NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAY 57 - MOOSE ON THE LOOSE CAPTAIN COOK STATE PARK

So many well-meaning followers have contacted me about the Alaska wildfires. Thank you so much for being concerned!

The areas that we are traveling in right now are not affected. But that's not to say on our route back home, that we will not run into some difficulties. We will be watching the current Wildfire Maps and regularly checking with 511 to see about road conditions.

The remnants of fires from the past years are very obvious. Here are photos while we are driving along the Seward Highway. We can see the remnants of the Swan Lake Fire from a few years ago, and the destruction of all of the trees on both sides of the road for many, many miles. It destroyed over 170,000 acres!!!

We can see the renewed growth now of green foliage on the ground. But it will take many many years for the trees to replace themselves and for this to be a beautiful lush forest again.

As we drove along towards the towns of Sterling, Soldotna and Kenai, the rains kept on and the skies remained dreary and clouded. It was not going to be a pretty day for scenery, that's for sure.

We did a stock up shopping at the Walmart in Kenai and picked up a few things here and there at the Three Bears and a hardware store. Seeing as we were in town, it was time to catch up on all those extra little things we needed to do. Then we started to look for a campsite nearby.

Just north of the city of Kenai, we saw a state park up on the Cook Inlet. It was called Captain Cook State Park! We drove on up there about 20 miles out of town and found a nice campsite. It was pretty easy to find campsites with the lousy weather, nobody felt like camping? There were a couple people in tents on the other side of the loop, and one other pickup truck camper nearby. That was about it. 

We got all settled into our campsite and started putting away the laundry that we had done earlier in the morning.  It was so nice to replenish our stash of towels and washcloths with freshly washed ones. Not to mention refilling our drawers of underwear and socks! Lol

Nick helped us put clean sheets on the bed. He is quite a helper, can't you tell?

After we got settled in, we made a nice meal in the pressure cooker of roast beef and carrots and taters. Step by step it's in the video down below at the end of this blog.

After doing dishes, we decided to take a nice little walk around the campground loop. Of course we always carry our bear spray, and our canned air horn. We set out on our walk and we were admiring all the beautiful wildflowers that are abundant right now. I don't even know what these little ones are called. Does anyone know?

The wild roses are in bloom everywhere. Their perfume is so strong, and it smells like a beautiful florist shop as soon as we step out of the motorhome.

These little bluebells are so delicate and wave in the wind and move around on the slightest breeze.

So here we are, wandering along, admiring the flowers. Somewhere down in the woods right above the tip of my finger, we didn't know, but there was a big huge bull moose! We were just wandering along on the campground road, only two sites away from our motorhome.

When suddenly CRASH CRASH CRASH he came loping through the woods right across in front of us and leaped up into the woods on the other side of the campground loop!  Not sure why he was on the run? We could hear him crashing through the center of the loop over towards the people with the tents. Our hearts were pounding and we grabbed the dog and rushed back to the motorhome as quick as we could go. We could hear shouts and hollers as the moose crashed through the campsites with the tents and their dogs barking and everything was absolutely crazy for about 10 seconds over there.  

Then it was silent. We were safely inside of the motorhome and evidently the moose kept on going and they were safe over there too. 

Here is my heart rate on my Fitbit when we saw the moose! Lol

That was enough. 

We stayed inside for the rest of the night... Steve took out Nick for one last potty break, and stayed right in our own campsite. 

The campsites were located up on a hilly area quite a ways from the water. You really couldn't see the Cook Inlet from anywhere in the camping area.

So after we got packed up the next morning, we drove on down to the picnic area to observe the waters in the inlet. It's kind of like a big shallow bay that leads up past Anchorage and up into the Turnagain Arm. 

The tide was out so we could see a broad expanse of the exposed floor after the tide had crawled out.

I told Steve that it was like seeing the terrain that only the fish see. Like the "secret world" under the sea.

We didn't want to walk down there, it gets kind of mushy and gooey. There are spots that it can actually suck your boots down in or you can get stuck. So it's best to stay up on the sturdy shoreline and don't go wandering in places where you could get into a dangerous situation.

It was kind of rainy and dreary, we decided to drive down further on the Kenai Peninsula along the shoreline. We were looking for some sunshine and a better place to hang out. We drove all the way down to the Kasilof Special Use Area where there's a beach that is known for free camping.  It's really just a parking lot. But we found a nice spot, everyone was spaced out every other parking spot so it made for a comfortable place to camp for the night. Or so we thought???

