Monday 7-30
We got a relatively early start this morning on our way into Anchorage. As we moved west, ominous, dark, storm clouds began to gather—which leads us to Ichabod. While we were at the first campsite in Valdez, we had cable TV. Over 150 channels. Marconi would have been VERY proud. Ichabod was our nickname for the local weather guy who was about 7’ tall and couldn’t have weighed more than 8 pounds…super-slender and a great prognosticator. He gave us a 10-day forecast, and so far he’s been on the money. Speaking of weather, they have a lot of it in Alaska. Alaska is about as big as North Carolina, New York, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Indiana, Maine, South Carolina, West Virginia, Maryland, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Hawaii, Connecticut, Delaware, AND Rhode Island put together. It has more coastline than all of the rest of the USA combined. It’s longer north to south and east to west than any other state. It’s BIG, it has very diverse climates, and there are lots of people whose lives depend on the weather, so they take it very seriously here.
The weather is a big part of the day today. Amid very dramatic skies, we stop at Matanuska Glacier. Because you can see it stretch back to the distant horizon, it’s very impressive.
We take a brief hike in the state park at the glacier and see a new bird, the Yellow Rumped Warbler (makes you wonder if birds categorize us by our body parts…one sparrow to the next, “Oh Look! A “Fat-Rumped Waddler”!)
We’re hiking through a huge stand of Aspen trees and learn that all of the thousands of trees around us are clones of a single plant. Apparently Aspen seeds will not easily germinate in this climate or soil, so a single tree sends out shoots that sprout into other tree stalks, so all of the trees around us are part of a single organism. Among these Aspens (they all look alike to me) we find some cool, blonde tree moss and decorate each other with it (for some reason it looks better on Nancy than on me). Before we leave the park, we take pictures of the pig in this natural setting. The pig is part of a key chain. It “oinks” and lights up when stimulated. It was given to me as a retirement gift by PJ. Thanks, PJ. Pigs were my mom’s favorite animals, and this pig reminds us of her—“oink, oink”.
We have a good animal day: mother and baby moose, artic fox, and a dozen or so bald eagles. We also come upon a truck called a “Putzmeister”. Need I say more?
The day, which starts well, ends dismally as we enter Anchorage where we are hoping to have the leveler jacks on the Admiral repaired and to visit the Social Security Office. Oh Anchorage, how do I describe thee?
Is it thy gray and artless architecture or thy teaming topless temples?
Or is it the RV parks that adorn thee? One is wombed in a railroad yard,
one is adjoining a tattoo parlor (body art not required for admission),
and the “Golden Nugget”, where we landed, has 215 RV sites crowded into a tiny, muddy parcel surrounded by barbed concertina wire in the heart of the lead smelting district—odious. But, “hey”, we’re only here for a day or two, and it’s the first time in over a month we’ve seen a McDonald’s!
