NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAYS 33 & 34 - SQUIRREL CREEK REC AREA

Here we are at Squirrel Creek Rec Area, between Valdez and Glenallen. What a wonderful beautiful campsite! 

This has really become our favorite site (so far) on our entire trip. We had cruised through here just checking out this campground before going down to Valdez. So on the way back we kind of knew exactly which campsite we wanted. We were really happy to pull in and only find two other campers in the park, in another loop further away. Yes, we got our site!

Here is the link to their website:

https://dnr.alaska.gov/parks/aspunits/matsu/squircksrs.htm

Keep in mind, this is rustic camping. No hookups. There is an old fashioned water pump, but I cannot tell you that type of quality of water that comes out of it. We have about 35 gallons of freshwater on board so we don't need to use that.

There are outhouses and trash bins. That's about it. But that's not why we are here. Not for the amenities. We are here for the view! My oh my, "What-a-View" it is!  (did you see what I did there?)

Peaceful, tranquil, a mountain in the background and a quiet little pond right outside the motorhome door. Surrounded by tall pine trees and chirping birds, with fish splashing around along the shore, spawning among the rocks.

Over to one side, we see a beaver lodge. We didn't see any beavers but a couple times we heard a slap that might have been one of them giving a warning with their tail. 

Can you imagine waking up, pulling up the window shade, and looking out at this? That's exactly what we are doing for 2 days here.  

The water was smooth as glass in the morning. There were some ducks and a loon diving up and down in the water.

After so many days of traveling, and seeing lots of people, this was a beautiful respite. This is what I was looking for....

We didn't do an awful lot of activities. We enjoyed the view, and took a few walks with silly little Nicholas.  He is enjoying all of the million of different places he can stick his nose to sniff. Doggy Heaven.

After the last few rain-filled days, we were really enjoying this sunshine. It warmed us down to the bones even though the temperatures didn't get much above 60. I sat by the shore on a rock and totally took in the surroundings.

It was great to sit back and rest and recoup after so many different days of travel and so many different places. It was pretty quiet in the campground. Once in a while you heard noise from by the highway, but mostly it was quiet and peaceful.

Steve got out the binoculars to check out the surrounding edges of the water. You never know what you are going to see.

All around us, Springtime was bursting into action. We saw clumps of these beautiful little purple flowers. They're kind of like a little hyacinth looking flower. There were also wild roses scattered here and there in the woods that we could smell. Everything was coming into bloom.

Yep, we utilized our selfie stick as we were walking around doing some video and photography. We are such silly little dorks.  But we had to send photos home to our kids and grandkids to prove that we were having a great time!!  (We do miss them).

It has been great to relax a little bit, and get back into the woods that we are used to. This is our kind of camping, to be out in the rustic campsites like this.

Listening to the birds in the morning, all doing their spring singing...

A family came to one of the other campsites and brought in a little paddle boat. There are signs saying that this is very steep drop off and deep water right here. But they hopped in that little paddle boat, the father and son went fishing. They paddled here and there around this little pond area. I think they were catching fish left and right. Another family came down along the shore with their little toddler. He was so thrilled with all the fish that his Daddy was catching. 

Because of the spawning trout along the shoreline, among the rocks, I went down to the waters edge with my GoPro camera.  It is able to go underwater, so I set it up facing in the opposite direction so I could dip down into the water.  It tended to scare the fish away, But I did manage to film five large trout in the background swimming together. It's on the video in the You Tube link below at the end of this blog.

As we looked across the smooth glassy surface of the water, every now and then a fish would ripple along the surface or even jump in the air. I filmed a little bit of that too.

Nicholas is enjoying the quiet walks around the campground. We're not seeing any wildlife, but we did find moose scat only about 30 ft from the camper by the canoe launch. So we know they are around. We carry our bear spray and I also carry a canned compressed air horn, the kind people use to signal danger from a boat.

We had a great signal with our Starlink. I set up my second tablet laptop on top of the first laptop. So this was my little office area on the passenger side of the cockpit. Can you imagine having this as your office?

The side windows and the front windshield had a wonderful view. There's some reflection on the front that I couldn't get rid of for the photo. But can you imagine going to work at an office like this? What a great way to work from "home"! 

This silly little bird popped up on the windshield wiper and had to take a look at me to see what I was doing. He cocked his little head to one side and was trying to figure out why I was inside and he was outside. What a friendly little guy. I don't know what species of bird he was. But he sure wasn't afraid of me.

In yesterday's blog, I posted about the beautiful big hunk of sockeye salmon we had purchased in Valdez. We decided to cut off half of it and put the rest in the freezer. Steve set up the grill out on the picnic table and proceeded to make a wonderful slab of grilled salmon with our harvest blend seasoning.  We have a wire rack that he can suspend the salmon slab in and flip it over and back again. You can see how he cooked it on the YouTube link below. 

While he was doing that, I made mashed potatoes and steamed veggies to go along with it.  Oh my, who needs gourmet restaurants when we can cook on the road?

The sun was going down and the sparkles on the water were reflecting inside of the windows of the motorhome. They made little sparkly lights dancing around on the ceiling inside. What a wonderful light show.

Remember, we are in the "Land of the Midnight Sun" and it stays bright outside for quite a while. The photo below was taken I think around 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. just as the sun was going over the edge of the mountains.

Even at midnight it's still pretty light outside. We put our Reflectix pieces in all of the windows. It's like silvery bubble wrap that blocks the light as well as assists with heat loss through our single pane windows. It enables us to sleep later in the morning because the sun is up by about 4:00 a.m. already. 

We decided to stay here at Squirrel Creek for 2 days before moving on to McCarthy. Stay tuned...

Here is the video that goes with today's blog post: 

96 miles traveled today

3,828 miles traveled so far