Category: Personal

Those who follow these blog postings know that we have had a goal to visit all fifty states as a family before Tom goes off to college.  These next few blog posts will document this summer’s vacation and our last seven (or so) states toward that goal.  We will complete this quest three days before taking Tom up to West Point to begin “Beast Barracks,” a.k.a. Cadet Basic Training.

Day one was just a travel day.  After working four hours Wednesday morning, I packed, and we headed to the airport.  After three flights and a Whataburger in the Dallas airport, we arrived at Ft. Bliss, TX, for the night.  The next morning we drove from Ft. Bliss to Carlsbad Caverns, arriving around lunchtime.   We had a pretty good lunch in the snack bar and then headed into the caves.

There are two self-guided tours of the caverns.  The first begins at the natural entrance, shown above.  We descended about 750 feet through a series of switch backs and trails through interesting rock formations.  We’ve been to other cave systems, and some of the Venturers have even done crawl-through-the-mud spelunking, but the shear size of these caverns is hard to imagine until you see it yourself.

The caves are inhabited by hundreds of thousands of small bats that come out at night to hunt (more on that later).  Their daytime perches are well hidden up in the “rafters,” because we never saw any during our four hours underground.

At the “bottom” of the natural entrance self-guided tour, is the “big room.”  This includes a snack bar and souvenir shop as well as latrines.  The latrines were interesting.  You walk down what looks like an unimproved cave “hallway” that ends in modern, porcelain facilities.  This area also has elevators to take you back to the surface — emptying you in the gift shop.

The second self-guided tour begins here and is of the “big room.”  This is where you really get a chance to see how big Carlsbad Caverns are.

The park ranger we met while descending into the caverns said that Carlsbad Caverns are the largest “rooms” of any caves known in North America.  The longest cave system (measured in number of caves? linear feet? hammerdoos?) is Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.  Serendipitously, we are going to see Mammoth Cave later in the trip and will provide our comparisons of the two.

It is difficult to see the scale of these caves, but they are at least 100 feet tall here.

After our four hours in the caves we checked into our hotel just outside the national park in White’s City.  The hotel was next to a small “water park,” which was included in our room rate.  We spent a little time on the giant water slide and in the pool before heading to dinner.  There is one restaurant in White’s City and Yelp destroyed it, so we went to Happy’s half way to the city of Carlsbad.

Happy’s was the kind of local hole in the wall we like to take in while on vacation.  There was a lot of kitschy stuff on the walls and scattered around.  While you sat in booths, you ordered at the counter.  The woman behind the counter cracked me up.  Sam wanted a small steak.  When I ordered it, she just looked at me and shook her head.  “You’re out of them?”  “No,” she replied in a conspiratorial voice, “They’re small, thin, purchased at Walmart, and the chef doesn’t know how to cook them.”  So, Sam had the chicken fried steak instead.  The “normal” hamburger that I had was 3/4 pound and excellent.  This place wasn’t much on ambiance, but the food was great!

After dinner we went back to Carlsbad Caverns for the night bat show.  Every evening about dusk, those hundreds of thousands of bats swarm out of the cave entrance for their nocturnal hunting.

See a nice video here.

Day three was mostly a travel day to get from New Mexico to Oklahoma City.  Along the way we made a couple of stops to break up the long drive.  Despite rain of Biblical proportions in the evening we arrived safely in Oklahoma City — to find out there was a mix-up at the hotel and our rooms hadn’t been cleaned.  We had to wait almost a half hour in the lobby while they called the chief maid back to prepare our room.

 

 One of my favorite fast food places is Wienerschnitzel, which specializes in hotdogs.  Their chili dogs are excellent.  These are all over Texas, and we used to frequent one when we lived in College Station.  I just HAD to stop and have some Wienerschnitzel chili dogs and their “Polish sandwich” as we passed through Lubbock.

Outside Amarillo, we had to stop at Cadillac Ranch.  For some unknown reason these cars have been buried nose down in the mud just off of I-40 West of Amarillo.  People go out and spray paint the cars.  What was kind of interesting as “pop art,” looks a little junky with all the used and partially used cans of spray paint strewn around.

Our last stop on our way through Amarillo before racing arks carrying pairs of animals to Oklahoma City was a real gem.  Just outside Amarillo is Jack Sizemore’s Traveland RV Museum.  These folks claim to be the oldest RV retailer in Texas.  Jack Sizemore has been collecting and refurbishing RVs for years.  He decided to devote some of his lot to erecting a metal building and turning it into a museum to give his customers something to do while waiting for their RVs to be repaired or serviced.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but this was a real pleasure to visit.

