Chugach National Forest and Kenai Fjords

Well, as you can see above, this was one incredible day to be on the Kenai Fjords. Our day began really early as we had to drive 2-1/2 hours from Anchorage to Seward to catch our excursion. The drive was one of the best we have been on here in this part of Alaska, almost all the trip through the Chugach National Forest.  And this is a forested area! The forests are dense, green and lush, almost always reaching to the snow line of the mountains and then the mountains reach into the water, with those mountain streams flowing everywhere. It is indeed a breathtaking area.

Our Kenai Fjord trip was spectacular. And, since the day turned out picture perfect in weather, we had a wonderful time. Captain Greg was personable and keyed into finding wildlife.  We did that!  We stopped for orca whales, humpback whales, sea otters, tons of seal lions, harbor seals, puffins, cormorants, bald eagles, common murre and other sea birds we couldn't always identify.  Then there were the glaciers -- over half of the Kenai Natl Park is covered with glacier ice and they were beautiful in today's sunlight, not calving today but with water gushing.

This trip ended in a delicious way, with a salmon and prime rib dinner served in the lodge on Fox Island. Then we had time to stroll the beach and many chose to sunbathe. It was indeed a mellow group who boarded the boat for the cruise back to Seward. 

We drove back to Anchorage in a rainstorm! The first of this trip. In fact, we were so prepared for today's trip with rain coats, rain pants, rain hats -- never could have imagined such a day as today.
So now we pack up one last time -- lots of dirty clothes and memories of a lifetime. We never forget how fortunate we are to be able to do this. And we never quit thanking all those ancestors who knew preserving lands such as these were doing so for the soul -- ours, our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren. Spent quite a bit of time today with a like-minded couple from New Hampshire -- no doubt they will be doing something like this on their 60th as we have done.

Exploring More Anchorage

Whew, it is chilly tonight in Alaska! Today's weather was like we had expected it to be: cloudy, dark and windy.  The sun finally came out about 6pm (almost middle of the daylight!) but it is still windy and cold. We walked to dinner from our hotel and were really happy to get back. We've tried several different places in town, all with good results. Tonight we went to Humpy's which had been recommended to us by several people as a real local's place. It was Anchorage's answer to Sunpies except nobody was sitting outside tonight.

Today's tour was really fun. There were only 4 of us being driven all around the Anchorage area in a mini-van. (originally scheduled to be 6 of us but one couple cancelled). This picture is from the top of town with the sea in the background. The town has grown up this hill and is quite exclusive, though we understand several residents do not stay for the entire winter.  The views are magnificent, including moose grazing in the meadow below us.

From here we headed to the Portage glacier area, had some lunch and a boat tour to the glacier on the Ptarmigan. This glacier feeds into the Portage Lake which appears to be a popular spot for kayaking. In fact, we saw one kayaker who had beached his craft and was climbing the rocks near the glacier -- for a better view? We couldn't decide what would make a person do this.  The glacier was not calving today though we did hear many cracks. 

From here we headed to the Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center. This center serves as a rescue for injured wildlife as well as a center for breeding and reintroducing wildlife, such as the wood bison, to their natural habitat.  We did see wildlife here! Bald eagles, linx, grizzly bears, black bears, musk ox, wolves, black tail deer, elk, moose and grey horn owl. We watched the bears being fed, saw a great film on reintroducing the wood bison and thoroughly enjoyed seeing these animals being kept in as close to natural environment as possible. Many of the animals here live pretty long lives. They have been brought here after being found on the trails, etc after having been abandoned by their mothers for one reason or another. 

Off to Seward tomorrow -- early again! We took the bus out to the airport tonight to pick up a rent car.  Should be another great trip tomorrow as that Seward - Anchorage highway is touted to be one beautiful drive and the excursion tomorrow sounds very exciting.

Relaxing to Renew & Restore

A couple pretty easy days came at just the right time! Yesterday we were on the train almost all day, arriving back in Anchorage about 7pm. We are staying downtown in a most charming place. The Voyager is part of the Captain Cook hotel across the street, a sleek modern high rise hotel with restaurants and several gift shops. Our place could not be more different, a squat 4-story hotel with only 38 rooms. We have learned that most older architecture here is similar to this, built under different regulations concerning earthquake-prone areas.  We are loving this place, a large roomy suite with a desk area, a reading area and a small kitchen -- and most of one wall is french doors opening to outside and looking out over Knik Arm of the Cook Inlet (with a stop light in between!).

