Friday, November 8, 2013

Washington, Oregon and Home


Back Into The Lower 48 States:

September 5-15, 2013

Today sees the travelers moving south and reentering the lower 48 states. The boarder crossing was uneventful, thank goodness.  Driving along Highway 97: we enjoyed more high-desert, rolling hills and  some incredible agricultural areas. APPLES, APPLES and more APPLES, miles and miles of amazing orchards. There were also many acres of hay and the winter storage barns.  We called it a day and stopped in Ellensburg Washington.  This is an interesting area; we spent 2 days touring around this part of  Washington State.  One morning we took a tour of the Wild Horse Wind Facility, a renewable energy resource center with149 wind turbines. The town of Ellensburg was fun to explore.  There were a number of “barn quilts” on buildings in the local area, interesting shops, old and well maintained buildings and a very good pasta restaurant that used to be a corner gas station.  

Saturday, September 7th was our first day back in Oregon in 6 months. More spectacular agriculture was evident along the highway. Getting to the Columbia River and heading west felt especially good. We stopped just out of Hood River and took 3 days to visit this area. We spent an afternoon walking around the grounds of the annual vintage plane fly-in – so many beautifully restored old planes and old cars too. Full Sail Brewery did not disappoint for happy hour. The next day we enjoyed gorgeous late summer weather and drove the 35-mile Fruit Loop Trail. There were many fruit stands, orchards, farms, vineyards, and cute shops along the way. The view of Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood was spectacular. The afternoon was spent cruising on the Columbia Gorge – perfect day for a boat ride. Our last day here we toured downtown Hood River a nice little town with many shops to wander in and out of.

Tuesday, September 10th we drove to Keizer, Oregon. We were able to navigate around the city of Portland and avoid the congestion and traffic. The day was not without excitement however; we had a little “tangle” with a bridge crossing back over the Columbia. Yikes the narrow metal bridge gave us some concern crossing over to our campground, but it was the return trip that gave us a bit of a SCRAPE.  No serious damage, thank goodness. The MoHo faired amazingly well for all of the tight spots we have found ourselves in on this trip. We stayed at the Elks Lodge in Keizer; the location was good for Mike’s Sauerkraut German Band Gigs in Mt. Angel.  The band played concerts on Thursday 9/12 and Friday 9/13.  They were well received by the audiences that gathered around to listen.  Many other “UMP PAH Groups that were also performing. Karen enjoyed some shopping time with her friend Char. The goal was to find some wedding togs for son Marq’s upcoming nuptials. There were some good results from the efforts made to try and dress-up the old gal.  We enjoyed an evening sharing some of Mike’s caught Alaskan Halibut with Charlotte.

Saturday, September14, 2013 – our last night on the road. We stopped at the 7 Feathers Casino for a “end of the road celebration” The place was jumping with activity: RV rally, rodeo and performance by Winona Judd made MoHo parking a bit limited, but we made do. Dinner was excellent – we treated ourselves to a wonderful steak dinner.  The evening was spent revisiting the adventures of the last 6 months of travel and reminding ourselves of how lucky we are to have been able to take our North American Safari – 2013.

Sunday, September 15th – a short drive home. Wow how good it felt to park the Safari and get into our comfy home on Clay Street.  The dogs seemed to be happy to be back too.

Days on the road: 178
Miles driven: motorhome 16,000 + Prius (towed) 3000+
Memories: enough to fill many, many pages of blog and a lifetime of great experiences

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Prince George, Cache Creek and the Okanogan Valley


British Columbia, Canada: Prince George, Cache Creek & the Okanogan Valley

August 30 September 4, 2013

Prince George:
We started the 24th week of our North American Safari, completing the Alaskan Adventure and heading south toward home, and being excited to complete this trip of a lifetime.  It felt good to be back on the road on our own.  We headed east on Highway 16 – the scenery returned to a more agricultural appearance: hay fields, horses, and cattle along with the on-going forests, mountains, and waterways. Burns Lake was post-card picturesque – so calm and glassy, revealing a great reflection of the lakeside. Camp for the next 3 nights was in Prince George, B.C.

