June 4 -- Day 19-Anchorage to Home

We settled into our last night in Alaska at a campground in Anchorage, close to the RV check in.  We're now in the city and getting ready for our return home and back to our normal lives.  The midnight sun sets in our anchorage campground as we finish our trip.  It is with sadness and anticipation that we head home.  The past 18 days has been a true adventure.  We've seen bear, elk, moose, seals, sheep, goats, sea otter, whales eagles--too many to count.  We've been to the Bad Lands, Devils Tower, Banff, the Richardson Ice Fields, the Alaskan Highway, Denali, and the Kenai Peninsula--over 4400 miles.  The memories will last a lifetime.

June 3-Day 18 Seward to Anchorage

We sadly left Seward and started our journey home.  Destination tonight is Anchorage.  We started the day visiting the Seward Sea Life Center. The center performs animal recovery and tracks the status of the bird, mammal, and fish on the Alaskan coast and does basic research on the eco system.  This was another great stop and a real learning experience.  Note: the picture of the seals on the icebergs is only a picture of a picture.  Diana was disappointed she didn't see any on the Fjords tour.  After leaving Seward, we visited Exit Glacier which is a land terminating or Piedmont Glacier which is part of the Harding Icefields left over from the last ice age.  We took a short couple of mile walk up to the glacier which has retreated about 4 miles in the past 200 years.  Then it was on to Anchorage.  On the way we stopped for lunch by a scenic wet lands area and visited a Wildlife Conservation Center.  Seeing wood buffalo, brown bears,  musk oxen, elk, moose and caribou just isn't the same as seeing them in the wild I their own habitat.  We got a last look again at the beautiful Turnagain Arm.  In Anchorage, our task is to pack and get ready for our flights home tomorrow.  Miles driven today was 150 miles.

June 2-Day 17 Seward and Kenai Fjords National Park

Today is the big day for our tour of the Kenai Fjords and Glaciers.  It's billed as a glacier tour, but it is much more.  It really is a wildlife tour too.  The Kenai Fjords National Park is to marine mammals and birds what Denali is to land mammals.   It is The indescribable.  There is nothing like it in the lower 48 states.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  It was an 8 1/2 hour boat trip thru the national park.  We saw glaciers calving, birds, seals, sea lions, sea otters, Dall porpoise and lots and lots of whales.  It ended with a stop at Fox Island for salmon and prime rib.  This is another must do on any trip to Alaska.  Like Denali, this stop was a highlight of the trip. 

June 1-Day 16 Soldata to Homer to Seward

We woke to a weather report with a 80% chance of rain  Today takes us to the northwest side of the Kenai Peninsula to Homer.  We just got out of the RV park and saw our first moose running across the road.  True to the weather report, it was cloudy and rainy.  We had no chance for views of the Cook Inlet.  We got to Homer which is a fishing town.  Homer is famous for its 4.2 mile long spit.  Its great for sight seeing and in Diana's case, walking.  After our first stop on the spit, we turned back on the road and saw a typhoon warning speaker system with the bald eagle statue on the top--except that the head moved.  We are in eagle and salmon country.  Now that we were aware, we saw them everywhere.  Eagles are just part of the landscape up here.  When we got to the end of the spit, Diana wanted to walk it, so we dropped her off and headed for the Aleutian Wildlife Refuge Center.  The Aleutian Islands has the largest number of sea birds of any place on earth.  It has a fascinating history, is a tremendous laboratory for studying bird habits, and is being used to study the earth's eco system.  After meeting up with Diana again and having lunch, we headed back up the peninsula and headed to Seward.  The Kenai has mountains and glaciers almost everywhere.  There are only 2 roads on the Kenai, so we backtracked. The weather broke a little and we saw some of the Cook Inlet.  Driving into Seward, we again hit heavy rain; so much for the views.  Seward is a deep water port and was used as the shipping point to support the Alaskan interior.  It has a railway to Anchorage.  We stayed at the RV park owned by the city right on Resurrection Bay in Prince William Sound.  to call it an RV park, is an injustice.  It is really a series of parking lots right on the bay.  We had million dollar views straight out our front window for $15 a night.  This was the bargain of the trip.  The bay, mountains all around, sea otters playing in the water, and eagles stopping and eating 50 feet away on the beach.  Animal count for the day was 2 moose and too many eagles to count.  We drove 267 miles.

May 31-Day 15 Denali to Soldotna

We're off today for the Kenai Peninsula.  It rained most of the 240 miles from Denali to Anchorage with really low cloud ceilings.  This resulted in another missed opportunity to see Mt McKinley.  After lunch and a difficult transit of Anchorage, we headed down around the Turningon Arm out of Anchorage into the Kenai.  We got to Soldotna, parked the RV and had our first real encounter with Alaskan mosquitos.  We drove 408 miles.

May 29-30 Dan 13-14 Denali National Park

We spent three nights and two days in Denali just soaking up the wilderness and vastness of the area.  On Thursday and Friday, we took bus rides to Tolkat River which is 53 miles into the park.  The bus is the only way to go beyond 12 miles into the park.  The park road runs for 92 miles, but was only open to Tolkat River.  It will open up the rest of the way in the next week.  Views and wildlife were amazing. My words can't do it justice.  It was exciting to see caribou, moose, Dall sheep and Grizzly bear in their natural environment.  A special treat was a mother grizzly bear and two 5 month old cubs which were munching on roots about 6 feet from the road.  We even got a glimpse of about 2/3 of Mt McKinley.  Even though the weather didn't cooperate, we did see some mystical terrain.  On Friday, we went to the visitors center and saw a Park Service sled dog demonstration.  These sled dogs are working dogs and provide the only ground transportation into the park in the winter.  They are remarkable.  We finished our day on Friday about 10PM after getting back from out trip into the park.

May 28-Day 12 Tok to Denali National Park

We're up and going again.  Today had a luxury of a breakfast in a restaurant.  The name was Fast Eddys and it is an icon on the Alaskan Highway.  The road was lined with trees with the mountain vistas in the distance.  Our first stop was in Delta Junction, the end of the Alaskan Highway.  We made it--all 1442 miles.  After a short stop we were off to Fairbanks.  We stopped next to view the Alaskan Pipeline as it bridged a river and took a picture of Linda and Diana standing next to it.  Just before Fairbanks we found the North Pole.  Yes, this is the home of Santa who lives there.  In Fairbanks we visited the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.  It is a superb museum and a must see.  It tracks the history of Alaska and its indigenous people.  While there I found a picture of my Uncle, Burke Riley who was in the territorial legislature which drafted the state constitution.  We then made a quick stop for a late lunch, some shopping and gas.  Finally, off to Denali.  We arrived around 7:30PM.  No animals today.  We drove 334 miles.