We-2Bs: Alaska 2015 - Day 27

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Alaska 2015 - Day 27 - Soldotna

Day 27 – 6-7-15 Sunday We were lazy this morning and didn't get out and about until 10AM after we had our pancake breakfast. Our first stop was the Soldotna Homestead Museum which is near the visitor's center we visited yesterday. It has several log buildings that are original to Soldotna when the town began in 1947. After World War II the US Government gave 160 acres of land to any WWII veteran if they would stay on the land and homestead it for 9 months. After that time they could keep the land, sell it or do whatever with it. One of the guides gave us a walking/talking tour of all the buildings. One of the buildings was the original schoolhouse with the desks still in it. No admission is charged but they had a jar for donations. It was very interesting to see how simple and basic a life the settlers of this area lived.

Our next stop was the Soldotna Creek Park. In front of the park near the street they have a section of flowers name Pioneer Gardens. Lots of pretty flowers. On the banks of the Kenai River that runs by the back of the park there is a long fishwalk like the one behind the visitor's center we saw yesterday. There is also two veteran's memorials and a large play ground for kids and several picnic tables and a outdoor stage. A very nice city park.

Then we went to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. They have just opened a new visitor's center there. After touring it we hiked down a couple of the trails to a lake. We didn't have on our hiking shoes so we did not hike the 2+ mile trail. By this time we were getting hungry so we drove back to town and decided we wanted Mexican food. We found three so we picked out the one that appealed to us from the exterior and went in. Just after we were seated we saw a couple come in that we have meet three other times on our trip. We were in the same campground at Tetsa River, Watson Lake and met them at Buckshot Bettie's after getting off the bad section of road. I waved and they came and joined us at our table. How is that for coincidence. They are Work-camping about 6 miles from town at a campground that they have worked at before. This is their third over the road trip to Alaska.

After lunch we rode past the campground to the local airport. We kept hearing and seeing small airplanes so we knew the airport couldn't be far away. There were lots of small airplanes setting around. As I stated in an earlier post, people in Alaska depend on small airplanes to get in and out of remote areas. We have heard that 1 in 6 people here have a pilot's licenses. They put large soft rubber wheels on if landing on the ground, floats if landing on water and skies if landing on snow. Then we returned to the campground for the remainder of the day to relax. Tomorrow we move on to Homer.