Monday 22nd August 2022

This post is a bit long. We have been out of internet service for quite some time.

After leaving Homer we moved up the coast a bit to Portage. It was very rainy and to top off the misery Leslie and Stuart came down with a case of Covid even though they are boosted up the kazoo. They moved up to Anchorage in a campground with full hookups to nurse their suffering bodies. Luckily, they felt better after a few days.

We managed to escape the bug! Snagged a clear day and hiked to Portage Glacier.

Dean found a lovely soft mossy spot for lunch and a nap.

A pretty butterfly stopped to pose for me.

We were all fit and excited to head into Denali National Park.

The skies cleared and gave us a beautiful view of Denali mountain

There is nothing like a good mountain hike to get my happy face on.

The only close up wildlife we saw was this little guy.

There was plenty of Fireweed blooming at the higher elevations.

We biked over 30 miles on a gravel road in the park. There were some long steep hills to climb, so we really appreciated the electric bikes. Although, we were on the last bit of power by the time we arrived back at the campground.

After 2 beautiful days it was back to rain. Occasionally the sun would peek out to give us rainbows.

The rainy weather really encouraged mushroom growth. There were so many different types.

We noshed on quite a few huckleberries.

Very close to the park was a very nice brewery.

As usual, I came in last in the darts competition. At least I was showing some style.

The brewery had an old bus similar to the “Magic Bus”.

The inside had info about the real bus

We saw the original one at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

If you watched the movie “Into the Wild”, you will know about this bus.

Fairbanks had some nice breweries which we enjoyed.

Of course you have to have a pic of the Alaska Pipeline. Oil flows through this pipe from Prudhoe Bay, in the Arctic Circle, down to Valdez. It’s 800 miles of pipe crossing 3 mountain ranges and 500 rivers and streams. We would have liked to tap into that pipe and snag some fuel!

More rain and more rainbows….

and more mushrooms.

There are so many pretty places to stop for a lunch break.

When I see a big wheel I automatically think, let’s see if we can fit inside it.

The weather forecast for Haines was really bad with rain scheduled every day for the whole week of our stay. However, when we arrived, sky magic happened. Sunny days. Yippee!!!

We had fires every night and the guys were so excited to play with hatchets.

The view from our front windows was spectacular! Cruise ships passed by on their way back and forth from Skagway to Juneau. A few even stopped in Haines.

Our first meeting with a grizzly! We were on our bikes and she just crossed in front of us. Thank goodness she was more interested in eating lunch than us.

Junior got a nice snack too.

We saw mom and her cubs later as she passed under the bridge we were biking over.

We took the fast ferry to Juneau (Alaska’s Capital). It was a 3 hour journey each way.

We even saw a whale breaching!

Actually, we did NOT see any breaching, but we saw plenty of whales and porpoises swimming about in the distance. Our boat never got close enough for a good view.

This cool statue was in Juneau.

Juneau harbor is quite picturesque.

A visit to the State Capitol was on our list.

Leslie and I tried to phone each other, but had forgotten how to use a dial phone.

The guys had a puppet interview in the Senate Chamber.

We tried to ‘bear up ‘ with the antics of the chaps.

We were tempted to put them in daycare.

This is a cool way to protect your plants.

We were lucky enough to have one last sunny day so we took a trip to Skagway. It’s only 45 minutes on the ferry.

The old visitor center has a facade of more than 8000 pieces of driftwood.

There were three cruise ships at the dock. This one looked like it was going to sail up Main Street.

I thought this was an interesting sign to have in the bathroom of a brewery we visited.

We had completely forgotten our wedding anniversary until Dean’s cousin Candice and our good friends Calleen and Jon sent us congratulatory texts. It was a good job we had planned on eating out in Skagway. A lovely day out. We are pretty happy considering we both turned 70 and have been latched up for 50 years.

The Fireweed has finished blooming. Winter is on the way. Time to head south to the Lower 48.