Saturday morning we enjoyed the luxury of sleeping in: not having anywhere to go or anything to do.  We hadn’t realized how tired we had gotten having so much fun. The day was spent on a few cleaning chores followed by a nice drive around the town.  Prince George is a lumber town since the early 1800’s blue spruce is the main lumber harvested.  We found the iconic Mr. P.G. standing at the end of town, sort of a cross between the tin-man and the jolly green giant.  The University of Northern British Columbia is located on a hill over looking the town, a great vantage point if there hadn’t been so many trees growing all over the campus. A beautiful setting – there were many nice walking trails, and gardens and water features on campus. There were also signs warning of wildlife encounters, moose, bears, dear and other critters frequently visit the campus.

We spent some time trying to up-date the blog – we had become lazy about making our entries, so was a bit frustrating trying to remember where we were and what we had done. Think we finally got some notes written up, only to have trouble with the photos.  The Labor Day Weekend weather was perfect for enjoying the outside – we took a nice walk up on Connaught Hill enjoying the shade of the park, the flower garden and some fresh air.  For dinner that night we met with 3 other couples from our tour.  We were able to sit outside and enjoy our dinner together – reminiscing about our shared experiences.


Cache Creek:
Labor Day – back on the road traveling 240 miles along Highway 97 South, named the Caribou Connector. Despite being a holiday in Canada, the traffic was surprisingly light and the route was most enjoyable. The highway paralleled the Fraser River for a long part of the drive.  This was an important route for the Caribou Gold Rush in the 1870’s – we saw a few reminders of the time in Road Houses along the way, they had been established every 10-12 miles so that the miners and the others heading north had a place to rest. We stopped in our own roadhouse for the night just out of town at a closed auto repair shop – dry camping off the highway.

The Okanogan Valley was on our itinerary today – an amazing drive. The roadside views were spectacular. We drove through the interesting towns of Vernon, Kelowna, Summerland and Penticton. Getting to the southern end of B.C.’s 97 Highway we saw more and more abundant agriculture.  We had no idea how lush this area is. Very hilly, dry and hot, it apparently is perfect for growing fruit of all types: grapes, apples, peaches, plums, and cherries.  After getting into camp, in the town of Oliver, (wine capital of Canada) we ran out to check on some of the local wineries, Quinta Ferreria and Fairview Cellars.  There are over 100 wineries in the Okanogan Valley and we had a challenge before us (how many could we realistically see?).  We were so surprised to have discovered this very area.  Mike says it reminded him of the Napa Valley many years ago – quiet, simple and unsophisticated, with wineries nestled in the vineyards.  There are also an incredible number of acres planted with a variety of fruits.  Fresh produce stands: each featuring family grown products colorfully dotted the roadsides.  The weather was sunny and quite warm, so after a nice drive around and 2 wine tastings we decided dinner at the local brewery was in order.  We enjoyed a Canadian specialty Poutine – French fries smothered with cheese curds and brown gravy, not on the diet plate – but really quite tasty!


With so much to see in this area we decided to spend an extra night. We visited 3 more wineries, Black Hills, NK’Mip, Hester Creek and a cidery.  This was fun; we drank some very good wines, had a nice lunch and made a visit to an interesting NK’Mip First Nation’s Cultural Center. We bought several bottles of British Columbia wines – all estate grown and good souvenirs of our visit to this remarkable area. Definitely a place to put back on the “to be visited again” list.



Sunday, September 1, 2013

Stewart, Hyder, Smithers


Stewart, B.C., Hyder, AK and Smithers B.C.

August 26 – 30, 2013

Misty windshield and wipers swiping could not hide the beautiful road that lay ahead of us today.  An interesting distraction was observing the MAJOR installation of a big set of power lines along side the Cassiar Highway.  This project must have gone on for over 50 miles; seeing the very tall poles being put up – special poles in some of the areas that a local told us were “avalanche-proof” were fascinating.
Wild life sightings were good: another Mom and 2 little moose, and 2 black bears – 1 along the side of road and 1 darting across the highway. The last few miles of the drive were displaying more glaciers. We saw several “hanging” glaciers that appear to be some how holding on to the sides of the mountains. The most spectacular was the Bear Glacier – she went all the way down to the Bear River – blue, blue, blue. Made the trip without any problems – roads were much better (with the exception of a ½ mile or so bridge reconstruction that shook our fillings loose), the fender continued to hang on and the scenery and wildlife did not disappoint.  Camp for the next 3 nights is in Steward, B.C.  The tour went into Hyder, AK (only 5 miles away) to go bear watching in the evening – a real bust! Stood and looked and looked and for about 2 hours and only saw the poor dead and dying salmon (spawning in the stream) and some very noisy kittywakes (gulls).  The night was capped off by visiting the Sea Alaska Inn where Mike and 2 of our tour mates became “HYDERIZED” – a solemn ceremony where they each chugged a large shot of 150 proof Ever-Clear, followed by beer chasers. If they didn’t keep the shot down, they had to buy the bar a “round”.  Fortunately all were “manly men” and did not embarrass themselves.  Yikes that was strong stuff, the waitress lit the remains in their shot glasses and we watched it flame.

Miles for the day: 182   Total miles for the AK Adventure: 4240.2


Early up, Tuesday morning, we headed back to the bear observation place with 6 of our travel buddies. Whining, we all climbed into 2 cars at 6:30am and headed out to find the “da bears” in the gray drizzly morning. We were rewarded: just a few minutes after arriving - Mera an eleven year old, 500+ pound female grizzly bear came to have some breakfast.  She provided us with about an hour of catching and eating fish, eating berries, splashing in the stream and being active enough to keep us interested. Eventually Mera wondered off for a bit of nap with her full tummy.  Thinking that the show was probably over we started back to the cars, only to hear the ranger say that they had spotted a gray wolf.  Figuring that he wouldn’t hang around, we slowly walked back his way – surprise he was still there and stayed for quite awhile catching fish and also enjoying a good meal.  Two great viewings, we were all so pleased that we had drug ourselves out in the cool misty morning.  Our reward was a good breakfast at a local restaurant.  Back at camp Mike and I mixed up the makings for a “Slap Your Momma Bison Chili”.  There was a chili cook-off in camp. Hope it wasn’t too spicy for folks; most of our tour mates are not from the west coast where we like things a bit hotter.  They all laugh at Mike and his “addiction” to Tabasco Sauce on many things he eats.  We didn’t win, but it was still a good dinner, lots of yummy chili concoctions.


Bear Watching again on Wednesday morning – we were a bit delayed as we spent a few minutes rounding up Percy the rascally West Highland Terrier that made an escape.  No bears or wolves this morning,  guess yesterday was our lucky day. In the afternoon Mike went to see the Salmon Glacier, we were short of cars with high enough clearance to make the road up to it, so I stayed in camp and worked on the blog and visited with some of our tour-mates.

Last day on the road with the Fantasy 48 Day “Heart of Alaska Tour” group. We all got up and going, knowing this was our last day to travel together. Sort of bittersweet, we have had such a great time.  After bumping back through the bridge construction the roads improved dramatically.  The landscape started to look a lot more like the agricultural areas that we have spent so much of our North American Safari traveling through – hay fields, cattle, etc.  Just because things were going too smoothly Mike decided on trying an experiment: how low will the fuel gauge go into empty before it really is EMPTY?  Well we now know the answer – NOT FAR ENOUGH!  Yes we ran out of diesel, fortunately it was on a stretch of road with a small amount of shoulder (much of our tour we have had NO shoulders or very soft ones at best). Sputter, sputter, cough and stall, - just about 3 miles short of our planned fuel stop.  With the assistance of one of our other tours rigs we were able to get the Prius off the dolly and Mike ran into the fuel station and got some diesel.  Also very lucky was that the old rig started back up after only 3-4 attempts; guess that is not always the case.  We got back on the road, and fueled her up - $500.00+ fill!  That was our excitement for the day!  We made Smithers mid-afternoon, just in time to get parked, cleaned up and ready for our Farewell Dinner at a local hotel.  Mike ran into town and got a much-needed haircut.  Gone are the gray curls that I had gotten sort of used to.  It was a good dinner and a nice evening, all of us giving our thanks to the staff and tour mates for a wonderful time.

Miles for the day: 206                                                          Total miles for the AK Adventure: 4446.2

Friday morning we had a continental breakfast and said our last few good byes” to our many new friends; hopefully we will meet up with some of them again down the road.





