From Denali, it was a reasonably short drive to largest city in Alaska, Achorage.
Anchorage
Meh.
The only thing noteworthy about the stop in Anchorage was the fact that Jerald spent half a day sitting in the local Ford dealership just to have them tell him there was nothing wrong with the tow car.
Seward
From Anchorage, after a fuel stop at the local Costco, we headed down the Sterling Highway to the town of Seward.
A bit of history: Seward at one time was the main shipping point for the state of Alaska. It you shipped anything by sea, it went into Seward and onto the Alaskan Railway for distribution in the state.
That all changed in 1964 when the earthquake/tsunamis devastated Seward, destroyed the railway and caused massive oil fires in the storage tanks.
The decision was made not to rebuild the commercial infrastructure in Seward. This was bad for Seward, but good for RVers since the City of Seward converted the devastated commercial area into a very nice waterfront campground for RVers and Tenters.
We did not stay in the downtown campground (reservations are hard to get) and ended up a very nice RV park just outside of town.
The next morning, we took a day cruise around the bay in Seward where they showed us the abundance of wildlife to be found in the ocean.
The next morning, we had a private show at the Alaskan Sealife Center where we introduced to the puffins, a coastal bird in Alaska. The sea life center, while taking care of marine mammals, does extensive research on Alaskan birds.
After that, much to Claire’s delight, we had a sled dog encounter – including being pulled on summer sled by a dog team at the Seavey Dog Kennels.
The Seaveys are apparently the people to beat in the Iditarod dog race, Father and Sons have won the race a number of times and their kennel trains dogs all year long. They put on sled rides for the tourists for a couple of reasons: To train the dogs in summer and to raise money to be competitive in the dog race world – it is apparently very expensive to run the Iditarod.
Kenai
From Seward, we backtracked a bit and then continued down the Sterling HIghway to Kenai. There was stayed at a very beautiful RV Resort, the Diamond M RV Ranch.
This was mostly a rest and relaxation stop, but we were treated to an excellent dinner with local salmon and king crab legs cooked by the campground hosts.
We loved the RV resort and marked both the RV resort and the Kenai area as targets for a longer return visit.