Going to Valdez

I'm sure you have seen the photos and videos of Cooper's Landing and Whittier...we are so in love with Alaska. We are heading to Valdez and we hear it is like Seward but more dramatic. We will let you know.

Leaving Homer

We are leaving Homer today and going fishing in the Kenai River.  Homer has been amazing and we have enjoyed every moment.  The weather changes in a second and the ocean can be glass one moment and a very angry sea the next.  The glaciers are alive with changing colors and shadows that can only be captured in your heart.  Before we left home, I told Karen that I couldn't understand why people would visit Alaska year after year, I get it now.

A pair of eagles live nearby and come over to visit a few times every day, so we have watched them look for food and when they find it they share with each other, but not with the seagulls.

We ran into a crazy bar last night, the Salty Dawg.  This fun place actually gives you a marker and a cup of thumbtacks so that you can add to the THOUSANDS of dollar bills hung all around the bar with messages on them.  I didn't have my camera last night but it was great.  

To see pictures go to http://web.mac.com/gibsononaroll

Homer

We are currently staying in Homer on the spit.  This is a great park facing the Cook Inlet and the Kachemak Bay.  The view from the front of our rig is the ice and glaciers of the Aleutian Range.  It is amazing to think that on the other side of these mountains is the Bering Sea and beyond that Russia.  We watch eagles catching fish from the front of our rig.  Absolutely incredible.  This, again, is one of our favorite spots. 

Today the Talberts are leaving Homer and starting their trip toward home.  We will rejoin in Snohomish, Washington.  We have loved traveling with them and wish them exciting, safe travels.  We will also miss them.

Ninilchik

We visited a city named Ninilchik.  This city is a quaint fishing village that was first settled by Russians seeking retirement.  The Russian Orthodox church was built in 1911 and is still actively used by it's village.  The people still dress in the fashion of the Russians.  We found this beautiful fishing village to be a great day trip.

Eagle

Jeff loves Eagles so you can imagine how fun this was for him to discover an eagle nest behind our park. He captured this Eagle picking up a small fish from the stream. This is really cool to watch. Their vision is so keen and they are very quick.

Exit Glacier

We took a hike to see Exit Glacier, it is one of over 20 glaciers that make up the Harding Icefield. (named after President Harding) The expanse of the icefield is over 607,805 acres in the Kenai Fjords National Park. The ice here is several thousand feet deep. The colors change as the sun moves through clouds. The ice is very much alive as it recedes and advances.

Fishing in Seward

One of the top things we wanted to do was fish in Seward. We chartered a boat and departed at 6:30 AM. We wanted to catch halibut and silver salmon. We almost hit our limit on both and we caught a lingcod as a bonus. Lingcod grow at a rate of 1 pound per year, our captain estimated this guy was around 70-80#. We also caught a stingray, a shark, lots of pollock and black cod. The black cod and pollock we threw back but we kept over 120# of halibut and salmon.

Seward highway

We went to Anchorage for a few days mainly to restock. We did play a round of golf at Moose Run which was fun and Roxy shot the best round of her life with an 88.

Then we were off to Seward...the Kenai! Once we turned the corner and were on the ocean it was like a constant postcard. The mountains and ocean were incredible. The sky was a beauty of it's own. We have lots of pictures posted on the photo link but here is a sample.

Talkeetna

What a cute little town this is! Located close to Denali surrounded by mountains and rivers, this is a great place to spend a few days.

This weekend there is a big event, a moose dropping contest. They paint moose dropping and number them, you can buy one for 20 dollars. Then they fly over a target, drop the droppings and which ever number hits closest to the target, wins the droppings, just kidding they win the money. The festivities include a parade and lots of other fun things.

Yesterday we went fishing for king salmon. The guide service provided waders and all necessary equipment. Gary and Roxy went with us and I had a great time. I caught 2 King Salmon, although you can only keep one. I threw the first one back as it only weighed around 12 pounds, luckily the second one weighed around 25 pounds. I caught those two fish within the first 5 minutes so we thought it was going to be an active fishing day. However, those were the only fish caught. Of course I did NOT brag (too much), but happily took the money for the bets. We cooked salmon for dinner using the recipe we had previously used (in the recipe blog) and it was the best we had ever eaten. Sorry Katie, hopefully more people than me will catch fish next time and I can mail some to you.

Note in the pictures, Gary has his waders on the wrong feet. One of his waders also had a hole in it, the water temperature was around 38, he complained all day. One of mine had a hole also, but when you catch the fish the rest doesn't matter.

From Tok to Denali

We went from Tok to Fairbanks. Fairbanks is flat in geography, which surprised us, as we have seen so many mountains. We went to the University museum and enjoyed learning more history and understanding the local geographical elements that make Alaska so unique.

We drove from Fairbanks to Denali. Once again we are going into mountain ranges with so many different tree species. Denali is a very large National park which surrounds Mt. McKinley. We drove around the area and enjoyed seeing a couple of large grey wolves.

We are going to Talkeetna today where we hope to go on our first fishing trip. King Salmon are running in this area.

Top of the World Highway

We knew that the "Top of the world Highway" would be our most difficult road to travel. We stayed in Dawson an extra day to make sure we had good weather. We prepared the rig and tow the night before and set our clock for 6AM to assure that we would be in line for the ferry by 7AM. We knew the ferry hours started at 8AM and the ferry would only hold one big rig and a couple of cars. We had seen the line for the ferry and knew it could be hours if we didn't get there early. So we were ready...we got in line at 7AM... behind 14 other big rigs.

We crossed the Yukon River on the ferry at 9AM. It was fun to ride across the river in the motorhome and we were finally on the Top of the World highway. It proved to be everything we had heard; absolutely beautiful mountain ranges that seemd to go on forever. We could see for hundreds of miles and it was incredible.

The road is a different story; pot holes, gravel, ice heaves, washboard, hairpin turns and narrow edges. There were places if we had passed another bus or rig, one of us would have gone over the edge. This was truly a white knuckle day for us both. We were very happy to be down the mountain and into Tok, Alaska. Yes, Alaska! We had finally arrived in Alaska. We were both exhausted and happy the park we stayed in offered dinner and entertainment. They served reindeer chili in a sourdough bowl. (I guess Santa is walking this year) We enjoyed not having to go anywhere and just recovering.

Dawson City continued

We decided to stay another day in Dawson to let the driving conditions improve. We played golf at a very fine establishment, Top of the World Golf Course, Western Hills has some competition. We saw a cute little fox and the weather is beautiful. I think it will be even better tomorrow for our drive to Alaska. If you click on a picture it will enlarge. I really like the poem above, check it out.

Dawson City, Yukon

We are in Dawson City for a few days. We went to a show in town last night, a can-can type entertainment at the local casino. This is a non-profit casino and all the profits are returned to the city to help the local citizens. It was really fun.

Today is Canada Day and we went into town to see the celebration. It was pouring rain but the celebration went on. There was a gold panning championship. Each contestant is given a bucket of dirt and rocks. A certain amount of gold is placed in each bucket, then they are timed as to how quickly they find the gold. The contestants do not know how many pieces of gold are in the dirt. When they are finished they raise their pan. The winner is a combination of time and amount of gold found.

We were planning to travel to Tok, Alaska tomorrow but the weather does not look good, so we will probably stay here another day. The forecast looks great for Thursday. You can see the ferry above that we will be taking across the Yukon before the "top of the world" highway.