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

NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAY 32 - FISH HATCHERY, VALDEZ HARBOR AND HEADING NORTH AGAIN

We are in the Valdez area, over at Allison Point across from the town of Valdez.  This little campsite that stretches along the road is run by the army base next door, Fort Greeley. 

Although it was sunny the evening before, in the morning it was rainy and damp and foggy. We had plans to move on, so we packed up in the damp weather and got ready to head back towards town.

Even in the dreary cloudy rain covered skies, The terrain is still very beautiful and it's rugged landscape.

As we headed back towards town, we swung into the parking lot at the Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery.  It is known for seeing sea lions and otters and an occasional bear.

But we were unlucky, all we saw were these crazy noisy seagulls. They were gathering for a local convention, and were quite vocal about their gathering.

The tide was out. This whole area that is open marshy muck had been covered with water the day before. 

So this is why the bears can walk around in the bay and grab the salmon heading up to the river. It's shallow for a long, long way out. Seeing it with the tide out makes sense now.

We drove it back into Valdez to run a couple errands and do a little touristy look around now that it wasn't raining.  We found available parking right in the harbor parking lot.  It was a quiet morning downtown and there was nobody around.

We stopped here at the Easy Freeze fish shop and charter service. We were met with a very friendly owner and his two adorable little dogs. They sell fresh fish, and we picked up a big slab of salmon and a slab of halibut. We have never tried halibut before, so this is going to be new to us. He even shared recipes with us and a website to go to for even more ideas on cooking the fish. We cut the salmon in half and cooked up one side of it that night, (totally melt in your mouth delicious!) but the rest of it I managed to get into the freezer along with the halibut.

Next door to the Easy Freeze is a Radio Shack. I kid you not, we saw three or four different towns with Radio Shack stores!! I suppose with so many people relying on various communication devices and having difficulty to access things being shipped up from the lower 48, these stores are still in business. A lot of the charter boats and fishermen rely on CB radios or walkie talkie systems. There really aren't any cell towers once you move beyond a certain point of any residential area. So unless you have a satellite system or Starlink, you need to rely on other forms of communication.

We were trying to solve my microphone problem for my GoPros. We tried a different one that also did not work. I did some research and it looks like I need to replace my other wireless mics with maybe a Rode system from Best Buy.  The clerk was very helpful and let me return the other microphone. And then he helped me find a hub device that allows me to use multiple items with my tablet from the one single C connection port that it only has on one side.  

So once we got our errands done, it was time to wander around the harbor a little bit.

We were greeted with this large sign...

As I had said, the tide was low. So all the boats are tied to floating piers. Everything is down low at this time but as the tide comes in everything rises up. Can you imagine it rising up to the tops of all those gray poles with the white tips? That's how high it comes!

There are large fishing nets that are piled up on some of the trawlers. These are the floats that help keep the edges of the nets up as they drag them along to snag fish.

  

I thought this boat was pretty attractive. I told Steve if I was going to own a boat, this is the boat I would own. I think it's because the colors match our house. lol

These boats are all in dry dock in the marina parking lot. I would imagine they are all either in for repairs or because they don't have a paid site for the summer at one of the docks? We walked around them a little bit, admiring all the different types and sizes and levels of maintenance and care on each one.

No, we are not going to get a boat. 

I told Steve that he is the Captain of the Winnebago View Ship and we sail the concrete seas...

We did look at this ledger board of the ongoing fishing derby. I can not imagine 140 lb halibut! They are a big flat fish that we are told are a real bugger to haul in. It's like trying to pull a piece of plywood through the water on a string! 

There weren't any fish being cleaned while we were there. But there is a big community fish cleaning area with stainless steel tracks and food grade nylon cutting boards. Overhead faucets make it easy to grab a hose and rinse what you're doing. Once you're done cleaning your fish, all the guts go down this channel onto a ramp that leads to the water. Not many of those guts reach the water... Because these guys hang out and watch for anything coming down the channel.

He wants to know why we aren't cleaning any fish???

We walked down closer by the boats. This is how steep the ramp is at low tide. At high tide it's almost level horizontally.

