Alaska 2014 Week 8

July 11  Today we went to the Anchorage Museum.  What a wonderful museum.  It is huge so naturally we didn’t get to see the whole thing but we watched a movie about the Eskimos and how they made their clothing and the detail that went into the making of their clothing.  You really get a full appreciation after going through this museum of how long it took to make the clothing and what the different designs meant.  For example a parka was made from antelope intestines and the intestines were cleaned and stretched and laid out to dry and this process took weeks then they split the intestines apart and it was like tissue paper and they had to take great care sewing all the layers together to form the parker and then they decorated it with tiny bird feathers and tiny beads that again took weeks to do.  It was very elaborate and time consuming work.  With no electricity for light and probably no eye glasses.  After we watched the movie then walked around the museum and looked at all the outfits we had such an appreciation for the workmanship that went to the making of them.  It was so so interesting.  Then another section we enjoyed was the building of the pipeline.  Some things never change.  They had the technology, and the manpower but politics delayed the building of the pipeline for years.  And last but not least, we enjoyed the gold rush exhibits.  We spent a good part of the day at the museum and didn’t come close to seeing everything but we certainly enjoyed what we did see.

July 12 Today we went gold panning at Crow Creek Mine.  It is located three miles from Girwood, Alaska.  This mining operation was started in 1898 and some of the original buildings like the Blacksmith’s shop, Barn, Ice House, Commissary, Mine Owner’s Cabin, Mess Hall, Meat Cache, and Bunk Hall still stand today.  We only had shovels and gold pans to work with, but people who come on a regular basis that are so called amateur gold miners came with portable gold sluths and one guy had panned about $250 worth of gold while we were there.  Jim and I only found 4 flakes in our pay dirt that was given to us when we paid to get in.  But our friends Larry and Mem found at least 2 more flakes over what they found in their pay dirt that came with their entrance fee.  It was fun though and we are getting more experience at gold panning.

  

July 13  To day we went to the Alaska Wildberry Product store.  This store is known for its huge chocolate falls.  (like in waterfalls only chocolate falls).  Jim loves chocolate so it was hard to keep him from catching a drink from the falls haha.  It smelled so wonderful too.  This store had a little bit of everything from tons of candy, t-shirts, jams, hats, sweatshirts, jewelry, books etc.  We spent a lot of time shopping around and yes we did buy a lot of chocolate.

July 14  We arrived in Fairbanks.  We are staying at the Riverview Campground.  It’s kind of rainy today so we mapped out what we want to do for the week and decided to catch up on things in the motorhome and our reading.  Mem and I decided to check out the North Pole, AK.  It was very neat and we enjoyed getting some of our Christmas shopping done and we even got to visit with Santa and see some of the reindeer.  Those reindeer have some strange looking feet.

  

July 15  We always like to go to the Visitor Centers when get to a new city so that’s what we did today.  I must say Fairbanks has one of the nicest visitors centers.  They have a huge exhibit, several different videos that you can watch and a movie theater.  They also have craft classes.  Today they had jewelry making classes, so I enrolled in the earring class with these cute Indian girls.  My earring is made from caribou hide, porcupine needles and beads.  It was a lot of fun.  We watched a movie about the Northern Lights in the theater.  It was okay but since I was in Fairbanks for a work trip in February 2002 I got to see the Northern Lights up close and personal so the movie was just so so for me.  I got in a tail end of a tour group given by an Indian lady whose family clothes were on display and she explained what the different pieces of clothing were used for.  It was very interesting.  One of the saddest things I learned on this whole trip at most of the visitors centers is that the government rounded up the Indian children and sent them away from their families to go school so they could learn English and the white man’s way of life and that schooling caused many of the Indians to loose their craftsmanship and culture.  Now that same government that spent all that money destroying their way of life is now spending more money trying to teach these young Indian men and women what they took away from them in the first place.  We actually met a lady who was one of those children that was taken away from her family and sent to school.  She told me she still struggles with anger and many of her community members do to.  While she was telling me her story I felt like apologizes for the government.  It was so sad.  On the brighter side we ate lunch at the Cookie Jar.  The waiter we had was named Justin and he was from Clarksburg, WV (Jim’s hometown).  He was a really great waiter and we had a good time chatting with him.  Jim thought he knew his family back in WV.  Small world.

