Alaska

It has been a while since I posted, but internet is sparse in this part of the country and when we get it we are always in a rush. Since we posted last, we have traveled many miles. From Denali we headed South on scenic hwy. 3 to Anchorage, with stops, a detour to Talkeetna, base town for all the Mt. McKinley expeditions, and Wasilla, home of Sarah Palin ( I kept looking for her or Levi at the local SaveWay, but no such luck!).

Our destination was the beautiful Kenai Peninsula, know for it's world famous fishing in the Kenai river. We got all the way down to Homer, a neat town with a 4.5 mile tongue sticking out in the ocean, called the spit. We actually camped there. We went on a halibut off-shore fishing boat and caught 29 lbs of delicious halibut (2 fish each, legally allowed). We fished at 280 feet deep and they were not easy to pull up. We got them all cut up, bagged and frozen in our little freezer ready to bring home, minus the ones we eat on the road.

Next town was Seward, a beautiful seaside town with a campsite right up on the seashore. We watched a couple of eagles catching fish, it was quite a sight. We had really nice weahter there too, which made it even more special. We had a great salmon dinner at a local restaurant for my birthday, a nice change from the campfire cooking. On the way back to Anchorage, Tony tried his luck fishing in the Kenai, but only caught a "Humpy", a pink salmon which the locals say is not worth eating, so he threw it back hoping he would catch a silver, but it didn't happen.

Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska

Here we are, our furthest destination. What a long drive, five days from Kamloops, BC. Worth every mile-kilometer we drove. We managed to get a nice campsite at the Riley Campground inside the Park and got on the park bus the next day. A six hour, 53 miles ride on a bus up to the Toklat River turn-around. Private vehicles are only allowed the first 13 miles into the park. The scenery and wilderness were magnificent. We saw Caribou and Dall Sheep, but to our disappointment no moose!! But the views made up for that. The Polychrome Mountain Pass was more then a bit scary for me. Very narrow road with almost vertical drops without guard rails. Two big busses passing was a tricky maneuver. Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in the North American Continent eluded us on the first day, but lucky enough, the next morning before we went on our way the sun came out and we had a beautiful view of this snow capped 20,340 ft beauty.

North Pole, Alaska

A must see stop was North Pole, Alaska. We heard that was the home of Santa Claus and that his raindeer can be seen there. If anything, we had to check on that for our grandkids, so here you go Diego, Mira and Pele, we did see the raindeers but Santa was on vacation, to get a well deserved rest before the busy season of Christmas:

Traveled from Glacier National Park up to BC Canada through some pretty awesome scenery. The Kootenay Lakes region was especially beautiful. We were glad to have a couple of days rest at Sunny Valley Ranch with my sister-in-law Ursula and visiting with my nieces and nephews and their offsprings in Kamloops. Good times was had by all.

Then the road took us North via the grand Alaska Highway. We started on Hyw 97 in Kamloops, BC which joined up with the Alaskan Hyw. in Ft. St. John followed by Ft. Nelson, Watson Lake, Ukon then on the White Horse (capitol of Ukon) and then again across the border into Alaska. It has been a very long drive, but so worth it. It took us four days driving through the most rugged and scenic country. We did not see as much wildlife as we thought we would, other then a herd of wild buffalos, which was of course a big treat, but today we got the prize, a beautiful bald eagle flew right over our RV on the Alaska Hwy, I think he was welcoming us to Alaska! This made up big time for not having spotted a moose yet. Tomorrow we will make it to Denali National Park, our furthest destination. The weather has been mixed, cloudy, rainy and a bit of sun, not too hot, nights are pretty cool, low 50's.

Glacier National Park, Montana

This beautiful white mountain goat crossed our path up on Hidden Lakes Trail on Logan Pass. We crossed few snow fields to get to the lookout. There were tons of beautiful mountain flowers in bloom. Alpine orchids, Indian Paintbrush, Mountain Lupin etc.

We also saw a couple of large hoary marmots.