Kenai Fjords National Park

Good afternoon, my friends. I told you I was taking tomorrow off from blogging because we have an early boat to catch. Still, I wanted to tell you about the stuff we did today while it's still fresh in my mind. 

We started by driving into town to visit the Kenai Fjords National Park visitor center. I was able to pick up a refrigerator magnet there. On down the road, we would visit the Exit Glacier Area.

Along the way, we pulled out at this spot where we could get a good look at the Exit Glacier.

There was an interpretive sign there. I've cropped out the text areas below to make them easier to read.

Reading from left to right, here's what the sign says:

From that spot, I zoomed in a little closer for a better look.

From there, we continued on up the park road. We could see the glacier as we went.

We want to come back on Thursday (weather permitting) and hike to the Exit Glacier Lookout. We weren't dressed appropriately for a hike today. I have it from a friend that these are easy hikes. 

Back in town, we stopped off at the Benny Benson Memorial Park. I'd read about this in our Milepost, and I really liked this story.

When we arrived in Seward, we turned off before reaching the park. On our first drive into town, we passed right by.

After reading this plaque, I liked the story even better. Imagine what a $1,000 scholarship would have meant in 1926!

It was a nice memorial. These pretty iris were blooming there at the park. My phone identified these as blue flags.

From there, we visited the quilt shop. I'll tell you about that in a separate post.

After that, we did our grocery shopping, and then headed back to the RV. We had lunch, took naps, and then I made some progress on my slow-stitching.

Sadie had her nap in the cubby over our bed. And let me just tell you, it's quite a sacrifice to give up all this space above the bed for the kitties to use.

Okay, so boat tour tomorrow. Fingers crossed for some better weather. If it doesn't rain, we'll be happy.

Seward, Alaska

Good morning, my friends. We had a short drive to Seward yesterday. We were going to be early for our check-in, and so we'd planned a few stops along the way. Our first stop was here at Lower Summit Lake. Looking across...an idyllic setting. It's probably less inviting in winter.

Here's what our Milepost had to say about this spot. 

Looking in the opposite direction, it looked like this. If it isn't obvious, it was a gray and drizzly drive.

Mainly, we pulled off here to see the wildflowers promised by the Milepost. This was our selection.

There were a few tufts of lupine.

And lupine lined both sides of the roadway for much of our drive.

I took this next picture because it shows so well how a glacier is simply a river of ice. We're seeing these frozen streams of ice everywhere we go.

The Milepost promised us a trading post where we could pick up some homemade fudge. And, well, you know me. When fudge is available, I'm all in.

Here's what the Milepost tells us about this tiny little town. I was sorry we missed seeing the waterwheel described here:

Okay...here we are.

This is the Moose Drop-in Trading Post. An older couple owned it and they were working the store. We had a nice chat with them.

If we chose four squares of fudge, the fifth one was free. Looking at these, the one on the left is praline. Moving around clockwise, the next one is moose drool (that's caramel to you), then butter pecan, then peanut butter, and then raspberry. We've already eaten the moose drool. Yum.

Also, I picked up a refrigerator magnet and a shot glass there, and so we count this stop as a roaring success. We'll be coming back this way. No doubt, we'll stop in again.

On the way back to our truck, I captured this little not-yet-blooming thing. 

As we approached Seward, we saw these waterfalls on the left side of the road. There was another one about every 50 yards or so.

They were dumping snow melt into this lake. Sorry for this poor image. There were little drizzly drops on my window, and the camera chose to focus there. But I wanted you to see the size of this lake. This is Kenai Lake. It went on and on.

So we find ourselves in Seward this morning. Here's what the Milepost tells us about Seward:

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we have a boat tour scheduled for tomorrow to see the Kenai Fjords. Today will be a free day. We want to do some "life" things. We've already done our laundry, and we need to pick up a couple of things at the grocery store. We want to stop in at the national park visitor center. There's a park nearby with a nice story associated with it. We'll visit the park so I can take some pictures, and then I'll share the story with you. Also...there's a quilt shop in town. Yay! We'll probably toodle around town a little bit too. 

Our campground here offers us water and electricity, but no sewer. That means we'll need to make it four days without dumping our tanks. With that in mind, we'll probably eat out at least a couple of times while we're here and save that sink full of dishwater for showers instead. While we were waiting for our laundry, we sat figuring out the best restaurants for our palates and our budget. We'd decided on one, but then ended up going across the street when the wait turned out to be a full hour. We were able to sit at the bar here...it's one of the advantages of being a party of two old people:

Remember during Covid when restaurants started using QR codes to replace menus? Most restaurants we've seen have gone back to regular menus, but use of the QR code seems still to be popular in brewery-style restaurants. Their menu cracked me up:

Also...this:

And finally...read this to the end:

For now, Smitty would like you to understand the trials and tribulations of being a traveling cat. When he goes out on the catio, his long tail sometimes stays inside the camper. This can be an annoyance, especially when your companion cat thinks the tail makes a good toy.

Just FYI, I'll take tomorrow off from blogging. We are to meet our tour boat at 7:00 a.m. We're keeping our fingers crossed for an improvement in the weather. The tour will go either way. Fortunately, we both have our good rain gear with us, and so we'll be fine either way. Still, some sunshine and blue skies would be welcome. I'll be back on Thursday to tell you all about it. Hopefully, we'll get to see some aquatic wildlife and some good glacier activity.

Hope, Alaska

Good morning, my friends. It was one of our longer days of driving yesterday. We had gray skies almost all day long with very brief sunbreaks. Somehow I was expecting more when we reached Hope, but it is what it is. I have lots to tell you about our drive yesterday, so let's just get right to it.

