Helen’s Reflections on Alaska 2019 Dream Trip

This is where Helen can expound on our Adventure.

Hi, Helen here, I am jealous of the fact that Doug was able to reach out to everyone and I never had the chance. So, here I am, home and I would like to reflect on the trip and tell all of you some of my highlights.

The first question may be, how do you take one event out of 47 days and say it was the best? Well, I can’t, so I think there are three biggies.

The first is meeting and attending five concerts by Hobo Jim. He is a local singer that sings songs that touch my heart. Songs of living in the wild, tractors, living in the woods, fishing and just living a simple life. When we met for the first time, he gave me a big hug. I was kind of surprised, to say the least, but then I found out that he thought I was someone else. Oh well, I got a nice hug.

Another biggie for me was accomplishing a 4.8 mile hike to Glacier Lake. We took a boat across Kachemak Bay, got dropped off on a rocky shore, and then started hiking. It was a rated as a “moderate hike.” Well, not for two people that are in their 70’s. The trek to the lake wasn’t bad, but the trip back to the boat was a switchback trek, with bear warning posted, going over rocks and boulders, and tree roots. I am absolutely positive I said to myself, “OK, one foot in front of the next”, at least a thousand times. It was really tough. One part of the trail I could not walk down and slid on my butt. Doug was able to navigate it, but I don’t know how. Then, we got to the boat and we had to cross at least fifteen feet of boulders to get unto the boat. I did it, but it was super tough.

Another biggie was meeting and hugging and getting a peck on the check from Otto Kilcher. We watch a program called “Alaska, the Last Frontier.” It tells a story of a frontier family living in Homer. What they do is absolutely amazing. It was cool to see part of their homestead in person.

The biggest disappointment for me on the trip was how dirty the class C was and the lack of supplies that were part of the arrangement. For example, we got four mismatched plates, no serving bowls, no paring knife, no spatula, a 4 1/2 inch pan to cook meals in, one kitchen towel and one kitchen rag. We did get a broom and I did find the dust pan hidden under the bathroom sink. There was no cleaning supplies, no mop and the place was filthy. In fact, we found a bag of garbage in one of the storage bins, a melted ice cream in the freezer before we left the parking lot. On the positive side, there were no bed bugs.

We spent many, many hours planning this trip and we found that a lot of the planning was unnecessary. For the tours, probably yes, but did you know that Alaska is the only state that you can pull off the road in your vehicle and spend the night? We were spending $40 to $45 a night for an RV park when we did not need to do so. Yes, an RV park is nice for showers and laundry but not necessary every day. Some of the nicest sites were in a Alaska State Park with the sound of the babbling brooks and rivers less than ten feet away.

Another wonderful surprise about Alaska was how nice and friendly the people were. They were helpful, and really were very, very nice. The extreme example was, they took Doug out fishing on their boat. He had the wrong rod, the wrong hooks, the wrong bait and they gave him a rod to use, the bait, the hooks. He caught a thirteen inch Arctic Graying that he had to release.

Interestingly also, is that we did not have any real issues or problems on our trip. Things seemed to work out for us. An example is the Alaska Marine Hwy. settled their strike two days before we used it to go to Valdez from Whittier. The forest fires which were raging all over Alaska did not prevent us from traveling at all. A week before we stayed at Denali National Park they received ten inches of rain in a week. The normal precipitation for the year is fifteen inches. This amount of rain caused road closures and some tourists were actually trapped for hours in Kantishna, where we went to on August 27th.

Some of the other highlights, and now I realize I am boring you, was fishing for halibut on a day charter; seeing bears, moose, caribou, and eagles at our campsites and on the sides of the road; crossing the Arctic Circle; soaking in the hot springs of Cheena Hot Springs; getting really buzzed on Apple-tini there; riding the Riverboat Discovery in Fairbanks; visiting Pioneer Park in Fairbanks; attending the Alaska State Fair and seeing a 77.5 pound cabbage; seeing bears, moose, caribou, and a lynx in Denali.

One of the issues that you may be wondering about, was how did Doug and I get along in a thirty foot class C for 47 days? It wasn’t that bad. Yes, we had our augments and lively discussions, but all and all it went OK.

I can not leave this post without thanking our great friends and neighbors, Laura and Milan for taking care of Green Acres while we were gone. We really did not worry about home because we knew that it was in good hands.

In summary, it was a wonderful, never to be forgotten trip. Yes, it cost us more money than we thought it would, but what else do we have it for, right?

I hope you enjoyed my post. No pictures but we can share those when you visit.