Moving On Up The Road

We leave Palmer this morning headed for Tok, about a two day trip for us. We enjoyed our last salmon dinner at the Turkey Red. If you ever get to Palmer be sure to stop by for an excellent dinning experience. We sat next to a father and daughter who told us all about the 1964 earthquake. He also remarked that he drove up the Alaska highway in 1950 in his convertible. He never went back. Don't know when I will have wifi again so I leave you with these images and your own thoughts to put with them.

 

 

Anchorage, AK

We pulled out of Seward in the pouring rain and headed north stopping in Girdwood to hit the laundromat, have lunch and take a shower. After I found out the shower was $7 I nixed that. Instead I washed my hair in the bathroom sink and took a PTA bath. Sure felt good. We pushed on to Anchorage, set up camp, walked the dogs and waited for a sunny day promised for tomorrow.

The next day we headed to the Ulu factory to pick up a few gifts then hit the museum! Wow, what a museum it was! The native displays were amazing and once again I was astounded at their ingenuity.

One exhibit, GYRE, depicted ocean trash as art. A gyre is an area in the ocean where the currents trap trash in an enormous whirlpool that swirls forever. There are 5 Gyre in the world trapping plastic, fishing nets, foam, and other waste for eons. I was shocked at the impact on the environment, especially the birds and marine life. For example, an albatross mother feeds her chick from food floating on top of the water and doesn't know plastic isn't food. Consequently, the chick dies of starvation because it becomes full of plastic. I watched part of a film until I couldn't stand anymore. Many products contain microchips of plastic such as defoliating skin wash. The microchips get mixed with plankton ending up as food for whales.

No more plastics for me. It is possible to purchase biodegradable garbage bags. Recycling is an absolute must no matter how inconvenient. Glass containers and bottles are the best because if they end up in the ocean they sink and are natural silica.

Here are a couple of images. When I walk on the beach from now on I will be picking up trash. This exhibit saddened me greatly and changed how I will use plastic forever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seward - Last Day

Our last day in Seward was a lazy one, walking around Looking at the picturesque homes, visiting galleries and enjoying the sunny day. I could certainly get used to walking the path by the bay, watching the tide come and go, the sea otters diving and lounging on the waves and the fishing boats going out in the early morning. I even had naughty thoughts about renting a place here for a summer retreat from the Florida heat. If only I had lots of the green stuff!

Here are a few images.

 

Fireweed grows anywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

Seward, AK

We have been in Seward for the past 2 days and plan to stay one more day. Just love this town, not too small and not too big. Almost the entire water front is devoted to camp sites and a paved walking trail from the docks to the Alaska Sealife Center, about a mile or so. The Center houses some super under water exhibits as well as a hospital for injured marine mammals. Quite a lot of research goes on here. The most interesting exhibit was a view of Puffin water birds diving underwater. Their wings are very powerful for swimming. They are quite the characters scraping with each other over food.

In the evening starting at around 6 pm all the fishing boats start to come back. Last night the wind was up and the water very choppy. It was fun to watch the smaller boats fight the waves as they came in. Then, of course, this morning they went out again right around 6 am. This morning Resurrection Bay was smooth as glass. So inviting to my camera. Foxy and I went for a nice long walk around town.

Carol and I drove out to Exit Glacier and hiked up to the edge of it. The ranger told us that it usually recedes about 40 feet per year but last year it receded 130 feet. All along the trail signs were posted to show where the glacier had been over the years back to the mid 1800s. Janey Waldrup and I hiked this path a few years ago and I am anxious to compare photos when I return home.

After lunch we went to the museum and saw a film about the 1964 earthquake (9.2). The stories told on film were almost unbelievable. A 100foot high tsunami hit Seward 25 min after the quake. The quake was around 6 pm and the last tsunami hit at 4 am. The entire waterfront and railroad fell into the sea and two blocks of the town. Tsunamis left damage all the way to San Diego.

Library/Museum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portage Valley/Whittier

 

We made reservations in the only RV park that had elec. We lovingly refer to it as The Gravel Pit. For $40 a night you get electric, porta-potties and free showers in a beautiful area surrounded by glaciers. You also get mega Mosquitos, and gravel trucks at 7 am. The poor dog was afraid to go outside to pee.

