Kind of a Fowl day............

Tuesday, May 18, 2010
5:00 AM -- ARE YOU SERIOUS?? Bags had to be out of our hotel room by 5:00 to be loaded before our 6:00 AM departure. Guess our tour director and driver/guides didn't like that any more than we tourists did, since they load the luggage. But hey, this is a big state and we've got lots of ground to cover, so get crackin'. Most of us skipped breakfast this morning, since we'll have a coffee stop in downtown Chicken early today, a 78 mile drive from Tok. Chicken was settled during the gold rush, and during that first scarce winter, the residents of the area survived by eating ptarmigan, now the state bird that is similar in size and appearance to a chicken. The miners, so the story goes, weren't sure how to spell ptarmigan, so they called their town Chicken. Winter population is about 15 people, and can soar to 40 or 50 during the summer tourist season.

During our bus ride, Peter handed out gifts we got from Dave and crew at the Tok Westmark. Each of us got a t-shirt with the picture of our group on the front, and a thank you card.

As we're approaching Chicken, Jordan mentioned that they actually have an airport there. When we passed it, he pointed out the "Chicken Strip." (You knew it was coming didn't you?) Downtown Chicken consists of three businesses: Mercantile, Saloon/Liquor Store, and the Chicken Creek Cafe.

Don and I each ordered a breakfast sandwich from the Cafe, but what I really wanted was PIE. The pies looked fabulous, but we tried to be smart since it's going to be a long day and we needed something other than dessert to keep us going. The sandwiches were huge and delicious, but forgive me -- I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture until it was nearly gone. Here's a strange little factoid about Chicken: They have no indoor plumbing, they have no cell phone service, but they do have WiFi.

As I was talking with Jordan and Dave, Don was talking with the clerk at the Chicken Mercantile, who is from Green Bay, Wisconsin. We keep running into people from Wisconsin.....it's a small world.

We've been traveling on the Alaska Highway and the Taylor Highway today. The Taylor is paved between Tok and Chicken, but it's packed gravel, narrow and winding with some hairpin curves between Chicken and Eagle, which is where we're headed. We now have the services of a pickup in the lead, whose driver has radio contact with our driver guide Jordan. Jordan said he really puts a lot of trust into this guy: he'll notify us if there are rocks in the road, or if there's oncoming traffic. We had good weather, so the road was in pretty good shape, but if it's been rainy, the conditions can deteriorate quickly, and knowing when a vehicle has to move over a bit can be pretty important.


The scenery isn't nearly as good as it might have been. This area was decimated by forest fires in 2005 and the fireweed was not yet in bloom when we were there. It does give you a nice perspective of the road, though.
It was along this tough stretch of the trip that we discovered our trainee driver/guide Dave Harris has a great talent. We hadn't seen this done before and were totally amazed. He split this apple in half using only his hands. (I do have a video of the whole thing, but can't seem to get it loaded).





The snowbanks --- in Mid May!


And a picture of Penny sporting her new necklace.


Due to the long ride today on the Taylor Highway, we received a box lunch to eat aboard the coach. Not a bad lunch, but since I had eaten that enormous breakfast sandwich at Chicken, I really wasn’t hungry, so I gave my lunch to the drivers. Jordan told us he eats very little during the day because having a full meal can make him sleepy, which would not be a good thing on these roads with a bus full of tourists – many of whom are napping themselves. At this part of our trip, we drove by the Top of the World Highway, but we didn't take that route into Eagle.

When the coach pulled into Eagle, a couple of school children, about 12 -13 years old, came onto the bus to greet us. We then followed one of the children up the steps to the former Eagle Courthouse for a mock trial. The student selected Stu Ledingham as the judge (because he looks like Judge Wickersham who established Eagle as the first Federal courthouse in Alaska’s interior).


Several of our group volunteered to be the jury, and Allan Sales was the defendant. Now, it may or may not have been a fair trial, especially since the defendant’s wife was on the jury, but Mr. Sales was found guilty and was directed to leave town and not return. It was pretty entertaining to watch our travel mates display their thespian talents.

