We by-passed Hatcher Pass yesterday because, well, it was raining and the clouds were only about 20 feet above the ground. We enjoyed our drive back but we were really tired and worn out. When we got back to Anchorage we took Roxie to the kennel since she is not allowed in the North Star Inn on Elmendorf. Also, since she likes it there so much. It will be easier to shop and pack without her around demanding out attention. We pay $28.50 at Elmendorf and the cheapest decent motel around is around $150 a night. Also, we can wash clothes free here, they have free wifi, and a wonderful Expresso machine downstairs with free coffee. We packed up the trailer today and took it to storage. Tomorrow we will start purchasing and packing our groceries for the next four months. It will be stressful and tiring. August 2, we fly back to Chevak. We have lots of air miles, so was able to get our tickets to Bethel for $2.50 each plus some bonus miles - first time I've done that. The sun was beautiful and bright all day today - everyone was in a great mood everywhere we went.

I can hardly keep track of what day it is. Tom assures me it is Sunday. We left Delta Junction this morning around 9:15 after getting coffee at the Buffalo Diner. Everything is “Buffalo” there, the Buffalo Laundry, the Buffalo Auto Parts, the Buffalo Quick Stop. We had only 50 miles to get to the turnoff at Paxon and with all of our photo stops and viewing stops it took us till 11:15. The most interesting thing about this small 50 mile strip of highway was that it was the most perfect stretch we have seen in Alaska. High, snowcapped mountains, close up foliage covered mountains, acres upon acres of Birch trees, miles and miles of water – literally streams and creeks everywhere, and best of all – the pipeline kept reappearing at every turn – sometimes very close.
We saw moose, rabbits, prairie dogs (we think) and a big porcupine. Hardly anybody else was on the road – maybe we encountered 10 vehicles. There was no litered iron stuff from mines, no deserted shacks, no substandard houses – in fact we saw one lodge, a pipeline pump station, and several summer houses by the lake, and just a couple of RV places during that stretch. Truly a beautiful drive.

We turned onto the Denali Hwy at 11:15. I had spoken to a fellow traveler at a Viewing turnout and he said he and his wife made it in three hours. I wouldn’t have asked if they had made the trip except that their car was a mess – completely covered with dust. So, I figured with my constant “Tom, it would make me happy if you would just slow down.”, that Tom and I might make it in say, four hours. The end result was 135 miles in just over five hours.

The first 21 miles was paved – sort of. The rest of the road was dirt – packed hard dirt with gravel in it, some areas in pretty good shape and some others with potholes. We stopped every few miles to get photos. It was beautiful – just beautiful – even in the fine mist that we had most of the day. I cannot imagine what it must look like in full sun.
I tried to get Tom to think about camping there – what fun it would be. But he decided against it. Probably because he has to do all of the work. I can do the work – he just does it faster and better and his way – so I relent.
We decided to stay overnight at the Backwoods Lodge in Cantwell - we stayed here in August 2006 on our way in and really liked it. They like dogs here too.

Tomorrow we head back to Anchorage – via the Hatcher Pass. Another dirt and gravel road. Just hope we are not pushing our luck with the truck. She has sure been a trooper so far. I hope for sun.

We are staying in the Midnight Sun Hotel and it is pretty rustic. Our room has decor from maybe the 60's. Since we no longer plan ahead for places to stay - when we got here yesterday there was some issue over what place was pet friendly AND had a room available. The girls at the visitor center made some phone calls for us. The Midnight sun had some $79 specials - since we needed two nights we got the $79 special pet friendly room the first night and the $109 pet friendly regular room the second night. The $79 room is twice as large and the bathroom huge. The $109 pet friendly room is tiny and you have to climb up into the bathroom. Go figure.

We have been a few places today. Saw an actress portraying a 1890's photographer earl today in the Palace Grand Hotel. Afterwards we toured this lovely restored home of the commissioner from 1912-1916 - Oh I would love to have a house just like it - but not in the Yukon!

