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August 16 - 31, 2001
Thursday, August 16, 2001 Eagle River, AK
We enjoyed a quiet day of not traveling. We finally got out of Craig’s house and walked a couple miles into town for lunch. Otherwise we piddled around at Craig’s house with the two dogs that he his currently watching for friends. Mostly I worked on reading through some of the Alaska visitor guides to line up some of activities during our stay.
Craig came home from work and cooked up a fantastic roast from some of the last remaining meat of last year’s moose. The hunting season for moose begins in two weeks, and Craig is eager to refill his freezer. The pot roast the he cooked consisted of the moose backstraps. It was a very tender and tasty meat.
Craig also came home with some suggestions for things we could do this weekend. We settled on spending Saturday and Sunday up at a cabin on the Yentna River with his friend Lee.
Friday, August 17, 2001 Eagle River, AK
With plans to leave first thing tomorrow morning for the cabin, Christine and I took on the shopping duties. We went out and picked up enough food and beer to feed the four of us through the weekend.
Saturday, August 18, 2001 Somewhere up the Yentna River, AK
Lee showed up at 7:30 towing his aluminum jet boat. We loaded our food, coolers and fishing gear and were underway by 8:00 AM. Lee brought his dog as well, totaling three dogs and four adults.
There is very little private land in Alaska (less than 1%). This fact makes having a cabin on a river in the backcountry a real luxury. Lee and his wife bought the five acres and built a small two floor cabin three years ago. It is still a work in progress, but already a very comfortable place to get away.
The only way to reach the cabin is by boat or plane. Floatplanes can land on the river, or very tiny planes can land on a sand bar nearby. Most of the boats on Alaska’s rivers are jet boats (using impellers instead of propellers). The combination of shallow waters, constantly moving sandbars, and the inability to see through the waters makes the use of a propeller less appealing.
We drove up the Parks Highway north of Willow and put the boat in on the Big Susitna River at the Deshka Landing. From there we boated about fifteen miles down the Big Su before making a right turn up the Yentna River for eighteen more miles. Lee’s cabin on the west bank of the river sits on a high bank seventy-five feet above the water. On a clear day (there are so few here) Mt. McKinley is visible in grand scale from his cabin. The trip on the water took a little over an hour, getting us there well before noon.
We broke out some lunchtime snacks before locking the dogs up and heading back out to try a little fishing. We boated a bit further up the Yentna to 20-mile Creek where we anchored and baited some hooks with fish eggs, but nothing was biting. It was pretty nice out for drinking beer and fishing. Lee finally set me up with a shiny spoon lure to do some casting. I lost my balance on my initial cast (fishing is still new to me) and fell off of the inboard motor cover and landed safely inside the boat, but my clumsy recovery had Craig laughing so hard that he fell butt first off of the bow of the boat. The water was only a few feet deep, but it was very cold. Craig jumped up howling with the rest of us at the comedy of errors. He didn’t dally too long in the fifty-degree water.
We weren’t catching anything anyway, and Craig was now a bit chilled so we turned back with plans for an early dinner and then maybe some evening fishing further up river. Back at the cabin we built a fire outside to cook over. Christine wrapped some potatoes in foil that we baked in the coals, and some fat strip steaks on the grill served as the main course.
The dinner and drinks worked to curb our ambitions for the evening. We changed our plans to allow for fishing tomorrow morning instead of the evening outing that we had previously planned. Instead we passed some time target shooting from the cabin porch with handguns that Craig and Lee had brought. Handguns in Alaska’s backcountry are more the rule than the exception. One must always be vigilant about encounters with bears, and a handgun serves as an extra measure of security, and perhaps finality. I have very little experience with firearms so I welcomed the careful instructions from Craig and Lee.
We all turned in pretty early after a full day of carrying on. It was easy to sleep well in the cabin. Lee graciously put Christine and me in the queen-sized bed upstairs. All the beds had a mosquito canopy as a final defense. The mosquitoes out here were impressive. They were everywhere. Fortunately the sixty-degree temperature of the air didn’t encourage the exposing of much skin. What was left exposed was covered in bug dope. This proved quite effective, but the constant presence of the mosquitoes was still a nuisance. We managed to swat most of the mosquitoes in the cabin after a little while with the door shut, but a new batch was quick to jump in each time the door opened.
