Anchorage—July 11-18
On my return to Anchorage from Kodiak yesterday I had to go
back to Eklutna Lake where I had left my trailer while on my trip. I hooked up and headed to Fred Meyers in
Eagle River where I was able to dump and fill up with water. On the morning of the 11th I
headed to the ABC Trailer Repair where I dropped the trailer for them to repair
the awning. Then I headed to get my oil
changed. At Jiffy Lube they gave me the
sales pitch that my differential oil need changing in both the front and
rear. I have never in all my years had
the oil in a differential changed especially at 18000 miles! I looked in my owner’s manual and it said
that it should be changed at 100,000 miles.
Then they found some other oil that needed changing and I finally
said—“Just change the damn oil”.
Finally, they finished and I had a call from Brian that they were at the
airport. So I headed to the airport to
pick up Brian, Elizabeth, Colton and Carter and we headed to Snow City Café for
breakfast. I had made reservations so we
had only a short wait. After breakfast I
took Elizabeth and Colton to the theater to see a movie and Brian, Carter and I
went to pick up my trailer and take it to Cabela’s where I intended to park for
the next three days. By the time that
was done it was time to pick up Elizabeth and Colton and we then went to
Mooses’ Tooth for an early lunch before they had to be at the airport for a 4
o’clock flight. After dropping them off
I went to Puffin Inn and checked in the hotel.
My daughter Portia and her husband Tony and the two grandchildren—Amber
and Bronson—were coming in on the 12:30 AM flight form Austin for the week. I left instructions at the desk to give them
the keys and I headed back to the trailer for a bit of rest. I did not plan on seeing Portia and family until
around 10:00 on Tuesday to give them some time to rest after the long and late
arriving flight.
Tuesday morning, I picked Portia up while the others slept
and we went to Fred Meyers for her to shop for some food for their stay. The hotel has a refrigerator. We picked up the rest of the group and headed
to WeeB’s for lunch before heading up to Flat Top to see the amazing view of
Anchorage, Cook Inlet, Turnigan Arm and, today, we could clearly see Denali
(Mt. McKinley) from there. In fact, the
entire week that they visited we had incredible weather for Anchorage and the
surrounding area. Temperatures in the
70’s, sunny and just beautiful. We also
visited Westchester Lagoon and the Tony Knowles trail along Cook Inlet. After that I took them back to the hotel so
they could catch up on their rest for Wednesday.
While they were here we visited the Portage Glacier, the
Alaska Wildlife Conservation Association facility at the end of Turnigan Arm,
Potter’s Marsh, Eklutna Lake, Eagle River Nature Center, Mirror Lake and on
Saturday drove to Seward where we spend a beautiful day in Resurrection Bay and
the Kenai Fjord NWR. During this outing
we saw humpback whales, puffins, gulls, sea lions, sea otters and got to get up
close to Holgate Glacier to observe this tidewater glacier calve into the
ocean. We were joined on this trip by my
new friends Mike and Terri Church and everyone had a wonderful time in this
amazingly beautiful place on a spectacular clear, warm day. In addition, we were lucky to have as our
ship Captain, Tanya and her mate Tammy who were awesome. Tanya has been my sea Captain the last two
years with the TOS group. Then after
supper at Salmon Bake in Seward we drove back to Anchorage getting home about 1
AM.
On the final day we just met and they wanted to go to Best
Buy and the Dimond Mall. They had
learned that there is no sales tax in Anchorage and the prices for what they
wanted in Anchorage at Best Buy were the same as in Austin so they took advantage
of the opportunity. While there I
purchased a waterproof camera to carry in my new kayak which I recently
purchased here in Anchorage. In the
afternoon I dropped them off in downtown Anchorage where they wanted to do some
trinket shopping and I headed to get my trailer, do some grocery shopping and
then about 4 on Monday, a day ahead of my planed departure, I headed for
Whitehorse.
It was good have Portia and family here and show them some
of the beauty of Alaska and they were truly impressed it all.