 

July 16  Today we took the Discovery Riverboat ride down the Chena River.  Jim and I did this ride 10 years ago and we still enjoyed it just as much this time.  Before we got on the riverboat, we had our picture taken in a room that was -40 degrees.  Fairbanks is known for its -40 degree winters so this was a  pretty cool thing to experience.  We only stayed in the room for one minute but that was plenty of time to get the drift that it was pretty darn cold.  The boat ride starts off with a float plane demo taking off and landing on the river for us.  And the whole time it is going on the captain on the boat is communicating with the  pilot.  It was pretty cool.  On the boat ride we got to stop by the late Susan Butcher’s famous Iditarod Sled Dog Training Facility which is now run by her husband, Dave and two daughters. Her husband and some of the trainers came out and did some demonstrations for us.  Then Dave hooked the dogs up to an ATV and the dogs took off around the property.  It was pretty cool to watch.  Then we went by an Indian village and a young girl show us how to clean a salmon and how they hang the fish to dry.  She made it look very easy.  Then we went by a reindeer field and the captain explained how the reindeer shed their antlers every year which I did not know.   Then we got let off at the Indian Village and got to visit various speakers to learn about the various traditions.  It was very informative.   After the boat ride we rode out to the Dredge #8 Gold Panning Tour.  Jim and I had done this on our last trip here but it was called the El Dorado.  They since sold out to this company.  It was a little easier to pan for gold here.  After getting the history of the old Dredge #8, they take you over to this building, hand you a poke of pay dirt and a gold pan and you walk over to a table with warm running water and pan for your gold.   This was the first time I actually got down to my gold with getting help.  It was pretty exciting when I finally saw the gold specks show up after swishing and swishing the dirt and water.  Jim and I combined our gold and I had my gold from previous gold panning and I took it in and had it weighed and the guy that weighed it said I  had the most gold he weighed all day.  $60 worth.  WooHoo!  Now that I finally got the hang of this, I can’t wait to gold pan again!

July 17  Today we went to Chena Hot Springs and the Chena Ice Museum.  The Ice Museum was awesome.  It had the most beautiful ice carvings done by ice carving sculpture champions.  It was so unique. The building is kept at 25 degrees and they let you chose a down parka to wear while in there and let me tell you it is very well worth it to wear it; it kept us very warm.  The building has chandeliers that had led lights imbedded that changed colors.  It had a full bar that had stools made of ice with caribou pads for your comfort to sit on.  Appletinis were served in ice martini glasses.  There was an igloo that you could crawl in that had a xylophone made of ice that actually played.  Two rooms were actually hotel rooms complete with ice carved beds that you could really rent for the night and a chapel where they actually held weddings.  After the Ice Museum, we had a really nice lunch in the Inn and then we went over to the Hot Springs.  What a way to end the day.  The hot springs felt wonderful and they were HOT.  