A wet Craig laughing at himself.
Sunday, August 19, 2001 Eagle River, AK
Craig fixed up a breakfast amalgamation of potatoes, eggs and sausage washed down with coffee and Lee fixed some pancakes. We then again locked the dogs in the cabin and took the boat another ten miles or so up the Yentna to Lake Creek, a cleaner running tributary that is a good fishing spot. We were fishing for Silver Salmon. The Reds had already finished their runs, and this was an off year for the Pinks (they run big in even-numbered years).
The Lake Creek area was pretty busy with another dozen or so boats anchored in the clearer water. Several floatplanes would land and take off on the river bringing paying clients for some of the guide outfits. The guides would await them in small boats to show them where to fish during their half-day outings.
We moved around in the steady drizzle trying different spots before focusing on a narrow channel. There Lee pulled in two good-sized silvers and Craig boated a humpy (Humpback Salmon) which he threw back. I hooked two silvers, but lost them before long. I still have a lot to learn. The one-day fishing licenses that Christine and I bought expired at noon, so we packed it in and went back to the cabin. After a brief lunch we began packing up for the return trip. It was about 3:00 when we got back to Deshika Landing with the dogs, gear and garbage. We saw several bald eagles on the return trip; either flying close to the water or perched on downed trees that had floated up on sandbars.
Christine, Craig and I stopped for dinner on the way home, and we thanked Lee for his generous hospitality. We all looked forward to hot showers back at Craig’s house and a quiet evening.
1) The focus in this picture is on Lee's cabin which you can see over Craig's shoulder. 2) We are preparing to leave Lee's cabin. In this picture you see the Yentna River and Lee's boat, Christine, Lee, Craig and all three dogs.
Monday, August 20, 2001 Eagle River, AK
Craig returned to work today while Christine and I hung around Eagle River. We drove up to the Eagle River Nature Center and took a hike through the woods there. The weather was beginning to clear and the mountains were all coming into view. We stopped for some groceries so that Christine could cook dinner. We were joined for dinner by Leslie, the woman in Craig’s life. It was a comfortable evening of getting acquainted.
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 Eagle River, AK
The weather truly broke today with clear blue skies. Christine and I drove into Anchorage and bicycled the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail along the Cook Inlet between Kincaid Park and the city. It’s a beautiful 10-mile paved path that follows the shoreline. It felt great to get a 20-mile ride in today. The views of the Alaska Range were especially inspiring today.
Back at Craig’s house, Christine prepared for a small gathering that Craig initiated for this evening, while I stayed out of her way and took my motorcycle off the RV and went for a ride. Christine prepared all the ingredients for ‘make-it-yourself’ pizzas.
Lee (from the weekend) came over with his wife Karen, and 18-month daughter Morgan. One of Craig’s hunting friends, Jane was here. And Bill from the office, with his wife Meredith came. The eight of us went through four great pizzas and had an all around good time.
A blue day. This is a view of Anchorage from the bike trail over Cook Inlet.
Wednesday, August 22, 2001 Eagle River, AK
We mostly spent the day quietly around Craig’s house.
Thursday, August 23, 2001 Cantwell, AK
Christine and I packed up a few things for the weekend and got ready to meet Craig and Leslie up on the Denali Highway. We stopped at the store before leaving town to stock up on foodstuffs and libations. On the way north to the west end of the Denali Highway we took a side trip to the town of Talkeetna. Talkeetna is the jumping-off point for most mountaineering expeditions on Mt. McKinley, North America’s tallest peak at 20,320 feet. We arrived at the Historical Society Museum right at the beginning of a program led by a National Park Service Ranger about climbing on Mount McKinley. It was very interesting. The speech was given over a great scale model of the Mt. McKinley area (12-foot by 12-foot three dimensional relief representing a 35-mile by 35-mile area).
