Tuesday, June 1 st

Today is cleanup day. We have packed our big box to ship home by UPS with the things that are heavy or might not make it through the possible pilferage of the airport handlers. We will take care of that in the morning before the time to turn in the RV. Most of our other stuff is packed or will be soon.


Our salmon tonight was augmented by the gift of some small red potatoes from some other GAH people who turned in their unit this morning. Have a new unit next to us today, which will be turning in tomorrow like us.

I went downtown today and shopped while Cliff stayed home. He hates to shop and constantly sighs while shopping. Got some souvenirs and enjoyed my shopping time. After the trip to the UPS store in the morning, we will finish packing and then turn in the beast. Then we will mess around until supper time when we will have our first restaurant meal since the one at the Minnesota airport on May 14th. No salmon for me. How can you top what we have eaten over the last few days?

After we get home, I’ll publish our favorite pictures and then sign off for this wonderful trip to Alaska.

Tuesday, June 01

Today is cleanup day. We have packed our big box to ship home by UPS with the things that are heavy or might not make it through the possible pilferage of the airport handlers. We will take care of that in the morning before the time to turn in the RV. Most of our other stuff is packed or will be soon.


Our salmon tonight was augmented by the gift of some small red potatoes from some other GAH people who turned in their unit this morning. Have a new unit next to us today which will be turning in tomorrow like us.

I went downtown today and shopped while Cliff stayed home. He hates to shop and constantly sighs while shopping with me. Got some souvenirs and enjoyed my alone time. After the trip to the UPS store in the morning, we will finish packing and then turn in the beast. Then we will mess around until supper time when we will have our first restaurant meal since the one at the Minnesota airport on May 14th. No salmon for me. How can you top what we have eaten over the last few days?

After we get home, I’ll publish our favorite pictures and then sign off for this wonderful trip to Alaska. Next trip to follow.

Monday, May 31st

We didn’t have WiFi last night so I couldn’t post. We’re at the airport in Anchorage and I’m catching up in a parking lot while Cliff rents a car. We agreed that it was too much trouble to move around. Anchorage in the RV and anyway, we’ll need one on Wednesday after we turn in the RV at 11:45 a.m. Our flight isn’t until 9:15 p.m. and no sane person would willing sit at an airport for that long.


We had salmon again last night, will have salmon salad for lunch and more salmon tonight. It is so delicious. Because we didn’t count on having such an abundance of salmon, we’re going to have food left over. Poor planning perhaps, but that salmon cost a whole lot more than that can of Bush’s Baked Beans sitting the pantry – and tastes better, too. We have been told that any unopened food is donated to a food bank here in Anchorage. Me thinks they get a fair amount from GAH patrons.

Our RV park reservations are for tonight and tomorrow night, then like the turtle that went to the psychiatrist, we’re coming out of our shell. The Winnie, that is. Get it? Ha, ha.

I gave away some of the salmon tonight. It would be such a shame to waste her since she gave her life to me. We had a great wine with dinner tonight: Chateau Ste. Michelle Harvest Select Riesling, Columbia Valley, 2009. It would be way too sweet for you Roxanna and Bill, since it is on the sweet end of the harvest. Sweet people that we are, we loved every drop.

We have met several members of the group from Forest City, Iowa, some in the park where we are tonight. Seems we all have had similar problems and we decided that we are on a shakedown cruise for Great Alaskan Holidays so that they can identify any problems with the new units and fix them before renting them. The GAH people are very smart. Of the three couples we talked to this afternoon who are staying in our current RV park, there are numerous problems that need to be addressed before the company rents the units. We all had furnace problems, one TV fell off the wall on the Yukon end of the Alcan. I thought that ours was going to also but it held on for dear life.

Cliff went to a nearby liquor store to get ice for the fish and when he went to the counter to pay, they carded him. Of course, he asked why are you carding me since I buying ice and obviously older than 21? It seems anybody buying anything in a liquor stores gets carded by law. He thought it was funny.

Sunday, May 30th

We’re taking it easy this morning showering, sweeping the RV and “computering”. We need to be in Seward about 11:30 for the cruise. It has drizzled most of the night and continues now. Hope it’s not raining later since I’m prepared with two sets of batteries for the camera. : )

The five-hour cruise was very good. We saw a sea otter, many seabirds such as Kittiwakes, Arctic terns, two kinds of puffins, common muirs, cormorants, and herring gulls; saw several mature bald eagles including a nesting pair on the nest. We saw Stellar sealions and three Orcas; also saw mountain goats, one nanny and her kid perched on a tiny outcropping that didn’t look quite big enough to hold them. Bear Glacier was pretty far in the distance but that was as close as the boat could/would go.

There is an unusual tunnel to get to Whittier. It is two and a half miles long, carved out of solid basalt which is evident as you drive by the rough hewn walls. It is a single lane and also has railroad tracks. The traffic lines up at the entrance according to size and every 15 minutes one side gets to go through the tunnel, unless there’s a train scheduled. The east and west portals are alternated every thirty minutes. The picture of the RV with Cliff waving from the door shows us as first in line in the RV lane.

