NORTH TO ALASKA

DENALI NATIONAL PARK

Today is the day we have been looking forward to for many years, our planned visit to Denali National Park. This is the main reason we decided to do a land tour/cruise in Alaska. Can you say Excitement?

Fairbanks to Denali National Park

We started our day aboard our motorcoach from the Wedgewood Resort in Fairbanks bound for a day aboard the Wilderness express. If that sounds like an old fashioned train, it wasn’t. What a train this was! Beautiful scenery and breathtaking views that surrounded us compliments of the domed trains. The seats were equivalent of first class type seats on an airplane – Can you say COMFORT??? Fantastic breakfast aboard the train – fresh, reasonable and excellent service. Chance to rest up before a very busy day. We arrived at the Denali Visitors center about noon.

The sites along the train ride were fantastic.

That water may look a bit gray. The gray is silt from the many glaciers where these rivers originate.

Denali National Park

We visited the park’s visitors center then boarded the park Tundra Wilderness Tour bus for a 124 mile round trip tour of Denali. Upon boarding the bus we received a box lunch to eat on board since we were in for a very long tour, driving 62 miles into the park and stopping all along the way for potty breaks as well as our primary objective which was to photograph the animals. Our tour director, Christina and our Tundra Wilderness Tour bus driver took us for a very detailed exploration through Denali.

Talk about animals in their own habitat, we saw: Dall Sheep,

Caribou,

Grizzly Bears (believe it or not, they were blonde),





a Wolf

and a Moose up close and personal.

A major citing was Mount McKinley or Denali. This is the highest mountain peak on the North American Continent. We actually saw it twice during the day. It is usually shrouded in clouds and we were told early on that if we saw Denali, it was unlikely that we would see many animals and vice versa. Well, they were wrong since we were blessed to see both. The park's scenery was spectacular.

The only negative is that the bus was a school bus type vehicle with seats very close together. The bus driver was extremely knowledgeable and observant. She spotted many animals and focused her video camera on them. This was then put on the bus’ video system so that we all could see and focus in on the animals. I'm 6'5" and the "School Bus" had no legroom. If you are tall, you really have to get on early and try to pick your emergency exit row seat.

Grande Denali Lodge

The Grande Denali Lodge was yet another great Alaskan wilderness hotel. Perched on a hill over looking the town, we arrived back at the lodge close to 9 p.m. and were escorted to our room where we quickly freshened up and decided we needed a really nice late night dinner. Neither of us had eaten much of the box lunch which was just o.k. Talk about good food, we had a delicious dinner - Yvonne feasted on Halibut, one of her favorite meals in Alaska, while we enjoyed a beautiful view sitting high above the town. As we did wherever we went, we met some very nice folks here too.

One of the memorable Alaskan cultural exhibits we saw was just outside the lodge. It was called an Inukshuk. These stone figures known as inuksuit can be found throughout the world. Inukshuk, the singular of inuksuit, means "in the likeness of a human" in the Inuit language. They are monuments made of unworked stones that are used by the Inuit for communication and survival. The traditional meaning of the inukshuk is "Someone was here" or "You are on the right path." We sure did recognize that, we were definitely on the right path.

At the end of our dinner, Brad photographed a beautiful valley sunset at 11:00PM. Sunset at Grande Denali (1) When we finally got to bed, as you can imagine we were very tired. It was a long, long day but worth every minute.

Would we do Denali again?

YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT, IN A HEARTBEAT!!

NORTH TO ALASKA

Fairbanks, Alaska – Day 2 (Part 2)

After lunch we re-boarded our motorcoach and headed for the El Dorado Goldmine where we learned, first hand, how gold was mined and panned for during Alaska's gold rush era. Gold Mining was one of the major attractions that brought people to Alaska. There was the metal Gold and many years later, black gold. This was a fascinating excursion and a lot more informative than we had witnessed at another Gold Mining location years before.

