Our Travel Blog

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Our last full day here and yet again it is hot and sunny. I think the locals are prying for cooler temperatures. In celebration of the heat I even wore shorts today!

After breakfast we headed out for a quick geocache.

There’s a Geocache Somewhere

We then tried to find a viewing area for Elemdorf Air Force Base. Unfortunately, they seem to want to keep the place secret, so I got to see nothing.

We then spent a few hours at the Alaskan Native Cultural Center. This actually turned out to be interesting and worth the visit. Alaskan natives don’t have igloos, evidently that is a Canadian thing!

Walrus Tusks

Subterranean Living

Native Dancers / Drummers

Corner Post Totem

Fish Wheel

When we finished there we did some last minute shopping and headed back to the hotel to get everything sorted out for travelling. We have the wake up call booked for 0315!!!! Hopefully we get to sleep on the plane. I’ll do a final post next week.

This will be a short blog after a longish day. We headed south this morning after two nights in our cell.

Our Cell

We knew there were plenty of roadworks on the main (only) road down to anchorage so we figured it could be a longish day. In Alaska they tent to work on 5-10 mile stretches of the road at a time, and use “follow me” vehicles to escort you through. This means waits of up to 30 minutes if you are the first car to be stopped. We had that honour once.

The other unknown was the fire situation near Willow. From what little news we could glean, the road was open but “follow me” vehicles were operating over  22 mile stretch of the highway, using only one direction at a time, this could give up to an hour delay if you were #1 in the queue. As it turned out, they were still using pilot vehicles, but they were operating in both directions, so we only had a 20 minute wait. The road itself was clear, but there were still areas of smoldering brush close by.

Smoke From Fire

Smoldering Brush

On top of all that, our friends Alan & Marie had told us about a scenic flight around Mt McKinley  that they took earlier in the week. We decided to splash out and take one. This meant an extra 16 mile detour into the town of Talkeetna to get to the airport. Once there we booked the flight for an hour later. While waiting we noticed that e had parked next to a camper from Australia! They had it shipped over from Oz to s. America and had driven up to Alaska.

I was hoping to fly on a Beaver aircraft, but we finished up on an Otter.

Otter

As we went out one of the passengers asked if they could sit up front with the pilot, he said sure and 3 kids all raised there hands as volunteers. Pilot said he preferred someone over 6 ft tall (i.e. no kids). I quickly volunteered.

View from the Passenger Seat

The flight itself was fantastic, the weather was clear and sunny. I must admit that on a couple of occasions I got very close to tapping the pilot on the shoulder and pointing out large cumulus granitus clouds (rocks) directly n front of us, as he seemed pre-occupied with looking out the side window!

Below are a series of pictures (if the internet gets its act together) from the flight. If I get bored with waiting, I’ll upload them when we get home.

Landing

We’ll have to be up at 0330 on Friday morning for the flight home. I’ll post a final entry in the next few days and update the photos then.

We survived the night in our cell / cabin and were up at 6AM. No breakfast around here at that time of day, so we ate a nutritious chocolate chip muffin each!

Today was the day for a bus tour around Denali National Park. To see the interior of the park you have to take a shuttle (aka school) bus tour as cars are only allowed a short way into the park.

We met up with our friends at the park  and boarded the shuttle. The trip was 66 miles each way and would last 8 hours! Much of the “road” was single track gravel with a few hair pin bends and sheer drop offs thrown in for good measure.

We evidently were lucky as we had a clear view of Mt. McKinley, which only happens, on average, 4 times in June.

Mt. McKinley

We also saw a wolverine, which is a very rare sighting. It was the first time our bus driver had seen one in his 5 years at the park.

Wolverine

Other sightings included caribou, you may need to zoom in!!!!

Caribou

as well as grizzly bears, dall sheep, a fox and  moose (including one that almost became an ex-moose as it jumped out right in front of the bus. Talking of ex-mooses (ex-meece?), the picture below shows what remains of two male moose who fought each other for dominance of the herd.

Futile Battle

Their antlers got permanently locked together, and both eventually died together.

At the far end of the trip was a visitor centre where Lyn managed to spot a captured quilt.

The Ever Present Quilt

I have to admit, whoever quilted it did an amazing job.

The trip back was a little quieter as many of the passengers were so exhausted by all the sight seeing they fell asleep.

Meal time tonight will be at another Princess lodge, last night was at a micro brewery, which had good food, but a noise level way above any safety limits I know.

Tomorrow we have to do battle with the wild fire, about 22 miles of the highway are affected and when it is open, traffic is led through by a pilot vehicle, so we could be held up for some time. The alternate route will add about 300 miles to the trip.

We had breakfast and packed up the car, then walked downtown to visit a couple more places before we left. One of the places was the Visitors and Cultural Centre which had some interesting exhibits of the different cultures of the area.

Even managed to find an aircraft in it. This aircraft was owned by the Bishop of Alaska back in the 1950’s. At the age of 29 he was the youngest Bishop in the Church, and he took up flying to get around the interior.

Flying Bishop

Outside of the centre was a memorial to the Russian and US airman who lost their lives flying from the US to Siberia via Alaska to deliver WW II aircraft to the Russians as part of the lend lease programme.

Memorial

Also outside is a log cabin, standing in its original location, that was typical of the homes in Fairbanks in the late 1920’s.

Log Cabin

From here we headed out to Jo Ann fabrics (!!) for some much needed material. After gassing up the car and coffeeing up us we headed south down the Anchorage road towards the Denali National Park. The trip was not as interesting (can’t really use the word boring up here) as other trips. The first 75% was through gently rolling hills and heavy forest.

