M-D Griffs RV Life

Yep, the new National Park is Kenai Fjords NP and the new in-your-face glacier is the Exit Glacier. Here’s a pic of each: We took a two mile hike up to the foot of Exit Glacier. We had to take a longer trail to get to the Glacier Overlook. Here’s a pic of WHY we had to take a longer trail. We had Bear Spray with us but still ..... Good call! The name Exit Glacier came from the fact that early explorers used it when they exited the Harding Icefield. What is the Harding Icefield, you say? I asked the same question and this is the answer I got: the HI is a north America’s largest contiguous Icefield encompassing 800 square miles and creating almost 40 glaciers. 800 sq miles? Apparently it’s roughly 20 miles by about 40 miles! Anyway, anywhere in the mountain range there is a low spot, a glacier forms. Of course you understand that this takes eight or 10 thousand years! There is a trail going to see the HI but it’s 4.2 miles one way with a significant elevation change. These o...

We left beautiful Homer headed for unknown Seward today around Noon. We stopped at a place on Kenai Lake for our picnic lunch. Isn’t the view horrible? There was a Chinese family there visiting friends in San Francisco and he offered to take a pic of us. The sun wasn’t right but it’s okay: We drove from Homer to Seward today. We ended up in a campground North of Seward a few miles with electricity as the only hookup. The problem with campgrounds in Seward is that there is a Salmon Derby going on until the 18th so we didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. But who can complain at $25 per night? Showers will consist of quick wash downs in the morning. It’s so cool on most nights that we close the windows and even turn the electric blanket on sometimes. We walked around Seward a few hours this afternoon and found the city to be tourist friendly. We did a little grocery shopping at Safeway so we’ll have enough grub until we get back to Anchorage.  All in all, it was a b...

Here is a pic from where we sat and had coffee this morning: It’s easy to see why so many people spend their summers in Homer. I don’t mean to rub it in about the Texas and (Ch)oklahoma comfortable weather this summer but .....the high temps here have been mainly in the upper 60’s and the lower 70’s while the lows have been around 50 on most nights. We have had I think four high temps in the 80’s but those were more than a month ago. Sorry about that 100 degrees plus you’re having in TX and OK but the weather here is perfect now. Everyone tells us that the temps drop dramatically in Sept before the Oct snow starts falling. NO, we don’t want to spend a Winter in Alaska but the summers are magnificent! Our picnic lunch today had this view from our campsite: The pic above was taken off to one side. This one is straight down the hill to Cook Inlet. It’s a shame, isn’t it? This morning we went to the Islands & Oceans (Free!) Visitor’s Center which is the public arm of the Ala...

I challenge you to describe to someone the city of Seldovia, AK! Actually it’s a very small village SSW of Homer. We had never heard of it either until a couple of days ago. Today we took a ferry there on the Alaska Marine Highway System. There were two main reasons that we took the ferry there today. First, we had heard from several people that the little village is like stepping back in time.  The main factor that makes it unique is that it is accessible only by water or air. Yes, you read that right-there are no roads connecting Seldovia, AK with any other place. The city has 4-5 paved roads and an interesting history. In 1900 it was bigger than Homer and was the main trading post in South Central Alaska. The commercial fishing industry grew and located in Homer so Seldovia became an almost forgotten city. The second major (!) factor was the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964-the 9.2 Richter Scale monster I wrote about earlier. Anyway, Seldovia’s land mass subsided FOUR FEET and th...

Today we took a drive to the Far East end of the Homer area. The man in the Homer Visitor Center suggested the drive so off we go. The road winds up, down, and around for 20 miles. He said the paved road ended into three small Russian villages. We turned around just after the gravel began so we’ll have to take his word about the Russian villages. Here is a pic of two glaciers across Kachemak Bay: We were just driving along this random road and BAM! There are two glaciers across the bay. You see so many glaciers here that you start to take them for granted! I read somewhere that glaciers cover 5% of the state of Alaska. I started looking closer at the glaciers on the left above and noticed something odd about it. From one angle, you can see that it started as three glaciers higher up in the mountains and merged into one much larger glacier as it moved down the mountains. You always have to remember that the water at the bottom of the pic is sea level. It’s pretty and pretty amazing ...

Homer is the largest city on The Kenai with a population of only about 6,000. It’s known as “The Halibut Fishing Capital of the World.” So you need to come here if you enjoy fishing for Halibut! Here’s a pic of our campground where we’ll be for the next 3-4 days: We carried our chairs down a small trail and had lunch looking at the mountains over the inlet. That’s a horrible place to sit and have coffee in the morning, isn’t it? These things happen along Alaskan highways called “Moosejams” and “Bearjams.” This is where a bear or a moose is alongside the road and most of the traffic stops to look and take pictures. We ran into a Moosejam today and here is a pic of Marty Moose: The very good news is that we’re going to be able to catch a ferry part of the way home to the lower 48! We were out on the Homer Spit (more on this later) and saw the Homer Ferry Terminal. On a whim, we went in and talked with an agent about what we wanted to do. Well, it seems that there is space for us...

The Kenai Peninsula is South of Anchorage from 50 to 250 miles and juts our into the Gulf of Alaska. We’ve found “The Kenai” to be one of the most beautiful parts of Alaska! Some parts of Alaska are what we might call “rode hard and put away wet” meaning that it’s not well cared-for. Like deep East Texas, there are many homesteads where people discard machinery in their yards and generally don’t take care of their homes. The Kenai is different-almost all of what we’ve seen has been neat and clean. The scenery? I’ve got three words to describe it: 1) A 2) MAZ 3) ING! We drove through mountains on the way here that looked like they could be in Switzerland! There are FOUR snow-capped volcanoes along the North side of the Cook Inlet that stand there looking like sentries guarding the inlet. Here’s a pic Diana took of one of them with Alaska’s state plant-Fireweek in the foreground: My Readout along the Cook Inlet