“Top of the World” to you
Dear family and friends,
We made it over the highway from Teton Junction on the Alaska Highway through to Chicken, and then onto its continuation past the Eagle turnoff onto the “Top of the World” highway to Dawson City ferry crossing of the Yukon River.
View from “The Top of the World”.
Parts of this highway were quite brutal with ruts, potholes, washboard, and always – mud! From Chicken to the turnoff to Eagle was the worst, and that was followed by brand-new pavement to the border crossing. From there to Dawson City the road was mostly good gravel, but still very muddy. By the time we arrived at our RV site in town for the night, Truck House had become disguised as a rather boxy mud-pie! Eight dollars later, we had spray washed most of the muck off, and once again looked respectable.
Road paint from “Top of the World”
We are still in that weather system that provides gloom and showers – sometimes heavy. We are sure that some of the viewpoints on the “Top of the World” highway are truly spectacular, but we could only imagine. Fog was also heavy at one point, but we were able to see and experience the vastness of the “Chicken Fire” that occurred in 2004. For miles, and several hours we were within the fire-ravaged territory, and we began to get a shocking concept of the 1.3 million acres that burned!
The “Chicken Burn” of 2004
Trapper cabin near summit at Top of the World
Looking north into Yukon from “Top of the World”
We did stop at Chicken, and were directed to a cafe that featured baked sweets. Unfortunately, a cruise ship tour bus (where did it come from???) beat us there, and we had to join the crowd in line before getting a superb and huge cinnamon bun. This was about 10:30, and became our sustenance until supper time.
The Tour Bus hits “Chicken”
The “Chicken Poop”
Dawson City is an intriguing view into our gold-rush history. Some of the original town has been preserved – in the original – decaying and sinking into the permafrost. Other parts look original but are reconstructions.
Permafrost gradually lets buildings down
Last night, we took in the Diamond Gertie Casino show. It was entertaining, but Sandy and I voted it second best to the Barkerville Revue that we watched several years ago with the Lindsay and Mjaaland families. (The Barkerville performance by brother-in-law Lars was much superior to the “volunteers” at last night’s show!)
Today, hopefully in sunshine, we will stop at the Robert Service cabin, and then begin our trip south. The magnet of home begins to pull, and weather has caused us to shorten our itinerary considerably.
We are continually grateful for all the comments, and the emails. Thanks to all!
Love and best wishes to all!
Tony and Sandy
Tuesday, August 18 – “Baby, the Rain Must Fall, Baby the Wind Must Blow!”
Hello again, dear family and friends!
To your relief, I am sure, there is not too much to report since we left Kenai Peninsula. The title above kept ringing in my brain yesterday and today. (Song by Glenn Yarborough.)
A young man in Soldotna displays his sockeye catch. (3 caught in 10 minutes that we watched.)
The rain that began there has followed us for two days (we stopped one night in Trapper Creek), and though we managed to outrun the edge of the large system by the time we got to the Visitor Center in Denali National Park, still we were in heavy weather prior to that, and hopes for seeing Mt. McKinley died. However, the rain stopped for our drive up to the end of the public access road in Denali, and the park was very beautiful. We also watched the movie in the Visitor Center, and saw most of what we could see yesterday.
Road conditions heading north from Kenai Peninsula
Weather conditions for most of Monday.
Mt. McKinley, as we saw it!
Mt. McKinley, as others see it. (Lifted from a pamphlet.)
Denali Park near the end of the public access road.
In Healy, just north of the Park, I stopped for fuel, and used Roada to locate another quilt shop – Grandma’s Quilt Shop. She (Roada) took us through a dry river bed with huge potholes thinking that it was a road. We finally located the shop only to discover that it was closed on Mondays. Oh well! Later, in Fairbanks, on the internet, I also learned that we were a mile of two from the road where Chris McCandless disappeared “Into the Wild” and later died – possibly after suffering severe nerve damage from eating the seeds of the wild potato plant while in a state of protein deficiency. (The movie is about to be released and the young actor has been sentenced to 2 weeks in jail for assaulting a young woman at the Sundance Film Festival. And that, is the news!) The book by Jon Krakauer, “Into the Wild”, is a very good read.