The last part of the trip took us back in sight of the mountains and the 20,237 ft Mount McKinley, so it brought up the interest level. Mount McKinley is the highrest mountain in N. America. We checked into our “room” well more like a cell really. We are in a cabin at an RV resort, accommodation is hard to get up here unless you go for the sky high priced lodges, the cabin is probably 10ft x 15ft, but does have its own bathroom! It also has fantastic internet. As we will be out all day tomorrow, we’ll only be spending sleeping time in it anyway.

Just heard our friends managed to get past the wild fire and are now in Denali. They were lucky as the road was closed again due to smoke reducing visibility. Hopefully everything will be back to normal before we head back to Anchorage on Wednesday.

Last night I woke up around 2AM, which is effectively the middle of the night. Sunset was at 1230AM and Sunrise at 330AM. The picture below was taken midway between the two.

2AM View

We both felt we needed a break from driving, so we worked out an itinerary that kept us in Fairbanks. Unlike the more southerly towns we had been to, Fairbanks seems way less touristy.

We headed out to a Pioneer Park which had a number of activities, including a small aviation museum. Unfortunately it didn’t open until noon, so we headed out and did a little geocaching in an adjacent park.

Carving of Local Prospector!

Totem Pole

We headed back to look around the aviation museum, which though small was interesting. It focused primarily on Alaskan bush flying.

Aviation Museum

After walking for 3 miles or so round the park, we headed off to the airport, where I thought there may be some older aircraft. There were many DC-3’s, 4’s, and 6’s there, but most were in the wreckers yard which was a sad sight!

After lunch, we headed out to another park where got in some more walking, and a few more geocaches. By now the temperature was up in the mid to high 70’s; not what we expected in Northern Alaska.

Next stop was to get some basic shopping done, then back to the hotel to rest our feet. All in all a quiet day doing very little; it made for a pleasant day! We managed about 8 miles walking in the last two days.

Now back in the hotel with the A/C cranked up sipping G&T’s

Off to Denali tomorrow. We have (had / have) a bus tour booked there with our friends. We should have had an e-mail by now confirming our bus time. Lyn hadn’t received the e-mail so we checked in on-line only to find the tour had been cancelled by the company! When we originally booked, for some reason best known to the gods of the internet, we finished up with two reservations. Lyn cancelled one of them so all was good. It transpires that the company has two sections, tours and property; both sections decided to cancel one reservation each! How log can I keep this story going before I tell Marie……… don’t panic, all is resolved, we’re back on the 0730 bus.

Just heard from our friends that there is a wildfire spreading in a area north of Anchorage which has closed the road to Denali. Hopefully all will be fixed and they can make it through.

The further north we go, the brighter it is in the evening. Luckily most of the places we stay at have blackout blinds, so we are able to sleep OK. We had a good continental breakfast at the B&B and then set out for Fairbanks. Along the road near the B&B we had seen the 12,400′ Mount Dunn, but every time we saw it, it was shrouded in cloud. This morning it was clear.

Mount Drum

Beyond Glennallen we lost sight of the mountains for a while and drove through heavily wooded areas. As we started to climb up towards 3200′ the scenery changed again, and was predominantly snow covered mountains.

From the Passenger Seat

With the occasional glimpse of the Alaska pipeline.

Alaska Pipeline

For the last few days we have seen a purple covering on the roadside verges, at first glance it looks like heather, but it is not. If anyone can identify it, please do so.

What Is It?

Descending back down, we wet back into forests again, but this was a good thing as Lyn spotted a moose at the side of the road.

Moose

I was surprised at how tame it was. By the time I had stopped the car we were way beyond it, so I did a 180 and took a couple of pictures across the road, then another 180 and pulled up along side it. The moose just carried on as though there was no one there.

We finally pulled into Fairbanks, still with clear blue skies and a temperature of 20C, forecast for tomorrow is 27C. I was a little nervous approaching the hotel as it was the cheapest one of the trip @ $99 per night and it had a couple of not so good reviews, but it was the only one available when I booked. We checked in, and all was good. Even the internet was pretty good (once they reset the WiFi)

The rain continued over night, but but let up for a while until after breakfast. For breakfast we tried the local reindeer sausage. Hope that doesn’t put me on the “no present” list. There was no real distinguishing flavour, may need to try the reindeer steak to get that.

After breakfast, when the rains came tumbling down again we decided to re-plan our day. Instead of staying in Seward, and spending most of the day in the hotel, we jumped in the car and headed north then west to Soldotna and Kenai. As we got away from Seward the rains lightened and eventually the sun made an appearance although the mountain tops remained shrouded in cloud.

The scenery along the way was great, with very blue silt filled rivers, unfortunately the photos don’t do them justice.

Rusian River

Somehow, in the middle of nowhere a quilt shop jumped out in front of us, so we stopped. After all Lyn hasn’t been in a quilt store for at least 4 days!

We were surprised to discover a Walmart, Home Depot and other big box stores in Kenai. We took the opportunity to replenish our rapidly shrinking gin supply with a bottle of Gilbeys for $12.47! We successfully smuggled booze onto the boat, cleverly disguised!

Disguised Booze

On the way back we took a smaller gravel road and got some (to us at least) typical Alaskan views.

Quintessentially alaska

We also managed a bit of geocaching. As we approached Seward the rain started again, but by around 6PM it had eased off and the evening has been dry. We took a walk around the down-town area where there are a number of murals painted on the walls.

Seward Mural