Alaska 2014 Week 7

July 4  Today was a pretty busy day.  We had to get up early to go Halibut fishing.  We had to report to the boat at 6:30am and be there to get our tickets at 6:00am.  But it was worth it.  We each got 2 Halibuts each.  Mem and Larry had never been before and they both really enjoyed it.  We got back to shore about 12:30pm and when we got back to the RV we had to pkg the fish up and put it in the freezer.  The boat crew fillet the fish for us and put it in a big plastic bag for us but then we had to repackage it in serving sizes that we wanted to freeze and put up.  So I used my ulu knife and Jim and I did a team effort and got it put up in the freezer.  We figured we had about 30-35 lbs of halibut.  Its going to be some good eating.  Both of us took a good long nap after that job.  Around 6:00pm we went to the Homer 4^th of July parade today.  It was your typical small town parade where they throw out candy for the kiddies.  I was pleasantly surprised to see they had horses in the parade and enjoyed seeing them.  Earlier in the day, I was asking where the fireworks would be and I was told they were midnight on the 3^rd because it gets dark here around 11 at night so if they had fireworks on the 4rth they would actually be having them on the 5^th.  So looks like we missed them.  But then some people down the way started lighting them off at about 7 or 8 and a few dogs here in the campground got scared and ran off.  I felt so bad for the owners because it’s not like these dogs would know where to come home to.  Several of us in the campground starting looking around for the dogs.  Finally one lady got a text that someone found her dog.  Thankfully, because hers was a little one.  But the dog two campers over from us didn’t have a collar on because she was recovering from neck surgery.  I was walking my 3 dogs about 9 o’clock when I saw the dog come running up from the beach.  I couldn’t grab her because I had my 3 dogs so I’m yelling to these people help me she’s a runaway and her owners are looking for her.  Please grab her she’s scared.  So this guy grabs her and I put my dogs in the RV and our neighbors (who have a big dog) and Jim were talking outside and went and got a collar and leash to put on the dog so  we could get her calmed down til the owners came back from looking for her.  The owners were so relieved to see her when they got back to the campground.   I was so happy for them. 

July 5  Today I went fishing for King Salmon in the lagoon in Homer.  However, I did not get a single nibble.  But it was pretty exciting watching the folks on the other side of the lagoon catching the Kings.  I was getting purely entertained by the families on either side of me though.  There were two little boys on one side who were so excited.  Their dad would cast the line out and let them reel the line in.  But after reeling it in after so many times without catching a fish they were getting pretty frustrated.  They couldn’t understand why their dad couldn’t catch a fish since they could see them swimming by.  The same thing was happening on the other side of me only it was a little girl and her dad.  She was having fun when they first got there but after awhile she was getting mad at her dad that she wasn’t getting a  fish.  I felt bad for the dads.  But they were pretty good dads and were pretty understanding and off they went for ice cream.  Jim did a lot better than those dads though he took his girl out to dinner.  We went to AJ’s Old Town Steakhouse.  It was very good but very expensive.  On the way home from the spit I had to stop and take pictures of the boat house this couple live in.  They were here 10 years ago and they are still living in their boat house which is really a ship wreck.

 

July 6  Today was a rest day sort of.  I cleaned up the motorhome and got the laundry caught up.  Jim cleaned the windows and outdoor carpets.  Then we went to the grocery store and got caught up on provisions.  We are going to be dry camping the next few days.  Our friends have a cabin on an island and we are going to park our RV in a state park and visit their cabin during the day.  They are going to pick us up by boat.  They live in Williamsburg, VA now but spend their summers in Alaska..  Lucky them.  We are really looking forward to seeing them and their cabin and hoping to go salmon fishing off their dock.  Going to be another fun few days.

July 7 What a wonderful day we had with the Lawrences. The Lawrences live in Williamsburg, VA and also have a cabin on Caribou Island on Skilak Lake.  We parked our motorhome at the Skilak Recreational State Park and they came over from their island by boat and picked us up to include our 3 dogs.  Sharon insisted we bring the dogs with us.  I’m so glad she did; they had a wonderful time.  Anyway there are only 20 cabins on this island and the folks that own them homestead for the summer.  They have no electricity or sewer.  They use solar panels, and have outhouses.  Their cabin is rustic, charming, and cozy.  When you walk in the door you just want to curl up and take in the view and grab your favorite book and chill out.  They use the glacier lake water for drinking water. (Filtered of course).  They have gas refrigerators and stoves.  There are no roads on the island; thus no vehicles.  There are just paths or trails leading to each others properties.  Some have ATV’s.  But everybody looks out for each other and everybody helps each other.  We got to meet some of their neighbors and see some of the other cabins.  Sharon’s outhouse was so cool.  She had it painted with sparkly paint and fur lined toilet cover, movie posters on the wall, a battery light and sheer curtains. I’m really looking forward to visiting them again someday!  If anyone is interested there is a book written about homesteading on this Island written by lady who lived in the cabin that the Lawrences bought.  It is called Winds of Skilak written by Bonnie Ward.  It is an excellent book.  Both Jim and I are reading it now and we are both enjoying it.  You can  get it a Amazon.com

