Week Thirteen~Alaska Trip July 8-11

                               Ninilchik Beach View

We went to Ninilchik Beach because that is where our friend Dennis Hill was able to see so many eagles. We saw quite a few while we were there, but we were told that a few weeks ago there were a lot more. We could not get any really good close up shots because my camera is not that sophisticated, but it was fun watching them anyway. They did not come in to shore when the tide came in, but they liked to hang out further from shore on the sand bars.

The trip down the Kenai peninsular was one to remember. The combination of the mountains and the ocean made for some beautiful scenery.

On the way we spotted this for sale. We were wondering if it was an RV of some sort or if it was used by a vendor.

Saturday we were able to get in touch with Gary and Francois, friends that we made in Whitehorse YK. They were also broken down and waiting for service. They were camped out on Homer Spit so we traveled down to spend the day with them. We had a great time catching up on our travels and adventures. Then we ventured down to the end of the Spit for lunch. We sat and talked so long that we were almost charged rent! Later Francois fixed us dinner and we traveled back home, before dark!



There is the Spit….



                                                              Gary and Francois
When we arrived home there was a note on our doorstep. It seems that Larry Leonard and his lovely wife, Peggy, live in Ninilchick. Larry checks the local campgrounds regularly looking for fellow SKPs and invites them to his home for a SKP get together. We had missed the gathering on Saturday but he came back looking for us on Sunday. So that evening we went to Larry’s and they shared some of their FRESH caught halibut with us. It was delicious. We had a wonderful time visiting and making new friends. Our SKP # is 94853, which means that many couples joined before us. Larry’s number is 1426, so he has been a member of Escapees a LOT longer than we have!

There were also two other couples camped in his acreage that were also SKPs.  Here is a shot of the Ohio SKPs.

Oh, around the corner from Larry’s we spotted this moose with her two calves. They were not interested in us, they were busy eating.  Mom had her head in the bushes.


 
So on Sunday we packed up and made the trip over to Seward. We are in the Stony Creek campground with a FHU, so we will have phone and internet until at least Tuesday. We are planning an ocean trip out of Seward, I will let you know how that goes later…..

Finish Week Twelve~Alaska Trip July 6-9

Still in Talkeetna, we left for the Jet Boat ride about 2:45. We boarded the bus that took us down to the river. We had to wait while the boat was refueled before we could board. We went for a very FAST and exciting ride.We were able to see the eagle’s nest with a young eagle inside testing his wings.
                          At another point there was an eagle on the shore.
  We really enjoyed some lovely scenery on the way out and back. 



A stop at another fish camp. Notice the guide on the left has a shotgun with her in case there was an overly friendly bear……..
The next day we headed for Wasilla. It was so clear that Phil caught this picture of Denali out the rear view  mirror. I wish it had been this clear when we were at Denali.

The trip down the road to Wasilla was very pretty in spots with lots of road construction. Wasilla is suppose to have the largest Wal Mart Super Center in Alaska. So we had to check it out. We went in and did some grocery shopping, later Phil got a prescription refilled and we spent the night in the parking lot. The next day we headed for Anchorage. We fueled up in Anchorage and also filled the propane tank. Our next stop was at Sam’s Club. There were some supplements and snacks that they have that are not available at Wal Mart. Next we found a good package store and then our errands were done. We headed down the road to Ninilchick. Lovely drive. I’ll tell all about it in the next post. We may stop in Anchorage on the way back through, time will tell.

Week Twelve~Alaska Trip July 1-6

                                  Talkeetna AK

Very soon after we got settled on Friday some of our Escapee friends came over to visit. Marilyn and Larry Forbes are the SKPs that we bought our new couch from, so they came to visit us and ‘their couch’.

Dennis and Carol Hill followed and soon Sharon and Don Del Rosario came to say hello as well. We have been following all three of their blogs since they arrived in Alaska. They are the Loosey Goosey Last Frontier Gang.  There are six couple traveling together and they are having a wonderful time. We have shared several happy hours and meals with them and we really appreciate their welcome and hospitality.

