Alaska Road Trip #2 – Day 6

Today we drove south to Valdez.

Here’s a picture of a glacier near Valdez.

It was tiny compared to this one:

Bridal Veil Falls.

We stopped at the site of Old Valdez and had a nice view of the bay.

View in the opposite direction.

We stopped at Horseshoe Falls for a bit.

Then we headed back towards Anchorage. Made it most of the way, only had a couple hours or so of driving the next morning. Thus ended our second Alaska Road Trip!

We’d realized that everyone but Catherine got to play on the arctic tundra, so today we remedied that. She wasn’t sure what we were doing to her.

I think Santa’s reindeer were checking up on us.

Here’s some more pictures from that day.

We finally made it back to civilization (Fairbanks), got some groceries at Wal-Mart (they have a Supercenter!), and then ate supper at McDonald’s (Thomas enjoyed the play area).

Here’s Thomas using the spongy arctic tundra ground as a trampoline.

Jeannie found these cranberry-like berries on the ground and decided to eat some (then Thomas had to follow her example). I decided to wait until the next day, so I could see if they got sick. They didn’t, but I didn’t see any berries the next day.

Anyone who’s watched Season 3 of Ice Road Truckers has seen the road we drove on to get to the Arctic Ocean. Yup, we drove about 414 miles (one-way) on the Dalton Highway, which is about 25% pavement and 75% gravel (the gravel sections were often in better shape than the paved sections).

Here’s a couple pictures we took along the way.

We made it to the Arctic Circle!

We stopped at Coldfoot Camp, filled up the RV, and ate at the truck stop. We continued on for a while until it started to get dark, then picked a spot to park for the night.

We started the day by going to North Pole, Alaska.

Thomas just wouldn’t sit still for Santa.

Catherine was on her best behavior.

“Can you put in a good word for me with Santa?”

After visiting Santa’s house, we ate lunch at Pizza Hut, filled out our postcards, then took a trip to the post office to mail them. Then we started our journey further north.

Our first stop was at the Museum of Alaska Transportation & Industry in Wasilla.

An old hay cutter. I remember having two of these in our yard when I was little.

Thomas really enjoyed this toy train caboose.

It’s a plane!

Catherine had lots of fun pulling Thomas’s hair.

Later that night we pulled over at a turnout and watched the Northern Lights. There was a faint display all night, but they did flare up for about a minute.

We started the day off with some donuts at The Moose is Loose. Figured it had to be good, they were pretty busy. Thomas liked his halibut cookie (not made with actual halibut), Jeannie liked what she picked, and my apple fritter was pretty good for the first few bites. Then we headed off to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. Looked around the visitor’s center for a bit, then hiked out to the lake.

Here’s Thomas trying to get a better view.

Catherine had to take a look too.

The sky looked really strange here.

We left and headed back to Girdwood to pan for gold at Crow Creek Mine. Here’s a picture Jeannie took of me along the way. I’m holding a bottle of Pepsi Natural that she bought.

My dad has used a similar refrigerator before.

Thomas is digging while I pan for gold.

Yay, I found four flakes of gold!

We all found gold, but only when using the ziplock bags of dirt that you were guaranteed to find gold in. At least we tried! After this we headed back to Anchorage, ate at Golden Coral, then set back up at the school we’re camper hosts at. I thought the day was done, until I had to take Thomas to the playground late at night. I think it was past 11PM when we got back to the RV.

Finally made it to Seward today. Stopped at a Safeway to get some groceries, the visitor center to see what there was to do, then on to a new playground that had just been built. Thomas really played it up.

Thomas and Catherine played in the “sandbox” (actually really fine rocks that the glacier had ground up).

The view behind the playground (just past some trees).

After we ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant, we went back to the playground for a bit. Then it was back in the RV for Thomas’s nap. I walked around the campground that was right next to the playground, but couldn’t find a spot worth paying for (it was either $15/night for a spot next to the ocean with no hookups, or $30/night for a spot with hookups but no view). We decided to start heading back. Along the way we stopped at a bridge that went out to a pond with lots of lily-pads.

Since we were way ahead of schedule, we decided to take a detour to Soldotna. We went to eat at a Mexican restaurant, then parked at a Fred Meyer’s for the night. We caught up on some shopping while there. For those back home, Fred Meyer’s is kinda like a Super Wal-Mart, except possibly bigger. They’re also owned by Kroger’s. This particular store had a lot of parking for RVs, and even had a dump station and dumpster they could use (don’t think any Wal-Marts have this).

We started the day at the Alyeska Resort in Girdwood. Took the tram to the top of the mountain. Jeannie didn’t know if she could make it back, I pointed out that they had trails going down the mountain if she preferred. She did end up taking the tram back.

Thomas and I played in the snow in July.

Thomas had just hit me in the face with a snowball.

A view of the trams in action.

This was the position Thomas was in for most of the trip back down.

Once Thomas woke up from his nap, we stopped at a lake for him to play in. If you look closely you can see that he was splashing us.

Next we hiked up to Exit Glacier, just outside of Seward. Here’s a family picture, it was pretty windy next to the glacier.

Another windy picture.

Our view for the night.

Catherine’s first piece of pizza.

We took a short trip to Seward and back. Along the way we also stopped at Girdwood and Soldotna. Unfortunately we don’t have any of the pictures from our main camera (Pentax K10D) for the first one and a half days, as I didn’t have the memory card installed (it still happily focused and snapped pictures the entire time). We don’t have pictures of the actual turnout we boondocked in the first night, but here’s some pictures from a turnout a couple miles up the road we also stopped at.

Cute family picture. Had to take quite a few pictures with Thomas crawling all over the rock until I finally caught him being still AND facing the camera.

The things Jeannie puts Catherine through.

Thomas on his tricycle

Thomas watched a train go by.