Tuesday, Really nice weather today, though really windy this afternoon. Finally got to see some wildlife today - - one coyote, several swans, including two adults that we saw on the way up with 4 signets that hatched since we came by on the way up, and bright iridescent blue dragon flies. The coyote was a female that had obviously just had a litter - - she was on the road begging for a handout. We also had really nice vistas of high mountains in the distance - - tough to get good pictures, but we tried. We had several delays due to construction and one stretch when we had to follow a motor grader doing ALMOST 5 mph for a couple miles (seemed more like 5 miles!) At one of the construction sites in the ... read more

Saturday, 12 June 2010 Denali NP Gena here---so the blog won’t be as detailed. Charlie, Kerry and I went on the shuttle bus ride out to Wonder Lake, where all the wonderful pictures of Mt. McKinley are taken. However, they must be taken on better days than today, as we had rain for the moment we awoke until we got back to the campground. Not nice at all. In fact, more than half the folks that started on the journey out to Wonder Lake, got off at the halfway point and went back to the Wilderness Access Center where we got on the shuttle. Once we hit the gravel road, the windows got so dirty, you couldn’t see through them. We made several stops at rest areas where they supplied a bucket of water and squeegees ... read more

Thursday, 10 June, 2010 Seward, AK to Trapper Creek, AK Awoke to a cold and pretty windy day today (38 degrees) and cloudy. We took off at about 8:40. First stop was at Trail Lake Fish Hatchery where we got to see hundreds of thousands of salmon smolt - - fish that were ready to be placed in the lakes where they would mature and then head out to the ocean to return in 3 or 5 years depending on the species. A very interesting stop. Next stop was Portage Glacier Visitors Center. It is located literally on the lake at the outfall. Nicely done. Gena & Charlie got patches and stamped. We only got to see the upper end of the glacier as it has retreated around a corner and out of direct view from ... read more

Left just after 8 AM today thinking that we could stop by the Post Office to buy stamps, and then go to Rec Services for info on the Military camp in Seward and get any info they might have on reservations for the National Park campground at Denali. Well, the Army has really changed !! Rec Services didn't open until 9 and the Post Office didn't open until 10. So we just decided to get going to Homer. Before we got out of Anchorage, the road was badly rutted giving me a lot of trouble keeping the car in the lane. So we pulled of to see if anything was wrong with the rig. Couldn't find anything, so just increased the tire pressure on the trailer whells from 34 psi to 41 psi. It seemed to ... read more

We left the campers in Glennallen and took Magee's van to Valdez. The first half of the drive gave a better view of the tops of several high mountains that couldn't see yesterday due to clouds. Mt Drum is really BIG with a bunch of glaciers and at 12010 ft, it towers over every other thing in sight, even Mt Wrangell several miles SE of it and a couple thousand feet higher. When we got to the Chugach mountains, we stated seeing snow fields, and a few glaciers. Then we got to Worthington glacier. The State has a state park there with interpretive signs, a ranger station and paved walks to get you pretty close to the glacier. The trails up to the glacier were closed (still snow covered). Got a couple good pictures of Charlie ... read more