We are within easy walking of all of downtown, and that is what we did today -- coming back home to take a nap! Marie, of course, has her usual "travel malady" of allergies and bronchial issues. So a day or two of rest is perfect. We have decided that one reason a person gets so worn out in a place like this is "sensory overload." Even the restful train ride yesterday was one of moose, eagles, mountains, glacier melt lakes and little get-away homesteads. The weather yesterday was totally different with cloud cover and dark, cloudy skies all day. We talked with people who were going on the Wilderness Tundra tour, but cannot imagine they saw Mt Denali at all, let alone the summit.

Today we went to the open air market which was huge. It seems like the tourists arrived yesterday! Anchorage does not have a deep sea port for the cruise ships, so the town looks very different from those ports with a line of jewelry shops leading from the ship into town. Probably most tourists are on a cruise vacation and visiting Anchorage as a side trip. Anyway, most must have been at the market today. There were so many types of Alaskan food and art works.

We bought one most unusual picture which supposedly took multi-years to do. We loved talking with this artist. I wish this picture could show how unusual this picture/process is. The colors include many ground stone fragments as well as "ordinary" ingredients such as octopus ink.

We also had a great conversation with Rod Perry, one of the original Iditarod racers. He raced in 1973 and the 1000 mile race took him 30 days. Today the race is the same distance and is covered in 7 days. Rod says the difference is the dog breeding for speed. There are only 11 of these original racers still living -- they have this booth to tell people about the race and be sure it doesn't become a distant memory. We were impressed by this "old-timer" never saying it was better or hardier back then, but mainly wanting to preserve the race into the future. His rescue malamute was also loveable.






We also went to find the quiviut shop, which is musk ox wool, but didn't end up buying any. This shop is a coop owner by 200 or so native Alaskan women from 20 remote coastal villages.  The huge musk ox sheds only 6-8 pounds of wool each year and this quiviut is used for scarves, hats and mittens handmade by these women. It is touted to be warm in cold weather, cool in warmer climes, non-itchy and machine washable & dryable. It is also super expensive!

We have a couple long, busy days coming up. Tomorrow is a mostly land tour from Anchorage where we expect to see more animals. Then we go to the airport to pick up a rent car as we leave Sunday at 6am for Seward to catch an all-day excursion to the Kenai Peninsula where we expect to see all sorts of marine life. We are told Seward is quite wonderful; unfortunately we have just the one day to be there.

The Tundra Wilderness

Denali:  "The Great One"

Mark down this date:  May 30, 2019 at Denali National Park & Wilderness Area where the sky was blue, the clouds were few and The Great One was on display all day.  We absolutely could not have picked a better day to be here. We were warned it is very unusual to catch sight of the top and we dared not hope for such a day.  It was simply glorious and the majesty of this mountain makes it hard to take your eyes off it.  We were surprised by the huge size of the mountain and can't remember the size of the base but it is immense. The two peaks you see here are 2 miles apart! Both peaks are attempted for climbing, but the percentage of climbers who are successful is very small.  A successful ascent takes 21-30 days. It's pretty obvious that any groups near the top today tried to get there in this weather.  BTW this is our favorite picture we got today, but we easily have 50 more of Denali to remind us of this great day.

We took the tundra wilderness tour today which is by bus and takes most of the day. Our tour was #4 and left the park station at 6:40am with a very full bus. I believe there were 16 such tours today offered by the park service. This is a popular tour! It is hard to turn from Mt Denali at times, but there is so much more to see and learn about. Like all national parks we see, this one became a favorite right away.  It's a little hard to explain and/or understand how such a majestic place can, at the same time, appear so fragile. The park now covers 6 million acres (since the 1970's) and the mountain ranges are huge.  The tree line here is at 3000 feet (vs 10-11,000 in CO) so the mountains appear very exposed.  The ecological balance here is constantly studied -- that is, the predator-prey relationships. We found it all fascinating.

And we did see wildlife all day, especially caribou today. We saw so many of those we began to pass up stopping! We saw moose: a really cute scene where the mother was eating and her twin babies were chasing each other in play. We saw golden eagle, ptarmigan, a marsh hawk and gyr falcon. There were many groupings of dall sheep: either all rams together or the ewes with baby lambs. It was so obvious all day how the young must be protected from predators. One disappointment was not spotting grizzlies as we had expected. Also wolves are prevelent here, but we really did not expect to see them during the daytime.

