We were there for two nights, wandering around, playing games, making fire. It's an awesome location. The cabin is about a half a mile hike from the parking lot. The trail is well traveled, but it's full of roots. We took a big wagon to carry our stuff. Fortunately it has big wheels, but even the little hills plus the tons of roots made the going pretty rough. Just for future luxury campers like us. But we do want to go back with some boats. It's a beautiful lake.
We also went glamping with Tanya's parents at Kenai Lake in their camper. We were just there for a couple of nights, but we got to hang out on the lake beach wandering the area.
We will definitely be coming back here.
We also went to the Alaska State Fair to see Pat Benatar. Needless to say, it's been an eventful and wonderful fall season.
Most recently, we spent our Christmas holiday at another cabin in Bird Creek Campground. It was a little colder, of course. These cabins are heated by propane tanks rather than wood stoves. This isn't ideal, but surprisingly cabins fill up fast on the holiday. However, it is really close to home, so for families or people who can't hike far, this is a nice tucked away little spot. It's also really roomy - enough to lay our cot out so Karis (who is 5 months pregnant!) could sleep a little more comfortably.
We had planned to spend a little more time snowshoeing. Unfortunately, near blizzard conditions, short short days, and as in Alaska winter fashion, rain and ice and slush kept us from it. (This picture was taken the day we got there. That snow didn't last long.) The good news is we had a lot of other things to experiment with.
So here they are, the five best things we found for our camping pleasure.
1. BioLite Base Camp Stove
This thing is AWESOME. It's a miniature wood stove, basically. You feed the wood into the mouth, and it heats up the body of the stove and the grill. Obviously, this cooks your food or boils your water or whatever. (There's a pizza dome accessory you can buy - we didn't.) When the body heats up, it turns on this box (sounds like a fan - I'm not a scientist, so I'm not totally sure what it is), into which you can plug in anything that is charged with a USB. That's right, you can charge stuff with this wood burning stove. It comes with a light, too, that is also powered by the USB plug in. It's actually very efficient. It hardly took any wood at all to get the stove hot enough. We're basically in love with this thing, and we will never cabin camp or car camp or glamp without it.
2. SunJack Portable Solar Charger
There are a couple of solar chargers on the market. One of the more popular ones is the Goal Zero. We had one of those, but it took a long time to charge and it didn't hold a charge very well. So we sold it and went with the SunJack. The pack is a fold out of five panels and it comes with two battery packs. These hold the charge for quite a while. We also got the CampLight USB light bulb, which was perfect for us now that we are working with 18-hour darkness. And even though it was cloudy, it picked up some charge when we put it outside during our short daylight hours. Fortunately, we had already pre-charged the batteries on sunny days.
3. RedHead white camo winter jackets
We each got one. Tanya found these gems on sale at Bass Pro. They were crazy on sale. But they are heavy and warm, water proof, wind proof, and somehow also breathable. And they are comfortable as all get out. I may have mentioned that it was raining at the cabin. It was raining everywhere except inside my coat. I honestly didn't even know there was precipitation until I got back inside and noticed that my dog was wet. Plus, the size that Karis will need when she's not pregnant fits her even now that she is.
4. AYL SoundFit Plus
This is a bit of a luxury. However, when sitting by the campfire or playing cards by candlelight, a little bit of music from your iPod adds joy to the joy. Plus, this little guy is waterproof. And the sound is pretty good. We're not too proud to admit that we're glampers, especially at cabin or in a camper. But it's not just good for background music by the fire pit. It can attach to a bike. So for avid riders who don't want to wear headphones (because running or biking with headphones is dangerous) but also don't want to leave their tunes at home, they don't have to. It connects by bluetooth or by USB, and it is absolutely affordable. (Like, $33 on Amazon.)
5. United Cutlery M48 Hawk Axe
Yes, it's just an axe, like any other small axe out there. But we want to give credit where credit is due. This guy is relatively lightweight, but still large enough to do some real damage. We cut kindling and chicken. We carried it around when walking at night. Not only does it make one feel and look like a badass, it's actually quite useful.
In addition to these awesome things, we also made use of some homemade camping gadgets, some simply prepared survival items. These are all pretty much for starting a fire. They are not replacements, but we did try them all out, and they all work.
1. Tanya's super amazing campfire starter
For the last few months, Tanya has been requesting that all our dryer lint be saved in a baggie. When we got to camp, she showed us why. This lint had been mixed with egg crate carton, newspaper, vaseline, and then covered in wax (all leftover from our burned up candles). They were also sprinkled with wood kindling. These suckers are about the size of an egg and burn a significant flame for just over ten minutes. They're kind of awesome.
2. Char cloth
These are pretty easy to make. You put some cotton (has to be 100%) in a tin, cut a hole in the top, then put it on a fire. Once smoke stops coming out of the hole, that means that the oxygen has been sucked out of the cotton. Take the tin off the fire, open it up, and you'll have yourself some char coal. This is another way to start a full on flame. To be fair, we didn't really start a fire with this one, but we did light it, and it does burn.
3. Penny stove
Have you heard of these? They're pretty easy to make. Just cut about an inch off the bottoms of two drink cans. In one, put in a pile of steel wool or lint or some other kind of thing that burns a lot. Cotton balls, whatever. Then put the two pieces together to close it up. Cut five holes in the top, then holes all around the edge. Pour some denatured alcohol into the newly formed container, then make a trail of said alcohol, and light that sucker up. Oh, and cover the top five holes with a penny (or any coin) to force the flames out the holes along the edge. This will disperse the heat. This is maybe a ten minute stove.
Our travels haven't taken us out of the state for a while, but there are plenty of things to do and see right here. We are making the most of these opportunities before we become parents and these adventures become a little harder to come by. Having a baby will be a whole new adventure!
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