Category: Campgrounds

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Denali National Park

We arrived at Denali’s Riley Creek Campground around 11 am as that was check-in/ check-out time there.   Your reservation does not secure a particular campsite, just that there will be a campsite that can fit our 40′ coach; so getting there as early as possible makes it more likely to get a nicer site.   The site we wanted was taken, but the one across the street from it was available.  We set up some of our things, but not everything as we saw on the campsite post they were leaving the next morning.  When they did, we immediately moved over there and enjoyed the next 6 nights in what we think is the best site in Riley Creek for a large rig.

That afternoon we walked over to the mercantile store as we heard there was huckleberry ice cream to be had.  It didn’t disappoint.

When we arrived, we had been dry-camping for the prior 4 nights, so we wanted to use the dump station before starting another 7 nights of dry-camping in Riley Creek Campground Denali National Park.  Their dump station was set up so it would take a very long time to dump and fill with water.  When you are dumping, the potable water is probably 40′ or more away; so the average RV had to move up about 25 feet or so for their fresh water line to reach, but that wasn’t far enough forward for the next vehicle to start dumping, so it took most folks twice the time to get out of the way for the next vehicle.   Lucky for us we found a line with only one rig in front of us, and we have a long fresh water hose so we could fill the tank and dump at the same time.

Our traveling companions had been to Riley Creek a couple other times, so they knew which were the best sites to try to get.   The best spot was taken so they took their #2 choice and set up.  We picked a site across from their first choice and noticed that the person in there was leaving the next day, so we deployed the bus just enough to live overnight as the site we were in was long enough but very narrow.

Next morning those folks left and we were ready to move.  That site was a much better setup for us, way more level and much wider too.  We stayed there for the next 6 nights.   It was also much better for deploying our solar suitcase to keep the generator running time to the very minimum.  A few of the days we didn’t need to run it at all.

Kathy and Sue wanted to go shopping in town, so one of the first days when it was cloudy and misting rain, that was what we did.   There are only a few things in the town of Denali:  restaurants, a few hotels, trinket shops and gas stations, also a few tour guide storefronts.   Not much else.  It’s all about the National Park across the river from the town.

We went for lunch at the place voted best pizza place in town.  We got a table outside so Dusty could come with us.  The pizza was as good, if not better than the last time we were here for dinner.   Dusty was very popular there.  It seemed like everyone had to come over and see him.  He mostly ignored them, except the kids who still had some food on their hands.  He wanted to lick those hands!  In the picture to the right you can see the Alaska Railroad Train across the river heading south toward the Denali Station.

Kathy, Sue and Larry went over to watch the Sled Dog Kennel demonstration.  The dogs are used all winter in the park, it’s quite amazing.  Then they walked back on a  3-mile forest trail that had quite a bit of elevation change.  Many sore knees after that!

 

We drove out the park road every day trying to see the Denali Mountain, and each time we were disappointed, as it was shrouded by clouds.   One of the days we decided to go for a hike on Savage Creek Canyon Trail.  We visited the Savage Creek Cabin on the way to the end of the road where the trail begins and heard a little talk about the history of the area from one of the tour guides.

It was a bit windy and mostly cloudy when we parked at the trailhead.  There was a large sign saying a grizzly bear had been seen in the area.  Not what you want to see when starting your hike!!!  (but  thankfully we never saw him)  We decided to walk up and around the river, over the road bridge so we would end up at our parking lot when we finished. (there was a small foot bridge at the other end of the trail that made it a loop.)  It was a short 2-mile hike thru some very pretty country.   Not far along the trail we came upon a ptarmigan (the chicken of Chicken, Alaska, fame)  I had only seen pictures, and this one was right on our trail and didn’t seem to care about us.  It just walks right up to us then darted into the underbrush.

Some of the areas were slippery and you could see the park service had tried to make them a bit less of an issue by strategically placing rocks to try to divert the water into small channels that emptied into the creek next to the trail.  When we got back we saw a caribou  crossing the creek and then eating in the bushes near the parking lot!

The next day Kathy and I drove over to Healy for lunch at 49th State Brewing.  They had a nice patio now out front that wasn’t there the last time we went there, so the Dust could also come with us and not have to stay in the car.  It was one of the scarce  almost warm day, so we wouldn’t have wanted to leave him in there.

 

 

 

On the last full day there we got to see Denali in all its glory!  We had an app that showed a real time view of Denali and we could see the cloud cover looked gone.  We took our last drive out the Park road and could see it clearly.  We could now leave feeling like camping there was a success!

