Anchorage and Kenai Fjords National Park

Hello from the roads of Alaska. This part of the trip the roads have been so much better and the scenery continues to just be amazing. It was over 4 hours to get to Anchorage from Denali but the views made it go by pretty quickly. 

Our time in Anchorage was mainly to get shopping done (our campground was right across from a Costco!), laundry and more cleaning (yes, I am still finding places with dirt!) but we did at least take a city tour to get the lay of the land.

One place that Dave had on his bucket list was to go to the Ulu factory (above). What's an Ulu you ask? It is a knife that comes from the Eskimo culture and was their main cutting tool. They had one at the factory that archaeologists estimate to be over 3000 years old. Our tour guide told us that Anchorage is the hanging basket capitol of the world and even the Ulu factory had several beautiful baskets.  We also went to the Alaska Sausage & Seafood company and Alaskan Wild Berry products.  Both stores were filled with Alaskan made items, including this polar bear!😅

My favorite was the world's largest chocolate waterfall! They offered free samples of all of their delicious chocolates. I definitely got my money's worth! 😋

We went to a fur exchange and they had everything from Woolly Mammoth tusks to beaver gloves. No free samples there but lots of amazing Alaskan made products.

We drove by one of the airports that had hundreds of planes parked. Since there are very few roads in Alaska planes are a much more common mode of transportation. One out of every 60 Alaskans are pilots! 

We went to Earthquake park which was a part of town that was completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1964. An entire subdivision of houses was just wiped away in the tsunami that followed the 9.2 magnitude quake. The whole area is now a park to memorialize the over 130 deaths. 

We ended up leaving Anchorage a day early. We did it so we could arrive in Seward earlier and be able to take our boat tour through the Kenai Fjords on a sunny day vs. a day with 99% chance of rain and a high of 59 degrees.  Also, driving through Turnagain Arm with sun on the water was just gorgeous! There were kite surfers out on the water when we passed by (pic on the right); it was so cool to watch them!

The views driving this part of the trip have been nothing short of spectacular! I am sure even if it was raining it would be lovely but we sure enjoyed the beautiful blue skies and those white puffy clouds instead. I loved this shot of the end of Turanagain arm where the tide was out (below). Something so soothing about the clouds and the patterns in the sand. 

It was such a fabulous day for a drive with beautiful scenery everywhere you looked. We arrived in Seward at Resurrection Bay Campground with this amazing view right out of our window (below)!

The only sad thing was the remains of the docks that used to be here before the tsunami from the '64 earthquake took them out. The city deemed the area unfit for building since the same thing could happen again. Funny how it is safe enough for the tourists? 😏 That sign is literally right next to Phoebe! 

Hello Sunshine! Our reason for being in Seward was to take the boat trip out to Kenai Fjords National Park. Our most expensive excursion so far but we can say we've been in the Fjords now! I am just thankful that this 6 hour boat tour I kept all my stomach contents inside! It was a beautiful day in the mid sixties and most important it was sunny so we could see those whales!

They blew their air out their holes to say "hello" and waved their tales at us. It was such a cool site! 

We saw lots of harbor seals and another tour boat just like ours watching them from the other side.

 

The captain who has been living in Seward and piloting these boats for 25 years got us into all kinds of cool spots. This little cove was a hideaway for the seals, Check them out in the back of the cove on the rocks. Dave got this great shot below of one of them striking a pose.

 

We cruised into Aialik Bay also known as Dora passage and saw the popular photographed islands there.  We figured we should get a shot too! 

 

Next on to the glaciers, with Addison glacier to your left and Aialik glacier below.

While we didn't see any calving while we were watching there was evidence of it. The crew went ice fishing so we could get up and close with it.

 

 

The crew were terrific and made sure everyone got some good pictures to take home. This was quintessential Alaska with a sunny day to top it off!

 

The ride back we saw more Orcas (right) and some puffins but our pictures just don't do them justice (they just look like black and white dots in the water). It was still neat to see them. The captain picked up some speed on the way back and then it got really windy and chilly too!

He got us back safely to the dock and our cruise on the Voyager was complete!  Given the hoops we had to jump through to make it happen (leaving Anchorage a day early, moving campsites 3 times, twice in 1 day), it was all worth it! Of our days in Seward it was by far the best! 

The next day the temperature dropped about 15 degrees and the rain and clouds poured in. It was a good day to stay inside and get caught up on the blog! 😌

If it looks like the campground above goes downhill you would be right. I am not sure we have ever had Phoebe so jacked up in the air. That first step is about at Dave's knees! He was willing to go out in the rain for food though and wow, what an awesome meal we had. Ray's Waterfront dining gets 5 stars! 

Our last day here (today! whoot, whoot I am finally caught up!)😲 we did things in reverse and went to the Visitor's Center. We watched the movie and talked to the Ranger for some hiking suggestions. Also, couldn't miss the photo opp with the seals and new hat for Dave.

On our way walking into town (there is a great path all the way from the campground into town) there was a Viking ship in port. Makes me miss cruising but they only got 6 hours here where we have had 4 days!

Ah yes, the park sign picture, our 50th now in the last 4 years! We have been so fortunate to get to live this lifestyle and see our incredibly beautiful country!

We hiked to Exit Glacier and noted the signs along the way depicting where the glacier was at during that time. We laughed and said if we had only come 20 years earlier we wouldn't of had to hike so far!😁

Some would say not such a laughing matter as they are unsure how the recession of these many glaciers will impact the environment. For sure the waters give life to many animals here in the park.

