Eagles, Eagles Everywhere

It rained all night and was still raining when we got up, but we decided to head to Anchor Point to try fishing anyway.  It didn't stop raining and we didn't do any fishing, but we rain into a convocation of bald eagles instead!

After we walked around on the beach in the rain with them for awhile, we headed back to Homer and visited the Pratt Museum which was a nice rainy day thing to do. (it would be cool on a sunny day too)

 But the sun is out now and shining down on our camper home and we are hoping that it might even hit 60 degrees tomorrow!

Tom tried to make the best of things on another rainy day with a couple Alaskan beers at the Salty Dawg Saloon. 

Homer Spit

We left Soldotna and are now camping at The Homer Spit in Homer, Alaska. We are right next to the water and the views are incredible.

Soldotna was nice, and we enjoyed Music In the Park with The Resonant Rouges and food trucks, but we weren’t catching any fish so we thought it was time to move on...

I know that Anita is expecting a blog about the trip to the laundromat but surprisingly there are no good stories to tell. It was the nicest and cleanest laundromat we had ever been to. So nice, in fact, that we will probably go back later to buy a shower.

But that doesn’t mean that nothing exciting has happened yet in Homer. Tom held the door for Jane Kilcher as she walked into a little local shop. 

He also bought some XTRATUF boots so that he can look like a real Alaskan.

The weather forecasters tell us the rain should be ending soon so we are ready for some sun and plan to hang out here for awhile.

And the Photos

Turnagain

No Sunday drive would be complete without a stop at the Turnagain Arm Pit BBQ when you are on the Seward Highway driving along the shore of Turnagain Arm. (Order the cornbread)

If you need to stock up on Reindeer Hotdogs and Reindeer Sausage like we did, Indian Valley Meats is your store. We also bought some delicious salmon to grill at our campsite since we haven’t been able to catch any fish.

We camped at the Willawaw USFS Campground on the Whittier/Portage Glacier Road for a couple of nights. We saw the Porter Glacier and hiked to the Byron Glacier and hiked along the Trail of Blue Ice.

Other than mosquitoes, the only wildlife we have been seeing are beautiful bald eagles.

We have photos but are not able to upload them. It will be surprising if the blog even uploads....

Turnagain

No Sunday drive would be complete without a stop at the Turnagain Arm Pit BBQ when you are on the Seward Highway driving along the shore of Turnagain Arm. (Order the cornbread)

If you need to stock up on Reindeer Hotdogs and Reindeer Sausage like we did, Indian Valley Meats is your store. We also bought some delicious salmon to grill at our campsite since we haven’t been able to catch any fish.

We camped at the Willawaw USFS Campground on the Whittier/Portage Glacier Road for a couple of nights. We saw the Porter Glacier and hiked to the Byron Glacier and hiked along the Trail of Blue Ice.

Other than mosquitoes, the only wildlife we have been seeing are beautiful bald eagles.

We have photos but are not able to upload them. It will be surprising if the blog even uploads....

Anchorage

Saturday finds us with some fellow Ohioans in Anchorage, Alaska.

We met at the Anchorage Summer Solstice Festival where I first found a taco, and then our friends.

They also sold long licorice ropes in a multitude of delicious flavors like sour mango and sour blue raspberry, and the traditional black. We bought $20 worth. (4 ropes)

Then the real fun began when when got out the dulcimers and jammed until our fingers got too cold.

Number of verified Buckeye Fans in Campground: 5

Number of times we have been chased out of a campground by mosquitoes at 9:30 PM: 1

Number of times someone has hit our Jeep in a parking lot and run and left our license plate lying on the pavement: 1

Denali National Park

Denali National Park and Preserve was established in 1917 as a place to protect wild animals and the place where they live. It has since been enlarged to six million acres and includes Denali, the mountain formerly known as Mt. McKinley.

There is only one road into the park and only the first 15 miles of the road is accessible to private vehicles.

We took the Wilderness Tundra Tour into the park which goes about 60 miles into the park and takes about 7 hours.

On our tour we saw tons of Caribou and Dall Sheep, a ptarmigan and four grizzly bears. The three in the top photo are a mother and two nearly three year old cubs. Two very large three year old cubs. In Denali the grizzly cubs stay with their mom for the first 3 years because the summer season is so short.

We would highly recommend doing this tour if you are in the Park. The driver looks for wildlife and stops when you see something and if the animal is far away they have cameras with monitors so that you can see them better. And they also provided a box of tasty snacks!

We also spent a day hiking on several of the trails in the park that were very nice too. 


On the Mountain Vista tour we got to see the rarely seen peak of Denali!

The Savage River trail and Horseshoe Lake trail are very cool too.

We saw Moose also. We see Moose all the time. We can barely keep track of all the Moose.

We are done with Denali and will be heading off in the morning to places unknown... but somewhere south of here. Happy Summer Solstice from the Land of the Midnight Sun!

 

Moose in Denali!

We have a moose and her baby hanging out at our campground here outside of Denali which is really cool. And we took at least a million pictures of them, but we wont post them all. But here are a few...

Number of Moose Sightings: 15 Number of cracks in Windshield: 2 Number of holes in bug guard: 1