Category: Traveling the hiways and byways

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Skagway & White Pass

The drive over to Skagway was extremely beautiful all the way to the grade down to Skagway, then it turned into an 11% grade for 14 miles into town.   But the views out our huge windshield were probably the best we had ever seen in the 60,000 miles of travel in our motorhome.  I really had to concentrate and only peek at the views, not wanting to drive off the cliff, and to keep these 40,000 pounds of bananas from wanting to go 100 mph down that steep windy narrow road.

About halfway down the mountain we encountered the US border checkpoint (Skagway is back in Alaska).  There was another long line; but after a little bit and not moving ahead very much, we could see a guard waved us up to the front of the line in a lane to the right that had been blocked off.  Little did we know they were pulling over motorhomes for food searches this time.

After answering all the questions, we were asked to pull out and over to the right out of the traffic lanes so a border guard could come inside to inspect our food.   When I saw a new guard approaching with a 5 gallon bucket, I knew we were in for something…

He ended up taking two dozen eggs, 2 lbs. of deli lunch meat, a tomato, and a bell pepper, saying you couldn’t bring them into the US due to bird flu in Canada.   I was really wondering how cooked turkey lunch meat could spread bird flu, not to mention eggs, but they were already gone.  I bet those guards have a great “free” breakfast of Denver Omelets each day, and turkey sandwiches galore.

After driving downhill for a few more steep miles, we got down to sea level and into the town of Skagway.    We had a reservation for 5 nights at Pullen Creek Campground, which was located just a few hundred feet from the harbor with all the big ships that are docked on the southern berths and with a close view of the ships.

 

The railroad was just on the other side of the small park between us and the town, so we got a rude awaking the next morning at 6 am from a train horn at a road crossing about 100 feet from us.  The train horns went off numerous times a day.  This campground turned out to be the noisiest place we had ever camped, but it was fun nevertheless, and the best people watching since everyone from the cruise ship walked by our campsite.   We could even hear the loud speakers from the ships’ PA systems some mornings.  You couldn’t really make out what they were saying, but it wasn’t quiet.

The town is a Hoot!  Lots of shops, bars and restaurants to experience.  And more jewelry stores than seemed warranted, but I guess the throngs of cruise ship folks need to part with their money as quickly as possible.  We wandered around for a long time and then started looking for  a restaurant with a patio where we could eat dinner that would allow dusty.  We tried Skagway Brewery as they had a large patio, but pets could only be out there when the kitchen was closed for that area.. (odd)  But they said we could go upstairs and order take-out and bring it back down there and eat in there.  I believe they were still selling beer on the patio, just not food during doggie access hours.   We ended up finding the Skagway Fish Company  (SFC), but it had just closed for the evening, so we headed back to our wheeled homes for dinner “in”.

The next evening we walked over to the SFC for dinner and sat outside watching the throngs of people heading back to their cruise ships before they shoved off and left them there.   The restaurant had pretty good food, but our waiter was an ass.  His tip suffered as he continued to have a bad attitude for the whole dinner.  Never experienced that before, especially at a pretty high priced meal with several alcoholic drinks.

At noon on Tuesday we had a reservation for the Skagway & White Pass railway to ride it to the top of White Pass.   Some of the rail was on very narrow ledges with drop-off cliffs.   The railway tracks were narrow gauge, which means the tracks look way too close together.   Narrow gauge is 36″ wide and regular tracks are 54″ wide.  It almost seems like the cars should topple over sideways with a slight breeze.  But, fortunately for us, they only looked like that might happen, but they don’t.

During the summer the trains run constantly from 6 am till about 5 pm, lots and lots of trains coming and going.  They only do tours, it doesn’t seem like they are used for freight, but I am not sure of that.  We did hear whistles a few times late at night, but I figured they may be moving trains over to the maintenance yard.   They had lots of new engines. They looked brand new to me.  I imagine that was a huge capitol investment.  I guess they only have a finite window to make money while the cruise ships are in port and they didn’t want a broken locomotive to potentially stop the revenue “machine”.

 

The train ride was fun and the views were breathtaking.   I don’t know how many trains are on the tracks at the same time, but there were at least 6 trains that passed us going the other way during our trip.   There were at least 4 areas where they could pass you and seemed to be timed well so very little time was spent stopped while another train went past.   All the passenger cars looked in very good shape, meant to look old, but well kept.

Tuesday evening  during happy hour we started talking about the drive out of Skagway on that steep grade, but this time uphill.   Lightening the load seemed to be a good idea.   We eventually decided the gals would drive the cars up instead of us pulling them (they are an extra 4,000 lbs. each)  We also used up most of the 100 gallons of fresh water, lowering that weight from 1,000 lbs. to about 150 lbs.   Dumping the other tanks was a no-brainier as they were probably weighing in around 1,100 lbs. of unneeded weight.  So all in we jettisoned around 6,000 lbs. of weight for the trip up the mountain.

