05/30/19 – Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, Soldotna, AK

After leaving Seward, we headed to Soldotna where we knew we could dump and fill at the Fred Meyer store there and stay overnight. When we got there, we dumped and filled water, then drove to the other side of the building where we saw other RVs.  Shortly after we got there, a Fred Meyer employee came to our motorhome, wrote down the license plates of both vehicles and came to our door. He told us we could stay for three nights, but not unhook any trailers, boats or fifth wheels (which we don't have). Cooking is not permitted outside of your vehicle. He gave us a sheet of paper with the rules. If Walmart did something like this, they'd probably have less issues in their lots, we think. We told him we probably would only stay one night.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them. 

There were about eight RVs overnight. We went into the store to check it out; we'd never been to a Fred Meyer store before. It has groceries, clothes, furniture, housewares, etc. like Walmart. The next day it rained, so we stuck around. An employee came back in the morning, asked how our evening was. We told him we were probably staying another night since it was raining today and he said no problem, we can stay three nights.

The next morning we drove to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center a couple of miles from Soldtona.  They sell America the Beautiful and the Senior Pass there, which I was looking for. There have good displays in their building about the Refuge and area.  A good film is shown in their theater regarding the Refuge also. 

 

For more pictures, please click here. 

05/29/19 – Exit Glacier, Kenai-Fjord National Park

We left the motorhome in the parking spot and went to the Kenai-Fjord National Park Visitor Center with plans to join the 11:00 ranger walk with hopes that it wouldn’t be rained out (forecasted for the day). It was drizzling a little, not windy and we dressed in layers and took our raincoats with. You don't have to hike to the glacier with a ranger, but we thought maybe we'd get more information. 

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them. 

Ranger Ann has been at Kenai-Fjord National Park since 2005. She and her husband are from southern Florida and come back every summer (because of grandchildren, she said, but she loves the area and her job). During our walk, she would stop and tell us about the trees or the animals, the history of the glacier, etc. She showed us pictures of how Exit Glacier has been changing.

For more pictures, please click here.

05/28/19 – Seward, AK

Seward is about 30 miles from Moose Pass, near where we’ve been parked. We had read of a parking spot on Old Exit Glacier Road, but our GPS and my phone didn’t agree on the road to get there, and we went my route as the highway was better. We parked in a large turnout area near the river, and then unhooked the Jeep and took that to find the other area. We never did find one at the coordinates we had. We went into town to see what there is.

We drove to the municipal campgrounds that are at the water. Some have electricity and some don't. There is also a dump station for a $5 fee. The history of having campgrounds on the waterfront is because of the 1964 earthquake. Much of Seward was destroyed following a tsunami. In reclaiming the waterfront, the City demonstrated that it was unsuitable for homes or businesses. Instead, it became park land and campgrounds.

After driving though town, we decided to go the 8 miles to Kenai-Fjords National Park and see if there would be room to go with the motorhome tomorrow. There are two lots, one with lanes for RVs and buses. There were two turnouts right by the Chugach National Forest sign that we decided to stay at, about halfway to the park; so we went back to get the motorhome. We were surprised how much traffic there was that evening, with the road only going to the Park itself. 

For more pictures of the area, please click here. 

05/28/19 - Upper Trail Lake/Moose Pass camping

After last week’s excitement (see previous post), things have pretty much settled down. There’s been campers coming and going. We thought it would be real busy Memorial Day weekend, but it wasn’t bad. There were about six of us in the lot; some campers and some tents. There is a motorhome not far from us that has been here a few days, but other than that, most people only stay a night or two.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them. 

There’s been some bear hunters going out on boats to the shore across from there, but nobody has come back with a bear yet.

We did a little walking in the trees, but not really much to see. There is a lot of toilet paper strewn around. The area doesn’t have a pit toilet and the trees seem to be the bathroom area. There is a geocache hidden near the shore. We did walk to Moose Pass; there is a paved bike/walk path to town from the lot. We were able to have a package sent general delivery to the post office there.

There were two small airplanes that flew over the river; a red and white one almost every day. We think he was must have been training as there were a lot of touch and goes on the water, taking off and landing, etc.

The lake has gone up since we've been here. Comparison pictures: 

We had 3 bar extended network on our Verizon cell phones and were able to use our hotspots for internet.  There were a lot of cool, breezy days; not a lot of sunny ones. It wasn’t the best for solar, but it worked.

05/27/19 – Our first earthquake!

We both woke up about 1:55 AM this morning to a slight rocking of the motorhome.  Our first thought was wind, except you couldn’t hear any wind. We opened up our bedroom curtains and didn’t see anything. We looked at each other and asked, was that an earthquake?  It only lasted seconds, but it was weird. As we checked our cell phones, we found out it was a magnitude 5.8 earthquake in the water past Homer, AK.

05/23/19 - Some activity in the area

There were a few people in the parking area over the weekend, a couple campers and cars coming and going. Sunday afternoon the Moose Pass Volunteer Fire Department came to the lake to fill their trucks with water, so we watched and visited with the assistant chief for a while. They are a small volunteer department, but cover a good-sized area. All of their volunteers are EMTs and one paramedic. This lake is a mile from the fire department building, in the town of Moose Lake.

The next day a fire department vehicle drove in and let us know there would be a Medevac helicopter landing in this lot and she partially blocked off the entrance for other vehicles to come in.

A couple of days later  a truck from the Trail Lakes Hatchery of the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association came here to deliver roughly 16,000 sockeye salmon fingerlings from their truck to an airplane to have them delivered to the ocean. It took two trips. They were 4 inches long. The 16,000 came from 12 adult fish. The weather in the morning was beautiful, but the in the afternoon it was pretty windy. 

Most of the days have been cool and windy. We've had a few nice days where we could sit outside and enjoy the sun. It's a challenge for the solar system, but we haven't had to use the generator yet!

05/16/2019 - Upper Lake Trail/Moose Pass

Back on Highway 1, switching to Highway 9 toward Seward. More hills and snowy mountains.

We only went about 40 miles today. We were looking up places in the Seward area and found this spot both on freecampsites.net and Campendium both. One calls it Upper Lake Trail and the other Moose Pass. The turnoff is a little hard to find with all of the trees and you're going down a hill. We had the coordinates in our GPS so we were waiting for it.

05/15/19 - Anchorage, Turnagain Arm

Back on Highway 1. More hills. 

I wanted to stop at Walmart in Anchorage to get some fruit and vegetables and we thought we would stay the night if we can. There are three Walmart stores. I called the one that was off of Highway 1 closer to the visitor center. The lady I spoke to said no problem, told us two areas we could park. When we got there, there’s signs all over the parking lot, including the areas she told us, that no overnight parking is allowed. I called the store again, talked to the same lady, and told her about the signs. She put me on hold and eventually another lady came on and told me that no parking is allowed. I didn’t call the other two stores. So, we got our groceries and then left, figuring we would find a pullout along the way.

 

Leaving the Anchorage area you come to the Turnagain Arm. When the tide is up, you are suppose to see Beluga whales, the only white whales. When the tide is down, you can see eagles, which we did. 

We stopped at a turnout shortly around the corner from the Turnagain Arm, right by the Welcome to Alaska's Kenai Peninsula sign. We had 3G 4 bar Verizon cell service. There was highway noise and occasionally you could hear a train. This was probably one of the dirtiest places we've been in as far as garbage goes. A police car came through once. 

For a few more pictures, please click here. 

05/14/19 Back on Highway 1

After leaving Valdez, we stopped at Horsetail Falls for pictures, got pictures of Bridal Veil Falls, and stopped at the Railroad Tunnel. Then you begin a long climb up hill.

I had hoped to stop at Worthington Glacier, as they say this is one you can get close to. But the road was closed to driving up to the next parking area.

The Wrangell-St. Elias visitor center (Copper Center Complex) road wasn’t blocked off so we thought maybe it was open. (Wasn't suppose to open until May 15th.) There were some school buses and cars in the lot, and we found a place to park. The visitor center isn’t officially open but there were two ladies there able to help us out. We visited with one of them who was volunteering for the summer, she’s from Colorado. We could take the Jeep to McCarthy, but we’d have to leave the motorhome in Chitina. That was back south 50+ miles, so we decided not to do that. There’s also a Visitor Center and entrance near Slana, which is near Tok, which we may be heading back that way again this summer. We’ll see what happens. I was able to get park stamps.

Back to Gleanallen junction and filling fuel at $3.579 gallon. There is diesel and gas at the front pumps and diesel at the back pumps. We took the back pumps where the trucks would go. Curt was able to start the pump with his credit card, but it quit before $100 so I had to go inside to have her restart the pump.

 We got back on Highway 1 heading toward Seward, and stopped at Long Lake State Recreation Area. It was right by the lake off the highway. We found this on freecampsites.net. There were some people fishing while we got there, and people came and went throughout the evening. It was a nice spot; but a few pot holes that you have to go slow through. It was a little noisy by the highway. We had no cell service. 

For more pictures, please click here.   

05/12/19 and 05/13/19 Valdez Alaska

Continuing on Highway 1, and climbing up and down hills again. On our way to Valdez.

Beautiful day for scenery pictures. 

 

The roads are slow-going. After turning on to Highway 4, there's a few areas you can see the pipeline. 

 I took so many pictures of the snowy mountains, it's hard to choose which to post!

Thompson Pass, elevation 2678 feet

Once getting to Valdez, we went into town to see where we could park the motorhome so we could drive around with the Jeep. We found the civic center parking lot, empty and unhooked there.  We drove to the airport to see if the pilot festival was still going on. There were finishing up on balloon toss and that was the last competition. It was fun to see the different airplanes. People had brought their camp chairs to sit and watch and there were food booths there.

After that we drove to Glacier View Park, about a mile from the airport. We found this on freecampsites.net. There was one motorhome parked on the top area, and some cars parked down by the water.  Curt thought it would be no problem getting in the area, so we decided to park here for the night.

We drove back to town and to the small boat harbor and walked around a bit looking at the boats. I found a Little Free Library there. We drove around town and found the ferry terminal. It doesn’t start until June. 

After doing some internet stuff back at the motorhome, we drove out to Glacier View Park parking lot for the evening.

05/13/19

Spent another day here. I went through pictures, wrote up blog posts to upload when we’ve got internet, etc. There’s a few cars and campers that come and go.

For more pictures, please click here.