Fairbanks/North Pole

We are really busy here in Fairbanks, four days, three of which are pretty much non-stop fun.  This is the farthest north that this trip will take us. Today we traveled here from Denali.  Still didn't see that elusive mountain due to the dense cloud cover. Rain off and on but beautiful drive. I told our guests that this drive was very similar to Top of the World Highway last year.  All treetops and mountains but better roads.  LOL. No fog like TOTW. We got here to Riverview RV Park, right on the Chena River, in the early afternoon. At 5:15 we board the bus to the Alaska Salmon Bake. The name is a misnomer because, first of all, it is all you can eat and the main entrees are salmon, cod and prime rib. Then, everything you can imagine to go with including the "extra" crab clusters and dessert. We then walked around the corner to the Pioneer Village for a little shopping before the Palace Theater production started. The show started at 8:30 and was very well done. So funny. All our guests really enjoyed it.

The next day we boarded the sternwheeler, Riverboat Discovery, after leaving the campground at 8:00am. It is a wonderful trip up the Chena River where lots of activity happens. A float plane will do touch and goes right next to our sternwheeler and talk to us by microphone to us. We will stop and watch an Athabasan girl show us the processing of salmon for the sled dogs and will visit a replica Athabascan village.  Very interesting showing of clothing and housing as well as furs and boats. We stop by Susan Boucher's dog sled farm where her daughter tells us all about the training of the dogs and runs a team though the woods nearby.  All this is done while we are on the boat and they talk by microphone, except for the village where we got off and walked to the different venues. They even had a herd of caribou that we saw from the river and in the village. We went to the Cookie Jar for lunch. It was so good that we went back for dinner the next day. After lunch we went to the University of Alaska Museum. Another very interesting place. 

Oh, finally, we got a free day, laundry was piling up ! !   LOL.  

The next day, Tuesday, August 1st we boarded another early morning bus to the Gold Dredge #8. This was a very different tour in that we had a speaker tell us all about the old days and tell us about the Aleska Pipeline that we were standing under. He told us about how protected the pipeline is against the environment and how protected the environment is against the pipeline. Very impressive talk. Then we boarded a train to take us back to the actual dredge and all along someone talked about mining with the dredge. We then went into a building where we could pan for gold. Ken and I got about $12.00 worth, not as much as last year. Some of our guests got as much as $35. Kinda fun day there too. 

We didn't get any pictures of this stay.  Got lots last year so gotta go back to that book and look..  LOL...  darn it, hate when we forget the camera on a whole day trip. ! !   LOL

Part of the Fantasy tour was the Auto Museum. We were so happy that it was added to the tour. The difference of this museum is that it features clothing of the day of the cars so it is a fun place for both men and women.

Denali

Ok, so the mountain has been elusive..  Hopefully we will see it in the next couple of days.  On our way here, we saw our first moose ! !  However, because our windshield wipers quit working and it was pouring rain most of our drive, we almost hit the moose and certainly couldn't get a picture. LOL  All I could see was a dark animal running in front of us through the rain drops on the window ! ! ! Oh well.  No harm done.  We went to the Cabin Night Dinner Theater a couple hours after we arrived in Denali.  It was as great as we remembered it was. One of our guests, Vern, was chosen to be part of the play. He was so good, really played the part well. Dinner was all you could eat, served family style, ribs, salmon and more. Very good.

Did our Denali Park Bus Tour today.  Was excellent. After the horrible driver we had last year, I was worried.  Cassie was terrific and very knowledgeble. She said that we were very lucky as we saw the "Big 5" mammels. We saw moose, caribou, several grizzlies, Dall Sheep and wolves. Amazing.  Quite a few birds including an owl and beautiful wildflowers.

