NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAYS 47 & 48 - TURNAGAIN ARM, SEWARD HIGHWAY AND BIRD CREEK

We left Eklutna Lake after topping off our freshwater tank before leaving the park.  They didn't have a dump station, so we will take care of that at the next place we find. 

Now it was necessary to zoom through Anchorage as fast as we zoomed through Wasilla. Again, the highway goes through the middle of the town. There are no bypasses. We really prefer nice quiet backcountry roads and don't even like driving on highways. But we do what we got to do to get to where we want to go...

Steve did see a bakery alongside the road, and made a quick u-turn to pull into the lot and make a purchase of some big huge cinnamon rolls. That is one of his favorites...

Can't you tell?

We made our way through Anchorage and headed out south of town. Here was the beginnings of the Turnagain Arm. It's a long shallow bay that is affected by the tides. The tides are as low as 1 ft below sea level and rise up to 33 ft above!

It was a beautiful sunny day and we were not fighting too much traffic once we got south of Anchorage.

There was a little bit of road work on an opposite bridge, so once that's done it should open up the traffic flow even better down to the Kenai Peninsula

The Turnigan Arm is a long channel of water snuggled in between two high rows of mountains.

Whales are known to come up into the waters after fish, and there are plenty of viewing spots to pull out and look over the water.

I kept snapping photo after photo of how beautiful this was, I think I have 175 photos to choose just a few for this blog! Lol

There's a set of railroad tracks between the road and the water that I snapped photos as high as I could. But you get the idea that it's a main route to get down to Seward and the Kenai Peninsula. So railroad tracks are necessary too.

The highway itself appears to have been carved right into the sides of the mountains to make a ledge to travel on. I guess it's a lot better than having to travel in a boat?

We drove part way down and decided to stop at a place called Bird Creek Rec Area. I kept getting it confused with Bird Point, which is just a little bit further down the road.  Bird Creek is the one with campsites. Bird Point is just a lookout area. There was a sign at the entry that said all the sites were occupied. But we had to drive through anyhow to loop around at the end to come out. The host had just driven up next to us in his truck and said "campsite number 9 is open!" 

Wow! Lucky us!!! We pulled right in and paid our fee. It was $20 a night for a rustic site, but there were pit toilets and picnic tables and fire rings. What was nice is that the shrubbery around us protected us from the blasting wind directly off the ocean inlet.

It honestly felt like we were in a "Beach House". We had all of the windows open and it was sunny and warm. We were walking around in our bare feet and t-shirts and shorts. The salty sea air was lightly blowing around us on a gentle breeze, mainly because of the protection of the shrubbery around us.  We could hear the birds in the bushes as well as the seagulls out on the water. It really felt like we were at an ocean side retreat.

We were a little bit unlevel in the front so we drove up on a couple of our leveling blocks and extended our Bigfoot Levelers. That made us rock solid and comfortable. If the RV is not level, it can cause hot spots in the tubing behind the propane refrigerator equipment. Then it can burn through the copper piping and leak and then you need to replace the entire fridge. So we always try to be as level as we can.

The temperatures were increasing even up in Alaska. Fairbanks was going to have heat index warnings in the '80s or up to maybe even 90°! 

Where we were at, they said it was only going to remain in the mid-70s. The sun was really, really warm and was shining down on the rig. It was quite hot inside because of the dark roof and sides of our motorhome. We weren't parked in the shade, so it was quite warm. 

We can always close up the windows and fire up the generator to run the air conditioning if we need to. It makes it more comfortable for taking a nap...

Nick thinks so too....

The setting sun to the west was so pretty with the wispy clouds having a tinge of pink as it went down. Keep in mind, this is Alaska. The sun is going down at midnight. These photos were taken I think at 11:50. With summer solstice coming, soon it will be after midnight before the sun sets. The sky remains lit all night long like dusk.

The mountains look dark in front of the sun as it's going down...

And it's only a few hours before they are lit up from the sun coming up again!!!

The sun is up and bright by 4:00 a.m.!

To block out the daylight, We have blackout roller shades on some of the windows.  We also put layers of cut out Reflectix in each window and in our skylights. It really helps to keep the motorhome darkened enough that we can sleep until at least 7 or 8 a.m. 

It was so relaxing here, we decided to stay two days. We really didn't do much of anything other than lay around, work on videos, watch some Roku shows and take it easy. Sometimes that's what vacation is about --- instead of running around to see all of the sights.

The second morning, we decided to take a walk down the trail. We figured somewhere we could get to see the water on the other side of the railroad tracks. We're looking to watch the tide go up and down on the Turnagain Arm.

We took the trail, but it was all pretty wooded and thick. The only spots that you could glimpse the water was part of a pretty high cliff. So we didn't dare go any closer.

Oh well, we weren't getting a big long nature hike. But we really didn't need to either. We knew we would be driving further on down and looking at some more scenery at the edge of the inlet later that day. So instead we turn around and went back to the motorhome and made a nice breakfast.

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

64 miles travel today 

4,594 miles so far