More of Our Adventures

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Will add some more photos at a later date.

Day 21 August 3 Traveled about 250 miles. Staying at Tolsona Wilderness Campground.

This is the same campground we stayed at on July 28th. It is a very nice place and would highly recommend it to any Alaska travelers. It’s 13 miles west of Glennallen and the owners are friends of Karen and Gary. Our drive today took us through the Anchorage area. We made a quick stop to re-provision our expedition. We continue to be amazed at all the mountains. It’s hard to drive anywhere in the State and not see mountains. Managed to pick up 3 geocaches along the way. One was at the top of a bluff that took some climbing to get too. Of course I forgot to take my camera with to capture another grand view. We are in the process of cooking another Halibut meal. We are trying a recipe that an old timer from Minnesota told us about when we were in Valdez. Will update you on how it turned out.

Wildlife Count - 1 Bald Eagle, 1 Moose which crossed the Glenn Highway in front of us and 1 forest frog, the only amphibian in Alaska.


Day 22 August 4 470 miles traveled, Camped at Kulane National Park Campground at Kathleen Lake.
As we were leaving the Wilderness Campground we had a very rare wildlife sighting. (See Wildlife Count.) We began our long drive with a cup of capo chino from Jeanie’s Java in Gakona. Drove the Tok Cut Off to Tok. There we got back on the Alaska Highway. When we crossed the boarder back into Canada the road got very rough. Lots of gravel spots and frost heaves. Managed to get a “ rock ding” in the windshield when we met a semi. The long drive went faster as we were listening to a book on CD called “No Country For Old Men” It isn’t about Alaska, but it was very entertaining. Had a good Chinese dinner in Haines Junction and then drove another 20 miles to Kathleen Lake. We listened to a talk at the campground about the Kokanee Salmon in Kathleen Lake. They are fresh water salmon that are land locked in the Lake.

Wildlife Count - 1 very rare sighting of a Lynx, 2 Trumpeter Swans


Day 23 August 5 140miles driven Ended up at Haines, Alaska

We took a leisurely Sunday drive down the Haines Highway. This is probably one of the most scenic highways in Alaska, when the sun is out. It wasn’t out but it still was very scenic. W once again did laundry .Hope it is the last time for this trip. Will catch the Ferry to Prince Rupert, BC at 8:30 AM tomorrow.

Wildlife Count - 4 Trumpeter Swans, 4 Bald Eagles


Day 24 August 6 Traveled about 200 miles via ferry, Sailing on the Matanuska.

We ended up camping in the Ferry terminal parking lot last night. Didn’t want to take any chances on missing the Ferry. We are sailing down the Alaska Coast in the Inner Passage on the Matanuska. The Matanuska is a 408 ft long, 73 ft beam and 17 ft draft boat built in 1963. It has 6 decks. The Ford Pickup is sharing the car deck with lots of big RVs. There are pets in a lot of the RVs since they do not allow them on the passenger decks. You can go down to the car deck to take care of your pets, only when in port. There are 4 stops between Haines and Prince Rupert. I don’t think Amber would like this journey very much. It is foggy and overcast again today. The cloud ceiling is about 1,000 ft. so we can’t see the tops of the mountains. The Ferry has a US Forestry Interpretive Guide aboard to tell us all about the Tongass National Forest which is all around us. It is the largest National Forest in the US: something like 17,000,000 acres. We also watched the movie “The Reef”, an animated movie about happy fish living pleasant lives on a reef. Just what we need to make us feel guilty for all those little fishes we were catching.

Wildlife Count - 10 whales (at least we saw them blowing) “Dare she blows”.


Day 25 August 7 Traveled about 200 miles via ferry to Prince Rupert, British Columbia

We slept in a shelter area on the deck of the Matanuska last night in our sleeping bags. We even got to sleep some. We have finished reading the books we started at the beginning of the trip. It’s nice to be riding and letting someone else do the driving. We met a whole group of Wisconsinites on a bus tour with Betty Larson Tours out of Chippewa Falls. We knew they were from Wisconsin with their Packer sweat shirts on. They told us that their bus has broken down and they don’t know what they will do when they get to Prince Rupert.

Wildlife Count - 1 whale, 4 deer, 2 bald eagles

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Photos

Light House
One of many light houses on the Inland Passage.