Here’s a picture of Bear Glacier and one of a mountain we decided looks like the RKO logo. The seals were numerous as they sunned themselves on the rocks. The picture of the rocks where the kittiwakes nest is too disgusting to add to the log, educational but ikky.

Whittier had what seemed hundreds of trucks and boat trailers parked in the public lots. It seems that a lot of Alaskans have boats and RVs. Since it was a long weekend, Seward was packed with them also.

We went back through the tunnel to a remote park for the night.

Saturday, May 29th

Yes, we have fresh fish for supper tonight! I caught an 18.5 pound King salmon which may have been the only mature salmon caught on the river today. Our guide, Dave Wilson, was in phone contact with other guides throughout the morning, and nobody was having any luck. BUT ME, that is. Honest, I have never been very successful at fishing but today was incredible! A word about our guide, Dave, who is 6’7” tall, and rowed our boat the entire trip, navigating around huge rocks and keeping us away from the many boats on the river. We were on the Kasilof River (Ka’-si-lof) which is very shallow when the tide is out (inches in places) and has a tide of at least 20 feet. What a day. We saw moose, river otters and eagles, young and mature. There were also seagulls and sandhill cranes.

The boats on the river are like nothing we use. See a picture of one that was fishing in front of us. There’s a good reason for the design: when we ran aground, Dave jumped over the side into ankle-deep water and pulled us into deeper water – calf deep.

I took only a couple of mountain pictures today. For one, the windshield was too buggy and two, you can only take so many mountain pictures before they begin to blur before your eyes. I am including one though that is what I’m looking at out of the side window of the RV as I sit here writing this. Just another pretty “face”. Ha, ha. Had to climb onto a picnic table to block out the civilization that was in my way.

Since this is Memorial Day weekend, there is not a camping space available in Seward where we visited after the fishing trip. We wanted to go to the end of the road and we did. (We have been as far south as you can go in Texas, Hawaii, and now, Alaska.) At least half of the Alaskan population must be in Seward in RVs, popup tents, popup trailers, and all have their small children and their big, yellow dogs with them. Seward is right there on the great big Pacific Ocean. It’s kinda like Cedar Key with mountains. : )

We did indeed get up at 3:30 and now we are ready to eat and go to bed. Cliff is “resting his eyes” as he calls it right now. I call it take a nap.

Tomorrow we are taking a five-hour cruise to see the fiords, seals, otters, whales (I better see a whale), and the glaciers. We sail at noon on a catamaran with at least 100 people (they best not get in my way when I’m taking a picture or they may go overboard) and will be back in port at 5:00. And, because we find ourselves with a little extra time, after the cruise we are going to Whittier, which is on the Prince William Sound. We may make our way back to Anchorage tomorrow night and stay there through Tuesday night. There are some interesting museums I read about, and I want to “look” around. Translation: Shop!

Well, supper is over and I don’t have words to describe how good the salmon was. I seared it in a skillet with one of our favorite seasonings until it was rare. We had mashed potatoes and halved grape tomatoes drizzled with soy sauce and olive oil. We’ll be having salmon for breakfast too since I cooked extra. This was a memorable day for sure.

Friday, continuation

This is the way Denali looked today.  We were so very lucky to get to see the top yesterday.

We made it through Anchorage on our way south toward our fishing guide’s location. There was more traffic there than we have seen since we were going to the Orlando airport.

We’re meeting the fishing guide at 4:30 a.m. Yes, that’s right….I have set my phone to wake us at 3:45. Oh, my goodness.  Hope it works. It’s all about tides. I BETTER catch something BIG, that’s all I can say.

We had hamburgers for the second night in a row – we bought the meat someplace in our path and Cliff made and cooked all of the meat last night and froze the leftovers which were just as good tonight as last night. Hope we’ll have fresh fish tomorrow night.

Friday morning, May 28th

We spent yesterday in Denali National Park on a six-hour bus trip to the Toklat River and back. There were some great moments on the trip, the biggest of which was that we got to see the top of Mt. McKinley which at 20,320 feet high is the highest point in North America. I bought a t-shirt that declares that I’m in the 30 percent club of people lucky to have seen the top of the mountain. The top of the mountain is usually covered by clouds.

We had an up-close sighting of a mother grizzly and her yearling. They came down from some rocks and walked down the road in front of the bus as they crossed to the other side of the road.

There was a similar situation with a Dall sheep which was grazing on the side of the road and decided to walk down the middle of the road in front of the bus for quite a distance until going out into the brush to continue his grazing. Also saw moose, snowshoe rabbits, ground squirrels that look like small prairie dogs, a Willow Ptarmigan which is the state bird, and lots of Dall sheep. All in all, it was a great day.


Today we are heading to Soltodna on the Kenai Peninsula. Cliff arranged for a fishing trip tomorrow on the Kasliof River. Hope we will catch some King Salmon. Yum. Sunday morning we plan to go to Seward and take a cruise to see whales, seals, sea otters and glaciers. Cliff saw whales when he and Bill took the cruise. I REALLY want to see a whale.

Time to get the clothes out of the dryer and get on the road.