Our last day here and we rafted the Nanana River. So different than any other rafting trips we have done.  For one, the one they call the Scenic Float has plenty of whitewater too, not what I would call a float.  LOL  Also, this was the first time we have had to put on a full body dry suit. Was great except that the rubber around the neck was choking, it was sooooo tight and didn't stretch with body warmth either. I think I had a leak in my footie as I ended up wet to my waist inside the dry suit. LOL We also wore helmets and life jackets. This river was very interesting as it had a lot of rock flour and then merged with another river that had even more, therefore, no fish and no animals coming down for water. No wildlife at all.  We had not put one and one together to realize that animals cannot and will not exist with rock flour water. One of the guides said that if you got a drinking glass of water out of the river and let it sit overnight, you would have 1/3 filled with rock flour silt by morning. No wonder no fish or animals, they cannot breathe as well as the temperature was about 34 degrees, all from those melting glaciers.  Sad.. Again, these guides talked about the melting of all the glaciers and that it is expected that they will all be gone within 50 years. That is not the same as new snow and ice, it has to do with the ancient ice called glaciers.

Palmer, Seward, Homer and Anchorage !!

The park in Palmer has the most amazing scenery. Pictures do not do it justice. Sure happy to be here since the bumpy heaves were about to get the best of us. Will be happy to get back to "normal" roads again.

We went looking for a grocery store and found the best Fred Meyer ever ! ! They have the largest fresh veggie and fruit department we have seen on this trip! Very nice and the prices were not all that bad either.

Now on to Seward, the best roads in quite some time.  Was a much better drive into Seward!!  LOL.  Tonight, Wednesday, July 19th, we participated in an optional Kenai Fjord Dinner Cruise to Fox Island. Back in the day when animal pelts were acceptable for lots of clothing, etc, they raised foxes on this island because they could not escape. Today, there is very little there except a restaurant that appears to be owned by the cruise company. Was an all you can eat buffet of salmon, prime rib, etc. Not the best and we didn't see any water animals. It has been raining here our whole three days so not real good visibility. Were able to see the glacier and the Forest Service Rep told us that it is melting pretty quickly, as a result of global warming, she said. 

On to Homer tomorrow... Hope we have sunshine. Several people say it is predicted to be much better weather then it has been lately.

Homer is my favorite Alaskan City. It has stunningly beautiful landscapes. Our campsite with Fantasy RV Tours is right on Katchamak Bay with mountains all the way around.  Did I say amazing??!! Homer area is where the Discovery Channel films the Deadliest Catch TV Show and Alaska: The Last Frontier. The Kilcher family owns the Salty Dawg and stars in the Alaska show. A visit to that bar is so very interesting.  Every possible surface is covered with dollar bills, mostly, some fives. They even added to the front door since we were last here.. We also learned that Jewel, the Country singer, is a Kilcher.  Interesting. Feels like a small world sometimes.

Ken went halibut fishing yesterday. The limit is still two fish and the area is very much over fished. It calls itself the Halibut Capitol of the World, but now is shuts fishing down two days a week as most people are catching smaller fish. One of our gals got a 40 pounder ! !  We got the same as last year, about 10 pounds, but was still cheaper than buying in the store here!  LOL

Took these two pictures about 11:30pm last night. First time I have seen the sunset so far.






These are just looking out our door today. Doesn't even count what is behind our rig.

This is the photo we are framing for our guests as everyone was able to be here in Homer

On to Anchorage tomorrow ! !  Busy days ahead ! !

We arrived in Anchorage on Sunday, July 23rd.  Was loving that their is a Costco just across the street ! ! Time to stock up as well as prepare for the BBQ we are having for the guests. They got their choice of tri tip steak, boneless pork chop or boneless chicken breast. We also announced that they would get to cook their own meat. That turned out to be a great decision as then no one has the responsibility of cooking everyone's meat perfectly. We also cooked baked potatoes and had a great green salad. Great dinner ! ! 

We had a fairly short city bus tour but it also included a great lunch at the 49th State Brewery downtown. We also had the opportunity to go to the Alaska Native Heritage Center. It is an open air museum that interprets five groups of Native people who live in Alaska. 

On to Denali ! ! 

Dawson Creek, BC to Valdez, AK

OMG, I have two weeks catching up to do.  When we left the Canadian National Park of Jasper we went to Dawson Creek, BC. That was the beginning of the Alaska Hwy 1, Mile 0. We had a great speaker in Joyce from the Visitor's Center. She told the story of the building of the Alaska Hwy and had a very interesting perspective since her father worked on it. We were able to find a Costco in Grand Prairie and bought what we needed to fix the pulled pork that Ken had smoked before we left home. Campground meals are always a hit.  

