Palmer - Hatcher Pass

Tuesday, August 3 - Today, we woke up to a rare sight - sunshine.  Here's what blue sky in Alaska actually looks like!

Although we had raindrops off and on during the day, we also had some sunshine (sometimes at the same time of the raindrops).  It just makes us feel better to see some sun (unlike our friends and families in Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, and other hot spots).

We took a drive on the Hatcher Pass Road, with scenic alpine views, an old (restored) gold mines, and pretty creeks and rivers.  When we were here in July 1998, this pass was still closed due to snow, but today we got to drive it, about a 50-mile side road.  The Little Susitna River runs along side this road, and it is just beautiful.  We stopped to check it out.

We even got Dave out of the car for this view.

Joe and I fished for silver salmon at the end of this river on our first trip to Alaska (1992), where it gently flows into the Cook Inlet, so I looked to see if there were any running upstream.  (I didn't see any.)

Although I thought we were done with Brenda rocks (since our rock boxes are all full, and we found the perfect rock formation in Anchorage), here is another one we thought she would like.

The Hatcher Pass Road is another awesome Alaska drive.  We were in the tundra, and the mountains looked like they were covered with carpet.  There were just a couple patches of snow here, but we could still see snow-covered mountains in the distance.

The Independence Mine is on this road, which was one of the largest gold producers in the Willow Creek mining district from 1938 to 1941.  These buildings are being restored and it is now a state historical park.

Coming back down from this mine, we followed Willow Creek for several miles, another very pretty creek with beaver dams when we got to lower elevation (no picture of the beaver dams, for some reason).

Joe explained to Marilyn how difficult it is to walk on tundra because it is so spongy and lumpy, which we learned on our trip back from Prudhoe Bay.  Here she is gingerly trying it out.

Our traveling mascot, Ar'gent, accompanied us on our travels today.  Here, she got to run free, without her leash, for a little while at our creek-side stop.

The next creek we stopped at was Deception Creek, with was more tea-colored.  It is supposed to be a fishing creek, and we did see one jump, but we didn't see any salmon swimming upstream.

Finally, we reached the end of our scenic drive and found a place for lunch.  And Joe found himself a polie bear!

This one, we could bring home and put in the yard!  It would be great at Christmas time, because it was all lit up (doesn't show up in the picture).

We were on the highway to Wasilla and were going to be passing the campground we stayed at there.  This is where Mazie talked them out of some rhubarb.  So, today we stopped and Mazie and Marilyn asked if they could pick (or buy) rhubarb again.  Yeah, there is rhubarb pies in our future again!

Mazie had another bunch equally as large!  And they both make excellent pies.

Interestingly, the building right next to this campground showed evidence of a fire, and we did not remember that from our visit.  The campground manager said it had caught fire just two nights ago, they think something electrical caused it.  It was 3 apartments, and everyone (including pets) got out ok.  There's a huge fire hole in the back, and she said there were 10 firetrucks there, at 1:30 a.m.  Glad we missed this excitement!

Last days in Anchorage

Sunday, August 1 - Today was a maintenance day.  Joe and Collins worked on Dave's wiring between his truck and trailer, trying to figure out why it won't charge his trailer batteries.  This has been on the "to do" list for a while, so today was the first chance they have had to tackle that job.

David, also known as Mr. Clean, enjoys doing the laundry so much that we consider it his favorite past-time.  It's always high on his to-do list.

We also noticed water leaking back by the water hose to David's trailer, so that will be the next maintenance task, it appears.

Collins wouldn't give up his bucket seat, so Joe just sat on his lap.

I think we all did laundry today, getting ready to move on to Palmer tomorrow.  We could hear the air show performances from the campground, and when the Blue Angels started flying, I walked over to a clear spot and got to watch them in the air again for a little while.  Today was supposed to be sunny, but the sun didn't show itself until about 7:00 p.m.  I think sunset last night was 10:38.  They are losing 5+ minutes of daylight every day now, but it still stays light way too long.

Monday, August 2 - We got up this morning thinking we were ready to hit the road, but when Joe took the RV off the jacks, he discovered we had a flat tire, so off we went to the tire store.  They found a nail in it, and patched it back up, fortunately they only charged us $30.

While we were off doing our stuff, Dave and Mazie made a final trip to the post office to see if their forwarded mail had arrived, but it had not, and the clerk said it had probably been returned to Arizona since we believe is was sent "special delivery," instead of "priority."  They figured out their water leak though, and it seems it was only because their tank was full, so dumping took care of that problem.

Anyhow, we finally all got back together and headed up the road 38 miles to Palmer.  Another long, grueling drive!  We got set up at the campground and ran into town to the grocery store.  Finally, I have internet at the camper so I hope to get caught up on all the electronic stuff I need to check.

Arctic Thunder Air Show - Anchorage

Saturday, July 31 - The Arctic Thunder Air Show was awesome!  Wow, it was a full day of exciting performances and demonstrations.  Really reminded us of the value of our military.  Here we are heading in.

You can see it's a pretty cloudy day, wet from an overnight rain, again.

