A Museum and a Hike

Good morning, my friends. We'll move on to Anchorage this morning. We have a five-night stay there. It'll be our longest stop of the whole trip. There are some things to see in Anchorage, and we'll also take at least one day trip while we're there.

Getting back to yesterday's activities, we visited the Soldotna Homestead Museum. I'm including all of the informational signs about these cabins we're about to see. I'm not much of a sign reader, myself. You can read them or not. Mike reads all the signs and then tells me all I need to know. In exchange, I'm his social media filter, telling him what he needs to know so he doesn't have to engage with anyone. So, I'm hoping you'll be able to read these signs. I have a lot of pictures to show, and so I haven't cropped them out to make them more readable. If you're on a hand-held device, you can stretch them with your fingers to make them larger.

This area was thick with vegetation and wild flowers. We've seen these Shasta daisies during our travels, but I could get a good picture of them here.

Mainly, we saw these geraniums, roses and daisies.

But here was something new. My phone tells me this is Trollius. It's a kind of ranunculus.

Okay, so let's look at some of these structures. We started at the visitor center where a very knowledgeable young man gave us some history about the area. While he talked, I perused the display cases. I was especially interested in this display of some of the hobbies homesteaders engaged in during the long dark winters. Those little cabins in the back are made with pieces of wood no larger than toothpicks.

Outside was this pipe stove. 

Here's what the accompanying sign says. And I don't know about you, but I'm always mildly offended when I see things created during my lifetime referred to and cherished as "historical."

Next, we visited the school.

Inside it looked like this. Look carefully at that flag. It has 49 stars. Hawaii hadn't yet made the cut.

And who learned to read following the exploits of Dick, Jane, and Sally?

Also, this book cover. See the design with the white name plate that includes the title? There was a whole series of books from this publisher. I can remember reading one entitled "Squanto and the Pilgrims." I liked it enough to read it more than once. Another one I read was entitled "Babe Didrikson." I was in the 4th grade when I read them.

And, oh my. The Encyclopedia Britannica has also been relegated to museum status. I must really be old.

The next cabin we saw was this one.

Here's how it looks from the outside.

Inside, it looks decidedly uncomfortable to me.

Looking to my left, I saw this.

As I left, I noticed the rustic front door with the heart.

Moving on, we saw this one:

Here's how it looked from the outside:

There was a doghouse off to the left.

Here's how it looks inside. My shadow self kept photobombing my pictures. 

Here's what amounts to a bathroom. Yeah...no indoor plumbing.

This one included an Alaska Cache outside. You might remember when we saw one of these just after crossing the border into Alaska. Here's some more information about how they were used.

Moving on, this next one was the most luxurious of the cabins at the museum.

Here's how it looked from the outside:

Inside, it had a woman's touch. There was a log cabin quilt. (I like the addition of the hot water bottle.)

I zoomed in on one of the quilt blocks so you could see the hand-stitching.

This one appeared to be a comforter made with men's suits(?). Wool perhaps, and tied with yarn.

And look at the exquisite hand work on this runner. This looks like something my grandmother might have made.

Turning to my left, this is what I saw. Check out that wringer washer on the left. Apparently that was an upgrade from the washboard and tub on the right.

There was one more structure we wanted to see. This was located off site. The building was originally a cabin, but then became Soldotna's first post office. 

It was closed and locked, but I could peer in the front window for a look inside.

From there, we headed to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge visitor center. Upon entering, Mike asked if the mosquitos were really as bad as everyone said. The reply: "Oh no. They're much worse." Okay. We braved it anyway. The hike was for some exercise, but we got a good upper body workout swatting at bugs.

Outside the visitor center was this plaque. I like it when indigenous peoples are recognized for their significant contributions.

There was one more rustic structure for us to see here. It had been moved from its original location.

Here's how it looked from the outside. Note the Alaska cache on the left.

Inside...how would one get comfortable on this kind of a bed?

For heating and cooking...this stove. It makes RV cooking seem downright luxurious.

Here's a little more information about the cache.

And then we went on our hike. We combined the Keen Eye Trail with the Centennial Trail for a walk of about 2.75 miles.

The beginning started us on the Lynx trail.

Looking at the map above, the trail was closed where the red line heads down toward the lake. They're rebuilding the boardwalk here.

Here's some information about the Centennial Trail.

The trail was heavily grown up on both sides. At one spot there was a break in the trees, and we could see the mountains off in the distance. We looked into all the open areas like this hoping to see some wildlife, but we saw none. Except for mosquitos. We saw lots of mosquitos.

This stuff was growing all along the trail. The leaves are the size of dinner plates. The flowers hadn't yet bloomed, but my phone tells me this is "Devil's Club."

We've seen it blooming in other places. It looks like this when it blooms (not my photo):

The trail was easy enough to follow. We found ourselves paying attention to our feet to avoid tripping over tree roots.

About half way, we came to the best view we had of the lake. There was a bench here, and so we sat and ate our Clif bars.

There wasn't anything new in the way of wildflowers, but these creeping dogwood carpeted the forest floor in many places.

So that was our day.

Lately when we come home in the afternoon, Smitty has figured out that we have lunch and naps. He likes the napping part since that's also a good time for snuggling. Lately he's been yowling and meowing when we get back, wanting me to join him on the bed for snuggles. This next picture was taken from the "living area" looking back through the bathroom and beyond to the bed, where Smitty could be seen waiting impatiently.

Okay, so that's all I have to tell you about Soldotna. Anchorage is next. Our drive will be relatively short today.