Jul 23, 2014 - Valdez AK

Yesterday evening I went back to the other side of the bay. It was an incoming tide but the flats were still clearly visible. There must have been 3 dozen bald eagles on the flats. While waiting for an eagle to fly by with in range for a photo a young grizzly bear showed up and went onto the flats. He meandered through the group of eagles long enough to get some really good photos. The one posted shows the bear and 7 bald eagles. Toward sunset the eagles left the flats and flew over to the trees next to the road. On the way back to the...

Jul 23, 2014 - ANCHORAGE

Anchorage is much larger than most of the places we will be over the next 30 days so we decided to take advantage of it. We took the camper off the truck. I made an expensive trip to Jiffy Lube for an oil change, then a stop at a car wash. So far we have driven over 6,000 miles. We also loaded up on supplies and filled the propane tanks. Anchorage has a trail called the Coastal Trail. We took a bike ride on the trail. It is quite busy but provides a great view of Cook Inlet, Mt Mckinley, and sometimes a little wildlife. We crossed paths...

Jul 23, 2014 - Halibut Grove Charter

Wed., July 23rd – There was a light rain and rough seas, but fishing was A-Okay aboard the Halibut Grove charter boat with Captain Seth at the helm. Steve set the alarm for 4:50am to make it to his 6am dock departure. Bob and I met the boat when it returned at 7pm. The 6 anglers were cold, wet, and weary….but it was well worth it considering it took 4 large carts to offload the day’s catch. Steve landed an approx. 70lb halibut, a 25lb and 50lb lingcod, and a smaller rockfish….the fillets weighed in at 61lbs…now that’s a lot of fish! We...

Jul 23, 2014 - Homer

July 23... It was a nice run from Seward up, over then down to Homer. We pulled into the Driftwood Inn & RV Park at noon. Man! What a site we have. We pull straight into our site and see the Cook Inlet 250 feet away out our picture window windshield. The cool air definitely has a salt water smell. Awesome! We took a drive after lunch down to "Homer Spit". The spit is just a narrow piece of land about 4 miles long, jutting out into Kachemak Bay. It reminds me of driving down Daytona Beach in Florida. A number of people we have talked to have...

Jul 22, 2014 - Kenai Fjords National Park Cruise

Wow! What a great trip. The weather was beautiful, some cloudy bits, but mostly sunny. We started off the tour seeing sea otters. What cute little guys. Then we were lucky enough to see northern pacific humpback whales, orcas, dall dolphins, many kinds of sea birds, and of course the glaciers. I would highly recommend this cruise (6 hours). Here are a few of the gazillion pictures we took.

Jul 22, 2014 - Alaska Tour - Denali, AK - Stop #12

Hello Everyone, Today we traveled a little south out of Fairbanks, AK towards Denali, AK. Although the miles were just over 100, we traveled very slow over many construction sites with some requiring you to turn your engine off to wait your turn! In Denali, we quickly got parked in the campground and signed up for a White Water Rafting trip on the Nenana River right across the street! This river is glacier fed, and the rapids are a Class 3-4, which means you will get wet! Luckily, with the water very cold, they provided very good ‘Dry...

Jul 22, 2014 - Valdez AK

Moved again this time down to Valdez AK. The truck got a real workout pulling the trailer through the Chugach mountains. The Richardson Highway down to Valdez was not the greatest but slowed down to around 40 mph and it was OK. The drive through Thompson Pass to Valdez was really nice. Valdez is in the back of an inlet and is surrounded by 6,000 foot mountains all around. It is a very scenic location just to sit outside and look at the mountains. In the evening we drove over to the fish hatchery which is across the bay from Valdez. The oil...

Jul 22, 2014 - A trip to the Zoo & Waiting for Sharon

Monday, Dick completed his efforts to help the First Baptist Church’s work day by cleaning the furnace filters. Sue helped him. Then, we went to the Alaska Zoo where most animals have had some serious problem that resulted in their care by the zoo. Afterwards, we overnighted at the Walmart again. Tuesday, we replenished the van’s fluids and washed clothes. We followed Sharon’s plane from Atlanta to Anchorage and picked her up for a quick, three-day sojourn.

Jul 22, 2014 - Denali, AK

It was a sloooooowww morning in our trailer. We didn’t make it out until something after 11. We went to the visitors’ center, watched the movie, and looked at all the exhibits. Fact: did you know that Alaska has no snakes and only one amphibian, the Wood Frog? It freezes solid in the winter (the Ranger called it a frogscicle) and then it unfreezes back into a frog. Our one interesting factoid about Alaska. On our way home, we stopped at a chalet at the top of a mountain. It had many switchbacks getting up there and a number of funny signs...

Jul 22, 2014 - Prince William Sound Cruise

Tues., July 22nd – We departed on the Stan Stephen’s Columbia Glacier Cruise at noon. This 7 hr. excursion took us through Prince William Sound where we were able to weave our way through icebergs to get the closest view of the glacier this vessel had managed in several weeks. It was unusual to have a female captain, but she did a terrific job navigating around Heather, Glacier and Bligh Islands giving us bits of information about the history of this area and pointing out the wildlife. We passed by the end terminal of the 800 mile Alaskan...

Jul 21, 2014 - Denali, AK

It was a long day. We were on a tour bus to tour Denali. The mission was to see as many animals as we could. We saw three little fox kits tussling and playing with each other while mom kept her eye on them. We saw many caribou, once a whole herd of them. They were climbing a mountain and leaving the calving grounds. Really neat to see so many of them at once. A little later we saw a lone male that had a tremendous rack. Some Dall sheep were out and a couple of grizzly bears, only they were interested in taking a nap. The bus was a flat...

Jul 21, 2014 - VALDEZ

Valdez is beautiful. It is surrounded by mountains that are usually covered by clouds. It makes you think you are up very high, but actually you are at sea level. The Valdez Museum was very interesting. It has lots of information about the 9.2 earthquake of 1964, the big oil spill and the Alaskan Pipeline.Both of these tragedies took place on March Good Fridays in different years. The first evening we drove out to Dayville Road where the Pink Salmon were running. Brown bears are also spotted here quite often. There were lots of fishermen...