Days 39-45: The Arrival of the Kids!
- Karen Derrick-Davis
- Jun 4
- 8 min read
Updated: Jun 4
Wildlife Bingo
Moose
Black Bear
Sea Lions
Seals
Tufted Puffins
Sea Otters
Dall Sheep
Humpback Whales
Porpoises
Bald Eagles
Highlights
Kenai Fjords National Park boat tour – glacier up close; so much wildlife
Playing games
Belly laughs with the kids
Seeing The Great One
The Arrival
Our trip got sweeter when our grown kids joined us for a week. The airport pickup required some detailed planning. Their flight arrived at 12:50, so we decided to stay the night before in Eagle River State Park about 30 minutes north of Anchorage. Throughout our trip we have had little trouble finding camping at the last minute. However, staying near cities always requires more research and planning. One more complicating factor: it was the Friday of Memorial Day weekend…oops.
We rolled into Eagle River about 3pm. The campground was full. We headed for the overflow camping – a parking lot with a few picnic tables – and managed to squeeze into one of the last parking spots large enough for our trailer. We felt lucky!
The next morning, we left early enough to have time to scout out the airport before the kids’ arrival. Would we be able to drive the truck and trailer into the airport arrivals area? Was there a cell phone lot (for waiting for their arrival) we could get into and – even more important – get out of?
The airport is in town, right on the water, and the only way to get there is to drive through downtown – always a bit hair-raising with a travel trailer. Since Anchorage is only 250,000 people, the drive through town was not so bad. The airport had great signage. We drove to the cell phone lot and found ample space to both park and turn around. Next, we headed for Arrivals and saw a height limit of 10’6” – we are 11’ 4”. We took the route back to the cell phone lot, unhitched the trailer, and when the kids arrived, I left Brian with the trailer and took the truck to pick them up. Back at the trailer, Salem was shocked and overjoyed to see the kids get out of the truck. She gave them a warm welcome to Alaska!
The Elusive Bore Tide & Gold-Panning
After grocery shopping, we merged on to the Seward Highway and drove along the Turnagain Arm as we headed south to the Kenai Peninsula. Every day, this narrow waterway ("arm") at the end of Cook Inlet off the Gulf of Alaska is the site of a Bore Tide -- an unusual event that happens only in certain locations in the world. When the high- and low-tide differential is extreme in a narrow tidal inlet like Turnagain Arm, an incoming tide can create a tall, fast-moving wave, sometimes large enough to surf.
According to the tide schedule, the Bore Tide was aligned with our trip along Turnagain Arm. We pulled over about 20 miles south of Anchorage. Since we really had no idea what we were looking for, we struck up a conversation with a woman in the parking lot who happened to be a local. She was there to try to catch the Bore Tide, as well, and pointed out a long white line across the Turnagain Arm back toward the open water – we must have driven right by it without realizing. Unfortunately, the Bore Tide petered out before reaching us. Oh well, we had one more chance to see it on our way back to Anchorage in a week.
Next up, gold panning! About 100 miles south of Anchorage near Cooper Landing, with research and directions in hand, we wound our way along a dirt road to a point where we could access a river that was supposed to be good for panning. We bundled up, gathered our pans, buckets, shovels and tried our luck. After about an hour of digging up dirt, swishing it in our pans and finding only a few flakes -- not to mention freezing our fingers off in the freshly-melted glacial water -- we packed up the gold camp and called it a day. It was a fun one, but not very lucrative.
Glaciers & Wildlife
After a great night of family games and midnight sun, we drove a couple more hours south to Seward and set up in the municipal campground, a few yards from Resurrection Bay – a long and narrow inlet off the Gulf of Alaska. Again, the extremely long days allow for packing in a LOT in a day, so the evening or our arrival, we hiked to Exit Glacier.
The markers along the trail indicating the glacier’s retreat over the years was quite shocking. The trail we took used to end at the "toe" of this valley glacier with an ice wall towering over the hikers' heads. Today, the glacier is visible in the distance, with the toe out of sight. The retreat of this glacier over the years is staggering and a very real and tangible indicator of the warming of the planet.
