Wednesday, July 29 - Day Fifteen. Oh boy, another busy day with an early start. We were up and waiting for the bus to pick us up at 8:00 a.m. Our first stop was at the Discovery III sternwheeler. This was an authentic (although built in 1987) that provides tourist cruises on the Chena River through Fairbanks. It was a very large boat with diesel power that actually used the large stern wheel for propulsion. The
company actually runs two boats, the Discovery II and the III, and both were in use when we cruised. We arrived at the dock and found a dozen other tour buses lined up discharging tourists. We have seen dozens of Princess and Holland America buses while in Fairbanks. Both cruise lines offer land/sea cruise options where the passengers cruise up to Anchorage from Seattle or Vancouver and then get off the ship for a week or two of bus cruising around Alaska. The boat ride was very interesting and fun. We saw a lot of very nice river front homes as we cruised down the river. They also set up a “flight demonstration” with a small single engine airplane on floats taking off and landing on the river right next to the boat. They also had radio contact with the pilot so they were able to
pipe the pilot’s commentary over the boat PA system. Later on we stop alongside a sled dog training and breeding center. Again, they had radio contact with the ladyon the shore who talked for a while about the Alaska Husky breed and showed a bunch of dogs in training. One of the demonstrations was hooking up a dog team to an ATV which had the engine removed. This was how they trained the dogs in the summer. It was fun to watch how excited the dogs were to work and pull the “sled” along the trail. The boat then cruised down to where the Chena River flowed into the Tanana River, a main tributary of the Yukon River. The boat then turned around and went upstream again, stopping at a Native American cultural center that the company built for its passengers. We got to get off the boat here and spent about an hour walking around the cultural center. They had a number of Native American docents who were giving short lectures about native life and also had a lot of displays of native living shelters, houses, tents, fishing camps and fur camps. They also had a couple of reindeer on display and a pen with a bunch of sled dogs that people could pet. We also learned that reindeer are exactly the same animal as caribou, the only difference being that reindeer were domesticated. After visiting the cultural center we got back on the boat and headed back to the dock where they had, of course, a large gift shop! We did buy some canned smoked salmon on the boat after they gave away samples of salmon dip. It tasted so good we wanted to get some. We were able to resist the gift shop however.
After the boat ride we were back on the bus and headed to the other side of the river to the Pump House restaurant for lunch. They had a very nice buffet set up for us and, of course, we overate. The Pump House had an interesting history in that the building the restaurant is in originally housed a set of very large electric pumps which pumped water from the Chena river over the rim of the valley to the agricultural areas to the North. After a while the pumps were no longer used and the building was abandoned. After a great lunch we were back on the bus again and headed to the El Dorado Gold Mine. On the way the bus driver stopped at the Alaska Pipeline visitor’s center. It turns out that our bus driver, who works for the RV park we are staying in, worked on the pipeline when it was being constructed. He provided some interesting information, as did the displays at the visitor’s center. The pipeline is 48 inches in diameter and the walls of the steel pipe are a half inch thick. The entire pipeline is insulated and is buried about four feet in the ground for much of the way from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez. It is buried where the soil is rock, but where there is permafrost they elevate it on supports. They had to do this to keep the heat from the movement of the oil through the pipe from melting the permafrost soil and causing the pipe to loose support and sink. Even the supports are insulated and, in some cases cooled, to avoid melting of the permafrost. The supports are also constructed to keep the pipeline from breaking during earthquakes. The pipeline, built in the mid-70's, runs 800 miles from the North Slope of Alaska’s Arctic Ocean shore to Valdez on the Southern coast. This stop was very informative and interesting.
After the pipeline visit we continued on to the El Dorado Gold Mine. This is an active gold mining operation, although in my opinion it is now primarily a tourist mining activity. I think they figured out that you can make more money mining it out of the pockets of visitors than you can digging it out of the ground. We got off the bus and were put on an imitation train for a short ride up the hill to the mining area. Along the way we went through a simulated underground gold mine and there was a guy in there explaining how underground mining was done. It was pretty interesting and they did have a lot of old authentic equipment lying around the grounds. The train let us off at a large open area where they had a big sluice operation set up. They had seats on either side of the sluice and when everyone was settled in they dumped a bunch of “ore” into the sluice and turned the water on to demonstrate how the sluice worked. They then had a couple of kids come out with gold pans and demonstrate how the miners panned for gold. The kid doing it in front of us actually came up with a pretty good size nugget.