The next morning we headed for the couple-hour drive to Fairbanks.

 

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K’esugi Ken & Talkeetna

We camped a couple days at Big Bear to catch up on laundry and supplies.  We did find our favorite taco joint while there.  It had moved so that made it a bit more challenging.  If you’re ever in Wasilla, try out Taco Cancun, you won’t regret it.

We drove up to K’esugi Ken Campground just a bit north of  Talkeetna.   What a nice campground, very wide, paved roads and beautiful campsites, and surprisingly they had 50 amp power.  Nothing else, no water or sewer there and no dump station either.   The campground was built on the side of a large mountain and the views were spectacular.  Our traveling companions had the site behind us and they could see Denali from the back of their campsite.   But it could only be seen the first day.  After that the clouds obscured it completely.  But prior to that happening, we drove back down the Parks Highway and over to a Denali Overlook and snapped a few pictures.   Denali was just as grand as I remembered it!

The next morning we drove over to Talkeetna, which turned out to be quite  a long way.   The road that goes over to Talkeetna was about 30 miles south of us; but what we didn’t realize was that turn-off was still a long way to the town, which looked to be right off the Parks Highway, but there was only one road to get there, which meant you drove way past it and then drove back up to it.  It was a bit deceiving until you really look at the map closely.

We finally got to the town and the train was there letting off passengers and tourists.   We had arrived at lunch time, so we went off to find the Denali Brewpub, which was right on the main road down to the River’s Edge Park.

The food was just Ok.  I would try somewhere else next time.  The patio was very nice, as the day was perfect, around 70 degrees and sunny.   Afterward we walked all around town, with me hanging outside all the gift shops with Dusty while Kathy shopped.

We ventured down to the park, and the river was high and moving very quickly.  There were a lot of signs about staying off the rocks due to the fast moving water scouring the dirt away under the rocks on the edges.  Of course there were a lot of folks that apparently didn’t or couldn’t read them and they were out on the rocks’ edge taking group photos and selfies.   Basically they were trying to warn you that if you fell into that fast moving frigid water, it wouldn’t be a rescue, but would be a body recovery.  Lucky for us (and them), no one fell in while we were there.

After a few hours wandering around the small town, we headed back to the car and drove the long way back to the campground.   Denali was no longer visible.

The following day Larry and Sue were going to try fly fishing in Troublesome Creek just up the road a mile or so, and we headed out to see other campgrounds in the area and visit a war memorial not far from one of them.  Also we did a short trail called the Moose Flats Trail.  And I was fairly happy we never saw a moose.   What we did see were mosquitos by the gross.  I wished I had brought my racket as the Deet seemed to have little effect on these buggers.

We spent four nights there and then headed up the road to Denali National Park for a week of dry camping.   No power/Water/Sewer @ Riley Creek Campground.

 

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Soldatna & Kenai City

We got to our campground early in the afternoon and set up camp.  It wasn’t long before it started to rain and the camp roads became a muddy mess very quickly.   That evening we noticed the water in our Brita pitcher had a brown tint and the water in the toilet looked the same,  It was even more noticeable in the toilet since the porcelain is so bright white.   Turns out it’s a known thing and was “safe” to drink.  Hopefully…

I went out and bought 10 gallons of drinking water and made sure I didn’t fill the fresh tank with that stuff.   We noticed that a Fantasy Tour group that had pulled in one evening didn’t even connect to the water.  They were warned not to by the tour company.  It was a fairly expensive campground and they didn’t even tell us about the problem.  You can fill up for free at the Fred Meyers in Soldatna with clean City Water.  Next time I will know.

We were there the July 4th week, so we drove over to the 4th of July Parade in Kenai City with our chairs.   It was a pretty long parade that had lots of things not seen in other 4th parades in my past, specifically, tow trucks and race cars and even small children in go carts.   The one thing we missed was marching bands. There was not even one.  I guess that’s what happens when music class is cut from school curriculum’s.  At least the Shriner’s were there in their odd little cars.   Hard to imagine a 4th of July Parade without the Fez’s.

One afternoon we decided to take a drive to the beach, it was almost sunny and a bit cold but we braved it anyway.  Figured it might take an act of god to get us out of the car.   We headed south on Kalifornsky Beach road.  We went past Kalifornsky Beach and all the way down to Kasilof Beach Dipnetting fish camp.   It was a couple days before Dipnetting season but there were hundreds of cars, tents and trailers lining the road down to the beach.   We drove all the way down, to a spot that I figured was far enough as after that it looked like loose beach sand.  Got turned around and headed back toward Kenai City.   Along the route Kathy spotted 3 moose along the tree line near the road and I was able to slow down and she got a few pictures.  I was one cow moose and two baby moose.   Then about 10 minutes further up the road there was a very large bull moose just a foot off the road, by the time I saw him i was concerned he might jump in front of us.   He didn’t, but I looked back and he was meandering across the highway behind us.  Yikes.  He had to be 9-10 feet tall.  Having that coming thru your car windshield could ruin a lot more that just your day.

