A Quick Trip to Virginia

Sparky wanted to see her daughter in Virginia......After two weeks at home, after returning from Alaska, Sparky was ready to go again, trying to get out of the FL heat...HA! It was just as hot in Virginia as it was back in Bradenton, but she still had fun....Four days went by so fast! Kelly has a sweetheart of a dog, Moxie, and she is the best behaved dog ever...

The first full day, Sparky went on a bike ride on the Washington and Old Dominion bike trail, one of those rails-to-trails she loves. Sparky, Jr., (Kelly) had work to do, so it was a solo bike ride in the morning....Kelly lives in a beautiful area, full of trails and forested areas with plenty of hiking available...But it was too hot for that, so a bike ride sufficed...

The Washington Old Dominion Trail is 45 miles of paved, 9 foot wide asphalt with a painted yellow center line. It follows power lines overhead for much of the way, which always makes Sparky wonder if that could be hazardous to your health over a long period of time. Just 'cuz she worries about stuff like that. But it's beautiful.....Parts of it are very shady.....And there are long parts out in the open as well....Parts of the trail run through busy town centers, with busy street crossings, and other parts you can go for miles and not see as much city life.

There's a horse path alongside for much of the trail as well, so you see signs like this:

But Sparky didn't see any horse riders out today......She did see a fawn...Which was quite surprising as there were lots of residential and business areas right along side this portion of the trail.

There are lots of stopping points along the way for food and drink. Sparky's favorite is the Carolina Brothers Pit BBQ restaurant which has THE best pulled pork sandwich, but when she went by it, they weren't open yet. Phooey! It's a popular stop for riders along the trail. The last time Sparky was here, there were TONS of riders lined up and waiting outside for tables. It's that good!

There are candy shops, taverns, and plenty of rest stops and cute little town stops along the way....In Herndon, there's a terrific bike shop where you can rent bikes, but it's a little on the pricey side, 40.00 for four hours, but hey, it's near D.C. It's called the Green Lizard Cycling Shop and they are terrific! They also have terrific smoothies and by the time the weekend was over, Sparky had had three of them. Sparky stopped plenty of times to take photos of things that caught her eye, like this giant dandelion, a lowly weed, but she thought it was beautiful!

On the weekend, we went to a farmer's market....It was terrific! Sparky had fun taking photos of all the veggies and the flowers...

Sparky, Jr. just kind of rolled her eyes. What do you do with all those veggie photos? Delete 'em later....But Sparky is very into textures and filters that other people use these days, so who knows? Maybe she will dabble in digital arts more....She only has 3,000+ photos on her computer...That's not too bad, is it? :-)

The rest of the weekend....We went to a Washington Nationals baseball game with a bunch of twenty somethings from a local brewery....They were already drinking heavily by the time they got on the bus. That was quite an initiation for Sparky after living in a golfing community of 80+ year olds for three years. At the time, we were both thinking, "What WERE WE THINKING?" but it turned out ok...kinda amusing, actually. A couple of the people on the bus weren't at the ball game, as far as we could tell, we think they spent a lot of time in the bathroom, missing a great game. What a terrific stadium! Lots of cool music and sound and light effects. Kelly made friends with a neighbor baseball fan who was some sort of scientist/brewing engineer (?) for a brewing company who was great company during the game. She had fun. Sparky had fun, too, and she doesn't even like baseball all that much! It was raining hard when we got there, and then it quit, and a rainbow graced the park....And the Nationals won! Sparky enjoyed the game very much...and the food! Lots of choices!

Another bike ride, the next day, this time Sparky and daughter together...Yay! It was beautiful...We went past a city or county park, not sure which, and off to the side, you had to be looking, was the most beautiful marsh FULL of lotus flowers...Oh, my gosh, HUNDREDS of them! One of the most beautiful nature scenes Sparky has ever seen.....We did 16 miles together...It was awesome!

"CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS!??? WOW!"

Sparky's last day visiting her daughter was a quiet Sunday...We got some Duck Donuts, which are by far, the VERY BEST DONUTS EVER! because they make them from scratch, while you wait. Cake donuts... And they are well worth waiting for, warm, fresh out of the oven. YUM!

