Soldotna and Homer

Soldotna and Kenai were stops on our way to Homer.  We stayed for Free In the grocery store parking lot of Fred Meyer's.  Large area just for motor homes and water fill up and dump station area.  As we drove around the area we came across a very crowded beach.  The red salmon were starting to run and the locals were out with their Dip Nets.  Alaskan residents can use these large nets to catch the red salmon to fill their freezers.  They were not in full run but many were caught and filleted right on the beach.  Families make it an event where they camp on the beach and fish until they catch their limit.  Awesome learning experience and great to see.  A lot of Russian influence in the area, as Russia owned Alaska before selling it to the United States.  Buildings and churches were in Russian architecture. 

We ran across another talented chainsaw carver and toured his business.  Talented people.  On to Homer, this was one of my favorite places in this entire trip.  Just a rustic, hometown type place.  The Spit, which is the large part of land that runs out like a finger from the land, was where we stay for 3 days.  The Mariner Campground - basically ocean front beach that has assigned spots to park on.  No electric, water, or sewer - dry camping, but the view was unbelievable.  Gator loved running on the beach at low tide, as did every dog and horseback riders in the area.  Room for all.  This is an area with the highest tidal changes of anywhere in the world.  23 feet difference from low to high tide.  Typically, 10 feet or less is the norm. 

We saw eagles everywhere and especially nice when they come to your beach right in front of the RV.  Driving at 10pm we came across a Mama Moose and her calf.  Not afraid of us but cautious with us creeping up on them in the car. 

A glacier across from us in the Cook Inlet and on the other side of the Homer Spit is Kachemak Bay.  We drove the East End road to its dirt end at the head of the Kenai River.  Beautiful drive and surprised at how populated the mountains are.  We found the Kilcher Homestead, which is the TV show "Alaska: The Last Frontier" family that live off the land in this area.  Only issue is that they are only 10 minutes from McDonalds and a Safeway grocery store. Also the whole area has electric. So they may have chosen to not use or tie into it???  Then while we are in McDonalds using their WiFi, we overhear the Kilcher's sister talking about running tours at the Homestead and how difficult a guy was today that wouldn't listen to her instructions on where to walk or not to walk and how frustrated she was.  Just blew my bubble on the show and how they live in the "wilderness".

Besides for the salmon running, it is Halibut season and they had a contest going for the largest halibut caught.  We saw the winning fish for the day.  They get many times larger than this but still impressive and worth a great dinner!  I love halibut.  The Time Bandit from the TV show Deadliest Catch, uses Homer as its home base.  They said they are usually only in port spring and fall.  So we did not get to see the huge crabbing ship.  We took a walking tour of the dock and learned a lot about the things that grow on the side of the docks and buoys.  Held a sea star and anenomies. 

Anchorage and Turnagain Arm

 

We weren't a big fan of Anchorage in 2009 when we were here after a Inside Passage cruise.  My opinion has greatly changed.  Many one way streets in the downtown area, but the large area surrounding downtown is spread apart and easy to get around.  Many malls and big box stores.  Of course, we had to go downtown to see the "touristy" shops and the Saturday Market and Crafts fair.  The Ulu Knife Factory is very close so we took a drive to see it and "tour the factory".  Store with about 6 windows for viewing the process of making the Alaskan favorite Ulu knife.  In 2009 I think I packed away 9 of them for gifts.  Randy thought I was Ulu crazy.  I said this should be an Ulu free vacation, until I realized the kids were not settled in any location or still at home in 2009.  I hadn't gotten them an Ulu knife!  So off to the store to purchase 4 Ulu knives for our kids.  The motorhome, luckily, had a bit more room to store them, unlike my suitcase did in 2009. 

