Wow! We are finishing up day 16 of our Alaska adventure, and we've been here so long it feels like we are becoming real Alaskans! After finishing two kayak trips, we stopped in at the motor home on Valdez Glacier Lake and fixed a hearty dinner before we left Valdez. We've been on the road with Connie and Steven in the motor home for six days now, and we have only eaten out once. It's good to make healthy and cheaper meals in our little Class C motor home. We dumped tanks and filled our water, and headed out of town by 5:00. We so love the blue skies and the fact that we have little wind today!
After our dreary rainy arrival into Valdez two days ago, we have lucked into the two best weather days of their summer so far. Twelve miles outside of town, we entered Keystone Canyon. The canyon is three miles long, and these tall walls frame the mountains at the end.
We stopped when we drove through this canyon two days ago, to take rainy pictures while we were getting wet. Today we got to stop for sunshiny pictures at Horsetail Falls . . .
and Bridal Veil Falls.
Bridal Veil Falls was even hosting a rainbow at the bottom.
With the warmer weather, the snow is melting and the water is falling down the canyon in more places than usual. Standing in this spot, we can actually see three waterfalls at the same time, and that doesn't include Horse Tail Falls on the other side of the road. We feel like real Alaskans when we have been blessed with so many waterfall sightings!
We also stopped at the Thompson pass summit today.
This is the snowiest place in Alaska, and it was socked in with fog two days ago. We had no idea all this beauty was right outside our windows when we drove over the pass last time.
But today we are so glad to see the beautiful ring of mountains that is visible on a clear day from this summit.
We walked the winding trail at the top, taking way too many pictures
At the top, we found dainty arctic flowers.
It's hard to tell the size of these flowers in a picture. So Denisa measured out a square the size of a postage stamp and counted 30 little blooms in that tiny square!
From such dainty flowers to such majestic mountains in one spot. God makes tiny and huge wonders in the same place!
As we continue our drive over the pass, the clouds are gathering to our north. This picture out the front window shows the snow still piled high near the highway, and a glacier straight ahead of us hanging on to the side of the mountain.
We also stopped in at Worthington Glacier State Recreation Area again. It was raining here two days ago, and our pictures weren't very good. Today's background is cloudy, but more clear.
We continued our drive for 47.8 miles, until we got to this pull-out with a view of Mount Billy Mitchell. You can see our motor home in the bottom right hand corner, dwarfed by the big scenery around it.
The next morning we had a big breakfast, and were on the road by 9:00 for day 17 of our Alaska adventure. We headed north on the Richardson Highway with some smooth sections, but more not-so-smooth. The Milepost describes it this way, "Long stretches of gentle frost heaves and annoying rough expansion joints."
Our first stop is 40 miles down the road at Willow Lake for views of the Wrangell mountains. We only took one picture, as this is our fourth stop at this viewpoint. We must be real Alaskans!
Denisa was excited to see an occasional lupine starting to bloom when we first arrived to Alaska. Now they are exploding into bloom all along the highway, with flowers open all the way to the top of the stem.
We stopped again at the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park Visitor Center, mostly because they have very nice bathrooms. You might remember that our rental company doesn't give their vehicles numbers, but instead they give them names. The camper vans have boys' names, while the motor homes are named after girls. Our motor home is "Tina" and the name is on the driver's side window.
In that national park lot with only a handful of vehicles, were two other motor home rentals from Amazing Accommodations. We texted the owner, Sabine, to let her know that Tina was visiting with Trixie and Maggie at the National Park. Sabine loved it!
At the town of Glennallen, we headed west on the Glenn Highway. This is an ugly section of bogs and twisted black spruce. Since it was our third time to see it, we didn't take any pictures, and we didn't even turn around for a picture of the large moose by the road. We must be real Alaskans to not try to get a photo of a moose on the side of the road. In fact, we didn't make a stop for 60 miles until we got to Eureka Summit (the highest point on the Glenn Highway) and a picture of the Chugach Mountains and Nelchina Clacier to our south.
Going through this mountainous section, a mother and baby moose crossed the road right in front of us. Even if we are beginning to feel like real Alaskans, we have to take a picture of that.
Or maybe even two pictures of that. That's three moose sightings today!
We made a stop at Sheep Mountain. We've spotted Dall Sheep on this mountain the first two times we have stopped at this viewpoint, and we thought we were going to get skunked today. But we finally found three tiny dots that our binoculars confirmed were sheep high on the mountain. Real Alaskans will always find a Dall sheep on Sheep Mountain!
We also stopped in at Matanuska Glacier State Recreation Area so Connie and Steven could see it.
While this is their first stop, it is Mark and Denisa's third stop here. We think it is interesting that this view has changed every time. On the first visit, the hillside closest to us was green, with a moose grazing. The second time that same hillside had exploded into color, as it was covered with bright yellow dandelions. Today it is covered with the white puffy heads of dandelions going to seed. We seem to be real Alaskans to see a hillside transition like that.
