Another anniversary, road days and wild animals

From one anniversary to another, we remotely celebrated Mom & Dad Thomas' 78th anniversary! What an accomplishment and an amazing legacy of love we have on both sides of the family. We are so very blessed!

We are "back on the road" again if you are willing to call these roads! Apparently there is no "good" way to get to Alaska. The Alcan was almost as bad as the Top of the World Highway. The roads must always be under construction in one form or another since the winter brings frost, then spring it heaves & summer they work on it. 

 

 

The exciting thing about traveling through the wilderness is that you do get to see lots of wild life. Hard to take pictures while you're driving but did at least catch this Caribou before it went into the woods. 

Our boondock stop for the night was right on Destruction Bay, such a lovely view from Phoebe. Even though it was a little rainy we got out and did some rock hounding. As you can see it was a great place for it!

 

We hit Whitehorse again and loved the Eclipse Hot Springs so much we modified our route so we could go back and spend another day relaxing there. No phones allowed in but I did get this one shot from the cafe area. It's quite lovely!

From one hot springs to the next, we traveled to Liard River Hot Springs which were quite a bit different. For one thing you had to walk for about a half a mile on a boardwalk to get back to the springs. A much more "natural" site this was truly just a pond that they built a deck and stairs down to the springs. The water was super hot (120 degrees) at one end where it flowed out and got progressively cooler the further away you got.

Back on the road again and more incredible scenery. That is one thing for sure about this trip is that the sites have just been spectacular. And wow, did we see wildlife along this stretch.

 

We saw bears, antelope, caribou and buffalo all from the comfort of our RV. It was amazing!

Once the roads got better it made for such an enjoyable trip. The views continue to amaze and we wish we could stop at each and every one of these lakes and put the kayaks in. This was Mucho lake and it was smooth as glass making a perfect mirror to double the gorgeous view. 

It really is a "MUCHO" lake as it seemed to keep going and going and going...

Our next stop was in Dawson Creek, which is the beginning of the Alcan (Alaska Canadian Highway), Mile 0. Our campground had a museum right next door and it reminded me a bit of Greenfield Village with all it's buildings and replicas. Does this Hoosier cabinet look familiar to anyone?😃

 

No pretty stained glass windows here, but an old church that has been moved 4 times!

Dave was so happy looking at all the old wood working tools and machinery. 

He thought Dad would like this old Ford firetruck. 😀

 

They even had a whole building commemorating the building of the Alcan. It truly was quite a feat to build 1387 miles of highway in just over 8 months...in 1942! And we drove all of it!

We continued playing tourist and went to the Mile O post which happens to be right in the middle of the intersection! Good thing traffic was light and we could walk up and get a picture. 

Back on the road again as we head for Jasper and Banff National Parks. Stay tuned for more beautiful pictures to come!

Homer, Whittier, Wrangell- St. Elias and Valdez

Hello from the Homer Spit! Pretty nice view out the front of Phoebe looking into Kachemak Bay. So, small world, the host's at this campground are parents to a girl that my nephew Ben went to college with at Mississippi State! They were super nice but really busy so we only got a visit for a short time and I forgot to get a picture (sorry Ben!). It was cool watching the tide go in (right) and out (below).

Our paths crossed again with Bev & Cliff and we took a wildlife cruise together on the Rainbow Connection. We had some fun along the way with Cliff seeing no evil, me speaking no evil and of course Dave, hearing no evil! 😄  

We saw puffins...

 

 

... and humpback whales!

 

We stopped at Seldovia and had some lunch and walked around "town". Not a big place but they did have a post office and an ice cream shop with some interesting woodwork across the street!

We also saw this cool bird with orange eyes and beak. I think it was an oystercatcher. I'm happy to report that the boat trip back was nice and calm and no feeding of the fish from me😛. Just beautiful scenery...

We decided to get even closer with the scenery so the next day we put our kayaks on a water taxi and headed over to Yukon Island to paddle around it.

 

 

It was a cloudy, foggy morning but it made for some cool and eerie shots like with this jellyfish and the coastline below.

 

We stopped for lunch and to do some rock hounding, of course. Then back in the boats for more touring around the island.

My favorite spot was this smaller island that they call elephant island. It was so cool and the top was covered with flowers.