We walked around the planes.  This is the Blue Angels "Fat Albert," the C-130 support plane for them.  It carries extra gear, parts and equipment to keep them in the air.  You can see of their planes parked next to Fat Albert.

There were all sizes of planes available for us to view.  Here's one that Tiffany and Kaylee should like.

We got there right after the gates opened, so we beat most of the crowd, lucky us - having camped inside the base.  Here's the Blue Angels and the Canadian Snowbirds lined up for their afternoon performances.

The first performance was of the Screaming Eagles and Air Force Adademy' jump teams.  Here's the C-130 that dropped the jumpers.  It made several passes and different jumpers got out each time, sometimes 2 people, sometimes 4 or more.

Joe got some great pictures of the jumpers.  They are flying different flags (American flag, Alaskan flag, POW flag).

Here's the cockpit of one of the many planes available to tour.  It sure has a dash full of the instrument panel.

The Marine Corps "Harrier" plane was awesome.  Here it is on the ground.  Later in the show, they demonstrated its capabilities and, wow, it can do some awesome stuff.  It's like a helicopter in some respects, can take off and land straight up, normal, and on short runways.  It can hover, go sideways, go backwards, can stay in one spot in the air and do a complete 360.  The demonstration was fascinating, and it was Joe's favorite part of the day.

Another very interesting demonstration was what they called the "warbirds."  They had different kinds of planes flying through, some of them exploding bombs or firing onto the ground.  We learned later that they used simulator bombs, which are about the size of a fist, so we could not see them drop from the aircraft.  They even did a smoke ring from the explosion.

There were lots of people, estimated 50,000 in attendance today.  They had a special performance for handicap and special needs people on Friday, and the have another full performance on Sunday.  I think the expected attendance for the 3 days is around 170,000.

The afternoon started off with the Canadian Snowbirds.  They had 9 in the air, and did some exciting demonstrations of their ability to fly in close formations and come together from different directions.

Another really interesting segment was a demonstration of the Alaska Joint Forces Capabilities, enacting an actual battle and rescue.  They used screaming jets dropping bombs, other jets providing cover fire, helicopter medical rescue, helicopter troop recovery (Chinooks and UH-60s, also known as Hueys).  This was my favorite demonstration, it really made me think about what goes on with our troops, and I am so proud of our great-nephew who is joining the Air Force (this month, I think).  Way to go, John Coulter!     

The F-22s put on a demonstration of their own, and you had to plug your ears when they came screaming through.  They are VERY maneuverable in the air, and they are radar-resistant, so the enemy is unable to locate and fire on them.  The narrator said we have never lost a battle when the F-22s were used.  The F-22s were designed to replace the F-117 Stealth, incorporating some of the characteristics from that design but including other unique capabilities that make it the best fighter plane in the world.

The C-17 demonstration was canceled due to the crash and tragic death of the 4 crewmen on Wednesday.  The C-17 has a cargo weight capacity of about 166,000 lbs.  In place of the actual flight demonstration, they had a very touching memorial ceremony honoring those who died on Wednesday, concluding with the F22's flying in the "missing man" formation.  It was very sad, and they did a good job of memorializing the crew.  The investigation is on-going, so we still haven't heard what actually happened.  We talked to a man back at the campground who is currently stationed here, and he told us they almost canceled the entire Arctic Thunder air show due to the crash.  I'm sure it was a very difficult decision.

 
They did not have the B-52 flyover that was on the schedule, probably because of the overcast weather situation, but they had one on display.

The show concluded with the U.S. Navy's  mighty Blue Angels.  I don't even know what to say about them.  They just take your breath away (and give you a heart attack when the come at each other, roll right in front of you, and it looks like they are touching each other).  Fat Albert set the stage, and then they took over.

If you get a chance to go to these air shows, they are fascinating.  I know Arizona has had them out at Williams from time to time, and probably at Luke.  It is worth the trip!

Anchorage - Friday

Friday, July 30 - We got up to a rare morning of sunshine today.  We went to McDonald's to catch up on our internet postings, but I had trouble with yesterday's pictures so I only got the first one posted then.  Then we ran some errands - prescriptions, RV parts, post office.  Finally, we went back to camp, and Joe installed his fix-it for the spring.

 He found two springs at Home Depot and he hooked them together and "installed" them.  They seemed to work, so we picked up Dave and Mazie for our long-anticipated lunch at Humpy's, a restaurant Dave and Mazie had enjoyed on their trip here 11 years ago.  Collins and Marilyn met us there, and then they headed back to camp for their own errands.

After lunch, we took the Johnsons back to Lake Hood to see the float planes that we had enjoyed previously, then to the park at the end of the runway.  Finally, finally, Joe got his picture of a big one flying over our heads.

When we got back to camp, Collins took Joe down to the "hobby shop" on base to work on the old spring, along with Collins' project - drill a hole in tow pens for the Vue.  So they got those chores done, and they bent a new hook on the end of our old spring, that had broken off.  Now he just has to decide which one to use, and which one will be the spare.

The air show had some kind of special performance today, and we saw the jets off and on while we were downtown at the restaurant, and as we drove through other parts of town.  We are all very excited about tomorrow's show and are so hoping for good weather.