See this on the back of the motorhome next to us? This is a huge dipping net for Salmon.  When the salmon season starts (unknown to us it was the very next morning!) Alaskan residents are allowed to take these huge nets and catch salmon as they swim upstream to spawn. It's a huge event and every resident is allowed to get 25 salmon each, and 10 more per person in their household. 

We didn't know about the opening of the season the next morning, we just knew that there were only about 20 campers in the lot, and we were quite comfortable. We had a beautiful view out our side window. We settled in for the day and we were happy to have sunshine again.

We even took a nap with the soft salty sea breeze drifting in through the windows. It was very comfortable and we were enjoying ourselves.

We took a walk around the little Harbor and beach area, and enjoyed the sights and the sounds of being "sea side" on the Cook Inlet.  These are some old unused huge floating buoys for marking channels through the inlet, or mooring up to with larger boats that can't make it to the shore.

We saw plenty of eagles flying around, as they are very prolific in the area along the water's edge. They know the salmon are coming too...

I captured a few here and there with my camera, trying to follow them with the video camera is pretty hard. But it was enjoyable and I got some better pictures the next day at another spot that I will post in the next blog.

Of course there are seagulls all over the place too. They are quite the scavengers. They are pretty brave, they came right up to the camper looking to see if we had anything good for them. They are used to getting fed.

We looked across the inlet over towards the row of volcanoes along the other shore. We saw some strange cloud formations coming across the water. At first I was worried it was volcanic steam and ash!

But no, it was just some weird mist rolling in across the water. It must have had something to do with the change in temperatures. It was like a low rolling cloud with clear sky above. A very very strange phenomenon. We could feel the dampness coming in on the air all of a sudden hitting us like a brick wall.

Instantly, the warmth of the sunshine was gone and we could feel the salty air and damp breezes coming across from the west. This whole embankment of a foggy cloud rolled right along the surface of the water.  We couldn't even see the rows of mountains and volcanoes on the other shore anymore. Everything was covered by this mist.

Then behind that rolled in some heavy heavy dark clouds. I thought we were due for a big storm. It looked really scary and threatening across the water.

Within an hour, it all blew away and we had blue sky again! We didn't even get any drops of rain. It's like it all absorbed up into the drier air above us and was gone???

Now the skyline across the way was all big puffy white clouds again. That was such a strange event.

By evening, after supper time, we noticed more vehicles coming into the lot. Quite a few drove right out to the beach and positioned themselves in optimum spots for the upcoming salmon run the next morning. Others were positioning themselves in the parking lot. 

Before we knew it, all of the single spaces separating each motorhome we're now getting filled with other people's RVs. One couple was trying so hard to back their big motorhome in between us and the next person. They were literally within inches of our side view mirrors. They jiggled and juggled back and forth five or six times to finally get in. Once they were parked in right tight against us, their door could not even open because our door was directly across from them! They had to start up and move their motorhome back about 3 ft to stagger our doors. This was way too close! 

On the other side of us, the people in the trailer next to us parked their extra vehicle right up tight against our motorhome. As they got out of their vehicle doors, they could not even open them all of the way. They were within inches of our rig and had to literally rub their bodies and their jackets against our motorhome to get around and out of their vehicle. We didn't want our paint scratched or get dings from opening and shutting truck doors!  

It was time to move on... 

We would have loved to stay and watch the fishing the next morning but it was beginning to turn into a carnival-like atmosphere. 

People were shouting and hollering, unloading all of their gear (and beer) and people were full of excitement for the upcoming event. This is an annual thing, and the locals anticipate their ritual to fill their freezers. The music and the drinking and the fires on the beach were starting. This was not going to be a fun place for us to be...

It was time for us to pack up and get moving. 

I didn't even take pics, we just started up our engine and pulled out as fast as we could.

Some lucky person was going to get a prime spot where when we vacated our position, right at the end of the parking lot near the beach.

I did find a video clip of the next day, of the people enjoying themselves exactly right out the back side of where we were parked. Here is the link to it below: 

My oh my, what a circus!!! 

We drove only a few miles further out of the special use area and found a nice quiet campground called Johnson Lake Rec area.  It was peaceful and quiet, with only a few campers. We settled in for the night and got a good night's sleep.

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

60 miles traveled today 

4,885 miles traveled so far