After we dropped our son Kane at the Anchorage airport, we stayed in town at the Golden Nugget RV park and caught up on laundry. We hadn't had pizza for a while, so on Sunday 6/19 we went to Pizza Hut.
6/20 - Monday: Today we decided to visit downtown Anchorage, Alaska. The downtown area is nice with plenty of restaurants and gift shops. We had a horrible time trying to find a place to park our motorhome. Anchorage is "not" a place to stop if your travelling via RV. That's so hard to understand that with the thousands of RV's that have to pass through here to get to the Kenai Peninsula, that the town would want to provide some direction to parking and amenities for the RV'ers. I suppose they just want other visitors and if you're in an RV - just keep going. We almost did just that when I spied a metered spot on the street at the end, so with the rear of the RV beyond the marked spot, I parked hoping that we would not be ticketed. We were not, but the town didn't make us feel welcome.
Tuesday morning we had an appointment to replace our windshield, so we stayed overnight for free in the Speedy Glass parking lot.
6/21 - We got the windshield replaced and were off by 10:30 A.M. to the little town of Whittier. On the way we stopped to see Portage Glacier. Getting to Whittier was exciting. There is a 2 1/2 mile long one-way tunnel that is also the same tunnel the train uses. Of course when the train is there all other traffic stops. Vehicles are staged for passage into Whittier on the hour, every hour and traffic leaving Whittier on the half hour. Vehicles actually drive on the rail tracks. Whittier is a really neat fishing village that was started years ago by the military. They built the tunnel for the train to bring supplies and vehicles, but was a slow and laborious process. The tunnel was rebuilt for vehicle traffic and opened in 2000, after 9 years of preparation and construction. Vehicles now shared the tunnel with the railroad. This was made possible when the cruise lines agreed to stop in Whittier if they had a tunnel for vehicles, so with the help of the then Alaska governor, the tunnel was commissioned. We were told the railroad tried to stop the project for purely selfish reasons, but the town in the end won.
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| Portage Glacier - Kenai Penisula |
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| Tunnel Entrance - 2 1/2 mile tunnel to Whittier |
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| Whittier Tunnel - Exiting |
6/22 - Next stop on the Kenai was Homer, another fishing village and very popular with tourists and folks from Anchorage alike. The town was very busy and had lots of parking for everyone. We stopped at the Salty Dog Saloon, an interesting place that had one-dollar bills tacked to the walls, ceilings, everywhere. The bills are signed and dated by the donor and provides an interesting decor. We had dinner here, then drove back to the town of Soldotna where we stayed the night for free in a super market parking lot after stocking up on a few groceries.
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| Homer - Salty Dog Saloon |
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| Helping June shop in Homer Alaska - Wheeeeeeeeee! |
6/23 - Seward was the next stop in the Kenai. We strolled the small downtown area then drove back 8 miles to "Exit Glacier". After a mile long hike, we could stand within 15 feet of this Glacier that ran along the mountain a few miles. The area here has dozens of glaciers in the mountains that can be seen and many more you can not see except by air. This is the closest we have been. We found a nice camp site in the U.S. Forrest Service campground in the Chugach National Forrest.
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| June reading about "Exit" Glacier in background |
6/24 - Today we headed back 'through' Anchorage, this time we didn't stop - good riddance. If anyone plans a visit to Alaska - leave Anchorage out of the plan. It's ugly, big, nothing to offer here. We were stuck when we needed to get the windshield replaced, but Alaska's armpit is definitely Anchorage.
East of Anchorage we stopped and walked to Thunderbird Falls. It was a nice hike, 2 miles round trip - the falls were small and it was a nice day. Camped tonight in The City of Houston Campground.
6/25 - It rained all morning and into early afternoon as we drove North towards Denali National Park. We stayed at the edge of Denali in Cantwell RV park. On a clearer day Mt. McKinley can be seen, but not today. McKinley is the highest peak in North America at just over 20,000 feet. I hope we get to see it while we're here.
Tomorrow we'll get to Denali where we will stay for three nights. We're booked for a 13 hour bus tour into the park. No other vehicles are allowed on this road so to get a good view, the bus is the way to go.
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| Near Denali National Park |
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