On the Road again, going places we ain’t never been 🎶 🎶 🎶 Palmer, Portage, Whittier and the Kenai Peninsula (Seward to Homer)

 

So yes every time we get in the RV and move on to a new place, we begin to sing:
On the road again
Goin’ places that I’ve never been
Seein’ things that I may never see again
And I can’t wait to get on the road again

Arrive at Big Bear 🐻 RV and Campground, Palmer for 3 nights. We do just W/E for $36.00 Good Sam rate. It’s not just a gravel parking lot has grass between sites, nice for 🐶 dogs to sit out. Laundry, Dump, Propane, Playground for kids, Wifi, No cable. Showers are nice and clean, even have blow dryers in bathroom.
Our first full day we head to Musk Ox Farm, $11.00 adult (buy 1 get 1 free with Northern Lights coupon book)

 

They give you a tour of the farm and you get near the Musk Ox. There were even 2 babies.

Interesting to learn about them and the Qiviut fiber.
There is also a gift shop inside where you can purchase Qiviut items.
It is warmer than wool and softer than cashmere, very pricey but beautiful. Worth a visit. Afterwards we headed onto downtown Palmer, few shops. Fred Meyer! Gas ⛽️ today was 3.18 also grocery store. Palmer area also known for giant 🥒 and 🌺,but to early in season to see anything yet. We are coming back mid July on way to Denali so we will hopefully see some then and also Hatcher Pass to Independence Mine (closed till mid June). Also went into Wasilla to check it out. They have all Home Depot, Lowes, Target, Walmart, Walgreens. Gas prices same as Palmer.
I had read about Eklutna Historical Park on Eklutna Village Rd, off Glenn Highway towards Anchorage (15 minutes from Big Bear RV) for $5.00 you take a guided tour to the old log Russian Orthodox Church, see the Spirit Houses

 

 

and visit the new Orthodox Church.  You’ll learn about the history, culture, and customs associated with Russian Orthodox traditions. Some of the spirit houses are run down, but kinda cool to see and learn about. Worth a visit if looking for something to do. Then off to Eklutna Lake in Chugach State Park. It’s about 10 mile drive when you turn in. Unfortunately it’s very cloudy but the lake ,a glacier lake , is probably beautiful on a ☀️ day.

Also trails throughout the park. Bob wanted to do some fishing 🎣 so we stop at small Kepler Lake for him to play around for a while.
Tomorrow we head to Anchorage, just an hour away, where we pick up our daughter, yeah❤️ to spend 3 weeks with us. Stopped at Costco for gas. We stay overnight at Cabelas. I called ahead to make sure and yes, despite all the signs saying NO Overnight, you can overnight just one night. Next door is Target so we do some shopping. In the morning we stopped at Walmart for some shopping, and head off with our daughter towards Portage. Beautiful drive along Turnagain Arm along the Seward Highway. You can see Dall Sheep on the mountain side and see bore tide and possible Beluga 🐳 Whales on the water side. We stop at Mile 110.3- pullout at Beluga Point.

 

 

We turn off at Portage Glacier Road and stay 2 nights at Williwaw Campground. No hookups, 18.00 per night. Very pretty setting. As we drove to our sight there was a 🐻 bear walking thru the campground. We drove back in Jeep on Portage Glacier road for some photos.

Today we stopped at the nice visitor center right at Portage Lake with beautiful views,

then hiked the Byron Glacier Trail, easy 1.6 mile round trip.

Close up views of Glacier and Byron creek.

 

Afterwards we drove just few miles to take the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel to Whittier . It’s the longest highway tunnel in North America, also shares tunnel with the 🚂 train and its one way traffic so check schedule from Portage or Whittier. It cost 13.00 RT for 🚙 and takes six minutes to get thru.

 

Once we park and walk the few shops, there are outstanding views of Prince William Sound, also the harbor and 🚢 cruise ship.

 

Off we go exploring and took some gravel roads to great views and the Lu Young Park, again stunning views.

There are some nice hikes also in Whittier but we didn’t do any.
Off now to Seward, 78 miles from Portage. We stay at the city Waterfront Park, front row on Resurrection Bay.

There are water/electric sites for $40.00, or dry camp for $20.00. There are pay showers, $2.00 for 10 minutes and a dump station for $5.00. The views are outstanding and we end up staying 9 days. We were lucky and had mostly sunny ☀️ and 60-70 everyday. It rained just one day. We saw 🐳 whales

sea otters, and seals everyday sitting at our RV.