Don and I were surprised to find pictures of General Wm. Mitchell (for whom the Milwaukee airport is named) hung prominently on the courthouse walls. In 1900, at the age of 21, Lt. Mitchell was headquartered in Eagle and was in charge of much of the building of the WAMCATS (Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System). The line was completed in 1903, and the residents of Eagle recognize his leadership in bringing communications to their town.

When the trial was over, we toured the museum and the Eagle Mall.


Then back on the bus for a short ride to the Yukon River and our trip to Dawson City, Yukon Territory aboard the Yukon Queen II. We saw a lot of damage in Eagle which was flooded by an early spring thaw just last year. Although there’s still a lot to be done, it’s clear the townspeople have worked many hundreds of hours doing clean-up.

The Yukon Queen II is operated by Gray Line of Alaska, which is owned by Holland America. The Yukon Queen II is a luxurious catamaran with a friendly and knowledgeable crew who served us a delicious meal (I had beef tips and Don had chicken) and gave us a running commentary about the folklore, history and geology of the river during the 5 hour trip to Dawson City. It was on this trip that many of us caught our first upclose viewing of a brown bear. It caused quite the stir onboard with everyone grabbing their cameras and getting the best shot of the trip!




The seats on the Yukon Queen II were comfortable and there was room to move around and the ride was definitely smooth and interesting. And the servers included our own tour director Peter!

While we were enjoying our placid boat ride (on which I had a little snooze), our bus drivers were driving the challenging Top of the World Highway to meet us in Dawson City. Those able bodied drivers made the road trip, washed the bus (where do they do that??) and were waiting for us upon our arrival into Dawson City. They drove us from the riverbank to the Westmark Hotel where we'll stay for the next two nights.

Fairbanks to Tok (rhymes with Poke).....

Monday, May 17, 2010
We had a "late" departure today (not until 8:30) and a full schedule ahead. Today is the first full day with our bus driver/guide Jordan Mower. He's quite a character, with a unique sense of humor. Early in our trip, he announced that the coach was equipped with a bathroom on board, and we should feel free to use it as needed. He had just one request: "I'd ask that all of you remain seated during the entire performance, so the men don't come out looking like they were in a fight with a fire hose." He also told us about the Catholic Church in Fairbanks that was moved many years ago from one side of the Chena River to the other. Horses pulled the church across the ice, using logs to roll it. So Jordan told us it was the first holy roller church in Alaska. And the humor just went downhill from there. :-) I'll share a few more Jordanisms in upcoming posts. Stay tuned....you won't want to miss them. Or maybe you would!



I thought winters in northern Wisconsin, where I spent most of my life, had cold weather, but I've never seen heat tubes on the streets like they have in Fairbanks.

Our first stop was at the Alyeska pipeline, right beside the Elliot Highway near Fairbanks. The pipeline is buried underground where possible, but Alaska has this thing called permafrost(as in permanent frost) which is good solid ground as long as it stays frozen. When it thaws, however, it becomes more like quicksand. At those locations, they bring the pipeline out of the ground. The pipeline lays on huge support beams that can withstand the expansion and contraction of the pipeline caused by the extreme temperature variations, and, since it crosses over 5 different fault locations, it's engineered to survive an 8.5 earthquake. The exposed pipeline is elevated a minimum of 10 feet to allow wildlife to pass underneath without trouble.



Next, onward to the El Dorado gold mine for a tour and the chance to strike it rich panning for gold. The tour included a short ride on a narrow guage train with some demonstrations and narrations along the way. The train conductor played a fiddle and sang "North to Alaska" which he mistakenly credited to Johnny Cash rather than Johnny Horton. I wouldn't have known the difference, but Don knew immediately! We watched some of the gold mine staff work the sluice box (google it) then we each got a bag of tailings to pan for our own gold.



We took our gold into their store where they weighed it and told us what is was worth. Combined, we had $14.00 worth. You could purchase a necklace, or earrings or other jewelry for a small fee to put your gold dust in. We took a pass.

Back into the coach, and a few minutes later we stopped at Gold Dredge #8, where we were served a miners stew lunch. As you can see from this picture of Bernie and Lori Steinberger of Utah, the lunch was finger lickin' good.

