Alaska – Palmer – State 18 of 49 on our RV Adventure

If you are a first-time reader, welcome to Lora and Erics RV Adventure Blog. You can read about us at http://www.LoraandEricsRVAdventure.com. We started in December 2017 with a goal to complete 49 states before heading home to North Carolina.

The morning is clear without any rain in sight. I drop off the cable box at Bear Paw Camper Park and top off the fuel tank. We take off around 10:00 am.

The travel time from Bear Paw Camper Park Adult Park, Valdez, AK to Mt. View RV Park in Palmer, AK is 4 h 36 min 260 miles via AK-4 North and AK-1 South.

Driving North on Richardson Highway we make our way through Keystone Canyon, Horsetail Falls, and Bridal Veil Falls. We stop on a turn off on the way up Thompson Pass. With clouds and a bright blue sky, the view is beautiful.

We get our last view of Worthington Glacier before leaving the region.

We drive the boring part of Richardson Highway, the views as we head north get less and the roads bumpy like before. We turn left onto Hwy 1 S toward Glennallen, AK. The highway is much better than Hwy 1 from Tok to Hwy 4.

The views are becoming amazing. Snow covered mountains on our left far in the distance with lakes and spruce trees between us and the mountains.

We stop near Grand View, AK for lunch at Grand View Café & RV Park. I ordered a chicken sandwich with fries and Lora ordered a Philli Cheese Steak sandwich. The food was good.

As we get closer a glacier is wedged between two mountains. We see signs for Matanuska Glacier. The mountains and glacier are covered in snow. The massiveness of this glacier far exceeds Worthington Glacier. Since we did not see the size of Columbia Glacier we are unable to compare.

The views along the way continually change. What we think is a different glacier turns out to be Matanuska Glacier from another angle. We drive nearly 1 ½ hours with views of the glacier. We stop for fuel not too much longer at a Tesoro Gas Station in Sutton, AK across from the local airport.

We arrived on schedule give or take an hour. Mt. View RV Park is off the main road to Anchorage. The view from the park is that of a mountain. There is some snow, but not exciting when we can see glaciers ever so close. The sites are tight, 30 amp, full service sites. We are placed in-between two campers. One with camper has 4 small children with mom. The other is part of a pair of campers traveling together. The bathrooms are individual rooms with a toilet, sinks, and shower. The laundry room is through a separate door. They have a pavilion with a community campfire pit. After we setup we stayed local for the evening.

The next day is full of sunlight. We have plans to visit the Musk Ox Farm and Reindeer Farm in Palmer. Our first stop is the Musk Ox Farm. The farm is the largest domestic musk ox farm in the world with 84 musk ox. The founder was from Vermont. He first attempted to domesticate the musk ox in Vermont. After visiting Alaska, he decided to colonize musk ox back into Alaska. The first location was Fairbanks, AK, then another location, before moving to Palmer, AK. We did not get to see many musk ox, but it was still a unique and informative tour.

After visiting the Musk Ox Farm, we set our direction to the Independent Gold Mine State Park. The route takes up hill with temperatures dropping into the lower 50°F’s. We are in shorts, so we plan not to stay long. The gold mine is slowly deteriorating from time. There is a $5.00 fee for the driver and $3.00 for each passenger. We park in the visitor parking and walk up to the foreman quarters building. This is the AK State Parks main building. Tours begin from here. We walk around the building before going down to the small complex. We are visiting when there is a gold panning tour. Since we are not dressed for cold we do not participate.

After the gold more we drive a bit higher to Hatcher Pass. The road is a gravel road up hill. The road goes on for many miles, but we decide to stop at the top, only a mile or so.

We decide to head back, it is too cold for shorts. At the bottom of the road we reach 20,000 miles on the truck. We purchased the truck at 5 miles, so this is amazing.

As we go down the mountain we go into an area that is designated as Free Gold Panning Area. I stop at a turn off and grab one of the 5-gallon buckets in the back of the truck. I fill the bucket with sand and gravel to pan on a later date.

We drive back to town where we stop at a Safeway, followed by getting a fuel with a $0.10 discount through our Safeway Card.

We never made it to the Reindeer Farm in Palmer. Who knows maybe we will come back.

We drove back to the campground and stayed put for the night. Tomorrow we leave to travel to the City of Kenai. We booked a campground 2 days ago because all sites were booked. We found our we are in dip net season for resident Alaskans. Residents can catch 10 salmon per family member for 3 weeks in July on one license. Many families dedicate one freezer to only salmon.

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