Catch up to Today!

Haines was a fun place and we enjoyed friendly chats with local people.   A young woman named Jae waited on our table at the Pioneer Bar and wanted to learn about our travels. It was fun to share about the Around the World Ticket with her.

This picture is worth a second look!

We had some incredible views of the Chilkat Mountains in Haines and as we traveled through the Chilkat Valley. It seemed to never get "old" seeing these amazing peaks.

We headed north toward Haines Junction, entering BC again. If you look at a map you can see the corner of Canada we had to cross from Haines to Port Alcan.  We started to see nesting Trumpeter Swans in about half of the little ponds we passed. That was a thrill and when I stopped to photograph the first ones we saw, I spotted this little Tree Swallow peaking at me.

We entered the Yukon Territory and enjoyed the magnificent wilderness views.

    The blue of the water is the influence of the melting winter ice.

   We had a nice sighting of this coyote. We watched him sniff around the roadside for about five minutes.

 

  The ponds and lakes and rivers were everywhere.  The riverbeds had been widened by spring runoff and just a small current was visible in most places.

   A very peaceful night in the woods.

    Along the road for many many miles we saw anew for of art. Rocks were placed to spell names or words.  One of the first we saw was a five foot tall JOY!  Latona found one that said L and L so we felt it was our message.  As we approach Father's Day we also thought this one is notable as we remember our dads.

We were back in Alaska now and stopped at a major junction called Tok for a camping night.  As we traveled on, we started to see moose and the first day saw six including a cow with twins, and the second day (yesterday) we saw four, including a cow with a calf.

The flowers continue in abundance.

    At this point we saw a lot of people stopped by this pond, so we stopped to see about thirty pairs of swans and ducks nesting, feeding, and calling to each other.  I opted for the view and a picture of this Green Winged Teal.  The swans and feeding moose were around the edges.

One thing of note was the terrible road conditions we found.  The road was damaged and loose gravel and frost heaves were everywhere.  Several places they were actually finally fixing some of the worst spots.  We had quite a wait at this spot and we watched this guy make and devour a PB and J sandwich! Funny.

The next road work spot gave us a chance to visit with a young woman who is a musher and participated in the last Iditarod.  She works summers so she can work her dogs in the winter.  Tone shared a piece of floss with her.  A sweet encounter.

   Another amazing piece of the landscape.  I am looking for caribou on the high hills.

  We drove along the side of the Matanuska glacier and then saw it from the front. The ferries on the Alaskan Marine Highway are named for the largest glaciers, and our ferry was named The Matanuska.

We also went through many areas warning of rock slides.

Finally, we arrived at Palmer and saw the sign for an RV park called Mt. View. It was good to land and call it a day.  We were tired BUT so grateful for another day of safety and beauty and the JOY!