On to Soldotna and Homer

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We left Denali on Thursday morning to drive to Talkeetna where we stopped the night in an Alaska State Park. It started raining again while we were walking around Talkeetna and it rained all night and into the next morning and the rain stayed with us until we got into Anchorage. The sky started to clear and we stopped for lunch in the first view-point south of Anchorage and there was Mount McKinley. The remainder of our trip to Soldotna was wonderful, clear blue skies through some great scenery. We planned to stay in the Fred Meyer store parking lot in Soldotna. The store generously provides proper parking spaces for RVs as well as a dump station and potable water. We took the opportunity to drive to Kenai and visit the Moose Lodge that we had joined at the Gypsy Journal Rally in Yuma. The Lodge was nice enough and the folks certainly friendly, we never could find the RV parking spaces and truthfully if the electrical connections were in as good a shape as the parking lot we probably wouldn’t have plugged in anyway.
The drive from Soldotna to Homer is an easy one, although a lot of it is on narrow roadways. There are three major fishing derbies going on throughout the summer in the peninsula so the roads that follow the rivers are pretty congested on weekend days….we of course were driving to Homer on a Sunday. However, the sun was shining so no complaints. We had chosen to park on the Homer Spit and arrived there as a lot of folks were leaving so had no problem getting an RV space overlooking the ocean. The scenery is beautiful.
Driving on the roads that connect the coastal towns on the Kenai requires a person to keep their eyes on the road in front, which is difficult when you are surrounded by such beauty. The Kenai is certainly a lot more scenic than what I have seen elsewhere in Alaska.
The pictures can do the “talking.”

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Photos

Talkeetna
Upfortunately, it rained while we were walking around Talkeetna. The only thing to do was to find somewhere to wait out the rain!

Soldotna
Soldotna is known for it's salmon fishing. Folks stand along the paved river bank beside the visitors center and throw in a line. This guy got a beauty.

Salmon Roe
The fishermen were all using salmon eggs to bait their hooks.

Fillet
It was quite facinating to see the fisherman expertly gut and clean the fish. It looked delicious - but he wasn't sharing

Soldotna Visitor's Center
I thought this bench was quite unique.

Flowers
Just like Anchorage most of the places we visited in Alaska take full advantage of extensive day light hours and plant flowers in every corner available to bring colour.

Russian Authodox Chruch
Th is the Holy Assumption of the Virgin Mary Authodox church in Kenai. It didn't say how old it was but the chapel across the street was consecrated in 1906 over the graves of Igumen Nicholai (and others) who had died in 1867

Church Interior
We were very lucky to see the minister of the church appear. He spent quite a while telling us about the traditions and was very proud of his little church. He was quite old and we wondered how long he has actually been there.

Redoubt Glacier
We had a clear view of the glacier known as Redoubt on the drive down to Homer.

Welcome Sign
Gary had gone on ahead of us so Betty and stopped several times during the drive to take pictures. We met a couple of young guys who had just graduated from college and were working up in Alaska for the summer to add to their resume. They were kind enough to take this picture for us

Homer Spit
There are campgrounds all the way along the Spit. I think we paid $15/night which included the view!!

Fishing
Of course the majority of folks go to Homer so that they can fish, and we were parked close to the Fishing Hole Campground. This gentleman was very pleased with the cod he had caught that afternoon.

Salty Dawg
Of course once we got settled we had to take a walk along the sea front to look at the stores -- Thirsty Work this driving and sight-seeing! We just HAD to make a stop!

Money
The Salty Dawg is one of those pubs where money is dangling from the ceiling and walls. Gary donated a dollar and we wrote "Solos 2011" on it. The bar maid told us they remove the money one in a while so I wonder if our dollar will last a year.

Bald Eagle
One of the attractions about Alaska for me was that I would at long last be able to see a bald eagle. In all my travels over the past five years I have only seen three and very fleetingly. They are in abundance in Homer. These two were resident at the Fishing Hole.