Anchorage and beyond

Here's a long overdue post from Alaska.

Mary and I have been super busy taking in the sights and sounds of Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula.

We arrived over a week ago at the home of Dick Jablonowski and Susan Rogers (Susie Two), both old friends from college days when we were all outing club members from various schools. I hasten to explain that "outing" had a different connotation than its frequent present day usage. In those ancient times, we went on various outings including, but not limited to, hiking, rock climbing, caving, square dancing, song feasting... There were two Susie Rogers at Vasser, both redheads with big smiles and warm hearts, hence "Susie Two".

Anchorage is a real city of 250,000 with great museums, dining and lighted cross country ski trails to augment the winter five or six hours of daylight. Dick and Susie's house is way up on the hillside with breathtaking views on a clear day of Denali plus several volcanoes. It seems that we carry our clear weather blessing with us wherever we go. Hiking trails into the Chugach Park start a half mile or so above the house and provide great views across the Cook Inlet. Our first foray was down the north side of Turnagain Arm and around to a hike on the south side.



Captain Cook, explored this ocean arm which turned out to be shallow, requiring careful navigation and frequent turns! The Arm has tides second in height only to Fundy. High tide can be as much as 33 feet. On some occasions, the "tidal bore" runs up the arm, a wave cresting two or three feet as the tide comes in over mud flats. Apparently, some brave souls attempt to surf the bore with varying results.

Our next trip down the Kenai was to Whittier. During WWII, Whittier served as a strategic deep water port vital to the war effort as a Japanese attack on Alaska was feared. Actually, two Aleutian Islands were occupied and eventually taken back with fierce fighting and loss of life. Getting to Whittier involves driving through a two and one half mile railroad tunnel! The tunnel was built in one year and rails laid up to Anchorage in record time. It iis obviously closed to cars when scheduled trains are let through, then one way car traffic is allowed with direction changes every half our or so. At the end of our visit, there were about two hundred vehicles lined up heading north.



We boarded a glacier viewing boat trip at the Whittier dock and, sure enough, the clouds lifted as we headed out toward Prince William Sound and down to Blackstone Glacier. More Harbor Seal and Sea Otter sightings but no significant glacier calving this time.



Back in town, we took in the Whale Fat Follies, a creation of local musician Mr. White keys. It is similar to our Kiwanis Follies in Jackson with lots of digs at local foibles and figures. Sure enough, Sarah Palin and Barak Obama made appearances. Locals were asked how many were hosting "house guests from Hell". Fortunately, our hosts didn't raise their hands. We finally decided that it was time to hit the road and headed up to Palmer to visit another outing clubber, Charlie Bockes Sartor. She led us on a great hike up on top of Hatcher Pass above timberline with 360 degree mountain views, mountain tarns and tundra flowers. It was good to get some exercise. After a great dinner and native blueberry/strawberry pancakes for breakfast, we lit out on our own heading north to Fairbanks.

As I write, we are waiting for a flight to McKinley which lands on a glacier! Four hours ago, the mountain was totally clear but now, the clouds seems to be coming in. Maybe our weather luck is fading...more later.