I heard the camper squealing “help me” this morning, and here it is…..sad in its rainy glory…..no trip this weekend…..its cold too…48 degrees F….kinda cool for “summer”.

I really wanted to go to Portage Valley, but it seemed (from the never-correct weather report) that the Willow area was going to have better weather. So, we packed up and visited South Rolly Lake once again. Actually the weather wasn’t too bad, and we were lucky to get a spot right on the lake. It was a nice relaxing long weekend–went out on the porta-bote a few times and did some bike riding. Looked high and low for interesting animals and did see some loons and Arctic terns out on the lake. No bears or moose, or not even a porcupine. However, the park ranger said that every evening there are porcupines running around, and every morning and evening you can see black bears along Long Lake Road.

One thing to add here…about the fishing. The BB at the campground says that the lake was stocked with trout in 2008. Come to find out (from the host) that this isn’t true at all. The lake hasn’t been stocked in a long time…..they are waiting for the pike to die out or something like that.  This explains why no one was catching any fish…..

OK, we did have a few warm days last week…maybe 2 or 3 of them…and it was only warm if the sun was out.  (Warm = 70 degrees F. )   We are still waiting for the real summer to start, but it is looking a bit bleak. Anyway, we’ve actually been out camping once so far this “summer”—4 days down in Homer in early June, staying at the Heritage RV Park.  We’ve stayed there 3 years ago, and as before, we really enjoyed it. We rented a spot right on the water and had a gorgeous view. Of course something usually goes wrong on each trip, and this time we found out that we didn’t have any hot water. This was apparently because the hot water tank was never filled up and reconnected when we had the camper de-winterized. After unsuccessfully trying to get it to work, we finally gave up. This meant that if we wanted to take showers, we had to take them in the Heritage Park facilities. Well, this turned out to be a nice surprise…I’m not a fan of taking showers in public facilities, but in this case it was a pleasure. Heritage Park does a great job of keeping the facilities clean (I mean, really clean!). Also, the shower worked great 

One problem with this trip was that it rained for much of the time, and it was cold and windy. This made it difficult to bike ride or really want to go hiking or anything. However, the highlight of this trip was an 8-hour excursion with the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies. We went on a low tide tour and coastal forest hike where we saw a variety of marine and coastal life, and geological formations. The tide was at -5, making it a unique experience (much more sea/coastal life was exposed with the tide this low). It was a great experience and I highly recommend it if you are in Homer. One night we took the Kachemak Bay Ferry (the Danny J) across to Halibut Cove where we ate at the Saltry Restaurant where we had a mouth watering meal, drank too much wine, and then walked around to look at some of the galleries on the island.

Wednesday August 8th 16 hours, 29 minutes of daylight.

Wouldn’t you know, it hasn’t rained since we got home from the last trip. Endless hours of daylight as the sun circles around the sky. With all this camping I’ve been ignoring my garden, and had to spend many hours ripping out the weeds and trimming back aggressive plants. All the sunlight up here helps plants grow really large in the summer. Alaska is home to such wonders as the 1000 pound pumpkin and the 73 pound cabbage.

How does one move a 1000 pound pumpkin?

……Can’t wait to see what the State Fair will have to offer this year…

Oh….What to do when stuck in the RV all day and night. Eight of us (4 people, 4 animals). We’re tripping over each other….this is clearly one of the downsides of camping. Well, I guess it could be worse. We could be sitting in a tent, or in a class B converted van…or something.

Was able to sneak out for a short walk, but no chance for a bike ride today. How do we occupy ourselves?

I bring books, knitting, notebook, drawing pad and pencils, iPod, beads, oh….and…..liquor. (just in case)…..

Other stuff we usually have: video games to play on computer or on PSP, books, who knows what……….

We also have a portable DVD player which will work for about 6 hours on the battery.,,,, (too many electronics, I know)

Well, you can always take a nap…. or a series of naps…

The pets don’t seem to bring anything, and don’t really care much about the rain.

August 1st    17 hours 6 minutes of daylight!

Oh no! Our summers are so short here. The growing season is only 100 days and I’m sorry to say that my little garden looks like it is in a decline already. Of course, maybe I just need to get busy weeding it and it won’t look so sad. The delphiniums are huge–maybe 6 feet tall. The painted daisy’s grew larger than I thought they would when I first planted them, and now they are overshadowing some of the smaller plants. Oh well. It’s a learning process for me. When I lived in Florida I never bothered much with gardening—it was always too hot.

It’s already August and the days are noticeably shorter. We are hoping to squeeze in 2 more camping trips before school starts on the 23rd (and I start work again in the school system on the 16th). As long as the weather holds out (ie: not much rain) we’ll be ok and should enjoy wherever we end up going. I can tell that the cats are excited about the idea of going away again. Both are sleeping next to me as I write this………

Welcome to our blog and website, Alaska RV Camping. Through this site we hope to provide useful and entertaining information about various campgrounds throughout Alaska. Since we travel in our RV, most all these sites are accessible through the major road systems in Alaska. We also welcome comments and other reviews of sites from readers. We generally go on camping trips from mid-May to mid-September, and usually will go to any one site from a period of 3 to 7 days. Our kids and 4 pets (2 dogs, 2 cats) accompany us on most trips.