Teslin,Watson Lake, Iskut


Teslin, Y.T. Watson Lake, Y.T.  and Iskut, B.C. – re-visiting parts of western Canada

August 23-25, 2013

Left Alaska in our rear-view mirror – put the blinkers on and headed south back into Canada. Made the crossing at the boarder without difficulty and enjoyed the day’s drive through much varied scenery again. Back through Moon Lake region with its interesting and strange rock arrangements.  Through the world’s smallest desert: 1 square mile, the Carcaross Desert has sand and dunes, but saw no mirages today.  Mike took a few minutes on our morning rest stop to practice his horn.  Found a beautiful overlook where the music soared through the canyon.  We stopped for a snack in the small town of Carcross – found a sourdough bakery and bought so good bread and treats.  Bought a sun for our backyard, made by a local metal artist – had been hoping to find at least one on this trip. .  Shopped at the oldest store in the Yukon: Mathew Watson’s General Store – funky and fun collection of stuff. Made camp back in Teslin, Y.T. a re-visit from our trip north; 5 weeks ago.

Miles for the day: 160   Total miles for the AK Adventure: 3701.2

Day # 42 of this Alaska Adventure the Safari rig and its passengers heading south on the Alaskan Highway. The roadside rock messages were back in force along this route. We were able to catch a quick glimpse of the 2 martini glasses that we had first seen on our trip north. Pretty good roads today J, we arrived at camp in Watson Lake and took care of a bit of up keeping (vacuuming, straightening up, laundry, etc.). Mike ventured into the “woods” and spent a bit more time practicing his horn. The sound carried so well, all back in camp enjoyed his musical interlude.  Mike and I had wanted to make a rock message, but never could find a place to pull off along the roadside, so we made one in the campground – with a bit of hard work we spelled out “FANTASY”.

Miles for the day: 149   Total miles for the AK Adventure: 3850.2

Day # 43 was marked by a long drive on a road with a real attitude.  Mike crowned it the 3rd worst road we have taken this trip – Highway 37, not a road to be taken lightly or quickly!  Despite the stressful and difficult driving day, it was another amazing scenic delight; beautiful lakes, forests – some lush and some that were like ghosts, from earlier forest-fires.  We drove along side the Horse Ranch Range, which are the oldest mountains in this area of Canada.  A stop for today was a little place called Jade City.  It was a “tourist trap”, but interesting that they produce 92% of worlds jade right in this area. We splurged and bought ourselves a jade Inukchuk, a native statue that is made from Jade rocks and welcomes you to where he is. We think we may put him on our front porch. Somewhere along the ROUGH road one of the Tow-dolly’s fenders broke loose. Luckily one of our fellow Fantasy folks had some self-tapping screws and a handy drill. Mike and Tom were able to screw her back together.  The rest of the drive, especially when we went over another rumble strip, Mike would check the rear monitor and say, “still have 2 fenders!”  That was a good thing.  Wildlife sightings were a bit better today – Mike saw a momma and 2 little mooses across the road along a pond.  Camp this evening was at Totagga Lake, pretty setting on the Lake.

Miles for the day: 208   Total miles for the AK Adventure: 4058.2





Friday, August 23, 2013

Skagway, Juneau


Kluane Lake – Destruction Bay, Yukon Territory, Skagway and Juneau, Alaska

August 18, 2013

Day 36 of our adventure brought more trying travel and participation in the “Rough Road Rodeo”. Poor Mike had his fill of the difficult driving yesterday, and we had even MORE today. Over 200 miles were taken up with loose gravel, potholes, washboard surfaces and LOTS OF FROST HEAVES! The landscape was again pretty, but we tended to be a bit preoccupied with the road and how to avoid the worst of the obstacles. Mike once again did an amazing job of keeping us safe and sound. The 4 of us were very glad to make it into camp and be done with the roller coaster action of the day. The night’s camp was a bit primitive, small space and only limited hook-ups and not enough for all of us, but we made do and everyone seemed just glad to be done driving the “hell road”.  Wild life count for the day – cute caribou and moose planters at an interpretive center we visited.
just can't wait to get........

on the road again......