Anyway, back to the road… We passed up all scenic “photo opportunities” since they were a waste of time until we reached the summit above Fairbanks. The sun came out, and by the time we were settled in to our beautiful site at River’s Edge RV, we were able to get back into shorts and lounge in our anti-gravity chairs beside the lovely Chena River for an hour or two. However, the weather system caught up with us again and the temperature dropped as the clouds moved in. By morning today, steady rain was once again our current and forecasted outlook.
Tuesday morning at our Rivers Edge site.
Since my dashboard indicator was indicating time for oil change, we went into Fairbanks Chevy but because of the camper, we were directed to H&H Auto Service just around the corner. An hour and a half later – with a chatty time in the waiting room with folks from California – all was serviced, oil changed, air filter replaced, and we were once again ready to get on our way. One last stop – the Visitor and Culture Center. This is a magnificent building with tons to see and read. The displays are beautifully done, and there are a number of natural and historical movies that can be seen if you hit the right time of day. (We didn’t!)
The “Antler” Arch beside the Visitor Information and Culture Center in Fairbanks.
Three and a half hours later, much of it in torrential rain, we are now settled at Tundra RV in Tok (“toke” – remember!) Tomorrow we will tackle the “Top of the World” Highway through Chicken to Dawson City. We can expect very muddy conditions! By the way, we read in one of our pamphlets that when the folks of that town were trying to decide a name for their settlement, they wanted to call it “Ptarmigan”, but no one knew how to spell that so instead they called it “Chicken”. I love that story!
North again tomorrow!
Love and best wishes to all…
Tony, the Quill, and Sandy, the Quilter
August 15, 2015 – Addendum to Spitting Images
Sandy catches me with the ideal catch:
The catch of the day
Now I can move on…
Tony
August 15, 2015 – Spitting Images [aka Fishing at Homer Spit]
Late evening photos on Homer Spit (near 9:30 pm)
Beached barge and glacier in the east
Zoom of glacier (through one lens of Binoculars)
Early morning on Homer Spit – wind during the night rattled the rigging hanging underneath our kayaks and made a periodic thrumming sound. It was most unsettling, but climbing out on the roof to attend to it would have been more aggravating. So we slept fitfully, and tried to ignore it. At daylight at 5:00 this morning (by the way, the sun set at about 9:45 last night), vehicles started arriving, fishers chatted softly outside our camper, the rain started to patter on the roof, and the bite was on!
By 5:30, the combat zone was marked out as fishers lined the beach casting towards each other from both sides of the creek that drained the small enclosed bay on the spit. As the tide fell in Kamchemak Bay, and the waters receded from the small basin, the fishers on the west side of the outflow creek stepped gradually towards their opposite numbers while the eastern side fishers in equal steps retreated. The only sound was from raucous, excited gulls.
Homer Spit – fishing Combat Zone
Almost everyone is catching 7 to 12 pound cohoes, but I hang back, not anxious to join the fray. There is a rhythm and flow to the movement of the fishers, based on beach etiquette, space, casting directions, cast-timing and so on. When a catch is dragged up on the beach, the gap is quickly filled by returning fishers, or measured side-stepping. I am reluctant to put myself into the mix without a deeper understanding of the dance steps.
After several hours of watching the process in some astonishment, we retreated to Truck House for breakfast and coffee as the rain began again. As I look out the window at a very low receded tide, there are still a half-dozen die-hard casters out on the shoreline. This is less than a third of the number that were there an hour ago. I feel somewhat intimidated, and unsure – much like a teenager at a high school dance wondering about the risks of asking a pretty girl across the room for a dance – but the music has ended…and the rain is steady. And the last fisher has now finally left the dance floor.