We continued north on the Parks Highway with Denali National Park to our left. Before the Parks Highway was completed in 1972, the Denali Highway was the only way to get to the park by car. The Denali Highway runs east—west between the Parks and Richardson Highways. It is 135-miles long and almost entirely unpaved. We had previously agreed to choose a campsite in one of the pullouts just east of Cantwell for Craig and Leslie to find us later. Due to a bad accident on the highway leaving Anchorage, Craig and Leslie did not find us until almost 11:00 PM. It had become a very wet and rainy evening so Craig and Leslie rolled out their sleeping bags in the empty garage in the back of our RV, instead of pitching their tent in the mud.
Friday, August 24, 2001 Denali Hwy at Susitna R., AK
We awoke to a comfortable morning of gray skies. It turned out that we had parked last night right next to an excellent blueberry patch. Leslie was on a mission to pick a whole lot of blueberries this weekend so we joined in. Christine and I spent the morning picking about a gallon and a half of blueberries before my back gave out from all that bending over.
We drove a few miles up the road before stopping at a scenic overlook for lunch. We got the beginning of some intermittent rain that would stick with us all day. The rain brought with it some beautiful rainbows. I think we ended up counting a half-dozen separate rainbows. We were doing our best to keep it a very laidback day. After lunch we continued east to one of the very few establishments along the highway. We stopped there to refill our fresh water tank, since we were camping this weekend without any hookups.
I spent a few minutes speaking to the attendant there. He was a retired man from Anchorage who was just working there for the summer. He mentioned that the first time he worked at this lodge was a few years back when he was the sole resident while wintering over there. The road does not get plowed, and the lodge is too remote to reach by anything less than the most ambitious snowmobilers. The lodge keeps a full time resident because of the large investment they have there. The man said the he got a lifetime worth of solitude during that winter. It reminded of Stephen King’s book, “The Shining.”
We continued east in search of a campsite for the night. Craig had a beautiful spot in mind on a bluff overlooking the Susitna River. He had camped here before and hoped that the RV could get back to the spot. He drove on in to reassess the space and then he radioed for me to pull on in. It truly was a heavenly spot. We were perched high above the river facing south. We grilled out some venison burgers from Craig’s freezer and enjoyed them along with some fresh potato salad that Christine made this morning. We then settled into a great evening of watching the fantastic scenery from our comfortable setting. We got to watch a couple moose working their way along the wetlands sidling the river below us.
1) Beautiful View; 2) Leslie, Craig, Sassy and Christine enjoying the view.
Saturday, August 25, 2001 Denali Hwy at Maclaren R., AK
We arose to a peaceful morning. Christine whipped up an awesome batch of fresh blueberry pancakes for breakfast as we lingered in our beauty spot. Craig finally packed his tent up and we prepared to leave. I was in a pretty tight spot, but felt confident that I could turnaround. Boy, was I in for a surprise. I ended up burying the back of the RV into the gravel bed that we had been parked on.
The wheelbase of the RV is short enough to provide a fairly tight turning radius, but not long enough to keep the rear trailer-hitch assembly from scraping when climbing a hill through a dip at the bottom. I had a dip to drive through before I could back the RV into a nice Y-turn. Usually the hitch assembly scrapes loudly on the concrete road surface, letting me know that I am bottoming out. In this case the gravel bed was soft enough that the hitch was totally buried before the RV came to a stop. Furthermore, the odd angle against that hill had lifted the left rear wheels clear, letting them spin.
Craig and I tried a few things with some of the firewood we brought, trying to get some traction and lift under the proper wheels. It quickly became apparent that we were going to have to dig the RV out. The only digging tools we had were a couple tire irons. Craig and I spent the next 90 minutes digging and clawing away at the rear end of the RV with the tire irons and our bare hands. As we dug out the hitch assembly the RV settled further until the left rear wheels again held weight.
We had hoped that I could just pull the RV clear moving forward and continue up a steep incline as an alternate route. Instead I ended up backing back out of the hole and finishing my Y-turn. We were finally clear and Craig and I glowed with that sense of overcoming a challenge. It put a positive tone on our day. I paused to admire the hole we had dug before we got back on the highway. It was already lunchtime by the time we got under way, so we pulled over a short ways up the road for lunch.
