Anchorage to Whittier to Valdez

We left the hotel around 9AM. The drive to Whittier was spectacular. The Seward Hwy. had the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other side. Looking ahead, you see snow topped mountains. Part of the drive is through a train tunnel under the ocean. Cars can only enter on the half hour. It is one way & you straddle the train track. When we arrived in Whittier, there was a cruise ship there. Tourists were everywhere. Whittier is a small fishing village. We spent some time looking at the boats and had lunch sitting on a deck overlooking the water. Then it was time to go to the boat. On the cruise, we saw the following animals: an eagle in a tree top; porpoises swimming by boat; got a quick glimpse of a whale; saw puffins; and the sea lions were relaxing on the beach. All of these animals except the porpoises were seen with binocculars. The part that Rose & I liked best was the icebergs. We learned that in order to be classified as an iceberg, it has to be at least 15 feet long & 85% of any ice berg is below the water. Some of the ice bergs had a blue color that was amazing. We were lucky to be first off the boat. Our hotel was easy to find so we are calling it a night.

Tomorrow we will to back to Tok, AK. We have to back track because there aren't many roads in AK or Canada.  After that, Canada again. I am not looking forward to the Alaska Highway between the Canada border & White Horse. That road was nasty and full of pot holes. Oh well. I guess that will just make the trip more memorable.

Last day in Anchorage

Ray & Jim cleaned up the "A's today. The hotel was most gracious lending them hoses, towels and anything else that they needed. We had a good lunch at the hotel restaurant. The salmon was exceptionally good.  We left about 2:30PM for the solstice picnic at Mirror Lake that we were invited to by our "A" friends. There were over 100 cars there, all kinds of vehicles, including about 6 Model A's. The setting was picturesque with the mountains in the background. Most every house on the lake had a small pontoon plane One landed while we were there. Since it was a potluck, we were able to sample a lot of good food. Thanks to our new friends Jim & Carl for inviting us to the picnic. We will pack up tonight. This is the longest that we have stayed in one place (3days).
We have made a tentative plan for the next several days.  We will arrive in Valdez tomorrow night. Thursday we will go back to Tok. AK and will be on the Alaska Highway in Canada for a couple of days, going back through White Horse & Watson Lake before heading south on the Cassiar Highway. Our cell phone coverage will be very limited while we are in Canada.

On the way to the picnic, we turned over 6,000 miles for this trip.

Oh, I forgot to tell you that yesterday I ate a reindeer hot dog. It was very good. I did think about Rudolph & it bothered me a little to eat it.

Touring in Anchorage

We left the hotel this morning to go to the welcome center to make boat reservations. Someone yelled Hi, Santa. It was Ed, from Texas, our new "A" friend that helped us on the Alaska Highway when we had the wheel bearing problem. His wife had join him and they were going to tour Alaska for a few weeks. (The top photo)

Wednesday, we are going from Whittier to Valdez, a 6 hour boat trip. We will be able to see the glaciers and hopefully lots of sea life. Tomorrow we will have a lazy day but the good news is we have been invited to an antique car club solstice picnic. It has a lot of Model A's in it and there will be a variety of older cars. Ray & Jim plan to clean up our cars tomorrow prior to the picnic. 

We wanted to take our cars to the bay for photos but everywhre was off limits. I guess that is because of the Homeland Security Act. One place that we visited was the Ulu Eskimo Factory. These are fan shaped knives that Eskimos used to skin meat. Someone told Jim & Rose about a bird sanctuary and how nice it was. It wasn't anything more than a paved walking trail beside railroad tracks. Oh well at least we got some exercise. On the way out, we went by the Alaska statehood monument. It had a nice setting. Our travel brochures mention a dog sledding show. It turns out that it is not open on Monday but they were willing to let us walk through the kennels for $15.00 each. We passed on that. The Anchorage Museum was full in interesting facts about the different Eskimo tribes and their clothing, tools, etc. There were a lot of gold rush pictures too. When we were ready to leave, I saw a group of school children with clip boards drawing some of the items on display.  The teacher in me had to ask what they were doing. I met their teacher, a native who has made some reproductions of natives tools, shields etc. on display at the museum. He gave is his card he told us that he has things on display at Valdez, where we are going Wednesday. I am hoping to go the the museum in Valdez. We headed back to the hotel for a few hours to rest before dinner. Humpy's Restaunant came highly recommended and all of us wanted to have salmon in Alaska. So we went there. I got the crab & everyone else got the salmon. I was the only one with a good meal.  What a bummer!

We didn't add much mileage today because we just stayed in town.

Anchorage and the Pacific Ocean today & tomorrow

We saw lots of pretty views of Mount McKinley and the other mountains around Denali today. Stopped for gas and saw fiddle ferns for the first time. They grow to be about 3 1/2 feet tall. When they start to grow in the spring, they grow 10 inches a day. People like to eat them & compare them to asparagus. They are only good to eat the first couple of days after they sprout.  Near Wasilla (I understand that Wasilla is the home of Sarah Pallin). we went to The Alaska Museum of Transportation Industry. The museum had a lot of interesting vehicles including cars, boats, motors, and a train that you could walk through. We left there and continued on to Anchorage. On the edge of Anchorage, there was a caution sign that read: 201 moose killed on this highway from July 2010 to present. We ate dinner at Moose's Tooth Pub & Pizzeria. It was good pizza but I am not sure that it was worth the 1 1/2 hour wait for a table & additional hour after we were seated until we were served our pizza. Tomorrow we plan to do site seeing around Anchorage and Tuesday we hope to take a boat trip to see some glaciers and hopefully whales.  Our total mileage to date is: 5,843 miles. Both cars were running well today.