We had inquired about one of the wildlife watching cruises, Steve looked into the Lulu Bell. But he gets so seasick as soon as he's in a boat that it really would not be a fun adventure for him. He had to live on Dramamine when he took an Inland Passage Alaskan Cruise with his dad and brother some years back. Even going out on Lake Michigan makes his stomach start rolling. So we decided to just enjoy it from the shore.

It's amazing that a boat of this size can go out in those wild open seas and catch fish in the nets. I guess there are some TV shows on the Discovery Channel about these types of boats and the struggles they go through. What a way to make a living?

We headed out of Valdez with our freezer packed tight with our fish and a full tank of fuel and fresh water. It was time to get moving back up through the Keystone Canyon and Thompson Pass. 

We had considered hopping on a ferry from Valdez over to Whittier. But then we decided we wanted to go see McCarthy and the Kennicott Mine which were in the opposite direction. We will catch Whittier later when we get over to the Kenai Peninsula.

So back up through the Keystone Canyon we went. It was so nice to see the beautiful waterfalls again. This time coming from the opposite angle we could see things from a different view.

We wished it had been a sunnier day for photos, but it was pretty wet and windy and drizzly.  We only snapped a few from the window as we passed. We didn't even get out this time or walk around. We had done that on the way down a few days before.

We headed up up up in elevation and reached up into the beginnings of Thompson Pass.  Our ears were popping and we were starting to see snow everywhere. It was such a drastic change from the beautiful greenery and flowers we had in Valdez.

A few bits of blue sky poked through here and there as we got up into the pass.  Perhaps the day was not going to be rainy all of the while?

At the height of the pass, everything was blanketed in a thick layer of snow. The craggy rocks poking out had a purplish hue. There was no green to be seen...

It's like another world up there, like a space moonscape terrain. There's nothing identifiable in the way of trees or shrubs. Just rocks and snow.

I cannot imagine early explorers trudging through this and still finding a way to exist. I know modern mountain climbers have things like windproof tents and small compact heaters as well as heated vests and socks and mitts. But how did they do it in the old days?

As we moved further on through the past the sun was peeking out more and more. We were seeing a lot more that vivid blue sky. Perhaps the day was not a waste after all.

4 or 5 days earlier on our way down through the pass, we had first stopped at a little campground near Kenny Lake. It was called Squirrel Creek Rec site. We had driven through just to scope it out and see if maybe it would be a possibility on the way back. I had already picked out my favorite campsite in my heart, and had hoped it would be empty on our way back through. 

It was!

What a treat! This has become our absolutely most favorite campsite (so far) of our entire trip!

Stay tuned for the next blog to learn more. 

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

96 Miles traveled today

3,828 Miles traveled so far

NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - 31 DAYS - ONE MONTH BUDGET RECAP

 We have now been on the road for 31 days.  It is time to talk about BUDGET!

We get a lot of questions about what it costs to travel or what type of prices are we paying for things. Some people want to know how much things specifically cost in Alaska. Some people must imagine that we are mega-rich and can afford to just go willy-nilly all over the place. That isn't so. We stick to a pretty tight budget. So here are our numbers for the past 31 days...

FUEL 

$800 budget per month

$1,118.45 actually spent 

For fuel we have gone over budget. But that's because we've traveled almost 4,000 mi of our entire 9,000 mi trip for 4 months. We had budgeted $4,000 for our total trip. Because we've done so much traveling in the first month, we expected to go over budget. But now for the next two months we should be way under that amount as we just travel around within the state of Alaska and not such long distances.

We are averaging 14.7 miles per gallon with the diesel engine in our motorhome. The most expensive fuel we paid for was $6.26 a gallon at Bucking Horse River Canada.

KEEP IN MIND THAT ALL PRICES OF CANADIAN DOLLARS SPENT ARE CONVERTED OVER TO US CURRENCY AS WELL AS LITERS TO GALLONS FOR THESE FIGURES. 

OUR AMERICAN EXPRESS CREDIT CARD DOES THE EXCHANGE RATE AUTOMATICALLY FOR US

Anytime we pull up to a fuel station that's under $5 a gallon, we feel we're doing okay under budget. 

CAMPING

$750 budget per month

$671 actually spent

We have done a variety of camping over the last 31 days. Two nights were free at Walmart. Five nights were free at campsites that do not collect a fee. The other 24 nights were various prices. The highest one was recently at Valdez for $65 a night. The cheapest one was $12.91 after conversion at Million Dollar Falls in Canada. 

