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 11^th 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.