Glacier Boat Trip

On our last day in Anchorage, we went to Whittier and boarded a boat to tour Prince William Sound and the glaciers. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Waiting to board the Kenai Star

One of the several glaciers in Prince William Sound

This glacier had ice breaking off into the water (calving)

It was cold!

There were so many waterfalls!

See that A frame tunnel?

The trains and cars use the same tunnel! 

There is only one way in and one way out of Whittier, the very small town where we boarded the boat. This tunnel goes through the mountain and is used by both cars and trains. We waited in line until the train passed through, then we were given a green light to go.

Butch's Halibut Fishing Trip in Homer

On our way to where the fish are...two hours west of  Homer.

Thank goodness for deckhands. They baited our hooks and removed our catch.

All lined up and ready to bring them in from a 200 foot depth.

Success! This one is one of the smallest we caught.

Even I caught fish! 

Everyone caught their limit of two halibut. 

Anchorage to Homer

We finally made it to Homer! Butch is halibut fishing today, so I'm sure we'll have lots of great pictures to post later. We leave here tomorrow for Kenai and our final two days of the tour.
These are a few random photos from our drive from Anchorage to Homer yesterday. Beautiful scenery, even with the clouds.

Leaving Anchorage...

Portage Glacier

Stopover at Portage Glacier Visitor's Center

Display at Portage Glacier Visitor's Center

Rollin' on down the road

Finally!

Salty dog at the Salty Dawg Saloon

Girls just wanna have fun!

Random Photos

Sea plane in Anchorage

Sunset...at 11:00 PM.

This just amused me.

Butch and his sidekick

Nothing fazes her.

Bluebonnets...in Alaska? Who knew?

I just like this one.

Mt. McKinley

Ice cream truck comes through the campground each evening.

McKinley...somewhat obscured by clouds.

The lineup moving on  down the road.

This is Big Blue, or the Beast. 

This is how we roll.

Denali to Anchorage

On Saturday, we loaded up in a bus for a tour of Denali Park. It was a rainy and overcast day, but the beauty of that place couldn't be ruined by rain. We saw several of the animals...a mother Grizzly bear and her two cubs, caribou, and moose.

Park entrance

Momma Bear and Baby Bear

This rainbow was hugging the mountain.

Mount Denali was hidden until our drive to Anchorage on Sunday. We got some great views of the "High One" along the way.

The Alaska Range 

Our glimpse of Mount McKinley

We are camped in Anchorage for 5 days with several free days to explore on our own. We took a city tour on Monday to get familiar with where stores, restaurants and points of interest are located. We toured an Ulu factory, a fur exchange, and several other sites around town, including the world's largest sea plane harbor.

The gang

Mush! But where's Duke?

There were hundreds of planes! 

We have spent our free days doing everyday things like going to the grocery store and getting haircuts. Even the dogs got groomed!
Tomorrow, we will leaving early to take a glacier boat tour. More about that on the next post. Hopefully, we will have lots of good pictures to share.

Fairbanks

We arrived in Fairbanks on Monday afternoon and are camped along the banks of the Cheena River, just down from where the first trading post was settled, giving birth to what would become Fairbanks.
On Tuesday, we did a city tour of the area to locate the stores and gas stations, get an overview of places of interest to visit on our own, and drove out to the pipeline.

The pipeline runs 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay south to Valdez, where tankers take the oil off to refineries.

In the afternoon, we took a ride on the Cheena on the sternwheeler Riverboat Discovery.

The sternwheeler Riverboat Discovery

We traveled upriver to a wonderful replica of an Athabascan Indian village and learned about their ways of life..how they built their homes, used animal fur to make beautiful clothing and parkas, how they hunted.

This beautiful parka is being modeled by one of our Athabascan guides.

This "cache" held food and supplies elevated to keep them safe from animals.

Along the way to the village, we passed the home and kennels of musher Susan Butcher, the first person to win the Iditarod 4 times in a row. She passed away from cancer in 2006, but her husband talked to us about the dogs and sled racing. He hitched a team of dogs to a 4 wheeler and off they went, coming back around to the kennel about 3 minutes later after disappearing from view in the woods. Those dogs are amazing, and all they want to do is run!

David Monson speaks to us from the shore in front of the kennels.

That evening, we went to a salmon bake...all you can eat grilled salmon, prime rib and lots of sides and salad bar. Delicious! It was held in Pioneer Park. Many old buildings from Fairbanks were moved there to preserve them.

An old log cabin

A totem pole

Carson rides a salmon 

Wednesday and Thursday were free days, so we went shopping for groceries and fun things like air filters for the RV. Took the rig and the car to Sam's to fill up on "reasonable" gas...$3.91/gallon.
We had a pot luck dinner on Wednesday night. Everyone brought a dish, including gumbo from one of our Texas gals! Just like home. This is such a good group of folks. It's going to be hard to leave them in two weeks.

This moose was HUGE...and stuffed.

On Friday morning, we are off to Denali.