We continued on to a campsite near the Maclaren River. We pulled in early enough to go for hike. Christine prepared a marinade before we left, for a moose rump roast that Craig brought and sliced into steaks. Leslie stayed back to read while Craig led Christine and me on a nice trek along with Sassy, the German Shepard that Craig has been keeping for a friend. I have now learned well how easy it is to underestimate distance and terrain in Alaska. Without trees to act as a reference for distance the hills all seem to be much nearer than they are. And all the growth looks like ankle and knee-high grasses and shrubs.
We set out with the nearest ridgeline in mind. Craig led us into the knee-high alder, which quickly became head-high. It was very clumsy hiking as we weaved through the dense growth. Craig finally moved us onto a caribou path that provided a little less resistance as we slowly gained elevation. We slogged through some spongy drainage fields as we finally approached the hillside. The alder became lower as we ascended to the ridgeline, and the walking was finally comfortable when we reached the ridge.
We continued along the ridge in a direction that would take us back to the road about a mile or so west of our campsite. We were again in the company of a massive rainbow that stretched across the sky behind us (I think that was our tenth rainbow for the weekend). This meant that some rain was heading our way, but it was hard to tell when we would meet it. We soon saw some caribou leaving the area downwind of us, likely having picked up our scent. We continued to stick to the game trails where possible and made our way toward the road. Some rain finally moved in on us as we left the game trail and committed to a steep section of alder for our final descent. After a slip-slide finish we reached the road and walked through the rain back to our campsite.
As Christine prepared the dishes to accompany our steaks, I unrolled our awning and got the grill set up for Craig to cook his meat. We popped the cork on a fine red wine and sat down for a delicious feast. After dinner we even made room for Sassy to come in and dry off from her wet hike with us. We had the furnace running and enjoyed relaxing while we (mostly Christine and Leslie) cleaned (de-stemmed) the blueberries. I finally kicked Craig out around midnight and we got some sleep.
1) Stuck; 2) The hole from the RV; 3) Sassy, Craig, and Christine almost to the top.
Sunday, August 26, 2001 Valdez, AK
We awoke to a cold clear morning. A high-pressure system had brought the blue skies in and a hard early morning frost. With no wind blowing and a bright sun, the forty-degree temperature at 9:00 AM felt more like sixty-degrees. We all sat down to one more breakfast before heading off in separate directions. Craig and Leslie had to return to Anchorage today, tomorrow being a workday for them. It was easier for them to drive the ninety miles back to the Parks Highway and avoid the construction that we hit on the Richardson Highway.
We continued west on the Denali highway to the eastern terminus in Paxson. We came upon a moose crossing the road right as we got under way. A couple more rainbows accompanied us as we drove toward grayer skies counting down the last miles of gravel. The relief of reaching the pavement however, was short lived. We encountered many frost heaves over the next hundred miles that really rocked the RV. Frost heaves create severe depressions in the road that can break the front axle of a vehicle if traveling too fast. The frost heave doesn’t break the pavement, so the road is still smooth. This makes them hard to spot sometimes. I watch for them by keeping my eye on bouncing suspensions of other traffic and by looking for a deviation in the road striping along the side of the road. A heave will make the white paint line appear slightly curved.
We stopped for lunch in Glenallen and continued south on the Richardson Highway to its southern terminus at the east end of Prince William Sound in Valdez. We stopped about thirty miles north of Valdez to visit the Worthington Glacier. This north-facing Glacier is being studied carefully. It is a beautiful Glacier and is presented with some excellent interpretive exhibits. I learned a few facts that interested me that I’ll share here.
 | Most Glaciers in North America were still advancing up until about 1850, which marks the beginning of our current warming era. |
| The rate of movement of glaciers is affected by many variables. |
 | The shallow sections near the edge of a glacier move more slowly since their lower mass meets more resistance from the rocky ground. |
| The top surface of a glacier moves faster than the bottom as the glacier warps in its forward motion. |
| The glacial ice begins to turn into a flowing goo at about 150 feet of depth. The weight of the ice above it causes this change in its form. |
| Current warming trends could cause enough ice to break free from the Greenland ice shelf that it would force the Gulf Stream farther south as it travels east across the Atlantic. Paradoxically, this would welcome northern Europe into a new ice age. |
We finally crossed Thompson pass and descended nearly 3000 feet into the port of Valdez. We stopped to view some great waterfalls as we passed through narrow Keystone Canyon on our way down from the pass. We checked into a campground and began catching up on some housekeeping. We each needed showers and I got three loads of laundry done as Christine put dinner together. We have a cable TV hookup here so we kicked back and watched some television for the evening.