After the sluice demonstration they put us all into a large area with benches and water troughs and gave us gold pans and little bags of “ore” to pan. Both Jackie
and I found a dozen or so flakes of gold in our pan after working the ore. I must say it was a lot of fun to see the gold worked out of the dirt and rock. This was the first time I had ever actually panned and I found it was pretty hard work. It took me a long time to find a few flakes and my hand hurt from holding the pan. Jackie and I put our flakes together and took it to get weighed. We ended up with about 5 grains of gold weight, the lady told us that was worth about $39. Turns out that we ended up with more gold than anyone else in our group! Jackie had it put in a little vial on a necklace that they sold in the gift shop.After the gift shop visit we got back on the little train and headed back down the hill to the bus. The bus then took us back to the campground where our leader Larry had set up a barbeque for us. He cooked up a bunch of beer brats and hamburgers and we just all got together and talked while we ate. It made for a good end to a long day because everyone in the group was pretty much whipped. After the cookout we went back to the coach and went to bed early because we still had one more day of early starts and activities.
Thursday, July 30 - Day Sixteen. Once again our bus was waiting for us at 8:00 a.m. for another tour. I haven’t mentioned that the bus we have been using here in Fairbanks is provided by the RV park. The bus is about 40 years old and painted bright pink and blue. It seems to run pretty well, but the suspension is shot so it rolls and pitches like an old fishing boat in a storm. We have had the same driver for every trip and he seems pretty knowledgeable about Fairbanks and the history of the area.
Today was very smokey. There are several forest fires not too far South of Fairbanks and today the wind is blowing the smoke over the city. There is also a temperature inversion which is keeping the smoke low to the ground. You can smell the fire is visibility is very poor. The bus first took us to downtown Fairbanks to
the Ice Museum. This museum was in an old movie theater and was dedicated to the art of ice sculpture. Apparently there is an renowned international ice sculpting competition held every year in Fairbanks so the city created this museum as a way of providing support. They first showed us a 20 minute film that showed how they got the ice out of the lakes in the dead of winter. They cut huge 4,000 pound blocks that are used for the competition. One competition is for sculptures that only use one large block, another one is for sculptures that use 10 of these huge blocks. The film showed some of the sculptures from past years and they were phenomenal. It is unbelievable how beautiful the sculptures are when completed. The sculptures are all lit with colored lights which really makes them stand out.After the film they turned on the lights and we saw that on three sides of the theater were large coolers with some of last year’s sculptures stored in them. The coolers had windows so you didn’t have to go inside to see the work. They said they kept the coolers at 20 degrees below zero to keep the ice fresh. I went inside to check out the work close up, but I didn’t spend too much time in there because it was major COLD. One of the sculptors, who also works for the museum, then put on a brief demonstration of ice carving. He was a past winner in the competition and it was amazing how effortless it seemed for him to carve a picture of a rose in a block of ice.
After the Ice Museum we were back on the pink bus and headed for the University of Alaska’s Museum of the North. This is apparently a brand new museum and it was pretty interesting. The bottom floor had a large exhibit room with a large variety of interesting stuff regarding the cultures of Alaska, the animals, the plants, and the geology. Upstairs was a large art gallery with art from Alaska artists, including a lot of Native Americans. We spent a couple of hours at the museum and ended the visit with a film on the Northern Lights. It was an interesting explanation of how the lights are created and the pictures of the lights were very beautiful. Although Fairbanks is in the prime zone for viewing the lights, we won’t see any because it doesn’t get dark enough during this time of year to see them. Too bad. That would be something special.
After the museum we got back on the pink bus and headed back to the campground. We finally had an afternoon off. After a quick lunch Jackie and I took the car and headed into Fairbanks to visit the Elks Lodge. This was our first visit to an American Elks Lodge in a couple of months. The lodge is located right on the banks of the Chena River near downtown Fairbanks. The lodge was open and we went in and had a drink. We found the people very friendly. There were about a half dozen folks in the bar and after a little while we had a nice conversation with them. The lodge has about 850 members. We were able to get a lodge pin for our collection. We also stopped at a couple of stores looking for a small compact freezer. Several of the group, including us, were interested in finding a small freezer because we all anticipate catching a bunch of fish in the next weeks and want to be able to store them. Different people were visiting different stores checking to see what was available. Unfortunately, everyone struck out - no compact freezers to be had anywhere in Fairbanks it seems. We then headed back to the coach for a restful evening.