One thing that was nice is that you can enter almost every trailer.  They all have period-appropriate props and decorations.  Except for one or two things marked with “do not sit” or “do not touch” signs, visitors are free to go where they want.  There are no docents or guards.

This is an example of how visitors are allowed to interact with the various displays.  I found it amazing that there weren’t a bunch of rope lines to keep you away from the displays.

All the displays have signs in front of them to explain a little of the history of each trailer.

As I mentioned earlier, this little museum was originally built to give waiting customers something to do.  Look at this map showing the homes of people who have visited the museum.  Like Old Pioneer Village in Nebraska, this was an unexpected treat.

I got in a discussion recently about what makes a movie a Christmas movie.  (By the way, in this post, I will use the term “movie” liberally, applying it to 22-minute short animated shorts as well as live action feature films.)  The movie in question was March of the Wooden Soldiers, starring Laurel and Hardy.  While most people don’t know who Laurel and Hardy were, I still find their shorts and features entertaining.  I’ve always considered this a Christmas movie, probably because it was shown on television around the holidays when I was a kid, no one had cable television, and you had to be home to watch these holiday favorites the one or two times a season they would be on television.

But what about this movie makes it a Christmas movie?  Santa Claus appears for a few minutes in one scene, but the movie doesn’t revolve around a Christmas message or even a storyline remotely related to Christmas.  It features clever effects (for its time) depicting nursery rhyme characters.  The humor is light and clean — as would be expected of a movie of its vintage.  The story is uncomplicated and fun, with a happy ending.  Perhaps what makes a movie a Christmas movie is clean family entertainment, a few laughs, and a happy ending?  Is that enough to be considered a Christmas (or holiday) movie?

While I like Die Hard and even the second film in the series, just because it takes place on Christmas Eve I can’t consider this a Christmas movie.  Somehow dozens if gruesome killings doesn’t seem like a family, holiday movie to me.

While You Were Sleeping is among my favorite chick flicks, but I never considered it a Christmas movie.  My daughter recently claimed that it is, and I think she is right.  It takes place at Christmas, and many of the scenes revolve around Christmas celebrations and traditions.  The ending is a bit sappy, but it ends on a high note and is generally a very family friendly film.

Frosty the Snowman, featuring Jimmy Durante singing the title song which he made a hit in the 1940s or 1950s, always aired during the ramp up to Christmas, so I always considered this a Christmas movie.

In retrospect, these Rankin Bass Christmas movies often portray Santa as not so nice, but they are Christmastime staples at our house — and probably yours.  Is any movie with Santa Claus a Christmas movie?  Rudolph has to be considered a Christmas classic; most of your favorite versions of many holiday songs are the Burl Ives version from this movie.

And of course, there have been many versions of A Christmas Carol.  It think it would be hard to argue that this is not a Christmas movie.  If you haven’t seen this version, you are missing out.

The Patrick Stewart version is quite good — and his radio adaptation of him reading the story is worth the money as well.

Holiday Inn takes place across a full year of holidays, but it debuted the song “White Christmas,” and the movie’s finale takes place on Christmas Eve with Bing reprising the song and winning the girl.  While largely overshadowed by its big budget, VistaVision follow-on, this is a terrific movie to watch at Christmastime.

Though most of the dancing and singing sequences have little to do with Christmas, the basic plot that Bing and Danny pull together a nice Christmas present for their former commanding general is both fun, heartwarming, and tear jerking.  All of us former military folks aspire to that level of loyalty and respect; few achieve it.

If you don’t have to brush away a tear at the end of this movie, you are pretty callous.  I don’t know if this is a Christmas movie, per se, but it ends at Christmas and has a warm feel throughout.  This is the movie that make Bing Crosby a movie star as well as a singing star.

Bells of St. Mary’s is decidedly not a Christmas movie, but as wholesome family entertainment, this is great for the holiday season.

Meet Me in St. Louis is a movie that is NOT about Christmas, but it ends at Christmas and featured a hit single, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”  Apparently if a movie ends at Christmastime, it is often considered a Christmas movie.

Another example of a movie that has nothing to do with Christmas, ends at Christmastime, and is considered a Christmas movie.

The Little Drummer boy has a clear Christmas message.  While not as enjoyable as some of the other Rankin Bass movies, it is nonetheless well worth the time to watch it.

A Year Without a Santa Claus portrays Santa in a little better light than Rudolph.