Very interesting to see the Fur Trader places.  Kind of like a Pawn Shop of the SouthWest.  People bring in their pelts or mounts and family heirlooms to "store" and if they don't pick them up in a designated amount of time or pay the storage fees, they get put up for sale.  C ould have bought a Beaver pelt for about $50. Or moose antlers for $75.  I tried to convince Randy we could mount them on the front of the motorhome.  No go!!  This, of course, is an alive and kicking Moose.  Hopefully to remain that way.

The Native Heritage Center in Anchorage is a must see.  They have a guided tour of the 7 Inuit (Native Alaskans "Eskimos" - although they don't like that term anymore) original dwellings and the main subsistance living they survived on.  Inside are Native crafters selling their wares, historic artifacts, displays, and demonstrations of their First Nation Olympics.  Totally different sports, all dealing with their way of surviving and skills.  High kick from sitting, 1 leg kick with landing on the other leg, etc.

The village of Talkeetna is very interesting.  It has grown a lot since 2009 with little trinket shops and touristy business'.  They used to have a "moose drop" in July.  Buy a chip and place it in a very large bulls eye on the ground, fly over drop of moose poop and whom ever chip the poop covers, wins.                                                  They have cancelled the event :>(( 

 I just love all the flowers in all the towns in Alaska.  They really put on a flower show in each area that is beautiful.  But my favorite is the Fireweed that grows wild on the side of the roads.  It is a beautiful purple flower.  In the end of the season the purple flowers fall off and the multiple stems for each flower turns bright red (hence the name: Fireweed)  When they Fireweed turns red, the locals know that there is only 6 weeks left before winter starts rearing it's ugly head.  We are getting out of town way before that starts.

 Made a overnight stop in Wasilla Walmart.  Went to the Iditarod home base and got to ride on an Iditarod dog pulled wagon.  The son of the originator of the Iditarod, was our musher.  He and now his son have been in the race many times.  It was a highlight of my trip to take that ride!

 Took a day trip down Turnagain Arm, A beautiful drive south of Anchorage along the water and mountains.  Saw many dall sheep on the hillside and they were very interested in the people starring up at them.  We went to the ski area of Alyeska and went to the top on the ski lift/tram.  Unfortunately, it was very cloudy and not the distance view we had hoped but still very impressive.  Looking at the snow capped mountains and all the way down to the water in Turnagain Arm.  We don't have runs like this in Wisconsin.  Supposedly there are bears roaming around the mountain, in the lower areas but we saw none.  They seem to be avoiding up, which is good up close, but from the safety of the ski lift I was really hoping...... We will keep looking!

Another stop we made as Whittier.  A small fishing village in the mountain but you have to drive through a long tunnel that actually goes under the river, to get to the village.  This tunnel can fit cars, large RV's, and is even shared with a train.  It was an awesome drive and we could see the glaciers in the distance.  Unfortunately, it was a rainy and very cloudy day so our views in Whittier were not too spectacular.  Still a great town with a few shops, tons of ships, and views (when it isn't so cloudy).
On our way back to Anchorage we stopped at a few places along the road.  Loved the business called Turnagain Arm Pit BBQ restaurant - play on words.  We also stopped at a chainsaw carving business, as there were many full size statues carved in the yard.  I recognized one of the artists names - Jordan Anderson on a few of the carvings.  We had met Jordan in Albequerque New Mexico at the balloon rally and had asked him to chainsaw carve us a small 2 foot beaver for our motorhome.  Unfortunately, during all the chainsaw contest days someone stole his truck and equipment inside.  So he did not have time or the tools to do our beaver.  Walking around - we run into Jordan carving in the front yard.  Small world!!
We did have a sunny day and took a short drive down the first 15 miles of Turnagain Arm to get a few more pictures and look for Beluga Whales.  Pictures obtaine - no whales.  The beauty of the mountains, water, and area is just breath taking. 
During our time in Anchorage we stayed in the RV lot of Cabela's - They allow free camping in a side parking lot for 2 days.  They have a dump station and wonderful flat paved area.  Because we had to take the RV in for welding, we spent our 2 nights on and 1 day off.  So we returned for another day after the welding experience.  The welds on the motorcycle lift were quickly repaired in Tok but it needed a "beef up" and further welding to make us feel safe in continuing our journey.  Found a great business that would do exactly what Randy wanted done.  Problem was when we got there they had the "newbie" assigned to our simple job.  2 1/2 hrs he was done ..... but then it took another 5 hours to correct errors.  It wasn't a fun day and very stressful.  The owner only charged us for the 2 1/2 hours of labor - nice, honest guy made it less of a nightmare.  The roads really are not as "great" as they say - at least not in a 43 foot vehicle.  If we drove all these miles in a car, SUV, or small RV it probably wouldn't have been so bad but our home on wheels it was bad.