July 8  We arrived in Anchorage today.  On our way to Anchorage, we saw our first moose.  It was huge.  At first I thought it was a horse, but then I saw its face and realized it was a female moose.  After we got settled into the campground, Jim and I went to check out the salmon fishing at Ship Creek.  The second run of salmon has not started yet.  Its supposed to be any day.  We are hoping it starts while we are here.  We also checked out the Ulu Factory to see if there is anything new there that we might be interested in.   

July 9   Today we went to Costco and Fred Meyer to stock up on provisions.  Then we went downtown to shop for souvenirs.  Mem and I found some really good deals.  We showed Mem and Larry the Ulu Factory.  You can’t come to Alaska and not get a Ulu knife.  We got ours the last time we were here and I use mine all the time.  

July 10 We spent the day visiting with Jim’s niece, Chelsea Fields whose husband, Brandon is stationed in Air Force at Elmendorf Air Force Base.  We got to meet their 2 year old baby girl, Briar, who is just precious and smart as a whip.  She and I bonded immediately.  I bought her a baby doll and she immediately climbed up in my lap and we were buddies the rest of the day.  It was so cute.  After Brandon got home from work, we took the kids out to dinner at a restaurant called the Bridge.  It was a really nice restaurant overlooking Ship Creek. 

Alaska 2014 Week 6

Alaska 2014 Week 6

June 27  From Valdez we drove to the Russian River. The Russian River is where you go to fish for Salmon.  Its changed somewhat since we were there 10 years ago. Before you had to line up on the road outside the park and wait your turn to go in.  You had to wait til someone caught their limit of 2 salmon and  had to leave before you could get in.  This time we drove right into the park and paid for two nights with no waiting time.  Both us and the Halsteads got great parking spaces for our RVs where we had plenty of room for our slides.  The first day that we got there we fished on  the RV side of the river but neither Larry or I got any fish.  I got a few nibbles but no bites.  They were swimming by me and jumping out of the river in front of me but no such luck as even a nibble.  Larry noticed the other side was having all the luck.  To get to the other side, you had to pay $5 to ride the ferry.  At least the $5 covered for round trip.

June 28  Today Larry and I decided to take the ferry across and try our luck over on the other side of the river.  We did find out the we were at the end  of  one salmon run and supposedly the next run for the reds was coming any day.  I was telling Larry, 10 years ago when we came here people were catching fish left and right I couldn’t understand why it was so slow.  That’s when we found out we were in between runs.  Larry just had regular boots on that day and he was getting wet, the water here is pretty darn cold.  So at lunch time he was ready to call it a day.  He and Mem took a ride to Soldotna and found a great sports store and Larry got a good deal on some hip boots and some lures and weights.  Jim brought my lunch over to me (what a sweetheart) but I gave up fishing around two that day with no luck.  Larry and I both tried again that evening on the RV side of the river but to no avail but just because it was fun.

June 29  Larry got out there early this morning and by noon his luck changed he pulled in a nice salmon.  I hadn’t got over there yet.  I was having a lazy morning.  Mem texted me and  said you better get over here, Larry just got one.  Jim and I  finished up lunch and we both caught the ferry and rode over.  By the time we got over  to where Larry and Mem were, Larry had caught his second one.  I was so happy for him.  He had a smile a mile wide.  Not long after I got over there, I finally got a bite.  I was so excited.  I got a beauty of a Rainbow trout.  When Larry got ready to go he offered to take my fish with him and fillet it for me.  That was so nice.  I fished for a few more hours but no one was getting any bites so I decided to call it a day.  I was happy.  I got a big fish finally.