And the scenery: glaciers, glacier-melt silt streams, mud flats, wildflowers just popping up, so many varieties of trees with the Aspens just beginning to leaf out, expanse everywhere -- and, of course, Mt Denali showing up around so many curves. In summary: spectacular.

Train into the Wilds

This was another early day! Had to be at the train station by 6am but the whole experience was totally worth it.  We rode in the double dome car with views limited only by the close vegetation along the track.  Service plus as we were fed food or drinks most of the way. Unfortunately, we will be riding in the "cattle car" going back


The trip was longer than we had expected and much of the time the landscape was mostly marshy land. Then all of a sudden we got to the area of rivers and lakes.  Actually passed Summit Lake at the Continental Divide, where water from one end of the lake flows south into the Pacific at the Oregon - California coast, and from the other end flows north into the Bering Sea.  We saw moose all along the way, some with newborns.  We were struck by the color of the moose here, a much lighter than we see in Colorado.  Searched all the mud flats and rivers for bears hunting salmon but saw none. Spring has just begun here so some trees were just budding out while most were in full bloom. The forests were abundant! It is, of course, much to early for wildflowers.

Panorama Mountain

The mountains were on all sides at all times. There is still much snow on most of these mountains and it wasn't until we got almost into Denali Park that the mountains were forested.  Of course, all eyes were peeled to see Mt Denali, but not today.  We did talk with a couple of retired park rangers now living in Granby, CO. He actually reached the summit as a climber some years ago and has come back many times but still is unsuccessful at seeing the summit from land.  We saw one mountain which is used as a training for climbers as conditions are so similar; this mountain is one-fourth as high as Mt Denali.

Here is a sign announcing the community of Chase, Alaska.  We saw others like this along the way also. There are no roads other than what you see. They are served 4 months in summer and one month in winter by the railroad. There is no phone, no electricity. One community had a population of two. It was established in 1964 when a couple moved there with their four children, all of whom have left -- the couple remain.



The scenery really did turn more dramatic once we got to Denali. And all of a sudden, there are lots of people on all sorts of adventures or excursions.  We are staying at McKinley Chalet Resort which is a large, busy and very beautiful resort adjacent to the park with walking trails, several restaurants, bars, entertainment and lots of shopping. We did something right in choosing our room/cabin which is Building Z (yes, there really are 25 other buildings -- plus a lodge). So we are at the end of the road overlooking trails and the Nenana River. We can hear the river with our windows open -- again the type of air conditioning most prevelent in this part of the country. 














We are sitting at the main lodge right now, one of the few places in the resort with wireless service. We have a super early morning again tomorrow as we pick up box lunches and the shuttle to the bus at something like 5:30am for our tour into the park. Then have some time tomorrow afternoon to explore the resort a bit more. Think it would be easy to stay here longer than two days. We are so lucking out on the weather -- a bit of rain on the trip today, but right now it is clear, breezy, almost warm and oh so beautiful!

Sleeping like a bear and Eating like a lumberjack

The title of this blog describes our past few days quite accurately. The sleeping thing is probably a combination of the long travel day on Sunday, the 3-hour time difference and the constant light. In any event we are able to go to sleep when it's light, sleep all night and then stay asleep in the morning light which begins about 3am or so. The eating thing is another matter -- portions served here have all been "Paul Bunyon" size, whether we've ordered chowder, fish, reindeer sausage or breakfast pancakes. Our fridg in the room is filled with leftovers which we must discard tomorrow morning when we leave for Denali. Anyway, such sleep and eating makes us feel like Alaskans!

Today was one of those no picture days, except for this selfie we took in the Anchorage Museum

The museum was simply fabulous, displaying artifacts from several different tribes of native peoples, several large rooms of artwork and depicting Alaskan history through current times, all displayed in beautiful and innovative ways in a huge spacious building. We spent a ton of time there and finally left when we could absorb no more.

We also saw a one-of-a-kind photography show of the Aurora (Northern lights) at the Performing Arts Building. This was really a mesmerizing show.  Our mistake here was that we went after a beer and something to eat at the local brewery. Following a brewery visit near the end of another 10,000 step day with such a show in a dark theater and with orchestral music throughout was just not good timing on our part!