Miles for the day: 227   Total miles for the AK Adventure: 3269.2

August 19-22, 2013

Days 37-40 we had crossed out of AK and back into the YT, Canada for one night, interesting geography with international boarders changing along the way.  Most of the day’s drive was in Canada.  We were up and on our way early (unusual for us, as we are often one of the last rigs to leave – no rushing me some mornings J) made us feel like we could more easily handle the day’s challenges.  Fortunately he road conditions were much better, thank goodness – the last 2 days had been a trying and worrisome, could the old coach “hang together” over more rough roads?  The vistas and views were very pleasing again. Kluane Lake, as we left was beautiful, as was Emerald Lake that we passed later in the day.  Scenic rivers, waterfalls and mountains with their first snowfall of the season were at every turn.  We drove through an area called Carcross Desert – complete with a few miles of sand dunes.  Summit Lake Valley was very unique – a rocky surface with low clouds that made these several miles of the drive look “other world-like”.  We ended the drive today by crossing back into the USA and on into Skagway. Mike had to thrill us by announcing, as we are driving out of the boarder crossing that “we have no BRAKES!” YIKES! – we had been driving down an 8% incline for 12+ miles and guess we had over heated the stopping power. Fortunately we quickly regained them and all was well.  Very few dull moments with us.
U.S.Customs

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Miles for the day: 272   Total miles for the AK Adventure: 3541.2

While in Skagway we took the White Pass Railroad for a ride on the narrow gauge rail. We saw breathtaking panorama of mountains, glaciers, gorges, waterfalls, tunnels, trestles and historic sights. We rode in vintage parlor cars and excellent views from the large windows.  Mike spent most of his time out of the deck between cars shooting lots of pictures.  Skagway’s main reason for existence seems to be to sell the passengers on the cruise ships DIAMONDS.  There must be 3 jewelry stores for every other tourist trap in the 7-8 blocks of shops that lead from the port.  There were 4 ships docked and the streets were quite crowded.  We enjoyed a drink at the Red Onion Saloon, Mike and our waitress were quite taken with each other – wild old guy!!!

Skagway
Tipping!

Skagway

We took a daylong trip to Juneau. At 7:45 am we boarded the 63-foot fast-hulled catamaran the MV Fjordland. This was a comfortable boat with indoor seating and a 360-degree view of the breathtaking scenery. We cruised through the Lynn Canal the longest and deepest glacial fjord.  On our trip we saw several bald eagles, some sea lions and a couple of hump-backed whales playing a few hundred yards off our deck.  We arrived in Juneau mid day and took a short bus ride to downtown.  We had a couple of hours to eat lunch and see the sights of Alaska’s state capital.  It also is another “cruise ship” town – lots of other “tourists” besides our group of motor homers.  Juneau is an interesting place – one can only get to it by air, sea or being born there.  There are no roads to Juneau.  The state has put initiatives on the ballot to propose changing the location of the capital, but it would be so costly that it does not make sense to the voters.  The same thing goes with proposals to build a highway to Juneau – TOO COSTLY.  After lunch and a short walking tour we went to visit Mendenhall Glacier.  This was another breathtaking location.  The glacier is about 12 miles long from the Juneau Ice field down to Mendehall Lake.  The face the glacier is about ½ mile wide and about 100 feet tall above the water.  Beautiful blue highlights with many icebergs  floating at her base.  We took a short walk around seeing many spawning salmon but no bears made their presence know.  The boat trip back Skagway was great – we spent the better part of a ½ hour watching 6-8 whales all around our boat.  We knew we had a good chance of spotting some when we saw a dozen or so whale-watching boats nearby.  The cruise brought us back to Skagway about 8:00pm.  The BOYS were quite glad to see us, way past their dinner time and it had been a long day with out any “potty breaks”. 
Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau

view from the boat


another Humpback









Palmer, Valdez, Tok


Palmer, Valdez and Tok, Alaska

August 13, 2013

Day number 31 of our Alaskan Tour was another wonderful drive to another interesting city (I know that I tend to get repetitive, but it is hard to continue to come with new descriptors).  Leaving the Kenai Peninsula we drove back through Anchorage – stopped at one of their Fred Meyers for groceries and fuel. The roadside was covered with the majestic mountains that we have seeing almost everyday.  The peaks were separated with more waterfalls.  Google told me that Alaska has over 3 million lakes and 3,000+ rivers – I think we have seen 90% of these during our travels.  We have enjoyed these routes and continue to be amazed at the post card perfect landscapes that our travels take us through.
Glacier and Karen with the boys
roadside scenery


