June 29 Haines Alaska USA

                                             Drving down the road I saw Yogi Bear

                                             Observing traffic on the Haines highway

                                Coming close to the road.  Our car windows were closed quickly

                                  How'd you like this crossing your street in your hometown

                                     Looking down Haines highway towards Haines Alaska

                           The Statendam in front of our home on the Lynn Canal in Haines

                             Ellen having lunch/dinner at the Lighthouse restaurant in Haines
Back in Alaska here at Haines. We have an RV park right on the Lynn Canal which is where all the cruise ships dock. In fact right now the Holland-America Statendam is in port a stones throw from our campground. Today we crossed the border and the immigration officer asked where are you from I said OWINGS mills Maryland, he said where is Fallston Maryland. Luckily I knew or I might have been denied entry. We saw bears all along the highway and even on the highway. What a weird sight! They just roam around like they own the place and when you think about it they do sure keep the humans away so I guess they do own the place.  Supposedly if they havent eaten our food they are afraid of humans.  I asked Ellen to check out that theory but she declined. Go figure!!!!

We checked our ferry reservation to Skagway and will leave Friday night. Then we went to the money store also known as the supermarket. The prices in the north are so expensive. 12 pack of coke is $10. I needed CPR. More tomorrow on Haines.

June 28 Katherine Lake YT

                                        
 Ellen in our Campground at Lake Katherine

                                                                   Lake Katherine
We left our campground on the Yukon river and drove south to just before Whitehorse.  We then made a change of plans and drove west back on the Alaska highway towards Haines Junction.  Instead of turning north towards Fairbanks as we did last month we headed south towards Haines Alaska which is a beautiful drive of about 150 miles.  We stopped at Katherine lake for the night.  We walked 1.5 miles to the lake from our campground and boy did I complain.  I was hoping to hail a taxi but none came.  Tomorrow it's off to Alaska again.

June 26 Dawson City Yukon Territory

Today started out sunny and nice.  We got our bikes out and biked throughout Dawson City.  This is a quaint Klondike town where Canadians panned for gold.  It looks like a western town circa 1880.  The houses and businesses are out of the ponderosa and Gunsmoke shows.  The center of town is the gambling hall called....wait for it............."Gerties". They have an hour show which is straight out of the old west.  We then visited the Robert Service home (get out your Wikipedia and look him up)
We got back to the camper and just then a dark cloud came over the mountain and the skies opened up and knocked all the power out in Dawson City.  It was a blackout but because it never gets dark here in the summer I call it a lightout.  Off towards British Columbia tomorrow.

June 27 Carmacks Yukon Territory

                                             Ellen needs to see every museum in the world

                                                 Ellen stopping for grub at the General Store

                                                   The Ritz Carlton of Dawson City

                                       Diamond Tooth Gerties Saloon in the background

                                                 Laurel and Hardy aka Bob and Wayne

My new hat on the Yukon River

Left Dawson city after a wonderful evening at Diamond Tooth Gerties.  This is the old time saloon that has an old time show which was so bad it was funny.  While there we sat next to two great Albertans Bob and Wayne.  They were the funniest guys and we could not stop laughing the whole time.  Bob had the best hat and after complimenting him repeatedly he gave me his hat.  They reminded me of Laurel and Hardy with Bob playing the Oliver Hardy role.  Wayne was a little more taciturn but what he lacked in verbosity Bob more than made up for. 
We left and headed down the Klondike highway towards Whitehorse 325 miles away.  We stopped at carmacks on the Yukon river for the night.

