fun, too many beautiful views, too many fun activities, too much good food??  We are attempting to answer those questions.  At this point one would have to say NO!!  This trip just continues to get better and better!  Our travel to Denali from Fairbanks was quick and uneventful. The views were a bit hazy, but one could still appreciate the mountains in the Alaska Range and the gorgeously green valleys.  After arriving at camp we set out for a helicopter flight to see Mt. McKinley or Denali as she is now called.  The weather Gods were not so cooperative, we had some pretty good thunderstorms over the mountains, so they flew us to the eastern potion of the Alaska Range (away from Denali) but we saw some amazing mountains, vistas, valleys and GLACIERS! Wow who knew that they would be so numerous and incredible.  We have seen a few glaciers on other mountains on our trip but NOTHING the size, variety and number we saw on this flight.  We did see the blue color that is visible because water is very good at absorbing light; only the strongest light with the most energy is able to escape.  The color blue has the most energy, so it can escape without being absorbed. The thicker the glacier the bluer is appears (I think I got that explanation right?).  The 50 minutes we flew vanished before we knew it.  Another fantastic experience on the “trip of a lifetime”.

Glacier view from Helicopter

Outer Range of the Alaska Range

We took a daylong bus ride into the Denali National Park. The driver was extremely knowledgeable and entertaining.  It didn’t hurt that the weather was close to perfect. We were so fortunate to be able to see Denali (Athabascan Indian word for “The High One”), the 20,322 feet tall mountain from 4 different viewpoints. We are in the 30% club; only about 30% of the visitors get to see the mountain, clouds often shroud it. The views were nothing short of spectacular: the creeks, rivers, lakes, valleys, rock formations and beautiful sky. The trip was also a good wild life-spotting event. We saw several moose, caribou and one very shy golden grizzly bear (he was hiding behind some bushes and never really did make himself very visible). The bus was outfitted with a camera that the driver could focus in on the scenes and project them onto small video screens through out the bus, this gave everyone a good view of things.

Caribou

Denali

Denali River Valley

“Ya Hoo – Ye Haw and Oh My God!!!”  We took a 2-hour whitewater raft trip on the Nenana River. What a rush it was. Because the water comes right off the Nenana Glacier less than 24 hours earlier it was COLD – about 38 degrees ----- brrrrrrrr.  We all wore dry suits that did a pretty good job of keeping us dry and warm, but the splash was still quite exhilarating. 3 other couples & Mike and I banded together for the trip. We had some discussion on the type of trip we would take: a simple float trip or a Canyon Run Excursion – the Canyon Run, it was. The girls rode on one raft and the guys on the other. Think the girls had the most fun! The views were grand, beautiful canyon to rip and roll through, splashed through 7 level III rapids—what a blast!  After returning to camp and putting on dry clothes we went up to the Grande Denali View Hotel and enjoyed a little lunch and a stunning view of the river we had just rafted and the surrounding area.

white water on the Nenana River in Danali

We enjoyed an evening’s entertainment – Nite Cabin a dinner theater – the serving staff are all singers and quite the characters.  After a good family style dinner, we enjoyed a show of skits, singing and dancing, a great ending to our Denali Experience.

Miles for the day: 124  Total miles for the AK Adventure: 1722.3

Fairbanks and the Arctic Circle

Civilization: Fairbanks, Alaska

Fairbanks is home to over 60,000 people and is the 2^nd largest city in Alaska. Like most northern cities, Fairbanks has a god-rush history and enjoyed a boom in the early 1900’s. While in Fairbanks we enjoyed many unique Alaskan experiences: dinner one night at the Salmon Bake Buffet, followed by a Gold Rush review at the Palace Theater celebrating the history of Fairbanks There was the 40 Degrees Below 0 Experience, where we had our picture taken while standing in a freezer (yep, pretty cold alright).  We had a good cruise on the Discovery III, a sternwheeler modeled after the boats that carried miners, and their supplies during the gold rush; the float was accompanied by very entertaining presentations, commentaries of what we were seeing on the riverbanks and demonstrations. The seaplanes that were parked at almost every property along the riverbanks were interesting to watch take off and land.  0ne out of every eleven Alaskans have their pilot’s license.  The cruise stopped at an Athabascan Indian Village where we were told stories about the historical times of the Indians. We enjoyed listening to a talk by a young woman about her sled dogs, who will be racing in the Yukon Quest Dog Sled Race in February 2014.  Wow is that ever an arduous activity.  The afternoon was spent at a champagne brunch - more food, yet another buffet – oh my, are we ever eating well.  One of my favorite tours was visiting the Ice Museum – an old movie theater that has been converted into a showroom of ice sculptures. There were large walk-in freezers where we viewed frozen art works that had been made the previous winter at the Ice Carving Festival in the local park.  We watched as one of the sculptors carved a dolphin out of a block of ice – he used drills, dremil tools, files, hair dryers and a fan. Quite an art!

Salmon Bake

Ice Museum

cruising on the Chena, Fairbanks

New sled dog puppies

4:00am, the alarm went off, we jumped up out of bed, fed the Boys and headed off to the airport. This was our day for the Artic Circle Air Adventure. We flew in a small 7-passenger plane over some of the last great wilderness regions on earth, north of the Yukon River, across the Artic Circle: 66 degrees 33 minutes latitude (nope no dotted line that we could see from the air J) and into the Brooks Mountain Range.  We could see many miles of the Alaskan Oil Pipe Line as we flew.  Most of the 800 miles of pipeline are above ground, because of the permafrost in the region.  In approximately an hour and a half we landed in Coldfoot Alaska (home of the Farthest North Bar – not much to look at or drink, but interesting none the less).  From Coldfoot we drove to Wiseman and met a real mountain man: Jack Reikoff.  He and 13 others live in Coldfoot all year long, very different life style.  They survive by giving tours, making crafts, growing huge gardens in the summer, trapping and selling furs and preserving the resulting meat. The trip then reversed itself and we flew back from the Artic Circle to Fairbanks arriving just shortly after noon. It was a great flight and a yet another experience for the crazy North American Safari Travelers.  That afternoon we made a visit Santa’s House at North Pole, Alaska – left a note on who we think have naughty and nice.

Farthest North BAR in the World

flight to the Arctic Circle

The Arctic Circle, N66-.33

Oil Pipeline

An amazing feature of this Land of the midnight sun has been the bounty of plants, and flowers that appear to be growing everywhere in Alaska.  Stores, parks and most homes are decorated with beautiful blooming baskets, colorful flowerbeds, and incredible vegetable gardens.  It is a very short growing season of 120 days or less, but they really seem to thrive on the long 20+ hours of BRIGHT SUNLIGHT. Our Wagon Masters live in Fairbanks and we saw their amazing garden (huge cabbages, carrots, lettuce, Swiss chard, potatoes…) Wow our garden has never looked that good.

The Alaska Museum of the North on the University of Alaska Campus was an interesting visit. There were many interesting collections of contemporty and historic materials on display.  Gold Fever struck us! – We visited Gold Dredge # 8 that last operated in 1959. This 250’ long, 5-story tall machinery was impressive. Our pockets are much heavier: between the 2 of us we panned out a total of $31.00 worth of gold flecks from the little pouch of dirt we were given, wow!!  That could become an addicting hobby J.   One of the last tours we took was a visit to a check station along the Pipe Line.  This is one of the reasons that Alaska is so successful, 80% percent of the state’s economy comes from oil revenue and related services.  The taxes that the oil company pays for the line to run from Prudhoe Bay on the Bearing Sea in the north down to Valdez in the south keep the state from having to depend on sales or personal income taxes. In addition each full time resident receives an annual payment of $1000.00 or more. This sounds pretty good, but when one takes into consideration the high cost of living here, it is probably only a small incentive. 

Grizzly or Brown Bear

Anchorage Museum

Bonanza! $31.00 of GOLD

These first 6 days in Alaska have been incredible, and there is so much more to come.

Chicken & Tok Alaska

ALASKA At Last: Chicken & Tok:

July 25-30, 2013

Day # 12 of our Alaskan Adventure provided us with more excitement than was expected. Our travels started out by crossing the river by ferry. The boat was small and only took 1-2 rigs on a crossing. So after about an hour of waiting I got on with the little Prious, and 3 boats later Mike made it over with the MoHo and the tow-dolly (only a 7 minute trip). We got back together, hitched up and got back on the road. Not just any road, but the Top of the World Highway. This drive climbed up from the western banks of the mighty Yukon. This could have been a very picturesque drive, but with the low clouds/fog we really could not see much on either side of us, or in front of us.  A slow 66 miles later saw us crossing from Canada back into the good ol’ USA. The road that had been fairly bumpy and narrow went from bad to worse; what the heck is Alaska doing to maintain their roads, potholes, potholes, and more potholes; washboard, washboard, and more washboards.  The weather turned from gray to wet and the dirt road became a very slippery bumpy mess. We drove very slowly (5-10 mph) for the next 40 miles or so and just tried to stay on the road, minimize the bumps and avoid the soft shoulders. Mike’s calm and skilled driving skills kept us safe and sound – after a very long day: 108 miles that took us about 6 hours we were both exhausted. Driving into the little town of Chicken the road improved, we were greeted with a beautiful view of the Fortymile River and fields of bright cheerful purple/pink fireweed.  All the rigs eventually made it into camp (one rig had to be towed out of a very slippery shoulder-took them an additional 6 hours) all of us were very grateful to be safe and sound, even though all of our rigs/tow vehicles were plastered with mud, what a sight!  The small community of Chicken (pop. 37 during the summer, 3 in the winter) was quite interesting. This little town was once a mining hub for the Fortymile District.  As the story goes the miners wanted to call their town Ptarmigan (sort of like a quail) after the bird common in the area. Unfortunately people could not agree on the spelling the unusual name, so they settled on Chicken. The name stuck.  Along side the campground was a big gold dredge – the Pedro Dredge that mined gold on the Yukon River from the early 1900’s to 1968. The tour took us through this machine; what an interesting multi faceted piece of equipment.

Miles for the day: 108  Total miles for the AK Adventure: 1316.7

Chicken Alaska, sign is other foul cities

Gold Dredge

Dirt form the Top of the World Highway

Slick with pot holes

Day #13 of the A.A. took us on the Taylor Highway, better road conditions generally, some potholes, and such, but NOTHING like the previous day’s journey. We were treated to marvelous views of the Alaska Range Mountains, brilliant green forests and valleys of the fireweed. This was a short day’s travel to Tok, Alaska. Our group of 23 MoHos gathered at the truck washes in the campground and with help from Mike and a few others the grubby rigs and toweds were bathed.

Miles for the day: 78  Total miles for the AK Adventure: 1394.7

before RV wash

fireweed

after two long days of driving