The first day was fine. We went to the Wildlife Conservation Center. Here are a few shots from that day.

The second day we went to Whittier for a glacier cruise that was superb . We saw numerous glaciers and two of them came down to the tide water. They were spectacular! There are over 1000,000 glaciers in Alaska and only 6 of them are growing. The rest are receding. The ranger told us that they move approximately one foot per day and that is down hill! The rate at which they recede is dependent on how much snow they get in the winter to build them back up and how much melting takes place in the summer. The blue ice results from the intense compacting of the ice causing just blue to be reflected back to us.

The day was the best. . . bright blue, no clouds, just like most Colorado mornings. The Ranger told us that they get maybe 5-7 days like this during the summer. Well, we loved it.

Close up shots, while showing beautiful, blue crevices, do not show the size of the glacier. One shot includes a cruise boat to better see the size. These 2 glaciers had huge waterfalls coming off of them. So, they not only lose ice to calving, but also to these waterfalls. The amount of water coming off one of these glaciers is staggering.

There is a one-way train tunnel on the way to Whittier. Autos are allowed through every hour unless a train interferes. We had to drive on the tracks going through. Once in Whittier we were sorely disappointed. It is strictly a harbor for boats, no town. Workers live in a high-rise apt. Building leftover from WWII when the military occupied the port. There is also an abandoned high-rise that is dilapidated and unusable due to asbestos. Really an ugly blight on the surrounding landscape.

Back at The Pit that evening we took the dogs for a long walk (trucks were gone), sat on a log and chatted. We were lamenting our bad luck on the trip, all of my Casita repairs and non-repairs (hole in gray water line, leak in water line to toilet, leak under sink, fried battery, fried water pump and pummeled light reflector on the front of Casita). I didn't know that when I turned the frig off the next morning that the knob would come off in my hand! Carol and I were laughing and joking about everything. . . I said if we get into a line at the grocery store it would surely end up being the slowest! Chuckle, chuckle. Then I casually glanced down and noticed that my foot was resting in a large pile of fresh dog poop!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KENAI, AK

 

 

The next morning, bright and early, we left for Kanai. Kenai is on the other side of the Peninsula about 80 miles away. The traffic was unbelievable, just like grid-lock on I 70 during skiing season. Carol, not used to city traffic, was about to experience melt down. All the campgrounds we saw had full signs except Wally World and it was packed with RVs. We had no choice but to drive another 27 mi to Captain Cook State Park.

When we arrived we found plenty of camp sites and picked out a couple and settled in. We were right on the coast and had a view of 3 volcanoes across the inlet. All 3 volcanoes had glaciers draining into the sea. Consequently, the water was a thick, dirty gray color rolling in on rock beaches. There is no sign of sea life on the beach, just rocks. Some people do look for and find agates. I tried my luck but came up empty handed.As the day wore on the park filled with fisher folk with their dip nets. These are huge nets used to catch salmon. One fellow said you usually only catch one fish at a time with the net. As he is talking to Carol about the fishing frenzy, I notice that he only has on shorts with his enormous gut hanging over his naked waistline and occasionally flashing his butt crack. We have decided that all of the Alaskans are obese and most of them chew with their mouths open!

FISHING FRENZY

Good news, the water leak in Casita is no longer leaking! The bad news is that I no longer have a working battery to run the water pump. I learned of this when I got up the next morning and turned on the heater that won't work without the battery (it was very cold) and, of course, the lights won't work either. That meant one thing, back to Kenai and Wally World.

I guess this is the only Wally World that doesn't have an auto service dept. I don't know why that should surprise me. It is Sunday so we are now camping in the parking lot. Not so bad as it did provide another form of entertainment. . . A young man camping next to us. He walked up dragging a rolling suitcase and carrying a brand new tent in a bag. He told me he just got fired and didn't even have enough money to fly home. So he set up his tent and crawled in. The next thing we know security pulls up in a truck and tells the kid he has to move his tent off the grass onto the asphalt parking lot. Man, that is a hard place to try to sleep, he only had on a hoodie and no blanket. So he moves the tent. Pretty soon the security truck returns with a kid driving it. Tent man gets in the truck and they chit chat. After awhile tent man gets out of the truck with a sleeping bag under his arm. Carol and I felt better knowing at least he'd be a little warmer on the asphalt with the wind blowing 80 mph.

