We pulled into Trapper Creek Inn RV park for the rest of the night after leaving the South View Point for Denali.
We know it was another $35 to pay to camp there overnight, after already being paid up for the same night at Byers Lake. But we did what we had to do, to save our refrigerator and freezer food, and also have heat overnight. It gets down in the 40s here at night and we do need to run the furnace. At least with electrical hookups we could run the electrical heat pump in our Houghton Rec Pro roof air conditioner.
We woke up to some beautiful sunshine streaming in at Trapper Creek Inn RV Park. It was going to be a great day.
Steve crawled underneath the motorhome and examined the wiring to this electronic propane valve. One of the connector clips with multiple wires looked like it was corroded. It was attached but it was not making a good connection. He pulled it apart and cleaned in there with little tiny tools and a piece of an emery board nail file cut down into a narrow strip. He got the metal and little plastic sections cleaned up and the metal contacts looking good again. Then he coated everything with a tube of "dielectric grease". It's made to protect electrical connections that are exposed to the elements. This particular wiring clip is located directly underneath the motorhome by the propane tank and is exposed to all road grime and rain and anything else our tires could throw at it up while underneath the motorhome.
He put it all together and we ran a test. HOORAY!! It was operating correctly again.
Like I said in my previous blog two blogs back, on our old motorhome we just had a valve with a knob to turn in an outside compartment for our propane. You turned it on and left it on. You turned it off and left it off. That was it.
But on this Winnebago, they did a fancy electronic valve with a solenoid that registers electrical current from either an outside switch, or an inside switch located up above our refrigerator in a control panel. It opens and closes each time it senses a need or draw from any of the multiple propane devices in the rig. It is also connected thru the LP detector and you cannot just disconnect it. What's supposed to make it easier, also makes it more complicated!
Now that we have propane to run our refrigerator, furnace, water heater and stove / oven... We are good to go again!
We set our goodbyes to Trapper Creek and headed south towards the town of Willow. A couple years ago we had watched a YouTube from Becca and Levi where she had gone shopping at this cute little thrift store in Willow. I had marked it on our map as a possible place to stop in if we were ever driving through Willow.
We were greeted by the very pleasant owner, and wandered about through the store looking at their treasures.
There wasn't really anything we particularly needed, but you just never know. This little shop was neatly arranged and the items were in very good condition. I can see why Becca liked it.
We didn't find really anything that we absolutely had to have. Also, our space for carrying things all 0f the way back to Wisconsin is somewhat limited. But it was fun to look around and chit chat and just enjoy the visit.
Like I said, everything was neat and clean. It was a very nice thrift store as far as thrift stores go.
It turned out that the owner of this thrift store was also friends with another homesteading YouTuber couple that we watch called "The Flat Tire Farm"
They have a variety of interesting things on their YouTube channel and also sell items from a website. They have goats, and make goat milk soap. It turns out that Willow Rose Thrift Store sells their handmade goat milk soap!
I had to buy a bar to try it out. Isn't this adorable? And it smells absolutely marvelous!!! Yes, it has a little sheep and a couple stars and glitter melded onto the top of the bar of soap.
It was time to continue down the road. We saw the sign to lead us off to the West to go to Willow Creek State Rec area.
This campground is located where the Willow Creek joins the large Susitna River. The Susitna is a very wide river basin where the sections of water undulate and separate and join back together again. It creates little islands and ever-changing terrain. This type of river movement is called "ribboning".
We drove in on the long winding road to get to the campground itself. This was a really interesting campground. It was made up of about five or six small parking lots. Each lot had a number of campsites painted in stripes and numbered. You either backed in or drove nose in to your particular numbered spot. Behind it in the grass were picnic tables and fire rings. So you were kind of just parked next to each other like in a parking lot?
We saw one spot occupied by a tent in one of the lots, and then we saw a fifth wheel travel trailer looping around to take another spot in another lot. We chose a lot closer to the river, and got set up in our motorhome. There was nobody else around us.
