Sep 15, 2018 - Another Beautiful Day in Anchorage

Plan for today was to go to the market...opened on weekends until mid-September. Today is exactly mid-September but the market was not opened! We wander the streets of downtown. There were more people here than last weekend when we arrived. We had a fun time looking all of the cool t-shirts in a shop with funny sayings related to bears and moose. One of the favorites was a shirt with a car with the decals of the stick figure family and one bear saying to another "Look there's a menu"! We returned to the Glacier Brew House to eat and had...

Sep 14, 2018 - Baked Alaska Waffle Cone

When we checked out today the receptionist said we had the nicest suite in the hotel. I told her I didn't know how we got it as I booked a standard room. She said it was a complimentary upgrade. Don't know why us but it was lovely! Uneventful flight to Anchorage. Had the taxi drop us off in town for lunch as our Airbnb was not ready. We decided to walk as it was less than a mile and after all it wasn't a cobble stone street and we didn't have a huge suitcase plus our carry-ons and I wasn't wearing flip flops...flashback to Amsterdam 2010!...

Sep 13, 2018 - Haines, Alaska

The drive was awesome with clear weather and tremendous views of the mountains and some glaciers on the way to Haines. We crossed back into the US about 40 miles from Haines but had to endure a few miles of construction (mud) as we neared Haines. Haines is located on the inlet with Juneau, the capital of Alaska, about 50 miles below Haines and Skagway 15 miles to the north. The area around Haines is full of wildlife including Alaskan brown bears and bald eagles. To get to Skagway you have to take the ferry or drive about 350 miles and to...

Sep 13, 2018 - Amazing Dance of the Northern Lights

Awoke to another sunny beautiful day in Alaska. Today we headed off in a 9 passenger Navajo plane with our pilot, John, crossing over the Arctic Circle, 66 degrees 33 minutes, before landing Coldwater. Coldwater was a mining town in 1915, now has population 0 and is a Truck stop. There is a Post Office! The landscapes were interesting though not as nice as Denali. The area we were flying over had not even appeared on maps until 1930s, it showed up as a white area until it was actually able to be mapped out. As we flew over the Yukon Flats,...

Sep 12, 2018 - Mr. Toad"s Wild Ride

As we were heading for breakfast we met up with the flight crew member who told us we were leaving an hour earlier to fly out as it is cloudy. As we got to the plane I looked at how small it was and thought no way is the pilot and 5 other people going to fit in and a feeling of claustrophobia came over me. I was amazed at how much room there was. It was a great flight seeing the park from above and gave a much better perspective of how big Denali is. A couple of times, especially as we were approaching the Denali face, the turbulence was a...

Sep 11, 2018 - Another beautiful day in Denali

After breakfast we went for a hike with Jess, one of the guides here. Jess is from Port Huron Michigan! Another sunny not so cold day. Beautiful fall colors every where. We went to Wonder Lake to see if we could get a could reflection photo. TOday Denali was covered with a very interesting swirly cloud. We hiked near Moose Creek which was very interesting as it was bigger than some of the rivers we saw yesterday! We sampled the berries we found growing here (ate a portion of some poor bear or caribou's breakfast). We tasted a wild...

Sep 10, 2018 - Northern Lights

Couldn't have hoped for a better day. The only negative was the pressure in the shower was bad! Sunshine and wonderful temperature as we left at 1:00 to go to the lodge in the park. 92 mile drive that takes about 6 hours with 3 stops. We are at the last lodge in the park. The end of the road. It was so clear today that we got to see Denali in all its glory! We are so fortunate to have chosen this week to come. Most of the lodges are closing by Friday. There were only 9 people, and one was an employee, on the bus! About 20 miles into the...

Sep 9, 2018 - Beautiful Alaska

While we were waiting for the shuttle to take us to the airport Verne pointed out the sign on the hotel about being aware of moose. Never thought of seeing moose in downtown Anchorage. We didn't see any. But we met some people on the train today who some 4 of the airport yesterday! We upgraded our train tickets to be in the dome car. It was fantastic. After the first stop the train made, about an hour into the trip, everyone from our except for 2 other couples and us got off the train. The rest of the trip was just the 6 of us and our...

Sep 8, 2018 - Too many hours without sleep

A long day in airports and on planes. We have been adjusting our sleep patterns for this trip and I have been staying up until 3 am so I did not go to bed as we had to leave at 4:15 for the airport and by the time we arrived in Anchorage I was working on 36 hours of no sleep. The Welcome to Anchorage sign said it was 68 degrees. It was warm in the sun but a little bit cool in the shade. We took a walk to downtown to find the Glacier Brewery to have dinner. Downtown Anchorage and bascially only 2 streets wide and maybe 1/2 mile long. It was...

Aug 30, 2018 - Juneau to Wrangell

We arrived at Juneau at 12:45am & left at 3:15am so I didn’t see much, in fact because it’s been so smooth, I didn’t even realize we’d stopped. You’re allowed to go down to the car deck when the ferry is in port so during our next stop at Kake, I went to the motorhome, put some stuff back that I didn’t need any more & got another jacket. Everything looked good but I didn’t open the fridge to see how it’s faring. You have to turn the Propane off so the fridge won’t be running for nearly 2 days. I froze a 5 litre container of water &...

Aug 29, 2018 - Valdez

The drive to Valdez is very beautiful. Palmer is on the Glenn Highway which intersects the Richardson Highway at Glennallen. The Richardson Highway is the highway that goes from Valdez to Delta Junction and then on to Fairbanks. This basically is the route of the Alaska Pipeline which carries crude oil about 700 miles from Prudhoe Bay to the ship loading terminals across the bay from Valdez. Along the Glenn Highway we passed the Matanuska Glacier which runs north out of the Chugach Mountains to the valley along the Glenn Highway. For the...

Aug 29, 2018 - Palmer

We left Seward for palmer, Alaska on Thursday. It rained off and on most of the way to Palmer which is about 40 miles past Anchorage on the way to Valdez. This was a short stay and it rained most of the time. We just spent the time getting the trailer ready for the trip to Valdez and did some grocery shopping wince there was a large store there. The skies did clear for the drive to Valdez on Saturday since the Glenn Highway to Glennellen and then the Richardson Highway the rest of the way to Valdez is very scenic.