So much for tent man. The next morning I went to O'Reilly's and bought a new battery and a nice young man put it in for me. That's the good news. The bad news is the water pump is fried so I have to replace it. That will have to wait until I get home.

OLDEST RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH ON PENINSULA

 

I do Hope you enjoy the photos I posted above, they're about all I got out of my trip to Kenai other than a new battery. Carol was so whacked out about the traffic that we decided to blow off the Kenai Peninsula in favor of a glacier cruise in Whitter. We left early the next morning, gotta beat the traffic!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope, AK

Hope is a delightfully quaint little town of about 100 people. At this time of the year the salmon are running and fisher folks were lined up all along the banks of the little creek running into the Turnagain. We could see people catching fish as soon as they threw in their line. Two guys had a fish cleaning table set up along side the creek where they were whacking away at red salmon throwing the waste to the gulls hovering above. Trailers and RVs were parked everywhere!

Carol and I found sites for one night only at the nearby national campground. We got set up then went back to town to watch the fun. The little town was almost destroyed during the 1964 earthquake (the most powerful to hit North America in our time) when the Turnagain dropped 6 feet. That earthquake sent a tsunami down the coast of California and dropped Anchorage's 4th street 30 feet in front of JC Penny's.

Turnagain Arm

After the quake the people of Hope had to move Main St. inland several yards. Townspeople are now restoring many of the old homes in the area. I really enjoyed Hope but we had to move on to find a place to camp. The weekend was coming up and it seemed that all of Alaska was coming to the Kenai to fish!

The next morning we left Hope early to beat the campers to the next available camp site. On the way out we were lucky enough to see the tide roll in. Lots of waves and churning of the water. Interesting sight. Then we were off to Keani and Wally World where I hoped to get a new battery for the casita.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Native Heritage Center, Anchorage

We left Palmer yesterday morning for Hope, AK. On the way we stopped at the Native Heritage Center and spent over two hours. The center houses art and examples of tools, kayaks, houses and etc. of the nine native cultures in Alaska. This is a first rate exhibition. Outside the center is a beautiful pond surrounded by examples of the various tribes' housing styles. Contrary to the belief that "Eskimos" live in igloos, they are not Eskimos (A French term) and none of them lived in the igloo. Their homes are either wood long houses built half way under ground or on top of the ground or dugouts in the colder north country that had no trees. Sometimes, when they were on a hunt and a storm came up they might build an ice cave. This was as close as they came to anything like an igloo.

When we arrived we spent the first 45 min or so watching a dance performance by native young people. The young students act as guides and were at each native home to tell us about various hunting tools, the making of kayaks, and their specific culture. These people were so ingenious! Their rain parka was made from waterproof seal intestine and looked like a translucent plastic. I was just amazed at what they could do. It was all quite fascinating and made me wonder how I could endure such a primitive life. My little casita home seemed quite advanced.

We left the center after having lunch in the parking lot and made our way through Anchorage (or I should say īfought our way through Anchorage! Our drive leveled out a bit as we went along the Turnagain Arm. The Turnagain is a water inlet south of Anchorage with a relatively small opening from the sea. Consequently, it gets a Boar tide coming through the opening. The tide comes in as a 6 foot wall of water very fast bringing with it silt from glacier runoff. This silt is like a gray mud that is very dangerous if you happen it get stuck in it. It holds you in somewhat like quicksand. The highway travels along the Turnagain down to the Kenai Peninsula. We were on our way to Hope, a very small town on the edge of the Turnagain Arm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eklunta, AK

One of the highlights of our stay in Palmer was our visit to St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church in Eklunta, AK. Eklunta is a small tribal village with about 40 natives. The old church was built in the early 1800s and has a cemetery with native spirit boxes over the grave sites. There is a new church built around the 1900s. The cemetery with its brightly painted spirit houses is quite charming.

When the Russians came to AK they did the typical purging of cultural traditions and religious beliefs. Most natives became orthodox and melded their beliefs with the church's views and one manifestation resulted in spirit boxes. The natives believe that the spirit stays on earth for a while after death and the houses provide a place for them to dwell. Since the spirits only need them for a short time the houses are not maintained and are left to rot. This is a very special place for me and I am really quite drawn to it.