August 22, 2009 - Email from Mom and Dad

We are now at Mile "0" of the Alaskan Highway. That's the good news. We've gone on it the entire way except for one little stretch when we took the Cassier Highway. The bad news is we are 2700 miles from Harrisburg, PA. where the RV goes and another 3000 or so to get to Denver. We hope to be in Harrisburg by next weekend, Aug. 29. At least I hope to. Bill isn't committing. I think he's not ready to end the trip and I'm more than ready. I feel like I've seen and done it all.

Here's what we've done since I've last updated you:
We've been a a little town named Chicken, Alaska to Top of the World Highway, to Dawson City, Yukon; to Eagle, Alaska; to Whitehorse, Yukon; to Teslin, Yukon; to Liard Springs, B. C.; and now to Dawson Creek, the end of the Alaskan Highway or the beginning depending upon which way your'e going.

We've been on a tour of a gold dredge in Dawson City where the gold rush began at Bonanza Creek; we took a boat trip down the Yukon River to Eagle, Alaska; we also took a train trip through the Yukon; and a dip in Liard Hot Springs which is very hot.

We have seen wild animals stuffed (everyone up here seems to think it's great to have a museum full of stuffed moose, grizzly bears, black bears etc., etc.), fenced in (Yukon Wildlife Preserve in Whitehorse) and in the wild along the highway. We have seen grizzly bears, black bears, moose, bald eagles, golden eagles, ravens, trumpeteer swans, ptmarigans, puffins, surf scoters, blue heron, common murre, salmon (lots of different varities), porcupines, beavers, dall sheep and stone sheep, whales, stellar sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, musk ox, snowshoe hares, caribou, and wood bison to name only a few.

We have been to two live performances, one was Diamond Tooth Lil's, the other was Frantic Follies, both were good. I liked Frantic Follies in Whitehorse the best though.

We've noticed the fireweed are turning to seed now, the aspen are turning to gold, and the days are getting shorter. It was actually dark before 9:00 p.m. tonight. We haven't seen that in a long time. That must mean fall is coming and winter can't be far behind. It's time to come home. Hope to see you all soon. Love, Sharon

Friday - August 7, 2009

Yesterday we got to go to Denali National Park. We weren't very smart though because we took the road to the end thinking it was a better value. Big Mistake!! We were in a school bus on most gravel roads sometimes only one lane around twisty, curvy, mountainess terrain. I thought of my friend Mary Carolyn who would have literally peed her pants. I wasn't very comfortable myself!!!

Actually the topography changed a lot through the park. We started out in a forest, then meadows, lakes and rivers, then mountains, etc. Bill was really surprised. I think he thought it would be all forests. Oh, did I mention that this trip took 12 hours!!! We were pretty tired by the time we were done at 8:00 p.m.

We were able to see caribou, red fox, beaver, and a golden eagle for the first time. I was so proud of myself, I'm the one who actually spotted the golden eagle. It was really neat to see all the caribou roaming around near the rivers and in the meadows. The red fox actually had something in his mouth he was eating so that was kind of neat too. It was much bigger than the fox we see in our yards all the time in King's Point We also saw several snowshoe hares and ptmarigans along the roadside. A great treat was a grizzly and her two cubs. One of them performed for us. He stood up and it was so cute. We also saw dall sheep which we had seen before in Whittier.

Today we got to see the dog sled team that patrols the park in the winter. There are 32 of them and they take turns. There were only 5 in one team. The park ranger actually hitched up 5 and took them around in a circle for us.

We also saw the train come and go two times today. This is a passenger train that brings people from the Princess and Holland America Cruises to take them on their land cruise of Denali. There are also Alaskan train passengers, but the majority is the Cruises, who have their own busses and train cars. It is quite a thing to see. It's thousand of people. It looks like it was the 1940's.

We also went to a dinner theatre last night that was all about the early days in Denaili. We're having a great time but haven't seen Mt. McKinley yet. Bill is getting me up very early tomorrow to try to see it. Yuk!

