Saturday, August 27, 2005
08/11/05 Thursday through 08/14/05 Sunday - Denali to Anchorage
08/11/05 Thursday through 08/14/05 Sunday
We loved our time in Denali, but now we are on our way to Anchorage. We are traveling with Marv and Doris Cundiff. They are fun travel partners, they like to stop and enjoy what we are passing through. Marv has a GPS system and it is easy to stay on the route with it. We saw the most scenic highway that we have traveled so far today.
For the first 100 or so miles we traveled between the Alaska Mountain Range that has Mt. McKinley and the high peaks around it and on the other side of us and south toward Anchorage we had the Talkeetna Mountains. The view was outstanding for most of the 250-mile trip. Although we passed through some high passes and crossed the mountains several times, the road was good and we made good time and the driving was easy. We had a view of Mt. Mckinley for at least a hundred miles. I think that the closest we came to the big mountain was at lunchtime. We stopped at a place called Mary’s McKinley View Lodge. It was a Bed and Breakfast. In the restaurant the wall facing Denali was just big windows. You could sit and eat and enjoy. We got a great picture of it. It is one of the few pictures I took and it shows the view through the window with Mary, Doris and Marv sitting in a booth.
Another really outstanding stop we made was a rest area that was a memorial to the military veterans of Alaska. They had a big round area with marble monuments for each of the branches of the military. They included the Coast Guard along with the four major branches. The also had a few individual memorials and some notice to certain groups who had given outstanding service to Alaska specifically. It was as nice as any that I have seen in any state.
We arrived at the Golden Nugget Park and got set up by mid-afternoon. This is a nice park with all the amenities. One thing that I really like about it is that it is flat and has some good flat streets with low traffic volume so it is a great place to ride bicycles. It is the first time we could ride or bikes for a while. It is the first time we have been in a park where we can wash our vehicles in our parking slots. I washed the Motor Home good and the car. Mary cleaned up inside the house and went to the laundry in the park to catch up our washing. After I was through I went over to the laundry and ordered a pizza. We had supper and finished our work together.
On Friday August 12th we had a city tour on a bus. We had a black tour guide who did a very good job. We haven’t seen a lot of black people in Canada or Alaska. We spent a couple of hours looking at the city, a couple of hours at The Alaska Museum and then we went to lunch at The Sourdough Mining Company. It was a big place with good food but they served it in a strange way. We got one thing at a time to eat; not like different courses, but like whatever they got cooked. First we just had coleslaw and bread, then we got some French fries, then some baked salmon, then some kind of meat. You never knew what you would get next and all of it had to be eaten separately or cold. I don’t recommend that style of service. We had a desert table where we could get our own cobbler and an ice cream machine. Mary provided the noontime entertainment when she turned on the machine to get the soft serve ice cream and she could not get it turned off. The bowl wasn’t big enough to hold it all, neither was her shoe!!!
Anchorage is a big city. The population is about 274,000, which is about 42% of the total population of Alaska. It is kind of nice to be back in civilization again for a while. Even here in the largest city there are signs warning you to watch out for moose. We saw two moose on our tour of the city. One out by the airport went into some trees before we could get a picture. The other one just ambled across the street and took his time getting off the street. Traffic just stopped until he was safely out of the way.
On Saturday the 13th we flew up to Nome. We spent the night there and flew back on Sunday afternoon. We flew on Alaska Air on a 727. The airport at Nome was a little bit scary because the runway was so short, but we landed safely.
Our tour guide met us. His name was Hank; he came to Alaska in the Army back in the 1970’s and stayed. He married an Eskimo woman and has three tan kids. He is very active in the city government and politics. We got a history of Nome from the gold rush to current efforts to establish an economy based on a deep- water port and seafood industry. Their leading industry is Alaska King Crab and Halibut fishing. He is very upbeat and optimistic about the future of Nome.
Nome is not a tourist town. It is old, ragged and looks like a third world country. We saw the entire town; we saw the beach and how they use suction dredges to mine goal off the floor of the Bering Sea. These dredges are small, one or two man operations and are all home made. We toured the company that processed the Alaska King Crab. Later in the afternoon went to an old mining operation and panned for gold. We got a little gold. After the panning we went to a sled dog demonstration by a guy who had run in the Iditarod.
There were eleven of us who went to Nome. Mary and I and one other couple spent the night and returned on Sunday. The other couple was the Greenwoods and they were from Talapossa, Georgia. That is about 65 miles from Atlanta just before you get to Alabama. We had a lot of fun; we stayed at the Nome Nugget Hotel.
CW and Sandi have only been married since December. When we checked in they got a room with two single beds. They found out that we got a double bed and they went back and made them move their room. If they couldn’t have gotten a double bed I think that would have made Mary and I change rooms with them. We had dinner in a restaurant that was recommended to us. It wasn’t bad, but the service left a little to be desired. After dinner we just walked up and down Front Street. 
In a six-block section we passed 14 bars. They were all doing a good business. We met a lot of drunken Indian s and Eskimos. They all wanted to shake hands and visit with us. The next day we were talking to our tour guide about and he told us that there was a Native American Corporation which paid these people monthly for the mineral rights, especially oil. So they get a check from the government for that and most of them are also on welfare and have never worked a day in their lives, it is kind of a sad state of affairs.