We binge watched "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries" on Netflix together, what a great show! Takes place in the twenties or thirties, not sure which, strong female lead..It's a cute show.......Too soon, it was time for Sparky to leave....Time to get back to Eldy, who was holding down the fort back home, and that wonderful Florida summer weather..   HA! but really, it's been abnormally hot all over the US, so Sparky doesn't whine as much as she used to...(Really? says an incredulous E. You could have fooled me...haha, just kidding...she's been pretty good lately, folks, not complaining as much.)

Sparky says, "It was a fabulous visit, we had some great meals, some great exercise, and it's always wonderful to see my girls....I miss them very much, they are so far away, both of them!"

OK, one last photo from the lotus marsh....

Next up, a lifeguard contest at Siesta Key Beach! Hot bodies, galore! Bet THAT got everybody's attention..(Sure got mine! laughs E.) He had to play golf and missed it...You might have to wait a few days, Sparky is crafting up a storm, but check back and see us soon...More fabulous nature happening in Bradenton, FL, too! Bye......

Day 8, 9 Time to Head Home

One last stop....We spent our last night in Alaska at Cabelas, the chain sporting goods store, in Anchorage...BEAUTIFUL store....they have dry camping slots available, quite a few as a matter of fact, for no charge, so we took advantage of that. Thank you, Cabelas! The grounds outside were gorgeous....

The inside of Cabelas was filled with the usual taxidermy...Two fighting moose as you come in the store, it was a really big store as many Cabelas are...And this fireplace was so fabulous! Checkers games on tables in front of it.. Faux leather sitting chairs...

Eldy made himself right at home....

Need bear spray? Cabelas has it. It's expensive!

There was a terrific Mexican restaurant in the shopping center next to Cabelas..It was called Xalos Mexican Restaurant....Delish! And very pretty inside...The food was excellent!

Norton's Seafood Restaurant at airport

We had a good night's sleep at Cabelas...And were ready to roll the next morning. We had to fill our tanks and come back with everything topped off. We found a Holiday gas station in Anchorage, which accommodated us on everything for no extra charges. Some of the stations provide water to fill your tanks, so we called around first to make sure we could get it all done in one place.  We refueled, dumped our tanks, filled the freshwater tank and gassed up to return the motorhome back to its lot.

After dropping off the motorhome, (sniff, sniff) it was off to the airport.....We had the entire day to wait till our flight left that evening...Sparky REALLY wanted to go to Kincaid Park, a huge Anchorage park/preserve, et. home of many moose supposedly, but the logistics of trying to get to the park, rental car (very expensive for one day) and getting that back and returning to the airport was just a bit too fiddly, so we sat down and prepared to people watch and explore the Anchorage Ted Stevens Airport. Sparky just LOVES to explore airports. There are ALWAYS cool things to see at an airport, and interesting people to watch and food to eat...

Beautiful artwork.....This is a huge panel of glass made up of several hundred slivers or strips of glass  an inch wide (?) or less, set side by side and how the glass ripples or waves in different sections is where the depth and imagery comes through of salmon migration upstream.... Sparky started to count or estimate how many slivers there were per square inch, but then gave up. The slivers were about five feet high or higher so this was a TALL glass sculpture. It was beautiful!

There are paintings on the walls of native Alaskans....

There are about 195 works of art throughout the airport and the Ted Stevens International Airport is a showcase for Alaskan art. There is a world record Kodiak brown bear in a showcase as well. They measure the skull to determine the world record size---30 10/16".

Another beautiful piece of glass near the front entrance...It looks like ocean waves and as the sun moves through the sky and through the airport, the colors of the glass radiate different colors throughout the day.

And there was a beautiful three panel mural-- Here is the artist's explanation of it. If Sparky remembers right, it was on the ceiling at the airport above a big moose, but she forgot to take a photo of it. :-(

“Rainbow Creek” is a 9’ x 32’ oil painting on canvas on three panels. The work is based on studies done in the field at Rainbow Creek near the trailhead at mile 108 of the Seward Highway. The artist, David Mollett, said, “I've painted in the area for many years and love the crashing waterfalls as the creek approaches Turnagain Arm. The huge rough bark cottonwood trees, devil's club, and thundering water with a network of fallen branches, makes for a dramatic woodland scene. The light is even and soft due to the canopy of leaves high overhead.”

Sparky did so much walking and exploring at the airport, she wore herself out!

Finally, the departure hour arrived...early evening... Bye bye Alaska!