Denali National Park

We camped about 20 miles south of Denali National Park in Cantwell.  Small little town but the campground had electric/water and would fit our 43 foot RV.  The National Park campgrounds will only allow a maximum of 40 foot campers.   It worked out well, as the road construction was just north of Denali and we could avoid it !  I just love the Alaska Tour Saver book.  We purchased ours online for $89 ahead of time, but it was available in many of the Safeway grocery stores and visitor centers.  It is a 2 for 1 book of Alaska.  We saved 6x the purchase amount and probably more, in all the places we used it.  In

Denali we took the Denali tour to Wonder Lake - the first 11 miles into Denali you can drive on your own, but beyond that you must take the park transportation (bus).  So the tour took us 89 miles into the park to Wonder Lake.  Our bus driver was very talkative and gave us lots of information on the park, wildlife and historic information.  He also had quite a few "stories" about the early days in the park and its origins.  I have gained such an admiration for people like Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir, as naturalists.  Their foresight in saving land and wildlife is the only reason we can still come to places like this and still see it in its raw beauty.  We actually got to see the North and South peaks of Denali early in our tour, but not again for the rest of the day. 

The tour was 11 hours long, so our campground neighbor that has been following us since Liard Hot Springs, agreed to take the next day's tour and so we could let each other's dogs out during the day.  Gator can only hold it about 6-7 hours.  We saw 2 grizzlies, caribou, ptarmigan, sheep, snowshoe hare, and many little varmints.  Randy thought he would see how it would feel to be an elk, kind of heavy having that weight on your head.  The moose we didn't see until we were on the Parks Hwy on our way back to the campground.  Wildlife was not as plentiful as we had hoped but park of that may be all the road construction or the wild fires just south of us new Willow and Wasilla???  On our way back from Wonder Lake it poured and poured and poured. So was a bit scary on the windy, cliffhanging parts of the road.  The bus driver did well, even while continually talking!

Back to the Alaska Tour Saver - We decided to go for it and booked the Whitewater Rafting and ATV 1/2 day tour of the back country.  We saved over $100 on those 2 tours.  They scare you to death on the "intro" for the Whitewater rafting on the Nenana River.  You could die, you could freeze, you could fall out, you could hit your head and die - on and on this guy went.  "So if any of you do not want to go we will refund your money in full"  Made me think….. but we did it anyway and it really was just fun.  Didn't feel life defying or life threatening at all.  I think they could have toned down the warning speech a bit. 

We also took the ATV Denali backcountry trip.  Great fun on an ATV, with trails and water to fly through.  We even had a few sightseeing and informative stops.  We weren't on Denali National Park land, but on the edge of it, as they do not allow motorized vehicles other then designated ones inside the park.  We had fun buzzing around and playing follow the leader.  No wildlife was seen but beautiful views and fun!

The road construction is really a bummer on this trip.  The Parks Hwy from Fairbanks to South of Denali was torn up and down to rough rutted road.  They tear up about 30 miles of the road and then the road crew comes through to pave, starting at the southern most point and working their way north.  So basically torn up roads for months until the road crew gets to the area.  So staying south of Denali really helped us out with the frustration of road work and flag people.  Not to mention the rough drive.

