April 21st
– April 27th 2014
Work days. Average weather – 32 for night, 45 during the day. Snow
is pretty much gone. Mountains – still snowy. Streets and roads –
being cleaned. No wild animals. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
– work, car repair (struts). Checked several repair shops – it is
expansive here. Decided on one close to the hospital and about 2.5
miles from our place. Dropped the car on Tuesday and walked home.
Colder. Gray. Kind of ugly streets. University and hospital campus.
Attempted short cut – lost in the park, snow knee deep, wetlands –
water in the shoes. It almost felt like near death experience –
well, so much for short cuts. Unable to finish strut replacement, had
to order parts from Seattle. Walked back to the repair shop and
picked the car up. The same on Wednesday, no short cuts, and car got
fixed. It gets complicated (as we travel) to deal with normal things.
Our bank is not here. No idea about the repair shops, stores, and
other services. Worked out fine. Thursday – switch day –
nothing to say. Unfortunately, J. had couple of really bad nights
(sleeping poorly) and it took some fun out of our trip. Life happens.
We planned the trip to Soldotna and Kenai area with an overnight
stay.
We left at nine o'clock on Friday, sunny with few
pretty clouds. Big part of this drive was known to us (the same road
leads to Seward, about an hour and half). It is very scenic and
pleasant drive, this time we got something extra: weather. We left
more less sunny Anchorage, along the Turnagain arm we got more clouds
and eventually it started to rain, that later turned into rain and
snow with completely dark sky. There was pretty much nothing to see.
Interestingly strange. We turned, the road goes east for about 40
miles and then turns southwest (more less). Still the dark sky and
rain mixed with snow. Half way to Seward intersection it changed and
we got partly cloudy sky with relatively pleasant temperature. The
road (a bit past Seward junction) joined the river and it stayed like
that the rest of the way (the river was not always visible). We also
left the mountains and drove kind of flat land (not as pretty and
interesting as one would think). Several stops along the way but
nothing really spectacular (sites, hikes, towns). It looked like it
was pretty much set up for fishing. Few boats on the river but
otherwise nothing else. Cooper town – bunch of houses and
businesses along the road – mostly for fishing again. In some way
it is sad to see those settlements (storing all kinds of stuff on the
property – old cars, construction equipment, junk) and behind them
this incredibly beautiful nature. Town of Soldotna.
http://visitsoldotna.com/ It
is on the main road to Homer (the road ends there). Unappealing shops
and stuff along the road. Visitor's center – many stuffed animals
and fishes. Apparently the biggest salmon was caught in Soldotna.
Basically, most of the activities around the town (and the area) are
tied to the river and fishing. Nice lady in the visitor center. Board
walk to the river – gray and somewhat sad looking (again,
apparently in a month or so there will be fish jumping up and down).
A bit further up the road was Wildlife refuge visitor center – kind
of small. Next to it they are building new and nicer one. Drove to
Kenai. http://kenaichamber.org/
Normal drive. Same “shopping experience” while entering the town.
Visitor's center – nice display of animals, artifacts, and model of
oil rig. Apparently there are some oil extraction going on in the
water. The road continues another 25 miles north of Kenai and we were
told that part of it is quite industrial. Small drive through “old
town” Kenai – not much to see. Old Russian Orthodox church (I may
be too critical because I lived in Europe) – small and
unimpressive. Breezy and cold. View of water. View of mountains
across the water. Unfortunately too cloudy to see all the volcanoes.
Drove north – Captain Cook State Park – the road ends there.
View, small beach, not set up for winter time. Guy drove on the beach
and got stuck there. Two girls watching for wildlife. Drove back
through town of Nikiski – industrial and strange. One of the
magazines described the town as “quaint”. The writer had to be
really high on pixie sticks. Kenai – few stores, some parks and few
stops. Motel by the airport – fully booked and “lost” our
reservation. Unpleasant. Apparently we booked it on Sunday and the
person working that day overlooked it. Nice. The lady called around
and could not find empty room. Again, apparently there were some
strange things happening and there were too many people. Room in
Soldotna, we had to drive 20 minutes back, got the room and ended our
day. Not the greatest day but not everyday is a holiday. Saturday.
Slow and easy morning in Soldotna. Except a sliver of blue there was
gray and ugly sky. J. had another bad night. We had a breakfast and
left the town. We had to get some gasoline (about 35 cent a gallon
more than in Anchorage). Drive. Obviously, with limited number of
roads here, we had to take the same road back. I believe I forgot to
write about a moose I saw yesterday as we were close to Soldotna. It
was on the side road – we turned around but it was gone. It was
still quite nice to see it (even so briefly from moving car). There
was different route – close to Skilak lake – unfortunately on the
beginning of the dirt road was big sign saying “soft surface –
travel at your own risk”. After we saw yesterday the car stuck on
the beach we did not feel like taking the risk. We saw few people on
the river – fishing. Stopped by the Russian River area. We decided
to take a walk (hike) to the falls. About 2.5 miles, nice path, nice
views, gray and cloudy, breezy. J. called it rapids. It was pretty
nice site, it just was not an impressive falls. Well, at least some
physical activity. As we got closer to the turn we got some rain
(light to heavy) and it lasted quite a while. Cloudy and gray in
Anchorage (no rain). Lazy and easy Sunday, J. was
sleeping as she was switching.