Friday, July 31 - Day Seventeen. Finally, a day off! We had no scheduled activities for today except for our travel briefing at 4:30. We both slept late, got up and just relaxed all morning taking care of emails and other administrative chores we had been putting off. It was again very smokey in the city. After lunch we went out to do some caching. Our first stop was the little town of North Pole, Alaska, which was just a couple miles South of our park. We stopped at the Santa Claus House which was a large Christmas shop. There was a Santa there (Jackie got to sit on his lap) and rooms full of Christmas ornaments and decorations. Outside
they had a pen with a couple of reindeer in it and all kinds of Christmas stuff. There was also a 30 foot Santa Claus statue. The shop does a big business in postmarking letters from Santa with the North Pole postmark - that is the official name of the city. After visiting North Pole we did some caching in the local area and were able to find 10 caches in a couple of hours. It was good to get out and do some caching again. Tomorrow we head for Denali Park, about 125 miles. Another early start, about 8:30 a.m.Saturday, August 1 - Day Eighteen. We started the day at what has become for us, a reasonable hour. We were out of the park about 8:30 a.m. For the first time in eighteen days we are headed South instead of North. Fairbanks was as far North as this trip is going to take us. We started down Alaska Route 3, the Parks Highway, which leads from Fairbanks to Anchorage. However, before going to Anchorage, we were going to make a three night stop at Denali National Park. Except for a few stretches with frost heaves and winter damage, the road is OK and there was not a lot of traffic. We did make one stop about 35 miles South of Fairbanks at a roadside business called Skinny Dick’s Halfway Inn. The place was supposed to be a restaurant/bar/gift shop and had been noted on Roadside America, the website that
lists all the weird and unusual sights along the highways of America.. We check this website frequently when traveling because it lists some pretty funny and entertaining attractions. In keeping with its unusual name, Roadside America noted that there were all kinds of humorous sexually themed paraphernalia around the place. Unfortunately we found that the place was closed. We were disappointed. The only other stop we made was at a service station about a mile before we reached the RV park. I wanted to top off the diesel in the coach since we had well over 200 miles to Anchorage after we left Denali. After filling up the tank I went in to pay and the owner of the station asked me to see if I could help a German couple who were having a problem with electric power in their rented Class C motorhome. They didn’t speak a lot of English, but I finally figured out that they had 12 volt power in the coach (the fridge, lights, etc.) when the engine was running, but nothing when the engine was turned off. I was pretty sure it had something to do with the house batteries either being dry or having some other issue. I finally figured out where there coach’s house batteries were kept, in a compartment in the stair well. When I took the cover I found that the cable which led from the isolator to the batteries had corroded through and come off one of the batteries. They were no longer connected so they weren’t being charged and weren’t providing power. I explained to the guy that he just needed to disconnect the other end of the short cable, take it into the station and buy a new one the same size, and connect it between the isolator and the battery. I then went in and explained the problem to the owner of the station too, so she could understand what they wanted. She wasn’t sure she had a cable, but said there was an auto supply store just a block down the road and they would have the part if she didn’t. That was my good deed for the day. Jackie thought I was being held for ransom by the station owner, but when I explained what I had been doing she thought it was a good thing too.
We got back on the road and headed the last mile to our RV park where our wagonmaster was waiting to park us. We ended up parking at the edge of a river canyon, facing the river and the mountainside on the other bank of the river. Five feet in front of the coach is the cliff which drops a couple hundred feet down to
the river. On the other side of the river are the tracks for the railroad that runs between Anchorage and Fairbanks. This part of the river is rapids and the hillside on the other bank is all trees and grass. It is a spectacular view - one of the nicest we have had in an RV park. The park has 30 amp electric and water to the site, but no on-site sewer. This should not be a problem for the three days we are here. Interestingly, the electric is provided by a large generator - the park is not connected to the electrical grid, despite the fact that just a mile or two in both directions from the park are commercial business areas. I checked the voltage coming into the coach and it was 116 volts, so I guess his generator works OK.We got into the RV park about 12:00 noon and by 1:40 we were on our way to our next activity - white water rafting! Although this was an optional activity, one which was not included as a part of our prepaid caravan, all but a handful of our group signed up to do it. We were going to raft the very river, the Nenana River, which runs below our coaches. Conveniently, the rafting company’s office was located at the other end of the parking lot of our campground, so we just all walked over there. After signing a waiver which essentially told us all sorts of horrible things that COULD happen to us, we were issued dry suits and life vests to put on. The dry suits were basically waterproof coveralls that we put on over our street clothes. We only had to take off our shoes. The suit has rubber booties built in and elastic rubber seals at the wrist and neck. We also had to put on external rubber boots just to protect the suit’s built in booties from being cut or damaged. The life vest went on over the dry suit. The suits are way big so as to fit over clothing and they fill with air, so if you don’t open the neck seal and squat down to push the air out, you end up looking like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. We all had a great laugh putting them on and looking at each other. The staff of the rafting company has to help you put the suit on because it is so cumbersome, and the seals are so tight, that you can’t do it by yourself. One funny note was that the name of the company that we were rafting with was “Denali Outdoor Center” so all of the vests were marked on the back, in big letters, “DOC”. With our dry suits, which sort of resembled jump suits, and our big orange vests with DOC on the back, we all looked like a road gang from the local prison.
