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Our arrival at the Kenai Peninsula was uneventful. Our campground has nice, long, paved sites and if we look up, we see one of three glaciers right along this ridge.

There is also a fish-viewing platform, where the salmon pass through but we are a couple of weeks too soon for them to arrive. We have wanted to do some hiking and there are several trails right out from our campsite. However, there are also posted signs warning of bear in the area. We spoke with one of the campground hosts and she confirmed they see bears quite frequently. They carry guns with them all the time. Since we don’t have any bear spray (and of course, no guns) we opted to stay close to camp and not hike. We did make a trip out to the nearby National Forest Information Centre where we saw a great film about this area. It also told the story of one of the native tribes that was forced to move because of the 1964 earthquake and the resulting tsunami and what it meant to their village. Later that night, reading over the literature we picked up at the Information Centre, we noticed that the town of Whittier, Alaska was having July 4^th fireworks at midnight on the 3^rd. Whittier is a small town that can only be reached by boat, air, train or via car that drives through the 4 km train tunnel. After checking the tunnel schedule, we decided to make a trip in to see the fireworks.

The train tunnel is open once an hour each direction for vehicular traffic. Every hour on the hour, traffic leaving Whittier can drive through and then every hour on the half hour, traffic can go into Whittier through the tunnel. The town had made special arrangements to have the tunnel open later so people could leave Whittier if they wanted to after the fireworks. There wasn’t much activity when we arrived in town – we ended up driving around, found the firehall and the local law enforcement was out on the road talking with some of the firefighters so we found the location for the fireworks and then since we had time to wait, we headed up some back roads for some nice views of the town.

There was a ferry in dock that was waiting to leave just before midnight to travel to Valdez. They pulled out of their dock about 1130 and then sat out in the harbour to watch the fireworks.

About the same time, people started arriving down at the waterfront and we found a place and got set up. The weather was cloudy, with low clouds, but for a small town, they did a reasonable job of the fireworks. For probably the first time, Paul was actually in the US on his birthday for the firework celebrations!

Following a lazy morning sleep in (it was about 2 am when we got back and settled for the night), we headed out for a day trip to another small community of Girdwood, AK. Not much to see in town, but we drove out a back country road and had some nice views. Girdwood is a skiing community – large chairlift and gondola ride and lots of chalets. If the weather clears, we’ll head back over to go up the gondola.

Next town – Hope, AK and another day trip up to the mountains.

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!)