Fireweed, Denny's in Fairbanks, Rainbow pot-o-gold

Haul Road, Pipeline, Arctic Circle

Prudhoe Bay, "The Haul Road", Dalton Hwy July13-16

We parked the motorcoach at Ft. Wainwright Base in Fairbanks and headed to Deadhorse, which is also known as Prudhoe Bay, where the pipeline starts on the Arctic Ocean. We took the Jeep packed with supplies, deisel, food, etc and drove 500 miles there and 500 miles back on dirt, gravel, mud, some pavement. The Brooks Range was over 4600 ft high and it snowed when we went through it. There was a grizzly bear scratching his back on a post, we saw moose crossing the road, swan, geese, arctic squirrel, arctic owl, and the flowers were beautiful. This is the part of Alaska most people don't see because it is out of the way. We crossed the Arctic Circle and Continental Divide to where trees and grass don't grow. There is tundra on top of permafrost. We took a tour of the oil field through a security area. I searched for gold while Birdie fished and we both came back empty. But, we did a whole bunch of wild blueberries that covered the area for miles. The temp varied from 65 to 35. Having a great time still.....

TALKEETNA

Mt. McKinley, near Talkeetna, Alaska

Cleaning day......The maid did not come.. Sally is on vacation..

Talkeetna is north of Anchorage and is a fun town. We took a charter on the glacier fed Talkeetna river in a jet powered boat. We fished for a couple of hours and our friends caught a king salmon. The weather is about 70 and sunny. Shorts were in order and we got to drive our scooters around. Here we are working cleaning up the coach and reorganizing for our excursion to Prudhoe bay up the haul road. I did about 10 loads of laundry and Birdie washed the coach and Jeep. When we are hooked to water we really take advantage of it. Otherwise we carry about 100 gal and conserve the water. Mt. McKinley is in the background. It is the tallest mountain in North America. We are over 100 mile from it. These pics of the mountain are on the same day. As you can see the weather makes a huge difference on what you can see.

Homer Alaska July 4

We took a drive to the home town of "Time Bandit" from the show Deadliest Catch. They are out to sea and won't be home til Sept. Here is a pic of their store and a few boats at the marina. Kinda trashy area. Homer was not a favorite of mine.

Hidden Lakes

Lake Trout

Hidden Lakes

Beaver Dam

We arrived in Hidden Lakes National Park late June and left July 4th. The site we were on was beside the lake. You can see for yourself the beauty we saw. This is a pic of our zoom inflatable boat we left in the water and took out each day. Birdie caught a Lake Trout that we ate that night. We had campfires to keep us warm at night. We are traveling with Sherry and Dennis Walters from Las Vegas. They are a great couple that loves to do the things we do. We play Euchre, fish together, and laugh all of the time. Here is Max, their maltese pet we have adopted. Tonight we are at Fred Meyers parking lot and tomorrow will be heading for Homer. The salmon have stopped running until mid July we have heard and the mosquitoes are not bad. Love to all,. Louise and Birdie