Girdwood

Saturday, July 24.  We split off from the Brundiges again and headed back toward Anchorage.  They are heading toward Soldotna and the Kenai Peninsula.  We wanted to spend a little time around Girdwood, so we found a campground there and set up camp, in the rain again.  We had a nice view of the mountains here, and the snow came all the way down to our level.  This campground did not have sewer or water at the sites.  They had a "honey wagon" and they came by and dumped us after we got set up.  Then we stopped by the water tank and filled up with water before we left.

We drove up to the Alyeska Highway to a candle shop I had wanted to visit on our other two trips to Alaska but had never gotten to.  They specialize in candles shaped like Alaska wildlife.  It was a nice shop, pretty small, but they had some nice candles.  Then we drove up to Hotel Alyeska, a beautiful ski resort.

Our next stop was the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, self-proclaimed as Alaska's most popular visitor attraction.  Since it was raining (again and still), we didn't spend as much time here as I would have liked.  It's a drive-through 200 acre park and we got to see caribou, wood bison, musk ox, moose, bears, deer, an eagle and a great horned owl.  So here they are for you to see.
Caribou

This center, in cooperation with the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game, is working towards restoring wood bison to the Alaskan wilderness.  There were several of these huge beasts.

A large elk population including several young ones.

Some musk ox, but it was hard to get a photo of them moving.  They seem to like to lay around a lot.

A grizzly bear was eating an elk leg (Joe says), right by the fence.  There were two other grizzlies in this pen, but they were farther away.

A black-tailed deer.

And, of course, the awesome moose.

In two cages outside the gift shop were an eagle and a great horned owl.

Then we drove back to the RV and hunkered down for the evening since it continued to rain.  We were right off the Cook Inlet in a valley between mountains, and the wind just hammered us all night long with 50 mph gusts.

Sunday morning, Joe had to wear his chicken suit to get us road-ready again.

We headed to Anchorage to Elmendorf Air Force base.  We got in at the campground there and are planning to stay here for a week.  There is an air show scheduled for next weekend and we want to attend that, plus we have a whole Anchorage to-do list so we should find plenty to do here.