1and 2) Worthington Glacier; 3) Horsetail Falls
Monday, August 27, 2001 Valdez, AK
We spent some time this morning catching up on paperwork before we went for a walk along the harbor. We ended up getting to the Alyeska Visitor Center early for our 1:00 tour of the Alyeska Marine Terminal. While awaiting the departure of our tour bus we sat through a video of the Good Friday Earthquake on March 27, 1964.
It was the largest earthquake to ever strike North America, and its epicenter was only 45 miles west of Valdez in Prince William Sound. The old town of Valdez was destroyed by the earthquake; much of the town actually subsided into the port and is now permanently under water. The new town of Valdez was built four miles to the west on firmer earth. The old town had been constructed on the glacial sediment left by Valdez Glacier, which was a contributing factor in how the town was affected by the earthquake.
The magnitude of the quake was originally measured at about 8.5 on the Richter Scale, but has since been revised upward to 9.2. It brought devastation to Anchorage and Kodiak Island. The tsunamis generated by the quake even slammed the lower Pacific coast washing three people out to sea off the coast of Oregon.
The tour of the Alyeska Marine Terminal was mostly conducted from a tour bus. The terminal is located across the bay from the town of Valdez. We even saw a black bear and cub dining on the running silver salmon as we drove out to the terminal. The Alyeska Pipeline Service Company is actually a consortium of seven different oil companies. Collectively, they constructed and now manage the oil pipeline and the marine facility in Valdez.
The current debate about drilling for oil in Alaska’s ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) is a replay of the original debate surrounding the construction of the oil pipeline. The final bill in congress was tied in the senate with a 50-50 vote that had to be broken by the ‘yea’ vote of Vice President Spiro Agnew. Most Alaskans are still split on the state’s dependence on the oil business. To further instill good will, the Alaska state legislature repealed the state income tax in the early 1980’s and instated an oil dividend payable to all permanent residents of Alaska that amounts to about $2000 per year.
The current yield from the Northern Slopes National Petroleum Reserve is less than half of what it was through the 1980’s, and is likely to drop off considerably in the next ten years. Without the harvesting of additional oil reserves like ANWR, the 800-mile pipeline could soon reach a point of being financially unfeasible. The fact that Alaska oil accounts for less than 20 percent of U.S. oil production makes all the debates so much less relevant. To further illustrate this point, a single tanker takes almost a full day to fill at the Alyeska Terminal, and takes several weeks on its round trip voyage to refineries on the U.S. west coast, yet its content will only meet the petroleum needs of the Los Angeles area for a single day. The U.S. is an excessive consumer of fossil fuels to a degree hard to fathom. Our RV at 8.5 mpg lumps us in with the masses. If we really wanted to prevent drilling in ANWR, then we would get a whole lot more serious about conservation and the development of alternative energy sources.
The tour of the terminal couldn’t avoid mentioning the impact of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Coincidentally, the spill occurred on Good Friday, 25 years after the big earthquake. On March 24, 1989 the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef about 25 miles south of the port, spilling 10.8 million gallons of crude in Prince William Sound. This amount of oil is equal to what can be held in about half of one of the eighteen oil tanks located at the marine terminal. The cleanup efforts brought incredible devastation and comparable wealth to the Prince William Sound and Valdez, respectively.
Now, twelve years after the clean up effort, much reassessment of the clean up effort is taking place. Some of the beaches that never received any clean up attention now exhibit better recovery than the beaches that were steamed clean by clean-up crews. Mother nature is showing its ability to sustain and recover from both natural and manmade havoc.
We returned from the tour and walked around town some more in search of a good place for dinner. We settled on Mike’s Paradise and had an excellent dinner of halibut, king salmon, scallops and shrimp. We have really enjoyed our stay here in Valdez. We have to be at the ferry terminal tomorrow morning at 6:15 AM tomorrow morning for our ferry crossing of Prince William Sound over to Whittier. I hope we get a clear day for our trip across the sound.
