This is going to be the shortest and most boring of my travel blogs so far. Yesterday, after I posted my blog, I went to a local restaurant near Seward called The Salmon Bake. Their motto (see photo) is "Cheap beer & lousy food". Actually the food was GREAT! I had the best salmon dinner I've ever eaten; fresh-caught, grilled salmon, garlic-butter rice, corn souffle and cornbread (and an Alaskan beer). Yum!! All I did today was retrace my steps from Seward back to Palmer. I didn't see anything new and it was raining for most of the day and all I did was drive. Tomorrow I'll be on a highway that I haven't traveled on yet, so hopefully I'll have some new sights to report on. Anyway, it feels good to be heading back towards ... read more

Well, it finally started raining, but before it did (at 3:00 pm) I managed to complete a great hike and drive most of the way to Seward. I'm going to call it a "mostly non-rainy day". To get to Seward I had to drive through Anchorage again this morning. Just east of Anchorage I took a little detour to Flattop Mountain and went hiking to the top. Flattop Mountain has an elevation of 3510 feet with an elevation gain of 1280 feet from the trailhead (that's a pretty hefty gain for a trail that's only about two miles long!). Yesterday at the bike rental shop I overheard two guys talking about their regular "runs" from the trailhead to the top of Flattop Mountain. One guy said he could do it in 25 minutes and the second ... read more

Today was another low mileage driving day; spent most of the day hiking in Hatcher Pass. The weather was mostly cloudy with periods of light overcast and filtered sunshine. It's definitely cooler because of the clouds, but perfect for hiking (and still no rain!). I'm now at the half-way point of my trip; two weeks down and two weeks to go! The primary attraction at Hatcher Pass (elevation 3500 feet) is the old Independence Mine, a gold mining site that was active in the 30's and 40's and eventually closed for good in 1951. The gold here was mined underground by blasting tunnels, removing the ore, crushing the ore on site and using multiple techniques to extract the gold. It took a ton of ore to produce one ounce of gold! At its peak, the mine ... read more

Another sunny day with temps in the upper 60's. A local told me that today and yesterday were the warmest days of the summer this year. That's hard to believe, but I'm just happy to be here at the same time as the beautiful weather. I only did two things today; drove 150 miles (round trip) to visit Denali (Mt. McKinley) and then went to the Alaska State Fair that is held here in Palmer each year. On the way to Denali I drove through Wasilla. I wanted to stop and visit with Sarah, but I'm just too busy right now and I'm sure that she'll understand. Because it was a perfectly clear day in Wasilla, I tried to get a look at Russia but I'm afraid that my eyesight is just not as good as ... read more

Yesterday I went from Alaska to Canada (Yukon Territory); today I went from Canada back to Alaska. My 24 hours in Yukon Territory was marked by an almost constant drizzle; not enough to hinder views very much, but just wet enough that I had to keep the top up on the Miata. This morning started out dry, BUT I had to revise my goal of leaving the Miata top down at all times unless it was raining. Even though it was not raining when I started out this morning, it was 37 degrees and cloudy; a bit too numbing for me so early in the morning, so I left the top up and turned on the heater. After about an hour on the road and a stop for breakfast, it had “warmed” up to about 43 ... read more