We had a five hour flight to Chicago, then a two hour flight to Orlando, then an hour and a half drive home...We made it!

PS. For those wondering how costly a trip such as this was, for renting an RV AFTER arriving in Alaska, here is a rough breakdown...
Flight from Orlando, FL to destination Anchorage...$503.00 per person round trip
$1400+ tax to rent the 28ft. motor home for 8 nights
Less than 300.00 for gas...
This didn't include groceries or souvenirs or the cost of staying in RV parks...The average cost of staying in Alaskan RV parks was around 40.00 a night and the conditions of the parks varied from decent to parking lot, to cramped and jammed.... :-)  There were PLENTY of places to boondocks everywhere we went, so if you wanted to save money by not staying in RV parks, it can be easily done. Lots of pullouts and roomy sections to stay overnight, although many were along the highways.

Eldy did a really wonderful job getting the best pricing for airfare and rental, in Sparky's humble opinion. Hope we can go again some time....It was one of the best trips ever, to be able to go and stay or leave whenever we wanted to, especially since we no longer have an RV and are usually now restricted to hotels and motels. It was terrific to be RVing back on the road. The weather was great, the experiences were amazing, and Alaska is an AMAZING state...hope you got some helpful information from following us on this trip! Sparky is headed to Virginia soon so come back and see us soon!

                                           Bye for now.....Sparky and Eldo

Day 7 Travel Day and a Visit to Potter Marsh

We were working our way back to Anchorage from Seward....After the fantastic cruise to the Kenai Fjords yesterday, we thought it was going to be a quiet trip back and nothing else planned as we headed towards Anchorage. We were traveling back past the fabulous Turnagain Arm again...the 40-50 mile waterway that has the occasional bore tides. For an explanation of the bore tides, read here.
http://bit.ly/29LX7Qf

Sparky remembered a cool birding marsh when we had first come to Seward, and wanted to stop by to see it on our way back....It was called Potter's Marsh. Here is how you get to it:
Directions:
Roughly fifteen minutes south of downtown Anchorage, Potter Marsh is accessible from the New Seward Highway. The entrance is located just past the Rabbit Creek exit and across from the Rabbit Creek Rifle Range entrance. A small highway pullout at the southern end of the marsh also allows for viewing and photography.

It's a beautiful marsh across from a section of the Turnagain Arm. A 1550 foot boardwalk takes you around inside the marsh...

Lots of ducks, an eagle's nest with babies, and a MOOSE! Yep, a moose just stepped out of the rushes and into our view. Woo hoo! One more moose sighting on our last day. Sparky was thrilled!

Here is what you might see depending upon the time of year....

From late April through September, Canada geese, northern pintails, canvasback ducks, red-necked phalaropes, horned and red-necked grebes, and northern harriers use this wetland. Look for eagle nests in the cottonwoods near the base of the bluff using binoculars or a spotting scope. Eagles have a sharp sense of sight and can see at least four times better than people, enabling them to detect movements of small animals like hares from a mile away. When eagles soar overhead, they are scanning open areas for prey.

From May to August, gulls, Arctic terns, shorebirds such as yellowlegs, and occasionally trumpeter swans are present during spring and fall migration.

In addition to birds, look for slow movement and a v-shaped wake in the waters of the marsh, signs of muskrats swimming past. Their small brownish heads peek just above the water as they meander in and out of the wetland's open areas.

Moose also frequent the marsh year round. May and June are good times to see these large ungulates standing in the marsh foraging for new growth.

About halfway along the boardwalk, Rabbit Creek flows underneath and provides a good spot to see spawning chinook, coho, or humpback salmon from May to August, depending on the species. Spot their bright red bodies swimming in the creek.

With its nearly panoramic view of Turnagain arm, Potter Marsh, buffered by spruce, cottonwoods and alders, is one of the most accessible and scenic wildlife viewing areas in Anchorage.

Or, you might not see anything! I think, there were a couple of wise guys here one day. What did you see? "nothing". Another quip, "narwhale".

Add tree swallow to the list...a pretty bird...

