[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

North To Alaska, report No. 4
Dateline: 7/27/08 - Cache Creek, BC

Greetings and welcome to report No. 4 Sorry this is long delayed, but that is life on the road!

7/8/08 and 7/9 - Talkeetna Alaska

Some of you may remember a TV show a while back called "Northern Exposure". According to the show's lore,
Talkeetna was the town that inspired Cicily, although the show was actually filmed in Rosyln, WA.

Wow, have things changed since we were last here. For one thing, it's now a main stop on the Tour Bus route
to and from Denali NP, plus the trains now drop people off for a day stop so it's crowded to a level hard to
believe. However, the food at the main roadhouse is still pretty good even if it's packed to the rafters.

The drive down from Denali is reasonably short, and apart from a couple of commercial RV parking lots, just
past the airport is the local campground - it's right on the river and only about an 8 minute walk to town
thru the woods and across the railroad tracks. The campground has no hookups but does offer hot showers and
has fresh water fill.

We did have a bear visit camp the first night, we did not see it, but heard our neighbors shagging it away
late in the night.

There's a local crafts market on the weekends that was pretty nice - we caught the tail-end, plus a few dozen
small shops and three or four places that offer flights to Denali. I wish the weather had cooperated, the
cost of the trips is pretty reasonable and if you want you can actually have a ski-landing on a glacier on
the big one itself. Note that if you weigh over about 250 lbs, they will charge you 1-1/2 times the fare.

Weather continues to be cloudy, although little rain, lows in the 50's, highs about 62 degrees.

7/10-11/08 - Anchorage, AK

Deb's been feeling lousy so we decided to splurge on a motel room for a couple of days so she can be dry
and comfortable, and we can get some things done, like an oil change for the car, a propane refill for the
trailer [our first one - 3.6 gallons used since June 1], and re-stocking the larder for going down south.

The Drive down from Talkeetna is pretty nice, although after a couple of hours you start to get into Wasilla
and then you are 'in town'. Anchorage, for a city, is pretty nice, and if you want to RV it, there are parks
right in town. We ended up in the south end of town.

Deb and I were mistaken for locals on the old downtown tourist drag, which was very nice - we fit right in with
our Carhartt jacket and vest, jeans and ratty shoes.

One recommendation I do have is to make sure that you get lunch or dinner from Avi at "Flafel King" - it's on
Gambrell near 5th ave. Avi is from Israel and makes the entire meal from scratch - house made Pita bread
included. For $7.99 it's one of the best I've ever had anywhere, and he's a nice guy to boot. There are 4 seats
inside and a few outside and it's the equal to a hot-dog stand but the Flafaels are just the best I've ever had.
He also makes Schwarma but Deb and I agreed that Flafael is King here. WORTH A SPECIAL STOP. We ate there 3 times.

Weather continues cloudy but not rainy so much, temps about the same, highs around 65 degrees.

7/12-13 - Homer, Alaska - Hillside Campground [city owned]

Well, Tom Bodette now leaves his light on down in the Lower 48, but Homer is one of the nicest of the coast towns you
can drive to. It's a fairly long drive from Anchorage but doable in one day.

Soldotna [on the way down] has a Safeway and Fred Meyer [better than Safeway!]. Homer has a Safeway, and a good one.

We also stopped to visit Walt Campbell, the knife maker - I bought one of his knives on our last trip down here and was
pleased to see that he's still kicking around. However, he's gotten so popular that he has a 2-year wait for a knife
so I guess I was lucky to get mine way back when he actually had some to sell. He carries some commercial knives
but his custom knives are very nice work.

The campground in Homer is up on the hill above town, athough most people camp on the Homer Spit, which is fine if you
are OK with the gravel-lot form of campground - we were in the trees and had a nice protected location. Rain resumed
while we are here.

Homer has some great scenery - the mountains come right down to the water, there are Eagles around, and the town is
reasonably authentic if you stay off the Spit.

If you come to Alaska to fish, Homer is a good spot to visit, there is plenty of sportfishing here and on the rest of
the Kenai Peninsula.

Deb and I agreed that this would be a town we could live in.

7/14/08 Real Alaksa RV Park, Mile 80 of the Sterling Highway.

After leaving Homer we drove out to the town of Kenai but did not like the camping offerings in Kenai so headed back
to Soldotona, visited Fred Meyer again for food and headed up back towards Anchorage, stopping here.

Again the drive is really pretty down here, the Kenai Peninsula is really some of the pretty stuff - gorges and rivers
abound, the ocean is nearby and yet the mountains still have snow on them. The roads down here are also in good shape.

This campground is one of the nicer commercial parks we have seen with real trees between the spaces, nice firepits and
tables, and full hookups available - while we can easily dry camp, it's nice to be able to watch a movie and not worry
about draining the battery with the AC inverter. This camp has flush toilets and decent showers as well.

Today we had a couple come up to us at the gas station and they had been following us because they wanted to know about
our trailer. It continues to draw a crowd.

7/15/08 Miller's Landing RV park, Seward, AK

The drive down to Seward is another scenic road with glaciers and more rivers, etc. Nothing shabby, but Seward itself is
just not that nice - the town looks and feels sort of exhausted. There is fishing available there if you are into that, and
some hiking as well but the town just feels worn down.

They do have a nice new Safeway store though.

Now, Miller's Landing is something else - it's aboug 2.5 miles out of town at the end of a gravel/mud road. We accidentally
ended up in a dead-end campsite where we almost had to unhitch and manually turn around the trailer, but we made it and it
turned out to be a nice quiet campsite for the night.

The toilet and shower facilities: Well, if the oil-field buildings in the Fairbanks park were unusual, frankly this place
looks like their shower room came from the Gulag Archepelego. The shower heads were hand held dish sprayers from your
first house kitchen and an all-fiberglass building with one lightbulb, no dressing room, etc. We got clean but it was the first
time I wore my flip-flops IN the shower.

Weather continues to be poor - we had some rain again today. Temps in the 60's again, lows around 50.

7/16/08 Eklutna Lake, Mile 26 on the Glenn Highway, north of Anchorage

We left Seward and did not want to stay in Anchorage so went to this campground just outside of town - it was a very nice place
with paved roads and parking, firepits and water supply, but no hookups. The camp is about 10 miles up a fairly steep road but
the remote location means you don't hear the highway, although it is probably popular during the summer weekends - there's some
hiking trails and the lake is suitable for canoes - it's a power and water supply for Anchorage.

Continued rain/clouds and temps as above [what we are coming to conclude is summer in Alaska].

7/17/08 - Village RV park, Tok Alaska

Since we both wanted showers, we stopped at this large and popular RV park in downtown Tok. It's actually not too bad for a place
that mostly caters to the monster RV crowd - we had a site with power and not far from some of the nicest shower house
facilities we have seen, plus we were able to do more laundry [something I've not mentiond all that often]. Laundry prices
were high though.

The Tok cutoff is an OK piece of road, but it's not that scenic when it's cloudy and raining anyway.