Alaska RV Camping Journal- Day 21

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Alaska Recreational Vehicle Camping Journal

An RV camping trip to Alaska is a dream most RVers will never get to experience. We are fortunate to have been able to spend the time to take this amazing RV camping trip. Follow our daily RV camping travels as we cover over 6000 miles of the most incredible scenery in North America. We'll share a few pictures of the trip along the way, but pictures can not do justice to this beautiful landscape.

The Campers

Passengers on our RV camping trip were Brian, Margie, Helen (Brian's Mom is 87), Casey our 4 ½ year old Golden Retriever, and Sox, a 10 year old gray house cat with an attitude. Brian and Margie have been living full time in their 36' Class A motor home over 3 years, and boondock (remote dispersed camping) almost always. Mom has RV camping experience since she and Brian's Dad owned both a pickup camper, and Class C motor home.

Mileposts

You will notice that we often refer to the Mileposts book throughout the journal entries. We feel that if you drive to Alaska, you MUST have this book! Alaska, and Canada's British Columbia and Yukon are rich in History. Jack London wrote popular novels such as White Fang, and Call of the Wild, and the contemporary poet Robert Service helped make knowledge of life in the north country wilderness well known. The Mileposts book will help you learn about the history as you go, with descriptions of what happened in the past, as well as what to expect on the road ahead.

We recommend that you only use the most current issue of Mileposts as it contains the most up-to-date road and service availability information.

The End of the Road - Homer

We got up, had a quick breakfast, and are on the road to Homer-looks like rain again. It's 85 miles down to Homer from where we are camped. We are thankful to have something small and maneuverable to “tour” with!

We do make a quick stop at the Hardware store in Soldotna for some battery powered bug zappers! They look like a tennis racket but use a couple double AA batteries to fry bugs in their metal framework! They are a hilarious! Bill bought us one and we've just gotta have a few more to go back to the lower 48 with! These are a real necessity in Alaska--did you know they have 40 varieties of mosquitoes??

The further south we go the less it looks like rain, but still lots of clouds around. We do stop at a wonderful overlook with views of Kachemak Bay, the Cook Inlet and Home Spit. We see lots of boats on the water and some large cruise vessels too. There is a nice interpretive sign showing the various mountain peaks and islands, and there are telescopes for viewing. Also vault toilets.

Elevation here is about 1,200 feet, and then down we go into Homer. It is a beautiful, switchback drive down into town through green slopes and some early Fireweed and lupine. The Sterling Highway out onto the spit extends 5 miles out into the ocean and truly is “the end of the road”. This is as far as you can drive a vehicle on the mainland of North America!

The parking lots out on the spit all are quite full but we don't see much for people walking around. We inquire and find out that all these cars belong to fisherman that are out fishing for the day! This is your first rate tourist trap, and we fall into it! We walked around on the boardwalks amongst all the stores and we decide we just had to have some “Homer-The End of the Road” Sweatshirts! We all 3 get one, and step back out into the sunshine!

Suddenly we hear “There they are!” I say “we know you!”, and here we are reunited with Ed and Bob from our Cruise over in Seward! Bob is the most talkative he's EVER been and I'm sure he's trying to make an impression on Mom. He's been very interested in meeting her ever since we met them on the boat. He was widowed about the same time as Mom and now he's on this trip to Alaska with his son-in-law all the way from New York. And here we run into them AGAIN in Homer!! Now, I know the distances are great, and the miles are many, but what are the odds of seeing these two again in a big place like Alaska????

We trade stories on where we've been and what we've seen and they give us a couple suggestions for places to have lunch. I think we'd still be there visiting it they didn't have a fishing charter at noon! They were running late, hope they made it to their reservation!

We wander over to the Salty Dawg Saloon-it is an interesting place! And then we end up at a place called The Happy Restaurant! I AM happy, as they have chicken chow mein! Brian and Mom have fish & chips, sound familiar???

We do drive to the very end of the road and turn around so we can say we‘ve been there! The weather was really nice in Homer with some sunshine, but we couldn't see the tops of the volcanoes across the bay as they were obscured by the clouds.

On the way back to Kenai we see an old Airstream painted like a bumblebee for The Bee RV Park! There are lots of places to stay on this stretch of road as far as B&B's, motels, cabins and RV parks too. There are many places to go on fishing expeditions also.

We arrive back in Kenai and Brian and I go to the library to check our e-mail, to buy gas for the Pathfinder, and the grocery store for some produce. Then back home for showers and out on the town!

We have plans to meet Bill and Lin at the Moose Lodge for their annual Pig Roast! Mom will stay home to watch Lawrence Welk on the local PBS channel, watch the pets, and try to make a dent in that prime rib we brought home last night!

The pork roast is excellent with the meat being very tender, baked beans, corn, mashed potatoes and gravy, applesauce, rolls, and butter . We enjoyed the One Man Band entertainment and then the DJ started at 8:00 and everyone took to the dance floor! We don't stay much after that as it seems we've had a pretty long day already!

0 miles on Gozer, but 167 miles on Bill & Lin's Pathfinder.

Road Notes: The road between Kenai and Soldatna is excellent with a speed limit of 55. The speed limit is merely a suggestion with the way people speed up and down this road. Driving 70 was the only way to keep up with traffic and were only passed a couple times at that speed.

Tomorrow - Full Campground

Yesterday - Road To Kenai & Old Friends