 

We were at site # 568, water/electric.

 

 

There is a Safeway grocery store, but pricier than Anchorage. Also gas was 3.69, about 30 cents more than Anchorage.
Here’s what we did while in Seward.

Picturesque boat harbor/ 🚢 Cruise ships, few shops, good ice cream shop 🍦 and restaurants right there.

 

 

Nash Road-drove to 4th of July beach, old shipyard, and parked by Spring Creek Campground, where you can fish for salmon, and they were catching a lot. Lots of Eagles 🦅 were here.
Drove down to Lowell Point
Walked down the path in front of RV towards Sealife Center, there is the Iditarod Trail Sign.

Alaska Sealife Center- $26.00 (buy one, get one Tour Saver Book and Northern Lights Book)

 

 

Walked the shops in historic Seward by the Sealife Center.
Reds 🍔 Burger Bus 🚌 for a burger and milkshake . You eat in the school bus.

Drove to mile 3 Seward Highway to Exit Glacier Road,then 8 1/2 miles to end, where you park. It’s a easy 1 1/2 mile loop to view Glacier.

 

From here we drove to mile 13.2 of Seward Highway, some beautiful scenery along the way

parked and hiked the trail to Meridian Lake (about 2 1/2 miles). Bob did a little 🎣 fishing and caught his first rainbow trout, 😂 lol.

 

 

Hung out all day in the ☀️ sun at RV and enjoyed the views and 🐳 whales. I could get used to this.
Kenai Fjords National Park Cruise 🚢 with Major Marine tours, with a National Park Ranger on board to narrate throughout. There is also same Cruise with Kenai Fjords cruises. We chose this one because you get assigned seating (table and chairs) so you can leave you stuff and move about. Also coupon in tour saver book, saved $50.00 per person on 7 1/2 hour wildlife/and 2 glaciers (Aialik and Holgate Glaciers).

It was awesome and highly recommended. We saw humpbacks,

orcas,

 

 

pod of 4 orcas,

seals,

pup seals, 🦅,mountain goats🐐 . We also saw, kinda sad, but awesome to witness, a 🐳 orca whale going after a seal and threw it about 100 yards thru the water. The boat captain said he has never seen this in his 12 years.

 

I also included our campground view from the 🚢 boat as we passed by.

Jerome Lake, a pullout on Seward Highway so Bob could 🐟 fish, no luck today.
Mother/Daughter day as we drove 1 hour to Drifters Lodge in Cooper Landing for 3 hour scenic float trip on beautiful Kenai River.

Cost was 75.00 per person, but we had buy one get one with Northern Lights Coupon Book. It was very pretty, scenic and peaceful. Unfortunately we didn’t see moose or bear, just some birds and eagles.

 

Drove back towards Cooper Landing to take Skilak Lake Road Loop, 18 miles on gravel road. This is where you can see moose and bear but again we didn’t see any, but some great places to stop for views,

including Hidden Creek Lookout.

We stopped for dinner at Sacketts BBQ in Cooper Landing, very good.
Goodbye beautiful Seward, and off to Soldotna about 1 1/2 hr drive. We stay at Diamond M Ranch Resort , A Passport America Park. We pay $30.00 per night, FHU, wifi, cable, grass for dogs to lay out, clean showers, laundry. It is a working farm and they do farm tours certain days. Also have a viewing deck where we saw about 20 Caribou.
There is a Fred Meyer where you can boondock and they have free dump and potable water and there is a Petco next door.
Make sure to stop at Moose is Loose Bakery, delicious 👅.
Wednesday at Soldotna Creek Park, stop at the market/ crafts/food trucks, and go back at night where they have bands and beer 🍻 tent.

You can 🐟 fish from the nice boardwalk behind Visitor Center. Bob also fished at
Arc Lake for trout and lots of Eagles in the trees. We also stopped at the local landfill down the street from Arc Lake (visitor center told us about this). Pull in they will weigh your vehicle, give you ticket then drive around the back to gravel road and top of hill, tons of Eagles flying around. When done they weigh you again, give back ticket and off you go.

Drove to Kenai and stopped at Walmart, I believe you can also boondock there.
Looked around town and Cook Inlet and Volcanoes 🌋 in distance. We then drove all the way to end of Captain Cooks State Rec Area and did some off road driving looking for wildlife. The road to here are some places to pullout for agate hunting or to see the oil rigs, also saw some moose along the way.

