Two to Tango

Day 16 -- A floater


Cindy's plane doesn't arrive until 6:30 pm. What to do?  I opened up the black trailer and said, "Harley, Lucille's dragged you 4,000 miles. Bet you're anxious to get out and see a little of Anchorage, Alaska."  I know what you're thinking, but it's really not that unnatural for a person to start conversing with inanimate possessions, having been alone for 16 days. "Let's ride over to Ft. Hood and watch a few float planes take off and land." It was only a four-block ride.

The planes in the background are at docks, as plentiful as boats at a normal recreational lake.  Planes were taking off and landing nearly every minute.

You would swear they were going to clip the treetops as the dropped in right over your head.

Hardly warmed up, Harley was anxious to continue the ride another 40 blocks to downtown Anchorage. On the way, I passed Iowa Dr.

That was it!  A three block alley with a dumpster almost in the middle of the road. A few blocks later, I made a left onto Minnesota Dr.

It was a bustling six-lane boulevard. A major artery leading to downtown.

All of those put down jokes about Iowa from Minnesotans that I had endured in my youth came rushing back into my memory.

"What do you call one hundred John Deeres circling a McDonalds in Iowa? Prom night."

"What does it say on the bottom of coke bottles in Iowa? Open other end."

"How can you tell that the fox was from Iowa? He had eaten off three of his legs and he was still caught in the trap."

Anchorage's population is around 250,000. It reminds me of Salt Lake City, UT, The streets are wide and clean and, as you look at the relatively tall buildings, you see mountains between them.

  The city is full of brightly colored flowers. 

 Off to the airport to pick up Cindy.  There she is.  She looks a little lost.

I think she just spotted someone with a camera pointed at her that she recognizes.

My new flying buddy from Elizabethton, Bob Glover, had strongly recommended the halibut bits and blonde ale at the Glacier Bay Brewhouse.  So Cindy dawned her warmest biker babe duds and we headed by motorcycle back downtown.

Bob's recommendation was spot on. We had a great meal and the halibut bites were undescribably good.  There's a 4-hour difference between the time zones in Tennessee and Anchorage. So Cindy was eating dinner at the unacclimated time of 1:00 am.

Day 17 -- "Majestic" doesn't begin to do it justice

Mount McKinley is the highest peak in North America, having a summit elevation of 20,320 feet above sea level. Even more impressive is the fact that Mt. McKinley rises up from the ground 6,000 feet higher than does Mt. Everest (even though Everest is a thousand feet higher above sea level). Mt. McKinley is so tall that it creates its own weather systems and quite frankly, most of the time it is shrouded in clouds. Only a small percentate of travelers to Denali National Park actually see the top of the mountain's peaks. On this morning's drive from Anchorage to Denali, Cindy and I stopped for gas about three hours from the park. "Tennessee". Again, Tennessee". I was in the back of the coach brewing up a latte, but I paused to see who it was that was hollering  "Tennessee" at us. A young man in his mid twenties came rushing up to the back door, stuck out his hand and said "Hi, I'm Bill Caldwell". "Bill Dodgen", I responded as we shook hands. "Are you from Tennessee, too?", I asked. "No, I'm from right here." "But I got to tell you, that's the weirdest looking trailer, I've every seen. Does it have a snowmobile in it?" I explained that it contained a motorcycle and told him to hold on for a second while I finished steaming the milk for my coffee and I would open it up and show him how it worked. It's a scenario that had been played out at least thirty times previously on this trip. "We're hoping to see Mt. McKinley today", I said as I opened the trailer lid to reveal the motorcycle strapped within. "Well, nobody's seen McKinley for almost this entire summer." Bill said. "Today's the first clear day in a month and a half."

It was indeed a nice, sunny morning. Cindy and I were enjoying the mountainous scenery as we continued along the route to Denali.  We passed the nice city of Wasilla (Sarah Palin's town)

and we looked very hard, but we really couldn't see Russia anywhere.  A little further up the road, we just had to stop at Wall * Mike's.

I was checking out the old pickup truck

and Cindy told me she was going inside to check out the store.  You'll never guess who she ran into.  You betcha...

What a lovely fur coat, Sarah.

We continued along the route admiring the mountainous scenery, when all of a sudden, just like that... there was a break in the trees and, "OMG", there it was staring at us. It was brilliantly white. And it was huge. Much higher than any of the surrounding peaks in the mountain range. We only saw it for a second and we really didn't know for sure what we had seen. We did know that it was still at least two more hours until we would reach Denali Park, so it was unlikely that we could see Mt. McKinley from this far away. A few minutes later, there was another break in the trees and we got another peek (ha) at it. We almost said in unison, "that's got to be Mt. McKinley".  It was.

Cindy picked up the Milepost book which describes everything that appears along each highway in Alaska and Canada.  Bridges, turnouts, restaurants, attractions, etc.  It doesn't miss anything.  And it was fun having Cindy tell me 30 seconds in advance of what I was about to see.  She read about the fantastic, huge cinnamon buns at the McKinley Creekside Cafe.  Ten minutes later, Cindy felt like she was in seventh heaven.

A little further up the road, we reached the park entrance and pulled into a campsite for the night. This time Cindy cut up the potatoes and onions, and the cookout was much better than the first. As I'm writing this blog entry, it's 10:30 pm. and Cindy's turning in for the night. "Night". Boy, that's a misnomer. It seems like late-afternoon outside. Tomorrow should be fun. We're riding in a bus for six hours in hopes of seeing moose, sheep, bears and other wildlife, as well as the incredible scenery of the Denali National Park.

Favorite road sign of the day: