No Internet Connection

I have to admit, I’d forgotten how inconvenient it can be to not have an internet connection for any extended period of time.

I can’t check email, amuse myself with Facebook or watch YouTube videos. Rhonda is loving all the extra attention. 😉

I’d also forgotten how utterly peaceful it can be to sit quietly in nature with no distractions except the occasional call of a loon or twitter of a song bird.

In my case, I’m simply camping tonight in a lovely campground out in the wilderness and there is zero cell service.

Then again, I have all this to look at …

Btw, for those of you prone to worry over my solo meanderings; I’m camped in site #1, right next to the camp hosts, who are a nice young couple, camp-hosting in exchange for a summer in Alaska.

The fact that my site is also a prime, pull-through campsite, right on the shore of Summit Lake, is icing on this camper’s cake. Oh! And did I mention it being a National Forest Service campground, which means I was able to use my “America the Beautiful” senior lifetime pass? The campsite cost me a whopping $11.50.

This extra day is an indulgence, I have to admit. Home is only about three hours away. It’s not like I couldn’t have made the drive. But hey, I’ve done quite a bit of driving already today. We started out at 9:30 this morning.

Several Scent Work competitors with RVs, including me, chose to spend Sunday night relaxing at the trial site after the trial ended and planned to head home in the morning.

When Monday morning dawned fairly clear and free of the incessant winds we’d dealt with for the previous four days, two friends and I decided to go adventuring a bit before heading north towards home.

After touring greater downtown Kenai (actually more hoping to see caribou out on the flat, grassy delta between Soldotna and Kenai – no luck there), we headed south and ended up at the Kasilof Beach – North Shore public access site. Really pretty!

None of us had been there before, so we got the dogs out and took a lovely walk along beautiful sandy dunes. There was just enough breeze to have clumps of sea grass waving cheerfully in the deep, clean sand and we were careful to keep our leashed dogs on the designated sandy pathways.

It wasn’t a sparkling clear day, but clear enough to see the volcanos across Cook Inlet. Quite a treat.

When the road we’d driven down eventually tumbled us back out onto the Sterling Highway at the town of Kasilof, we reluctantly turned our wheels back towards Soldotna to begin our actual trip home.

After stopping once more, this time for lunch together just outside of Sterling, I parted ways with my friends. They intended to finish the drive home straight from there, while my thoughts had turned another direction.

At lunch, we’d started talking about campgrounds; which ones we liked, which we didn’t, were they pretty or just practical and of course, would our 26-27’ Class C rigs fit comfortably in the campsites.

They mentioned how much they’d enjoyed Tenderfoot Campground at Summit Lake, and while I knew of the campground, I’d never taken that particular roadway. But hey, it was on our way home …

I decided I honestly wouldn’t mind stopping for just one more night. It was 3:00 on a balmy, sweet-smelling afternoon when I turned down yet another new [to me] road to see where it might take me. Ronni fortunately agreed wholeheartedly.