Back at camp, we strolled along the rocky beach, ate dinner and eventually went to bed – though the sunlit skies were telling our bodies it was still daytime! A much-anticipated, day-long boat ride to the Kenai Fjords National Park was on the menu for tomorrow.
In the morning, we dropped the dog at a doggy daycare, checked in at the harbor, and boarded the Spirit of Adventure!
This Major Marine Tour did not disappoint! Within a few minutes of leaving the dock, we saw sea otters – a “lifer” for all of us! Too cute for words.
Before leaving the bay, a humpback whale spouted close by – always an amazing sight to see whales in the open ocean! Porpoises swam along side our boat a couple of times, more otters popped their heads up now and then, and several early-arriving Tufted Puffins floated by.
The scenes along the route were breathtaking.
After a couple of hours, we started the approach to the massive Aialik Glacier, a tidal glacier. Wow. Spectacular – just like what I’ve seen in books and photos, but so much more impressive in person, of course.
While floating amongst the small icebergs with lounging seals, we saw and heard large and small chunks of the glacier fall into the water. It was a front row seat to massive nature in action – humbling. I focused on beholding the beauty and wonder, though thoughts of the impact of these melting ice giants crept in. The warming of Earth, our “blue boat home,” is already having dire consequences for our human race. I am not sad for a “dying” planet – it isn’t dying, it is in transition. I am sad for the strife these changes will create for our human family, most notably those with fewer resources and political power.
Heading to The Great One
Trying to see Denali, The Great One, was a must-do before the kids left the great state of Alaska. So, we made the trek from Seward back north past Anchorage – with another gold-panning stop on Resurrection Creek near the mostly ghost town of Hope. At this stop, everyone found at least one speck of gold! Still not enough to pay for the trip, but one of the kids actually found a good-sized flake!
From Hope, which is on the Turnagain Arm, we tried again to see the elusive Bore Tide. We saw a rainbow and watched the tide rush in and quickly cover the mudflats, but alas, no Bore Tide wave.
The next day, as we passed through Anchorage, the skies were clear and our hopes of seeing Denali were high. We weren’t really sure when it would become visible along the route – different guidebooks had different suggestions for good vantage points. We just kept our eyes peeled, and all of the sudden it was there – centered over the end of the highway before us in all its glory!
We eventually had several magnificent expansive views of Denali and the Alaska Range. Although Denali’s peak’s incline is gradual, you begin to notice that it, at 20,310 feet -- and the close by Mt Foraker at 17,400 ft -- are completely covered in snow – unlike the surrounding mountains which are between 10,000 and 14,000 feet. Denali is twice the elevation of some of its closest neighbors.
We felt incredibly fortunate that the “mountain was out” – as the locals say. Denali makes its own weather and is often shrouded by clouds. According to the books, it is “out” only 30% of the time. Our destination, Denali State Park, has great views of the peak and is 100 miles shorter drive from Anchorage than Denali National Park. Again, our luck held and the first-come-first-served K’sugi Ken Campground was virtually empty. We found a great site, set up camp and drove back to a coffee shop we had seen on the way. McKinley View Café did indeed have a breathtaking view of Denali and the range. We ate our snacks and sipped our drinks and soaked in the view, knowing we may not see it again.
That night, the rain moved in and we never saw Denali again. The cherry on top of our visit to Denali State Park was seeing a juvenile black bear run down the road by our campsite! It was the first bear we had seen in a campground -- glad we were inside when he came by. From that moment on we were diligent to carry bear spray at all times!
Bye, Bye Kids, Hello, Friend!
The kids’ visit came to a close and we made our way back to the Anchorage airport. Since our last visit there, we learned that the departures drop off area had no height restrictions, so we could drive through without leaving the trailer at the cell phone lot, as we had done before. This trip to the airport was quite orchestrated because we had another visitor arriving! We had planned it so the kids would depart and our friend would arrive within an hour of each other. It worked like clockwork! We dropped the kids off, circled back to the cell phone lot for about 15 minutes and then drove back to departures (to avoid the height restrictions) to pick up our friend.
Fellow Travelers
J, nice and friendly guy, with sweet dog Bella camped next to us at Eagle River. Sleeping in his small car with a single-burner stove and eating out of cans. Not sure of his story, but got a bit of a “lost” yet calm feeling from him.
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