Later we went out to Dredge #4. Tom said on the way in yesterday that was the one thing he wanted to do. Then unfortunately this morning I said, "Well maybe I'll just sit in the truck with Roxie while you go on the tour." Then he said, I don't want to go without you. Let's just don't go." And I said, "Okay we'll go." And he said. "No I don't want to go." Well I'm sure someone out there can relate to how these little arguments can escalate. We were silent during breakfast - only starting to talk again when we were back in the truck with Roxie - she always soothes our rough edges.

Anyhow - we went out there - 30 minute drive to the Dredge and it was absolutely fantastic. I was absolutely amazed. And I climbed up and down those three stories with Tom. My legs will feel it tomorrow - but the thing was just amazing. We both mentioned when we got back to the truck that all we could think about was the poor guys who worked on the vessel and the owners getting all the money!

We also drove up to the Dome - this lookout way above the city - way above the city. We could see for miles and miles each way and the city seemed miniature.

We came back by the Jack London Center - saw a recreated cabin built from some of the original logs of his cabin. Very nice. We were the only ones there so naturally had a great time talking to the curator. Lots of photos and letters.

We are on our way back to the hotel - to our new tiny pet friendly regular price room - for a little nap. Tonight we go to the Robert Service (famous poet here) and here his poetry read.Tom is standing in front of his actual cabin where he lived for a few years in Dawson City.

We also went to Gerties to see a little show and do some gambling. Tom stopped after he lost $10.00. I got a sneak shot of a man who had over $2500 in chips playing poker.


It is very warm here - rainy too - but the weather seems to clear up at the appropriate times for us. We have really been fortunate. This photo shows Dawson at 12 midnight!


Tthe Top of the World Highway was just that - at the Top of the World. My photos cannot possibly do it justice.

Got to Tok (rhymes with spoke) this afternoon around 4 and we are staying at the Golden Bear Motel. So much for the tent!

The trip up was beautiful – I have posted a couple of photos below. In the one with Tom, you can see the pipeline in the distance.

In this one you can see the tunnel at the beginning of the McCarthy Road – which we traversed successfully today – no flat tires.


Tomorrow we head out early, passing through Chicken on the way to Dawson. Outside of Chicken, we will travel over a road called the Top of the World Highway. Hope we make it….

I’m sitting at Carmen’s kitchen table with her mother while she hooks a rug “on the go”. Carmen has just come in from a full day working on her house. I just can’t believe this beautiful three story home is being built by just a couple of people.

Our drive in yesterday from Valdez took most of the day. Of course we stop at every opportunity. One of our first stops out yesterday was to check out the oil tanker getting filled up across the bay at Valdez. In the photo – if I get it posted – you can barely see the tanker across the bay. It is huge but looks so small in the photo. In fact - as I look at this photo on the blog - well once aI make the photo small enough and with fewer pixels, the tankers, and oil tanks across the bay almost become invisible. Too bad - cause it was really a huge operation.


On the way out from Valdez, and we did hate to leave, we drove by Bridal Veil Falls Took Tom’s photo and he looked like a little mini-person.


Then we started going up the mountain and drove up and up and up for miles it seemed. Close to the top we saw all these ice chunks up and down the mountain – finally coming to one that was just by the side of the road. I made Tom pull over and I hopped out of the truck. I said, “Come on, we’re going to check this one out.” We carefully traversed the rocks and gravel and got to the ice chunk to touch it and take photos. Roxie hopped right up on top of it and started dancing around – it was like she was back in Chevak, I guess.


At the very top – we came to Worthington Glacier – a tremendous glacier and people were actually climbing the thing. In the photo – you can barely see them right in the center. I made what I thought was a big blue arrow pointing towards the climbers - but now I can hardly see the arrow. It is right in the center pointing left towards the four climbers. It was pretty cold and raining and we didn’t stay too long.



The long trek down the mountain was ahead - however, like the trip up, the trip down seemed to go for miles also. So, there were only a couple of places we had to brake carefully. We reached Chitina about 1:00, got gas - $32.38 for 6.3 gallons – around $5.30 a gallon and had a little picnic. Our trek on the road began and it was as beautiful as ever.



