Nearing the End!!

June 30, 2007

What fun we had this afternoon. Our new friend took us up in his plane to look for moose. He has a single engine Cessna and we flew low so we could see well. Saw lots of moose and some with their babies. We landed on a dirt airstrip in the middle of the tundra. The military put it in years ago and uses it for practice. We took a walk around the area and saw signs of other animals, including bear. We returned to Fairbanks and never saw a building or a road, another example of the vastness of this state.

It is funny how they pick on Texas. At the gold mine they give you a ‘poke’. It is a small white bag with dirt in it and you pan it. They had a display of a flour sack and the small bag they give out. The flour sack was labeled “Alaska size poke” and the small one was labeled “Texas size poke”! When we were at the Indian village one of the guides was showing us some of the furs that were typically hunted and she held up the ermine and called it a “Texas polar bear”.

We have to leave the camp tomorrow so will decide what we want to do then. It is so nice not to have a schedule!!!

July 1, 2007

I can’t believe it is July! Pulled out of camp went to church and then decided it was time to leave Fairbanks – it was beginning to feel like home!! We both felt sad about leaving, we met a lot of nice people here. We had wonderful weather, but it is starting to change, it was rainy and overcast when we left. I think our timing has been really good. We also noticed today a lot of RV’s going north. We seem to have beat the tourist season for the most part. Doug has this think about crowds and is really happy we timed it the way we did.

We are camping in a state park near Delta Junction, about 100 miles outside of Fairbanks. It is on a lake and very nice. We will be here for at least two days. Since it is the holiday week, we might just stay as it will be hard to get into another park without a reservation. The state parks don’t take reservations, so we know we are set here. It is dry camping but we don’t find that much of a problem.

After setting up we went for a ride as we saw some moose along the road but could not stop with the RV. We found a large bull still feeding in the same spot. We stopped and started taking picture. He would look at us and then just continue to eat. We ended up taking about 20 pictures of this thing!!! Doug says we are sick when we take that many pictures of one anima!!! I think he is right. I just love to sit and watch them.

We went for a walk tonight and I found a lot of great rocks!!! Doug teases me about them, but he keeps pointing them out to me!!!