It was a rather unusual format for a campground, I must say. We got settled in for the night.
Being close to the river, we were also a lot closer to natural breeding grounds for those big huge helicopters in Alaska known as MOSQUITOS!!!
Of course, we have mosquitoes in Wisconsin. They are small vicious little buzzing attack creatures that bite you quick as a wink. We live right by swampy marshland and we have experience with mosquitoes. We use Thermacell devices and that really helps to keep them at bay when we are outdoors.
We have a few of the older versions
with the cartridge tubes of butane....
and we have the newer version now
with the larger cartridges of fluid and a rechargeable battery....
the both work well.
These Alaska mosquitoes are a different type. They are much larger and fly much slower. It's a lot easier to kill them! You can clap your hands on each side of them and kill them in between your hands. Almost every single one we swat at, we manage to kill it.
Although we set up a Thermacell outside by the motorhome door (they really work very well) a number of those mosquitoes got in before we had lit the Thermacell. Now we had multiple mosquitoes in the rig that were hiding out so we couldn't kill them easily. They waited until we were relaxed in bed at night and would come buzzing around our ears. Then we would have to turn on a light, chase them down, and kill them either between our hands or with Steve's battery-powered mosquito fly swatter. It probably took us about an hour to get rid of all the straggling varmints that were buzzing around here and there. Once they were all dead, we could finally go to sleep.
The next morning was totally beautiful. Sunshine and no wind. We decided to take a walk before breakfast down to the river. We knew the mosquitoes would be out later as things would warm up. But we thought a walk in the cool morning air in the 40° range would be a good thing to do.
Although we armed ourselves with mosquito spray, we really didn't need it at all! That was the trick, get out before the mosquitoes warmed up.
We walked along a trail through the woods and admired the new blossoms that were forming all around us.
Everything smelled so wonderful and fresh, and each time we walked past another type of flower it was a whole new fragrance.
At one point, Steve looked down on the trail and noticed the whole pile of fishing sinkers, swivels and one big fishing hook. It appeared that somebody had dropped their tackle box and a bunch of their gear fell out in a pile. We carefully picked it up to make sure that there were no other hooks than that first one laying on the ground.
When we got near the river, Steve saw a stump sitting right by the stairs going down to the fishing platform. We figured this would be a good spot to leave it all, and someone else could come along and use it and put it into their own tackle box.
Steve walked down the steps first while I stood back with Nicholas. The water was rapidly moving with a pretty fast current. Nick didn't want to go down those stairs anyhow.
We watched from up above while Steve checked out the river. There was a long wire grid platform spanning the bank for fishermen to safely stand there and do their thing without falling into the river.
Steve came back up and took Nicholas's leash and I went down with the camera.
It was a beautiful view, gazing up and down this section of the water. Perfect blue sky and a beautiful view in front of us.
I suddenly noticed some movement is something emerged from the bushes on the small island's bank across from us.
Can you spot what I saw??
Awwwwww!!!
It was a baby moose!
I had my GoPro operating, and it does not have a zoom feature. So I set that down and grabbed my long lens camera to look a little closer. We are actually quite a ways away from it...
This is zoomed in...
I watched it for a few moments, and then started looking all around for Mama. There's absolutely no way we would want to get in between a baby moose and it's Mama. We had our bear spray and I had my canned air horn, but we would just rather not even see her if we could help it.
The baby appeared warm dry and fuzzy so we don't think it came from across the river. But that doesn't mean the mama couldn't be on the other side of the river. Which would be on OUR side of the river???
He started making some little grunting bleat sounds, calling for her. That's when we decided we better take off and get back to the camper as fast as we can.
I snapped all of these pictures quickly using a burst shutter in a row, and then went right up the stairs, back to Steve and Nicholas. We kept our "heads on a swivel" and made our way back up through the woods as fast as we could to the motorhome.
After we got back to the rig, I pulled up my Fitbit screen on my phone. Here was my heart rate when we had seen the baby moosr. Lol!