It’s been so cold and rainy, Kathy had to go to the sporting goods store and buy long underwear, socks, and a better jacket!  Now the sun should come out after spending the money!  We hope 🙂

The last evening in town we checked out St. Elias Brewery and had some wonderful pizzas!  And of course the beer was fantastic too.

Here are some of the 4th parade pics..

 

 

 

 

 

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Williwaw Campground in the Portage Valley

This campground is very nice, very secluded with no hookups and just a smidge of ATT cell service.  Our Starlink had no service at all due to the tall mountains ringing this campground.  It was pretty full every night we were there, if you go, make sure you get reservations for the bigger sites.

The drive to Williwaw was a bit White Knuckled.  The wind was howling and there were wind warnings.  We thought it was bad on the first leg from Palmer to Anchorage, but then we got on the section that runs along the northern Turnagain Arm.  That was worse than anything I had ever experienced.  Each time we came around a rock outcropping, the wind wanted to blow the bus off the road and into the water. After that first small “point”, I went a lot slower around all the rest.

The first mosquito I swatted with my new zapper, it sparked and lit on fire  for a second.  Wow!  Since then it’s been zapping them with its 2750 volts. Black Flag Zapper Racket

We drove over to Portage Lake on a blustery day, checked out the visitor center, and afterward we had to go check out the gift shop.  We checked out the glacier boat tour, but the boat was down for repairs, waiting for a part to come in from England.

After lunch we took a hike up the Trail of Blue Ice for a couple miles or so, swatting a zillion mosquitos while walking along.   About half way along the trail, a couple teenage girls came up to us and said they had stumbled upon a bear just ahead and wanted to know if they could walk with us. I noticed they didn’t have any bear spray with them.  Larry said sure, and proceeded to head toward the bear sighting.   And we kept going too.  I thought we should of course go the other way!   Luckily we didn’t see the bear and walked for another half hour, then turned around. The girls thanked us and kept going on toward the visitor center, which was probably another half mile away.  Then I noticed they were running up the trail.

We headed back and kept swatting the mosquitoes the whole way.  I wished I had brought the new zapper with me on that trek!

We hit a real rainy spell here in Williwaw, 3 straight days of rain without it ever stopping!  (Felt like 40 days and 40 nights).  I used the time to catch up on the blog and finishing the Perry Mason series.  We looked at driving over to Whittier for lunch but found out the only decent restaurant was closed.  We drove over anyway on one of the few sunny days.

While there we read a bit about that tunnel that was completed in 1943 as the main “highway” to move goods into Alaska for the war effort.   And a week later at the July 4th parade in Kenai, the woman sitting next to me told me when she was young, you could only get to Whittier via train or boat.  It opened to vehicle traffic on June 7, 2000 after a very extensive conversion from a World War II railroad tunnel.  It’s an odd experience as you straddle the rails when driving thru it as it’s only one car wide, meaning on the half hour you can go to Whittier from Portage and on the hour you can leave the city.   Good timing can save a lot of waiting!

With that in mind, we walked around a bit and then scrambled to get out of town on the hour;  and of coarse there was a train as we drove over,  and they were going to get thru the tunnel while it was outbound too.  We had to wait until after the train  cleared the other side of that very long tunnel.   It did and we proceeded to head back to Portage.

Once on that side of the mountain, we decided to drive over to Moose Flats to see if there were any moose to see.  There weren’t, so we headed back to Williwaw for the afternoon.

WhittierTrain

That evening we all drove over to the Double Musky for dinner.  It was a Cajun place out here in the middle of nowhere in Girdwood.   I tried the Gumbo and it wasn’t that good.  I think they burned the Roux.  I had the Jambalaya, which was good, probably a 6 of 10 on my Jambalaya scale.

Our Starlink did not work at all while at our site in the Williwaw campground.  I believe the problem was the tall mountains ringing that area only allowed us to connect when a satellite was directly overhead, and there aren’t many sats in the north latitudes yet.   We were able to extend our 4×4 MIMO Cellular antenna up off the roof on the batwing and get some AT&T signal.  It averaged -120dbm or worse.   I tried to use B14 but couldn’t get any signal with that, so I had to settle for B12 and a few other high-frequency bands aggregated together.   So surfing the web was not a fast thing, but we could check the weather and do emails and other internet things.

