Blog

Blogger has been great for all these years, but now there is a technical glitch and they won't take the posts.  We're creating a new blog on a different host.  Here is a link to it:  https://steveandjudystravels.com/

 We're going to populate the new blog with all the posts beginning January 1, 2019.  In the meantime, all my posts start out as a daily trip report email.  If you would like to receive them directly, send me an email at spt@TheTaylorCompany.net and I’ll put you on the list.

Steve

Thursday

 

I added the Chiswell Islands to the map.

 

Kenai Peninsula

 

Then we headed off to Anchorage.  Every once in a while, on a trip this long, we have to stop at civilization and get groceries, replacement parts, haircuts, and pizza.  A one-night stay here takes care of that.

 

Anchorage area

 

Here’s a thing.

It’s a restaurant called “the Bridge”, and it literally is, a bridge across Ship Creek.

 

Next stop, parts unknown to us.  Glenallen.

 

Saturday

We’re back in Whittier; this time for more than a day trip.

 

Kenai Peninsula

 

We got a room with a view.

(I might have overused that phrase, but I can’t help myself.)  Dry camping.  No facilities.  No problem.

 

Saturday

We’re back in Whittier; this time for more than a day trip.

 

Kenai Peninsula

 

 

08-07 test

 

 

We had that plan to go east through Houston, then north.  Now we’re getting notices from the state parks we had reservations at, that the parks that direction are closed due to the severe weather flooding.  Our decision to go west just got validated.

 

Now we’re at Abilene State Park.

The Great Alaska Trip map

 

Tucked into our forest campsite.

 

 

3,778 miles to Fairbanks.

 

And one of these things is not like the other

 

 

 

We’ve picked off two more counties!

 

Tuesday

There is a spot here on the spit called the Fishing Hole.  A lot of people fish it.  We were told the Dept of Fish and Game stocked it.  We took one look and concluded this made no sense!  The Fishing Hole fills and empties twice a day with the tides.  What sense would it make to stock it if all the fish just flushed right out?

Then a thought (a few days later).  Salmon.  Did Fish and Game stock the fishing pond every year with salmon minnows, or better yet fertilized eggs from the hatchery?  Did those eggs hatch and/or those minnows go grow in the ocean for years, then return home to spawn in a fishing hole?  Deceived salmon with no hope of spawning.  Every day, fishermen lining the edges of the channel leading in and out of the Fishing Hole catching them.

The aurora borealis was here.  Special conditions made it visible this far south.  But only while it’s dark.  There’s the first challenge.  It doesn’t get kind of dark until midnight.  It was to be a two-day event.  We heard about it after the first night.  We saw pictures of the northern lights the night before taken from Homer.  So up we stayed the next night.  I made it until 12:30.  Judy made it until 2:00.  Nothing.  I even got an aurora finder app for the phone so we’d know all we could about when it would be where.  Turns out the days are not listed by local location, they’re listed by Greenwich Mean Time.  When we think it’s going to show up on Tuesday, that was Tuesday Greenwich Mean Time, and that Tuesday is already gone.  It’s Tuesday here, but it’s Wednesday there, which is the day after the aurora borealis was visible here.

We play homing pigeon.  Judy drops me off a few miles from the house and I find my way home.  Next thing she’ll probably want me to wear a blindfold until she releases me.

Monday

Maybe Alaska is exactly like Hawaii, except in Hawaii there is no snow and cold to chase a person south.

There is something about Alaska that is troubling me though.  Alaska honors Daylight Savings Time.  All summer long, we're going to bed while the sun is still up and waking up the next morning with the sun high on the horizon.  What's the point?  What is there to save when it's daylight all the time anyway!?  You'd think they would reverse the concept and save some of that summer daylight for the winter months when they really need it.

Our Colorado granddaughter, Taylor, is off on an adventure.  She flew to London and spent her birthday touring museums.  Then she got on a train to Aberdeen, Scotland,

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Aberdeen,+UK/@59.5960567,-79.6605341,3.16z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x4884054c1fd77549:0xe8bb05da5cf4c472!8m2!3d57.149717!4d-2.094278

… where she met up with the professor leading the dig Taylor is going to be working on for the next two weeks.  They're excavating a bronze-age village.

And another anniversary.  Fourteen years ago today, we bought the 2005 Beaver Monterey Motorhome that is still serving us so well.

A drive in the Jeep on the beach during low tide at Anchor Point.

The Anchor River flowing to the sea.

And all us this will be under ocean after the 20-foot tide claims it.

Meanwhile, Henry is a happy boy.

(The volcano in the background, on the other side of the Cook Inlet, is the one Judy and I flew around just a few weeks back.)