Back to Anchorage Day 49, From Kenai to Anchorage /Palmer

Day 49, Sat. July 23 2011. Driving from Kenai to Anchorage (Palmer)

1.Our camp site in Kenai at Beluga Lookout RV

2. A coal car in Homer that was used to haul coal to the docks for transport to the gold town of Hope , AK circa (1904)

3. A King Eider at the Sea Center in Seward. (rehab)

4. McCarthy River on the north side of Cook Inlet from the plane to Big Lake. Drains the tundra from the Alaska Range 400 mies north.

5. The cleaning station for salmon at the RV Park

6. Anchorage Airport in the summer (waiting for baggage)

7. Cow Parsnip...poisonous. Lots along the roadside.

8. Yellow Paintbrush, a cousin of the Indian Paintbrush.

We said goodbye to our friends that we made at the Beluga Lookout Campground and watched some of the early bird fishermen that had caught their salmon already at 8:00 AM. The trailer was readied and hitched up ready to go. The road down to Anchorage was familiar and we didn’t make a wrong turn like last time. The traffic on this Saturday was unbelievable heavier than some freeways. (its a two lane highway most of the way.) The cars and trucks ( few big trucks on Saturday) were coming by at about 20-30 a minute. I counted that three times and then multiplied that factor by the time we were on the road and came up with more than 30,000 vehicles that we passed before we got the trailer to it’s destination. Where were they going? “Anchorageites” (and others like them to get to the reason they came to Alaska. There is fishing. the water, mountains, lakes and streams and all the beauty that surrounds them every day. After work is finished get out of the way as “here we come”. That is what Alaska is about. The great outdoors and all that it embodies. On Turnagain Arm south of Anchorage we saw 4-6 wind surfers in the 3-40 mph wind having a great time. Some stream and rivers were already seeing the impact of the salmon runs.

We stopped a few times to both admire the scenery and to continue to watch for the big animals if we could see them. We did not see any today! At Potter Marsh near the end of the day’s journey we did see an Eagle in a tree, and some salmon in the stream. Lunch was on the road and then some gasoline at $3.89 in Anchorage. The stopping place was a cul ‘de sac where some friends had allowed us to park the trailer for 8 days while we take the trip to the Panhandle on the boat “the Heron” out of Petersburg.

We decided it was better to park the trailer a day ahead of the flight , than to try to do everything on the morning of the flight. So we are staying in a motel in Anchorage just a few miles from the airport. A private parking garage near the airport provides shuttle service to the door so that will help immensely.

So this posting is short but I will place some more pictures as the Wi Fi in the Hotel is very fast tomorrow we head for Petersburg the Scandinavian community on the south panhandle of Alaska. Peter Buschman founded the town in 1890 when he used the ice from LeConte Bay to pack the fish in the first cannery. Today the population has kept steady at about 3,000+ people and more than three canneries that occupy many of the town. We may get one more night of blogs out before we board the boat.