Homer to Trail River Campground, AK
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Sunny, mid 60s, cooled off and cloudy later
We thought about spending another day in Homer but, after listing the places we still wanted to visit, decided we’d best move on. So, after a very good breakfast at the Sourdough Bakery & Café in town (gluten free scones and bread) we were on our way. We made stops in Kenai and Soldotna for groceries, gas and propane.
Then we took the gravel road through the Skilak Wildlife Recreation Area rather than regular highway. Mistake! The road wasn’t too bad but we saw no wildlife. The best part was Jim’s Landing at the end of the road. It is a boat launch area, very busy with fishermen. Turning around in the tight parking lot we happened to meet the owner of the Kendall Lexus Dealership in Anchorage. He was salmon fishing with his sons. A nice guy, he admired our setup.
Looking for a place to spend the night, we checked out Quartz Creek campground but it was full of fishermen. We ended up at Trail River Campground, a US Forest Service facility. The sites were beautiful and we were happy to be there.
Dinner was store-bought, fresh, gluten-free cheese ravioli. We’d never seen that before. We added some tomato sauce and a salad on the side for an excellent dinner.
Trail River Campground to Seward, AK
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Overcast, 57 am, then cleared & high 60s
We got on road about 10:15. Destination: Seward; let’s see, we must mean we’d drive there on the Seward Highway!
This road is declared a scenic byway and they are right on. We made a few roadside stops but our favorite was a lily pad filled lake. On it were a pair of swans and about half a dozen goslings. We’re not sure what they were feeding on but they were pretty busy showing us their tails as the reached down to graze.
Arriving in town we started looking over the camping facilities. We don’t need anything fancy but, since we don’t have a bathroom or a shower in the Tin Tent, we at least want a clean toilet. Nothing came close to meeting that need. Many downtown campsites were inexpensive and on the water but the bathrooms were pretty bad. We think they can get away with that because most campers these days are huge and have their own bathroom facilities. The minority, tenters and small campers, just suffer. So, we chose Stoney Creek RV Park, several miles from town. It wasn’t anything special but the bathrooms were clean and functional.
On our way back into town we checked out Exit Glacier. This is one of many rapidly retreating glaciers but this one you can easily walk to. We took the trail to its terminus and admired just how huge and ponderous it was, even though it’s a pretty small glacier. We had to pass on the 2½ mile, 3,000 ft rise hike to look at the Harding Icefield that feeds it and many other glaciers.
We did another quick pass downtown and returned to the campground for a dinner of roasted chicken, broccoli and applesauce. (We must admit that the chicken was the pre-roasted variety.)