At the mine we boarded a replica of the Tanana Valley Railroad and took the short ride through the original gold fields with narration and music complements of an accomplished fiddle player. The Tanana Valley Railroad was used to carry supplies to various gold mines in the interior of Alaska during the early 1900s. The regular conductor and commentator is Earl Hughes, can't remember if he was our guide but nevertheless the commentary was lively and very entertaining. The trip took us you through a permafrost tunnel where one of the mine workers guided us through an explanation of underground mining in Alaska as was typical in the "old days".

When we got off the train we were met by an old codger who taught us in a humorous and knowledgeable fashion about prospecting, panning and sluice box mining. We could also see how mining is done today using more modern day techniques. Following that demonstration we were handed our own "poke" filled with "pay dirt" from the sluice box. We were then escorted to benches, given our own personal pan, and with water available in the through in front of us we were ready to seek our fortune, "panning for gold". We could easily see that this was great fun for the adults and children alike.

With a bit of help from some of the young whipper snappers working the mine, we panned $38.00 worth of gold between us, certified by our visit to the "Cool Shack" where the gold was weighed and put in a little plastic keep-sake containers. Unfortunately we did not find enough GOLD to comfortably retire but we had a lot of fun.

After leaving the Gold Mine, Christina and Josh sprung the first of many surprises on us when we stopped at the Trans Alaska Pipeline. Started in 1974 and completed in 1977, this 48 inch diameter 800 mile long pipeline carries “hot” crude oil from the Prudhoe Bay oil fields on Alaska’s North Slope through 12 pumping stations to North America’s northernmost ice-free port at Valdez. In doing this it crosses three mountain ranges and 34 major rivers.

During this visit we learned a lot about how and why the pipeline was built. Did you know that there are intentional zigzags in the pipeline and that it contains “pigs”? About 400 miles of the pipeline is above ground and the other half is buried. The “pigs” are devices that flow through the pipeline improving oil flow and monitoring pipeline condition. Some clean the inside while others use magnetic fields and ultrasonic devices to check the pipe’s wall thickness. Approximately 650,000 barrels of crude per day make the 14 day trip down to Valdez. But wait; here are the whys for some of the features.

The crude is 155º to 180º when it comes out of the ground and 145º when it enters the pipeline which is carried on very well designed supports above ground so as not to melt the permafrost which would destabilize the entire structure. Wide spacing of the uprights and bumpers on the supports make the structure flexible and earthquake proof while insulation and radiators dissipate the heat preventing thawing of the permafrost. The zigzags in the pipeline add to its flexibility allowing for expansion and contraction due to the 160 degree external seasonal temperature variations (-80 º winter to +80º summer) also making it earthquake proof. Just a bit of trivia, the 1964 Alaskan earthquake lasted nearly 5 minutes and was the most powerful earthquake in U. S. and North American history. It measured 9.2 and is the second largest quake in recorded history of the world.

NORTH TO ALSAKA

Fairbanks, Alaska - Days 1 and 2 (Part 1)

On Sunday, August 1, 2010 we left Phoenix’ Sky Harbor International Airport for Seattle, Washington where we changed planes and flew to Fairbanks, Alaska and landed at 9:30 PM. During our flight we met Joe and Veronica from Ireland on plane. This was the first of many wonderful encounters with them. We were met at the airport by a representative from Royal Caribbean and boarded our motorcoach for the short ride to the Wedgewood Resort. We arrived at our lodge type hotel at about 10:30. With the exception of meeting Joe and Veronica, there was nothing sensational about this part of our trip except for one thing, the sun was still shining, brightly and the temperature was 81º. Being a daylight and warm weather loving person, Yvonne just loved that! Our hotel stay included free admission to the very nearby Fountain head Antique Auto Museum which contained more than 70 U.S. automobiles built before World War II. If we had had more time I could have spent lots of it in the museum. In retrospect we wished we had arrived at least one or two days day earlier. We could also have made a trip inside the Arctic Circle to the North Pole.

Monday was a most exciting day. First we met our Tour Director, Christina and our motor-coach driver, Josh who would be with us during the entire land portion of our trip. They were there to be our tour guides, ground transportation specialists, luggage handlers and problem solvers. Luggage that we didn’t need for the land tour was taken and stored until we arrived in Anchorage. After breakfast at the lodge and a short motorcoach ride we started out aboard the paddle wheeler Riverboat Discovery III on the Chena River. Beginning with Charles M. Binkley and the paddle wheeler Discovery, the Binkley family boasts four generations of river pilots who have run the great rivers of the north for more than one hundred years.