We didn’t see exactly what we expected in Nome, but I am glad we went. I don’t think I would ever need to go again.
We loved our time in Denali, but now we are on our way to Anchorage. We are traveling with Marv and Doris Cundiff. They are fun travel partners, they like to stop and enjoy what we are passing through. Marv has a GPS system and it is easy to stay on the route with it. We saw the most scenic highway that we have traveled so far today.
For the first 100 or so miles we traveled between the Alaska Mountain Range that has Mt. McKinley and the high peaks around it and on the other side of us and south toward Anchorage we had the Talkeetna Mountains. The view was outstanding for most of the 250-mile trip. Although we passed through some high passes and crossed the mountains several times, the road was good and we made good time and the driving was easy. We had a view of Mt. Mckinley for at least a hundred miles. I think that the closest we came to the big mountain was at lunchtime. We stopped at a place called Mary’s McKinley View Lodge. It was a Bed and Breakfast. In the restaurant the wall facing Denali was just big windows. You could sit and eat and enjoy. We got a great picture of it. It is one of the few pictures I took and it shows the view through the window with Mary, Doris and Marv sitting in a booth.Another really outstanding stop we made was a rest area that was a memorial to the military veterans of Alaska. They had a big round area with marble monuments for each of the branches of the military. They included the Coast Guard along with the four major branches. The also had a few individual memorials and some notice to certain groups who had given outstanding service to Alaska specifically. It was as nice as any that I have seen in any state.
We arrived at the Golden Nugget Park and got set up by mid-afternoon. This is a nice park with all the amenities. One thing that I really like about it is that it is flat and has some good flat streets with low traffic volume so it is a great place to ride bicycles. It is the first time we could ride or bikes for a while. It is the first time we have been in a park where we can wash our vehicles in our parking slots. I washed the Motor Home good and the car. Mary cleaned up inside the house and went to the laundry in the park to catch up our washing. After I was through I went over to the laundry and ordered a pizza. We had supper and finished our work together.
On Friday August 12th we had a city tour on a bus. We had a black tour guide who did a very good job. We haven’t seen a lot of black people in Canada or Alaska. We spent a couple of hours looking at the city, a couple of hours at The Alaska Museum and then we went to lunch at The Sourdough Mining Company. It was a big place with good food but they served it in a strange way. We got one thing at a time to eat; not like different courses, but like whatever they got cooked. First we just had coleslaw and bread, then we got some French fries, then some baked salmon, then some kind of meat. You never knew what you would get next and all of it had to be eaten separately or cold. I don’t recommend that style of service. We had a desert table where we could get our own cobbler and an ice cream machine. Mary provided the noontime entertainment when she turned on the machine to get the soft serve ice cream and she could not get it turned off. The bowl wasn’t big enough to hold it all, neither was her shoe!!!
Anchorage is a big city. The population is about 274,000, which is about 42% of the total population of Alaska. It is kind of nice to be back in civilization again for a while. Even here in the largest city there are signs warning you to watch out for moose. We saw two moose on our tour of the city. One out by the airport went into some trees before we could get a picture. The other one just ambled across the street and took his time getting off the street. Traffic just stopped until he was safely out of the way.On Saturday the 13th we flew up to Nome. We spent the night there and flew back on Sunday afternoon. We flew on Alaska Air on a 727. The airport at Nome was a little bit scary because the runway was so short, but we landed safely.
Our tour guide met us. His name was Hank; he came to Alaska in the Army back in the 1970’s and stayed. He married an Eskimo woman and has three tan kids. He is very active in the city government and politics. We got a history of Nome from the gold rush to current efforts to establish an economy based on a deep- water port and seafood industry. Their leading industry is Alaska King Crab and Halibut fishing. He is very upbeat and optimistic about the future of Nome.Nome is not a tourist town. It is old, ragged and looks like a third world country. We saw the entire town; we saw the beach and how they use suction dredges to mine goal off the floor of the Bering Sea. These dredges are small, one or two man operations and are all home made. We toured the company that processed the Alaska King Crab. Later in the afternoon went to an old mining operation and panned for gold. We got a little gold. After the panning we went to a sled dog demonstration by a guy who had run in the Iditarod.
There were eleven of us who went to Nome. Mary and I and one other couple spent the night and returned on Sunday. The other couple was the Greenwoods and they were from Talapossa, Georgia. That is about 65 miles from Atlanta just before you get to Alabama. We had a lot of fun; we stayed at the Nome Nugget Hotel.
CW and Sandi have only been married since December. When we checked in they got a room with two single beds. They found out that we got a double bed and they went back and made them move their room. If they couldn’t have gotten a double bed I think that would have made Mary and I change rooms with them. We had dinner in a restaurant that was recommended to us. It wasn’t bad, but the service left a little to be desired. After dinner we just walked up and down Front Street. 
In a six-block section we passed 14 bars. They were all doing a good business. We met a lot of drunken Indian s and Eskimos. They all wanted to shake hands and visit with us. The next day we were talking to our tour guide about and he told us that there was a Native American Corporation which paid these people monthly for the mineral rights, especially oil. So they get a check from the government for that and most of them are also on welfare and have never worked a day in their lives, it is kind of a sad state of affairs.We didn’t see exactly what we expected in Nome, but I am glad we went. I don’t think I would ever need to go again.