June 30  We spent the night in another quiet roadside pulloff.  It looks like moose tracks all around the spot where our RVs were parked but we never saw any.  In fact we haven’t seen any wildlife since we have arrived in Alaska except eagles.  Now I will admit, eagles are awesome.

Jul 1 We stopped in Wasilla.  Jim wanted to go see if he could run into Sarah Palin haha.  We googled her address and got close but weren’t sure.  So we stopped in the Best Western which is on her street and the girl at the desk told Jim that her street is closed to public but if you go out on the Best Western Dock and look at 2^nd house to the left that is Sarah’s house.  So we did haha.  Sure enough we could see it.  I remembered what it looked like from watching her show on TV.  The house is not very extraordinary but my goodness they do have some awesome views and no they can't see Russia from their back yard!  The 2 pictures below the back of their house pictures are across the lake from them.  It was just beautiful.  There was a plane parked at the dock and Jim looked up the tail number and it was registered to a company owned by Bristol Palin, their daughter.  I guess they are using her as a tax write-off.  We met another lady on the sidewalk at a shopping center and was asking questions where we might find a Wasilla pin, and other questions, and Jim asked her if she knew Sarah or ever shook her hand and the lady’s daughter said she did once, so Jim shook her hand (she was about 12 years old) she got a kick out of  that.  Then he asked the lady if she knew where the Palins ate at and she told us a place where all the locals go including the Palins.  So we went, but the waitress said Todd and the kids eat there but she hasn’t seen Sarah in there.  But Jim was still happy to think she still might have sat where he sat.  Too funny.  

Jul 2  We are staying at the Driftwood Inn RV Park in Homer, AK You can see the ocean so I guess  you could say we have an ocean view location.  Although the picture looks like we are right on the water we are really up on a hill overlooking the water.  We walk the dogs along the ocean road.  Its very nice.  We have full hook up.  Its pricey $55/night but well worth it since we are in Homer and ocean view.  The spaces are very tight though.  I’m glad we got here when we did, I think Jim would have had a hard time manuevering our big rig around other campers.  You can tell the people who live in Alaska vs the people from the lower 48, especially around the water.  The Alaskans are wearing shorts and tank tops and us lower 48ers are wearing jackets and longs pants.  Little kids are swimming in the water and my dogs are shivering especially my Chinese Crested.  She has to wear her flannel pjs to go outside half the time. 

Jul 3  We met some nice folks on either side of us and the Halsteads.  Both families live in Alaska.  The folks next to us were here with no children.  Their daughter is in college so it was just them on vacation.  They have never been to the lower 48 but are looking forward to traveling the lower 48 when their daughter graduates from  college.  We had a great time visiting with them.  The folks on the other side of the Halsteads live on the AF base in Anchorage and are here with 4 of their 5 children.  They are really a nice family.  We’ve really enjoyed talking with them.  We went to the lagoon on the spit today to see if the Kings were biting today and they were.  The lagoon is a man-made fishing recreation area.  Supposedly the townspeople put Kings in the lagoon so they would come back to spawn year after year.  The Kings come into the lagoon with the tide comes in and the fish start biting like crazy.  Before the tide comes in you can see the kings swimming around in the lagoon and they are huge but they don’t seem to bite.  As soon as the tide comes in the fish go crazy and people start catching like crazy.  Its really fun to watch.  Ten years ago when we were here a couple were living in an old boat along the side of the road.  We were surprised to see that they are still living in it.  I was also surprised to see that they have collected quite a few other old boats and are surrounded by them.  Their boat by itself 10 years ago was pretty neat, but collecting all these other boats seems to be taking away from their uniqueness and its kind of looks like a boat junkyard now.  Its too bad.