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Hatcher Pass Road
We finally see snow up close! Now I know why my parents have not put much on the travel blog. We arrived in Anchorage May 30th around 8:30p.m. and haven't stopped since! Alaska is beautiful. May 31st was Dad's birthday. We spent the day at the Anchorage Historical Society learning about native life in this area. No heated swimming pool for them! They say they stayed warm in thier comfy one room homes built for 30-40 people. Yeah, right. This is the smallest world I've ever been in! Before going to the museum, a man saw our Georgia tag and asked what part we were from. Come to find out they were from Folkston...Ronnie Murray and his wife (Becky Murray's in-laws)! After the museum, we went downtown to the Ship Creek bridge where we saw people along the banks and in the water waiting for the salmon to come in. No one caught anything while we were there. After enjoying Dad's birthday meal at a restaurant in downtown Anchorage, we returned to the motorhome where Dad baked his own pineapple upside down cake. We are still enjoying it. The Dosters and Bowens arrived in Anchorage that night. They came by our campground to visit for a
little while before taking off to site see.
The next day, we packed the motorhome up and headed to Willow Creek. The campground was nice. At about 5:00 we decided we would go for a short ride up a nearby mountain. Hatcher Pass Road was the road we would take. Dad had heard it was a great road to travel. It started out as a bit bumpy paved road. We should have taken note when the road turned to rocky dirt, there wasn't much traffic to speak of and we came to a sign that we chose to ignore which indicated to proceed with caution and travel wasn't highly recommended. But true adventures are not found on the well beaten path. They are found on roads such as these. Carleton had seen snow on the tops of the mountains surrounding Anchorage and then on the ones to Willow. He kept saying "Grampa, I want to get closer to the snow. I want to touch it. I want to go to the top of the mountain where the snow is." Grampa Dwight said he would find a way to get him to the top to be patient. So, the road
Heritage Museum
Standing under whale jaw bones. we took meanered up a mountain. The higher we went up, the prettier it got. Did I mention this road was very narrow? When Dad said "look down there" we would say "you drive, we will look for you!" We saw a rushing stream that the road followed. Carleton said he had wanted to see that kind of stream for a long time! We found some firewood along the way that we were hoping to burn at the campground later for roasting marshmellows. Dad got his ax stuck in the wood when he tried to chop it. We had a great laugh watching him try to get it out. Breann and Carleton finally got to play in snow...once near the beginning of the road and 3 hours later where we discovered the rest of the road was closed due to the snow still covering the road! We had to turn around and go back the way we had come. Going back only took about 1 1/2 hours since we weren't stopping and taking pictures every few feet. Along the way we saw a moose, porcipine, ducks and two cars. We picked up several cool rocks from the stream we thought
Heritage Museum
Standing by a "pantry". were worth keeping. Our 30 minute short ride ended four hours later at 9:00. It was well worth the adventure getting to see the pretty views.
The next day we were getting ready to travel to Talkeetna when the Dosters and Bowens saw our motorhome as they passed by on the road. They pulled in for another short visit. We ran into them again in Talkeetna, a cute little town at the end of a street. Talkeetna had lots of little shops and diners. After spending a couple hours in Talkeetna, we headed on down the road towards Denali National Park. The drive was nice, except for the rain we got into for a little while. The campground has a panoramic view of the mountains!
We spent today in the Denali National Park. Another great drive on the mountain but still not as pretty as the Hatcher Pass drive. Went shopping in a few local stores and had a great meal with the Dosters and Bowens.
So now I hope you see why we haven't blogged since I've been here. We have been sooo busy being tourists and adjusting to the time change, we just haven't had
Heritage Museum
standing in front of home. time to stop and blog! Of course, I forgot to bring my cable to upload my pictures that I've been taking. Mom has a few but as soon as I figure out a way to get them off my camera and onto the computer, I'll put them on then.
With love to all in Georgia!
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Eileen
non-member comment
Looks like fun
Showed Miller the pictures of the kids. He was all excited to see them. Looks like everyone is having a great time. We miss you all. Eileen