So finally, we can check a "moose" off on our wildlife spotting bucket list. It may have only been a baby, but it was one darned cute little baby at that.
Here is the video on You Tube to go along with today's blog post:
This event was so special, it gets a blog post all of its own.
On our way heading down from Byers Lake to Trapper Creek, to save our food and get heat with electric hookups, we pulled in one more time to the South View Point Lookout for Denali on the Parks Highway.
The sky was mostly clear with a few clouds here and there scattered around as we were driving on the highway. We pulled into the parking lot and there were a few more clouds over towards the lookout area platform. We held our breath as we walked closer...
YESSSSSS!!
THERE WAS DENALI
IN ALL HER
GLORY!!!!
We were delighted with the opportunity to see the complete mountain range, with Denali sticking proudly up in the middle. We are now one of the few 30% of visitors who actually get to see Denali when visiting Alaska.
It may have taken us three tries, two days of rain and this third day of blue sky before we saw it. It was quite a thrill.
We loaned our camera to someone else to take a picture of us and we took a picture of them with their camera. There it is, right over our shoulder.
When they talk about "Purple Mountain Majesty" I think this is what they mean. I know photos cannot capture the essence of what we saw. The depth and the colors only enhance the serenity and the majesty of what we were seeing.
The other people on the viewing platform were rather excited as well. They knew this was a special event and not everybody gets to see this. We helped a few others take photos, so they could capture this scene behind them with themselves in the foreground. Everyone was chattering and laughing and appreciating the moment that we were all sharing together.
At any time, the clouds could come back and cover the tip of the mountain. So we snapped a few more photos before it was time to head on back down the highway.
I panned around on the scenery below leading up to the mountain range. I don't think many take photos of the rest of the area. So I included it too.
Thank you, Denali.
We will forever remember this as being the highlight of our trip. We may have seen things like grizzlies and a baby moose, waterfalls and hot springs, big rivers and ferry boats...
We topped off our tanks, including our propane, and stocked up a few more things that we needed. Now we were set for a few days back in the woods again.
We left Trapper Creek Inn RV Park and headed north back up the Parks Highway. There was a state rec area that we wanted to go check out just north of the state park that we couldn't get into.
It was called Byers Lake State Recreation Area. Here is the link:
We were really surprised when we drove in to only see a few campers in the 73 total sites. It was rustic camping, with outhouses and a pitcher pump for water. There wasn't any dump station or other facilities. Many of the campsites were easy pull through type, each with picnic tables and fire rings.
Located so close to the busy Denali park and the state park, this area seemed to be almost unknown and not very well used.
The gravel roads within the park are very rough with many deep potholes. You got to go slow. But it was worth it because we were in an absolutely quiet rustic site with nobody else around.
We chatted with the maintenance guy who drove thru later, and he said he is the only employee around for many miles to handle everything. The road may someday get paved with asphalt. That would make it even nicer.
We got set up on our site, and Steve paid the $20 fee at the credit card kiosk near the entrance of the campground. It takes MasterCard or Visa, but not American Express.
The sun was shining, there were no mosquitoes, and only a few little tiny black flies buzzing around that look like they had just hatched.
Steve set out the lawn chairs while I got things ready to make lunch. He found some stragglers of downed wood nearby and got out his little swedish hand saw.
There's my
Mr Brawny Lumberjack Man!!
We sat back in comfort on our chairs and really enjoyed the beautiful weather around us. After 2 or 3 days of rain and just being in parking lots, this was a real treat again. Being in the woods renews our souls. It was peaceful, and we didn't hear a sound.
Time to break out a beer for Steve, and we had our bear spray and canned air horn handy, just in case. Surrounding us were many, many bushes with currant berries. We knew we were in prime bear country where there was natural food available.
I opened up my ulu knife and cutting bowl. It was time to try it out. At home I have food grade mineral oil as a wooden cutting board conditioner... But for now I would just rub this one down with some olive oil to suffice.
This knife is really sharp, and the cutting bowl is really handy. Food doesn't slide around like on a flat cutting board. It stays within the concave area until you scrape it off into your pan or bowl after cutting.
