Observations

Date: 6/10/13                                    Time Zone: AKDT [Alaska Daylight Time]

Location: Anchorage AK

Travel Leg of journey: 18                        Day of journey: 35

Miles traveled today:            49                        Miles traveled since departure: 5505

Percentage of travel completed: 50.04%

U.S. states visited today: AK

Critters observed today: moose

Some observations on the long road North to Alaska.

Most of these are since our crossing the U.S. border what seems like ages ago, but was only 5/16/2013.

Signs:

Bridge Sign in Yukon: Tongue River

Business sign in British Columbia: Pet B&B [Bed & Biscuit]

Town sign in Alberta: Entering SEXSMITH

Road sign for bridge: Slippery When Frosty

Sign in Laundromat in Dawson Creek BC:

                                  

Study that one closely. We first thought that this Senior Home group had wild, late parties, going from 8:30 to 12:00. Until we read what was listed for the party meal.

Pulp Non-fiction:

Our RV neighbor in Whitecourt, Alberta was a manager at the largest privately-owned pulp manufacturing plant in the world. It is a huge operation, on a scale that I have seldom seen in the U.S. They take forest growth, which there is lots of up here, everything from full trees, to branches, to bark, and shred, grind and pulverize it down to the cellular level. They then liquefy this mass and chemically treat it to create 151 different pulp product compounds. These compounds are shipped all over the world to make paper products ranging from cardboard, to toilet tissue, to photographic paper. These compounds are compressed into large dense blocks similar to solid concrete for ease of handling and shipping. Who knew?

Sports:

Alaskans and Canucks participate in most of the sports popular in the U.S. Baseball is big up here now. The annual Midnight Sun baseball game is played in Anchorage on the longest daylight day of the year, June 21. The game starts at 10:30 p.m. There are no lights at the stadium. Here is a photo of our motor home taken on May 31 at 11:45 p.m. [no flash]:

Denali NP, 11:45 pm May 31, 2013

                                   

Salmon and halibut fishing is just getting under way now and is very popular with locals and out-of-towners. Fishermen from all over the world come here in the summer to catch their limits, flash-freeze and dry-ice pack the fillets, and return home. We have never tasted salmon so good as the fresh ones caught up here.

Hockey is huge here, at all levels. I heard on radio that they were having training on Saturday at the high school for the “proper way to body check”. Heck, I thought body checking was easy, and needs no formal training, something guys do when some attractive woman comes into the RV Laundromat dressed in her LuluLemon spandex tights. Turns out, it body check training was for young hockey players to learn the proper way to body block [check] on ice.

Animal-human interactions:

There are LOTS of wild animals up here and they often cross paths with people, especially those in vehicles. 90% of the game animals that we have seen while driving, except for in Denali, have been before 9 a.m. Since we have been here a grizzly bear has been killed by a car, and a moose severely injured a woman who came between the cow and her calf. Another cow moose was shot inside Denali N.P. when she charged a man and his family. So far in 2013, 214 moose have been killed by vehicles in the Wasilla-Palmer area alone. In today’s paper were photos of moose with their calves in local public parks, and one of a moose laying on someone’s lawn enjoying the cool and drinking from the irrigation sprinkler. Farther north, in an effort to boost the moose population the game resources people came up with a brilliant idea. Bears and wolves kill about 90% of the young born each year to caribou and moose. So the game folks killed 89 bears [8 grizzlies] in an area as a preemptive strike for the future moose population. Shame on them! I think these folks have taken a page out of the operating manual for Planned Parenthood.

Mosquitoes:

We were forewarned about the mosquito problem up here and have come prepared to deal with it. So far, we have been blessed with very few mosquito problems except in shaded areas, which they prefer. See photos below of one WalMart store with its products for insect control. One entire aisle from end to end, and another aisle plus island displays, at a different locations in the same store.

                                   

Weather:

We have been blessed also with weather. We have had almost no rain since entering the state, very unusual here in early summer. Although the locals don’t call this summer. They have spring [June], summer [July} and fall [August]. The rest of the year is winter. The first town that we stayed in upon entering Alaska, Tok, is considered the coldest inhabited place in North America. The lowest recorded temperature there is -71F. So far here in the central part of the state, there have been 15 days when the daily high reached 70F. Last year they had none.

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