1) This oil tanker is named Denali; 2) Oil holders; 3) The Valdez Oil Terminal.
Tuesday, August 28, 2001 Seward, AK
It was hard to sleep deeply knowing that I needed to get up at 5:30 AM to catch the ferry. It’s just as well that I didn’t sleep well since my rarely used alarm clock did not go off (probably operator error). I drove the three blocks over to get in line for the ferry. Christine and I took our time getting dressed and ready for our crossing of Prince William Sound as we sat parked in a steady rain and a dark fog.
I crossed this sound on a ferry eight years ago when I last traveled through Alaska, and the weather was the same disappointing soup that we faced today. I was hoping to get a clearer crossing today, but it wasn’t to be.
We loaded the RV onto the ferry M.V. Bartlett without incident and found some seats before our departure. The boat was not fully booked so there was ample indoor seating for all of us to avoid the weather. We had barely left the dock when a page echoed through the boat’s public address system: “Would the owner of the RV with a garage in the back please report to the dining room?” This was repeated four or five times as I got up to find out why I was being paged. In the dining room I met a crewmember that expressed a personal interest in the RV since she and her husband were motorcycle enthusiasts. I spent a few minutes answering her questions and commenting on our experience with the Funmover. I then gave her one of our cards and encouraged her to visit our website to read more about our experiences with the RV.
As we got under way the fog began to lift and we had reasonable views of the Valdez Channel as we entered Prince William Sound. Even though the rain was persistent I ventured outside to the upper foredeck to better view our direction of travel. I found a spot somewhat out of the wind and covered with a slight over hang right next to the bridge. I was surprised to look into the bridge and find that the vessel was being piloted by the crewmember that was interested in the RV. I was later invited in out of the rain to share their space on the bridge. I learned that as chief mate, Adrian was the second in command on the ferry. I was introduced to Captain Claybo and the helmsman, Alex and enjoyed a great conversation getting acquainted with the lifestyle chosen by these professionals.
We mixed around amongst the icebergs produced by Columbia Glacier and viewed some seals as our course across the sound allowed for the occasional side trip. Later I was sharing a view with Christine on the upper aft deck when Alex, the helmsman came back to invite us back up to the bridge. Alex shared his story with us of switching careers midlife to the profession of sailing. Christine enjoyed her visit to the bridge with me as we shared elements of our travels with the crew.
The rain persisted across the sound and intensified as we finally reached Whittier to disembark. We drove the RV through the one-way train tunnel to Portage that had just opened for controlled traffic last year. Prior to last year all vehicle traffic had to be loaded onto flatbed railway cars to pass through the tunnel. We continued driving south through the rain to the port city of Seward. Perhaps you’ll remember from your elementary school geography/history lessons that Seward was Secretary of State under Lincoln and was responsible for the purchase of the Alaska Territory from Russia in 1867 (during Johnson’s term) for $7.2 million (about $12 per square mile). At that time Alaska was known for little more than the harvesting of seal furs. For this perceived lack of value Seward’s contemporaries considered the purchase a misfortune and labeled it Seward’s Folly, or Seward’s Icebox, or Icelandia. Later discovery of Alaska’s riches warranted the naming of a city after Seward.
We checked in at the tour office in Seward for our cruise scheduled tomorrow to Kenai Fjords National Park. The tour desk warned us that the current weather and sea conditions were preventing the tour boats from making it all the way out and around Aialik Cape to the fjords. We were faced with the likelihood of having our tour cut short tomorrow. We checked into a campground and enjoyed a quiet evening.
Ocean Waterfalls.
Wednesday, August 29, 2001 Eagle River, AK
We boarded our tour boat in the rain for our 10:00 AM departure, and we quickly learned that the rough seas had carried over from yesterday and would cut short our trip. Instead we ended up getting a very thorough tour of Resurrection Bay. We spotted a couple bald eagles on our way out of the bay and watched many puffins floating around on the water.
The captain heard chatter over the radio that a pod of killer whales was gathered further out at the mouth of the bay. He motored out to their location at full speed. The pod of Orcas was thirty strong and permitted us to get pretty close in the 6-10 foot sea swells. After spending some time observing the whales we turned back in as the captain reported to us that the sea swells further out were reaching 24 feet in height. The damage had already been done though, as the crew was busy cleaning up the seasickness of several guests.
