July 17 – July 22: Seward to Homer

Friday in Seward

View from our front window at our site in Seward

We are still parked right on the water in Seward with light rain all night and the clouds blocking out the mountains across the Bay. The rain must be keeping down the number of charter fishing boats going out, but there is a mid-size cruise ship in port.

After lunch, welcome blue breaks in the sky began to appear and even an occasional ray of sun. We walked along the Bay down to a wonderful restaurant on the small boat harbor. The locally caught  salmon and halibut was fabulous. Walking along the harbor, we watched the guys speed clean and fillet the salmon and halibut that was caught on the fishing charters, then they package it up and ship it home for the folks. A great dinner and the weather is better – a good day.  

Those few rays finally did lead to some blue skies

Saturday in Seward

We woke to mostly cloudy skies, but no rain and there were lots of boats heading out this morning, but today being Saturday, it looked like a lot of the boats were personal fishing boats. We checked out the local downtown that is known for its small-town homey feel with many murals. 

Early morning

Cruise ship in port

Downtown Seward

Seward's Unique library

We stopped at the library for their WiFi - an interesting building...

We went to the Sea Life Center Aquarium. It was a modern, great facility – the displays were wonderful and the variety of sea life was broad. The tanks were not as large as the Charleston Aquarium, but we thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the seals and the puffins.  

We then drove the dirt road heading south of Seward to Lowell Point. 

Small waterfall on Lowell Point Road

First we stopped at a State Park where I did a nice 4 mile hike through the boreal forest to a point where a river enters Destruction Bay. I saw two bald eagles and I grabbed my nice new telephoto lens, only to find I had no camera. Duh, duh, duh. The stream was loaded with salmon going upstream to spawn. Lots of raspberries along the trail and salmon in the stream---I talked a lot to all the bears that may have been watching and carried my bear spray right in my hand instead of a holster....

Returning from Lowell Point, we spotted a few houses that looked to be vacation homes that had really unique shingle siding.

Driving back from the point along the bay, we spotted an otter in the water. He wasn't moving at all, but drifting on his back – obviously taking a much-needed nap. Another couple came up and used a unique way to get close-up photos from above – a drone! 

  Great day.

Sunday, Seward to Cooper Landing

We woke to mostly sunny skies. Watched the boats heading out in droves and another cruise ship is in port. We packed up the RV, and drove to Exit Glacier. We took a short walk to a view of the glacier, and I tried to hike across the outwash to get to the toe of the glacier, but the river was running too strong to cross it and had to abandon getting right up close to the glacier. 

Closeup of the glacier ice

We next stopped at a salmon weir where we watched them jumping the small falls upstream and then headed north on the Seward Highway. We are returning north the same way we came, but now the weather is great, so I was able to stop at many of the scenic viewpoints for photos.  

Lily pad Lake

About 35 miles north, we took the Sterling Highway west where we saw miles and miles of traffic heading in the opposite direction. They were fishermen leaving the huge salmon fishing areas back to Anchorage and beyond after a weekend of fishing. Alaskans are allowed to dipnet salmon from mid-July to July 31 and can harvest 25 per household. They simply put these gigantic nets in the water near the mouths of streams and the fish swim into them! We stopped at a national forest campground with nice sites, but no services and filled with fisherpeople. I doubt we would have gotten a spot anywhere in the area had we been here on the weekend.

Monday: Cooper Landing to Sterling

One of the many lakes

We drove through the Russian River famous fishing area with fisherpeople everywhere – most in various forms of RVs, but most were truck campers. We took a dirt road that mostly parallels the Sterling Highway, but heads deeper into the Kenai National Wildlife area. The road was the worst we have been on with lots of washboard, but we found a small, shallow lake that was perfect for our kayak. The temps were around 70, no wind – perfect! I spent the afternoon enjoying a couple of tours around the lake, along with a pair of trumpeter swans. We were lucky and got a site at another national forest campground, again it was filled with fisher people. 

Another lake along this terrible dirt road

Kayak Ready!

Tuesday: Sterling to Captain Cook State Park

Our original plan was to spend a day or so roaming around the close-by towns of Kenai and Soldotna, so we called ahead for a campground, but there were no spots available. The Kenai river that runs through here is another impossibly popular fishing river when the salmon are running. So, we decided to head north on a side road up west side of the Kenai peninsula to Captain Cook State Park.

We stopped at a wood carving place with a great sense of humor.

 We then headed north on the Kenai Spur road to the end of the road at Captain Cook Sate Park.

The park is on a bluff overlooking the Cook Inlet and we got a nice site among waist high wildflowers (pink fireweed and white cow parsnip).

 I took a hike along the bluff at low tide with mudflats and rocks below and snow-covered mountains (active volcanoes in the “ring of fire” grouping) across the inlet. A beautiful, rugged coastline that reminded me of Oregon and Maine.

The cloudy skies are mostly hiding the snow covered mountains across Cook Inlet

A pleasant, quiet night, but tomorrow we NEED to find a campground with services as we need fresh water and some electricity.

Wednesday: Captain Cook State Park south to Homer

Rain today and it is forecast to last all day. We headed back south, stopped at the visitor center in Kenai that had some fabulous displays about wildlife and native Alaskans that have lived here since the “salt was added to the sea.” The Russians were the first white men to inhabit this area and the old town's Russian Orthodox Church and chapel were picturesque. 

