Friday, July 26, 2013 (Travel to Eagle River Campground, Chugach State Park, Anchorage, Alaska)

It was a cloudy morning as we prepared to leave.  We weren't really in any hurry because our destination today was only about 38 miles away...Eagle River Campground in the Chugach State Park.  It is the closest State Park to Anchorage, just 12 miles away.  We figured it would be a good spot for our stay in Anchorage...besides, there are few RV parks in Anchorage that have half decent reviews.

We left Mountain View RV Park shortly after 10:30...our ETA at Eagle River Campground was 11:15.  As you can see, it really wasn't a very nice day...fairly warm, just clouds...no mountain views today...

Knik River entering into Cook Inlet...

A four-lane divided highway...wow, we're not used to this!

Unfortunately, we missed the turnoff off for the campground...it wasn't marked, other than a picture of an RV...sheesh, so we had to go a few miles further until we reached the next exit. 
When we arrived at the campground, we started our search for an empty site...yikes, it's pretty full.  We found one, backed into it and then realized it had a slip on the post..."paid for July 26"...does that mean its reserved for tonight or they were leaving today.  After chatting to the camp host, he confirmed that the site was reserved for tonight.  Oh, oh....that means that there were no sites available.  The camp host suggested the overflow section...so off we went to check it out.

One thing we noticed was the highway noise...and there were a couple of "questionable" fellows that left me feeling uncomfortable. There was one RV park in Anchorage whose review was not bad...so we decided to go there (amazing...reviews for most of the RV parks in Anchorage are just terrible).  We found Golden Nugget RV Park and it was quite an ordeal just pulling into the driveway, it was so overgrown!  Once parked, we went into the office to find that the Good Sam rate would be $43 for the night!  We politely declined and left...on our drive through the park to get out, we were glad of our decision.

Okay...where to now?  We decided to go back to the State park and stay in the overflow section...so, yes, we just wasted a lot of time!  Oh well.  By the time we got unhitched and "semi" unpacked inside, and had lunch it was going on to 2:00.  We decided to do our Costco run this afternoon and then continue to another destination tomorrow.

A six-lane divided highway now...it's so nice driving on smooth highways again however we aren't thrilled with the big city traffic...

It was going on 4:30 by the time we got back to our trailer.  There were a lot more RVs in the overflow section...we'll have lots of company!  Steve got our chairs out while I put away the groceries...then it was time to sit outside with a bevy.

We were sitting outside researching our destination for tomorrow when another RV arrived in the overflow section.  They pulled in beside us and once Jim and Claire had set up, they brought over their chairs and joined us.  They had just flown in from San Diego last night and picked up their rental Class C motorhome.  More family (even some from Germany) are arriving Sunday...in total there will be 10 in the group touring the Kenai Peninsula for a couple of weeks.

After a nice chat with them, they headed off for a walk down to the river while we went inside to get dinner going.  Tomorrow we are going to head towards the Portage area...not far from Whittier.