Touring Homer, AK

July 30, 2015

We decided to take the Homer Trolley around town to see what there was to see, then we could drive back to where ever we wanted to see more of. Although tourism is now the #1 industry, it was and still is a fishing village.

The Homer Trolley, came right to our campground to pick us up. Had a great driver, he was full of information!

 The office of our campground, Ocean View RV, and some of our caravan buddies.

 At first I thought this must be someone's collection off of the beach, and maybe it was. But, now I think it's called art???

This Eaglet looks almost old enough to be kicked from the nest, but for now, he is still waiting for Mom or Dad to bring him some food 

A nest of twigs...doesn't look very comfortable to me!!

A family of 8 or so kids raised in this old wooden boat? Maybe it was classier back in day?

 This campground has wonderful views of the bay and the mountains, but the sites are around $60/night, and that's the caravan rate! To rich for poor old SMART folks!

 We walked through these small, but cute shops. Most of the stuff in them is made by Alaska artists. Another piece of trivia, this part of the 'spit' is owned by the Hilstrand family, if you watch Deadliest Catch, you will recognize that name.

 Glacier topped mountains surround Homer. These mountains are on the backside of the Kenai National Park

 The Seafarer's Memorial reminds us that Homer's roots are in the sea

 The F/V Time Bandit is home based in Homer

One of the prettier glaciers seen from Homer 

On our way to Homer, AK

July 29, 2015

Leaving our first visit to Anchorage we drive along the Turn Again Arm (which is a narrow channel of water off of the Cook Inlet). This road is the Seward Highway, which we will follow around the 'Arm' and onto the Kenai Peninsula to where it junctions with the Sterling Highway. The Sterling Highway takes us to Homer via the coast line along the Cook Inlet. It was a very pretty drive, in-spite of all the construction along the way.

On the Seward Highway there is a law about having more than 5 vehicles behind you, if you allow this to happen without pulling off into one of the many turnouts to let traffic pass, you can get a huge ticket. So we tried very hard not to let this happen, but not everyone followed this law and we followed behind one guy, driving about 40-45 for about 30 miles before he finally turned off the highway. Phil was ready to strangle him!!

If you can read this, it gives a short blurb about the Seward Highway being awarded the distinction of being an 'All American Road' 

Looking back up the Seward Highway towards Anchorage 

 And down the Turn Again Arm where we haven't traveled yet.

 Glaciers are everywhere in Alaska. I always thought they were just covered in snow year round when I looked at pictures before being here...

 but, they are glaciers

 Don't know if you can see this in the picture, but deep glacier ice is blue.

 When the tide goes out on the 'Arm' it reveals a gray silt like bottom, which could very easily be quick-sand, so walking along the beach is highly discouraged!

 More road construction, and rock slides

This is Jean Lake, along the Sterling Highway, it is glacier run off which is a blue-green color, the picture doesn't do it justice. 

 The Kenai River is also glacier run off. When a glacier river runs into water that isn't glacier in origin, it takes a long while for the two to mix and because of the color of the glacier water it is easy to see the difference. 

Our campground (this is not our rig, in case you were wondering) overlooks the Kachenac Bay. Across the bay are more mountains covered in glaciers. When the sun is shining it is really pretty!! 

 The path to the rocky beach below our campground at low tide.

Trolley Tour of Anchorage, AK

July 28, 2015

Arrived in Anchorage yesterday afternoon, no rain!! Today we took the Trolley around the downtown area. We picked a good day for it, weather was great!

First point on our tour was the railroad memorial. Like most cities, the railroad played a big part in the success of Anchorage 

Snow City is a very popular cafe in the downtown area, they are open for breakfast and lunch. Reservations required!! We tried to eat here before going on the trolley, 2 hour wait without reservations. 

 Most popular high school mascot up here is the Eagle, then the bear.

Inside our trolley, the driver tells us of personal experiences during the 1964 earthquake 

 Earthquake park, this is where the ground fell 10-14 feet

 Forget the boats, on this lake the float planes get the docks

 Murals on the buildings depict life in Alaska

 Cool Moose!!

 Flower gardens everywhere, must be a very active Master Gardeners group up here!!

 The Log Cabin Visitor's Center, downtown Anchorage, complete with sod roof!

 Front of the Visitor's center, flowers everywhere!!

