USA

Happy 4th of July! Jere says we need to take a photo of a bald eagle today for our blog. We see lots of eagles today, but none really close enough for a good picture. Here's the best we do:

Today is Homer, Alaska Day for us. We have the bikes loaded on the truck and drive about 30 miles to the Homer Spit. At the outskirts of town is an overlook of the bay and the spit, but the most interesting thing to us is the volcanoe in the bay. There's smoke coming out of the top of it. We learn that it has been active for the past year or so and it's Mount Augustine. Since it's in the middle of the large bay, it doesn't pose a threat to land; however, there is a concern that the earthquakes and rock slides from it could cause a tsunami. I'm glad we're not camping on the edge of the bay and I'm starting to understand why there are campgrounds on the spit but no houses :-)

We drive down to the start of the Homer Spit Bike Trail, unload the bikes, and take off. It's 3.5 miles to the end of the spit.

We take our time biking to the end, where we have lunch on the patio of a restaurant. Homer is famous for halibut fishing so we have halibut for lunch and watch the fisherman on the shore, who appear to be catching flounders. The day is overcast so the view isn't perfect, but we enjoy the fresh air and mountains/glaciers across the bay.

After lunch we walk along the pebbled beach for about an hour, looking at the scenery, rocks, and birds, including an eagle perched on top of a condo. We bike & walk around town a little before biking back to the truck. The lupines along the bike trail are in full bloom and really pretty.

We stop at the National Wildlife & Refuge Visitor Center in Homer before heading home. Interesting museum and movie. We see more sand hill cranes in the pond below the visitors center. I am still fascinated by how large these birds are.

On the way home we see yet another moose. This one eating grass alongside the road.

After we get back, Jere and I take a walk down to the Ninilchik Beach to look for eagles. We see several of them, but none get very close to us. By the time we get back to the trailer it's starting to sprinkle rain again. At least most of the day was rain-free.

We wake up to the pitter patter of raindrops hitting the aluminum trailer roof. Unfortunately this rain will stay with us off and on til we arrive at our Ninilchik RV park later this afternoon. The drive is scenic today, but very few pictures of the mountain this morning due to the rain.

One highlight of the drive is a pair of cubs and a mama black bear that are climbing a tree. They are causing quite a traffic problem. We pull off at a parking lot down the street and walk back to see them. By that time we get back to see them they are honkered down in the tree for what appears to be a daytime nap. They must be at least 20 feet above the ground in the tree. Very cute.

I told Jere and Joe that I want a bear sculpure carved out of wood for my birthday, so we stop at Uncle Lloyds to look at their wood carvings. They have some great carvings. We will stop here again in a few days to make a final pick for a birthday present, when they have a better selection of carvings. They took about 50 of their carvings to Seward for the Mt Marathon July 4th Festival.

Part of our drive follows the Kenai River--the water color is a pretty blue-gray from the glaciers. It's 'claim to fame' is for salmon fishing. We see a few fisherman, but I think the hot salmon run arrives later in the month.

We also stop in Soldotna at their fish viewing boardwalk and visitor center. A few fisherman there, but no salmon to be found.

We arrive at Angler's Resort RV Park in late afternoon. The 3-day reservation that we made several weeks ago cannot be found, but they say 'not to worry' they will figure something out (they're full). So after 30 minutes or so they move one of their rental units and give us a site with full hookups. We had to wait awhile, but they did get us a site as quickly as possible with a smile on their face. I'm not sure that all RV parks would have done the same. In fact as I think back about some of the RV parks we've stayed at, I'm sure that some parks would have said, 'sorry, but we're full and can't do anything'.

We have TV and good wifi! It's been awhile since we watched TV--I miss it and am looking forward to watching the morning news shows tomorrow morning.

After dinner we drive down the road to the old Russian Orthodox church that overlooks the ocean. It no longer appears to be used as a church, but is very interesting to look at.

Then we walk along the Ninilchik Beach before calling it a day. Lots of seagulls and several eagles entertain us during our walk.

Gloomy day, so we take our time getting ready and then take a short drive to Whittier. To get to Whittier we need to drive through the Whittier Tunnel. It’s a 2.5 mile long, one-lane tunnel that is used by trains and cars. When the train is not using the tunnel, cars can travel east on the half-hour and west on the hour. We get there 15 minutes early and wait in line for the tunnel to open to traffic going east. It’s a long, narrow tunnel with train tracks to drive over. Unique.

We walk around Whittier. It’s a kind of drab town surrounded by beautiful scenery. There are several glaciers visible from the town; all the mountains have waterfalls running down the sides, and the mountains are bright green from the grass and many of them still have snow on the top.