Most of our camping is boondocking or rustic type camping without any hookups. We have solar, Bluetti power station to supplement batteries, and holding tanks for fresh and waste water.

Our entire camping budget over the trip is at $3,000 which comes out to approximately $25 a day. So anytime we find a place to camp under $25, or free, it helps our budget when we decide to splurge a little bit more on an expensive place.

GROCERIES 

$400 a month budget

$224 actually spent

Groceries is kind of a tough one because we literally cleared out our pantry and freezer and fridge before we left home. So for the first month we did use a lot of groceries that we had brought along with us. The only things we were picking up were fresh produce, milk, eggs, bread etc. Various banned things we could not take over the border, so we had to replenish once we got into Canada. And then again crossing back into the United States at Alaska (twice) we also had to use up things prior to crossing the border. So each time we did have to stop at a store to replenish items, especially things like eggs and fresh vegetables. 

But again, it's hard to budget the food because right now at this given point I probably have 15 or 16 meals worth of meat in the freezer leading us into the second month. So it's kind of an ambiguous number. If we were at home we would be spending and shopping approximately the same way too. When you see a sale you stock up. You don't necessarily use it in that particular month. But with the extra baskets up overhead in our bunk holding additional dry goods and canned goods, we don't need to purchase all that much at the stores. 

I think the highest amounts that we paid in the store were $13 a pound for a beef roast, and about $6 a dozen for eggs. I think I paid over $2 a pound for a single banana and $4.50 for a loaf of cheap bread. The grocery store prices really didn't shock us on the types of things we buy. A few of the smaller mom and pop shops are higher in prices, but they have to because it cost them so much to have items transported to their shop. But all in all, it really isn't bad. We are way under budget for the month.

PROPANE

$128 actually spent. 

We really didn't budget for propane because we weren't sure of our actual usage. The biggest drain on the propane of course is the propane furnace. During the month of May we are using the furnace more. But during the months of June, July and August it will probably be minimal. The propane is also used for our refrigerator, water heater, and our cooking stove and oven in the motorhome.  We started off with a full tank of propane so it's kind of hard to figure what we've actually used in the entire month. Our motorhome has a large propane tank built in (13 gal / 55 lb) so it's not like we are refilling little barbecue tanks like some travel trailers or pickup campers use. 

Refilling propane at small fuel stations out in the middle of nowhere is going to be a higher price per liquid gallon then filling in a larger city at a bulk supplier. So again, this price is really going to vary depending on where we are when we need to be refilled.  You can't really shop around per price. You refill when you need it when it's available. We have paid between $2.50 and $4.15 a liquid gallon.

LAUNDROMAT

$60 budgeted

$39 actually spent

We have done laundry three times in the last 4 weeks. We really hate going to city/public laundromats. Mostly the ones we used are just the coin ops located at some of the campgrounds we have stopped at. We started out with $100 in rolled coins and we will see what we have at the end of the trip.

RESTAURANTS

Nothing budgeted. 

$47.20 actually spent

Both Steve and I rarely like go to restaurants. We really prefer to cook our own food. The only "restaurant" food we bought was a pizza at Godfather's in northern Minnesota. The other two expenses were cinnamon rolls at both Tetsa River Lodge (which were fantastic!) and a small bakery in Skagway.  

ROADSIDE INSURANCE

Our American Family automobile policy for the motorhome has excellent roadside assistance and windshield glass breakage. In the past years with our other motorhome, we have had to make claims and never had a problem. We know it's great coverage. And we do carry it year-round so it really didn't add to our trip. We made sure in advance that we had out of the country coverage from our agent already included in our policy, and a special insurance card was mailed to us prior to leaving to show we do have coverage in Canada in case of an accident or a claim.

But we did also purchase an additional policy from CoachNet. It is good for one year. It cost $249. Not only is it roadside assistance, which covers us also for tire changing, fuel replacement if we run out, locksmith, and of course towing. But in addition to that it also includes a medivac policy that if you are hospitalized and wish to return home they will transport you and your partner as well as have someone return your RV back to your home. So we felt it was good to pick this up as an additional coverage, just in case.

