Out of Alaska

Date: 7/9/13                                    Time Zone: PDT

Location: Vernon BC

Travel Leg of journey: 30                        Day of journey: 64

Miles traveled today:            381                        Miles traveled since departure: 8513

Percentage of travel completed: 77.4%

U.S. states visited today: BC

Critters observed today: [since last post] too numerous to count

Our Recent Travel

Greetings. It has been almost a month since my last post. A lot has happened, and a lot of miles traveled since Anchorage on 6/15. This post will attempt to catch up on some of the happenings. Our daughter Jessica, husband Joe, Declan and Cormac arrived and visited some attractions around Anchorage. We then went south into the Kenai peninsula, Alaska’s playground. We stayed a few nights in Seward where we went on a whale watching boat tour and saw a humpback whale, along with otters, seals, eagles and Nancy’s favorite, puffins.  We visited Exit Glacier near the coast. We then traveled to the town of Kenai and stayed at a park overlooking Cook Inlet. Jessica and Joe went Salmon fishing and caught 7 nice fish that all enjoyed for our dinners. These are NOT farm raised salmon!

We also took a flighseeing trip on a 7-seat airplane to an island noted for grizzly bears. As we approached, we could see bears on the shore and in fields beyond the trees. Our pilot landed right on the sand/gravel on the beach and we walked a couple of hundred mosquito-infested yards to a broad meadow. We saw a total of 10 grizzly bears while on the ground, not counting cubs. At one time we observed 8 bears from a distance of 200 to 400 yards away, playing and eating the grass and roots from the soft ground. We also flew over a recently active volcano and an adjoining glacier before returning.

Flightseeing for Grizzlies

                                           

The Daly’s ended their visit with us in Cooper Landing [CL] to the north. Flash forward to the tag team match. Our son Stephen, his wife Dona, Ramsey and Oliver joined us in CL for a few days there. We took a raft trip down the Kenai River and saw numerous eagles and jumping salmon. We then went to the southernmost part of the Peninsula, to Homer. The road there is the most western numbered highway in the U.S. We took a water taxi to an island to go on a hike. This didn’t work out as intended, however. After leaving the beach and entering the woods, we were absolutely swarmed by mosquitoes. And, please don’t tell this, but not one of us carried insect spray that day. On a hike. In Alaska. We all thought that the others had some, but did not.  Nancy didn’t go because she knew she would be a whimp. The young boys could not cope with this problem, so Stephen took them back to the beach while Dona and I trudged on, swatting all the way. We were rewarded by coming to a beautiful lake at the foot of a massive glacier. The lake was filled with icebergs that had either calved from the glacier, or were left over from the winter’s freeze and floating free. We re-entered mosquito country to return to another beach for pickup by the water taxi. Later that day, Dona and Stephen left on a 2-night kayak excursion to a remote island and stayed in relatively mosquito-free yurts both nights.

Swatting Mosquitoes

                                              

Icebergs on glacier lake

We then all left in the motorhome for more exploring. For Nancy and me, this was the start of our return journey as we were moving northeastward, then south in the direction from which we came. We spent a night in Glennallen in a wilderness RV park and suffered with no electrical power available from the park. In the summer in Alaska however, you do not need lights to see at night, so we made out ok. We then spent a night in Tok AK.  The boys were treated there to a wonderful ride in a dogsled, they were so thrilled! Then 2 nights near Whitehorse. There we were surprised to find that the park did not offer any water to the camp sites. But with 60 gallons of water on board, I thought we could make it. Wrong. We ran completely out of drinking water the last morning. I carried water from a faucet near the office to use for flushing. We then left to spend 2 nights in Skagway AK. There we enjoyed the quaint little town and the 4^th of July. All but me went on a train excursion on the White Pass railway and enjoyed spectacular views of the pass and some mountain goats. I took the opportunity to take a short walk on the Chilkoot Trail which was used by the gold mine seekers looking for the Klondike gold strike in 1897. The Manns caught a ferry from Skagway to Juneau for their return flight home. While in Juneau, they did a bear flightseeing tour of their own and got to see grizzlies catching dinner. These were NOT farm raised salmon. Nancy & I stayed an additional night in Skagway before really getting started on the long trek home.

Mush!

                                              

End of post