Homer, Alaska

People often assume that because we live and travel full time in our 5th wheel, we are on a perpetual vacation. We hear things such as “Wow, it must be nice to be on vacation all the time!”, or “How great to leave all your responsibilities behind!” This is a natural response to hearing about our life style. After all, when most people hit the road in an RV, they are on vacation for a few days, a couple of weeks, or maybe even a couple of months. And when you are on vacation, you do suspend your responsibilities for a while. But when you live full time on the road, your responsibilities travel right along with you. You still have to pay the bills, do the laundry, grocery shop, clean the house, and maintain your RV and automobile. In fact, some of these things become even more difficult while you are on the road – which brings us to Homer, and how we limped in to our RV Park with something going terribly wrong with our truck. By the time we got here, there were clouds of black to gray smoke billowing out of our exhaust pipe and an ominous ticking sound coming from under the hood. Turns out, the nearest Ford dealer was 85 miles back the way we came. Well, thank goodness for road service – we had the truck towed to the Ford dealer in Soldotna the next day, where it still remains. The good news is, the truck can be fixed and apparently there will be no permanent damage.

But what can I say? Homer is not a bad place to be stuck for a few days. Once it stopped raining, I would even elevate its status to quite spectacular! And, the good news is, we are able to access most everything by foot or on our bicycles. Homer is quaint and artsy, nestled among rolling hills on the shore of Kachemak Bay, and offers breathtaking views of glaciers and the Kenai Mountains. This seaside community has 5400 residents and another 8000 beyond the city limits. A unique attraction is the Homer Spit, a long, narrow finger of land (actual a gravel bar) jutting 4.5 miles into Kachemak Bay. The Spit is home to Homer Harbor, restaurants, artisans, and gift shops (very touristy). Much of the coastline as well as the Homer Spit sank dramatically during the Good Friday Earthquake in March of 1964. One of Homer's nicknames is "the cosmic hamlet by the sea"; another is "the end of the road". This isn’t the end of the road for us, however – next stop, Seward, Alaska!

Glaciers

High on the list of things to do in Alaska is glacier viewing, and there are many opportunities to do so within close range of Anchorage. We took two glacier cruises during our stay.

Our first excursion was a one-hour boat cruise to the Portage Glacier, located on the Kenai Peninsula in the Chugach National Forest. The 50 mile drive from Anchorage to the town of Portage on the Seward Highway was spectacular, one of the most scenic highways I’ve ever traveled on. We took our time getting there, stopping often to take in the view, or drive through small towns located off the highway. We boarded the boat on Portage Lake, and during our 60-minute ride, we were taken to within 300 feet of the glacier amidst iceberg-dotted waters. It was remarkable listening to the unmistakable rumbling of a calving glacier as huge blocks of ice crashed into the lake.

Our second excursion was more involved; first we took a 2.5 hour train ride to Whittier (a slow ride to enjoy the scenery covering only 60 miles – again, along the Seward Highway). From Whittier we boarded a small boat that took us out for five hours in Blackstone Bay (a fjord that is part of Prince William Sound) where we viewed many glaciers of different sizes and shapes. The most stunning was the Blackstone Glacier, and we spent a significant amount of time bobbing around the ice-chunk filled water surrounding this glacier. The deep aqua color of the ice, the waterfalls tumbling off the glaciers, the sea otters playing nearby, all helped to create memorable experience.

Again, pictures can never quite capture everything, but I’ve attached a few shots that come as close as possible!

Lake Eklutna & Flat Top Hikes

Dan and I both really enjoy hiking, and one of the first things we do when we get to a new location is scope out the nearby hiking opportunities. Anchorage and the surrounding area offer plenty of hikes, and we’ve taken advantage of two outstanding trails since we arrived here: Twin Peaks at Lake Eklutna and Flat Top at Glen Alps. Both of these hikes are in the half million acre Chugach State Park, the third largest state park in America. These were both hefty hikes, meaning that there was fairly serious elevation gain over fairly short distances. The twin peaks trail gained 1800 feet in elevation over 2.5 miles, and the Flat Top Hike gained 1350 feet over 1.5 miles. But the work was well worth it, as the views both on the trails, and from the tops of the peaks were unrivaled. Words like breathtaking, gorgeous, magnificent, and stunning come to mind. I have never seen as many wildflowers as I did on the Twin Peak hikes - and what made that even more fun, was being able to identify them using an illustrated pamphlet of local wildflowers. Both days we hiked were threatening rain, and it seemed we were hiking in the clouds and the mists, but I think this only added to the ambience; it seemed both mystical and ancient, like something out of Lord of the Rings or The Land that Time Forgot. Of course pictures can’t begin to capture the essence of these places, but I’ve attached some snapshots just the same!