I cut up some carrots, potatoes, ham and I already had some cut up celery in the freezer. I was going to make a nice big pot of creamy potato soup. I like those bags of Bear Creek mixes, and I add all this extra stuff to it. It makes a pretty big pot.
While I did that, Steve took out our two flexible solar panels. Each one is 100 watts. They are just enough to top off our Bluetti power station that replenishes our two coach batteries. The Starlink drains about 65 watts, so we use the "Blue Eddie" power station to run the Starlink as well.
Those two cheap little solar panels bring in quite a bit of power. This is a day with intermittent clouds crossing back and forth in front of the panels. And it's still pulling in 155 Watts.
When we are normally camping pulling our cargo trailer, the roof of the cargo trailer has a 320 watt solar panel mounted on the roof. We plug into that and never worry about power. But we opted to not take the cargo trailer with us on this long trip. So these two little cheap ones are doing quite well.
The little black flies were buzzing around, and Nick was having fun chasing them. If you watch the video below you can see him chomping at them in the air while sitting on my lap. What a silly little dog.
But then I had an idea... I took out our Thermacell which we usually use for mosquitoes. We lit it up and sure enough, it chased away all of the little black flies.
It was so comfortable sitting outside, I poured some tea into my mug, and we enjoyed the evening relaxing in our lawn chairs.
It was so relaxing and peacefully quiet there, we had a restful night without any interruptions at all.
The next morning, we took a little walk around the campground. These are the currant berries that we are seeing all around our campsite. I am sure the bears see them too!!
Everything was so lush and green, and I think after the rainfall from the last few days, things brightened up even more. Steve even pointed out the beautiful arrangement of moss and little plants around this stump. He told me I had to take a picture of it... See? He is becoming an artistic photographer in his own right. He just tells me to take the picture with my camera...
I saw this pretty stump with all these little tiny fungi growing on it. It looked so pretty, almost like lace.
Near our campsite was this funny looking bud ready to unfold. It had little spiky thorns all over it so we didn't dare touch it. It was quite tall, a couple feet at least. We weren't exactly sure what it was.
I took a far away photo and an up close photo and sent them off to my friend Linda in Tennessee. She has an app on her phone that helps identify plants.
ACK!!!!
THIS IS WHAT SHE FOUND OUT:
I guess we will just leave it alone now, won't we?
The second evening, we were starting some chicken on the grill. That's when Steve noticed we were having some trouble with our propane valve on the motorhome. It's not a normal propane valve, Winnebago has installed this crazy electronic valve system with switches both outside and inside. It's all electronic, and of course that's always subject to fail? It has a solenoid and a sensor and an electronic method of opening and closing the propane valve.
On our last motorhome, all we had to do was get out and physically turn a knob on the tank with our hand. Done.
But this motorhome has fancy switches both inside and out to automatically turn it on and off with each use--- which of course can go to heck.
And that is exactly what happened...
Without propane, we would lose all of our cooling ability in the refrigerator and frozen food in the freezer. On top of that, without propane, we would have no heat at night. What were we going to do?
It was about 7:30 in the evening. We decided that we needed to have heat and to save the large amount of food that is stashed in our freezer and refrigerator.
Remember, we are far out in the boonies and there's no place available to buy a bag of ice or to put food in a cooler.
Athough we had paid for a second night here at Byer's Lake, we would forfeit the night and head back down to Trapper Creek where we knew we could plug in electrically. Our refrigerator can run on either propane, or electric. We needed to get someplace to plug in. Our need for heat overnight, as the temps were dipping down in the low 40s, would be solved by running the rooftop heat pump system in our air conditioner.
We packed up, and hit the road back down to Trapper Creek. It was only 34 miles back down the highway. At least until we could solve our problem, we would have electricity for overnight.
The cost us an additional $35 to stay at Trapper Creek, but it also saved us a lot more in the way of food in our freezer and refrigerator.
Here is the link to the YouTube post that goes along with today's blog:
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