We drove off in the morning and of course we got stuck behind a double tanker truck struggling with a full load of fuel to get up the grade.  It never really got above 20 mph till it hit the top, where it disappeared quickly leaving us in its dust while we hooked up our cars for the rest of the trip to Teslin Lake.   We stopped for the Canadian border station not far from the top of the mountain, which was a bit different than the norm, as the guard was up in a window much higher than the normal border stop windows.  He was actually a bit higher than us, so we were looking up at him,  We had not seen that before.  No issues at the Canadian border again.  Apparently only US border guards are problematic and very picky about the food.

We drove on for a while and stopped at a pull-out overlook of Nares Lake and Bove Island just about 1/4 mile from shore for lunch.  This is probably one of the best parts of traveling, being able to pull over anywhere we want to stop for lunch and walk around a bit before traveling on down the highway.

Not but a few miles after we got back on the highway, we came around a downhill curve at speed and there was a car stopped in the middle of the road.   Assuming there must be some large animal in front of him, I slammed on the brakes, and at that moment wondered what might be hurtling toward our heads from behind due to that.   Larry was a bit closer than normal and I worried that he could plow into us, but he was paying attention and was able to stop too.   Turns out the Clown had stopped in the middle of the road there on this  downhill blind corner to watch a bear over near the tree line.   I cannot imagine if he had done that in front of that fast moving double fuel tanker we had followed up the hill.  I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have been able to stop fast enough and this bozo was smack dab in the middle of the highway.

The rest of the drive to Teslin Lake was thankfully uneventful.  We camped overnight at the Yukon Motel and Campground right on the lake and next to the long bridge they are replacing.  Lots of noise (pile driving)  in the morning.

 

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Fairbanks to Whitehorse.

We arrived at a KOA on the Chena River in the afternoon after a drive from Denali NP.   It turned out to be a fairly nice KOA. We normally avoid them as they aren’t usually very nice, but this was the exception to that rule.  We spent a few days there and re-stocked up on everything we were low on or out of,  mostly groceries and I even got a badly needed haircut.  One afternoon, Kathy and Dusty were down by the river and saw a moose mom and baby in the river!

 

The second day there it started getting smokey, and by the day we left it was very smokey.  We did the normal tourist traps, like the North Pole gift store and the Museum at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks also.

Kathy and I drove out to the Turtle Club, a restaurant out in the middle of nowhere along the Dalton Highway north of Fairbanks.  It was an odd place, with nothing near it.   As we were getting close, according to the navigation, I was thinking it was taking us to something that wasn’t there.  But we came around a corner and there was a large, very full parking lot and a low building behind it.   The food was good, but nothing to write home to mom about.

That last morning we filled up the fresh water tank and emptied the others for a few days dry camping at Clearwater State Recreation Area Campground, a FCFS place.  We left early so we would have a better chance of finding a spot we could fit into.   It was a nice campground and the town of Delta Junction was a few miles away.

Delta Junction is the northern end of the Alaska Highway.  We did the usual checking out the place prior to heading out to Tok, Alaska, our last stop on the Alcan inside Alaska.  While camping in Tok for a couple nights, we walked over to Fast Eddies for Halibut.  It was very good!

 

 

 

 

 

We then headed for the long, slow drive to Discovery Yukon, about 20 miles past Beaver Creek.

On the way we had to stop at the Canadian Border check point.   That was quite the bottle neck as only one lane was open and it took at least an hour for us to get to the window.   Nothing special, all the usual questions we had gotten before.

We stopped at the Discovery Yukon Lodge for one night and then pressed on in the morning for 4 more dry camping nights in Congdon Creek.   We again took site 9, and Larry and Sue took #2-3 this time.  And that site lived up to what I had been told by a local the last time we camped in CC,  it was like a wind tunnel three of the four days there.   I was pretty happy I hadn’t tried it.

After 4 nights there, we headed off to Whitehorse where we had reservations at Sanchez’s Mexican Restaurant.  Last time we had to sit outside as all the tables inside had been reserved prior to us arriving.  Live and learn, who knew you would need reservations there.  I guess it was because our favorite spot had closed earlier in the year.  That was very sad news for all of us, and probably many others.   I suspect the pandemic drained their bank accounts and then the labor shortage did the rest once the tourists came back.

We stayed two nights in Whitehorse instead of 5, and added those nights to Congdon Creek’s 1 night stay, making it 4 nights there.

The last morning there we packed up and headed for the relatively short drive to Skagway.  What a spectacular drive that turned out to be, quite an adventure.

