Tony's Alaskan Adventure

And I flew to Barrow on Wednesday (9/24). Now I can say I've been above the Artic Circle and to the northern-most city in the United States. I've gone over 10,000 miles this week.

Looking at the cost of food I can't see how anyone can afford to live there, not to mention the long, COLD, dark winters. Some of the pictures are from "Joe's Museum", an eccentric individual with a huge collection of artifacts. I also saw the Wiley Post-Will Rogers Memorial just across the street from the Barrow airport. And we drove to the farthest point we could on the road towards Point Barrow.

addendum; Two weeks after I left Barrow the natives caught 4 whales and harvested them on this same stretch of beach.

On Saturday (9/27) I drove down to Seward to see "Exit Glacier". It was a beautiful drive and the fall colors are out in full glory. This is a wonderful time to be in Alaska, the sights are unbelievable, the tourists are gone and so are the giant mosquitoes I've heard so much about.

On Sunday I went to the Alaskan Aviation Heritage Museum, it's small by Midwestern standards but full of historical pictures and a few really nice flying, restored antique aircraft.

This week (9/29) I went to Bethel, Kotzebue (30 miles above the artic circle) and Dillingham.

 To say I'm doing a lot of flying is an understatement, it's pretty bad when the people at the airline ticket counter know you by name, just kidding ;>). Commercial flying in Alaska is truly a "Hub & Spoke" system, you have to return to Anchorage to fly from one city to another, I think I could find my way around the Anchorage airport terminal blindfolded! Anyway, here are some of the pictures from this week's adventures.

While I was in Bethel I got to take a ride on the only hovercraft in the country that is used to deliver the US Mail. We left Bethel on the Kuskokwim river with about 15 pallet loads of stuff for three villages up river. We went to Akiachak, Akiak and Kwethluk. We beached the craft on shore and the pallets were broken down on-board then off-loaded onto the beach in two of the villages and into a small boat in the last village. It's something to see two full pallet loads of stuff go into an 18 foot boat tied along-side an idling hovercraft (in the rain no less) and wonder how challenging this must be when the weather is really bad. A big thanks to Glen, Tom, Terry, Alan, and everyone else that allowed me to take this eye-opening ride.

You can find more info about these villages and any other Alaskan community from this state of Alaska website http://www.dced.state.ak.us/cbd/commdb/CF_CIS.htm

This happened to be the same week that the wildlife author Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend where killed and eaten by brown bears on Kafila Bay, just across the Shelikof Strait from Kodiak Island. Many had warned the self-proclaimed eco-warrior that his encounters with the Grizzlies were too close, I guess he found out the hard way.

Anyway, Sitka and Ketchikan have a totally different topography and climate than most of Alaska and are quite beautiful. Fortunately I'm here while it's not tourist season because both these cities get inundated with giant cruise-ship loads of tourists. Unfortunately, I don't really get to spend enough time at any one place to say I've seen everything there is to see.

I took them down to see "Exit Glacier" and we spent the night in Seward and went on a nice 2.5 hour glacier cruise in the Prince William Sound on Monday.  We saw some nice scenery along the Seward Highway. They really liked McHugh Creek Park, Beluga Point (although, we didn't see any whales) Flattop Mountain and we even took a long drive past Talkeetna to get a good look at Mount McKinley.

They bought a lot of souvenirs, and hopefully, they took home a lot of wonderful memories!