Dave's favorite was watching all of the eagles. I am pretty sure this one was watching Dave pretty closely too. The weather started clearing up a bit and made the scenery even more beautiful with those blue skies as a backdrop. 

At the spot where the water taxi picked us back up there was this perfect little opening into the next bay. I loved the framing of the picture with the mountains in the background, the treeline and the old boat up on shore. 

We finished our time at Homer by walking town and to Land's end which is at the very end of the Homer Spit. It reminded us of the Florida keys...but that's a long way away from here!

 

From Homer we went to Whittier. We camped a few miles away because there is a crazy 2.5 mile long tunnel that you have to go through to get to Whittier. I think that was the longest tunnel we've ever been in.

It was a little disconcerting that you couldn't see "light at the end of the tunnel" for so long. It also was a cloudy, rainy day but still, it was beautiful on the other side.

The next stop was Wrangell -St. Elias National Park. While it is the largest National park with over 13 million acres, it is not very developed. 

We boondocked just outside the park since we didn't fit at the only campground the park had. There was one other camper parked behind us (that will come into the story later!😀) .

 

 

We drove into Chitina, which is technically where the park started. We were a bit disappointed that there wasn't much there and even the ranger station was unattended (not to mention the pothole that was almost as big as the truck!). 

There also was no monument at the park boundary, just this sign saying McCathy Road...limited vehicle services...drive at your own risk! Thankfully, we have a 4x4 truck.😎

We were happy to get back on a paved road again on our way to Valdez. You continue to see the Wrangell - St. Elias mountain range all the way to the coast. We could even see it from our campsite.

By now you must be thinking..."this trip is going so well for them, nothing has gone wrong"... Well, our microwave oven died on us. Probably doesn't seem like too big of a deal but it is our oven too and really where I do the majority of our cooking. And did I mention we are in Alaska? No Home Depot around here and even the one in Anchorage couldn't get a new one for 2-4 weeks. So, my MacGyver husband built a shelf (I stained it so it would match 😉) so we could put a temporary small one up until we get back to the lower states and bigger Home Depots.      

Good thing the campsite was so peaceful to offset the microwave stress. 😄 Even Noodle enjoyed sitting outside in his catio taking in the view.

Okay, remember the other camper that boondocked by us...her name was Christine and she and her dog Zoe have been traveling the country in her van for the last few years. She also was on her way to Valdez and seeing our kayaks asked if we wanted to go with her to Glacier Lake and kayak thru the icebergs. SO GLAD WE SAID "YES"!!!!

To say it was EPIC, is an understatement. Not only was it a gorgeous day with the blue skies and puffy white clouds but it was relatively warm (65 degrees is nice when you are basically sitting in a lake with a lot of ice cubes!).

The scenery was beyond amazing and to be right next to these pieces of the glacier was breathtaking!

We paddled through "canals" that had just been made by pieces breaking apart. With the warmth of the sunshine on them you could hear them cracking in places. Where there were "caves" you could feel the waterfalls dipping on you.

Such cool formations as well! This one to the right made me think of a molar (shout out to our friend Carl, the dentist!). The one below I could see a humpback whale jumping up out of the lake (don't worry, it's just an iceberg with dark rocks on it!😄) but isn't the setting spectacular??

We saw seagulls and their babies, which are so cute and fluffy looking. Mama wasn't too happy when I got so close though. She gave me a earful until I paddled away.

The pictures just don't do it justice but these ice crystals were just glimmering in the sun for us with the aqua color at their base. It was just such a quintessential Alaskan adventure!! Thank you Christine for inviting us!

While we are loving our RVing adventures around the country there are some downsides to being so far away. August 7th was my Mom & Dad's 60th wedding anniversary and we weren't there to wish them well. Of course 10 years ago the whole family was together in Alaska on a cruise so maybe they should have been here with us now! 😁 We are so incredibly blessed to have them in our lives and celebrate their 60 years of marriage.  Not only does that show a huge commitment but when you consider they full timed in their RV for 15 years that's REALLY SOMETHING as we now know!  We thank God for their love of Him and giving us that incredible foundation in our lives! Happy 60th anniversary Mom & Dad! We'll be home in a few months as we now start our journey heading back east...