 

 

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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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Quartz Creek / Kenai Lake / Coopers Landing

Got to Quartz Creek on Sunday afternoon.   Scott and Tami, with whom we planned to meet with there, had arrived a couple hours before us.   Scott texted that our site was already empty.    Turns out they had an issue with getting their large rig into their reserved site and moved to “an emergency site” that was quite a bit closer to our campsite.   We had site number 10,  which turned out to be perfect for us as the lake was right out our door, with a great view from our patio.

That evening all 6 of us went out to dinner at the Cooper Landing Brewery. The beer was pretty good and the burgers were even better.

I checked out the group pavilion and a large fire pit with seating around it when hiking through the campground one morning.  It was right there, but hadn’t seen it while going around the campground on the roadway.  It was maybe 50′ from the road.

Scott & Tami came by our beachfront site in their kayaks the next morning on their way out to explore that very large lake.  It’s Kenai Lake and is a very beautiful color.  It’s also the source of the Kenai River.  And  just a few miles away is the Kenai Princess Lodge.  Lots of fisherman on that river,  all the way, some 50 miles to Kenai City.

We drove over to that Princess Lodge one afternoon to take a look at their campground.  It was pretty ugly.  We were both glad we didn’t choose to stay there.   Quartz Creek Campground looks like the Taj Mahal compared to that ugly campground.

The next day we took a drive out a small road on the other side of the lake to see where it went and drove all the way to this sign and decided to turn around there.  The fuel gauge was on empty, just prior to the light coming on by then and we needed to fill up the car before heading back.  The prices were pretty steep in Coopers Landing, so I put in a few gallons so we’d have 100-mile range if needed while towing to Wasilla.   While I was there I noticed this electric car Charging Station.  It seemed to be attached to a diesel generator to power it.   It wasn’t on.  My guess is it started up when you started to charge your car.  Had never seen anything like that anywhere in our travels.   The town seemed to have utility poles, but maybe it was a fast charger and needed a lot more amperage than the utility could provide.

We had happy hour on our patio almost every night except the last evening as Tami cooked an incredible brisket dinner for all 6 of us the night before we left for a campground in Wasilla.  We really needed a grocery run and laundry hookup  (sewer) prior to us heading toward Denali and 11 days of dry camping.

I did some diesel fuel price comparisons for the next leg and Costco was way less than all the other places, actually less than every other fuel station in all of Alaska and Canada, and the best part was it was right on our way to the next campground.    We left a bit early the next morning so we wouldn’t get to the Costco fuel station right at the noon rush.   It is an easy in/out if you look at the Google Maps Satellite View before you get there so you know which entrance to use, and which lane to use for diesel, and how to get out of there easily into a big, mostly empty parking lot so the Costco food run can be completed!   We are 40′ long plus an 18′ car and 6′ towbar making us about 54′ bow to stern.  Easy in and out of fuel stations is a must unless I want to unhook the car. (which I prefer not to do unless we are very close to our destination.)

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Homer Spit

We got to Homer Spit on a glorious summer’s day!  Hasn’t been a whole lot of those on this trip, very different from our last trip to Alaska.  It was really windy when we arrived and got a bit more windy as the day went on, but the views were spectacular!!!  Later, after we set up the campsites, we headed down the spit and had a couple of beers over at the Salty Dawg, a true dive bar on the spit with extremely low clearances inside.   Then we walked over to Captain Paddies for Halibut.  It was one  of the best Halibut dinners I have experienced.  The place is nothing to look at really,  pretty much a tourist trap, almost a strip mall with a nicer facade.  Only “The Bus” had better Halibut in my opinion, and we will stop there on the way home; but Hyder, Alaska, is about 1,600 miles from here, so it will be a while.
It started to rain as we were leaving Captain Paddies and the wind made it a “driving rain”.  Lucky for us, it wasn’t actually raining hard yet, but the wind made it seem like it was raining pretty hard.

The next day was “shopping” day.  The merchants in town were very grateful for the money we left them.   Picked up some sweatshirts and tee shirts, and the much needed refrigerator magnet from the Salty Dawg!   Dusty even got a rain coat and a new jacket to help with the cold weather we have been experiencing.  (Now it will probably warm up, but I am sure he will get a lot of use on the way back home.)

 

We went out for Kathy’s Birthday celebration a couple nights after arriving. She chose Fat Olives up in Homer itself.  She couldn’t believe how good the Kachemak Bay Bowl was.   It was so good she had me take a picture of it so she could post it in the Tiffin Eats group online.  My pizza was over the top good too.   It probably was as good as the little pizza joint in Tribeca I would frequent when back East, but this pizza was a close second.

On Thursday morning we woke up to a ship at the Homer Spit dock, it was the Hanseatic Nature cruise ship.   A smaller, 500′ long cruise liner holding maybe 240 passengers on a 20-day trip from Sapporo, Japan, to Seward, Ak.

