We pass thru Haines Junction, its a nice little town, a few stores, some motels and bed and breakfast. We leave Route 3 and pick up the Alaska Highway. Here in the Yukon the roads are part paved and part gravel; they sure get rough at times. The country sure is beautiful; we spot a few animals grazing in the fields and lakes.As we approach Kluane Lake we see a low hanging cloud, but found out it was a fine grit blowing off Kaskawulsh Glacier, slowly filling in the lake and rivers in the area. This area also has a lot of Dall Sheep and mountain goats. We continue on to Beaver Creek passing many motels and inns. Also we had to climb a couple high mountains, nice views. In Beaver creek we stayed at a motel of the same name. There was a nice lodge and restaurant but our rooms were a double trailer, it was ok, we got a good night sleep. The food was very good. In the morning we will enter the good old U.S.YEA!!!
A short trip up the road we stopped at a nice little park, it was the Canada-U.S.international border, it was sort of thrilling. Now we follow AK. highway to Fairbanks. On the way we pass thru the cities of Tok, Delta Junction, and the North Pole (we stopped to see Santa but it was his day off) but you can be sure the gift shops were open. Can't say enough about the beauty of the countryside.
Found our motel in Fairbanks got settled and went to supper, at the most northern---DENNYS.
The next day we took a trip on the Riverboat Discovery, it took us down the Chena and Tanana rivers. We stopped at the home of Susan Butcher, a veteran Iditarod musher. She showed us her champion sled dogs, also there was a litter of young dogs playing in the river. We stopped at a old Chena Indian Camp, where we got off the boat to tour the camp and see the how the Indians lived. All-in-all a very interesting 4 hours. It stayed light so long we had plenty of time to visit Alaskaland, it's a nice park. There you can visit a gold mine, a old sidewheeler, but by far it's the small cabins where the Alsakans can sell their handicrafts. The cabins are all original cabins of early settlers. The next morning we went shopping at K-Mart. In the afternoon we took a small plane to a small airport above the Arctic Circle, boarded a bus back to Fairbanks. When we got to the Arctic Circle, we got off the bus and crossed over the line and received a certificate for crossing the Arctic Circle. The line we stepped over was a line painted on a rug, put down by our driver. No snow or ice, in fact it was HOT. We continued on, passing and going under the pipeline, the countryside is rather barren and mountainous. Got back into Fairbanks at 1 A.M. and the sun still hadn't set, it's a weird feeling. In the morning we headed for Denali Nat. Park and to try to see Mount McKinley.
We celebrated our 45 wedding anniversary by taking a 90 mile bus trip in Denali Park. Cars can only travel 14 miles in. We traveled high up on narrow roads, at times we were in the clouds. Here in the park we saw many bears and our only wolf. It was a fantastic trip, I would take it again. We never did see the top of Mt. McKinley, it was in the clouds at all times.
Well it's time to get back on the road, our next stop is a lodge at Moose Pass. The rest of out trip takes us thru small cities and a few large ones. I think the best time we had since leaving the Ferry was on the Kenai Peninsula. We had a terrific time in the cities of Seward and Homer and all the space between them. On the opening day of the fishing season, in the the Russian river they were standing maybe 5 to 10 feet apart to catch fish that they had to release, so enough fish would make it up stream to spawn. The following week they could keep what they caught. There were more bears, Dall sheep and many mountain goats. The whole peninsula was beautiful. We took a few boat trips to see Whales(saw a few), many sea birds of every kind, also to see the glaciers, we even drove up to a land glacier, ugh, it was dirty not like the blue of the tidal ones.
Here we are in Anchorage our city of departure. In Anchorage we did a lot of shopping. We found many nice Indian craft shops, the things made by the natives are marked by state law. It has been a wonderful 33 days,the best vaction we ever planned. I think that was part of the enjoyment, we did everything by ourselves. If we ever can go back. we'll skip the inside passage and go to the Kenai and use the ferry system to visit the islands of the Aleutian Chain. Well it's time to bid goodby to this beautiful state of Alaska, we have been here 33 days and haven"t even seen half of it. You cannot imagine the grandeur of it all until you see your first eagle soaring overhead or diving and catching his fish dinner. So goodby you great big BEAUTIFUL state, for the time being, I hope!!!!!!
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