Rain, Rain and More Rain!

For the last two days it has been raining!  According to the National Weather Service, we listen to it on Jon’s amateur radio, the Chena river is now over flood stage, that’s the river we are camped about a quarter mile from. No chance of flooding the campground, at least not before we leave.

That was yesterday, last night we went back to the Clear Sky Lodge for dinner again.  We were joined by KC and Shelia, then Dennis and Carol showed up.  Jon and I had halibut and shrimp baskets while they all had burgers.  We all agreed the food was equally good still.

Rain started up again about 10p or so and quit somewhere around 4am, then started again just as we were hooking up.  Drove the 50 miles to Denali Motel & RV Park with a stop in Healy for fuel.  Laundry done and e-mail checked.  Michelle is here!  We will finally get to meet face to face.  She is from the Austin area and a friend thru one of the quilting sites I subscribe to.

Hope the rain quits tomorrow like it’s supposed to, we go in to Denali Park tomorrow. 

Stay tuned!

Kicking back in Anderson

We’ve been here for a few days now with a few more before moving on down towards Denali.  Jon and I drove south on the Parks Highway to Healy one day, lots of road construction going on but where they are finished the road is wonderful!  Better than most in the lower 48.  Took a side road into Lignite just to see what was there, lots with houses, junk and a Moose on the grass runway!

Sign says “No traffic on runway”, cross the street is a house where a little dog was barking at this Moose, so she charged the dog then turned around to eat some bushes and have a drink from a puddle in the road.  She turned to watch us for a while then ambled down the runway.

We’ve seen a lot of trashed trucks, talking to the locals we found out that it costs to much to get rid of them, besides they might need them for parts, or use them for other things, like this

This is what is looks like at 3am, hard to tell if this is Sunset or sunrise.

One day we drove back to Nenana, visited the cultural center, along with 7 tour buses!  Forgot the camera that day!  Oh well, just have to make another trip.  But we did stay long enough to visit with some of the locals.  Most have mixed feelings about the tour busses, yes it brings in money, but….

On the way back to Anderson we saw another Moose, this time he was in a pond just off the road.  He’s a young bull just growing antlers.

Sure hope we see more animals when we get to Denali.

Sunsets/sunrises have been awesome here.  These were taken between 12:30am and 2am.  Could anything be more beautiful?

Nancy arrived so now there are 3 of us to do some line dancing.  We’ve had a good workout too, 1 1/2 hours this morning and another this afternoon.  Tonight the group, now 16 in all, will head to the Clear Sky Lodge for a steak dinner, reportedly the best steaks in Alaska!

Well, they were!  Then it was time for some campfire chit chat before retiring.

Stay tuned, more adventures to come.

Fairbanks to Anderson

But first…here’s a few photos of the drive up the Dalton Highway.  The road started off very good until we reached Livengood where the Elliott branches off, the Dalton then continues on to Arctic Circle Parallel line and eventually Prudhoe Bay.

That white line in the middle of the picture is our first glimpse of the Alaska Pipeline.  Click on the picture for a close up.

What you can’t see is how slushy the road is here, we are only driving 5MPH here.  We weren’t  comfortable with the condition of the road so at the first opportunity, which was 5 miles up the road, we turned around and headed back.  We will try again sometime in the future.

So after a rainy night and a noisy generator being run all night in the Wal-Mart parking lot, we headed south towards Denali.  The road goes over a range of mountains then drops into a very large beautiful valley.  Turnouts are few but we did manage to get a few good shots of the valley.

 

Then we crossed the bridge over the Tanana River at the village of Nenana.  The railroad also crosses the river here, it is to the left of the bridge.

Here’s the City of Anderson Campground.  The hookup sites are electric only.  The dry sites are located in the trees and beside the river with the mosquitoes. 

We took a drive around Anderson, not much here anymore, and beside the river too.

Jon and Butch solving the world problems.

Tomorrow is Summer Solstice, June 21st, longest day of the year.  Sun isn’t supposed to set.  As I write this at 11:30pm the sun is still just above the tree line.

Stay tuned for more adventures!