Last night we had a fish fry. Dennis cooked some of the halibut that Larry caught on their fishing trip. This morning Dennis treated everyone to breakfast. Tonight we are having a steak and corn on the cob cookout. Dennis is a super cook!

We have not seen any fireworks advertised locally, tough to do because it doesn’t ever really get dark here in the summer.
We took a trip into Talkeetna both yesterday and today. There were a lot of tourists there, brought in by the bus load. We had a good time watching people and then came home. There is a lovely playground for kids nearby and also a beautiful Talkeetna Lodge.
 


                                                                                              Talkeetna Lodge
    

                                                                                                 

 

Local home  

             

We have been playing games with the weather. It has been overcast and drizzly several days this weekend. That has made it tough for those of us that want to do a fly by of Mt. McKinley. We were scheduled to go out on the morning of July 2nd. However, it needed to be postponed because of clouds and rain. We have rescheduled for tomorrow morning, July 5th. We are hoping it will work for us.
July 5th dawned a beautiful sunny day. We arrived at the airport around 8 AM and we were in the air around 8:40 AM after a safety and flight explanation. They put us in a Cherokee six seater. We sat in back because it was easier for me to get in and out of the plane that way, no steps. We flew north and had a beautiful view of Denali, the best in about a week, the pilot said. There was a band of clouds across the mountain, but we could see all of the mountain except for what was right behind the cloud. We flew over the cloud to begin with and then we flew below it to see the glacier.  





I have posted 143 pictures to the Picasa Web Album site, so look at that and take the trip with us. There are some pictures that have some reflections from the windows and some that have a bit of the wing showing. I thought about cropping the plane wing out at times, but I wanted to show that these were taken from the air, so I decided to leave the wing visible.

I  will be the first to say that I am not fond of taking the RV up or down a twisty windy mountain road when there is no guard rail on my side, but the plane trip did not bother me at all. The views were just awesome and I don’t have enough words to describe how beautiful the trip was. At one point Phil spotted a rainbow below us and even though I always knew that a rainbow is a full circle, I had never seen it before. We were able to get within 15  miles of the mountain before we had to turn around. When the clouds were so thick that the pilot could not view the ground, we had to reverse direction.

Glacier below.

This was a little close, I was about to tell him he needed to turn, but I guess the pilot could see better than I could……..



Coming back to town.




Safely down and still smiling. It certainly was an experience that we will long remember.



After that outing we headed for a local restaurant to have brunch. The Roadhouse is know for its breakfast menu. Phil and I both had a HALF order of a Sourdough pancake. This is a half order:

There is a plate under there. We were both very full when we finished.

While we were waiting for our breakfast Phil noticed a bobtail cat in the restaurant. He thought that was strange, but gave the cat a scratch. Later, we found out that he had actually scratched 'Mr. Stubbs' who is really the MAYOR of Talkeetna. He was elected with a write in campaign. No everyone gets to scratch the mayor under the chin!

 We were both very full when we finished. We are off to a Jet Boat tour of the river later today, so more later…….

Week Eleven~Alaska Trip June 24-June 30

                                          Denali National Park

What is to be said? It is beautiful. We arrived at the park on Saturday morning and registered. Before leaving the building we met Cool Judy, a fellow SKP. We talked with her about site placement and then we went looking for a site. They don’t assign you a site. We were listed as an A site because we were close to 40 foot RV.  So we were driving around the first loop looking for an open site. Before we were finished we located Tom and Paula Nankivell, who are fellow Chapter 20 members. We found a site big enough for us just two sites down from them. So, we set up and had a quick lunch. As we were finishing Tom and Paula came down and we had a great afternoon visiting and comparing notes on our travels. Soon after they left, Judy came over and we visited with her also.

You can only drive about fifteen miles into the park in a private vehicle. So about 9 PM on Saturday Tom and Paula picked us up and we drove to the Savage River Rest Stop looking for some wildlife. We did see some birds, a caribou , a snowshoe  rabbit and a double rainbow, but no a lot of other wildlife until we got back. Then just a little way from the campground we saw a female moose munching leaves by the side of the road.  She was quite close to the road and was very unconcerned about all of the traffic stopping to take her picture.