 

We drove back up the peninsula a bit to Anchor Bay to watch the crazy boat recoveries I had heard about.  That was so fascinating I had a hard time believing it when I was originally told how it worked.  But it was real, and I hadn’t seen anything like it before.  They made it look normal.  The video below shows how they do it.

When we got back to the coach, Kathy wanted me to get takeout from Fat Olives, pizza this time.   It was just as good as the first time.

 

TSUNAMI ALERT 11 pm Saturday night!!     We had seen articles and even a few pictures about Tsunami alerts for the Homer Spit, and still we were very unprepared when it happened.   When my phone went off just after falling asleep Saturday night, I was in shock.  I told Kathy what the alert and was we both jumped out of bed and started getting clothes on and quickly figuring out what we had to have in case a tsunami actually hit the motorhome.   We needed phones, charger(s), laptop & charger, dog food and medicines, a change of clothes would have been nice, but that was an afterthought.  And we had no information about the Tsunami,  how long before it might hit us, etc.  The only thing I knew was I didn’t feel an earthquake, so we might have a bit of time.

Larry came over to make sure we had heard it and within a few minutes of that they were gone.   Within 5 minutes of them, we were packed and in the car.   It was pouring rain and the road out (the only road) was full of cars moving very slowly.  That’s when I started hoping the Tsunami was coming from Japan or somewhere that could take a really long time to get here.  Within 5 to 6 more  minutes, the cars starting moving faster and we got off the spit and followed the Tsunami Evacuation signs I had seen when we were driving around the area.

We came to a T intersection and there the signs ended.   I sort of knew what was in each direction from the prior visit to Homer 4 years ago, so I turned to the right, drove past the airport and continued driving till we were at 300 feet of elevation.   I decided to stop when I could see a road sign indicating a significant downgrade.  We found a large driveway and pulled into that and turned the car around to face out to the road.  Cars and motorhomes streamed by for about a half hour.

We started looking at anything we could find on our phones.  Lucky for us there was a bit of cell service way out there and we could read what was going on.  We found a news site that said the alert on Homer Spit was a mistake.  I called the Homer PD and they acknowledged it was safe to go back.  The alert was really for the Cook Inlet on the other side of the peninsula.

I am going to make a go bag and figure out a place to keep it so if something happened we could get out faster.

 

 

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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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Palmer Alaska

The Glenn Highway was a lot rougher than I remembered it being.  Along the way a guy in a pickup passed us like we where chained to a tree.   Later on, maybe 45 minutes, we came upon a big accident scene.  As we passed, we noticed it was that same pickup at the bottom of a ravine.  There were so many police cars I knew someone hadn’t survived.

We arrived at Mt. View RV after a few long hours on the road. It looked like a big grass field with a few dirt roads between the rows, and it was. They don’t even mow the weeds. They were about a foot tall. And the weeds were hiding very out-of-level sites to boot.  I started thinking about why we didn’t go the few extra miles to Big Bear RV Park.  It is a much nicer place than this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kathy took a trip to the Musk Ox farm and also a short excursion to the Reindeer farm.  I went over to Wasilla Home Depot and got a new bug killer racket from Black Flag,  and what a bug killer.   It turned out to be one of the most powerful devices I have ever used!!  Bug Zapper Racket  While I was looking for bug killers, an Alaska State Trooper walked up and apparently was looking for similar equipment.  I had to ask him about the accident the day before on the Glenn Highway.  He said it was a single-car fatality.  I mentioned I had that truck on my dashcam footage where he passed me going at least 80 mph on a bad section of road.  He asked for my cell number and said he would pass it on to the investigating officer, that they may want to add that to the file for some perspective on the case.   It’s been a couple weeks and no call, so I am guessing they didn’t need it to close the case.

 

We topped off our fuel again at Palmer,  because at that moment they had the cheapest fuel in Alaska.  Not sure why. But I even got to use my Chevron Rewards app to save an extra $25 off the price.  After we filled up, we headed for Williwaw Campground a couple hours away.

 

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Ranch House Lodge near Glenallen Alaska

The drive down the Tok Cutoff to Glenallen was pretty good. Beautiful scenery the whole way.  We did come upon an older trailer on its top and all smashed in on the side of the road.   May have happened the day before was my guess.  Slow down, people!

We arrived at the lodge early in the afternoon and Andy lead us out to a section of the park that wasn’t there the last time we stayed here.   It was right on the creek that was more like a fast moving river at the moment. Turns out this spring (2023) this place was flooded by an early thaw. We were only here for the night and we went to the lodge for pizza, which turned out to be very good, surprising us all.  We were noticing that a lot of Andy’s projects looked half finished, but he has made a lot of improvements to the park.   The next morning the mosquitoes were ravenous. Kind of glad we were heading out.