I kept making Tom slow down. I think that if Tom outlives me, that the one thing he will not miss about me and in fact be relieved that he does not have to deal with anymore is my constant “It would make me happy if you just slowed down a little.” Arrived without incident in at John and Carmen’s house at about 4:30. Carmen was still out at the construction site so we promptly drove out there to surprise her and of course see the progress on her home. She and her brother are now putting up the sheetrock – it really looks like a house now.

We enjoyed supper and talk and went to our cabin around 9:00. I lay down for just a moment, I was so tired. Did not wake up until 3 am when I changed into pajamas and went back to sleep.

This morning, we slept late. Around 11:00 we drove to the footbridge, parked out truck and walked over the Kennecott River to catch the van into McCarthy. There is not much there. Lovely however, and quiet and secluded. We toured the little museum and I decided that soon I want to make a museum room with all of my old things . We took the van again over to the Kennecott Lodge and the restored (a couple of buildings out of over a dozen) mine buildings. Ate lunch at the lodge there. I had clam/shrimp chowder and halibut cakes, Tom had chicken wraps. The soup was the chunkiest, best ever clam chowder. I talked the waitress into making us four servings for takeout – I don’t think they usually do that. She put it in coffee cups for us and put it in a paper bag which we had to carry up right all the way home.



Let me tell you that clam chowder was a hit at supper tonight. It was a very nice day even if it was sort of rainy and cold. As always, the people you meet just make the trip. Our driver was from New Zealand – the same area where Doc and Emma live (our former supt), the parking lot attendant was one of the many people who stopped to help us on the McCarthy road last year when we had our flat tire. We met a group of four trekkers who were teachers and it was the most fun talking about our jobs and where we had all taught. We met a guy at the lodge whose career had been a contract snow remover on the streets in Minnesota. Lot of young backpackers – well, oodles of serious backpackers – from all over the world – all friendly, all young, all tanned and rustic looking. I had just a tad of remorse that I had not done that sort of thing when I was in my twenties – but just for minute or two…



We enjoyed seeing our good friend Carmen again. Tomorrow we are off to Tok and then to Dawson City.

We’ve had the best day ever here in Vadez! This morning we slept late – well I did. Tom walked the dog and had breakfast. We went over to the Old Valdez museum – all about Valdez when it was in a different location on the bay and then got destroyed by the 64 earthquake. The entire city was not destroyed but much of it was and the place it was in has since been sinking – 1 inch a year. So over a period of two years they moved the entire town and rebuilt in another location. Kinda like Chevak – except Chevak’s problem was flooding. The museum was really interesting - many old photos of the town and lots of letters, descriptions of the earthquake, etc. The director let us take photos with a huge blunderbuss.

Next, we drove down to this salmon hatchery – but the salmon had not come in yet. There was a bet on when they would be coming in – too late for us to see. We traveled on out to the location of Old Valdez – a perfectly flat place, many areas fenced off since parts of building were still there, part of the dock was there and many mosquitos.Very quiet and eerie. I believe about 33 people from Valdez were killed during the earthquake. Tom was very interested in the location and enjoyed exploring – I was a little concerned that we might not get back to the main road with out a blowout.


We headed out to the glacier viewing area beyond the airport and had a real surprise. It took us a while to get there but we were rewarded with huge floating pieces of the glacier – or iceburgs - lots of them. I had been worried about the road to Old Valdez – but that road was noting compared to this one – full of potholes and gravel.
There weren’t too many people out there either – very quiet.

Back in Valdez we went to a park and had ham&cheese sandwiches, potato chips and cookies for lunch. So nice – the weather was wonderful. Sort of sunny – but not quite. Sort of cloudy but not quite.