Early in our river boat ride we watched a Piper PA 18 Super Cub on floats do several take offs and landings on the river. The float plane is a primary means of transporting people and materials throughout Alaska. Although more than 9,000 were built in the late 1940s and early ‘50s a great majority of the Super Cubs built still fly in Alaska. They have been adapted for operation on all terrains having skis for snow operation, floats for aquatic operation and oversize tires for operation on sandy areas.

Just down the river a bit we rounded a bend and came upon Trail Breaker Kennels which was started and owned by Susan Butcher and her husband, David Monson. Before succumbing to an untimely death due to leukemia, Susan was a four time winner and 15 time top ten finisher of the Iditarod trail sled dog race. We learned that these dogs live to run and they are exercised regularly. When there is no snow on the ground, the dogs are hooked up to an engineless four wheeled ATV. David has to actually anchor the ATV to the ground so the dogs don’t just take off without him. The same is true with dog sleds. David is a recognized musher in his own right winning the 1,000 mile Yukon Quest dog sled race which runs from Fairbanks to Whitehorse. In addition to winning the Iditarod in 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1990, Susan also mushed her dog team to the summit of Denali (Mt. McKinley).

Leaving Trail Breaker Kennels we paddled a few miles down river passing a bush airfield, many float planes and log cabins turning around at the Tanana River to land at the Chena Village which resembles and is close to the original Chena Athabascan Indian Village of the early 1900s. Here we learned volumes about Alaskan Indians and how they thrived and lived. We saw an authentic replica fish camp with a fish wheel, an automatic fish netter and trapper. Once caught, the Salmon are cleaned, skinned and dried on the drying rack then smoked in the smokehouse for winter sustenance. Some lower grade fish are dried for dog food. Additionally, we were guided past many sites of importance within the village and informed of their function and importance within the life and survival of the residents. Some of these were from the original site. Sites of importance were the ripping rack where logs were cut into boards for building construction, a trappers’ cabin and the original chief’s cabin.

At the end of the tour of the Athabascan Indian Village we had some free time to walk around. We met Susan and David’s daughter, Tekla, who, oddly enough, has a very close relationship with sled dogs. She is the primary handler and trainer at Trail Breaker and plans to enter the 2012 northern route of the Iditarod. We ended up at the Post office where David was there in person to autograph copies of a children's book, written by his late wife Susan Butcher, about her lead dog Granite. Yvonne had him autograph one for me and one for a Christmas gift.

After three and a half hours on the Discovery III, we boarded our motorcoach and enjoyed a brief tour of downtown Fairbanks and lunch at Gambardella’s Pasta Bella, the best Italian restaurant in Fairbanks.

LA COPA MUNDIAL

Today Sunday, July 12, 2010, Spain clinched the 2010 World Cup! Viva Espana! This was a momentous occassion. It went right down to the wire.

With a total of 14, there were far too many yellow cards, a new tournament record.

But do you know when the first Copa Mundial was played?

Do you know where it was played?

Do you know who won the first World Cup?

Well, here's the facts:

The first World Cup Futbol tournament was played in 1930 at The Estadio Centenario in Montevideo, Uruguay.

The 85,000 seat futbol (soccer) stadium was built 1930 just for the first world cup soccer matches. Remember, soccer (Futbol) to the rest of the world is like baseball to Americans. It’s almost a religion.

At that first tournament, the Uraguayan team emerged victorious over Argentina 4-2. With the United States coming in third over Yugoslavia. Please note - There was no official World Cup Third Place match in 1930; The United States and Yugoslavia lost in the semi-finals. FIFA now recognises the United States as the third-placed team and Yugoslavia as the fourth-placed team, using the overall records of the teams in the tournament.

Would you like to cruise to Uruguay? Go to our website www.cruiseone.com/yjamieson. We'll get you there!