We have one couple missing from this picture so will try to get another group picture further down the road, thinking about in Homer.  

Fort Nelson took us to the Triple G Hideaway, a great park who loves Fantasy RV Tours. They had a small farmer's market on the grounds and we bought some homemade bread, yummy.  The Fort Nelson Heritage Museum. Very interesting place.

By July 2nd we were at Muncho Lake Campground.  What a beautiful place right on the lake. All the sites were terraced down to the lake. Amazing views !

Watson Lake is always an interesting place.  Too bad it was raining this year for our SignPost Forest visit. We hung the Fantasy RV sign as well as many of our guests brought their own signs to hang. We had a group meeting at the Visitor's Center right outside SignPost Forest where we watched a film of the area. We had nachos and margaritas that night. 

4th of July was at Whitehorse, again in the rain...  Nice that we were able to rent their meeting room to eat our bbq in.  Did traditional 4th food, hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, chips and root beer floats ! ! ! We had three nights here and did a City Tour including seeing the SS Klondike, a  fish ladder and the downtown area. The next day we went out to MukTuk Adventures. Was a great presentation by the owner, Jeff. His wife, Manuela oversaw the great lunch of bison burgers. Everyone really enjoyed the talk and seeing all the dogs. Still totally blown away by how quiet these 140 dogs were. We got to see puppies this visit too. So cute ! ! 

All along the roadways we can see any and all animals. Some days are better than others.  I cannot, for the life of me, remember exactly where we saw the following, but they are fun ! ! These goats are licking the salt off the roadway. They blend right into the rocks.

Wouldn't you just love knowing this guy is up on the cliff watching??

 

Dawson City takes you back to the gold rush days. The streets are still dirt and the buildings look as they did way back then. We had a great City Walking Tour where the guide gave us all kinds of history. Then, at night, we went to Diamond Tooth Gerties. Great show. From Dawson City we took the ferry across the Yukon River. It only holds two RV's and maybe two regular cars and/or trucks. 

Then over The Top of the World Highway...  in the rain, we had a muddy mess as well as the fog and clouds made the scenery disappear. Always an experience.

 This is what we looked like as we arrived in Chicken, Alaska ! !  We served all our guests walking taco's. Sure wish it had been a hot meal but....  planning didn't anticipate the rain ! !   LOL.  Mike and Lou served their famous berry cobbler just before our Travel Meeting. Mike also gave us a talk about the history of Chicken. He also led a tour of his gold dredge and allowed gold panning.

Our one night at Tok was July 11th. We will be back there in a couple weeks for a pizza dinner at Fast Eddie's. Tok was a great park for us as they love us and they allow free rig washing if you fill your fuel tanks at Village Gas.  Easy, peasy ! !  AND, they have 50 amps with full hookup.  Nice after 20 amp only at Chicken.  LOL

The following were some of the sites along the way...  Amazing, again ! !

Today, July 12, we arrived in Valdez, Alaska. This is where the big oil spill was in 1998. Amazing that it was so long ago. There is no evidence of it today, however they did move the town afterwards. Tomorrow will be a free day where we went to the Puffin Experience at the Sealife Center and the next day, our all day Prince William Sound boat tour. 

This park loves tour groups. They have the whole middle open for us and so that means a pull through for everyone. 

Also, they have a free fish fry for us all. Traditional pot luck and they supply all the fish!! Yummy, it was soooooo good ! ! 

We went a few miles back to the waterfalls today. First is Horsetail Falls and the second is Bridal Veil Falls.

We went back over to the hatchery area where it is supposed to be bear viewing but in two years, we have not seen bears there.  Only lots of fish trying to get back to the hatchery and the seals and sea lions wasting them. The gulls like that tho. 

That is fish

Our boat trip in Prince William Sound turned out to be a ten hour trip. The Captain was fantastic. He stopped by everything to let us see the best. We spent a lot of time watching and waiting for the glacier to calve!!  Also, we watched a couple of whales and a flock of puffins.