 

 

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Calgary

We left early on Friday morning to head north toward Calgary and fuel up near Trans Canada Highway 1, which was at least a couple hours away.   That fuel stop would allow our next fill to be in Grand Prairie, about 500 miles north.  GP is the last reasonable priced fuel stop before Anchorage.  Lucky for us, we left the smoke behind in Waterton and it was an enjoyable ride till we got to the fuel station.   Then it got difficult.  Seems it was the start of the Canadian long weekend and everyone needed fuel, so it was a madhouse getting in and out of there.   Not real fun with a 65′ long rig with all the folks jockeying for position.   And of course I forgot to take into account I was paying in Canada money when I prepaid inside, so I had to do it twice to fill the tank, which only meant I was there even longer.

We arrived in Cochran and Google Maps took me thru a new neighborhood with lots of small roundabouts.   Next time I will look much closer to the route it wants to take and set a few way-points if it’s going to do something stupid like that.  Bow Rivers Edge Campground was down this odd roadway with construction all around it.

We paid and pulled into our site.   It was fairly tight once in there and there were fairly tall hedges between us and our neighbors.   It was a bit smokey there, so when it cleared up the next day, there was a bit of celebrating going on all over the campground.  It was so smoky that I started to research filters on Consumer Reports.   Of course, I didn’t find any of their tested models available near me and ended up buying a 3M Filtrete Air Purifier model at Lowes.   It surprisingly worked well and now we have one for our time in Alaska too.  Last time in Alaska we were dodging smoke most of the trip.

We went out with our travel companions one evening while there to a local Tap Room, Half Hitch Brewing for Burgers.  The beer was good and so were the burgers.

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Cedar Pocket to Dillon Montana

We left that beautiful campground early on Saturday morning and headed toward Spanish Landing’s Lincoln Beach campground for one night.   It was a fairly long drive (for us) and along the way we made a stop at a Mormon church to park and eat lunch.  We had stopped here on the way north last year when it was a lot hotter as it had shade and lots and lots of lush grass.  (here are the coordinates: 39.245978, -112.105940 )

After stopping we headed the rest of the way to LB.  It was about 12 miles off the freeway right on Utah Lake.  It was a great spot for the night.  It was listed as dry-camping but there was a water spigot in our site.  (#9)  I saw a few other spigots also.  On the drive out there we noticed a lot of flood land, and based on the fencing, figured it was normally dry but all the rain storms this winter probably had been the reason.

The next morning we headed off toward a Casino with a campground in Fort Hall, Idaho for two nights,  I decided to do this long drive from SD to Montana with a one-night stop, then a two-night stop and repeat that till we got to Great Falls.

It was a fairly nice campground, and I would probably stay there again.  Although the placement of the utilities made hooking up the sewer hose difficult.   So far I am very impressed with the Starlink In Motion dishy.  It’s been flawless.  Even here it’s doing well with a few trees that should be blocking it, but no outages logged while here for 2 nights.

After a two-day stint where we picked up some groceries and I got my hair cut, we headed off to Dillon, Montana.  Prior to getting to Fort Hall, I was still planning on camping right on the Big Hole River about 40 miles north of Dillon.  As we got further north each day, we noticed most of the rivers we crossed were very high and I guessed that a BLM campground right on the river right now might be a poor choice to overnight at,  so I opted for a campground we had stayed at a few years ago in Dillon.

When we woke up this morning and it was 27 degrees, I was very happy to have 50 amp power to get the temperature up inside and not have to depend on very cold batteries to do all the heavy lifting that morning!   I had forgotten that the park (Southside RV) had train tracks right next to it until I heard a low rumbling sound and rolled up the shade to see 5 locomotives going by at about 5 mph.   No whistles and so slow I had no idea what the sound was.   Apparently it has to slow down to a crawl to stop a couple miles north in downtown Dillon.   After a bit, the train cars were stopped (very long train with those 5 engines)  Then about 10 minutes later it started moving away slowly.  Then we were off to meet the group in Great Falls!

 

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Barstow to Cedar Pocket

We got an early start (for us)  and set the GPS to that $3.99 Maverick gas station in North Las Vegas.   Of course it was $4.09 when we got there, but it was still much cheaper than anything around it.   But that was where the fun began.