It Happened on 5th Avenue is a terrific, though forgotten, film.  It involves a group of (oddball) strangers who meet around Christmastime in New York City, work through their troubles, change for the better, do nice things for each other, etc.  If you haven’t see this movie, you are missing a really great movie.

There have been a few remakes of this classic, but none match the original.  Based on a short story, this a fun movie about a man who thinks he is Santa Claus and all the things he does to help a number of people.

A Christmas Story was a sleeper when it first came to theaters.  It has become a classic staple in our house — despite Ted Turner showing it for 24 hours on Christmas day and threatening to over play it as they did with It’s a Wonderful Life.

Though revolving around the secular, rather than religious, meaning of Christmas, the first two movies in this series are solid family entertainment.  This movie was nice in the way it explained a lot of the Santa mythos.

Christmas in Connecticut is a largely forgotten gem in the vein of the screwball comedy.  Involving secrets, hidden identities, an overbearing boss, some fun character actors, and a happy ending, we’ve always considered this a Christmas movie.  Though Christmas is in the title, the fact that it takes place during the Christmas season and involves some celebrations and traditions, makes it clearly a Christmas movie in my book.  Don’t waste your time with the 1970’s remake; see the original.

Christmas Vacation has many hilarious scenes, but it is not appropriate for younger kids.  Now that my kids are older, this has become a holiday seasons staple. The Christmas message is a little light, but Chevy Chase is trying to make a special Christmas for his family as he goes through a number of slapstick misadventures.

The Veggie Tales videos were originally sold only in Christian book stores but are widely available now.  This one and Rack, Shack, and Benny are my two favorites.  This one is about a group of kids — and a toy, named Buzzsaw Louie — trying to find the true meaning of Christmas.  The whole series of Veggies Tales videos are good for both adults and kids.

Another forgotten gem, The Lemon Drop kids, based on a Damon Runyon story, is about a confidence man who is down on his luck and comes up with a scheme to dress up as Santa and collect money on street corners.  The movie has an ending not unlike the Capra classic Lady for a Day.  This movie also introduced the world to the Christmas song “Silver Bells.”

Saving probably the best for last, if you haven’t seen this gem, you are again missing out.  The movie centers around a bishop and his wife who are visited by an angel around Christmastime.  In the end, the Bishop realizes that even he has lost sight of the true meaning of Christmas and family.  There are a number of memorable scenes.  Unlike modern movies this is not about action.  Listen to the dialog.  There is a lot of depth to this film.

So, I started out trying to answer the question,”What makes a movie a Christmas movie.”  Along the way, I highlighted some of my favorite Christmas films, but I’m not sure I answered the question.  While I have enjoyed movies like Elf and Jingle All the Way, I didn’t highlight them in this missive.  I suppose for me, a Christmas movie needs to be family friendly, have a positive message, and largely take place at Christmastime.  While movies like Meet Me in St. Louis and It’s a Wonderful Life are terrific, family friendly films, I’ve never considered them Christmas movies, but perhaps I should.  For me Christmas movies must be the kind of heartwarming, uplifting, sometimes tear-jerking movies that help you get in the “Christmas mood.”  Though March of the Wooden Soldiers has little to do with Christmas, we watch it every year at Christmastime.  Perhaps it is the naiveté of innocence of these films that make them Christmas movies.  So maybe the fact that we can enjoy that innocence year after year as a family is what makes them Christmas movies.  In the same way that many “Christmas songs” are really winter songs that have little, if anything to do with Christmas but help you get in the Christmas mood, maybe that’s what makes Christmas in Connecticut, The Bishop’s Wife, and A Christmas Carol “Christmas movies,” even though they don’t explicitly talk about the true meaning of Christmas or even the secular mythology of Santa Claus.

My kids will soon be moving out and starting their own lives on their own.  We’ll only see them on holidays and the occasional visit.  Our life will be different — and not all in good ways.  But I’ll bet when she get together at Christmas, the movies I highlighted above will be part of our holiday activities.

I used to think that the women’s outfits in science fiction movies were outlandish and that women wouldn’t dress like that in real file.  While they were sexy, these outfits never seemed very practical.  (I still think that chainmail bikinis are absurd, but lately I’ve begun to think that the outfits in the science fiction movies and shows of the 1950’s through 1970’s foreshadowed today’s fashion in the same way that the Star Trek communicator foreshadowed flip cell phones.) My kids go to a school that requires a uniform in which the girls’ skirts are at a modest length.  What do these teenage girls do?  They “roll” their skirts, rolling up the waist band to raise their skirts three or four inches higher than the dress code requires.  And as soon as school gets out, the girls start waltzing around the malls in outfits more fitting for prostitutes than high school girls.