In the afternoon we went to the main museum in town and it was just fascinating.That is a very rare fish mounted in the photo - one of a kind.
Lots of great displays and artifacts - we both looked and looked and read and read. Those were some pretty brave and hardy folks who came to Alaska back when. I was feeling bad for those gold miners while looking at all this stuff and started reading some comments one of them had made. One man went on about the long boat journey they had just finished and then about buying supplies Valdez to go on up to the gold fields and he and four other men were sleeping in one tent and they were so tired and exhausted and were leaving to go north to the gold fields the next morning and they just were so excited they couldn’t sleep and ended up talking half the night. He wrote that they were like school kids on a camp trip having so much fun and loving every minute.

We headed out of town again to the other side of the bay. We were told to get there at about 4:05 because that was high tide. As we drove up this long bay – we could actually see the salmon jumping up our in the water. There were oodles of folks fishing and everybody was catching them! We parked and sat on a bench to observe the action - this man with three sons came down, threw their poles in and started reeling them in. Most they put back – there was some kind of bet as to who would catch the biggest fish. We really enjoyed the excitement! We made one more stop on the way back at a salmon hatchery – well actually we drove right by it. I saw a sea lion, and Tom saw a waterfall - so we had to run around and go back to that spot. We parked and noticed several folks down at the hatcherie and realized immediately that there were literally thousands of pink salmons there - feeding I guess. I don’t really know. Anyway the two sea lions were catching them and then fighting with the sea gulls over the spoils. It was wild – a sea of activity – folks taking photographs and ooing and ahhing – I loved it. What luck we turned back! In the photo the sea lion has a fish in his mouth and the gulls are tring to get it from him and the salmon are going nuts. That whole black are to the front is full of salmon flapping about.

We are beat but are looking forward to the trip to McCarthy tomorrow. We’ll leave early and hope to get to McCarthy by the middle of the afternoon. This last 60 miles of the journey is where we had that flat tire last year. Tom had the dealer remove the tire from the hoist and we have it in the back of the truck. We have to get that thing fixed. Anyway – at least we will be able to get to the tire this year. He promises that the spare is a good tire….

We have figured out that our hotel must have been a place that just had rooms for sleeping and a common bath area down the hall. The bathrooms have been added on recently. I believe I would have enlarged the rooms at the same time.

What a wonderful day! I love Valdez.

This morning we got up at 8 am and by 10:30 we had dressed, packed, shopped at the commissary for snacks, returned movies to Blockbuster, filled up the truck ($70), and picked up Roxie at the kennel. Our $28 room at the North Star Inn on Elmendorf did not allow doggies. The Inn was just fine – but the free laundry room was the best – huge floor to ceiling windows looking out at the cloud covered mountains. It stopped raining in Anchorage about 4 pm yesterday. I was getting a little bit of a rain phobia. In Chevak we always wish for a good rain since all we get is fog and drizzle. Now here in Anchorage it has just been rain, rain, rain, rain…I wished for only one clear day and we’ve got it TODAY for our ferry ride to Valdez!!

We were the first car in the line for the tunnel. It used to be only for trains but now the cars and the trains take turns. Roxie was a tad apprehensive. Since we were in the front we could lower the windows and actually breathe the cool air inside.

Our ferry was the fast one – going from Whittier to Valdez in less than three hours. We saw an otter and two whales. Tom saw several birds he liked. The ferry was the MV Chenega and it was a fine and dandy ferry – way nicer than out ferry last year we took to the Aleutian Islands. In fact the bathroom stall on this ferry is as large or larger than our cabin was on the ferry last year. Maybe that ferry was for people who lived in the area and this one is more for tourists – indeed, we have heard many languages being spoken on board. Roxie had to stay in the truck downstairs. She was not pleased.

The scenery is just overwhelming – huge snow capped mountains all along both sides – glaciers everywhere we look.

Later after supper:

We pulled off the ferry in our truck and drove right into town – well there’s not much of a town – the houses are on one side of town and the tourist stuff in on the other by the water. Lots and lots of boats were docked, well literally hundreds. We enjoyed walking among them looking at all the different types and their names. There was a little folks fishing contest going on and I got a couple of shots of the girls. They were pretty proud of their fish! We watched some of the folks who had caught fish bring theirs in to be filleted (sp?) and got a few photos there.