We spent a couple of hours at the marsh and then, as the afternoon was getting on, we headed back to the motorhome and back on the highway, destination....Anchorage. And if you read the entire description of the marsh, did you learn a new word today? Sparky did... "ungulates"--a hoofed mammal. :-) She did not know that! That's such a cool thing about RVing, and we miss it...the accidental or purposeful learning new things about our world because you enjoy that sort of thing or it just pops up right in front of you!...It might be geography, history, archaeology, biology or any other scientific/artistic field. It's there, waiting for you to explore.....But then again, you don't have to RV to learn things, it's just that getting out in our world thru travel makes it easier to experience things and knowledge first hand. Like this sign for instance, at the marsh...Sparky had no idea there were so many bears in Anchorage. She knew about the moose walking all around town in Anchorage, but not bears!

See you at the airport....a little more to tell, come back and see us....Bye!

RVing in Alaska--Day 6-- A Cruise in the Kenai Fjords

Seward Public Library and Museum

What happened to day 5, you ask? Sparky forgot to allow some traveling time in there somewhere and forgot to take enough notes to refresh her memory about all the cool stuff we did in that lost day. Probably a combination of traveling and stopping to see things along the way.. At any rate, we spent two nights in Seward, but recommend staying longer. It's one of the nicer towns that we've seen. We've been to Ketchikan, Juno, Whittier and Skagway as far a cruise ports and docking for the day or for half a day, but Seward really has a lot going on for it. Lots of action at the docks, some nice stores, some great restaurants, the RV park by the bay, The SeaLife Museum, over a dozen beautiful murals all around town, all the wildlife, the hiking, just a really great destination, in our humble opinion.

A harlequin duck at Resurrection Bay

Not remembering exactly the sequence of events and leaving out a few things comes with getting older, we guess. That's what happens when you don't blog immediately upon returning from a cool trip! Life gets in the way! The main thing is, this was an AMAZING trip! There were so many more photos that Sparky wanted to publish, but felt like the essence of the trip could still be shared despite paring the photos down to a manageable number. So here goes some info about the Kenai Fjords cruise we took while we were there, a HIGHLY recommended cruise and with excellent reviews on the internet...We booked for 10% off through the Seward Visitor's Center a few days beforehand...The company was Major Marine, out of Seward....and the ship was a nice, stable catamaran. The days leading up to the cruise had been rainy and windy and not too nice, but we checked the weather ahead of time, and picked a great day to go---sunny and calm!

There are SIX tours you can sign up for....The web link provided above gives the breakdown for what you get for each scheduled tour. Sparky was in for the 7.5 hour cruise as soon as she heard "all the prime rib you can eat"! :-) We liked the idea of the 7.5 hour cruise giving the captain plenty of time to find wildlife, if Mother Nature wasn't cooperating. It leaves at 10:00 in the morning, and you are back by 5:30 PM. You also get up close to TWO glaciers, Holgate and Aialik. It's 189.00 a person WITH the all you can eat buffet which also included Alaskan salmon. An onboard National Park ranger narrates and they are 99% of the time always knowledgable and wonderful with their information. And, they provide free binoculars! So, off we went! Captain Josh was hilarious....He gave us some advice about seasickness.

1) Don't head for the bathroom. It's the "Room of Doom". No windows makes it worse.
2) If you are on the third deck, remember there are people below you. Aim far.

It was just fabulous! We saw a stellar sea lion being born, no kidding! We were watching the sea lions lazily bathe on the rocks, when Sparky saw something black and slithery and what looked like blood on the rocks beside the sea lion. The park ranger, Lynn, was checking the scene and announced that the mother was having the baby, right then and there! Holy cow! (heheheh, isn't a female sea lion a cow? wonder Eldo and Sparky).  Yep, that's what it was...an endangered sea lion giving birth...the ranger was almost speechless....

We saw SEVEN orcas......They are very chatty, by the way, lots of clicks and whistles talking to each other....

Sea otters rolling around and having fun....

SEVEN humpbacks.....And one of the humpbacks was doing fin slaps and playing and just messing around for quite some time near us.....That fin was just waving and waving and spinning all around at us. We were laughing....

And then he breeched! And of course, Sparky missed it, trying to get from the back of the boat to the 1:00 position at the front of the boat...She got part of it as he was coming back down....

We saw puffins from afar and HUNDREDS of them circling the skies above a rock island..So hard to get a photo of a puffin, they are little bitty guys, about 12" tall. We saw quite a few bald eagles, too.....

