Last Post From the Last Frontier

Eric had a few last minute places to share with us before our flight back to Seattle! He took us up to Flat Top look out which offers a spectacular view of the Anchorage area. We didn't climb the trail, but there is a small trail that even us old folks could handle. That's our little blue rental car in the parking lot...we put over 600 miles it!

Jimmy sure looks relaxed. He fell in love with Alaska and I have a feeling that we will be back soon.

After our scenic view, we were all getting hungry. Eric wanted to take us to the Artic Roadrunner, which just might have the best hamburgers in Alaska! Jimmy's being funny in the parking lot.

 Eric had one more tourist stop for us... the Alaska Wild Berry Products store. It's really fun, well done, nice local products as wells as souvenirs! It reminded me of the Vermont Country Store.

And then it was time to head to the airport. What an adventure for the summer of 2014. Thanks so much Eric and Gina. We will always remember this trip with fond memories.

Alaska Vacation~BIrthday Time!

You may be getting tired of my Alaska trip, but as I stated in my Blogland Tour, part of the reason I blog is to have a record of my life. It is fun to look back on blog posts.

Eric spent part of his growing up years in Palmer so he wanted to take us by his old home and his cute little town of Palmer. We had a yummy lunch and did some sight seeing of the area. It is a charming little place.

We passed a cute little antique area, so we HAD to stop. This little cabin had been a goat shed that the owner moved to the property. Pretty cute!

Alaska flowers really dressed up the place and gave it a great deal of charm!

We all thought that Otto would love to ride this sweet little bike!

Jimmy bought a pair of leather motorcycle gloves and was goofing around and making us all laugh!

So we continued on the Palmer-Hatcher Fishhook Road. Of course we were thinking fish and fishing, but Eric told us it was called fishhook because the road swishes back and forth like the shape of a fishhook! OK! It was absolutely beautiful.

We came to an historic park called Independence Mine. This was a working mine for years and now it's being preserved for all to enjoy. There's gold in those hills! I read that about $18 million dollars worth of gold was taken out of the hills when the mine was working.

Eric got serious about his driving and decided to take us on a gravel uphill road to Willow. I was scared to death at first but the drive was just unbelievable. I was so glad that I hadn't chickened out.

We came out into Willow and then drove on to Wasilla. Eric also spent some time growing up in Wasilla so he wanted us to stay there overnight. We stayed in the Best Western on the beautiful Lake Lucille.

A view overlooking the lake from the back of the inn.

We met a great fun family from Montana out on the deck. They entertained us for quite awhile and we all had a lot of fun.

The next day we drove back into Anchorage and Eric took us to the Anchorage Museum. What a great way to see the history of this fairly new state! Jim was most excited to see all the Sydney Laurence paintings. Some are so large, it's hard to believe.

I always enjoy the Native American history of the Northwest and Canda. We also got to see a special traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian Museum upstairs on the different tribes of Alaska.

August 8th is Eric's birthday. His mom and family were so happy to have him in Alaska on his birthday. What a good sport wearing this funny headband while he was opening his presents.
He LOVES pizza, so his mom ordered pizza and she made him a homemade chocolate birthday cake!

Make a wish Eric! Jimmy liked the cake so much he had three pieces!

We all went back to our hotel, a bit sad that it was our last night in Alaska. Happy Birthday Eric.

More Alaska Travels

So we met in the morning and wondered what our tour guide Eric had planned for us! We were going to be driving back to Anchorage along Highway 1 and it is just so scenic. These are a couple pictures I snapped as we were driving, from my car window.

We were seeing glaciers again-part of the Chugach Mountain range, so Eric pulled off on the Portage Glacier Highway so we could get closer for some better pictures. That glacier blue is something I will never forget.

There was a little salmon viewing station, so Eric stopped so Jimmy could walk down and take a look. It was such a pretty area.

This is actually a female and a male salmon. The male was courting her and sending other males on their way when they came close. I have only seen this in films, never in the wild. The salmon's life cycle continues to amaze me.

We were getting low on gas, so Eric said we would drive down to Whittier. Well, as we were driving, we came to this structure which is the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel. Eric had never been through it and we really had no idea what this was all about. It cost $12 for the ticket and we said, ok! Oh my goodness. It is a 2 mile tunnel cut through Maynard Mt. Cars share it with trains and you wait as it can only go one way each time. It's very dark inside and we had no idea where we were. It was once just a for trains and used by the military.  They replaced the old tracks in the early 2000's with tracks that are flush in the concrete so cars can use it too. It is amazing.

You end up in Whittier, which is a strange town. It's mostly used by cruise ships that take you on glacier trips. Guess what? There is no gas station in that town! So we all held our breath and went back out through the tunnel and yes, we made it to a gas station!

We met Eric's family again for another yummy dinner and then retired back at the Capt Cook Hotel.
I took this photo out of our window as our room was on the 18th floor . It was still light at almost 11 pm. What a day...thank Eric for another amazing tour!