They told us the reason we had to use the suits is because the water in the river is cold, 36 degrees Fahrenheit! The river is fed at its source by glaciers less than 50 miles upstream. They then loaded us onto an old school bus and took us a couple of miles up stream. After a safety briefing, we loaded into the boats and started down river. We were in what they called an “oar boat”, which meant that we didn’t have paddles - we were just passengers and there was one crew member who manned a set of oars in the middle of the boat. We also watched them load up several of the other type, “paddle boats” in which each passenger had a paddle and the crew member only sat in the back and served as the rudder. All of our group were in oar boats. We had seven in our boat. I sat in the front and Jackie sat in the back. The crew guy said the people in front would get wetter - he was correct! We went about 12 miles down river, about a two hour trip, and only had about eight areas of pretty good
rapids, class II and III difficulty (out of a max of VI) so it wasn’t a very risky ride. But, we did hit some pretty good wave sets and we did get very wet - and the water was VERY cold. The suits did their job though, I stayed dry except for my head and hands, which got pretty cold. The air temp was probably in the high 60's and it was windy. Nonetheless, we had a great ride, it was a lot of fun, and we did a lot of screaming. Although they had briefed us on what to do if we were thrown out of the boat, or the boat tipped, only a couple of the areas of the ride had any potential for dumping anyone who was paying the least bit of attention to the ride. After the ride, they loaded us back on the old school bus and took us back to camp. Most of the group then sat around a campfire for an hour or so, with some snacks, and just chatted. This was the first place we have camped where the weather was decent enough, with no mosquitoes, to be able to sit outside, even for a little while. After the campfire we headed back to the coach for dinner and an early bedtime. Our next day’s adventure was scheduled to start at 6:30 a.m. Yikes.Sunday, August 2 - Day Nineteen. We were up at 5:30 a.m. so we could catch a tour bus into Denali National Park at 6:30. Although we had the early morning drag, we were looking forward to the trip because we had heard from other Alaska travelers in the past about how wonderful the bus ride into Denali was - even if it did start so early. For some reason Jackie woke up with her left knee swollen and very painful to walk on. Not sure if she strained it or hit it on the boat ride the day before or what, but she was in pain. The tour bus, operated by the Park’s concessionaire, came right to our campground and picked us up. Two of our leaders stayed at the campground to take care of the group’s various dogs, because the trip would take anywhere from seven to nine hours. Our driver and guide was a very nice young lady named Cassandra. She drove to the park entrance where she stopped and filled the rest of the seats on the bus with other park visitors. We then headed into Denali National Park.
A few fast facts about Denali. Denali is the third largest National Park in the system with over 6.2 million acres. The first and second largest parks are also in Alaska. Until 1980 Denali was known as McKinley National Park, named for former President McKinley. There is only a single road in the park that goes about 100 miles West from the State Highway. The general public is only allowed to drive on the first 15 miles of that road. After that, only approved busses and vehicles operated by park employees or permitees are allowed on the road. Bicycles and hikers are OK if they have permits, but there are no trails in the park either, so hiking and biking are tough. The road is only open during the summer months, May through September. The park lies mainly in the Alaskan Mountain Range, a range which includes the highest mountain in North America, Mt. McKinley. Mt. McKinley is also known as Denali and both names are “officially” recognized. Denali is the a native word which means “great one”. The park is nearly 100 years old and has a variety of wildlife, some of which we hope to see on our trip.
