Happy Canada Day! We’re sad to be missing all the 150th anniversary celebrations for Canada today. However, we knew our route just wouldn’t allow us to be close enough to celebrate so we’ve observed it through seeing our friends and family posting on Facebook! It hasn’t been the best of weather in Canada – but we have been blessed with another good day to travel.
Today we left Denali – the weather stayed good while we were there – about 20 degrees C most days with next to no rain (a few sprinkles but nothing that gave us any problems). We headed south – we have reservations on the Kenai Peninsula on July 3rd, just prior to the July 4th holiday so we have a couple of days to get there. Our plan is to spend the night in a campground in Willow, and then drive the Hatcher Pass as a day trip on Sunday. We were treated to some partial views of Denali as we headed down the Parks Highway. We stopped along the way to pick up a few groceries – and we did only get a few – $4.25 for two quarts of milk, almost $7 for a loaf of bread….we’ll get more in a day or two when we are closer to Anchorage!
We got to our campground which is only a couple of miles from the Hatcher Pass. Although it is a State Recreation Area, it is basically about 4 large parking lots with parking spots where you back in and your picnic table and fire ring are on the grass behind the parking spot. It certainly wasn’t full – so we picked one where we could be at the one end so we wouldn’t have more than one person beside us and when we sat at our table inside, we could see the trees separating us from the next parking lot.
We took a bit of a drive to pick up some dead wood for a campfire, but before we could get one started, it started to drizzle. It didn’t do much else other than light rain and by 1100 it had stopped and the kids at the end of our parking loop were out riding their bikes – and they were only 5 or 6 years old. One thing we have noticed in our travels is that since it is light so much later, people seem to be more active later in the evening and now that kids are done school, we are seeing more families travelling.
We also got word Saturday evening that the dining hall and tuck shop burned at Chesley Lake where our family’s cottage has been for over 50 years. Joyce’s sister and family were there for the weekend and sent pictures of the fire which started around 11 pm. While it destroyed the complete building housing the dining hall, we are thankful that no one was hurt and the fire was able to be contained to just that building by the fire department. It is so sad to see – such memories there!
Sunday morning we got up to a forecast of rain for the next two days. We made a decision to forgo the Hatcher Pass drive if it wasn’t going to be nice weather. We will be back through this area in a few weeks and will have another chance to drive the pass then if the weather is better. Since we weren’t going to go for a day trip and the weather wasn’t supposed to be great and the campsite wasn’t wonderful, we decided to hook up the trailer and head towards Anchorage. It really didn’t rain much as we travelled, and we found another large grocery store along the way with much better prices and selection that we could stock up at. We also made a stop at Costco in Anchorage which was just across the street from our campground for the night. It is a “city campground” and has a lot of older, seasonal trailers, but it gives us electrical and Wi-Fi for the night – a chance to recharge the batteries and get some better connection for blogging.
We saw a special weather statement today – nice weather coming by July 4th! Warmer and drier than it has been in the Anchorage and Kenai Peninsula. That is a welcome bit of information for many people in the area. We spoke with one couple from Alaska who apologized to us because it wasn’t the best day today and hadn’t been very nice so far this year. We said it was our first day where it rained much at all and the amount had been really insignificant. They said the Kenai had been cool and wet this summer. Here is hoping we brought good weather!
Next up, the Kenai and celebrating the US July 4th (and Paul’s birthday!)
Following Joyce & Paul's Travels in Retirement 