We reached Fox Island for our scheduled Salmon Bake lunch. Most of us were pretty damp from being out on the deck viewing the wildlife in the rain, so we all gathered around the wood burning stove to warm ourselves before sitting down to a hot meal of baked salmon with ample side items.
After lunch we continued our tour of Resurrection Bay by viewing some busy rookeries of seabirds and a group of resting sea lions. Our tour ended early as we returned to dock to receive partial refunds for our shortened outing. We climbed back in the RV and made our way back toward Anchorage.
Orcas (Killer Whales).
Thursday, August 30, 2001 Eagle River, AK
We got up pretty early this morning in preparation of meeting my parents, Ron and Marilyn. They flew in last night from Kentucky with plans to spend these next two days with us before catching a 7-day cruise out of Seward down the inside passage. We drove into Anchorage and dropped the RV off for it’s 30,000-mile scheduled service. My parents picked us up at the service center and we started our day together from there.
After showing my parents around Eagle River we drove on up to Palmer to visit the Alaska State Fair. It was really a pretty good fair. Most of the exhibits were housed in all weather booths with respect to how cold it can get up here this time of year. There were many exhibits based on native Alaska heritage. The 4-H accounted for most of the agricultural exhibits with some outstanding vegetable displays. The long hours of summer sunlight are famous for producing some oversized produce. The cabbages were of extraordinary size. Even the livestock is a departure from your average fair. Most notable is the alpaca, a camelid similar to the llama, but slightly smaller. They are raised for their high quality wool.
We sat through a hilarious lumberjack exhibition that pretended to be a competition, but was bent far more toward comedic entertainment. The four of us laughed until it hurt as we sat through a chilly afternoon breeze. After the show we drove over to Chugach State Park and walked in to see Thunderbird Falls. Later we drove back into Anchorage to pick up the RV before enjoying happy hour at the Captain’s Deck on the 17th floor of the Captain Cook Hotel.
Later we had an excellent dinner at The Marx Bros. Restaurant. We made plans for tomorrow and then Christine and I headed back to Eagle River for the night.
Mom and Dad Lustik at Thunderbird Falls.
Friday, August 31, 2001 Eagle River, AK
We joined my parents for a light breakfast before heading out on the town. We started out by driving up to Flattop Mountain for a brief hike with great views of Anchorage and the Cook Inlet to the west. We also visited the Alaska Botanical Garden, which had a lovely presentation of local flora.
We lunched at the Glacier Brewery and then spent the afternoon exploring downtown Anchorage. We stopped at the Oomingmak Eskimo Co-Op. Over 200 Eskimos from around the state knit beautiful garments out of qiviut and send them to the Co-Op for sale. Qiviut is the inner hair that is combed out of the muskox. It is similar to cashmere, but warmer and more durable.
Muskox is a native species in Alaska, but was once nearly hunted into extinction. An effort to reintroduce them as a domesticated livestock has done very well. Muskoxen are very inappropriately named. They do not produce musk, nor are they bovine. The male muskox will urinate on his hind legs as a territorial sign, thus leading to the ‘musk’ in its name. Also, it is closer to the goat family, then ox. We were all impressed with the garments created from the qiviut, as well as their high prices.
We also visited the Earthquake Museum detailing the events surrounding the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake. It was a very informative exhibit illustrating how prone Alaska is to severe earthquakes.
We ended up having another great dinner tonight, at Simon & Seafort’s Saloon and Grill. The weather continued to clear today as we sat through dinner with a great view of the setting sun. After dinner we returned to the Captain’s Deck in the hotel where my parents are staying. We were treated to some spectacular views of the Alaska Range to the west and Mt. McKinley to the north. We all just reveled in the fantastic scenery until the last bit of light from the setting sun faded behind the mountains.
1) The top of Flattop Mountain overlooking Anchorage. 2) Joe and Marilyn enjoying the botanical Garden.
**Check out the Spotlight pictures page for great sunset pictures and more.**
Continue onto September, 2001...