Photos June 21 to June 25

                                                       Will not eat at Fuking

                                            The clouds lower than the mountain in Valdez

                                             Alaska Pipeline terminus  No free samples!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                                 Ellen and her RV

                                               Clouds closing in on mountain highway

                                                 Looking at people climbing the glacier

                                                    Cars take it rough in Alaska

                                                       Going swimming in a class 5 rapids

                                               The beautiful town of Cooper Landing

                                             Bears keep out from eating buried humans! Aargh

                                                    Mosquitos have taken over Alaska

                                                Ellen always wanted to wear a veil

                                                       Downtown Chicken Alaska

The Cluck'in Taxi of Chicken.  Hard to hail a cab in chicken cause you've gotta make chicken sounds

                                                                   More of Chicken

                                                    The 4th plague Blood in the Yukon river

                                         Boundary cafe 4 miles from Canadian border

                                                  Ellen making friends wherever she goes

                              The top of the World highway and the modes of transportation

                                                       Dawson City Yukon Territory

The free Yukon ferry across Yukon river to Dawson City

June 24 Chicken Alaska

Yes chicken is the name of this town because the gold miners of 1898 couldn't pronounce the cities name ptarmigan so they called it Chicken. Chicken is 4 stores (one is a liquor store, two are bars and one sells t shirts) we did buy stuff for Tyler and Josie. Guess at which store? That's about all there is to do at chicken so we parked the RV got out the chairs and took a sunbath because todaywasthe hottest since Fairbanks ---68 degrees. Tomorrow the Top of the World highway (a misnomer because it's miles of dirt road and one lane). Agh what I do for Ellen!!! If you don't hear from me in a while it's because there isn't any Internet or we fell off a cliff. Wait been there done that!

June 23 on the road at Dry Creek Alaska

After placing preparationH on all my mosquito bites (yes that really works) we left the campground from hell and took the Tok cutoff towards Tok.  We skirt the wrangler-st.Elias national park which I forgot to mention we visited yesterday.  The Tok cutoff road is poorly maintained but saves a few hours drive.  We arrived back in Tok (we hit this "metropolis" 5 weeks ago coming in.)  It's name used to be Tokyo but for some reason on December 7, 1941 they changed the name and it has remained Tok ever since.

We then headed towards the top of the world highway and the city of Chicken.  Tomorrow I'll tell you how it got the name Chicken.  We stopped 15 miles short of Chicken because the Top of the World highway is very dangerous and we wanted to do it on Saturday when it will have 2 days to dry out.  The road is known for mudslides so we will spend the day in Chicken tomorrow and get a good nights sleep before we leave the United States and become foreigners again.

June 22 on the road

Awoke today and got ready to leave Valdez.  The weather was cloudy obscuring the mountains.  Valdez is 80%of the time cloudy which was why yesterday was so special blue skies and mountains all around.  We left on the Richardson highway and headed north.  We stopped first at old Valdez which was totally destroyed in the earthquake of 1964.  They moved the town 4miles south to it's present location---why, I have no idea.  Our next stop was the end of the Alaska pipeline where tankers wait to fill with oil.  We wanted to get in but were firmly told we looked too shady especially ellen. We were pointed in the opposite direction and the five machine guns were very persuasive.
We stopped at bridal veil falls to have lunch.  The falls is next to the road so luckily I didn't have to walk too far. Next was worthington glacier which was very interesting.  You could climb it with a guide but when told that we needed crevass injury training ellen and I vetoed that idea.  The view from the edge was fine with us.
Copper landing was an old gold mining town with three houses and a bar.  We stopped to peruse the river behind the town whose current was about 30 knots.  It looked like a great rafting trip but ellen reminded me of my coma 5 years ago so we had to nix that trip.  
We passed an old cemetery which has fences around the individual graves to prevent bears from digging up the corpses.  Pretty gruesome thought.
We camped tonite at a state campground.  It was possibly the worst evening because we were attacked by.......................................the largest Mosquitos and blackflies you ever saw.  They were the size of birds.  We ducked into the RV and stayed there all night.  The only redeeming part was that it was half price due to me being a senior citizen.  $7 for the privilege of these vicious insects sucking my blood

June 21 Valdez Alaska SUMMER SOLSTICE

                                                           The biker from holland

                                                      Snow capped mountains of Valdez

                                         Is this our friend Sidney carved out of Alaskan wood?