The gold dredge is fairly recent history compared to the sluice process. It's like a giant powerblaster that separates the gold from the soil. The yard surrounding the dredge contained various parts and pieces of machinery used in the dredge, and we found a big piece of something made by a company we were pretty familiar with:


Now I have to back up and give you some information about our coach ride. Each of our name tags had a colored star on it, and each day a different color would board the coach first. By doing this, all guests were given a chance to sit near the front. There were a couple of exceptions: Ray and Darlene Reynolds of Iowa had front seats reserved because they didn't have the mobility needed to get to the back of the bus. Don and I had reserved seats in the second row, because of my motion sensitivity.

Peter, our tour director, had a little stuffed dog he called Penny on a carabiner loop, which he hung from the overhead rack in the coach. At each stop, he would move Penny to the opposite side, and that side of the coach would get to exit first. This seemed a bit childish to me, but little things can get people worked up, and I'm guessing Holland America has this figured out. In a little while, you'll know why I mentioned this.

Next stop: Santa Claus House in North Pole, Alaska.


I think someone said it looked like Christmas threw up inside that place, and that pretty much describes it. If you can't find a Christmas decoration there, you're not trying! I did find a little ornament shaped like a dog bone that I thought was pretty cute. We spent some time shopping, and once we were back on the coach, Peter presented each of us with a deed to One Square Inch of property in North Pole, Alaska. Hmmmm....wonder how much the tax bill is on that??

Back onto the coach heading toward Rika's Roadhouse at milepost 275 on the Richardson Highway in Big Delta.


Rika's was originally built in the early 1900s on the banks of the Tanana River as a resting place for trappers, prospectors and traders of the area. Today, it's a state historical park. Inside Rika's were some fabulous fur coats, which some of the ladies modeled. I don't think anybody parted with the cash needed to actually make a purchase, but they had some fun doing the runway thing! We had a few minutes to shop and stretch our legs before loading up again for the next destination. Here's where something strange happened. While we were off the bus, Penny disappeared. Hanging from the caribiner was nothing more than a dog-shaped Christmas ornament.

We drove on toward Tok and our rooms for the night at the Westmark, crossing over the Tanana River and seeing some pretty thick ice, considering it's mid-May.

We finally arrived at the Westmark Hotel in Tok, a town of about 1800 people, which will be home for one night. The hotel is a complex of 6 buildings I think, and I felt a little like a mouse looking for the cheese in a maze, but the room was comfortable enough. The manager of the restaurant, Dave Merrill, met us on the bus, told us how honored he was that we were there, and I felt he might have been a stand up comic in another life. When we were all off the bus, he asked us to group together and one of his staff members took a picture of our whole group. We checked into our room and went back to hotel restaurant for dinner. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of our food -- can't really remember what we ate, but we know it was Italian, and it was delicious. As we left the restaurant, I discovered Penny in my purse. I have NO idea how she got there! So I gave Penny to the hostess and asked her to give it to Peter, who was still in the dining room, and told her not to tell him who gave it to her. After dinner, we took a little walk, and then headed to bed. Early departure tomorrow!

In our room was this small, crude weapon to use on those infamous Alaskan mosquitoes.


And I've never seen a sign like this one before:

Really Earned My Wings.................

Sunday, May 16, 2010
This morning Don was to meet Denali Air at 7:00 to take him on a flight to view Mt McKinley, and the sun is shining for the first time since we arrived in Denali. Unfortunately, he was the only person registered, and they required at least one more person to sign up before they would go. They told him to check with them at the top of each hour to see if anybody had signed up. When he told me what was going on, I thought about it for a little while and decided to join him. It could be the highlight of my trip! I'm a little afraid of taking a small airplane (alright --- a LOT afraid of taking a small airplane). But we haven't seen THE mountain yet and the weather today is in our favor, so I decided to try it. Don told me after the flight that Mt McKinley up close is fabulous! I took his word for it, because I had my eyes closed most of time, concentrating on keeping my breakfast in my stomach.



The outfitter was great, and our pilot, R.D, was great, pointing out things we should look for. R.D. told us the winds were over 100 mile per hour at the Mountain, and because of that, we were not able to fly on the south side where 30+ climbers were.


What looks like clouds in the picture below is actually snow blowing off the mountain.


Don told me after we got home that at one point, the airplane got pushed to the right about 50 feet or so. It didn't tip, or dip, it just got pushed and continued flying straight ahead, parallel to where we had been. Again, I just have to take his word for it.
The next three pictures show glaciers coming down the mountain.







As soon as the wheels hit the ground, I put my head in my hands - so thankful to be back on solid ground. And really glad beyond measure that Don was able to go. We were both awarded our "Denali Air" wings, and I'll treasure mine forever because I'll never get another set. Below: YAY, It's over!!!


When we returned to the lodge after our flight, we had already checked out of our room so we hung around the lodge where I relaxed and took a little snooze on one of the couches in the common area. After a couple of hours, we caught a shuttle to the visitors center and spent about an hour before boarding the McKinley Explorer train to Fairbanks.

We arrived in Fairbanks about 8:00 and were transported from the train station to the Westmark Hotel via coach. After checking into our room, we walked across the street to the Iris Saloon and ended up having a beer and getting acquainted with our travel mates, Howard and Judy Zucker from Delaware and Stan and Donna Zucker from NY. Howard and Stan are brothers, and we enjoyed visiting with all of them. Howard definitely has the most flair for telling stories; we all had good laughs listening to him. Really nice people who all seem to be at least 10 years younger than they really are. Tomorrow morning we leave Fairbanks for our destination of Tok, AK.

Into Denali National Park

Saturday, May 15, 2010
Today was a bus trip through Denali National Park. It's quite cloudy today and again we won't get to see Mt. McKinley. I'm beginning to think that the mountain and native-born, non-tribal Alaskans are really figments of the imagination; they don't really exist. Seems most people up here come for the tourist season from the lower 48, then return home to Michigan, Iowa, Oregon, Colorado, etc for the winter. Today our bus driver/guide's name is River White (his parents were free spirits in the 60's). He's been doing this summer gig for 22 years and was a great guide, but we didn't have much luck spotting many animals. Those we did see were so far away, it was like they were specks in the fields. The bus was equipped with drop down screens in several of the seats, and River had use of a fabulous camera, which he zoomed in and displayed on the screens in the bus. Seemed like we were watching a good National Geographic documentary, but we can do that at home for a lot less money, right?? Here are a few shots - but we zoomed WAY in and cropped the pictures so we could actually get an image worth looking at.





Our bus tour was a shortened version of the Tundra Wilderness Tour. There are only a few places where buses can turn around, and because we were traveling so early in the season, we went only 30 miles into the park. The next turn-around after that 30 mile mark is usually snow covered this time of year, so there is no traffic allowed past this point. You return on the same road you went in, but you don't really notice that too much, because the sighting of animals is ever changing and exciting. I was disappointed in this trip, because my expectations were unrealistic. I really expected it to be like Yellowstone, with herds of animals crowding the roads, oblivious to the tourists. Wasn't like that at all for us. We saw a lot of snowshoe hares and willow ptarmigans (Alaska's state bird) but not much to get excited about. Again, it's early in the season and maybe the animals weren't moving too much.





When we returned to the resort, we stopped by the HAL excursion office and Don booked a tour on a small plane to fly to Mt McKinley tomorrow, then headed to our room took a little nap to re-energize ourselves for the next activity: Black Diamond Covered Wagon Dinner. We were picked up by a bus at the resort and taken to the Black Diamond complex. Our group was a bit small, and we were divided between two covered wagons, each pulled by two draft horses, given lots of blankets because it was rather cold, and we began the 30-40 minute ride to the cabin in which they serve the dinner. Some other people joined the group via ATVs.



The grilled food was just ok - nothing exceptional. The quality of the food definitely wasn't as good as last night's dinner at Cabin Nite. Our trip through the forest might have been more enjoyable if we hadn't had to listen to our trail guide, Kevin, babble about himself during the entire trip out and back. The price was $89 per adult, and we felt was overpriced by at least twenty bucks.

North to Denali

May 14, 2010
This morning a coach bus took 41 of us to the Alaska Rail yard to board the McKinley Explorer to Denali National Park.


