As our regular customers know, Horton Brasses closes each August for 3 weeks vacation. Some of us travel; most of us are pretty local, enjoying families and Connecticut beaches and New England in general. Toby and I have a lust for travel and this year it was Alaska or bust.
This year's trip was unusual, in that Toby left on July 19 with his parents in our RV. We had a 29 foot RV that slept 4 comfortably. He and his parents drove to Alaska, stopping along the way at various places in Canada, enjoying the ride along the way. On August 3rd I met up with them in Anchorage. I flew into town, as I could not leave the Brassco until we officially closed.
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One of the first bits of vegetation to return after fire is called fireweed. It is very beautiful and enlivens the hills throughout Alaska. This photo was taken early on the trip, probably in July. It has a tall stalk with dozens of tiny blooms on the stalk. Alaskans (and I expect Canadians, too) say that winter is around the corner when the last bit of flower on the fireweed plant it gone. Later in August there were only a few blooms left. |
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The Yukon River is a major feature, and someday we would like to canoe or kayak down an extended part of it. |
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Here are Mim and Everett on top of Midnight Dome overlooking Dawson City and the mighty Yukon. Dawson was the center of the last great Gold Rush, widely known as the Klondike Gold Rush. Gold was discovered in 1896 by Skookum Jim, Dawson Charlie, and George & Kate Carmack. At its height, Dawson was called the Paris of the North and had 40,000 people living in it. At that time, it boasted steam heat, running water, telephone and electricity. Today it is like a ghost town in many ways, there are numerous abandoned theatres and buildings. In winter today, the population is about 2000 people and the local school has about 260-280 students. |
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This road is the Top of the World highway. This road to Alaska is only open in the summer. The vastness of the north country is hard to imagine. |
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A place of big sky, big clouds and big mountains. This the Wrangell Range, covered with glaciers. |
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Glaciers, glaciers and more glaciers, mostly the Matanuska; the deeper the blue, the older the ice. Glacial ice is great for coolers; it's so dense it last twice as long as regular ice. |
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A wonderful photo of Toby's parents. |
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We spent 3 nights in Denali National Park and 2 or 3 in Denali State Park. This photo shows a mama grizzly bear and her cub. There is a bus that runs the length of the 80 mile road in the National Park, and this photo was taken out the bus window. Much as we hoped to see bears (from a safe distance) on our hikes, we never did. Denali manages the people extremely well and the wildlife is definitely NOT used to humans. Bear encounters are rare, in spite of media commentaries to the contrary. |
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We periodically got off the bus and hiked through the wilderness in Denali. As stewards of the land, the feds do it well. There are no trails and you are instructed to never walk single file, as that would impact the ground vegetation. Caribou were plentiful; we ended up hiking through a break in a herd of around 50. It was tricky because the caribou have the right of way and you are not supposed to disturb them. We took a quick snap of this fellow and walked away. |
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Ahh, tundra. Don't you think of tundra as icy and barren? Well, it isn't. These are all close-ups of tundra. It is soft, like walking on an 8 inch thick carpet. And it is full of life: lichens, flowers, mosses, ferns, fungus, just amazing amounts of life. And the rangers told us it was a shame we had missed the wildflower season! |
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We saw lots and lots of salmon returning to spawn. There were literally thousands of them at the mouths of various streams and rivers. As a female prepares to die, she hovers in one spot. Two males arrive, one on either side of her. She lays her eggs and within seconds, the males release sperm. She lays on her side on top of the eggs and her rotting body feeds the eggs. As salmon decay, they turn white. Before they spawn, they get weaker and weaker, are quite slow and are easy prey for eagles, bears, and even seagulls. |
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One really amazing thing we did was charter a boat out of Whittier. Babkin Charters (www.babkin.com) is a wonderful outfit. Brad Babkin was our captain and Jason was the cook. The Alexandra was the boat we used and it is a lovely vessel. We were all quite comfortable. Brad and Jason took us to various spots in Prince William Sound and this is the entrance to the Nellie Juan glacier. |
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As the glacier calves, the chunks of ice can deposit on the surrounding sandy areas, as the entrance to the Nellie Juan glacier is fairly small, with strong tidal current. These are all icebergs-just gorgeous. |
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This is a great photo of Toby's parents (Mim and Everett) and us standing on one of the beaches surrounding the Nellie Juan. It rained a lot, as can be attested to our rain gear. |
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Toby and I hiked in close up the side of the entrance to the Nellie Juan. Here we are. |
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Waterfalls, sunsets, distant volcanoes?Alaska has it all. |
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We visited Homer, which is at the end of the Kenai Peninsula. This is a restaurant in Homer, decorated in quite an outstanding fashion. Homer is full of character and never gets cold and doesn't even get that much snow. Less than we do here in Connecticut. And it has the best public radio station we ever heard; one that plays live blues, rock and roll, bluegrass, jazz and world music concerts at all hours of the day & night. |
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I flew home from Alaska, good thing. |
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Surprise ending for this vacation. Toby and his folks had driven our RV to Alaska. Their return was marred by a serious accident in North Dakota. The RV was totaled and all three of them broke their backs, and Mim fractured her skull. Toby's sister and I spent more than 5 weeks in North Dakota, and Mim had 2 surgeries. Everett and Toby each had one. They were fortunate to land in a place where one of the country's foremost thoracic spine surgeons lives. His name is Chuck Stillerman. He performed 4 of the surgeries and we are grateful for his skills. We found North Dakotans to be most kind, offering us all of their assistance. People who had seen the accident visited us in the hospital and offered us their homes or to run errands for us. The hospitals were very professional with excellent staff and high patient to nurse ratios. Toby and I were allowed to fly home on October 4, and Mim and Everett left November 1. Everett is doing very well, Mim is recovering slowly, and Toby is recovering. Toby chose the most aggressive surgery, as his injury was extremely serious and he faced becoming a paraplegic. It will be a year or more before he can backpack, climb, kayak or run again, but the prognosis is excellent. In a year Mim may be able to golf again, if her energy levels return and her pain is reduced. Everett should be able to return to a fully active life after a year. |
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