We pulled into the truck bays and their always problematic large nozzles.   The first thing that happened when I started pumping was a big fuel burp splashing out about a pint of diesel on the ground.  (and side of the coach)  I should have known that was just the beginning of a shitty fueling experience.   I filled up the first $175 and the pump shut off, so I had to put the credit card in again and restart the pump.  Once I got it going again, I noticed fuel dripping off the hose at the bottom of the U (between the pump & coach nozzle)  and as I looked at that to see where it was coming from, it started to get worse.  I mean a lot of fuel was dripping; and with the wind that day, it was spraying the side of the coach.   It was coming from the fitting at the top where the hose meets the physical gas pump.  I started thinking that it might just break off up there and spray fuel everywhere and that might be a real disaster, so I shut off the pump and we drove over to a different one to get the last 60 gallons pumped in.

Here are two short videos to give you an idea how much fuel was spraying out of that pump.

IMG_0686_1683232750000 IMG_0685_1683232741000

I had never seen anything quite like that, and this station was VERY new.  Based on the Google Satellite and street views, it wasn’t there 2 years prior.

I started the new pump and made sure all was working as it should, then I walked back over to the original bay and moved a cone into the driveway so others wouldn’t use that lane.   Just then an employee was walking around and I showed him what was happening.  There was a LOT of fuel on the ground now.

He called in and had them shut down that pump and made sure I had placed the cone in the right spot.

So far this has been an eventful start to our trip..

We drove the rest of the way (~2hours) to our campground and it turned out to be a very nice place.   There is a huge canyon you must drive thru on the I-15 just south of St. George, Utah.  The campground I picked turned out to be in the canyon and it was a beautiful place.  It was a BLM campground, no hookups for our 2-night stay.   I had picked site 25 to reserve thru recreation.gov as the sat view had it as far from the highway as you could be in that campground.  And it was right on the Virgin River and even had a large pavilion with a picnic bench.   After looking at all the other sites, this was clearly the best site in the place.

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Newport Beach then back home.

We drove down from San Dimas on a Saturday morning and the traffic made me wonder if it would have been worse Friday during rush hour.   We arrived before noon and wasn’t sure if they were sticklers about check-in time.  Turns out they are not and we got to our site for the next few nights within a few minutes of noon.

The site I had chosen was long enough for us and was wide enough to fit the car next to us with room to spare.   It wasn’t overlooking the water, but as we were in town to see the kids, we didn’t expect to be here that much.   The place turned out to be very nice.  I was pleasantly surprised as the reviews were very mixed.

This campground is a few minutes from the kids’ house, so it was a very convenient place to stay while visiting them.  Really nice walkway around the bay.  Kathy and Dusty enjoyed going down there every morning and afternoon.  We had a great time seeing Chris and Shelly and going out on the town!

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The Dash Down Interstate 5

We drove down Interstate 5 about 220 miles, through Sacramento, past Stockton, and to Kit Fox RV Park in Patterson, CA.  Surprisingly, Patterson was a busy place.  We had the first pull-thru with a bit of green grass right out our front door.   The freeway was about 1,800 feet away, but the noise made it seem a lot closer.   It was very convenient for a single night, no need to unhook and was easy in and out.   Just needed to be a bit further from the freeway.

The following morning we headed the 200 miles to Bakersfield River Run RV Park.   I had asked for a pull-thru and they screwed up the reservation and all they had were back-ins.  But the next morning I saw that had been bull shit as there were still a few unoccupied pull-thru’s when we left.

The drive into the area was pretty rough and looked like we were heading into an industrial park.  I won’t bother stopping here next time.  I was totally underwhelmed by their service and location.

The next morning we headed toward San Dimas to camp for a night at Bonelli Bluffs RV Resort and Campground.   I was shocked how nice this place was.  Way up on a hill with views in all directions.  Lots of lush grass too!   I will try to stay here again!   The next morning we headed south to Newport Dunes Resort, our last stop before getting back home for the winter.  

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Red Bluff CA

We looked at camping at another park in Red Bluff to stay a few more days with friends, but I got the dates screwed up and after rereading the reviews of that campground decided to go to a different park in town that we had not been to before.  Turned out it was a good choice as it was very pleasant, with full hookups and lots of shade for a few fairly warm days.   We had stayed at Durango Resort a few times but lately it was bought out by KOA and the reviews went downhill quickly.    There is absolutely no shade at Durango/KOA,  nothing at all, so we opted for Red Bluff RV Park.   I looked for pictures I took while there, but apparently I didn’t take any.

It was a nice quiet park and we would stay there again.   When we left there, we were going to make time traveling south to get home!