7/28/1991 - Sunday

John:  we took our time this morning and ate our breakfast outside.  I also caught up in our journal.  It’s kind of a bummer, as today we started our seventh week (which is our last week).  We headed out at 10:00 AM and stopped at a few more geysers on the way out of Yellowstone.  We drove south to Teton Nat’l Park and we saw an antelope... the Grand Teton Mountains are very majestic.  Before we left Yellowstone, we stopped at a visitor’s center in Grant Village and saw an excellent exhibit on bears.  We are camped just outside of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at a campground called “Gros Venture” within Teton Nat’l Park.  As I write, our camp neighbor came over and told us there were two huge bull moose grazing where I got firewood just a couple of hours ago... soooo, I grabbed my camera and we all headed into the woods cautiously towards the spot where they were.  Then we saw one of them!  He was big, with a large velvet rack.  He was lying down in an old stream bead... so you couldn’t see him until you got right on top of him.  I got a little closer and got some more pictures of him... I didn’t know where the second moose was, so I took my last picture of the moose before he got up and before the second moose showed up... pretty exciting!!  (Sure hope the pictures come out)  There a lot of moose scat all around here... even in our camp spot.  Maybe we’ll see more moose right in our camp spot in the morning!  We drove 132 miles today.

ODOM:  31435

Geysers

More Yellowstone fire devastation

More Yellowstone fire devastation

The Grand Tetons

Susan, Kari & John at the campground

Huge bull moose

Huge bull moose

7/19/1991 - Friday

John:  We drove to beautiful (major beautiful) Jasper National Park.  We gift shopped in Jasper, had lunch down the road from there.  The mountains here are very majestic... much like the Grand Tetons.  We made stops at the Athabasca Falls and the Sunwapta Falls they are truly awesome!!!  They have so much power they roar and make the ground rumble.  We made stops at some large glaciers.  We also stopped and took pictures of a grizzly bear eating berries along the side of the road... and just down the road a few hundred yards were about seven mountain goats.  They let you get within 3 feet away from them... so I should have some excellent pictures of them.  These are different from mountain sheep 'cause they have straight horns, and they look a little different.  We also saw a mother moose and her baby cross the road in front of us this morning shortly after we left our camp spot.  They were so cute... they crossed too fast and we didn’t get a picture (darn it).  It is very, very scenic here... wow!  The camp grounds are pretty crowded and fill up quickly.  We stopped at several and they were full.  We stopped at Wilcox Creek Campground (which is just past the Columbia Ice Fields).  We drove around and around the camp.  A ranger told us that he had one spot left and said we could have it.  When we got there 5 seconds later, somebody swooped on it... the ranger saw us again at the gate and said we could stay next to the telephones... Sounded like a great idea to us, as it’s very, very private level with a good view.  It’s quite nippy outside as the wind is blowing off the ice fields & glaciers... It even snowed a teeny bit while I BBQ’d our steak supper.  We drove 171 miles today.  The rock guard got another bird...

ODOM:  30247

Mount Edith Cavell

Kari & Susan in front of Locomotive 6015 in Jasper, Alberta

Athabasca Falls

Athabasca Falls

Athabasca Falls

Susan & Kari in Jasper National Park

Susan, Kari & John in Jasper National Park

Glaciers!

(Possibly) Pyramid Mountain

Mountain Range in Jasper National Park

Mount Edith Cavell

Grizzly bear eating berries!

Mountain Goats

Mountain Goat closeup

Scenery in Jasper National Park

Kari, Susan & John at the Wilcox Creek Campground

7/6/1991 - Saturday

John:  An almost no drive day today... just 20 miles going to the train depot and back... of course ten miles of that was driving around lost!  They sure screwed up by calling their streets by three different names, they are all one way (the wrong way), and the maps don’t really reflect what the roads are really doing... Other than that, Anchorage is very pretty.  It’s surrounded by big mountains and have bore tide (2nd largest in the world).  A bore tide is one that a lot of water goes into a restricted inlet.  This creates a wall of water when the tides come in (sometimes 20-40 feet high!).  We did not see this phenomenon occur due to timing.  (It came in around 1-2 am!).  Anyway, we got up at 4:45 am to catch the train.  It was easy, as I was awake since 2AM.  After heading out in the wrong direction and getting lost in the train yard, we finally found the depot.  The train was actually a diesel rail car, which is a self propelled train car.  (There were two of these hooked up together.)  The train was pretty full.  The scenery was fantastic along the way.  The engineer was great, he stopped the train at all the scenic spots for picture taking, and also stopped the train whenever dall sheep, moose or bears were spotted.  The kids and I rode up in the front of the train half there and all the way back.  The engineer let the kids blow the whistle at all the remote crossings.  We saw many moose (with babies), and two black bears... (one cub and one quite large black bear a few miles away.)  I hope my pictures come out.  We also stopped by three different glaciers... some probably 200-300 feet thick.  We saw more moose and bears from the train than on the tour bus in Denali Nat’l Park.  It was great that the engineer stopped the train when critters were spotted.  The trip took 4 hours to get to Seward.  We ate our sack lunch on the train, so when we got to Seward we were ready to explore.  We hiked into “down town” Seward (about 10 blocks).  We went to the Seward Museum and a few gift shops.  We walked back to the docks and watched people have their pictures taken with their halibuts they caught on their fishing trips.  Also watched the fishing boat crews fillet those fish.  They throw the fish carcasses to the sea gulls.  Susan & I went aboard a US Coast Guard ship and got the VIP tour.  Nice boat!  It’s a 110 foot long with a crew of 18 men.  We ate supper at Ray's right on the shore.  We caught the train back after the engineer bought the kids and me ice cream cones!  The Alaska Rail Road really takes care of their customers!  We were exhausted by the time we found our way back to our campground.  We left the bunks set up so we could just crash when we got back... but when we got back, someone else snarfed our camp spot!  We drove around the joint and parked on the black top very near where our spot was.  We all slept like dead people and slept in in the morning.

