Day 103 – June 21 (Alaska Day 12)– Ninilchik

We got up and moved on down the Seward Highway towards the Kenai Peninsula.

We had found a campground in Ninilchik that is a Passport America park.  The rate is great for this area at $15 per night.  Some Passport America parks limit the number of days you can stay – like only Sunday through Thursday, or one night only or something like that.  This place has no restrictions on the number of days they will honor the Passport America rate.

We planned to stay at the park until after the 4^th of July because places are filling up.  On the way down the Seward Highway and then the Sterling Highway we saw two moose on the side of the road.  The roads in Alaska are known by names more than by highway numbers.  We drove highway 1 from Anchorage to Ninilchik but the name changed from Seward to Sterling.

We pulled into Country Boy Campground and tried the office.  It was locked.  So we walked to the café.  It was locked.  We kind of looked around and a guy stepped out of a cabin and said to go up the steps and pound on the door.  We did and heard, “Come on in”.  We opened the door and stepped into this guy’s living room.  He said to pick out a site and then let him know, he wasn’t going out in the rain!

I was ready to leave the place right away.  It was nothing more than a gravel lot with hook ups.

We parked the campers and Chuck (the guy who told us to pick our site) showed up and said if we could round up the girls, he would tell us a little about the town and what to do on the peninsula.  We were still working on the campers and he said to come up to the café and he would go get himself some tea.

We went to see Chuck and we talked for about 90 minutes about several things.  He made some calls and we set up a halibut fishing trip on Tuesday and a salmon fishing trip for Thursday that includes a float plane trip and then fishing from a boat while bears fish from the bank.  While talking, Chuck said he was going to have a fish fry this evening for some of the folks in the park and if we wanted to come it was $12 a person for salad, fried halibut and French fries.  We decided we would do that and finally made our way back to the camper.

We went to the fish fry at 5 and the place was full.  It is a shame the cafe is no longer open, it is decorated really cute.  There are the bottoms of ducks on the ceiling, looking like you are under a pond, the boots of a little boy in the water with his fishing line hanging from the ceiling, a mural of a bear on another wall.  The people were really friendly and the food was just as good as Chuck said it would be.  Everyone filled up their plates and there was food for those of us who went back for seconds.  Chuck walked around to make sure everyone was enjoying the food.  I changed my mind about this place - it is the kind of place you feel at home not just passing through.