We ate at the Totem Inn – I had Halibut and Tom had chicken steak – we are by the ocean and Tom has chicken steak! No rooms at the Best Western ( we have ceased planning ahead of time) so we are in a place called Keystone Hotel. The room is tiny – we have to be very careful with all our stuff so we don’t trip and bump. The bathroom is nice though. I just hope we don’t have any problems with the mosquitos. In the morning we are going to check out the museums.

It is still raining. Rained all last night. The ground is soaked. I feel like I am in a jungle rain forest. I hope it just gets a bit clear tomorrow. We are going to pack up our trailer and store it on post while we are on our road trip. We both have appointments tomorrow with the dermatologist and are hoping that goes well. Then we will pack for our trip and leave early the next morning for Whittier. I'm looking forward to the ferry ride. Roxie unfortunately will have to remain inside the truck during the two hour voyage. Oh, A moose came galloping though the campground today and Roxie just about went through the window.

I've never seen so much rain.

Tom has left me at the PX so I can surf the net. He gets bored very quickly when I start surfing. I talked him into going back to our trailer for a nap. Speaking of the trailer, we paid $45 a month to store that thing last year in town. We found a place on post yesterday where we can store it for $10 a month. I had Tom sign up then and there for the whole year. $10 a month!! I'm trying to talk him into storing the truck there two. Problem is we are so far from the airport here - it would be a $40 charge to get a taxi out here - I'm still looking at options there.

We have been passing the time eating at different restaurants. There was a list of recommended places in the paper earlier this month and I cut it out. Let's see, we ate at McGinleys' Pub this evening in downtown Anchorage. I had Fried potato cakes with ham - like a sandwich. Tom had - um - don't remember -something to do with roast beef and potatoes. Had a delicious orange spiced chicken at the Panda across from Sears. We also ate at the Arctic Roadhouse last week - a little place famous for their delicious hamburgers. Yesterday we ate at La Mex, day before at Sorrentos - best lasagna I've ever had. Had great hamburgers for lunch one day at O'Malley's Pub. It has been fun eating out - but we have to stop - well, when we get to the end of the list....

Roxie lost a lot of weight at the kennel - we are trying our hardest to not feed her anything except dog food and we are doing really well.

We had maybe 10 minutes of sunshine yesterday!!!! It was beautiful.

We are planning a little road trip - We will drive to Whittier on Saturday, and then take the ferry to Valdez. I really wanted to go all the way to Cordova and then ferry back to Valdez - but we just don't have enough time and it is expensive. We will stay two nights in Valdez and get up early on the third day to travel to McCarthy. We'll stay in McCarthy two nights and then travel north to Tok. Remember that 60 mile dirt road from McCarthy to Chitina takes 3 hours at least. So, hoping we get to Tok. The next day we head to Dawson, Yukon Canada. (Assuming our passports arrive from GA before we leave.) We will be there for two days - splurging on a hotel since we will have been tenting the first part of the trip. (It costs over $90 for a tank of gas for the truck.) After Dawson, we head to Paxson where we will go straight west to Cantwell. It is a dirt road and I hope we have no problems. I'm thinking this trip will take 10 days. We are taking Roxie so it should be fun. We had mailed our air mattresses to ourselves from GA - and now want to find a automatic pump to blow them up. I'm not looking forward to this tenting - but we tented most of the way up two years ago and had loads of fun - so surely I can get back into the swing of things. I think I am a little more aware of the wildlife issues now - yikes! In fact a bear turned over our empty ice chest in the Elmendorf camping area this past week. I wanted to get a photo of the paw prints - but Tom washed it off too quickly. One guy had food in his ice chest and lost it all! He was in big trouble. You aren't supposed to keep any food outside cause the bears are attracted to it.