We arrived in Palmer mid-afternoon, a small interesting town.  In 1933 the FDR administration gave 203 families 40 acres of land each to clear and assisted them in building their homes and barns in Palmer. This was an attempt to help a few of the poor families and help the economy in Alaska. This valley is very fertile and they were optimistic that these families could become self-sufficient.  The plan was not a success, but many of the families stayed and many generations still reside in this area.  There are several barns that are still around that are referred to as colony barns.  There was one at the Musk Ox farm we visited. I bought 2 oz. of qiviut (qeevioot), that is the soft and very warm under fur of the oxen.  It is combed out from their hair every spring (not a job I am thinking I would wantJ).  Palmer is also home to the Alaska State Fair – drove by their fairgrounds they were busy getting set up for their events in the next couple of weeks.
Glacial Valley

Musk Ox

Miles for the day: 173   Total miles for the AK Adventure: 2527.2

Aug 14-16, 2013

Days 32, 33, & 34 of the A.A – Onto Valdez, Alaska.  Long drive to our night’s stop, BUT possibly the most beautiful of all. Hard to pick one over another, but the views here seemed better than before, each turn in the road brought us another picture perfect view.  The highway was a bit challenging for Mike today, miles and miles of frost heaves: undulating road surfaces, that one cannot always tell is going to rumble and tumble you. We could see the towed Prius taking flight a few times as we crossed the crazy road surface. There were also quite a few miles of construction that added time to an already long day.  All was ok though because we were quite mesmerized by the gorgeous Wrangell-St. Elias Mountain Range and her accompanying glaciers.  Alaska is home to over 100,000 of these frozen wonders. Unfortunately most all of them are receding.  The first jaw dropping view was of Matanuska Glacier and the Matanuska River --- how can one describe the incredible beauty?  I am almost at a loss for the right descriptive words, even the thesaurus fails me.  Mid-way on our travels today we stopped at the Wrangell St. Elias National Park – it is the largest national Park in the US, larger than 6 Yellowstone N.P. – BIG!  The vantage point in the park where we could see Blackburn, Sanford, Drum and Wrangell Peaks was incredible.  We took a nice hike with the Boys and enjoyed the forests around the interpretive center.  The 9 hours of driving were well worth the landscape we saw, waterfalls that came right out of the mountains were a wonderful surprise as we were tiring of our travels.
Bridalveil Falls

Glacier

Miles for the day: 260   Total miles for the AK Adventure: 2787.2

We took a Glacier and Wildlife Cruise on Prince Edward Sound, a great experience allowing us to see more of the amazing sights of our 49th state. We floated past the huge Alyeska Pipeline and terminus of the oil project.  It is slowly declining in the ability to produce enough oil; there is genuine concern that it maybe become cost prohibitive in the next few years – that will definitely affect Alaska and her economy.  The bay was huge and very smooth, great day to cruise.  We watched a fishing boat transfer their catch to a tender that will take it to the processing plant, allowing them to stay out and fish longer.  Not quite the “Deadliest Catch” but interesting, nonetheless.  Mid-day we came upon Meares Glacier an amazing sight.  A tidewater glacier on the Unaiwik Inlet, one of the few glaciers that is actually advancing. BREATH TAKING!  This glacier is at least 6 miles long (from ice field to water’s edge), ½ mile across and 250’ tall. The captain kept the boat about ¼ of a mile away and allowed us time to watch her, listen to her creak and groan and see a bit of calving activity – happened so quickly it was often just a splash in the water that we saw.  The water surface was littered with icebergs, chucks of ice that have broken off of the mother ship.  The wildlife spotting was good on this trip we saw many birds: puffins, eagles, kittywakes (gulls), and cormorants.  We also saw a big group of Stellar Sea Lions, quite of few Dall Porpoises, sea otters and best of all a Humpback Whale -exciting!
fishing Prince William Sound

