July 23-26, Palmer & Glennallen AK

We stayed at the Town & Country RV Park in Palmer. It was run by a nice young couple - kind of refreshing to see young people in the RV world! Chores were done and we did a little sightseeing. Alice - our "trusty" GPS - took us on a roundabout tour through Palmer, but there's always something to see and we ended up driving through some farm country. Not much is grown in Alaska, but this is the area for it. We also went to Independence Mine, a hardrock gold mine which prospered during the 20's and 30's. Some of the buildings have been restored, while others have collapsed. We went to the mining town of Bodie CA, near Death Valley, several years ago. They described their buildings as being in a state of arrested decay, which means they don't restore them but they do maintain them. It was interesting to see how the harsh Alaska winters take a toll on structures that aren't maintained. We encountered a marmot as we left and he was kind enough to pose for several pictures. Love his little pot belly - looks like he's been eating well this summer! We passed Matanuska Glacier on our way to Glennallen. Unfortunately, it was a drizzly part of the day, so we just snapped a couple pictures and kept moving. By a stroke of luck, we happened into Northern Nights Campground on Dessert Night and enjoyed some peach/rhubarb cobbler. Not much to do in Glennallen, but we did run down to Copper Center to visit another Princess Lodge. We will be meeting up with Jeff & Aggie again and they'll be staying here, so we wanted a sneak peek. It's beautiful. We came upon the Alaska Pipeline again and it reminded us of our fun adventure up to the Arctic Circle. It seems so long ago, but it's only been a month! We also came across this crazy homemade camper in Copper Center. Guess he can camp wherever he wants!

July 20-23, Whittier AK

Willawaw Campground was our next destination. We have loved our seaside camping, but this area did not disappoint with its beautiful forest and glacier views. We are sad to report that this is Mom's last day with us. It has been so much fun traveling with her and we stuffed as much into the day as possible. We drove into Whittier because the only way to get there is to drive through the train tunnel. This was one of the highlights of Dennis' motorcycle trip and we agreed. Whittier is an odd town. Not much of a tourist destination, although a Princess ship was in port. Only 182 people live here and almost all are in this high-rise condo building that looks like it should be in the middle of an Eastern Bloc city. It has a grocery store on the bottom floor, a medical clinic on the 3rd floor, a bed & breakfast on the top floor and a tunnel for the kids to get to school in the winter. We drove nearly every road in town and were done in time to drive back through the tunnel 1.5 hours later. We stopped at the visitor center, which was probably the best one we've seen. The exhibits were really interesting and we watched a film on glaciers. The screen raised at the end of the movie, the curtains opened and we were looking right at Portage Lake. Coolest theater ever! Our Kenai Fjords glacier cruise was so great that we were inspired to take the 1 hour Portage Glacier cruise. Much smaller scale, but worth it. Barb was treated (and Dennis got to tag along) to an early birthday dinner at the Seven Glaciers restaurant at Alyeska. The view from the top of the mountain was wonderful and the dinner was beyond delicious. What a treat! We had a beautiful 11:11pm sunset for our drive into Anchorage to take Mom to the airport :( Although we tried for days to convince her to extend her vacation, she insisted on sticking to the schedule. In addition to the sunset, we were able to see Mt McKinley 160 miles away, which made for a nice send-off. Did we mention what a great visit we had and that we're sad she left? We did and we are. We hiked to Byron Glacier for our last day here. It was fun to stand on the snowfield at the bottom of the glacier. Barb even threw a snowball at Dennis, but her aim is so bad that he was never in danger! Dennis had ordered 5 spice salmon at Alyeska and we were inspired to try our own version. Not nearly as good, but tasty just the same. We still have a freezer full of salmon and halibut but we don't expect to tire of either one terribly soon.

July 18-20, Seward AK

It was supposed to rain but were greeted by bright sunshine for our 43 mile trek to Seward. We pulled into the city campground on the bay just as the only guy leaving was pulling out. Dennis really has this timing thing down! Since we have learned to take advantage of blue skies, we headed directly to Exit Glacier & took the 2 mile round trip trail to the glacier's edge. The trail was really nice and we loved the blast of cold air once we came out at the glacier. We then visited the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward. It was really nicely done, but paled a bit since we'd all been to the Monterey aquarium. We continued to the end of the road, where there wasn't much! We did wonder if this boat was a victim of the 1964 earthquake or just an unfortunate incident. We returned to our fabulous bay view in time to see the Kenai Star boat come by & were excited to know that we'd be on it for our glacier cruise the next day. The locals call our RVs in Waterfront Park the "first line of defense" in case another tsunami hits! We had a warm (for Alaska) and sunny day for our glacier cruise. Our sightseeing trip was amazing! We saw otters, orcas, Dalls porpoises (which look like orcas), a humpback whale, puffins, a bald eagle, seals, sea lions and a little bit of glacier calving. The humpback jumped several times and spun around & around with his tail in the air. The ranger & crew didn't really know what he was up to, but we sure enjoyed watching it. Our cruise included a salmon & prime rib buffet, followed by a dessert buffet a couple hours later. The crew fished out some glacier ice & made margaritas. The day was so great that we just had to include a slew of pictures!

A cargo barge followed us into port and a yacht was anchored directly in front of our RV. Google told us the Alucia was originally a research vessel with quite a pedigree that had been converted to a luxury yacht & recently sold for $30 million or more. It has 2 submersibles that we desperately wished we'd get an invitation to tour around! Someone important either arrived or left via float plane. Dennis & Mom spent most of the evening in the front seats of the RV, monitoring the situation with binoculars. For some reason, both vessels were gone before we woke up. Supposed they noticed their stalkers?!