Right away after pulling out of the campground, we crossed over Kashwitna Lake. 

Here's what our Milepost says about it. Denali was not visible.

We passed through the little town of Houston, Alaska. 

Here's what our Milepost tells us about Houston.

The day brought more views of mountains surrounding us on all sides. Straight ahead was the Kenai Range.

We crossed over the Little Susitna River.

Here's what our Milepost tells us about the salmon runs here.

Moving on, we came to the split in the highway where the Glenn Highway becomes the Seward Highway.

There was a quilt shop here. We tried to visit, but they're closed on Sundays. No surprise. We'll be coming back this way next week sometime, and we'll try again.

There was a Walmart nearby. This is what our Milepost had to say about the Walmart.

We crossed over the Matanuska River. This is the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Memorial Bridge.

There's the river.

Shortly thereafter, we passed through the city of Anchorage. We were on a veritable freeway!

We could see the airport off to the left.

After passing through Anchorage, we decided to stop off at this scenic viewpoint. The big draw was the restrooms, but it was still well worth the stop for the scenery.

Looking out, we were looking at Turnagain Arm and the Cook Inlet. Most of what appears in the image below is mudflat. The water doesn't begin until about 1/3 from the top of the image. We were warned time and again not to walk out on the mudflats. Parts of it are like quicksand, and folks have lost their lives getting stuck. The tide comes in fast and high, and folks get stuck and inundated by the tide before they can be rescued. So, my friends, just don't do it. Okay?

The Milepost told us some interesting information about the mudflats and the tides here. It's worth a read below. I'd never before heard of a "bore tide." Please note the warning in red at the bottom.

Looking south, this is what we saw. Folks hopped the fence to get out nearer the water despite signs prohibiting it. Also, they walked along the railroad tracks and posed for pictures there despite warning signs to stay off the tracks. Sometimes (often) I worry about the future of humanity.

Here's a little information about this point.

And I thought this sign about the dragonflies was interesting. Apparently, dragonflies will eat mosquitos.

Dragonflies are seen favorably enough that some students launched a successful effort to have them named as the Alaska state insect.

Looking farther to the left, it looked like this.

There was another type of lupine growing there. I've seen at least three different kinds of lupine in Alaska.

Here's one more shot of the surrounding area.

From there, we passed through Girdwood. When I planned the trip originally, I had us spending a couple of nights in Girdwood. I've now added those nights to our Anchorage stop, and we'll make a day trip to Girdwood.

We stopped at another viewpoint here...Beluga Point. It's sometimes possible to see Beluga whales here, but we did not see any while we were there. If you've never seen a Beluga whale, you should get thee to an aquarium near you to see them. They are positively enchanting. Here's a picture of one I found in the public domain.

(Image credit: "Beluga Whale" by Jason Pier in DC is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.)

This next section of the highway was interesting.

In this next picture, you can see the dead spruce trees in a line just below the middle of the image:

Eventually, we could see the sun shining a spotlight on the mountain of interest below:

Here's what our Milepost tell us:

Straight ahead, we had a good view of the Spencer Glacier.

From there, we crossed over onto the Kenai Peninsula. We'll be spending the next week or so here.

Shortly after that, we saw the sign welcoming us to Hope.

Here's what our Milepost tells us about Hope.

It was at the end of the approximately 20-mile Hope Highway. Turning off the highway to the right, we were welcomed by this sign.

I was expecting a larger place. As it turns out, Hope is like Tin Cup, Colorado. It's practically a ghost town, but people are still living there. We walked the short distance up and down Main Street. Along the way we passed the George Coon Cabin.

Here's what the plaque out front reads:

A little farther was the Social Hall.

Here's some information about that. Indeed, there was an agenda for a meeting that happened on May 29th.

We were also warned once again about the danger of walking on the mudflats.

I've broken this next sign into two pieces to make it easier to read.

We took a walk out toward the water. Along the way, we passed by the rapid-flowing Six Mile Creek.

It drains into Turnagain Arm. Here's how it looks facing the other direction.

Looking farther to the right, it looked like this.

Turning around and looking back at Hope, it looked like this:

From there, I could zoom in on this barn.

Here's a little more history about Hope.

And here, at The World's Greatest Gift Shop (it says so on the sign in the background), this gave me a chuckle. I'm assuming Johnny Bones owns the gift shop.

Okay, and so that's all I have to tell you about yesterday's journey. Today we'll head farther southwest on the Seward Highway to the town of Seward. We have some fun activities planned there. Our first stop will be at a laundromat. I haven't been able to do laundry for a while, and we've run out of the essentials. After that, we'll be free to explore the area. 

On Wednesday, we've booked a cruise to visit Kenai Fjords National Park. You can read the details about the cruise right here. Rain is in the forecast for all four days of our stay, but we're hoping we've picked a good weather window on Wednesday morning. The cruise will happen no matter the weather. Fingers crossed. You'll want to pack your rain gear for this. In my experience, packing rain gear is good insurance against rain. We'd planned to hold off on any cruises until we reach Valdez, but this one is probably going to give us the best way to see the national park. This will be our only trip to Alaska, and so we'll splurge this time around. 

So, it's time to get going. We need to button things up and be on our way. Today's drive will be short at 77 miles. We're waiting until check-out time to leave Hope, but we'll probably still arrive early in Seward. No worries. Every place we've been we've been allowed to check in early. Nevertheless, our drive will be leisurely, and we'll probably stop at a few places to enjoy the scenery and to kill time.