Friday - Juy 31, 2009

Wow! I wish you could all see our beautiful view tonight.
We are on the Cook Inlet which is an inlet that leads to the ocean . It is just gorgeous. The park is called Scenic View RV Park. There is a beautiful sunset on the water tonight. We haven't seen the sun in several days so it's a very welcome sight--too much rain. We seem to keep gravitating towards the ocean. Today we were in Seward and tonight we are close to Homer. We are now on the Kenai Penisula.
On Wednesday we saw two trumpeter swans and the most exciting thing was a mama moose and her twins. Usually we see a moose one minute and the next minute she's disapppeared in the woods. This time though they stuck around a long time and we got some nice shots of them. It was so neat!

We stopped in Anchorage yesterday to see Bill's old school bus driver whom Bill hadn't seen in 40 years. It was kind of neat. He lives with one of his daughter's up here 6 months and then moves to Joplin, MO and lives with

another daughter. He's a real neat guy and is a walking miracle. He's had one thing after another and should have been dead more than once.
We also went to Girdwood yesterday which is where Craig and I had been 30 years ago when we were in Anchorage. We went to Aleyska Ski Resort which is very fancy and gorgeous. I also saw the Jade Company where we had gone. It wasn't open though. I recognize the area as soon as we started up the hill to it. Do you remember doing this, Craig?

Tuesday - July 28, 2009

We had a great day here in Valdez. We started out seeing the grizzly again. He walked right by my window and I got a great picture of him. I was in the RV of course. We stayed there most of the morning watching him play with the fish. It's so cute and interesting.

We also went to the fish ladder at the Hatchery. The fish struggle like crazy to get up the fish ladder. There are thousands of them.

The purpose of the hatchery is to take the eggs and incubate them. They have a far better chance of survival rather than being left in the stream for the grizzly, eagles, gulls, wolves etc. to eat them.

We found out there are actually mountains here today. In fact it's called the Switzerland of Alaska. Yesterday it was foggy and rainy and you wouldn't even have known there were mountains here. They are beautiful with 4 glaciers you can see from right here in town.

We went to dinner across the street from the RV park at the Best Western. We both had halibut and it was very good but very expensive. Then we went down to the harbor and saw them cutting up and fileting halibut right there on the pier. If it's so abundant here, why so expensive we wondered. We saw a 163 pound and a 118 pound halibut a couple from Salt Lake caught out on a charter boat.

Tomorrow we head for Anchorage. Love to all, Sharon

Monday - July 27, 2009

Please pray for my dad. He seems to be starting some dementia. Please continue to pray for our safety on the roads. The frost heaves on the roads are tough to put up with. It really wears us out. Today we're taking a break from that.Pray for Ashley's work this summer in Guatemala also. She was not able to go to Honduras as planned because of all the problems as you probably know. The Lord really worked it out for her to go to Guatemala at a wonderful orphanage there.
She just had a few days to change her plans and he really worked things out in a hurry. As for Alaska:We were on some terrible roads the last couple of days. If you've never driven on frost heaves you don't know what you're missing. We drove on lots of them the last two days and it really wears you out. We're resting in Valdez today. We saw a beautiful glacier yesterday, Worthington Glacier, that you could drive up to and walk to get even closer which we did. Alaska has more glaciers than anywhere else in the world and I believe it. We've seen so many. It seems like you see them at every turn. They are beautiful. They're are also many waterfalls. We saw two very pretty ones yesterday--Bridal Veil and Horsetail. When we were at the Hub of Alaska, which is an intersection for Hwy 1 and 4 I think, the information center told me to go to Dayville Road and we would see grizzlies. We did that last night and didn't see grizzlies but did see lots and lots of salmon spawning near a hatchery. We also saw harbor seals for the first time this trip. We were told that a grizzly (by the way they call them brown bears up here) comes out every morning about 10:00. We stayed at a campground near there and got up this morning at 8:00 and saw the bear playing around with the fish. It was so entertaining. Then he started roaming up to the road so we followed him in the RV along with some other people and we got some good pictures as he crossed the road. We also saw a brown bear in a creek right along side the road (on my side) so I was able to get a pretty good picture. We were so excited!!! To backtrack a few days, on Saturday, July 25, we met a man on the border between Canada and Alaska on a bicycle. That's not unusual because we've seen lots and lots of bicyclists. What was unusual was that he was traveling with his dog Star. He had a little cart he was pulling behind him with his gear and he put the dog on top. And it was a big dog. He said sometimes he runs alongside him. Can you imagine the extra weight. He had started in Fairbanks and was from Oregon. He was a pro lifer and was promoting a "Nationwide Car Wash" which was to raise money for pregnancy centers around the country. That's just one of the interesting people we've met along the way. By for now!