Anchorage, Alaska

After our brief visit to Denali, we continued on to Anchorage, our next scheduled destination in Alaska. We arrived on June 27 for a one month stay, enough time to explore this part of the state. We both suffered minor culture shock at first after our bucolic stay at the Creamer’s Refuge. While at Creamer’s, we were parked in our own private RV space, with our windows looking out to a beautiful green field with a boreal forest beyond that. The evenings and nights were very quiet, good for sleeping! Welcome back to RV’ing in the summer along with all the other travelers! Our RV park in Anchorage is crowded (I don’t think they could get us any closer together); noisy (right next to the railroad – the trains going by literally rattle our 5th wheel); and the scenery is, well, other RV’s! But enough complaining, not every place we park is going to be the stuff of calendars and postcards. That’s one of the great advantages of this kind of living – if you don’t like where you’re parked, you probably won’t be there very long, and if it’s really bad, you can leave whenever you want. On the plus side, we are within walking distance to a great running/biking trail, downtown, the museum, and many other attractions. A big plus with the cost of fuel now-a-days!

Anchorage itself is much like any medium sized city, with all the expected amenities that come with a population base of around 300,000. It is the state’s largest city (about the size of Delaware), with 42% of the population residing here. Each summer, Anchorage comes alive with big, bright flowers that paint the landscape in bold hues. The city plants 461 flowerbeds and hanging baskets at 81 sights, and it is nothing short of spectacular to see! It is a very bicycle friendly town, with miles and miles of trails, both scenic and commuter. Anchorage is a good staging area for many nearby destinations and activities – outstanding hikes, visits to glaciers, wildlife viewing, kayaking, and camping, to name some. We have been doing our best to enjoy as much of the area as possible, which I will describe in the next couple of posts.

Here I have included pictures that capture some of the local flavor of Anchorage.

Denali National Park & Preserve

Denali National Park and Preserve is accessible along the Parks between Fairbanks and Anchorage. We decided to spend a few days at Denali before our month long stay in Anchorage. We left Fairbanks the morning of June 25, and arrived at Denali about 3 hours later, on a beautiful clear day. A little on the cool side, but nothing that a light jacket or sweater couldn’t handle. We got settled in at the Riley Creek campground, and decided to take off on foot exploring our immediate surroundings. That turned into a four mile hike, with a stop at one of the park’s Visitor Centers along the way. Some fun facts we learned about the park and surrounding areas:

** Mt. McKinley is the highest mountain in North America at 20,320 feet.
** Mt. McKinley was originally named Denali (“The High One”) by the native Athabascan Indians, but was changed to Mt. McKinley in the early 1900’s. There is an effort under way to have the official name changed back to Denali. (Most Alaskans refer to the mountain as “Denali”.)
** Denali National Park covers 6 million acres, but there is only one 100-mile road running through it.
**The road through Denali is only accessible by foot, bicycle, special permit, or tour bus.

We decided we would take a tour bus into the heart of the park so we could see as much as possible during our stay. We booked a tour on the Eielson Visitor Center bus, which takes you 60 miles down the 100 mile road. The round trip takes 8 hours as the bus travels very slow, makes numerous stops, and there is a lunch break at the visitor center. As many signs around the park attested to, “the animals in Denali can do whatever they want”. Because they are so protected by the structure of the park, we were able to observe a moose cow and her calf (right in the middle of the road); several grizzly bear sightings, including one mother with two cubs; many caribou (reindeer); a fox. Some of these sightings were really only observable through binoculars, but still an awesome experience. Again, it was another clear and beautiful day, and we were able to see Denali clearly all along the way. The views from the visitor center were nothing short of spectacular, and we were told this was a very lucky occurrence, days like this only happening about 20%-30% of the time. (Do you think they say that to all the tourists?) Either way, we were thrilled to see the mountain, and took many pictures, some of which are attached here.

Everywhere we go, Dan and I keep saying, “Wow, this is a once in a lifetime experience!” But it seems the most true since we’ve been in Alaska, as we likely will never pass this way again. Sometimes it’s only in retrospect that you are able to really appreciate how fortunate you are to experience something, but the spectacular beauty, remoteness, and rugged wild landscape of Alaska makes it hard to miss!

Next Stop: Anchorage, Alaska