Okay. It’s a hokey title, but you’ve haven’t had one for awhile, so there you go. 🙂
Things often take a different turn that we expect, and so it was with Palmer, Alaska. No RV park in Anchorage appealed to us, so we decided we’d stay up the road in Palmer and make day trips into the city, and that part went as expected.
What we didn’t expect was how much Palmer itself offered up, with good hiking and great food at the top of the list for us.
We arrived in Palmer in the midst of the Friday Fling — a great showcase of local musical, craft, and culinary talent:
We were eager to check out a nearby trail for some hiking. It wasn’t raining and the mosquitoes seemed to be in hiding, so the weather was perfect. We parked, got out, and hoofed it to the trailhead, where this sign stopped us:
What’s this hot pink notice? Could be important… maybe we should take a closer look:
Bear?!? Did they say “bear”?!??!?! No hike today.
And that mother moose? We spotted her trotting across the RV park the next morning…
…looking a bit lost and sad, if a moose can do that.
To satisfy our need to get out and walk, even if it’s not in the woods or along a mountainside, we found the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail in Anchorage, which followed the Knik Arm:
Along the trail, we couldn’t miss the huge flowers growing beside this historical home…
…and couldn’t resist taking a closer look. How bright they were!
We didn’t think of Alaska as a produce mecca, but the fact is longer daylight hours more than make up for the weeks that are lost to a late spring and early fall. We weren’t in the area for the Alaska State Fair here in Palmer, but heard that’s where you can see the largest cabbages and carrots and other veggies you’ll ever see in your life.
While giant produce doesn’t make the radar on Alaska very often, salmon does.
No better place to watch the action in Anchorage than at Ship Creek, where we stood for an hour or more, watching local fishermen and women — and visitors feeling lucky — toss their lines in the river, hoping for the best.
We have never seen so many people trying to catch the same few fish in the same small length of riverbank as we did that day. And here’s the kicker: one man snagged the same fish a couple of times but couldn’t keep it — it was a king salmon, and out of season. Fishing, indeed, teaches patience!
Though it helps a person be patient if you have a good seat for the job [yes, I’ve blurred her face to protect the savvy]:
Being in one spot for a few days meant we could watch the moodiness of the nearby mountains as they brooded in fog…
…or smiled in the sunshine:
Of the restaurants we tried, we especially liked the salmon dinner at the Noisy Goose…
…and just about anything on the menu at Turkey Red:
In Anchorage, we drifted back and forth between Moose’s Tooth, which had such good pizza it will probably make the Top Five list of Best Eats…
…and its sister restaurant, the Bear Tooth Grill, where the fish tacos were good enough to drive from Palmer back into Anchorage just to eat them:
After all that food? Kick back in the RV and catch the in-depth, NOAA weather report. Everything from the forecast to marine and flight information. Alaskans take their weather very seriously — they have to!
This is the view out our side window, where you can see the bed of the neighbor’s truck sitting right next their RV. And yes, they managed to get their awning out, so this was one of the more spacious RV parks in Alaska 🙂