On to Denali

 We got a late start this morning. Rose & I did some laundry and then we all planned our itinerary for the next few days. Up to now, we were trying to reach our goal of the Arctic Circle. Now we will set goals every few days. We headed for Denali and stopped at a place called Skinny Dick’s to eat some lunch. We didn't know that it was an adult bar that served frozen pizza. It had all kinds of rules, if you entered. Needless to say, after a good laugh, we left and had a nice lunch about 20 miles down the road at a restaurant made of huge logs.
On the way back from the Arctic Circle, we heard noise from a squeaky fan in our car. Ray greased it & it seemed to be fine. Today, we heard it again & he could not stop the sound. He replaced the water pump. Of course Ray had a spare. The scenery at Denali is gorgeous. We saw a caribou but he was too far away to photograph. Then we rented a room at the Blueberry Inn, 20 miles south of Denali. The owner had to get our rooms ready & told us where to go to get something to eat. There were two places and the first one was closed. The Cantwell Lodge/Longhorn Bar & Café. It was a local hangout. There was a family there with twins about a year old. When we arrived, the bar tender/middle school teacher told us that the only food that he had was steak sandwiches. Needless to say, we all had steak sandwiches for dinner. It was fun talking to the locals. A mom told me that the school in the area has 23 students, grades K-12. The whole system has 3 schools, with the big school has a little over 200 students. The school in Canton has three teachers and one is a part time principal. This mom is from South Carolina but loves it here in Alaska.  She says that there is a sense of community and that neighbors all watch out for neighbors' kids. We were invited to stay and dance as they having a live band but we left to let the locals have their own fun. Today was a slower day, a little over 100 miles. 

We achieved our goal, the Arctic Circle!

We left about 8AM and drove to the Arctic Circle today. We had planned to leave earlier but Ray went out to do a little maintenance, including adjusting the points. The car wouldn't start. I guess he fixed it until it broke. It turned out that the points housing was shorting out against the distributor case. A little filing & we were on the road.

Mileage at the Actic Circle

It had rained here for a couple of days but cleared up yesterday. The weather was perfect and the mud was gone. We took the Elliot Highway out of Fairbanks & stopped at the Hilltop Gas Station. A trucker approached us and asked if we were taking the cars to the Arctic Circle. He said that the cars would get beat up but he would warn the truckers that we were coming.  We stopped at a gift store along the way & bought Arctic Circle souvenirs. It was owned by a couple with 23 children, 18 were adopted. We ate some muffins at went on. At the Dalten Highway, the road turned to dirt. This was the bumpiest part of the trip. We ate lunch at the Yukon River Camp, got gas & headed to the Arctic Circle. The Yukon River Camp sold Arctic Circle bumper stickers. Of course we bought one. We went over many steep hills including Beaver Slide, a place mentioned in the Ice Road Truckers Television Program. When we were at the Arctic Circle, a man asked Ray some questions about the engine. Ray raised the hood & noticed that he needed to replace the fan belt. No problem, it was a quick fix. We were almost back to Fairbanks when we heard a lot of clanging noise. We pulled over & picked up the muffler shield from our car. It is now trash but we didn't have to repair anything. I guess all of the bumpy roads made the welds break. The total time was a little over 13 hours. Believe it or not this was a good time. This included  a lunch stop, 2 gas stops & a souvenir stop. 

Total miles to date are: 5,241. Our route was 390 miles to the Arctic Circle. The elevation at the Arctic Circle was 11,161 feet. Originally we were going to head out to Denali Saturday but I think we will take a day of rest and maybe clean up the "A's". There is supposed to be a car show in the area. Something tells me that we may end up there too!

Made it to the end of the Alaskan Highway

We slept in today & left a little before 9AM.  Spent the night at the Golden Bear Hotel. In their dining area, they had a stuffed bear, about 8 foot tall. We had fun posing with it. Then on to Delta Junction, the official end of the Alaska Highway.  On the way there, we saw only one animal, a moose. It was far enough away that we did not have to worry about it running into us.  On down the road, we crossed a bridge over a river with lots of frozen ice on it. It surprised us to see all of the ice in mid June. When we arrived in Delta Junction, it was time to take some pictures. Ray & Jim decided to drive their cars across a field to park them at the sign for the official end of the Alaska Highway. The next stop on the agenda was North Pole, AK. It is just outside of Fairbanks. It was fun looking at all of the Christmas decorations and of course, seeing Santa. We made it to Fairbanks and went to the welcome center. The people their were helpful with hotel suggestions. Rose & I knew where we were staying when the guys found out that one of the hotels had an antique car museum on the premises. I have to admit that it is a very nice hotel and that I had fun looking at the cars and the period clothing that was on display. Tomorrow, Arctic Circle here we come!

Mileage today puts us over 5,000 miles with a little over 200 for today.