Soldotna, Alaska - July 7th to 8th, 2022
Some of our best memories are from visiting small towns. We find it relaxing to stroll through the streets and learn a little history. We camped in Soldotna, but the old town of Kenai was a short drive away.
It rained during our drive from Bird Creek Campground to Soldotna. Despite the rain, we still had a decent view of the scenery. Of course, we don’t know what we were missing behind the clouds. According to the Mile Post, there were views of some glaciers along the way, but we didn’t see any.
Soldotna is a good sized town. We arrived before 11 am and had no problem finding a camp site at the Centennial Park Campground, one of two campgrounds run by the city. After eating our lunch, we needed to dump our gray tanks and fill our fresh. The campground has a dump station, but reviews of the campground said they charge $20 to use the dump station and recommended using the free dump station and fresh water fill at Fred Meyers in town. So we drove over to Fred Meyers. We needed a couple of items from the grocery store anyway. Fred Meyers is owned by Krogers, so we were able to keep accumulating points on our shopper’s card.
The rain started to let up in the afternoon, so we went for a little walk. Right from our campsite was the path for the Fish Walk. There is a mile and a half trail along the banks of the Kenai River. It is a nice walk and gives people access to the river for fishing. There are stairs down to the water about every 50 feet or so along the path. From our campsite, we followed the path over to the Visitor’s Center. A few people were fishing there along with several people cleaning their fish. The sea gulls were congregated around the fish cleaning station. They would fight over the scraps that the people would throw into the river while they were cleaning their fish.
Inside the Visitor’s Center, the person at the counter gave us all kinds of information and brochures about Soldotna, Kenai, Homer and Seward, the list of places we planned on visiting next. There was a monitor on the wall with the live cam of the bears feeding at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park and Preserve. Our reservation to fly over there was with Bald Mountain Air from Homer on Monday. There have been a couple of reports on the RVing to Alaska Facebook group that their flights had been cancelled. One person said it was because they could not get a part to repair the plane. We hoped our flight wasn’t cancelled!
After dinner, we walked the Fish Walk in the other direction. Once we got past the boat launch, the trail is a little more protected from the wind and the mosquitos started swarming us. We did not make it to the end of the trail before we had enough of the bugs and turned around. From our experience, skeeters are usually worse in the evening, so we might try the trail again earlier in the day.
Friday we drove over to Kenai. Kenai is only about ten miles from Soldotna. To get there we took Kalifornski Beach Road to Bridge Access Road. Our first stop was the Kenai Visitors & Cultural Center to get information on the walking tour of old town Kenai. There were some interesting displays inside the center, definitely worth a visit.
The walking tour includes the Russian Orthodox Church, a few historic houses, access to the beach, and Cabin Park. One of the first buildings on the tour was Oskolkof/Dolchok Cabin which was built in 1918. It currently houses Veronica’s Café. The café was very inviting, so we went in to have a drink and a treat. Keith ordered the bread pudding while Ann had the Hawaiian carrot cake. We washed them down with a cup of chai. The food was very tasty. The soups, salads, and sandwiches that people were eating at the tables surrounding us also looked delicious.
The Russian Orthodox Church is a remnant of when Russia occupied the Alaska territory. They enslaved the native people, forced Russian Orthodox religion on them, and even gave them all Russian names. There are still natives today with Russian names.
We walked out onto the beach. It is a black sandy beach with views out over Cook Inlet. The view was a little hazy, but we still appreciated it. The trail that leads down from the road goes through a tidal marsh, with lots of flowers on the banks.
The most interesting part of the walking tour for us was Cabin Park. The person staffing the park gave us a wonderful tour of the cabins. All the cabins were moved to their current location, but are from the area, built in the early 1920’s and earlier. Our guide was very knowledgeable about the history and way of life in the area.
At the beginning of our walking tour, we walked by the Burger Bus, a little roadside restaurant serving burgers out of an old bus. After completing the walking tour, we stopped at the Burger Bus for a late lunch. Even though it was 2 pm, the place was still busy. However, it was only about a 15 minute wait to receive our food. We sat down on one of the picnic tables nearby to enjoy our food. Keith had the regular Bus Burger while Ann had the B&G burger that came with bacon, grilled onions, and guacamole. Very tasty!
To get back to Soldotna, we drove the Kenai Spur Highway for a different view. The whole area between Soldotna and Kenai seems more populated than we were expecting, with homes and businesses lining the roads. The area is definitely popular for fishing. We passed by many fish processing and smoking businesses. Some advertised they would ship your fish home for you.
After returning to our campground in Soldotna, we went for a walk again on the Fish Walk. We looked closer at the trail map and realized we had gone the whole trail that is alongside the Kenai River. The remaining half a mile of trail loops back around through the woods. That sounded like it would be an ideal environment for mosquitos, so we chose to walk the stretch of trail between the visitors center and the boat ramp again. No bugs. You can tell where along the trail people are cleaning their fish, because the sea gulls all congregate there to catch the scraps.
We enjoyed the slow pace of camping in Soldotna and strolling through the streets of Kenai, but we were excited to move on. Our next destination was Homer and we were looking forward to our flight from Homer over to Katmai National Park.
Check out our related video: Soldotna, Alaska
(Ann)