The train car has a glass domed roof, and fine dining on the lower level. Our tour director gave each of us a name tag when we got on the train; our job was to find whoever had our tag and get to know them. The train ride is about 7 hours long which sounds rough, but we had a guide who gave us bits of information about the areas we were passing through, and about Alaska in general.






We also got to know some of our travel mates, and enjoyed some food in the dining car. At breakfast, we dined with Bob and Sue (who we found out later prefers to be called Carol) Panosh from Missouri. Bob and Don hit it off right away; they both think about food all the time. Throughout the trip, the two of them made sure the other knew where the best food buy was. The food was tasty, but not very hot. Jordan Mower, the driver of our coach, recommended the "fruits of the forest" pie, and since that's supposed to be served cold, we ordered it. It was delicious. We learned throughout the trip to believe everything Jordan told us!!

We kept a look out for Mt. McKinley which is sometimes visible, but we didn't get to see it. We arrived at Denali National park in the late afternoon, and took a coach bus to McKinley Chalet Resort.



Holland America (HAL) had already checked us into our room, and delivered our luggage. Super convenient for us. We took a walk about the village - it felt really good to walk a bit. The weather was in the 50's with a strong wind which made it a little cool. We had tickets for Cabin Nite at the resort. The food - all you can eat which made Don and Bob very happy - was fabulous. Nice fresh salad, ribs, salmon, bean, corn, potatoes, biscuits and blackberry cobbler. The salmon was to die for.





The servers also put on a historical musical about the early gold rush settlers of the region. They choose a couple of guests from the audience to participate in their play, and of course, Don was one of them chosen. They must have seen his resume with that big part he played in the 4-H play many years ago. I wasn't able to get any pictures because he was blocked from my view during his performance. But he did an oscar-worthy job!



Back to our cabin about 9:30 (and yes, it's still light out) but time to hit the hay for a 7:00 am tour tomorrow.

Anchorage - Day 2

Checked out of the hotel and caught the People Mover to downtown Anchorage, dropped our luggage at the Westmark Hotel where we'll be staying tonight and went to the visitor center to buy "Trolley and Traditions" tickets for the Red Trolley and the Native Alaska Heritage Center. We were the only people on the Red Trolley tour. It's a family run business, with dad Caleb Alderman driving the trolley, and his son Cyrus organizing and promoting the business on the street. Great people! After the one-hour trolley ride, on which we saw a couple of moose (or is it meese?) close up, we caught a shuttle to the Heritage center a few miles out of town.

Once you pay your entry fee, you're hooked up with a tour guide. Again, we were the only 2 people with our guide, Shawntay. (It pays to go early in the season when there aren't dozens of tour buses hitting these places.) The Native Alaskans are grouped into 5 culture groupings. Shawntay is part of two of those clans (Yupik and Sugpiag), part Cherokee, and part Irish. She is married with 2 children that are home schooled and learning as much as possible the ways of her people; they have no running water, they heat with wood, they live off the land when they can. She reminded us very much of Don's cousin Jeneanne in both her actions and her appearance, and neither Don nor I were smart enough to take a picture of her. The afternoon was very informative and, although we didn't know it at the time, it really helped us understand more of the country as our tour progressed.

We caught the shuttle back to town, then bought a reindeer sausage from Tia's Gourmet trolley cart on the street - very popular in Anchorage. It sort of tasted like a mild Italian sausage, and we thought it would be real unique, but we found reindeer sausage to be readily available throughout our trip.






We then did some "touristing", bought some souvenirs and took a walk around town to take photos. We had seen great reviews about the Glacier Brewhouse, which was right across the street from the hotel, so we went there for dinner. We weren't real hungry, but knew we had to get something before the night was over. Don ordered seafood chowder and bread pudding; I had carrot coriander soup and Aloha pie. It was all super delicious - we highly recommend this place, but it's busy so go early and plan to wait a few minutes for a table.





We met our tour director, Peter Gaspar, in the lobby of the Westmark and get our initial travel documents. Don made sure Peter knew of my motion sensitivity, so Peter was kind enough to reserve seats for us in the front of the coach for our entire trip. Thank you Peter!! It made my trip so enjoyable! Tomorrow we are to be on the coach by 7:00 am for our trip to Denali.