After the 15 miles of public access road, the road into the park becomes gravel, so the bus only goes about 25 mph at most. The driver provided a briefing at which she told everyone on the bus that if anyone saw any wildlife they were to shout “stop” and she would stop the bus so everyone could maybe see whatever it was. She also stopped at a couple of preset rest areas which had toilets and areas where people could get out and stretch their legs. One of the sights she wasn’t sure we would see was Mt. McKinley itself. The mountain is deep within the park and the closest we could get to on the road was about 32 miles. In addition, at over 20,000 feet in elevation, the mountain was shrouded in clouds most of the time. She told us that portions of the mountain were only visible about 15 percent of the time, and the full mountain, including both peaks, less than 5 percent of the time. Nonetheless, we were hopeful because we were traveling on an unusually bright, blue sky day. As we drove West on the park road we would occasionally catch glimpses of the mountain in the distance and it appeared that only the very top of the mountain was covered in cloud. According to the guide we were going to be driving 62 miles into the park, to a point called Stoney Dome. At this lookout we would be within 32 miles of Mt. McKinley.
Along the way we made numerous stops for wildlife sightings. Among the animals we saw on our trip were a pair of lynx, the only member of the cat family within the park, moose, caribou, mountain sheep, a red fox, a wolf, a marmot, and various birds including ravens and golden eagles. One of the highlights was a fairly close (about a half mile) of a large grizzly bear and her two cubs. We sat and watched them for
about 10 minutes. We saw them going in, and going out we saw them again on the other side of the road. We guessed it was the same family because they were in the same general area. One of the neat things on the bus was a video system. The driver had a good quality HD video camera with a great telephoto lens which she could train on the wildlife. The pictures were then broadcast inside the bus on overhead TV screens. We had a good pair of binoculars, so we could see the animals pretty well most of the time, but it gave the folks on the bus without binoculars a chance to see the animals close up in real time. A very neat idea. Of course later, towards the end of the trip, she tried to sell us a $35 DVD of the sightings. Oh well, capitalism at work. When we reached the 62 mile point and turned the corner and had the full view of Mt. McKinley it was breathtaking. It seemed so close that you thought you could touch it. AND - we had a 5 percent day, the entire mountain was visible and there was
almost no cloud on the top. That sight made the whole trip worthwhile. We had a nice group photo taken with the mountain in the background, along with everyone’s individual pictures. After viewing the mountain, we got back on the bus and headed back East along the same road. All in all, it was a very worthwhile trip, even if early and long. They provided sufficient stretch and pottie breaks, water on the bus and a snack box for each person so you wouldn’t starve. We had brought along some fruit also. Jackie’s leg was bothering her, so she didn’t get off the bus too often, but I know she enjoyed the trip anyway.After dropping the other passengers off at the visitor’s center, the bus took our group back to the campground. Having started so early, we were not inclined to do a lot of socializing and just headed back to the coach. I ran out and got an Ace bandage and put it on Jackie’s knee, along with some ice, to help reduce the swelling. Hopefully, it won’t be anything serious and will clear up in a day or two. We had no organized activities for the next day until 5:30 when most of the group were going out to dinner and a show near the park entrance. We stayed at the coach and hit the bed early.
Monday, August 3 - Day Twenty. A Free Day! Yea! We got to sleep in, although 8:00 seems pretty late after all these early starts. We do have the luxury of leisurely drinking our morning coffee and waking up at our old modest pace. We have no TV or radio service here at all, so no morning news. We finally got up and out about 11:00 and headed into “town”, which is actually just the cluster of shops and resorts around the entrance to Denali National Park. The locals call this stretch of Highway 3 “Glitter Gulch” because of all the activity. Our first stop is the Denali Chalet Resort to get a partial refund on our tour tickets from the day before. Since the bus tour through the park was part of our tour, Larry, our wagonmaster, bought all the tickets. However, folks who hold Parks Service Golden Age Passports (like Jackie) can get into any National Park without paying the entrance fee. The $10 entrance fee is an included part of the bus tour ticket, so we found out if you go back to where the tickets were purchased you can get the entrance fee rebated back to you. When Jackie went to the desk they told her they don’t give cash rebates. She could get a check mailed to her in about 48 days or take a voucher for purchases in any of the park concessions. We took the two $10 rebates and went into the Chalet’s restaurant and had lunch. The voucher payed for about half the lunch.
