The behinder you get...

June 28, 2009
Palmer, AK

... the longer it takes to catch up. I'm so far behind now, I'll let the photo albums do the catching up for me. Click on the date for each section below to see the pictures. Sorry for the extra clicks, but as you know, "every picture tells a story"...

June 22: We finished the drive down the Tok Cut-off and the Richardson Highway to Valdez, ending up at the local Elk's for the overnight. The highlights of the drive were a stop at Worthington Glacier and two of the many waterfalls along the road just north of Valdez.

June 23: We did a mini-tour of Valdez (OK, it's a small town and everything's close together). We saw the Alaska (aka Alyeska) Pipeline terminal, "Old Valdez" (the whole town was destryed in the 1964 "Good Friday Earthquake"), and Valdez Glacier.

June 24: This was an easy driving day, putting in a little over a hundred miles back north on the Richardson Highway, then the Edgerton Highway to Chitina, a small town on the Copper River right at the edge of the Wrangell-St Elias National Park (largest park in the US by land area). We found a boondocking spot right on the flood plain of the river and watched the locals fish for salmon. Now, that's Alaska! It was just like Quartzsite, except with water. We had a bald eagle scavenging for food right in front of the coach (too fast for pictures, unfortunately). Happy birthday to Pat and Larry!

June 25: Bob, Marlene, and I took a day trip 60 miles up the gravel road to McCarthy, then took a tour of the Kennecott Copper Mine. 2 hours each way on a washboard road, but it was definitely worth it!

June 26: We made the day-long (lots of frost heaves and some construction to slow us down) drive from Chitina to Palmer, a nice city of 4,500 people just northeast of Anchorage ("the big city) and right near Wasilla (which I'd never heard of before last year's Republican National Convention). We stopped at the Pipeline for pictures on the way, and set up camp at a very nice Elk's Lodge.

June 27: I took a day trip to Independence Mine, a gold mine now run by the Alaska Parks System. Geri was once again astute enough to stay home.

June 28: Today was a "down day". We relaxed and made a trip to Wal-Mart in Wasilla, and that's about it. Happy birthday to Belle!

Well, that's the catch up. Time to call it a day!