Heading east to the granddaughters!

With harvest officially done, we are finally able to head out and hopefully to warmer weather. Except, a cold front is coming through and I think it will follow us all the way to Virginia. So, with that in mind, we're trying to figure out our best strategy. We stopped in Fargo to visit with Curt's sister and husband. Then on to Minnesota for a family visit, but we need to figure out how long to stay to maybe let the cold front go through so we can travel behind it.  We got to town Thursday, with plans maybe leaving on Sunday as Monday night is pretty cold. Or, do we wait an extra day for it to get in front of us since we've got electricity hookup here.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

We went to visit my brother, Dennis, and his wife, Betty, who live about a half hour away. It was probably the first time we've driven to their place with snow on the ground!

We stayed busy with the granddaughters. They had a 4-H meeting Friday with awards given out from their fairs. After that they filled backpacks with supplies for homeless kids. Then our oldest granddaughter (12) got to spend a "moonlight madness" evening sponsored through the church for an all-nighter of bowling, games, movies and food. She took a friend along and they had a good time and stayed up all night and slept a good part of the next day. 

It was a weekend of school and 4-H projects. We helped make a fleece tie blanket and a pillowcase. 

And, Calissa wanted to play pinochle with Grandpa!

08/18/19 - Back to Anchorage

When we woke up on the 18th, it was windy and smoky at Moose Pass. It got a little better as we got to Anchorage, but the next day was bad with smoke. We spent our day at Cabelas inside our RV, mostly playing cards.

As we drove by the Turnagain Arm, there were some Beluga whales. We weren't able to get pictures of the whales, but we did see as they were swimming around.

Our sons and daughter-in-law flew out late that night. 

Cabelas lot was busy. 

08/17/19 - Upper Trail Lake/Moose Pass, AK

We stopped at Primrose Campground, a National Forest campground. We had read that it was a pretty place by the water and people had boondocked in the parking lot if they could't fit in the smaller campsites.The parking lot was so full, we could barely drive through it.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

We decided to go back to Moose Pass where we had camped the end of May, just a few miles away. You can read the first post here.  (We stayed 12 days.)  By evening there were quite a few campers there.  We walked to Moose Pass and stopped at the Moose Drop-In Trading Post, but they weren't open because there was no electricity. As we started going back, we noticed the grocery store was open. They had a generator going, so they had power, and the ice cream was cold.

08/16/19 - Kenai Fjords cruise and a beautiful evening in Seward

Six of our group went on the Kenai Fjords cruise ship at 11. I haven't been on a ship before and it was fun. We saw different birds, including puffins, and also otters, sea lions and whales. We also pulled up near a glacier, and it was really cold and windy there. We were lucky we did it today, the next day was really windy and smoky out.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

On our way back to the camper, we stopped at the Kenai Fjords National Park visitor center. Alaina handed in her junior ranger book and got sworn in as a junior ranger. Some of the kids went to the Alaska Sealife Center later. It was a beautiful evening. We had a campfire, with s'mores, and a cooked peach which was really good.

For more cruise pictures, please click here.  Thanks to our daughter for some of the pics, and also one of our sons for the drone pictures.

Happy birthday to our son, Dean!!

08/15/19 Seward and Kenai Fjords National Park

Leaving the Hope area, we headed south to Seward. We were able to find two campsites beside each other in the Seward Municipal Campground, Resurrection South. The campground was pretty full. The prices are $10 for tents, $20 for RVs with no hookups, $40 with water and electric. We chose no hookups. There is a dump station for $5. Our blog post from the end of May can be read here.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

We also went to Kenai Fjords National Park and hiked to Exit Glacier again. This time one of the trails was closed off due to seeing a bear in the area. Our blog post from when we were here in May can be read here. 

For more pictures, please click here. 

08/14/19 - Hope, AK

Before leaving Anchorage, we stopped at Alaska Wild Berry Products to see their chocolate fountain (and buy chocolate). There is much more than just chocolate there. They have jam, syrups, Alaska clothing, Christmas gifts, etc.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Also Korene and Jason and the girls went to the Alaska Fish and Game Dept and they were able to get fishing poles for the girls to use free for three days.  Two of the bucket list items for the granddaughters was gold panning and fishing, which Hope, Alaska, has.  So we headed there for the day.

Gold Rush Peck started mining when he was 10-years old, taught by his grandfather.  He has a small tent area with soil, water and pans and will show you how to correctly pan for gold. Both of the girls got a glass jar with gold specks.

Right beside Gold Rush Peck is the Sunrise Historical Museum. It was about closing time for their main building, but there's a lot of other buildings that were open to look at.

After that we walked through town (it's small) and found an area for the girls to fish. They caught some that had to be thrown back in, and they each caught a rock! There were a lot of dead salmon and at low tide the smell is quite "fragrant".

We stopped a couple of miles out of town for the night at a pullover spot.

For more pictures, please click here.  Some of these are my daughter's also.

Happy birthday to our daughter-in-law, Valerie!!

08/13/19 - Wasilla and more sled dogs

Leaving Denali, we made at stop at the Ididarod Headquarters at Wasilla.  We had stopped there before, and our granddaughters wanted to see if there were puppies there again. Our blog post from June can be read here.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

This time there were little puppies.

From there we headed to Cabelas in Anchorage for the evening.

08/12/2019 Denali National Park and Preserve

We had stopped at Denali National Park in June on our way up to Fairbanks. You can read more about it and see more pictures on our post dated 06/19/2019. See here for that post.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

We stayed in Riley Creek Campground for two nights. We took a bus tour to Eielson Visitor Center one day. There's a separate post on the bus tour with pictures. The next day was hiking and watching the sled dogs demo and playing cards. I didn't get many pictures from the second day, so I'm borrowing pictures from our daughter for the second day (with her permission, of course.)