After lunch we went into a couple of the clothing shops which all had “50% Off Sale” signs all over them. Our tour guide had told us the day before that the signs go up at the beginning of season and come down when they close in September. Permanent special sales. They had the usual selection of tee shirts, sweat shirts and jackets and such. I ended buying a fleece vest because I didn’t have any vests and thought I needed one. After wandering around the shops for a while we went geocaching. I had found a total of seven caches in the immediate area. We only cached about two hours, but we found four and had to take a DNF on one. We also got a couple of new Travel Bugs, which are items with unique serial numbers that can be moved from cache to cache and tracked.
We then headed back to the coach to relax for a while before our evening activity. We had a brief travel meeting with the group and then most of us drove back to Denali Chalet for a dinner and show called the “Denali Cabin Night”. This was not part of our tour package, we had to buy the tickets ourselves, but several people had recommended it as a good time. The event was held in a large, open log cabin with picnic tables set up inside. The staff were all dressed in 1920's garb and talked like I guess they thought Alaskan pioneers would, sort of a turn of the
century hillbilly accent. The food was served family style and the wait staff played with the folks, halfway insulting, joking, that sort of thing. They served BBQ ribs, broiled salmon, corn, beans and salad. The food was quite good and there was no shortage. If one of the plates ran out, the server would bring more. After the dinner the wait staff turned into the entertainment staff. They sang some songs and told some stories about life in Alaska in the pioneer days. They also acted out a couple of Robert Service poems with some help from audience members. Every show we have gone to in both the Yukon and in Alaska have featured at least one Robert Service poem. He lived in the Yukon and Alaska at the turn of the century and wrote a lot of poetry. He is quite revered up here in the far Northwest. After the show we headed back to the coach to rest and get ready for our next travel day.Tuesday, August 4 - Day Twenty-one. This was a long travel day so we wanted to get an early start. We were up and out of the park at 8:00 a.m. The day called for us to drive 240 miles South on Alaska Route 3 to Anchorage, Alaska. Anchorage is the largest city in Alaska, with almost 300,000 population. Jackie read that 42 percent of the population of Alaska lives in the Anchorage metro area.. The road was very good and for the first time in a while I was generally able to keep a 55 mph speed. One interesting sight was an old lodge, now closed, known only as "The Igloo". It was a large multi-story
building shaped like an igloo. I guess it was the Alaska version of the old motels in Arizona that looked like teepees. We didn’t see a lot of wildlife, but about 70 miles into the drive we did see a small juvenile black bear run across the road. He was a little too fast getting into the trees for us to get a picture, but at least we saw a bear. The only other sighting we heard about was one of our party said they saw a moose. We had some really beautiful views of the Alaskan Mountain Range and Mt. McKinley on the drive. About 35 miles North of Anchorage we drove through the city of Wasilla, Alaska. This is a fairly small town made famous only as the home of Sarah Palin, former Governor of Alaska and recent Vice Presidential candidate. We looked for her on the way though, but did not get a Sarah sighting.We pulled into the RV park about 1:30 and got settled in just before the rain started. The park is OK. The sites are not real large, but there are sewer hookups at each site. Unfortunately, there is no cable TV and the antenna only picks up a couple of the new digital stations off the air. Of course, we are still too far North for our satellite to work.. The first thing we did after getting the basic setup on the coach finished was take our clothes to the laundry. We had over two weeks worth of wash to catch up on. Fortunately, the park had a nice large laundry. I dropped Jackie and clothes off there and I headed to the airport to pick up our mail package at the UPS service center. It only took three days for it to get here from Pahrump, but that is because everything except very heavy freight is flown up here, even if you have it sent “ground”. This was not the infamous and well traveled mail package we tried to get while in Canada a month ago. That one is still out there somewhere, supposedly on its way back to Pahrump. After we finished the mail run and the laundry we had a caravan meeting just to sort out the activity schedules for the next couple of stops. The campground has a nice pavilion and they were going to have a band that night, but it was cold and raining and we didn’t feel like going outside. After the meeting we went back to the coach for dinner and just relaxed the rest of the night.
And that, dear readers, brings us to the end of the third week. We will be here in Anchorage for three days, then on to some of the Southern coastal towns of Alaska. I know we have a lot of great Alaskan adventures still ahead. Until our next post, remember to find the joy in life.