 Anchorage celebrates it's anniversary this year

 More flowers surround the distance sign post

 Inside the Visitor's Center

 Cyrus and his family own and operate the trolley, and he is a jack of all trades. He can be seen cleaning the windows, selling tickets and assisting passengers

 We added the Anchorage Hard Rock Cafe to our list of  stores visited

 Hugging up on the 'Bear and the Raven' in Bear Square

 We rubbed his belly, our good luck was just being here in Alaska to begin with!!


Phil was here too!!

On the road to Anchorage

July 27, 2015

On the road today, heading for a short visit to Anchorage. We stopped at the Anchorage War Memorial on the way.

A day in Denali National Park

July 23, 2015

Today we rode the shuttle bus through most of Denali National Park. The shuttle bus is a hop on/hop off type of bus, but for our purposes, it was a tour bus through the park to the Elision Visitor's Center, 66 miles into the park. The total time spent on this bus was about 8.5 to 9 hours. We had a fantastic driver and even though the shuttle isn't suppose to be a narrated tour, she did a great job telling us what we were looking at and spotting wildlife before we got to it.

Phil took hundreds of pictures all of them great, I will try to narrow them down some, but this one is going to be a little harder! 

We enter the great Denali National Park 

Part of our caravan gets ready to board the shuttle bus, we are all anxious to see some wildlife, especially a MOOSE!!

 Our driver stopped the bus and everyone starts snapping their cameras. I could not find what they were taking pictures of. Finally, after a few minutes I found the antlers of a Caribou. Do you see them? 

 He is just laying in the bush, but his head moves. I couldn't believe our driver was able to see this while she was driving down the road!

Our shuttle bus

We see our first bear in the park and it's a Grizzly! 

The gravel flats, it's hard to imagine what this looks like when the stream becomes a raging river!

 The sun peaks out of the clouds and lights up a wider part of the river. I love this shot.

The colors of Denali 

 This one may need to be blown up in order to see the top of Mount McKinley through the clouds. We didn't get to see all of it, but it was still thrilling.

We had a few sprinkles, but not the heavy rain that threatened all day 

 At this point we could look ahead and see where the road was going, we could also see that it was literally carved out of the side of the mountain

 The highest point of the road in the park

 A dream come true, another item off of the bucket list, Denali National Park, in Alaska, the last frontier

 High on the ridge above the road sits a Mountain Goat

Phil tries on a pair of antlers...not horns

 Another Grizzly, still has quite a bit of his winter coat

 Another young Caribou

 This one was in the road, and didn't want to give it up. The bus drivers are not allowed to honk the horn to get an animal to move. Ours knew how to move the bus from one side of the road to the other so each side of the bus could take a picture. She was great!

 We finally arrive at Eielson Visitor's Center. Our driver got a 35 minute break here, so we had time to walk around and take some pictures. We could have waited for another bus, but none of us wanted to.

 The story of Mt McKinley, it's peaks and valleys and glaciers

 Adult Male Caribou with full racks, isn't that majestic?? But can you imagine carrying that around all day???

We came across this big guy walking down the road, he was in no hurry, so Phil got some good shots of him.

He stepped off of the road, and our driver started to move on, but then he started back to the road, so she stopped the bus. He then came closer and ran right along the length of the bus 

Phil was trying to take pictures over my head because he was sitting on the other side of the bus, but he couldn't get close enough to snap him alongside the bus.  

When the bear got to the front of the bus, I guess he decided he had had enough of this, turned and started down the hill. 

 Then things start going to the birds...possibly a hawk or falcon?

 A family of Ptarmigan come out of the bush and cross the road in front of the bus. These birds turn white in the winter to help protect them, but now they are colored to blend with the bush

A young one hurries to catch up with the rest of the brood

A small herd of Mtn Sheep or Goats make their way down the mountain

 Another mature Caribou

 And, FINALLY!!! We see a MOOSE!! This is apparently a young female as she doesn't have a baby with her. We were very glad to see her!!

Then, on the way back to the RV Park, we passed a couple of ponds and I was looking, as I always do, for more moose. Just past the two ponds, in the brush was a Mom and her baby casually walking through the brush feeding. We pulled off and watched for a little while.

Good shot of the baby, Mom wasn't as accommodating with a frontal shot