Unlike the first two stops here, today we needed a little exercise. So we hiked the one-mile nature trail that gave us a different view of Matanuska Glacier.
Being a nature trail, it had educational sign posts that described what we were seeing at various viewpoints. We learned that the dark gray mass on the side of the adjoining mountain is a rock glacier. We thought glaciers were always ice, but as real Alaskans we are learning that they can also be made of rocks held together by ice.
At this slower hiking speed, you can be assured that Denisa is watching for spring wildflowers. She found these mountain bluebelles on our trail.
While Denisa loves wildflowers, Mark loves trees--especially aspen. We posed for a picture in one of the first aspen forests we have seen in Alaska.
We visited with the driver of the U-Haul truck that was parked beside us. No, they aren't moving--they are touring. We had heard that rental cars and RVs are totally booked this summer. So inventive tourists have found that the U-Haul daily rental rate is the most affordable option for touring Alaska right now.
We had to slow down for another moose crossing the road in front of us. That makes it a four moose day!
We're beginning to understand these signs that we see along the highways that post the number of moose crashes for the year.
As we're driving down the highways of Alaska, Denisa is reading aloud from the highlights of The Milepost. That's how we know that this is King Mountain looming ahead of us.
We have an appointment at 4:00 today, and we have a little time to kill. So we made a stop at the Alpine Historical Park right along the highway.
It's an open-air museum with relocated buildings and coal mining displays. But it also had gardens, filled with flowers that thrive in these harsh winters and 20-hours-of-daylight-summers.
Okay, so Denisa did meander around the old buildings, with descriptions of when and where they were originally built.
But she really wanted the above picture because the flowering tree seemed to perfectly match her blouse today. She also needed a close-up picture of those beautiful tree blooms.
Mark's most interesting part of the museum were these "spirit houses." This is actually the grave site of John Goodlataw, who lived in Alaska from his birth in 1870 until his death in 1935. It sounds like Mr. Goodlataw was a real Alaskan! A spirit house is built 40 days after a relative's death, and is a mixture of Athabascan Indian and Russian Orthodox tradition that remains in practice today.
We left the museum in time for our 4:00 reservation at the Musk Ox Farm that was just down the road near Palmer.
These musk ox are raised for their ultra-fine underwool called quiviut (pronounced Keev-oot). Each spring the workers gently hand-comb the winter undercoat of these majestic creatures for this precious wool. Not all of the herd has been combed. We can tell you that this guy is wearing a more expensive winter coat than you can imagine.
The beanies at the gift shop were priced at $236. For do-it-yourselfers, you could purchase a small skein of qiviut yarn for $100. Our tour guide tells us that it is warmer than wool, and the smooth fiber means it isn't itchy like wool.
They have 81 oxen on this farm in the foothills of the Chugach Mountains. These big guys have some of the best views around.
Alaskan musk ox were hunted to extinction in the 1800s. This herd came from Russia, and was originally taken to New Jersey. They were finally relocated to Alaska, a better match for their wool coats. Now this farm is trying to domesticate this wild herd.
It is illegal to sell musk ox meat, so the only income from this herd is the wool . . . and the tour tickets from tourists like us. Does being on such a touristy tour mean that we aren't really becoming real Alaskans? We had to wear our masks for the entire tour (even though we are fully vaccinated and we were further than six feet away from the ox and we were outside) to protect the musk ox.
Raised on ranches, we had to giggle at some of their ox ranch techniques. They had no baby oxen this summer because they didn't leave the bulls with the cows long enough. So the only "babies" we got to see were well over a year old.
Our tour included walking a circle around the farm where the groups of oxen are separated in different pastures. In this pen we found the most famous musk ox, Luna. Do you notice anything unusual about Luna that would make her unique?
Here's a hint: Count her legs. We learned that Luna had an "oxcident" that resulted in her back right leg being amputated.
A children's book about Luna's big oxcident was also available in the gift shop.
Musk Ox usually live to be around 20 years old, but the oldest one at the farm is 27 years old. Females usually live longer because they don't beat each other up during rut like the males do. Males run into each other at full speed, hitting their horns to determine who would be the best father for the baby musk ox.
In preparation for turning in the motor home tomorrow, we refilled the propane. We used just 2.7 gallons at a cost of $2.79 per gallon all week. We also bought a few groceries at our favorite Alaska grocery store--Fred Meyer. We feel like real Alaskans because we are card-carrying Fred Meyer customers. We also went to our first full-hook-up campground to dump and rinse our holding tanks. We are at Mountain View RV park near Palmer. For $45.50, it was the only site with any hookups we had during our entire trip. It was also the most expensive, and least picturesque site of the trip! But it also had a laundromat so we could wash a week of dirty clothes, and we could take long hot showers.
As we made the last turn into the park, we saw our fifth moose of the day. Only real Alaskans have such a good 5-moose day!
Hi, I have been following your blog for years. Love being able to visit Alaska with you guys. Thanks for taking the time to post. Cheryl (North Carolina)
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