Letter 14, Tok, Anchorage, Soldotna

Monday, June 14, we took it easy in the morning then, about noon, headed to the gas station with a free car wash. We were too tired to do a real good job, but it sure looks better than before. A quick stop at a gift shop, which had

lawn mowers on the sod roof, we don’t know who else would use one up here as no one has lawns. The visitor's center had a fist full of literature on our destinations in Alaska, then off to another see more sights.

We didn’t travel far, before stopping at Porcupine Creek State Recreation area. It wasn’t much, but did have a place for us to stay.

Tuesday, June 15 we found ourselves in

burl country as many of the spruce trees had burls. Locals do all sorts of fancy things with the burls like bowls and tables.

We were traveling toward Anchorage on Hwy 1 or the Tok Cutoff. We crossed the Copper River after driving parallel to it for miles. One rest stop told of the Alaska Road Bureau which in 1956 was called by the Alaskans, the “Bureau of Parallel Ruts.”

At Glennallen we remained on Hwy 1, but here it was called the Glenn Hwy. Along the way we saw many

red cones and barriers with warnings of frost heaves and dips.

Construction followed, but it wasn’t as bad as ruts.

We passed many areas with short often crooked trees with shrubby clusters of branches. We found these were black spruce and are generally found in poorly drained areas, such as wetlands and permafrost.

We attempted to stay in two off road spots, but because of the sprinkles caused too much mess. We decided this wasn’t for us that night. Moving on we passed the

Copper River and the

Nelchina Glacier.

Before the gold Rushes…
Before the Copper Mining…
Before the highways…
Before the Alaska Pipeline...
This land was inhabited by the Ahtna Athabascan people.
To this day, the land is the heart and soul of the Ahtna people, who treat their land, fish and wildlife with the utmost respect and it is this respect that has allowed them to maintain the lands’ pristine nature. They welcome visitors to their region and request they treat our land with respect, leaving no trace so others may continue to enjoy all this land has to offer.
We try to leave no trace and take only pictures of this fabulous land.
A few miles further we saw

a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7iDHfOdaS8yyNhtFCOgoDrmYRlNcK8B12DiJ24Eh2T0Hx00k-up5ZPZPPDtZJo8r_flGH68hUdKBklLPN9sCWEfzDn7zspx2RYopEJQUnVBHvKtE6Xu6HPrukOdzgiB0sOvAdHPyvrSYF/s1600/14-7+Gunsight.jpg">
“The notch” or “gunsight,” The big mountains were hidden behind the clouds. We had passed Mts Sanford, Drum, Wrangell and Blackburn all above 12,000 feet.

We looked at several other pullouts and passed a few lodges including Sheep Mountain Lodge that sponsors the Fireweed 400 Bicycle Race to Valdez which takes place July 8-9. We were glad we will not be in the race’s way at that time.

Finally we found a home for the night near the

Lions Head at Grand View Café & RV park. It was a small park with a view of the
Lions Head and we hoped for a clear day to see the mountains later.

Wednesday, June 15 too bad the clouds were right on top of us when we awoke and the weather forecast didn’t hold any promises to improve so we moved on. Temperature was in the low forties with a forecast for the low sixties for a high. About the same as we have been experiencing. The road toward Anchorage was a pretty drive and thankfully didn’t have any frost heaves. We came around a curve over Cariboo Creek and as we headed up the other side, the clouds were right down on us.

We could see a long stretch of snow to the left on the other side of the canyon. When we arrived down stream we discovered it was the Matanuska Glacier. We bypassed the state recreation site for the glacier as we had the trailer with us, but it did look interesting.We followed the Glenn Highway along the Matanuska River through canyons, all the way into Palmer. Too bad the clouds followed us. It did lighten up in Palmer to allow us to see part of the mountains overlooking the town.

We hightailed it to Walgreens in Wasilla, where we found a long line. Walgreens is the only chain drug store in the state and there are only three stores. The tech was very efficient in taking our information and promised to have our meds ready in the afternoon. We gave her some leeway to wait until morning.

Fred looked at each person he met to see if it was Sarah Palin, but no luck, no Sarah. She is from Wasilla.

Stopping at a Chevrolet house we had the oil changed at twice the price of home. Yikes!

Thursday, June 16 today tourist prices went up, just for us! This is the season.
We picked up our meds and a few other items then headed up the

Knik River toward the Knik glacier. This was because we read Michner’s Alaska. One of the stories he told about was the Matanuska Colony. We were currently in the Matanuska Valley and it covers a huge area.

In 1935, when the dust bowl had been devastating the mid-plains states and the depression was crippling the nation, President Roosevelt initiated many programs to ease the burden. To help get people in the states off the relief rolls, add to the population of the territory of Alaska, and get the territory more self-sufficient in farm products, the government decided to send a group of farmers to the Matanuska (Mat-Su for short) Valley to “colonize.”

In the spring of 1935, 202 families from Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa were sent by train, ship and train, again, to start the new colony. At the railroad siding called “Palmer,” six miles north of Matanuska Junction, a tent city was built for the Colonists by CCC workers from California. For a 30 year loan of at least $3,000, each farmer got at least 40 acres of land and was promised a house, a barn, a chicken house and a well. It was hoped the colonists would develop small vegetable farms and sell their produce locally.