 

For now, we sit and appreciate what we see today and enjoy a little snack too. 😃 It certainly is another beautiful park.

We'll leave you with a view from the campground as we head out tomorrow to Homer as our Epic journey continues. Thank you for your prayers along the way!

Fairbanks, new friends and Denali National Park!

Hello from rainy Fairbanks! Luckily we arrived before the rain started but once it did it rained for 2 days straight. It was OK as it gave us a chance to get caught up on laundry and cleaning. Plus it inspired me to bake some scones to go with a cup of tea!

Finally the sun did come out and the people did too! We met some lovely folks, Bev & Jerry from Wisconsin and Chris & Meg from California. Fred Meyer had lobster tails on sale for 2 for $14.99 so we indulged with some shrimp as well. 
 

The indulging continued as we took a day to head to Chena Hot Springs. It was a little farther out than we had originally thought and took us about 1 1/2 hours to get there. We enjoyed soaking in the springs but found the resort to be more "family friendly" that we would have preferred.  There were several pools but only 1 of the springs pools was adult only and the rest were overrun by kids. 

We laughed because apparently this duck family didn't know the rules.😄

The grounds are interestingly landscaped using old vehicles and the lodge has some interesting decor as well...

 

Given the distance to get there, staying overnight at the lodge would make sense (for those of you considering a trip to Alaska in the future😉). They even have housing for all employees on property. For us, it was back in the truck for the hour and a half ride back to Fairbanks. We were rewarded though by a fabulous beginning of a sunset (this was around 11pm). 

From Fairbanks we went on to Denali National Park. We loved our time at this park! Our campsite was at Riley Creek which was right in the park and allowed us to hike right from Phoebe. 

First stop, of course was to the Visitor's center to get the scoop. This place was so big they even had two movies to watch. Speaking of big, check out this moose giving Dave the "eye".😆 Me, I liked hanging out with this bear.

We took our first drive into the park to see what we could see. There is just 1 road in the park that is 92 miles long but due to a landslide in 2021 the road is closed past mile 47 and only allowed that far by tour bus or special permit. As you can see from the picture on the right, Mt. McKinley was hidden in the clouds for our first night. Good thing we have 5 nights! The views were still spectacular, even with the clouds.

I thought this shot was pretty cool with the shuttle bus on the road, the trees, the mountains and clouds. Of course, nothing was as cool as the sled dogs and they do a demonstration right in the park just past the visitor's center.

After the demonstration of the dogs "sledding" you can go visit them. Nucha was pretty tired after her performance.😀 The best thing was at the 4pm show we got to see the puppies! They carried them in and then let them run back to their area. They were so cute and check out those paws! That's going to be a big sled dog one day. 

 

The next day we were off on the hikes right from the campsite. Kudos to this park for having the trails so well marked! Interesting enough there are only marked trails at the beginning of the park and here they encourage you to explore the park "off trail". Given the wildlife that is here (grizzly bears!), we thought it best to stick with the marked trails.😏

We ended up back at the Visitor's center and decided to hop on one of the shuttle buses up to Savidge River to hike more up there. Dave got a great shot of the flag. Hard not to feel really fortunate to live in such an amazingly beautiful country! Then, as if to reinforce that thought we saw Mt. McKinley for our first time! That shot is about 30 miles away but the clouds had lifted so we could see the giant snow covered mountain. The statistic is that only 30% of visitors get the see it when they are here. We were lucky!

Back on the trail back to the campsite so we can run the generator for an hour before quiet time. One of the negatives of staying inside the park camground but the positives more than outweigh the negatives. We even had some cell service as I'm texting Jan on the way.😊 Such pretty flowers to enjoy as well.

The next day was our Tundra Wilderness Bus Tour that takes us past where we could go with our truck up to mile 47. We saw a family of Ptarmigan, which is the Alaska state bird along the road. They are brown so they blend in really well but the bus driver knew what to look for and stopped. There is one at the bottom of the picture and one in the green grasses.

We saw this Caribou running and a few more but they were pretty far away (they are the brown dots on the side of the rocks.) 

The landscape was magnificent and the gravel road was the best we've been on the whole trip!

And the best part was we got to see the mountain again! It's the highest mountain in North America at 20,310 feet above sea level!

Our last day we went into "town" to do some Christmas shopping and had a close encounter with this bear. Good thing all he wanted was my credit card! 😋

Then because I still wanted to do more hiking and why not since it stays light so long we ventured out to Horseshoe Lake trail at 8pm.

What a great trail, highly recommend! Only about 2 miles long and a loop around the lake and next to the Nenana River. While it was starting to get a little overcast we never got rained on and still got some amazing shots.

We could see evidence of beaver but they must of been having a late dinner because we never actually saw them. We did see lots of other cool stuff...

 ...Including this petrified wood that Dave was just enamored with. He figured the tree had to be at least 20 feet wide. I could barely drag him away from it.

Me, I am all about the animals and loved that this squirrel seemed to pose just for me!

Then as we were heading back up the 250 ft back to the road this Ptarmigan came right out to greet us. We know from our bus tour this is the female because she does not have red eyelids like the males. Apparently the larger the red lid the "sexier" the male is...who knows? Maybe she thought our tired eye lids were getting close to red. It was an awesome hike and we loved Denali National Park! Stay tuned as we venture to Anchorage next. Thanks for following us and keeping us in your prayers for travel mercies!  We'll leave you this time with a video clip of the dogs getting ready to go; they love to pull!