Fairbanks

So we made it to the end of the Alaskan Hwy, near Delta Junction.  Because of our "detour" to Dawson and the Top of the World Hwy, we actually missed a section of the Alaskan Hwy, but will hit it on the way back.  Next stop, North Pole.  Large parking area for our RV and neat area with Santa's Reindeer (no Rudolph), his sleigh, work shop, and a fine gift shop (they always have a gift shop)  You could get a personal letter from Santa sent to  someone.  Or just send them the standard "believer" or "unbeliever" printed on Santa stationary. Santa's not cheap so no one in our family will be receiving any.  Randy even took a try at Santa's job.  Not enough Hohoho.  

We continue on to the city of Fairbanks and found our chosen campground at the State Park.  Wasn't easy for a big rig and no satellite signal, plus too much road construction right in front of the park, so we only stayed 1 night and moved to the Ice Park Campground.  In March they have the World Ice Carving Championship there.  Not much of a campground but they have improvements in the works.  $20 a night for 30 amp electric versus $40's for electric/water at a parking lot type campground.  We don't mind the landscaping, or lack of as we are never there much anyway.  Super nice volunteers run the campground and boarding rooms for gold dredge and construction workers that live there all summer.  New dog sled area under construction and opened while we were there a week.  Got the "A" plus tour from the owner before opening.  It's a science how they breed, train, and work with those dogs.  They plan to have a 1 mile area graveled so they can give dog sled rides in the near future.   We always start our city/town visits with a stop at the Visitor Center.  Best place to get info and activities in the area.

I took this picture at 2am - that's about as dark as it gets for a few hours, then sunrise begins.  

Toured the Univ of Alaska Museum - lots of mounts and historic artifacts.  Movies to view on different topics (dinosaurs, Northern lights, glaciers) and we learned about the Eskimos and American Japanese that were born in Alaska put in Internment camps during WWII or sent to Japan. History is so interesting when you see, hear, and get immersed in it.  

We stopped by the Alaskan Pipeline to check it out, not all 800 miles of it but it is visible in many places we went.  The Tanana Valley forest fires were going so many of our days were in a smoke filled area.  Over 600 fires this summer due to lightening and a few man made.  Dry so they are all praying for rain.  We had 2 constant rain days, so hoping it helps the fire situation!  

Started out on the Dalton Hwy (Haul Road), if you have ever watched Ice Road Truckers on TV.  Stopped by the Hillside Café were they stopped for a meal on the show.  Not the worst road we have been on but decided that the price of gas and traveling 10 hours to the Arctic Circle wasn't worth it.  They have a sign there to take your picture but you would have to go another 200+ miles to make it to the Arctic Sea and Prudoe Bay.  We decided to go about 60 miles on it and turn around.  Do something else for the day.  

We stopped by the Chena Hot Springs and walked around.  Gorgeous flowers that they start from seed in October (inside) so with all the sun each day they grow fast in the summer.  

Toured the Ice Museum and their freezer where they have numerous carvings from the previous years competition on display.  We even got a sled and slid down the ice slide. Fun!!  

Rode the Discovery III paddleboat up Chena River to the Tanana and back.  Saw dog sled team of the late Susan Butcher who won the Iditorod 3 or 4 times, in action.  An Inuvik village with fish wheel demo, fish drying demo, and  all led by natives that are attending the U of A.

At the Ice Park in October they have a pumpkin patch and kids activities, including Ice carved pumpkins.  Under this layer of straw and tarps are 8x8 foot chunks of ice they cut in March out of the river or lake and store there until October.  AND it doesn't melt !!!  Blew me away........

 

Toured Dredge #8 and rode the train to the site.  Panned for gold and had a great time.  Lots to see in Fairbanks and easy to get around - minus the one way streets in the small downtown area.  Otherwise, every ammenity and store for stocking up.  Saw this Mama moose in the water.  First she's down for 2-3 minutes, then up chewing away.  Baby stood on the shore, just waiting.