It was not too bad sleeping in the Cabela’s parking lot last night. I think it was around 3:00am when I got up to use the bathroom. I looked out the window and it was light out. It was to sleep for a few more hours but since my body thought it was 10:00am when actually it was 6:00am, I figured I might as well get up. We were so tired last night that we did not unpack. Therefore that was the first order of business. After that, it was time to have an RV shower. The bathroom is our RV is pretty small but at least we have one.
We had breakfast and then it was off to Cabela’s for some shopping. This place is huge. The selection at this store is amazing. I think you can find practically anything you need when it comes to terms of fishing, hunting and camping. At the back of the store, they have this giant mountain that has stuffed animals that you can find in Alaska like bears, dall sheep, wolves and mountain lions. I think everyone ended buying something there.
Our next stop was the Costco and like a typical Costco on a Saturday, it was busy. We always enjoy visiting Costco of wherever we are travelling because usually they sell items that you will only find in that part of the country. For example at this store you can get bear spray, lots of salmon and crab and an insulated box you use to ship your fish home. We did manage to fill a cart up and then went out to the RVs to enjoy our lunch in the parking lot.
It was now time to head to downtown to check out the Anchorage Market & Festival. It is an outdoor market that is held on the weekends during the summer. There are approximately three hundred booths selling a variety of Alaskan-made and Alaskan-grown products. We walked around and picked up a few things. We also sampled a variety of food like licorice ropes, reindeer tacos and the thing I was most looking forward to The Original Twist Potato.
The Slam’n Salm’n Derby just started so we walked down to Ship Creek to check out the fishing. There is a bridge over the creek which gives you a great vantage point to watch the fisherman. There are times when there are so many people fishing, it’s called “combat fishing” because you are literally elbow to elbow with the next person. Today there were only a few people fishing. We did see one guy catch a big fish and when he was bringing it to shore, the line broke and the fish was gone.
We said goodbye to Anchorage and started our journey south towards Portage Valley. We knew from the last time we were here that the drive can take much longer than the GPS says because of all the stops that you make. We ended up making a few stops and everyone remarked how stunning the scenery was. It probably took us an hour longer than expected and we arrived at Portage Valley Cabins & RV Park ($49 USD / per site) at around 8:00pm.
We got checked in and were assigned to spots 30, 31 and 32 which were pull through sites with water and electricity. Once we all got our RVs hooked up, it was time to get working on dinner. Since we did not stop at a grocery store on the way out of Anchorage, everyone just gathered around the picnic table with whatever we had bought last night from Fred Meyer and today at Costco. There was leftovers from Olive Garden along with steak tails, sausages and Caesar Salad from Costco all the while with mountains as our backdrop.
After dinner, we went for a walk exploring a little bit of the campground. One of the nice features of this place is that there is a community cook house. It is an octogan shaped structure that as walls that are made up of stacked firewood, a very large fire pit and BBQ grills for your use. Every night people gather here to enjoy the fire and talk with their fellow campers. We did not spend too much time here since all of the adults were pretty tired. You see it was after all 10:45pm. We said our goodnights and eveyrone retired to their respective RVs.
Today’s miles = 62.6
Total miles = 66.2
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