I finished watching the entire series of OZ. I am now watching The Shield from the beginning season. There's no difference in the behavior of the characters and the plots on these two shows - one just happens to be a prison and the other happens to be a police station. At least the language is not as bad on The Sheild. we are trying to rent only 99¢ movies this summer.

I'm ramlbing.

We are at the McKinley Princess Lodge for a couple of days. We are supposed to have a wonderful view of the South Face of Denali. However, all we can see are clouds. In fact, we've been to Denali Park about four times now, five for Tom, and we still haven't had a really good sighting of the mountain. A couple of times we saw it briefly through the clouds last year but I'm thinking this just isn't something that is going to be. We are however enjoying this lodge - so nice and spread out. All of the young folks working here must be flown in from other countries - lots of other countries. Nice kids.

On the train coming up we had one of these Dome cars. For years I have wanted to travel in one of these special train cars and it ended up being pretty nice. Tom and I were lucky to have a table all to ourselves.

We took Roxie to the kennel to stay while we were traveling this week. Now, remember that we had felt really bad leaving her there for a whole month while we were in Georgia. She did seem glad to see us when we returned. However, we were really feeling bad about taking her back so soon - even if it was only for a few nights. We drove up the driveway to the kennel, Roxie got a whiff and went nuts. She flew into the front seat on top of Tom and about crawled out the window to get to the door. We were a little surprised. But the worst was when we got inside - her pulling us with all her might. She was so glad to see the boarding woman - just gave all of her attention to that woman - not even looking at us again - her tail wagging like mad. Tom was actually a little despondent in the car afterwards - saying that we were too old to have a young dog like Roxie. What can I say - we have to make life more exciting for her. I suspect it is all the dog socialization she gets there. They get exercized three hours a day in a big place with other dogs so I suspect that is what Roxie remembered. I'm sure other dogs are much more fun for her than me and Tom.

I see a break in the clouds - have to go.

Here's our Roxy romping through the Daisies on base. It has been raining for several days. Tomorrow we get on one of those Dome rail cars and travel up to Talkeetna. The hotel supposedly has a great view of the South Face of Denali. Hope we get a clear day. It will be nice to stay in a hotel for a couple of days.

That's Charlie and Liz above with Tom.

We are now back in Anchorage (Elmendorf – camping) after a month in Georgia. We really needed to go home and check on our house – pulling back ivy from the brick and cutting back shrubs, cleaning the accumulated dust out of the house, getting rid of many unneeded possessions, etc. Most important was the new $6000 heat pump we had installed. We also got new ducts and all that stuff. So the first 11 days we were home in GA we had no air – none. We had some huge fans going and that helped – but one day the temp was 102 degrees. It was unreal. We had to go over to my brother’s house to spend the night twice and several times to cool off. When they finished that heat pump installation and turned that air on at 4:30 pm the house cooled immediately and we had the best nights sleep ever.

Roxy stayed in the kennel here in Anchorage for the month. Was she glad to see us! She’s really slimmed down, stopped jumping on us and hasn’t gotten back her habitual begging moans yet. Why do other people have success training our dog and keeping her fit – but yet all we do is make her boss!

It was so wonderful seeing our family and friends. We spent three days up in Amicolola Falls in a lovely mountain cottage with my college roommate and her husband. Terry and Dee had visited us in Alaska last summer. We had such fun talking about our children and retirement and school libraries. Also had a great time seeing my friend from Decatur, Mary, who visited us last summer in Alaska. Lots going on with Mary – she was on her way to Maine to spend a week at a remote place on the coast bird watching. She had received a grant that paid her expenses. Mary is the one who got Tom interested in birds.

We also got down to Columbus to see my dad’s sister, Lucile. We saw my Aunt Janie in Anderson SC and Tom and Charlie made it down to Augusta to see his bother and sister.

Honestly we are glad to be back. I think we will head back to Chevak around the 1st of August to get a few things done in the library before school starts. I’m very excited about the new year and the 1:1 Apple Computer program. Every child in grades 3 – 12 will receive a computer!