Mears Glacier

Hundreds of year Glacial Ice

Whale Tail

Bears were on our list of “want to see” The salmon were spawning in this area so there was a good chance that we might see some. We went out two different evenings to try and catch a glimpse; watching the gulls peck at the dying fish, swatting at mosquitoes, and putting up with the stinky rotting fish smell – we were finally rewarded.  We saw a medium black bear come out of the brush and take a nibble of a couple of the fish.  He obviously wasn’t very hungry, or they were not to his liking, cuz he really didn’t eat much, but we saw him fairly up close and personal.  EXCITING EXPERIENCE!
Black Bear feast

August 17, 2013

Day # 35 – Gray and gloomy weather today and Roads with an attitude today! Mike earned his PHD. – Pot Hole Driver today!  The roads were mostly paved, which is the case for most roads in Alaska, but the surfaces left a lot to be desired. We were doing the “Heavey Jeavey “today – this is where the permafrost warms and cools and really messes with the road levels.  There are often little florescent flags along the roadside to warn of the up coming bumps, but not always and it is quite an intense “rock and roll”. Watching the towed take all 4 wheels up and off the road was quite an interesting event.  Amazingly we got to camp and everything appeared to be in one piece, not sure what the long term effects are, but we seem to keep rolling. Mike had to duct tape one fender on the dolly where the welds had broken.  Our campsite was in Tok, AK – a return visit to this location.
Alaska roads, mostly good

Miles for the day: 258   Total miles for the AK Adventure: 3045.2






Monday, August 12, 2013

Seward


Kenai Peninsula Part II – Seward, Alaska

August 10-12,2013

Days 28-30 of our Alaska Adventure, still moving along! Leaving Homer we saw more of the same beautiful roadside scenery today; the mountains were cloaked in what looks like beautiful green velvet, they are accompanied in their splendor with more picturesque waterways; the Kenai River was full of fisherman. The views were postcard perfect for many miles of our travel today. Arrived in the town of Seward mid-afternoon. Our campground was right on Resurrection Bay, looking across at some rugged mountains topped with clouds. It is fishing derby week, so there are a lot of fishermen out on the bay trying their hand to win the big prize. Little boats are constantly zigging and zigging across the water to go to their fishing sites. Our afternoon activities included visiting the Alaska Sea Life Center – a nice aquarium and rehabilitation center for sea life, built after the oil spill in the 1980’s.  We completed our downtown visit with a sample of suds from the Seward Brewery and a couple blocks stroll to check out the local tourism shops and stops.
Kenai River

Kenai Lake

The weather changed from gray and a bit dreary to WET and gray and dreary.  That did not stop us from taking a short hike up to see the Exit Glacier in the Kenai Fjords National Park.  About a mile up the trail we stood within a few feet of this beautiful blue ice flow.  You could feel the cold blowing off of her as we stood staring at her.  This is a spectacular view, even though she continues to recede several hundred feet a year on warm years.  As we stood at the view point we wished that there were a way just to “freeze” time so that all who travel this way will be able to take the majesty of this sight.  Exit is a relatively small glacier off of the Harding Ice Field above, but it is the only one that has a road that you can drive up on to get close to on a hiking trail.  We returned to camp to dry out and warm up.  The tour arranged a boat trip out on Resurrection Bay to Fox Island for dinner and some wildlife viewing.  Dinner was good and we enjoyed a presentation about the area by a local park ranger.  The wild life viewing was negligible because of the weather conditions – Mike did his best to take pictures of few sea otters, sea lions and birds in the distance, but the rain was really not very cooperative, he got soaked trying to snap some pics off the deck of the boat.
Exit Glacier



Seward has a deep harbor and as such is a docking location for some cruise ships.  There were two in town while we were here.  It not the glamorous sort of town that you picture ships coming into, but there still is a lot of fun to be had.  We drove down to the Mile 0 of the historic Iditarod Dog Race – it traveled over 2000 miles from Seward to Nome in the early 20th century.  The race now starts In Anchorage and goes to Nome – shorter safer run for the dogs and mushers.
Seward River and Port

another broken down cruise ship

We will be leaving the Kenai Peninsula and heading east to our last 4 Alaskan stops: Palmer, Valdez, back to Tok, and eventually to Skagway, (after traveling through a part of the Yukon Territory again). This continues to be a fantastic trip!


Miles for the day: 175   Total miles for the AK Adventure: 2354.2