MORE ADVENTURES

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SEPTEMBER 3

THURSDAY

…marilyn and i spent a delightful day thursday in prince william sound aboard a ship on a nature-glacier tour … it was completely different from the glacier tour we took in seward … glaciers are as individualistic as are humans … this tour took us to the columbia glacier, which extends for miles out into the sea … we were stopped about 12 miles from the glacier’s face by ice packs that have calved from the glacier and filled the bay … the glacier face is 1500 feet above the sea and extends 1500 feet down into the bay … it is the second largest glacier in the north america … we were filled with awe … I took 560 pictures yesterday with about 30 segments on video …

… alaska is great rain or shine … it was our luck that we chose a sunny day for the boat tour …

… the description of the glacier is superficial … it is beyond my verbal capacity to describe my response to the glacier … it has to be experienced to understand … and then, the understanding, for me, was visceral rather than cognitive …

FRIDAY

… marilyn and I celebrated it’s being another beautiful sky-blue morning by having a caribou sausage omelet … our mistake of the day was to each order the omlet … we would have been satisfied sharing one order …

… we are getting to be pros at hooking the aliner to the van and preparing the aliner to be folded down for travel …

… we took a leasurely drive back to glennallen, stopping at every viewpoint to take pictures … one of the many side trips we took today was to chitina … it was about 9 miles down the road to chitina that we saw the a beautiful hand constructed octagonal coffee shop, the golden spruce… imagine this little gem on a little traveled road in the middle of the bush … our father was enthralled with round buildings, and thus, for his sake, we stopped to give it a try … it is unusual for us to eat out … and today we ate out twice … for lunch i had a bowl of soup and marilyn had a halapino hamburger … both our lunches were great, I would encourage any one traveling to valdez to take a side trip on the road to chitina , or to at least stop and have a cup of coffee … here in the middle of nowhere is a sandwich shop that would be envy of any city … it was completely hand made, including all the furniture … the owner and her husband are ardent advocates of the value of living in the bush … a more immaculately kept and artfully crafted coffee shop would be difficult to find …

… we have decided to leave denali for another trip … it would mean about a 400-500 mile detour from our way to the alcan highway …, however, there is a paved road that is the short cut to denali national park … this short cut is named the denali highway or alaska 8 … we have decided to take the paved section and try a bit of the gravel section … we’ve been told, and the books say, it is basically high-treeless tundra and that we have the possible chance to see a herd of caribou … and potentially moose, though it is hunting season for both species … there is little chance that we will take the graved section very far …

early to bed and then early to rise to another day of adventure …

-postingsomepicturesifirememberhowrichard

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Photos

SEA OTTERS
SEA OTTERS PLAYING "FOOTSIE"

MARILYN
A VERY HAPPY MARILYN ON THE BOAT TRIP TO COLUMBIA GLACIER

AN AVERAGE DAY
AN AVERAGE PICTURE ON AN AVERAGE DAY IN ALASKA

FINALLY
WE SEE OUR FIRST MOOSE