ODOM:  27837

Kari:  We saw tons of moose and some bears.  The engineer let Susan and I toot the horn.  When we were on the dock, we saw a big fish with eye balls sticking straight out.  (A rock fish or red snapper fish).  The train ride was very fun and neat.

Notes:  It was still very light outside at midnight... it’s pretty weird not getting dark at night.  After three weeks, we have spent a total of $1530 cash, plus $455 on gas credit cards total... for a grand total spent of $1985.00.  Total miles driven = 3975

Susan & Kari on the train.

Glacier seen from the train.

Stream seen from the train.

Moose crossing the tracks.

Kari & Susan with the train engineer.

Karen, Kari, Susan & the Train Engineer.

Susan & Kari in Seward, AK.

US Coast Guard ship we toured.

Moose on the loose!

7/4/1991 - Thursday

John:  We drove south towards Anchorage about 214 miles.  We are camped at Riverside Campground in Houston, Alaska.  By the Little Susitna River.  We got fishing licenses but no luck so far.  We saw a moose today.  It rained this morning and is now raining hard tonight.  Hope this rain is happening where all the fires are.

ODOM:  27748

 

Kari:  I found a little frog today and I named him Speckle.  I wanted to keep him. but I had to let him go.  Dad took two pictures of him before I let him go.  I really did love that frog.

Unfortunately, the photo of the frog that Kari loved so dearly didn't make it into the photo album.

7/3/1991 - Wednesday

John:  Our main gig today was to take the 8 hour bus tour in the Denali Park.  We started at 9:40 and returned at 6:10.  It was great!  The weather was mostly good, ran into a few rain storms.  We could not see Mt. McKinley due to the smoke & fog.  (Clouds).  we did see some moose. about 8-10 grizzly bears, dall sheep, and caribou.  The moose had a baby moose with her... sooo  cute!  The grizzlies had babies too, one with two babies, the other had three.  The sheep & grizzlies were not close.  The caribou were real close... hope my pictures come out.  The bus tour was long and we were all tired.  We ate out for Karen’s birthday at the Crows Nest.  Karen had baked salmon!  We are camped in Denali Park.  There is moose turds right next to our camp spot!  (The folks around here call them moose nuggets).  We saw Gary on another tour bus.

ODOM:  27534

Kari:  We saw moose with a baby, a lot of grizzly bears with babies, a red fox dall sheep with babies, and caribou.

John, Kari, Susan & Karen at Denali National Park

Dall Sheep

Braided River

Bear

Bears

Dall Sheep

Susan & Kari in Denali

Caribou

Caribou

Susan with Caribou

Red Fox

6/29/1991 - Saturday

John:  Today we drove to Fairbanks...  A total of 269 miles.  The Alaskan Highway was pretty good today, only a couple bad spots.  We viewed the Alaskan Pipeline for the first time.  We met Peter & Betty (from the ferry) in Tok.  They were also headed to Fairbanks.  I found out from Peter that the ‘miniature forest’ is caused by the permafrost... seems like the trees have very shallow root systems and don’t develop like normal.  We caught up on our laundry today at the campground - the campground has all the facilities but the spot is pretty basic.  We saw our first moose today!  It sure is weird having daylight for 24 hours... last night Karen or I woke up nearly every hour and it never got dark!  The local birds must have it figured out, although at 3:30 AM last night one bird was singing it’s morning song,  The roof carrier is disintegrating each day.  I hope it holds together till it’s empty.  I may need to duct tape the whole thing to help hold it together.

ODOM:  27225

Kari:  We saw a big fat moose on the loose finally!  We saw another brown bunny.  We fed some chickens at the campground.

SUMMARY: After two weeks, we have spent a total of $961 cash, plus 343 on gas credit cards total.  It’s very warm & sunny today.  It’s after 10PM and the sun is still 2-3 inches over the horizon!  Pretty weird!  Total miles driven = 3363.

Alaskan Pipeline

Kari, John & Susan in Tok, Alaska