HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR WONDERFUL SON JOE!!!
Boondock–
Last night we found a boondock site in a former campground (Glenn Highway MM A 54.5) using the “Milepost” book. The road in the campground is gravel, dirt and potholes so it’s a bit bumpy but what a reward. Found a beautiful, flat, site in the woods and settled in for the night. A little exploring shows this to be a large, beautiful area and there were only two other boondockers in there with us. Very quiet, well off the highway site…lovely. Only wildlife we saw here was one fast, black bunny scamper across one of the dirt roads. We read into the night and left early this morning after our veggie omelets. The temp. this morning was 44 degrees F.
We learned to boondock from reading and listening to Kay and Joe Peterson (the founders of the Escapees RV Club) and from reading Tioga George’s description of “Day Camping” and “Night Camping” (http://vagabonders-supreme.net/boondocking.htm ) as well as from just doing it and learning from our mistakes. It’s a great way to see beautiful places, doesn’t lock you into reservations and a schedule and, of course, the price is right (free). We are well equipped for boondocking with our self contained Lazy Daze motor home (bathroom, potable water, solar energy, heater, cooking facilities and a toasty bed).
Before we found our boondock site last night we dumped at the Chevron Gas Station, filled our fresh water tank with potable water. All a free service provided by Chevron so we bought our propane from them and filled our tank for $3.75/gal.
Glenn Highway–
Early Sunday morning travel on the well traveled Glenn Highway is a blessing. There was essentially no traffic so we just meandered along, enjoying the sights. We stop so often to just drink in the beauty and take pictures that progress is very slow. Oh, this being retired is great, making us lucky enough to not be in a hurry to go anywhere, in fact when someone races by us we feel sorry for them knowing either they are a type A personality or on a schedule. The views from the Glenn Highway are fabulous as they are most places in Alaska, from Hatcher Pass Road to our turn south down the Richardson Highway was one beautiful view after another. Most of the way we could see the Chugach Mountain Range and soon after we had left that range behind us, looming in front of us was the Wrangell Mountain Range. A definite WOW!
Matanuska Glacier–
The Matanuska Glacier can easily be seen from the Glenn Highway. It extends down out of the Chugach Mountain Range and is breathtaking to behold. It’s 27 miles long and two to four miles wide. Huge, beautiful blue, it is fairly stable so hopefully this one will not recede too much as the global climate warms. Even at a distance, you can feel the cold temperature coming off the glacier so it was back to a jacket for me.
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park–
We stopped at the NP visitor center to make travel plans, check road conditions, and get an overview of the park. We are in the process of deciding weather to continue on down to Valdez and go into the park on our way back or go into the park tomorrow and put off Valdez for a few days. Two great choices and we will do both. Just need to decide in what order (mainly depends on the weather).
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