Yesterday’s sun and warmth has been replaced today with a cold rain. We decided that we would drive over to Dyea (pronounced Die E). The ride to Dyea is on a twisting gravel road which is very well maintained and very scenic. Dyea was and actually still is the starting point for the Chilkoot Trail which took the stampeders to the Yukon Gold Rush. There are famous photos of the Chilkoot Trail, which shows hundreds of men, tied together, climbing a very steep mountain with heavy packs on their backs. Because men were showing up in Dawson City with no supplies, [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Whitehorse and the Alaska Highway behind, for the last time this trip, we traveled down Alaska Route 2, the South Klondike Highway toward Skagway. This drive is one of the most scenic drives in North America. The road follows lakes and streams as it winds through valleys and over the mountains. Emerald Lake is just that, a lake that looks like it is emerald green. It glistened today in the sunshine as we stopped to marvel at it’s wonder. Soon we came to “The Smallest Desert in the World”, the Carcross Desert. The area was once covered by a glacial [View Full Entry]

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Haines Junction has a monument which has all of the animals you will find in the region on it. There is also a Quonset Hut which is a church. As a typical tourist a took a few pictures as we were out for our morning walk. Leaving Haines Junction, we are headed for Whitehorse. As we traveled along the Alaska Highway today, a coyote was grazing on the side of the highway and was very curious of me as I snapped a few pictures. In Whitehorse, we were able to get the van serviced, for the second time in 3 weeks. [View Full Entry]

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Three days of sunshine, life is good. Heading out of Tok on the Alaska Highway proved very challenging. The road was in deplorable condition with dozens of gravel sections in the first 90 miles in the US. The Canadian side was worse between Beaver Creek and Haines Junction. There were red flags every few hundred feet and you needed to slow way down for all the dips and bumps in the road. We passed a motor home which had been towing a Jeep Wagon. I say “had” because they were now separated, with the front end of the jeep gone and [View Full Entry]

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Happy Days are here again - The skies above are clear again. What a great and glorious day. The sun is shining, it’s in the 70’s and we have no place to go and nothing to do. Woo-Hoo! We slept-in, did laundry, walked the bike trail for a couple of miles, Dave started reading a book and I caught up on emails and blogs. In the afternoon, we visited the visitor’s center and some shops and then we went to Fast Eddy’s and had coffee and dessert. Dave had the great Forest Pie with berries, apple and rhubarb with vanilla ice [View Full Entry]

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Feels like summer, as we woke up to blue skies and the sun shining brightly. I was really daring and decided to wear Capri pants today for the second time in a month. Dave actually took off his flannel shirt. We must be Alaskasized because we were really warm with the temperature at 50 degrees as we started our morning. Good-bye Glennallen. Traveling out on the Tok-cutoff, we had excellent views of the Wrangell Mountains to our south in the morning and then the Mentasta Mountains to our south in the afternoon and the Alaska Range to our north. Half way [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Palmer, hopefully for the last time, we once again headed east on the Glenn Highway. This road has become very familiar to us this week. The clouds hung low all morning and we had no views at all of this beautiful area and would never have known of it’s beauty, had we not passed through here before and gotten to see the incredible views. Kennicott Mine, McCarthy and the Wrangell/St. Elias National Park and Preserve are on the menu today. We are doing a lot of back-tracking, as the road to this area is back down toward Valdez. The gray [View Full Entry]

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It feels like home here at the Homestead RV Park where we just spent our third night. Hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst, we are keeping our fingers crossed that we don’t spend a week waiting for a new radiator. Just before 10 am, we received a call from Sarita at Colonial Honda stating that the radiator had arrived and to come right down and they would install it as soon as possible. Thirty-eight mile drive to Anchorage and 3 hours later, with a new radiator installed under warranty, we headed back to Homestead for the night and [View Full Entry]

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Valdez is another small fishing village, emphasis on small. Dave and I walked around the town last night, which took all of about a half hour. This morning we decided to run the van for a few miles to see if the radiator continued to leak. It did. In this small town there is one repair shop, Mark’s Auto. When we pulled into Mark’s, Steve checked the radiator for us right away and confirmed there was a small leak in the seam. The owner, Mark called Honda in Anchorage for us and was given permission to do the warranty repair work [View Full Entry]

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Heading east on the Glenn Highway out of Palmer is a very scenic ride through the Matanuska Valley. This highway takes you along the Matanuska River and practically right up to the Matanuska Glacier. Dave and I hiked a short trail to the scenic viewpoints at the glacier. We had excellent views of the Chugach Mountains along the highway. Another very beautiful spot along the way was the colorful 6,300 foot Sheep Mountain, which lived up to it’s name and was dotted with sheep on the steep walls. After reaching Glennallen, we headed down the Richardson Highway toward Valdez. We passed [View Full Entry]

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