Tuesday,June 21 - Tok to Anchorage

We ate breakfast at Fast Eddy’s Restaurant and enjoyed great omelets; Jim’s had reindeer sausage in it.  Ardith had homemade biscuits with sausage gravy as the side for her omelet.  There was so much food that she couldn’t finish it all.

We checked out of our motel headed for a long day’s trip to Anchorage.  We met up with several road construction sites where the line of traffic followed a pilot truck leading us over newly graveled roads.  It was slow going but a lot less bumpy than yesterday’s trip.  

We stopped along the way so that Jim could take some pictures of the great scenery.

 There is a stretch of highway at a fairly high altitude that had large L-shaped poles extending part way across it. 

One special plus of most of the roads we’ve been on these past 2 days is that there are wildflowers almost everywhere along the roadside.

We took a quick break to pull off the road and have cheese and crackers and apples.  It was a nice balance after such a large breakfast.

There were 2 glaciers of note that were easily visible in our travels today. Nelchina glacier is what a lot of folks normally think of as a glacier – a mass of ice with a shear face filling a gap between two mountains.  The portion of Matanuska glacier easily visible from the highway extends like a stream of ice, which is what a glacier is.  Alaska’s total glacier area is larger than the state of Maine!

We watched a fox cross the road: “stop the car – I need a picture”.

 There was a pair of moose by side of road.  By the time we stopped and Jim walked back, they were heading into the woods, and Jim’s picture wasn’t great.  This was our first sighting.  We hope we see plenty more.  There have been road signs and warnings in “The Milepost” about moose in many of the areas we were through yesterday and today.

The Milepost is a very complete guide to highways in all of Alaska and much of British Columbia and Yukon.  Jim first became aware of it while working on the map collection at the Smithsonian Natural History museum.  He unearthed a copy of the first (1947) edition.  New editions have been published every year since.  It is wonderful for doing a trip like this.  It is organized by highway and shows (via mile marker) locations of things ranging from stream crossings to gas stations, small roads, camping places, fishing spots, motels, restaurants and entrance to parks.

We checked in at the Howard Johnsons which is composed of a series of buildings connected by endless corridors.  Jim took the first load of luggage to our room while Ardith waited in the lobby with the rest.  We are on the second floor.  From the elevator, Jim walked the full length of a corridor that is nearly 2 block long, made a turn, walked another full corridor that is probably 70 yards long, made a right and went to the 10^th room on the right.  When he was about halfway back, his cell phone rang.  Ardith though he had gotten lost!  Ardith is continually lost and can only find her way when using one of the numerous outside exits. The corridors all have the same decor, their main difference is their length.

We walked several blocks to check the downtown area and look at the various restaurants that have been recommended by the guidebooks. We stopped at Sach’s cafe & restaurant.  Prices seemed a bit much to Ardith, but she forgot how expensive things were at the Bamboo Room in Haines.  People coming out of the restaurant overheard us and said they had great soup and salad for a reasonable price, so we decided to eat there.  Ardith was thrilled with her Tomato and Gorgonzola Soup.  Jim was equally pleased with his cream of potato and black bean soup.  Ardith had the apple salad that contained grape tomatoes, bacon, gorgonzola on a bed of fresh spring greens; Jim had the Pear salad with pecans, gorgonzola and field greens.

We walked a bit so we could get the lay of the land downtown.  Ardith persuaded Jim that we should take a horse-drawn carriage ride and he was quite happy with that.  Our horse, Bob, knew his way around town quite well.

We returned to our hotel to wage war on the internet connection.  It tends to be very slow.

Jim stayed up until 12:45 AM and it was still light outside – it is the summer solstice.