Moving on…!
Tony, the Quill, and Sandy, the Quilter
A lunchtime stop in Kenai – in the rain:
Russian Church in Kenai
Friday, August 14, 2015 – Silvers, Sea Otters, Dall Porpoises, and a Rainbow
These are marine life that we have seen in the past 24 hours. The rainbow was a rainbow trout – caught yesterday at Upper Summit Lake in the Kenai Peninsula (Chugach National Forest) on a fly created by my friend Mike Harris. (Thanks Mike!) I was going to take a pic of the fish and then release it, but my camera battery had died, and so did the fish, so I had to eat the fish! (I took the picture after paddling back to campsite, and THEN I ate the fish!) Given that my 2 week Alaska fishing licence cost $80, I am hoping that I can average down the cost per pound of fish over the next two weeks. Otherwise, that first meal was a doozy!
Rainbow and Merrell
Today, we started out with a run to Seward where the town is hosting a cruise ship, and a Silver Salmon Fishing derby. (In Alaska, a King is a Chinook, a Red is a sockeye, a Pink is a Humpback, and a Silver is a Coho.) The place is quite busy. I was quite surprised to find campers parked all along the waterfront and no one fishing. Coho were jumping all along the shore, and dall porpoises seemed to be taking advantage of the good supply of food. Several sea otters (not river otters) floated along the shore and dove for shell fish. I finally asked a local who told me that everyone was waiting for the bite at high tide.
Waterfront monument in Seward
Highway from Seward
The weather was spectacular, with a few clouds over the high snow-covered peaks, but otherwise, perfect! I was catching up on mail at Zudy’s Cafe, and planned on sending a new blog note, but Sandy returned from her latest quilt shop stop and it was time to meander down the waterfront walkway, where hundreds of campers are parked and waiting to get in on the bite time. Apparently, there are prizes for the most fish, the biggest fish, and one prize for a previously tagged salmon. (This latter is worth about $20,000. Last year, the tagged fish was caught some time after the derby – in Prince William Sound – some distance from Resurrection Bay.)
Seward – Iditarod Mile 0
After a bit of a walk-about (past Mile 0 of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race), we headed off for Homer, and the spit that reaches out into the Kachemak Bay. En route, we watched the river boats floating down the Kenai River near the mouth of the Russian River…probably one of the most productive salmon fishing areas on the planet! Because this is the last weekend before school begins in Anchorage, we have decided to forego stopping in this area until after this very busy weekend is over, and the camping crowds thin out. We will make it a priority stop on our way out of Kenai Peninsula – hopefully with some equally fine weather. (Today’s temperatures got up to 19C, and the skies were blue with some cloud around, but the weather report suggests that the good weather is about to end with rain coming in tomorrow.)
We were able to see the volcanoes across Cook Inlet today on our way south to Homer. The distance across the Inlet is about 40 miles, so they were a bit hazy. The most recent activity was in 2009, but 4 of them are on active status, and monitored closely.
Tonight we are camped at the end of the Kenai highway in Homer, on Homer Spit (4.5 mi. long) in a “dry camping” area (for $15) with many, many folks fishing the shoreline beside and around us. The fish cleaning tables are very busy, and the gulls are raucously enjoying the castaways! We walked up to the end of the spit past some very funky and beautiful shops and camping rigs, and then stopped into a boardwalk cafe on the way back for fish and chip dinner. (Ironic, perhaps, but I couldn’t wait to catch my own…fish dinner, that is.) Coho are jumping, and I intend to get in on the action tomorrow.
Barge on Homer Spit
Love, joy and best wishes to all!
Sandy, the Quilter (on leave from her machines, but not the shops), and Tony, the Quill
Sandy leaving me for Cooper Landing Quilt Shop
p.s. If this note seems to focus rather extensively on fishing, it is because the whole of south Alaska is fish crazy at this time of year, and I caught the infection, if not the fish.
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