August 7-10, 2006 (Days 75-78)

Monday:
Today is Michael and Renae’s 13th wedding anniversary and my dad’s birthday. Dad would have been 91 years old had he lived this long.

We got an early start at 7:35 a.m. leaving Healy to travel to Anchorage. It was a cool and cloudy 52 degrees. Later the sun came out and cleared up the clouds so that we had a great view of Mt. McKinley. It is the tallest mountain in North America at 20,284 ft. It is awesome to see, and we were lucky to have a nice, clear day to see its majesty. By 10:00 a.m. and another viewpoint, the clouds had moved in again and the mountain was out of sight.

We traveled on to the junction of Talkeetna Road which dead ends in the village of Talkeetna about 14 miles down the road. This was an interesting village with a blend of old-time Alaska small town and modern tourist destination. It is an aviation and supply base for Mt. McKinley (Denali) climbing expeditions. It has a population of 868 when everyone is home and sits at 346 ft. elevation.

We walked the walks, most of them wooden, with dirt streets. Shops were quaint. We ate with some others from the caravan at a “pub and grill”. I had a wonderful meal of a seafood kabob, with large chunks of halibut, salmon, and cod on a spear with green and yellow peppers, onions and cherry tomatoes. It was the best seafood I have had so far. Dan had a hamburger and fries.

We continued on our trip to Anchorage after a couple hours by taking the same road back (remember, the road dead-ended in Talkeentna). When we got into Anchorage at 4:30 p.m., it was 73 degrees.

Tuesday:
We were up early to be at the train station in downtown Anchorage at 8:15 a.m. It was the Alaska Railroad. We got our boarding passes and boarded the train about 9:45 a.m. The train ride was about two hours long. We saw some amazing scenery. We passed the mud flats which are caused by a tide rise and fall of the Pacific Ocean that comes through Prince William Sound. When the tide is at low tide, the water completely drains out and leaves acres and acres of gooey mud. Everyone is taught to not walk in the mud as it is like quicksand and can suck you in. (When we returned later that evening, the mud flats were filled with water at high tide.) The train passed through a couple mountains, with us in a tunnel for over three miles at one time. The end of the train ride was at Whittier. Whittier is at the base of mountains that line Passage Canal, a fjord that extends eastward into Prince William Sound and leads to a portage from there into Cook Inlet. It was created by the U.S. Army during WWII as a port and petroleum delivery center tied to bases farther north by the Alaska Railroad and later a pipeline.

At Whittier, we all boarded the S.S. Emerald Sea for the cruise through the fjords and glacier fields. We were soon served a buffet dinner, all we could eat of salmon, prime rib, rice, potatoes, salad, green beans, rolls, dessert and drink. It was delicious.

The sights we saw are almost non-describeable. The glaciers, which were massive mountains of ice were reflecting beautiful colors of blue. We were lucky to have such beautiful sunny weather. The captain got us in close to the glaciers and we could see pieces of ice fall into the water, some beautiful waterfalls and sea life, which included sea otters, seals and many birds along the way. We took lots of pictures and hope to send you some on the blog.

We returned to the train to go back to Whittier. We got into Anchorage around 9:30 p.m. Needless to say, we were all exhausted, but stopped to give our tummies a little nourishment with a piece of pie and cup of coffee. It was a “wrap” for the day.


Wednesday:
Everyone slept in today. We didn’t get up until around 9 a.m. Around 10:30 a.m., the Waters and we decided to find some quilt shops. Sharon is very talented and has lots of creativity, so she is always interested in fabric shops. Up here, the shops are full of northern-designs and fabrics and notions. The men were good sports and tolerated our stops at the stores. Around 5 p.m., we went to the “Moose’s Tooth”, a popular and very good pizza den and micro-brewery. The pizza was really good there. On our trip back to the campground, we found ourselves in Wal-Mart for a few supplies.


Thursday:
Another day on our own. We slept in again, as we felt we hadn’t yet caught up from the busy days before. We left with a big laundry to do, an oil change for the Suburban and a couple other stops. I was able to get some medicine refilled which was needed. My prescription was from Walgreens, and I was told I could access one in Alaska, but there are no Walgreens in Alaska. So, I tried a Wal-Mart and they were able to fill it for me. I thought I had it all, but found a couple weeks ago I was going to be short. So, that problem has been resolved.

We met Ed and the Kolley’s for dinner at Lone Star. Ed likes his ice cream, so we finished the meal off with ice cream from Baskin Robbins 31. Then we made it back to the campground in time for the driver’s meeting for tomorrow’s departure to Seward.

Till then……..