Mike & Kris - Enjoying The Ride

We’ve been slowly working our way south all the while finding so much to see and do. In fact, even the roadway pullouts offer unbelievable sights to see.

This picture of Denali was taken on the road, at a pullout, in between Denali National Park and the town of Talkeetna. Talkeetna is a little town of about 1000 people that swells to several thousand every day when the tour busses come to town. It was full of shops and restaurants and we sampled our way through town.

We also decided to take a train ride to no where! It was actually to the community of Hurricane Gulch but there isn’t a town or even roads so the only access was the train. It was a six hour whistle stop train which means it provides a ride for people and supplies that live out in the wilderness.

It will stop anywhere along the route to pick up or drop off. As tourists, we were just along for the ride and it was very scenic. Oh yeah, the train also stops for wildlife sightings! We did see a few moose but they were too far away for a picture. A fun way to spend the afternoon.

After leaving Talkeetna we continued south to the town of Palmer. We drove up Hatcher Pass and enjoyed the views.

The weather didn’t cooperate completely but it was still beautiful. We have been in a lot of gray sky days and we sure appreciate it when the sun pops out. The next day we went out on an all day ATV adventure. Mike was the driver and the rest of us enjoyed the ride through creeks, rivers, mud, and rocks.

Our destination was the Knik Glacier and we couldn’t believe it when we arrived! The blue in the ice was so cool.

We even watched as one of our group did a polar plunge into the water!

After Palmer we made it to the Kenai Peninsula and our first stop was Seward.

Our camping spot was big and we had a bald eagle family as our neighbors. It was a nice resting spot while we enjoyed the town. It was the Fourth of July holiday and so everything was crowded but we still found a couple things to do.

We hiked to Exit Glacier which is part of Kenai Fjords National Park. It is the only place where you can drive to this national park. The rest of the park is only accessible by water. We spent an afternoon at the Alaska Sealife Center which was home to the largest sea lion I’ve ever seen in the water.

It was a Stellar Sea Lion and he weighed over 2000 pounds. Finally we did a 6 hour cruise to see the Kenai Fjords National Park from the water. Believe it or not–I didn’t get seasick!! I used a prescription patch and survived the bumpiest ride I’ve been on. It rained on us but we had comfortable seats inside and lots of wildlife to keep us entertained. We even saw a few humpback whales but, unfortunately, they are the same color as the water and sky so not a good picture moment.

Our final destination on the cruise was the Holgate Glacier and we got so close. It was pretty cool to see all the chunks of ice floating around in the water.

From Seward we traveled down the Peninsula to the town of Homer. It is at the very end of the land and we are staying on the spit which is a tiny sliver of land that juts out into the water even further. On the other side of the water is a huge mountain range. What a sight! It is the halibut capital of the world and fishing is the big attraction here.

We did not tempt our luck by going out into the water again but have been enjoying the spectacle of watching the boats return with their catches every day.

We are also watching all the eagles as they are everywhere down here.

Another interesting activity we stumbled upon was boats being launched into the water with a tractor. We’ve never seen anything like that before.

In case anyone was wondering, we have been meeting our goal of eating fresh seafood every day! Next we move on to Soldotna which is our last stop on the Peninsula before we make our way to the bears out at Katmai National Park.