Blogs from Alaska, United States, North America - page 230

On Monday, the girls had a quiet morning and met me for lunch at the “Moose’s tooth” for pizza. Then they ran some errands, including an exciting trip to the recycling center. Gabbi has been incredibly into speaking different languages. She’s obsessed with German (gee, I wonder why Petra and family). She goes around saying things that sound Germanish, but is still gibberish. For example, “Ich de klein”. It’s cute, but a little annoying after a while. After work we drove about a half hour north of Anchorage to Thunderbird Falls. Our friends, Bernadette, Kara, and James met us at the trailhead and we started off. The kids ran most of the mile to the lookout at the falls. It is absolutely incredible how the maximum speed of our children increases with the number of other ... read more

Tuesday September 11, 2007 There are some advantages to walking the dogs in the morning; you see things! I was excited to get the glow on the mountain peaks as the sun came over the mountains in the glacier parking lot. We made one other stop on the Parkway to see Peyto Lake. When we were there in June it was cloudy and the color was drab. This time the sun was out and it didn’t disappoint. We traveled through Banff and Calgary (glad to get out of that traffic) by early afternoon. South of Calgary is prairie with lots of ranches and livestock. You don’t see many barns anymore, just metal warehouses. The fields are shades of golden yellow; creamy yellow, brownish yellow and the granaries stand tall in the landscape. We were happy to ... read more

Monday, September 10, 2007 We were on the road early. There was fog in the valleys and river bottoms which made the farmland picturesque. The fall colors were just barely starting to turn. We suffered some “reentry” getting used to a seeing a number of cars on the highway rather than one or 2 every few hours which was the case in the Yukon and northern B. C. The weather was good, the scenery was pleasant and the driving wasn’t difficult. We got to Jasper National Park around 4:00 and it was warm. We were amazed to see the number of RV’s and cars. The area is so pretty. We had forgotten in only 2 months! We decided to proceed down the Icefield Parkway, the route that connects Jasper to Banff even though it was another ... read more

Sunday, September 9, 2007 First thing in the morning we headed to Fish Creek Bear Viewing area. No bears had visited the area so we decided to go on to Salmon Glacier about 21 miles up the road from Fish Creek. This glacier is actually in British Columbia. It runs along an old mining road. We were told it was a “must see” no matter how many other glaciers we’d seen because you can look down on this glacier (as opposed to viewing from the front or side). So we traversed yet another pot holed gravel road. Frank said it wasn’t that bad. I disagreed. Anyway, we drove it and we saw the glacier. Frank thought it was great. I thought it was nice! We got back to Fish Creek about noon and a bear was ... read more

Saturday September 8, 2007 Dease Lake is about 4.5 hours from Hyder. We planned to reach Hyder by afternoon. The road was even better today so we made good time. The highway turned toward the southeast and the scenery started to change. Mist draped the blue mountains and moss hung on the douglas fir trees. Waterfalls streamed down rocky mountain crevices and there were glaciers. Fall was just beginning to show itself. Hyder is part of Southeast Alaska in British Columbia, kind of funny. The mountains separate Hyder from Wragell and Ketchican. It’s a quirky place, known for bear viewing at Fish Creek. After we checked into a campsite, we headed to Fish Creek. There’s a viewing platform above the creek and the bears fish below it. Maybe 50 people were there, but it wasn’t crowded ... read more