I will admit that my tastes are a bit dated.  I think the pinnacle of womens’ fashions was reached in the 1940’s and 1950’s.  This post is not meant to offer an opinion that the world is going to Hell, but just to point out that I had a recent epiphany.  Fashions that I thought were ridiculous (though often alluring) in old science fiction movies and television shows were probably not that ridiculous after all.

Here’s what I mean.  In the far future, would women want to wander around in outfits like this?

Or this?

Well, I did a quick search for “skirts” using Bing and looking at “reputable” Web stores, like Target.com.  I wasn’t looking at porn sites or Fredericks of Hollywood, but below is what I found.  Without looking hard, I found these examples below.  People must be buying them!

These are outfits I’ve seen girls wearing at shopping malls or social events with their buddies.  Admittedly, these are not outfits I have seen worn by professional women in office settings, but they are outfits worn in public.

So how about form-fitting outfits like this one?  As sexy as this is, would women really wear such a thing except while scuba diving in cold water?

Or these…

Again, a quick Web search found these examples:

Frankly, I have never understood women wearing leggings that leave nothing to the imagination and then wearing seven layers of long shirts and coverups.  Why not just wear something a bit more modest?

Or how about see-through blouses?  Aside from the odd phenomenon in which women reveal more leg and cleavage in formal affairs than in other settings, no one would wear those in public, would they?

Except for the purple outfit, which I think is meant for someone on the prowl at a dance club, the other three outfits are things I have seen in stores and other public places.  As someone on the downhill side of 50, there are things I know not to wear anymore; however, most of the women I seen wearing these outfits in public are NOT fashion models from catalogs who can pull off these looks, but they wear them anyway.  So those costume designers were prescient after all!  (By the way, the costume designer for the UFO show pictures above was a woman.)

So the next time you are oggling Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine), Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi), Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), Anne Francis (Altaira Morbius), Erin Gray (Wilma Deering), or some other science fiction heroine, thinking, “Wow, the twenty-fifth century will be great!” remember that the twenty-fifth century might not be that far off with respect to women’s fashions.

Despite taking the family on a rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon and two weeks in Alaska, I was informed that I was a failure because we didn’t visit the beach all Summer.  Frankly, I’m not a huge fan of the beach, but the next thing I knew we were spending a huge wad of cash to visit Ocean City for the long weekend.

A highlight of the weekend was a spur-of-the-moment parasailing adventure.

We also bought tickets for all we could play miniature golf.  Over the four and a half courses we played, we had a record 20 holes in one!

We spent both evenings walking up and down the boardwalk, had some nice meals, and generally had a good time.  Considering this is the last big weekend of Summer at the beach, the crowds weren’t nearly as bad as I expected.  It was a nice way to spend the weekend.

 

Our last morning, we finished packing all our gear to get ready to turn in the RV.  Then we drove back into downtown Anchorage to see the Park Service visitor center.  There were some nice displays and a couple of really nice movies, including this one on the Northern Light: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdy8jjc9-TM

On the way out we stopped at this cart to get a reindeer sausage.  The sausage was terrific, but the guy was a little brusque, including a sign saying, “Get off your cell phone and complete your private conversations before stepping up to order.”  Reindeer sausage was terrific!

We then drove near the RV rental outfit and stopped to fill up the gas tank and the propane tank.  We then ate most of the leftovers we had left in the refrigerator — our last vacation meal.

As a sort of recap, here are a couple of neat pictures that didn’t make it into previous posts.  You may need to open the panoramic pictures in another view to see them fully.

In this picture Tom moved part way through the picture so that he could be in it twice!

This is a replica of a navigational aid that Alaska natives would build along the trackless tundra to help guide themselves to good hunting grounds, home, etc.  This one was set up across from the restaurant at which we had our last dinner in Alaska.

Farewell Alaska…

We had a third beautiful weather day.  We drove to Seward and couldn’t believe our weather luck!  The sky was mostly clear, the weather was warm, and there was a nice breeze.  We began by walking around some of the souvenir shops in “downtown” Seward.

Seward is the southern terminus of the Alaska railroad and a port of debarkation for coal from the interior of Alaska heading to Asia.  It is also a port for cruise ships.  The winter population is about 5000 people.  There were a number nice little stores and cafes in town.

After walking around the town, we made sandwiches in the RV and drove to Exit Glacier.  The Harding Ice Field is a huge glacier (sort of a lake of ice in the middle of the Chugach mountains) that feeds several glaciers.  One of the first expeditions to try cross the ice field exited at this glacier, hence the name.

We had a chance to take a hike up alongside the glacier for a couple of miles.

As we got closer to the ice, we found that the glacier was creating its own cold breeze.  The lower area near the visitor’s center was actually hot, and we were attacked by flies.  Once we got up a few feet, it was quite pleasant, perhaps chilly.  There is a longer hike (approximately 8 hours) that takes you up to the edge of the ice field, but we didn’t have time for that.  We needed to get back for our second cruise.

Before heading out to Exit Glacier, we had signed up for a four-hour cruise out Resurrection Bay into the Gulf of Alaska to look at wildlife.  Our hope was to see porpoises, whales, and puffins.

The cruise included an all-you-can eat prime rib and salmon buffet.  The food was terrific.  On the way back to port, there was an all-you-can eat dessert buffet.  Based on prices for food in Alaska, one serving of each would have cost more in most restaurants than we paid for the buffet.

The boat holds up to 200 people, but for whatever reason only 19 were signed up for this cruise.  The limited number of passengers enabled the crew to provide more personalized attention and reduced the jockeying for position on the rail to see wildlife.

Again the cruise included a National Park Service Ranger who provided narration throughout the four-hour ride.  The ranger told us that these charter cruise companies pay the Park Service to provide these rangers, which in turn allows them to hire more part-time rangers to assist with managing the vast lands controlled by the Department of the Interior.

The porpoises were designated “awesome” by Sammy.

We never got too close to this whale, but he was clearly visible several times.  The ranger explained that when whales are sleeping they bob near the surface, coming up from time to time to breathe.

Just kidding… but we did enjoy soft drinks and later some hot chocolate.

We met our objectives of spotting porpoises, whales, and puffins!  Tommy was hoping to see a Beluga whale, but we didn’t.

We slept that night in a campground right along the water.  When we woke up we were greeted by yet another perfect weather day!

The agenda called for us to visit the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward.  Partially funded by Federal money and partially funded by an Exxon Valdez trust fund, this center is involved in aquatic research and the rehabilitation of wounded animals.  When the weather was so nice the previous day, we pushed this off a day, fully expecting that the weather would turn bad and it would be good to enjoy an indoor activity.

The Sealife Center was nicely laid out with some innovative exhibits.  I thought it was worth the time we spent there.  They also had once of the nicest gift shops we’d seen throughout our visit to Alaska.

Sadly our trip is beginning to come to an end.  After lunch in Seward, we headed back toward Anchorage for our last night in Alaska.  Along the way we pulled off at some scenic overlooks to see some of the sites that were difficult to see because of the rain on our way southward.

Somewhere during our drive, I got an Email from my buddy Sam Fuson who was once stationed at Ft. Richardson.  He recommended that we have halibut at the Sourdough Mining Company.  The food was terrific and so plentiful that even Tom had trouble finishing his dinner.  Most nights there is a singer and storyteller in the evenings, but we happened to get there the one night in 10 years that he was ill.

Well…  we get on the plane tomorrow for another 12 hours in the air back to Baltimore with stops in Seattle and Detroit.  Ca ca.  Another vacation has come to a close.

 

After our perfect day on Mt. McKinley, the next day was rainy all day.  We stopped at a couple of scenic overlooks as we drove south from our campsite, but the rain and fog really limited visibility.   We also make a quick stop at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson to restock the pantry.

To break up the drive, we stopped at the Indian Creek mine where a character talked to us about the mine and some of the antiques he had collected.  We were only able to see the mine entrance, but it was a good way to get off the road for a while.  The museum was housed in an old log cabin which had once been pushed all the way onto the river ice by an avalanche.  It was moved back and many years later was designated a national historic site, dating past the Alaska gold rush.  The owner said that initially the Smithsonian wouldn’t grant historic site designation, because the cabin wasn’t in its original location, but once they found out that natural forces moved it, they relented.

We stopped at another scenic overlook because of the rain.  After a few hands of dominoes, the rain subsided.  We walked around the overlook.  Again, the rain and fog limited visibility, but we found these interesting sculptures of beluga whales.

Near Girdwood we took a 5 mile hike.  The attraction here was the hand tram over Glacier Creek.  It rained the whole way, but it was a good hike.

The hand tram was really neat.  Up to two people could get in this cage and then pull themselves across with the rope.  All of us took a turn in the bucket.

After returning from the hike and drying off a bit, we bought a pizza in Girdwood and drove to our campsite for the night.  We stayed in the Willawa camp ground, managed by the Forest Service.  The campsites were far apart and surrounded by trees, so it didn’t seem very crowded.  When we went to bed, we weren’t sure about whether the weather would cooperate for our planned glacier cruise the next day.

We had a lot of low fog the next morning.  (This stream was supposed to be full of spawning salmon, but we saw none.)  We weren’t sure about the cruise, but there was a little blue poking through the clouds, so after a brief stop at a visitors center for information, we drove through the tunnel to Whittier.

The tunnel is the longest tunnel in the world shared by vehicles and trains.  On the half hour traffic is permitted to drive into Whittier.  On the hour, traffic comes out of Whittier.  In between, trains use the tunnel.

Whittier was built by the US Army during WWII as a supply depot.  Supplies would be unloaded in Whittier (on Prince William Sound) and taken inland by train.  Today almost the entire population of the town lives in a single high-rise building built to house soldiers and their families.

When we came through the tunnel to Whittier, the weather was beautiful.  It was sunny, warm, and blue.  We bought our tickets and boarded for our cruise to see 26 glaciers.  On board was a ranger from the US Forest Service who provided narration, which was terrific.  He also helped spot wildlife.

The first portion of the cruise was just getting out to the interesting stuff.  They served us a very nice cod lunch to pass the time.  The food was quite good.  Eventually we arrived at the sea lion rookery (shown above), where we saw many sea lions.  The boat could not get too close to the sea lions to avoid disturbing them.

We saw all 26 glaciers.  I was checking them off on the map.  There were so many amazing sights that it was difficult not to become jaded.

The ranger told us that there are only about 10 days this nice all Summer on Prince William Sound.  After the excellent day on Mt. McKinley and the crappy day the day before, we were amazed at our luck!

Among the wildlife we spotted we saw many sea otters lounging in the water.

The total cruise time was over five hours, getting us back in time to make the on-the-hour train out of Whittier.

The Cook expedition was stopped by ice, so his maps missed an arm of the Sound that led to this glacier.  When the Harriman expedition found this arm in a later expedition, they were greeted by this huge glacier, so it is called “Surprise Glacier.”  We were hoping to see it calve (a big chunk falling off into the water), but didn’t.  The boat loitered here for a while, and we got some amazing views.

After driving back through the long tunnel from Whittier, we headed toward Seward.  Candy found a very nice camp ground with full hookups about 20 minutes north of Seward, our destination for the next day.

The campground has its own lake front, and the kids took a turn in one of the paddle boats after dinner.

This was one of our last sights (at 2300 hours) before going to bed.  What a place!

After a quick stop in the town outside the national park for some souvenir hunting and lunch, we headed into the Denali National Park.  Denali consists of over six million acres, and there is just one road through it, so we took our time driving to the Teklaneeka campground deep inside the park, taking in the sights along the way.  The RV did reasonably well on the gravel road.

Before getting on the long road to the campground, however, we took a short hike around Horseshoe lake.  We didn’t see any animals, but we saw a beaver dam that was probably 40 yards long.  No beaver.

The next morning we got up very early to catch the first bus toward Wonder Lake.  Our thought was that we would see more wildlife on the early bus.  We did.  It started with a pair of moose hanging out near the bus stop.  You can see one behind Tommy’s shoulder in this picture.

Soon after departing we encountered another one.

It was a four hour bus ride from our campground to Wonder Lake.  Along the way we saw some beautiful scenery and many animals.  The only one of the “big” animals we didn’t see was a wolf.

We encountered two golden eagles perched on rocks above the road.  This picture is one of them flying away.

Two German girls were on the bus, taking pictures of their own moose at various stops.

The bus driver, Darlene was quite good.  She stopped frequently and had lots of good stories.

This picture was taken at a short rest stop along the way.

We saw more moose on this four-hour bus ride than we did during our entire visit to Maine.

Considering its name, Wonder Lake was a bit anti-climactic.  From here, however, we took a five mile hike out and back along the McKinley Bar trail, which took us through rocks and woods to the river.

On the way back we encountered three rock ptarmigans, the Alaska state bird.  They looked a lot like pheasant or grouse to me.  They eventually flew off as we continued our hike.

Another caribou near the bus on our ride back toward camp.

The rest stops along the bus route looked like this.  The doors were probably three inches thick and heavily reinforced to keep out bears and other animals.  All were very clean!

That night we played rummy and watched a little television before bed.

The next morning we left the campground and headed southward.  On our way up, we had tried to get a flight up to a glacier on the slopes of Mt. McKinley.  This morning the clouds cleared, and it looked like we might be able to fly, so we packed up and headed back to Talkeetna.  During a portion of the drive, the kids worked on their Summer reading.

Then we turned a bend in the road and there was Mt. McKinley.  They say only 31% of visitors to Alaska get to see the whole mountain.  It was much more impressive than this picture conveys.  Mt. McKinley is the tallest mountain in the Western Hemisphere, at 20k+ feet of elevation.

We stopped several times along the way to get different and better shots of the mountain.  The sky got better and better all day.

We were lucky to get a 1430 flight up the mountain for a glacier landing from Talkeetna.  Each of us donned a pair of protective over boots so that we could walk around in the snow on the glacier.

There were six of us plus the pilot on this DeHaviland Beaver.

The flight was smooth, and along the way the pilot had a lot of interesting things to point out.  I got to sit up front and take lots of pictures.

The glaciers on Mt. McKinley are growing at an average rate of about three feet a day.  The guide said that the glaciers act like frozen rivers.  They have falls, currents, and even cataracts.

Here you can see where ice has formed, cracked, and fallen.  These falls grow at a rate of six or more feet per day and push the glacier down the valley.

Landing on the glacier was interesting.  The surface was slushy, so the plane slid around on its skis until it came to a stop.  The temperature was about 30 degrees, but it felt much warmer due to the sun and the heat radiating off the snow and rocks.

We spent about 25 minutes on the glacier before returning to Talkeetna.  The guide told us that glaciologists come up here to study the McKinley glaciers quite frequently.  They have taken deep core samples.  Air is trapped in the glaciers, so core samples reveal things about the air 10s of thousands of years ago.  For the global warming crowd, the scientists who study these glaciers say that the percent of greenhouse gasses in the air 10,000 years ago is about the same as it is today.

In this picture you can see how the ice cracks as it flows downhill.  Also note the light blue patches.  The color of the glacial ice is blue.  It doesn’t show in most of the pictures, but in person you could see the slightly blue color.  The light blue patches in this picture are deep fissures or crevasses that have filled with snow.  When the sun is out, the top layers melt a little and turn into these light blue lakes or ponds.

After returning to Talkeetna, we played in the elementary school playground for a few minutes and then headed South to Houston to stop for the night before continuing south past Anchorage.

 

Day three involved a drive from Anchorage to Talkeetna with ad hoc stops along the way.  Candy has a great book that has everything in Alaska by milepost.  We made an impromptu stop at a pullout for Thunderbird Falls.  After a mile hike over mostly easy trail, we reached the falls.

They were nice, but not the most spectacular falls we’ve ever seen.  Still, it was a nice hike and a great way to break up the drive.

Farther up the road, in Wasilla (Sarah Palin’s home town), we visited the Iditarod Race Headquarters.  The race actually begins in Anchorage, but the headquarters is in Wasilla.

Inside the gift store they showed an eighteen-minute movie and had some very interesting race memorabilia.  I was hoping that the movie would talk more about the history of the race.  It was in fact more like a racing documentary, discussing the mushers competing in the 2012 race.  In anchorage we learned that this race commemorates an historical event.  One winter there was an outbreak of diphtheria in Nome and the only way to get the serum from Anchorage was by dogsled.  Sometime in the the 60’s or 70’s someone came up with the idea or resurrecting the event for sport, not unlike running a marathon, which was initially to commemorate the end of the battle of Marathon.

Still farther up the road toward Talkeetna we stopped at Miller’s roadside cafe.  They were reputed to have great burgers and ice cream.  They did.  This was a neat place: combination general store, ice cream parlor, burger joint, coffee house, and post office.  In fact the Postmaster is the person who cooked our food.

We topped off our food with ice cream and got back on the road.

Eventually we arrived in Talkeetna.  The town, which has a year-round population of ~800, was originally a transit point where goods were take off barges and the hauled by mules, horses, or dog sleds farther into the interior.  Today it is largely a tourist attraction, with gift stores, place to eat, river rafting excursions, and flights to glaciers on Mt. McKinley.

We signed up for a flight up to a glacier on Mt. McKinley the next day and walked into town to look around.

This town was the model for the town in the television show Northern Exposure.  One of the locals told us that the high school (fed by three towns) graduated 22 last year.  This general store reminded me of the one in my grandmother’s home town in Illinois.   There was a little bit of everything in the store, from bread to bait and from animal skins to snacks.

That night I made chicken kabobs on the grill for dinner.  We finished the day with a little ice cream while watching an episode of the Mission Impossible TV show.  It began to rain that night.  The next morning, clouds hung low in the sky and visibility was limited.  Our flight to the glacier was cancelled.  We, therefore, took our time getting packed up and then headed toward the entrance to Denali National Park.

One of our stops this day was in Denali State Park, where we saw the Alaska Veteran’s Memorial.  Nearby were some VERY interesting placards describing interesting vignettes about Alaska at War, mostly WWII and the Cold War.  There was also a story about a Confederate ship, the Shenandoah, which was sent to Alaska to sink Union whaling boats.  Apparently, profits from whale hunting were important sources of revenue to finance the war.  The Shenandoah sank 6 or 8 Union whaling vessels, continuing its mission for six months after the war had officially ended.  There is debate among historians as to whether the crew knew the war was over and kept sinking ships anyway.  This whole memorial area was a really unexpected gem.

You can see by this picture that it was drizzly all day, and visibility was limited.  We should have been able to see Mt. McKinley most of the day, but the thick clouds got in the way.  We eventually arrived at our campsite just a few miles outside the gate to the Denali National Park.  I barely had time to finish cooking burgers for dinner on our little grill before the sky opened up.  We are told that the weather will get progressively better throughout the weekend, so we have hopes of a good visit to the National Park and making another attempt to fly up the mountain and land on a glacier.

This year’s family vacation is a trip to Alaska.  Once again, Candy has painstakingly planned this event.  Day one was a travel day from Baltimore through Detroit through Seattle to Anchorage.  In Detroit Metro airport we had a long layover, which enabled us to get a stack of Coney Island hotdogs at National Coney Island.  I was quite disappointed in not being able to find a Vernors ginger ale.

We also learned — almost by accident — that there is a USO-like organization operating in the Detroit airport, so we had a chance to sit on comfortable couches and have a drink in a quiet place while we waited for our flight.

After nearly 10.5 hours in the air and two layovers, we finally caught a glimpse of Alaska.  You can see a glacier under the wing along the southeastern coast of Alaska.  This was about 0100 East Coast time.

We are renting an RV for this trip.  We arrived after the rental agency, Great Alaska Highways, was closed.  The rental agency is used to having people arrive late, so they had the keys for our RV on the rear wheel and allowed us to sleep in it overnight.  The picture above was taken at about 2200 at night; Anchorage had 17.5 hours of daylight yesterday.  We arrived got to bed after midnight after we unpacked our suit cases into the various drawers, closets, and cubby holes.  The next morning we got our training on the RV and were on our way.

Our first stop was downtown anchorage for a trolley tour and brief history lesson.  We learned quite a bit about the great earthquake (the second largest in world history) and some other interesting facts.

I found this sign near the visitor’s center interesting.

After a couple of hours wandering around some gift shops, we headed out of town.  Our first stop was our proposed camp sight for the first night — just a couple miles outside Anchorage near Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson.  We reserved our camp sight and then went to visit the Alaska Heritage Center.

The Alaska Heritage Center includes villages representing the 11 major cultural groups in Alaska.  Most had high school aged docents from those regions and cultures who described the traditional dwellings, tools, and other artifacts.  Except in the southeastern part of Alaska, which is classified as rainforest, most of the state is permafrost.  The native Alaskans built semi subterranean dwellings that protected them from the harsh temperatures.  The picture above shows the entrance to a reproduction of one such dwelling.

In addition there were a number of talks by the high school aged kids and some demonstrations of native dancing and sports.  The picture above shows one native athletic event in which the participant, starting from a standing position, jumps straight up and tries to kick a ball hanging in the air.  The demonstrator placed third in the recent native Alaskan athletic games.

We also took the time to do something really touristy at the Alaskan Heritage Center:  we got pulled in a training sled around a short course by a team of dogs that completed this year’s Iditarod competition.  Afterward we had a chance to see some of the dogs, who were amazingly friendly.  I expected them to be more wild.

After about four hours at the Alaska Heritage Center we went to Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson to stock up our camper with food for the next week or so.  Then we retired to our camp sight for a light dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken noodle soup.  We were quite tired from the previous day’s traveling and late night, so we hit the sack early.

The temperature was between 55 and 65 all day.  The weather and scenery were terrific.