We stop at the Orca Café for lunch. We had salmon for dinner last night, but one can never have too much fresh salmon and I order a fresh salmon sandwich for lunch—broiled with sliced veggies—very good! We sit at the window of the café and enjoy the view of the harbor. It’s still overcast and very windy, so we sit inside to keep warm and dry.

After lunch we take a hike up the mountain for a incredible view of the Whittier harbor on one side of the mountain (there's a Princess Cruiseliner at the one dock)

and an even more incredible view of the Portage Glacier on the other side of the mountain. It sprinkles occasionally on the way up but stops before we reach the top and the view is just breath-taking. The pictures do not begin to show how beautiful it is at the top of the mountain.

To get a perspective on how large the glacier is: there is a lake at the base of the glacier in the photo above and there is a large tour boat in the lake.

We stay at the top of the mountain enjoying the view of the glacier for about an hour. There are also 3 playful marmots 100 feet below us that we enjoy watching. And of course there are beautiful wildflowers along the trail.

We hike back down the mountain, wait our turn to go back through the tunnel, and then make a stop at Moose Flats (unfortunately we don't see any moose) before returning the campground for the evening.

After dinner we roast some marshmallows and have s'mores for dessert. Jere and I each have FOUR s'mores, so we walk around the campground several times for exercise. The Williwaw campground is very nice. It has a glacier on the mountain behind it and the clouds have finally lifted enough to see it. Very pretty blue hues in the glacier.

Steady rain all morning and we are slow to pack up, but finally get on the road around 11am. After stopping at Fred Meyers for groceries, we drive out to Williwaw National Forest Campground in Chugach National Forest. The drive along Turnagain Arm would be more scenic if the rain would stop and the low clouds would lift. We make a few stops to look at the scenery and try to ignore the rain.

After we set up the 5ver we take off for the Chugach USFS Visitor Center at Portage Glacier. When we were here 13 years ago there were lots of little icebergs in the lake and near the shore of the visitor center. However today there are very few icebergs. We learn that the glacier has receded so much that it is no longer 'over the lake' but is now at the edge of the lake, which has slowed it's withdraw.

It is still raining very steady, but they have some excellent exhibits to look at inside.

We also watch their 20 minute movie and their ranger talk on area wetlands. Hopefully tomorrow it will stop raining and we can come back and look at the lake and maybe hike back to the glacier. The Portage Glacier used to be visible from the visitors’ center, but it keeps receding and now can only be seen if you take a boat trip or hike out.

We broil our fresh sockeye salmon for dinner and spend the evening reading. It’s still raining and we have no electric, no internet, and no television.

It’s dreary out when we get up and looks like it could rain any time, but by mid-morning it’s not raining, so we head over to Anchorage’s Saturday Market, which is an open air market that they have on the weekends. Some interesting crafts there, but we get through all the stands with only spending $5 on a Christmas ornament (I collect Christmas ornaments from places that I travel to). Then we decide to splurge and eat lunch at a restaurant with a view of the Cook Inlet, Snow Goose Restaurant. Jere has a muskox steak sandwich and I have a caribou burger….Joe has chicken strips. Joe is not an adventurous eater.

After lunch we head over to the Anchorage Art and History Museum

and spend two hours looking at the exhibits. We learn a lot about the Eskimos, the Aleuts, the Athapaskans, and other native tribes found in Alaska. There are 13 tribes in Alaska and they each have their own corporation, instead of casinos as in the lower 48 states. The native corporations are given preference for government contracts and at the end of each year the corporation gives each of its’ members (I think they need to be at least ¼ aboriginal) a check. This arrangement has something to do with the hunting lands that they lost due to the oil pipeline and payments for the right-of-way due to the oil pipeline. From what I hear, the one tribe gave each of it’s members almost $50k a few years ago. We also hear on the news that each Alaskan, native and non-native, is expected to receive $1500 this year from investments due to the oil companies. Alaska also has no sales tax or income tax – the oil companies must be paying a lot of taxes to the state of Alaska.

Anyway, after the museum we walk through town to head back to the trailer

and pick up our bikes to head out to the Coastal Bike Trail again. We ride several miles to where the bike path bends around the end of the Anchorage Airport main runway. When we were here 13 years ago, we brought our daughters to this spot and got a kick out of how the jets take-off directly above your head. However, this time Jere and I look at each other and say “Dockweilers”. Dockweilers is the campground that we stayed at in April at the end of the LAX runway. Having planes take-off above our heads is 'no big deal' since we had jumbo jets taking off above our heads at LAX about every ten minutes.

We get rained on briefly, but by the time we bike back the sun in trying to shine.

After dinner Richard and Sally, come over and we spend the evening talking. Around 10:30 pm we realize how late it is (the sun is still shining; sunset is around 11:30) and say our good-byes.