Friday - July 24, 2009

Dad called this morning and I got an update on what they are up to.

They are leaving Haines today and probably going to a Chilkat River Bald Eagle Preserve. Dad said that the Bald Eagles in Alaska are like pigeons in Colorado. I'm talking to him right now while I write this. He said that there are a bunch of ravens or crows outside the RV today. He's waiting for Mom to wake up before they leave.

They went to the Hammer Museum yesterday and said that they met a lady from Buffalo, New York who moved to Haines, Alaska. Dad thinks that she was having trouble with her parents. I said that she must have had a lot of trouble to move that far away. Dad said that he couldn't find his farm hammer. I was cracking up at this one. I thought that maybe the Hammer Museum was named Hammer for someone's last name but it was literally a museum of hammers. Dad said that they only paid a $3 entry fee. Of course, I think you'd need to pay me $3 to enter a hammer museum. This reminds me of Jill and I in Hawaii though, because we went to an Army Museum just because it was free and we were very poor, just graduated college students. We called ourselves the Cheapskate Tourists because we did about anything that was free or cheap.

They saw a Grizzley Bear in Chilcoot State Park a couple days ago getting salmon. This was his dream a few years ago to see a Grizzley and now he's seen one three times. Dad said that the Grizzley crossed the road just a little bit in front of Mom. Wow!

Dad talked to a fisherman who encountered a Grizzley and hustled out of there while fishing. I guess that you don't want to compete with a Grizzley for food. This guy caught a 10 pound salmon that day.

He also talked to a big fisherman who caught 9000 pounds of Salmon out in the Inside Passage and brought it to a cannery.

This is totally a Dad thing, but as we were discussing "The Poop Tank" Dad told me all kinds of disgusting facts and told me that the "poop tank" was so clear you could drink it the other day. The toiliet had run all night and so the tank was completely full of water. I told him that I was glad he hadn't chosen to do that to drink it though no matter how clean it looked. He is known to do gross things like "wash" his hands in the nasty water at the Lincoln Memorial relfection pool so I was a little concerned.

Dad saw their Island Princess ship this morning at 4:45. He was very excited and said that it was headed to Skagway. Sounds like his typical train talk to me.

He sees snow capped peaks and glaciers behind him as we speak.

It was a great talk and we got to talk for 1/2 hour. Dad is very informative and always makes the conversation fun.

Phone call update - Skagway and Haines

I talked to Dad and Mom last night, since they are in Alaska and not paying roaming fees. I got some new updates on what they've been up to. They have now been in Skagway (for the third time on this trip -since they were there with each of their cruises). They took a ferry from Skayway over to Haines, Alaska which is in the Inside Passage. Dad said that it was the only ferry they could afford and when I asked him how much it cost, he said it was $161! HOLY COW! $99 for the RV and $31 for each of them. Dad also told me that if they didn't take that ferry, they would have had to have driven 359 miles out of the way to get there, which would have been about 45 gallons of gas. Dad said that it only took an hour to get over there on the ferry. That fee was one way and from Haines they'll drive straight North. Dad said that in Skagway they saw four cruise ships docked there. They actually slept on the dock (in the Bellmobile) in Skagway. Dad said that one of the cruise ships was very "happy" and the people on it were very "happy." Dad mentioned a bunch of animals and said that a moose ran in front of the RV when they were driving. Only in Alaska!