 We drove south on the west side of the Kenai Peninsula to just north of Homer where we have a site with full hookups overlooking the Inlet. Unfortunately, the sporadic rain and low clouds are preventing us enjoying the views, but tomorrow is forecast to be better and hoping to see more views like the one below.

July 11 to 16, 2015 Talkeetna, Anchorage and Seward Highway

Leaving Talkeetna, we stopped at a birch syrup place. We had never heard of birch syrup, but they tap the trees similar to maple.   Birch trees produce a watery, mild sap that must be boiled down much more than maple. That means they have to start with 3 times more sap to produce the same amount of birch syrup as maple. Taste is different, too. They describe the birch concentrated syrup as 'mineral.' I thought of it almost like a thick, saltless soy sauce. They recommend it to use in Asian fusion cooking. They also produce lightened versions for caramel ice cream topping and pancake syrup, which we bought.  It was delicious. 

We continued south on the Parks Highway to Wasilla, home of Sarah Palin. We checked out their local golf course which looked decent, but nothing special, and decided to play 9 holes. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed being outside.  We found a campground just outside of town with hookups and WiFi, and drove back into town for a pizza dinner.

Sunday (July 12) we decided to stay here as all the big stores are here and it will be easier to do errands here than in Anchorage. Also gave us a chance to update the blog about our flightseeing over Denali.

Monday (July 13) we visited the Iditarod dogsled race headquarters. The race's ceremonial start is in Anchorage, but the official start used to be here in Wasilla. Due to multiple years of too little snow, they have moved the official start to Willow. We headed south on Parks Highway and got a campsite just northeast of anchorage. Unfortunately, the tenters next to us decided to talk until 2:30 in the morning – nothing boisterous, but were close enough to our open window that it kept us awake. This is the second time we have had problems – what is it about folks in Alaska not going to bed????? Just because it is light out doesn't mean staying up all night...

Tuesday (July 14) we were going to make a couple of stops in Anchorage, but got a little lost and decided to bag it. City stuff just isn't high on our radar this trip. So, we started down the Seward highway that runs from Anchorage down the Kenai peninsula to the town of Seward. The weather was good and we enjoyed the scenery on one of the 10 best drives in North America. The mountains are on three sides and the road runs next to Turnagain Arm, a long slender body of water south of Anchorage off Cooks Inlet.  

Black and White seems to bring out the sculpted mudflats, mountains and clouds.

We got a campsite near a salmon fishing creek about an hour south of Anchorage. We checked out the fishermen on this opening day of salmon fishing, watching for grizzlies as they like to grab an easy meal – the fish, I mean, not the fishermen.

Cleaning his catch with a hungry bird keeping watch for leftovers

 Later in the afternoon we drove a few miles down the coast to watch the bore tide. There are only a few places in the world where these exist – Nova Scotia and Maine also have it. Instead of the usual in and out of the water gradually bringing in the tide, at the end of low tide, a large wave comes in bringing the start of the high tide. The water does not ebb and flow on the shore, but just comes in steadily, covering the mud flats, many feet at a time (the tides reach up to 40' feet (not in height, but in horizontal coverage). This bore tide used to be 6 high', but the 1964 earthquake deepened the channel so the tide is only a few feet now. We returned to our campsite and had snacks outside, enjoying the nice weather.  

The white pointy wave in center rear is the bore tide coming in and covering the mudflats

Wednesday (July 15) Woke early, packed up the RV and drove back north a few miles to catch some early morning light on the Turnagain Arm.

NOT a photo of rocks or clouds -- check out the white stuff.  It is Mt. McKinley well over 100 miles away!

After Jack woke up, we had breakfast while enjoying the scenery when a man came up and knocked on our door. Beluga whales he yelled and pointed to the water. We ran out and got some photos of the small white wales that do not entirely come out of the water, but mostly look like white blobs. Enjoy my photos of white blobs.... The Beluga population was halved in the 1990s and is only slowly coming back, so we considered ourselves lucky to have seen them.   

We made a quick stop in Girdwood, the major ski town for Anchorage and a few miles later, the small town of Portage. The 1964 earthquake dropped the land here by 10 feet, destroying the town. The tree roots were low enough to be exposed to salt water and the dead trees can be seen all over the area. The town relocated inland a few miles and we drove through it and into the Chugach national Forest.

Jack enjoying a kayak ride in Portage Lake while inside the museum

We stopped at the Begish Boggs visitor center. This is a large modern building right on Portage Lake that contains a great mini-museum about animals, plants and glaciers. The Portage glacier used to be visible from here as the leading edge came down the mountain, with meltwater under the glacier forming the lake. It has receded so much that a ½ hour boat ride is necessary to reach the glacier now.  

Hanging Glacier closeup

One of the hanging glaciers in Chugach

Continuing south on the Seward Highway, we made a quick stop at a stream just north of Seward where we saw quite a few salmon making the last few yards' swim upstream to spawn and die. We drove into Seward and snagged a campsite right on Resurrection Bay with fabulous views of the mountains all around. The low rain clouds started moving in and we watched as at least 50 boats returned to port – mostly smallish charter fishing boats (halibut is big here), along with lots of tour boats and a couple of sailboats. 

I spotted a sea otter right in front of our RV. He would dive, come up and laze around on his back, eating his catch and dive again. Over and over. Too far for my camera, even with the new lens, but Jack got a couple of fuzzy close-ups photos with his digital telephoto.  

Thursday, June 16 – It rained on and off all night long and is supposed to be a steady rain all day. We moved our campsite to another right on the bay, but it has electric. We spent the rainy day doing errands around town.