Today is the longest day of the year but since we have not seen night in 5 weeks I don't think it matters that much. Spent the day biking Valdez which is a kind of cute city. Not anything like poor Whittier. Started biking with Dede and Walt but they are Jill and Joe athlete so after about an hour they left us in the dust. We came back and I have been sitting on the shoreline watching the birds, wildlife and oil tankers as they fill at the pipeline with their liquid gold.

We are having dinner tonight with them al fresco (to be honest we have eaten al fresco every night) heading north tomorrow to the Top of the World Highway. Will blog then if I get an Internet connection.

June 20 Valdez Alaska

                                             Ellen at the bar looking at Whittier harbor

                              Coincidence that we met our neighbors in Denali 300 miles later on the ferry

                                                                   Ah the good life

                  I'M KING OF THE WORLD
                                     SPOKEN BY LEONARDO DICAPRIO ON THE TITANIC
We woke up early in order to go through the Whittier tunnel which is unlike any tunnel Ive ever seen.  First its a railroad tunnel wide enough for 1 train going one way with tracks on the ground.  The tunnel goes one way for cars at a certain time then closes so cars can go the other way then closes again for railroad traffic.  There are no walls but rather the carved out rock.  Its 2.5 miles long and as you go on the tracks the rv goes side to side.  The light at the end of the tunnel can be an approaching train if someone has screwed up the schedule.
We then arrived in Whittier which is the saddest town Ive seen in Alaska.  In world war II it was a secret hiding place for destroyers and battleships because its surrounded by mountains and is always cloudy thereby preventing Japanese attack.  During the cold war it was a secret base.  So secret that it wasnt on any maps in the 1950's.  There are large abandoned government buildings that reminded me of the Soviet Union.  The town is pretty depressing as all they do now is process fish.
We then boarded the Whittier-Valdez ferry which saves us 400 miles of driving.  The ferry was really modern and to our pleasant surprise we met our camping neighbors from Denali.  Dede and Walt who are extremely pleasant and also own the same model RV as we do.  We had a pleasant 6 hour cruise through beautiful scenery and wildlife. 
We arrived in Valdez which for you gas guzzling owners of automobiles is the end of the Alaska Pipeline.  There are dozens of fuel tanks that look like you are in Elizabeth New Jersey.  And many supertankers waiting to fill and bring the lifeblood of america, oil, to the lower 48. Of course this is where Captain Joseph Hazelwood of the Exxon Valdez got drunk and spilled 14 million gallons of crude oil into the harbor.  Of course as Murphys law would have it he now teaches maritime navigation at SUNY maritime college. Thats all for now folks!

Photos from June 17, 18 and 19

 This is Mt. Redoubt and the smoke at the top is the volcano spewing dust and ash. In the middle is low hanging cloud.

The long view of Homer Spit

 The sign speaks for itself           

Guess where we are on the day of our 40th anniversary 

                                                       

                                     

                                             Our campground in Homer with D&D's family

                                             

The old folk in Seldovia 

Guess were we are

                                                                       D&D&H&E                                                                                

Possibly the silliest shoes I've ever seen but supposedly very comfortable.

                       

The joy of Alaskan company!!!!!!

                            The joy of Alaskan company Part 2 maybe I just tired them out

 Holy Manoly the Amsterdam in Homer Spit. Saw it 2 months ago in Cadiz Spain how did it get here?

                                          We sold our Carver in the Chesapeake for this larger boat

                                                         D&E with money to burn

                                                   5000 $1 bills in the Salty Dog Saloon

                                    Homer Spit (its on the ground next to my foot, the spit that is)

 Three Blind Mice (they grow them big in the nations largest state) You should see the mosquitos

                      Only in alaska would you take a limousine to go camping (Really this is no joke)