And the TWO glaciers, one was over 750 feet tall....AMAZING! See the little sightseeing boat down in the front? It gives you just a little perspective at how massive the glacier is....even if it is shrinking...

Sparky got to experience a glacial margarita....The crew scooped up a big chunk of glacial ice bobbing around in the sea, after we visited one of the glaciers, rinsed it off and started chipping away to make ice cubes for the margaritas. The ranger said it was probably 200 year old ice. And it took FOREVER to melt and was amazingly sparkly and crystal clear. It was cool! Really!

And if you are thinking, yeah, we'd go on that cruise and probably not see anything, we doubt that would happen. Everybody we've heard that has taken this cruise has seen lots of wildlife, because it's Alaska, and this is the place to see wildlife! And when you are out at sea for that length of time, your chances are EXCELLENT! The Kenai Fjords cruise rocks! But not on a calm day, tee hee, hee....

It was a wonderful day in the Kenai Fjords.....And soon, our trip was ending...As a matter of fact, we have to leave Alaska to head home on day 8....But there's still more to see and tell....Bye for now.....

RVing in Alaska--Day 4 Exit Glacier

The day dawned gray and rainy again....We decided to do the Exit Glacier hike...Milemarker 3 on the Seward Highway. After arriving in the parking lot and checking out the small Exit Glacier Visitor Center, there are two hikes you can take to see the glacier. One is a one mile hike, an easy loop to view the valley glacier, and the other one is a 1.25 moderately strenuous hike to get closer to the glacier. We chose the 1.25 hike, we really didn't realize there was an easier loop. The first 1/4 of the hike is paved and fully accessible. At first, Sparky was just going to do the hike by herself, but Eldy wanted to try and we went together! This is a guy who just had quadruple bypass in February and it's only 4 months later! He was careful to take his time and stop along the way often.


The views were spectacular! But the glacier is a small one, and of course, has shrunk over the years. They keep moving the people barriers further and further back...

 Eldy did a really great job, and finally, we were at the foot of the glacier...

 Sparky was really proud of him for completing this hike! And he felt fine.....

But he was tired on the way back!

Sparky decided she wasn't done hiking yet...She wanted to see snow! The Harding Ice Field hike was a LONG hike and Sparky wanted to do just part of it, hoping to hike 4.1 miles (ONE WAY) to a ridge where another hiker said you could scoop up snow on the trail. Sparky wanted to make a snowball, so off she went, leaving Eldy in the comforts of the motorhome while she went hiking. Lots of people on the trails today and the reports of some baby bear and mama bear sitings only stoked Sparky more. So off she went....she figured an hour up and that would be it...And it was.....a VERY strenuous hike. Now Sparky was in relatively good shape, biking 12-15 miles three times a week back home, but hiking up mountains is totally different!

After an hour of huffing and puffing, and seeing no snow, no baby bears or mama bear, (which is a good thing, says a worried E.) and the ridge was still very far away, Sparky decided to turn around and come back down. Her feet were so swollen, she kicked off her shoes and stuck them in a stream running down the mountainside, forgetting this was GLACIAL water! BRRRRRRRR! But it sure felt good!

The last thing she saw today was this steller jay, hopping around in the parking lot. He was happy! Nice to see some different birds here in Alaska.

After our hikes today, we were tired! Time to head "home"....to a new campground called Stoney Brook RV park. Stoney Brook is on the outskirts of Seward, in a residential section back in the woods, nestled up against the mountains. Head south on Seward Highway, turn left on Stoney Creek Avenue (mile 6.3) over the railroad tracks, right on Bruno, left on Trail Rd., follow Trail around till you reach Leslie Place. They had wifi (very very slow), the bathrooms were really in need of updating, and they had a system of reservations where if you didn't call in ahead and happened to come in when no one was in the office, (office hours seemed to be very irregular and sporadic) you were to come in and look at the chart on the office window to see which spots were taken. The only problem with that was, they didn't update the site reservations. They also didn't seem to care about maintaining the sites and keeping them free of high grasses. Guess things are just a little more casual in Alaska....We found our spot, left our water hoses to claim our spot...took our rig and headed out for supper, and when we came back, somebody was pulling into our spot! We quickly reclaimed it. BUT---the views were AMAZING!!!! We stayed there for two nights....

Next on our Alaskan adventures, we are going on a 7.5 hour cruise in the Kenai Peninsula! See you on the boat!