While the colonist plans did not work as hoped and expected, the project did increase the population of the valley by nearly double, and some of the original colonists and their descendants live in the Matanuska Valley today.
This valley is very fertile. The sandy loam is great fror truck farming. Twenty plus hours of light during the 100 day growing season helps also. If you have ever seen a picture of a cabbage head taller than a ten year old kid, it probably came from here. Too bad the season isn’t right for us.

Our mission for the day was to find the area in which they settled. The area was along the river and appeared to be a great get away place. None of the original homes were still there. We think they moved into a different area, but the main character of Michner’s story’s family is still giving tours of the glacier.

Continuing our tour we stopped at a Reindeer farm.

At the insistence of the visitor center host and a ranger we drove up the valley on
Fishhook Road following a little river. At the head of the valley was a gold mine and the start of Hatcher Pass, which was still closed because of snow. It opens July 4. The mountains nearby had a new dusting of snow.
On the way back down to the Mat-Su valley we could see past the lodge,
the flat area around Turnagain Arm, then the mountain on the opposite side.
On our way home from Palmer the sky opened and almost cleared the tops of the mountains looking south.

What a beautiful drive!

Friday, June 17, we retraced our steps to Wasilla for the remainder of our meds, then packed up and headed to Anchorage noting the highway sign stating
201 Moose had been killed crossing the road we were on this year!.



As we neared the capitol Olivia exclaimed, there’s a mountain with snow all the way to the ground! Later we found it was Denali, 200 miles away! Wow! We had no idea it would ever be visible that far away or Olivia would have had the camera clicking..



We found our cheap park, cheap as in appearances not price, then went downtown to see the sights. Our first stop was to see the virtual movie about the 1964 earthquake. They showed the

affects of the quake and this was where
we were at that moment. Now it is all repaired and built back, but it had dropped the street level a whole story.

The street vendor’s had interesting menus and we enjoyed the tourist traps on the way to the visitor’s center where we learned about Denali, so after supper at Phyllis’s where Fred had Copper River salmon, delicious! We tried to get a picture of Denali, much to Olivia’s disappointment, the only view was hidden by trees on the hill opposite the bay. We know it looks like cloud, but it was the real thing!
We hope it will show its glory when we reach it’s base.

Saturday, June 18 we attended the Saturday market and saw quite a few local arts including antler carving, flutes, glacier silt pottery along with all kinds of jewelry, food and t-shirts. Back to trailer we packed up and moved on.
We departed Anchorage to Fred’s delight to get out of the big city and headed south along thescenic route of Turnagain Arm. We drove right beside the water with mountains all around us rising sharply from the shoreline to heights approaching 4,000’. Some to our left were big with rock climbers scaling the walls. We decided the tide was going out and in this waters the tide can be as much as 40’ difference. Only in the Bay of Fundy are they larger.

We found our next campground on the parking lot of the Alyeska ski resort, with a pay slot for $10, in Girdwood where we enjoyed watching people

parasailing from the top of the ski lift.



We would have probably passed this community up, except Dr. Jon Williamson our dentist had told us to be sure and eat at the

Double Musky. When Olivia looked it up online she found their menu contains classic New Orleans dishes done with Alaska Seafood, such as crab meat dressing stuffed halibut, served with Creole burre blanc sauce among other delicious items. It sounded too good to pass up, so for Fred’s father’s day and our 48th anniversary we really splurged. Go to www.doublemuskyinn.com to find out more, then put it on your bucket list.

The restaurant opened at 4:30 and we arrived about 4:15 to see a line waiting for the doors to open. We were impressed with their trophy case, especially being named by the

food network as one of top ten restaurants in the USA.

While we waited we met a very friendly lady from Montana. We only chatted a few minutes before being seated. Olivia realized later she was sitting alone, not far from us, and we wished we had known and asked her to join us. We told her and later she sent over part of her appetizers, mushrooms with scallops. Wow were they good. Then Fred asked the waiter to give her a desert on us.

Olivia had ordered the

specialty of the house and Fred a

white salmon. Both were very good. We both had enough left for at least two meals.

As we left we introduced ourselves and Sharon invited us to come to Butte, Montana for some grilled Alaskan fish in Montana. We invited Sharon to come to the trailer. She had not eaten the desert and we shared it over coffee. Come to find out she works for AAA and reviews hotels and restaurants. She told us all about the Kenai peninsula and recommended a whole page of places to eat and where to ship fish home.

Meeting new friends is one of our favorite parts of traveling like we do. We don’t think we have ever met a food critic before. It was fun!

Sunday, June 19, Happy Father’s Day all you fathers. We awoke at 9:00 am! Surprised both of us. Sure was a good night sleep. We packed up and headed down the road. We missed the visitor center for Portage Glacier and Whittier, thank goodness we can do it on the return trip. This highway to Homer on the south point of the peninsula is a single road trip. We don’t know if it was because of a pretty Saturday, Father’s Day or what, but the traffic both ways was horrible.

Olivia thought Fred wanted to fish at Hope so we drove out and found out we didn’t really want to be there, so we turned around and headed to Soldotna. Arriving there we immediately found Fred Myers store and their nice attitude to RVer’s. They welcome us for two nights at no charge. We are on the

far right end. There are also more on the opposite side of the store. Since the national and state parks don’t have any hookups, this is just a good, just minus some scenery.

We visited Soldotna’s visitor center and enjoyed their passionate for her job volunteer. She told us all about the peninsula, whether we wanted to know or not.

We love hearing from you, so please write to
Olivia@bobheck.com or fredharrington@yahoo.com