We are just back from our Alaskan adventure. Sad that normal life will resume early tomorrow but utterly impressed and mesmerized by the beautiful wilderness up there. It is absolutely stunning and we have well over 1000 photo's to show for it so hope you are ready for a gazillion Alaska themed posts -;)
We flew direct from Houston to Alaska which is a fight of over 7 hrs so that should tell you something about the distance. Once in Anchorage we rented a car and spend 4.5 days touring some of the very few roads Alaska has visiting some very unappealing places like the home of Mrs Palin (Wasilla) as well as the more appealing unpaved dusty road, gold diggers, railroad & outdoor towns such as Talkeetna with population of a little over 800.
With one of the harshest winters since the sixties and a very mild spring there was still plenty of snow around and the weather was quite 'cool'. Considering it is impossible to buy winter clothes in Houston after January and the final blow out sale of winer gear in Alaska just kicked off we got organized quickly. The favorite brands in Texas and Alaska are very much the same so Kaat & Rick both ended up with a nice thick & sheep lined Carhartt jacket and a new set of John Deere's for Kaat all for Houston outlet prices.
It did not take long to spot the first wild life with this bald eagle relaxing right by the road.
What green there was looked lush and fresh, hiding the salmon rivers from view. Considering the amount of rain & fog we understood why the green was doing so well but it often obstructed the view to the higher snow capped mountains in the background.
Considering this was one of our B&B's the lack of visibility was somewhat of a shame...
Distances in Alaska can definitely compete with Texas and there are long long stretches with no apparent civilization. Rick did not care and got hooked on the Lion King and Tinkerbell ('Tjinkerbel").
We did not mind the long drives either considering this was our visual entertainment
as well as what to us appeared as dead ghost towns such as Cantwell which for many months in winter must be pretty much cut off from the world and did not look alive now that summer season is in swing either. No shop or diner to be found, no petrol station open in 60 mi, no people to be seen and what vehicles parked near houses could easily be derelict.
There are very few roads in Alaska and hence avoiding to drive the same road twice is usually impossible. Actually before the roads there used to be nothing but the railway and so apart from a fe random cars (especially after the memorial day weekend was over) the only occasional sign of life comes from passing trains if you manage to spot it curling through the landscape - see grey, blue, yellow shadow in the bottom right.
With the abundance of wilderness it is not as easy to spot the wildlife either but sometimes we were lucky. It still being early in the season the annual antlers are not as impressive as they may get.
What housing can be seen along the road to us looked like eye sores. It appears that every 3rd house or so is a major scrap yard or home to a junk hoarder with abandoned cars and other major kit & equipment with no clear life left in it. COnsidering all that is probably covered under the snow 8 months a year people maybe don't care but at this time of the year it looked bad an unappealing. The only indication on how many or few people where out there could be found in the occasional cluster of letter boxes (about 6-8 in total I counted on the 240 Mi road from Anchorage to Denali outside city limits).
I especially loved the neighborhood watch sign considering this is the side road the mailboxes where lined along. Guess the definition of a neighborhood is different in Alaska....
- to be continued -
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