 

Off to Homer, about 1 1/2 hrs from Soldotna. Homer is the Halibut Fishing Capital of the US.

Here we will stay a week at Heritage RV Park on Homer Spit. FHU, wifi, cable, laundry,showers,nice little gift shop and ☕️ coffee shop with baked goods. It’s expensive at $68.00 a night for any site. 2 nights we have regular site and last 5 beachfront, site #11. Great views.

 

 

Next door is the fishing hole, Bobs down there with lots of others. No luck for anyone. It’s been raining all day, hopefully stops soon.

 

 

Saturday in Homer has a farmers/craft market, nice and worth a visit. We also stop at Bishops Beach for tide pools.

 

Stop at few shops and Art Galleries in Homer and 2 Sisters Bakery. There is also a Safeway grocery store.
Homer Spit shops are cute and nice little area.

 

 

Finns pizza 🍕 on the spit is very good and nice views.

Some other things we did during the week included :
driving to the end of Spit by Lands End Resort and watching people fish also nice views.

 

Captain Patties for lunch was delicious.

 

We spilt the sampler (scallops, prawns,salmon and Halibut),

 

ordered 1 1/2 lb Crab legs, and the Crab and artichoke baguette was awesome.
Drove Skyline Drive to the lookout (excellent views of the entire Homer Spit) and Kachemak Bay, a pretty drive to get there. Also boat graveyard, some cool old boats.

Drove East End Road all the way to the end (at one point road ends and not maintained), very pretty drive. We saw Moose along the way. Also can see three glaciers and Kachemak Bay.

Island & oceans Visitor Center is free and some nice exhibits, good for a ☔️ rainy day.
Salty Dawg Saloon, for a 🍺 beer.

Anchor Point, 15 minute drive North we stopped at Anchor Point State Rec Area, take road all the way till ends at beach. Here you can watch the Tractor Launch, fun to see.

Also lots of Eagles just hanging on the beach.

Father and daughter day

was a Halibut Fishing thru Ninilchik Charter out of Homer.

Tour saver book was 299.00 (buy one get one)plus tax and gas total $365.00, for both of them. They caught their limit and were happy.

It was a whole day out on the boat.

Jessica made us Halibut dinner the next night, 👅 yummy.

Jessica’s final day, we did a hike/kayak tour thru True North Adventures in Homer. It was $225.00 per person before taxes. It included water Taxi round trip to Kachemak Bay State Park ( Alaskas 1st state park),

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guided 5 mile hike

 

and 3 mile kayak to Grewingk Glacier.

We stopped to eat our lunch right by the glacier.

Our guide Jensen (his family owns the resort you leave from) was great and very informative. It was exhausting but truely amazing, definitely recommend.

I believe you can book thru them direct and save $25.00, Three Moose, LLC.
Jessica is leaving today ✈️, is was wonderful to share 21 days with her.
We decide to stay few days to relax and plan next portion of our Alaska adventure. We have 2 weeks and then Jamie and Jaxson will join us. We move just down the road on the other side of the fishing hole to Fishing Hole Campground. It is a city campground. Dry camp 24.00 per night. Has potable water, toliet, dump station ($5.00) and fish cleaning station. Again great views.

We ordered 🍕 pizza again from Finns , yummy and shopped a little again, and just hung out and enjoyed the views. Bob fished again at fishing hole and caught a rockfish.

Beautiful sunset one night, with orange skies.

Eagles 🦅 everywhere so awesome to see. If you stay at Heritage RV, make sure to look on the roof of building, eagles landing there everyday.

Goodbye Homer, we drive 1 1/2 back to Soldotna to spend a few nights, as we have some time to waste before picking up daughter and grandson on 4th of July 💥 .
We stay at Klondike Rv, 45.00 FHU, laundry, wifi, showers, and very nice owner. We will just hang, grocery shop at Fred Meyers, also can boondock here and free potable water and free dump.Petco for dog supplies, time for mani/pedi, laundry, dogs groomed at Muddy Mutts Pet Wash and Grooming. You can self wash for $20.00 or our dogs, 45 lbs were 45.00 and 50.00 for them to do. Also work on trip planning, Bob did some fishing, at Sports Lake for trout. Also stopped at the Kenai Harley Davidson for a t shirt.

Headed to Hope for a day and then make our way to Anchorage to pick up our daughter and grandson, so excited to see them. ❤️

Next post will include Anchorage, Palmer, Wasilla, Talkeetna, Denali, stay tuned and safe travels 🌎