We spent the day today travelling by bus and seeing some new aspects of Anchorage. The downtown city bus depot (where all bus routes end/begin) is about 3 blocks from a mall of gift stores of some of the finest Alaskan art we have seen anywhere. Talk about a contrast in life!  But the bus was punctual, was easy to use, goes anywhere (we went to Barnes & Noble to replenish our reading supply), had friendly drivers, was really busy and had stops right near our hotel.

Speaking of our hotel, we experienced today what could be thought of as a statement of Anchorage:
When we returned to our 2nd floor room today, the outside window was still wide open (air conditioning as it is known here) as we had left it this morning and as the cleaning crew had obviously left it. I don't think anyone here was concerned about the security -- it was noticable to these city people.

Packing up tonight. We leave early tomorrow morning to catch the train for Denali. Once more it does look like the weather is going to be good. We'll be 3 days on this trip and are moving to a downtown hotel when we get back to Anchorage. Hopefully we will have internet of some sort at Denali so that we can continue with the blog. If not we'll catch it up when we return.

A 60th Anniversary begins in Sunshine

Is it possible we have been married for 60 years? Yes -- we have the pictures to remind us how young we were then! Maybe we will add a picture from May 16, 1959 to this post when we return to Austin. This trip is a celebration of 60 years and of the many lives we have enjoyed together over those years. We decided to head north, as we always seem to do on trips, and will spend about 10 days exploring some new parts of Alaska.
We have had a couple fun days in the north as we begin.  We fully expected to leave a hot, humid Austin for cool, rainy spring days in the northwest.  Instead we have had simply beautiful weather in both Seattle and Anchorage, though one must always have a rain jacket handy for those short, daily drizzles.  Our hope is that this will continue at least for our trip later this week to and into Denali as those days will be big days for sightseeing and a clear day could actually mean seeing the top of Mount Denali which we know does not often happen. We will see; in the meantime we are thoroughly enjoying wearing sunglasses in both Seattle and Anchorage.

It was a long day yesterday as we left Austin super early and arrived at Sea-Tac before the city had fully come to life.  We took the light rail into downtown Seattle and spent the day there revisiting Pike Market and the harbor area.  We have always loved being at Puget Sound and found it as beautiful as ever yesterday when the sun was out, the water was blue, the mountains were totally visible and the boats were busy.

This time we soared way above the harbor as we took a ride on the Big Wheel to see it all from the air. Downtown buildings have risen every direction from the last time we were here years ago.





By noon Seattle was bursting with people everywhere.  We joined the thousands at Pike Market (we never tire of this place!) and then at the Seattle Aquarium which we had never visited.  Memorial Day weekend was Family Science weekend and the place was packed with kids anxious to see and learn.  The museum was huge: some indoor, some underground and some outdoor.  We spent hours there -- watching everything from tiny colorful fish to huge octopi and all sorts of marine life between. Favorites for us and for many of the visitors were the fun-loving otters and lazy seals.

By then we had registered about 14,000 steps -- and, as you may know about Seattle, many of those were steps up or down -- but the day was only half over.  Back to the airport for our trip to Anchorage where it was still broad daylight when we arrived after 9pm (or after midnight Austin time).  We are staying at a Holiday Inn near the airport and it didn't take us long to get to our room and call it a day.

We deserved a slow morning and that is what we had today.  This is our third trip to Alaska but we have never had a chance to spend much time in Anchorage which is one of those cities people are proud to call home.  We met many of those people today and have thoroughly enjoyed our time here getting to know the place and rugged individuals living here a bit.  There is plenty of public transportation in Anchorage, but it does not operate on Memorial Day so we had to rely on Uber to get us downtown today.  After shopping for new pants for Vic who tripped and ripped his yesterday, we took a narrated, and very entertaining, trolley ride learning much of the history of settlement here and hearing some folklore.

We have a real appreciation for the hardships and opportunities of living in such a rough, isolated and ecologically-challenged location such as this. Alaska is huge in area and so very small in population.  Half the Alaskan people live in Anchorage. Almost everything they have or use comes to them through the local seaport. Private plane ownership and use is common and begins at a young age.  Earthquakes of one magnitude or another are daily (one this morning at 1am we found out later) and severe ones happen regularly and too often have been devastating. Winters are long and dark; summers and growing seasons are light up to 18 hours per day.  Mountains and water are everywhere.  Views are majestic and stunning.  Life, we are told, is laid back.

Seaplane docks are everywhere and often come with buildings.

Eisenhower named Alaska a state in 1959

Not who you want to meet on the street

View from our room in Anchorage