INTERNET/CELL PHONE

We really didn't have this in the budget because we already pay it whether we are home or on the road. Our cell phone plans are $25 for Steve's Visible phone, which gets boosted up to $40 when we leave the country per month. 

My cell phone is covered under our children's network as a family plan, So there is no additional cost there whether I am traveling or at home.

Our internet is through Starlink, which runs $165 a month. We have the Gen 3 unit which we keep on a post at home. When we leave to travel we telescope the post down and remove the unit. We take it along in the motorhome where it resides up in our skylight. It functions while we are enroute moving down the road. If we are parked under trees, we can take it out and set it on a long cord in an open area.  Either way, we pay for our internet if we were home or on the road so it's part of our regular household budget. Not really part of our special traveling budget. But it's how we handle internet when we are traveling.

TOLLS/TRAVEL

We haven't had any toll roads on this trip, but we did splurge on taking the ferry with the motorhome on board from Skagway to Haines. The total cost was $187 which included the 2 passenger fares, and the motorhome rate for 26 ft. It saved us 400+ miles in travel going around by land, so that is kind of a trade off of costs. Plus, it was fun!

MISCELLANEOUS

We had a few miscellaneous expenses pop up. 

One of them is my wireless microphones. They went to heck and aren't working properly. I have a backup corded Purple Panda mic that I've been using but it's not reliable. So we stopped and bought an additional one at a Radio Shack. (Yes we have seen four Radio Shack stores in Alaska!) It turns out it doesn't work with either of my GoPro cameras. So we returned it but also we bought a USB/C hub for my laptop hookups. That was $39.

I might invest in some cordless mics when we reach Palmer or Anchorage at Best Buy. They have the Rode brand which are compatible with the GoPros. They run $150 to $200! But that would be something I would have long after we are done traveling. So I'm not sure if it needs to go in the budget or not.

Before we left, we had looked at refill kits for the small 1 lb cylinders for our portable grill, gas camping light, or small Coleman catalytic heater. Instead of throwing away the green cylinders and buying new ones each time, Steve has been refilling them with a little adapter device. But the temperatures have to be exactly right and we have to put these 1 lb cylinders in the freezer to be able to refill them in a couple hours. We really just don't even have the freezer space! Plus the after a few refills they don't refill adequately anymore. 

So we had looked at a refill kit made by Mr Heater and cylinders that are specifically made to be refilled over and over again.  We were thinking of ordering them from Amazon but they would not have arrived in time for this trip. Imagine our surprise when we saw the refill kit and the additional cylinders for sale at Three Bears in Tok. They were only $2 more than what Amazon would have charged us. So Steve invested $32 in the kit and $20 each for the refillable bottles. Total cost $72. 

Here are the links to the ones on Amazon that we were going to purchase: 

Mr. Heater Propane Refill Kit for Fuel Keg 1 lb. / 16 oz. Refillable Propane Tank 

https://a.co/d/jegNtV4​

 MR HEATER FUEL KEG REFILLABLE BOTTLES: 

https://a.co/d/1BBuSRe​

At about every 2500 miles of travel Steve needs to add a 2.5 gallon jug of DEF fluid to the engine. This is supplementing the diesel emissions with exhaust requirements for our Mercedes engine. He bought a jug at a Canadian Tire Store of a good quality brand that was $41.42 Canadian which converts over to $29.44 US. We expect we will probably be buying two or three more jugs of this while we are traveling for 4 months. 

I did do a splurge of buying myself some gorgeous mukluks made by the Manitobah Indigenous crafters. But because this is kind of a piece of clothing that I will use for years, and a souvenir for myself, I did not really add it into the budget. 

I did splurge on two pieces of beautiful Alaskan quilting fabric and a hand carved seam ripper in Skagway for $39.

BACK HOME EXPENSES

Of course our household budget still has the same costs back at home. We are paying the security camera costs, the electric bill, the water bill, and house insurance and taxes. Those are not included in our traveling budget because we would be paying them anyhow.

So here is the grand total of what we spent over the last 31 days 

$2,386.85

divided by 31 days 

comes out to $76.99 per day

for the memories, 

that is 

PRICELESS!