ANCHORAGE, AK
Sunday, July 17, 2011

My cousin Mary Feltz, who has been living in AK for 27 years, was our personal tour guide of Anchorage, a city of about 300,000.  She picked us up at our campground and took us out for breakfast  LeRoy tried the reindeer sausage and I had Eggs Benedict.  After we told her we were going halibut fishing on Tuesday, she took us to Fred Meyer to get our fishing licenses.  She entertained us several hours telling us all about Anchorage and her life here.  She took us to her home and gave us a tour.  We noted the moose caution signs right in her subdivision.  We missed seeing Kim as he was in Prudhoe Bay working.

Afterwards we went to the Anchorage Market & Festival where more than 300 vendors flood the downtown parking lot.  We shopped in the market that is held every Saturday and Sunday during the summer months.  I bought an Alaskan zipper pull with an oosik, a fossilized walrus bone.  We walked a few blocks downtown window shopping and she pointed out the 1941 building that her brother, Lyle, moved when he lived here many years ago. After seeing the mud flats, the name for the beach area when the tide is out, she told us about the 1964 earthquake and pointed to the point where 16 feet of land slid into the water.  We all had a good time and Mary said she was glad to have visitors from the lower 48.

We later took a city bus tour with our caravaners.  We shopped at the ulu factory and had a demo and tour of the store.  Just before we stopped at Earthquake Park, we sighted a moose and her calf along the roadway.  Earthquake Park is in the woods where many homes slid into the ocean during the 1964 earthquake.  The bus driver is big into aviation so he took us around the Ted Stevenson Int'l Airport.  Of course, LeRoy was salivating and would have preferred to stay and watch the float planes taxiing around the lake.

We went to see a movie about Alaska which was followed by dinner at the Wildberry Theater.  We saw the world's largest chocolate waterfall, saw "Rock Man" the largest inuk shuk I saw so far, and visited with 3 reindeer.  Do you know the difference between caribou and reindeer? No, it's not that reindeer are domesticated, it's because reindeer can FLY! 

A gal from the local raptor rehab organization brought a great grey owl and talked about the organization and the habits of  the great grey owl and the challenges of caring for an owl that could live to 40 years.  The caregiver said she will be an old lady when this raptor gets that old.  I asked her if she heard of REGI and Marge Gibson in Wisconsin but she was not familiar with the Raptor Education Center in Antigo.


HEALY    TO   ANCHORAGE, AK
Saturday, July 16, 2011

It was 49 degrees and raining when we awoke and prepared to break camp and head for Anchorage.

Just a few miles south of the entrance to Denali Park we spotted a wolf strolling on the paved shoulder of the road.  The weather appeared to be changing with the sun trying to come out and the clouds blowing apart.  Did I see it?  Could it be?  Mount McKinley, I think I saw the top of it.

We missed the viewing point but pulled in at a restaurant to get a look at the Great One, Denali.  Although the clouds were already starting to form again, we did see a good portion of the mountain, more so than on the 13 houe bus tour or even the 16,500' climbin the airplaine.

Our visit to Denali is now complete - we saw all 5 of the big 5 animals in the park (moose, Dall sheep, grizzly bears, caribou herds and the wolf) and we caught a glimpse of the majesty of Mount McKinley, now called Denali here in Alaska.