Sunday morning was quiet and then we got ready for our bus tour through Denali. We had opted for the more expensive bus tour and I think it was worth the money. We had a tour bus that was a pretty quiet ride and the seats were more comfortable than school bus seats. Plus the driver had a video camera and when we spotted wildlife he could zoom in on it and it was projected onto overhead video screens on the bus. That helped everyone on the bus to be able to see the animals.

We spotted: Dall sheep, caribou, wolves, a ground squirrel, a fox, a moose and calf, golden eagles, a harrier hawk, magpie and a collard pika. AND of course, we were able to see Mt. McKinley, so we are members of the 30% club of people that travel to Alaska and actually see Denali.
We spotted a lot of the wildlife on the way out to Stony HIll, which is as far as our tour went. While we were at Stony Hill everyone spotted a lone wolf and watched him for quite a while. Then everyone was busy taking pictures of the mountain. On our way back we saw the wolf again and tracked him for about five miles. It was great. He finally got tired or us and just stopped and lay down in the grass and disappeared. However, not more than about five or six miles up the road we encountered a whole wolf pack traveling toward us. There were four in the pack and it was obvious that two were young. We got to watch them for quite a ways as well. We were told by the bus driver to stay very quiet because they do not want the wolves to become accustomed to the sound of a human voice. They were walking up the road and passed right by the left side of the bus.
Things were going great until we were about one hour from home base. We stopped for our last rest stop and when the driver attempted to start the bus it was obvious to all of us that something was amiss. Sure enough, he had shred a serpentine belt on the engine and had to radio in for a ‘rescue bus’. We were on the 2:30 PM bus,  scheduled to return at about 10:30 PM. Well, we caught one of the shuttle busses going back to the park, so we returned home about 11:30 PM. Phil took this picture so that you could see what it looked like when we got home.
You’ll notice that there is not much difference between this picture and the one that he took when we got there on Saturday afternoon!
                  Here are some of the animals that we saw:
                   Caribou on the mountain. He was posing for us!
                                       Two of the Wolf Pack
                                      Lone wolf from Stony Hill
                                          Raven in the brushWe couldn’t get pictures of all of them. The Dall sheep looked like little white dots on the mountain they were so high up. I spotted two golden eagles circling overhead on the way back that I don’t think anyone else spotted. Here is a picture of one of the hairpin turns on the way, Phil was sitting in the window seat, not me!
We explored the Visitors Center and it was outstanding. They had a diorama about the wildlife and history of the park that was two stories tall. They also had a video about the different seasons in Denali NP that we purchased to bring home. Pictures cannot do the park justice, the video is better.
Sad to say, we missed the SKP Happy Hour that day, but we did visit with Tom and Paula again before we all left on Monday morning. They have recently upgraded their RV and it is lovely. However, the only thing that I really wish we had on this trip is the one piece windshield. It is so much nicer for viewing and taking pictures without the center seam and windshield wipers in the middle of the windshield.
The next three days were very quiet. We went to Denali State Park, Denali North. It is suppose to be one of the best places to view Denali. Well, the mountain never came out to play for us. Denali was totally socked in with clouds the whole time we were there. Plus, there was no cell coverage or air card coverage while we were there either, plus we were boondocking. (That is no electricity, water or sewer for you non-RVers) We went for a ride one morning and took the computer but we could not locate any hot spots. So, for the holiday weekend we are in Talkeetna AK at the Camper Park. I had made reservations ahead, happy to have electric and water, as there are limited full hook up sites. Well, when we got here we found that the lovely man that runs this place had set aside one of the FHU sites for us. Yippee! I can do as much laundry as I want, we can shower and wash dishes, and we can use real plates and glasses. There are also three couples that we know that are traveling through Alaska from South to North, so we met them in our travels from North to South. We will spend some time this weekend comparing notes and telling lies, of course. Life is good!!  I will close this week with a picture of Denali. It is not great, hopefully there will be some better ones to follow.