Dalton Highway

Well we tried to drive it!  We really did, but because it had been raining the road was a slushy mess.  We did check with the visitor center before heading out, they assured us that it was drivable, not sure who they thought it was drivable by, not us!  Anyway, we started up the Elliott Highway which joins the Dalton, sunny then into the clouds, then we were up and down in and out of the clouds or fog.  Finally 5 miles of the slush and Jon decided to turn around and head back.  The going was very slow but still the truck and trailer were covered in gunk!  We found a wayside to stay in for the night.  Man it was cold up there!  We both wore our long underwear to bed.  The morning brought beautiful sunshine all the way back to Fairbanks.  Fuel, new battery for the trailer (the old one finally bit the dust) then to the wash it yourself place.  We are almost clean, but at least most of the gunk is off the underside.  Since it is raining as I write this, I am hoping that more will be washed off.  Photos later, the camera is still in the truck!

Our last day in Fairbanks.

Yesterday we toured the downtown area including the Morris Visitor center.  There were some demonstrations of Athabascan drumming and singing, and beading too.  We walked thru the cabin on the property dating from the early 1900’s.  From the visitor center one can walk to the park in the downtown area.  Summer concerts are held here.  Lunch at the Fudge Pot was good, we had Salmon Chowder.  We’ve had it several times now in different locations.  Since the sun doesn’t really set here, sunset or sunrise is really pretty. 

This was taken about 1:30 in the morning.

Today Jon and I visited Pioneer Park.  The is a free amusement type park in the center of town with a lot of “saved” historical log cabins.  Most of which have been turned into shops for tourists.  There are several eating places, the restored stern wheel, Nena, and a replica of the Nena railroad..  The palace theatre is also located here, we didn’t go in, but understand that the show is pretty good.  A salmon bake dinner at the park could fill a persons belly for a week.

 

And we found the Material Girls quilt shop.  Course I had to get something, no quilter can pass a quilt shop without buying something.  Next year I will put together all the pieces I’ve been getting into a quilt that will be a wonderful memory of this trip.

It’s raining as I write this, not a hard rain, but the kind that soaks into the ground.  We’ve had three really good weather days here, today was mostly overcast and cool.  Tomorrow we head up the road toward Chena Springs to do some dry camping and maybe some off roading. 

Stay tuned for more adventures! 

Fairbanks, day 1

Today was a fantastic day!  Beautiful bright sun, warm (82 deg) with a very slight breeze.  First thing we did was head to Wal Mart to get a new trailer tire.  Once that was done it was off to lunch then over to the river for a ride on the Sternwheeler up the Chena river to an Athabasca camp – not a real one, but what one would have looked like before white man and what one would look like after white man arrived.  On the way we saw some gorgeous log homes and the dog training camp of Susan Butcher, 4 time winner of the Iditarod.

 

Those are Reindeer, descendents of ones imported from Russia and very similar to Caribou which are native to Alaska.  The winter coat being modeled took over 6 months to make and is valued at over $5000!

Tomorrow we visit downtown Fairbanks.

Tok to Fairbanks

Rained most of the night last night, woke to rain too.  Oh not the kind we get in Texas, but just a light, steady rain, enough to make hooking up miserable.  But we did it and headed off towards Fairbanks.  Not 15 minutes later we saw a pair of Moose crossing the highway, they were at least a quarter mile away, but we did see them!  Then we saw several more as we traveled the road.

Good road, long straight stretches of highway with pines on both sides.  Later on we came to one of the many burn areas.  Seems like Alaska, like California, has fires every year.  In Alaska most are started by lightning strikes instead of man.  Where the fires have burned, Quaking Aspen have taken over.  Did you know that these Aspen trees send out underground runners to grow new trees and that these new trees leaf, change color and drop their leaves the same as the mother tree?  Interesting, isn’t it.

We crossed many rivers that were wide but shallow and at this time of year had very little water in them.  They are mostly snow melt runoff.  We also saw lots of small lakes and a few large ones too.  No critters that we could see.  However, we did see at least a dozen Moose crossing the highway in front of us all thru the drive today.

Here’s some shots from the drive.

Delta Junction is the official end of the Alaska Highway. 

Told you the mosquitoes were big!

Continuing on we also stopped at a place called “The Knottty Shoppe”.  Saw these out front.

 

Can you figure out what they are supposed to be?

We’ll be in Fairbanks for the next few days, re-supplying the trailer, getting a tire for the trailer and doing the tourist thing too.  Oh, we caught up with some of the Loosey Goosey’s too.

More fun to follow, stay tuned.