Anchorage

June 7     Tok to Glennallen     152 miles     3hrs 30mins
We're trying to make our way to Anchorage, it's 328 miles away so we're going to break it up and take our time. Joe wants to do some maintenance and get some things done on the RV, Anchorage would be the best place to get parts and other things we need.

Our campsite at Tolsona Wilderness Campground

Plus, that's where Raschad and Tracy lives. Today we camped at Tolsona Wilderness Campground. We had to drive pretty slow today, the roads were not too good. It's a nice campground, real woodsy, along a river. Got caught up with the laundry and Joe cleaned the vehicles.
We skyped with the family this evening. Everybody was at Papa's to celebrate the June birthdays. The Galapia's have 5 birthdays the first week of June. When we see the family getting together, we miss home. Especially miss our kids, Josh and Miki. Some of the family will be flying to Alaska to hang out with us at the end of June, so we're looking forward to that.

Beautiful scenery on our drive

June 8     Glennallen to somewhere between Palmer & Glennallen  63 miles   1hr 30mins
We moved 63 miles up the road today to Grand View Cafe & RV Campground.

Grand View Campground

This place is really nice. They have a Good Sam discount so it's $33.30 for full hook-up.

We took a drive to Matanuska Glacier State Recreation Site. This site has exceptional views of the Matanuska Glacier. We went on the Edge Nature Trail, a 1 mile hike through boreal forest to glacier viewing platforms. We made sure to carry our bear spray because nobody else was around.

Matanuska Glacier

On our drive back to the campsite, we saw a moose just cruising on the side of the road.






June 9     Grand View Campground to Eagle River    85 miles     2 hrs 45mins
We drove to Eagle River today, it's about 10 miles from Anchorage.

Eagle River Campground

Very nice area, we're going to stay here for a few days. It's a state campground called Eagle River Campground, it's $15 a day but no hook ups. It's close enough to Anchorage where we can hang out with Raschad and Tracy. Tracy had to work this afternoon but Raschad took us for a ride to Turnagain Arm. Very, very scenic we enjoyed ourselves. Then he took us to Whittier. We had to go thru a tunnel that was 3 miles long. You go real slow because this is the tunnel that the train goes thru so you need to straddle the train tracks. It's only one way at a time, so you wait your turn, about every 1/2 hour the direction changes. Joe & I was getting kind of claustrophobic, I don't think I want to go to Whittier again. I forgot my camera, so no pictures today.

June 10

Joe and I just cruised around and explored downtown Anchorage today. The weather is really nice, the high is about 75.

June 11
Tracy and Raschad is off today so we jumped in his van and went for a ride.

Raschad & Tracy

We went up to Flat Top Mountain trail head where there's a beautiful view of Anchorage. There's a trail to hike up to Flat Top mountain and had a lot of people hiking but we decided not to do it. We rather ride around and just do some sightseeing today.

Flat Top Mountain

We took a drive out to Hope. It's a small community and was nice to see.

Hope, Alaska

The scenery from Hope

We went up to Girdwood to see Mt Alyeska. When the kids come to visit, maybe we'll do the gondola to the top of the mountain. We also saw the bore tide come in. Was really small today, some days, when the tide comes in, it's big enough where people actually surf it in. They need wetsuits because the water is still very cold, still got ice in some places.

Filling water on the side of the road

June 12
Joe & I drove around Eagle River today. This is a really nice community.
We saw a black bear on our drive in.

 

We went to the Eagle River Nature Center and ended up doing a short hike on the Rodak nature trail. Beautiful views of the Chugach mountains. When we drove back to our campground, there was a brown bear close to our site. He was checking out some camp sites, sniffing in the fire pits and smelling around the picnic tables. Click on the arrow to view a short video.

He came right next to our site, then he went down the hill to the river. That made us pretty nervous. We waited for about an hour before going outside and starting a fire.

There's a lot of mosquitoes here and Joe is having an allergic reaction to the bites. He'll get bit and then the next day, it'll start to swell. He got bit around his forehead, on the right side, had about 4 bites that got pretty ugly. On the left side of his head he got a bite and it swelled so much, it looked like a golf ball. I'm not kidding....I wanted to take him to see a doctor because it looked like his whole face was going to get swollen. I thought maybe it'll affect his breathing. But when he got up the next day the swelling went down...thank goodness. So we're trying to keep up with the mosquito repellent.

June 13
Today we moved over to the Galimba's.

Raschad's van in front of his house

We're parked in front of their house,

just hope none of the neighbors complain. Joe & Raschad worked on the RV and did some much needed maintenance. While the guys were working on the RV, Tracy & I went to go get haircuts, color, and wax jobs. I needed it....feel like a new person now.

 

 June 14
Raschad took us to his friends house on the lake. Pete owns some property near Big Lake. We went out on the paddle boat and Raschad did some stand up paddling in a canoe. It's really pretty out there, there's about 7 miles of shoreline. Pete took us for a ride on his speed boat. Was a real nice day and the sun was out but the water is still a little too cold for swimming.

June 15
Joe & I went to the Anchorage Market and Festival today. It's in downtown Anchorage and very similar to our flea market at the stadium. Lots of crafts, food, and touristy stuff. I thought it was going to be a farmers market with a lot of produce. I guess I'll keep looking. Then we went to Walmart to look at bicycles again. We're debating whether to get bikes or not. We talked about getting bikes for our RV trips before and here in Alaska, there's a lot of nice bike trails all over.