Carol and Ned, Still ticking in 2012!!!

Hello all!

It has been a long time since creating a blog message, so I thought it about time to let you know that we are still around and still up for a good adventure that might come our way. (This may sound like a Christmas letter in July!!)

Ashton in the drivers seat!

Our first grand child arrived August 10, 2011.  Ashton Frank Pozanc will soon be a year old and is the light of our lives!! He lives in Winona , Minnesota with his mom and dad, Tim and Gretchen.  We just love to visit!!


September in the Maritime' s

Last Fall, we did a month long road trip to Quebec, New Brunswick, and Maine.  We had intended to include Nova Scotia, but ran out of time!!!  That will be our next trip East!!  Here are a few highlights from that trip.

We enjoyed a paddle on the St. Maurice River in Quebec.

Our mode of travel, with kayaks and bikes.

Eastern most tip of the Gaspe Peninsula, also the end of the international Appalachian Trail

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Another Alaska Trip, March 2011

Hello!!
Well, we did it again, Alaska is becoming habit forming. On  this trip, we wanted to see Alaska in winter.  So, we signed up for an Elderhostel/Road Scholar trip to Fairbanks and Coldfoot and into the Brooks Ranges on the Dalton Highway, of Ice Road Trucker fame.  I've sent along some pictures and commentary that sums up the trip.  It was another fantastic time of learning about and exploring a fantastically wild State.  Maybe we should just move there!!!

This is our first clear view of Mt McKinley, locally known as Denali!  It was taken from our flight from Anchorage to Fairbanks.  We have tried to view this mountain on our two other trips, but in Summer the clouds take over and a good sighting is rare.
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Our trip centered in Fairbanks for 5 days where we took in the local , as they call it "Spring" events.  The temperatures were still a bit below zero in the mornings, but the sun is high and warmed up the afternoons.  The day light increases about 6-8 minutes per day, much faster than at lower latitudes, so we gained about an hour and a half of daylight in the 15 days that we were there. We took in the Ice Art sculptures and dog sled races.

 This is an Ice Maze, really amazing! I was impressed by the clarity of the ice that was cut from a nearby pond. There were sculptures from all over the world. 

 Night time was another magical time!!!

The sprint sled dog races were held over 3 days with  each team traveling 25-30 miles each day, winner was the team with the fastest combined time.  The top two teams were 30 seconds apart!!!  These are sleek dogs bread for speed, they are not the typical sled dog.

Now it is North along the Dalton Highway, North of the Arctic Circle to the farthest north truck stop in North America, Coldftoot, Alaska.  This is where the History Channel films Ice Road Truckers!!!  We spent five days in and around Coldfoot, mainly in search of the Aurora. 

This is Roller Coaster Hill of Ice Road Trucker fame.

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We visited an old gold mining community from the early 1900's, Wiseman.  The book "Arctic Village" by Bob Marshall is a good sociological case study of the folks who live is this isolated community off the grid.

Then we took a day trip further North into the Brooks Range to Atigun Pass.  The road goes along the Alaskan Pipeline on the way to the Prudhoe Bay oil fields.

While in Coldfoot, we had a chance to meet real Alaskan Husky sled dogs!!!  Oh what fun!!   They loved to be petted and took us for a nice ride into the wild!

As for the Aurora, we did see them each night we were in Coldfoot.  Coldfoot is located right under the Auroral Oval, an area around the North Magnetic Pole where the solar wind energizes the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen in the upper atmosphere to create the Northern Lights.  We had to look straight up to see them!!  The first night, the Aurora was a green belt from horizon to horizon with swirls of green and pink over head, it was quite the sight!  My camera was not good enough to pick up much of the action.  The lens needed to be open at least 30 seconds to capture enough light, ours went to 8 seconds.  I did realize that the camera can 'see' more of the Aurora than our eyes can!!  That realization was a bit disappointing!  My minds eye has done the recording.

 

This is what our camera saw.  We saw much more!

Travel to Alaska has been a great adventure for us.  The State is calling us back again--sometime.

Thanks for sharing our trip with us, stay tuned for more Travels with Carol and Ned!

Trip Reflections

Hello,
We are home, arrived Sunday evening.  Kitty was glad to see us, he had quite the summer living in the garage with a family of raccoons that decided to move in and mess up the garage and eat Kitty's food.  Thanks to our neighbor, Denny, for rescuing Kitty and catching the raccoons and taking them for a long ride!  

Traveling along the Cassiar Highway was nice, the weather for the most part was sunny.  We did a day trip down to Telegraph Creek, a small, almost ghost town on the Stikine River.  River boats used to come up the river from the Inside Passage to there during the gold rush era. The road was the trip!!  Gravel, narrow, 20% grades up and down river valleys, traveled over a lava dike that was not much wider than the road with straight down drops to rivers on both sides!!!  Impressive scenery.

We also spent a couple days in Hyder, Ak.  We can drive there from the Cassiar Highway, it is the most Southerly  town in Alaska.  It is also an almost ghost town located at the end of the Portage Channel. There is a salmon spawning area where the forest service has an observation deck for bear watching. We went twice and watched a black bear and then a sow brown bear with a cub fish for their meals.  Fascinating.

From there we pretty much headed home.  We did drive through the Canadian Rockys, stopped at the Rocky Mountain House, a restored Hudson's Bay Fur Trading Post near Calgary, camped at Cypress Hills in southern Alberta, then crossed the border into Montana.  While in North Dakota, we spent a pleasant  morning visiting the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. A gentler kind of badlands that has good hiking potential. We were amazed at how green the landscape was from Montana into Wisconsin.  A lot of standing water was evident and the rivers were running very high.

All the while we were in Alaska, not a single person mentioned Sarah whats-her-name!  The name was no where to be seen in Wasilla.  We did ask the gal that transferred our van to the ferry while we were on the Copper River about her, and I think Alaskans are embarrassed. Her book was seen in two places, each a grocery store check out, it was marked 50% off and it was located next the National Inquirer.  We spent a lot of time this trip around the Prince William Sound and the Exxon Valdez and the aftermath of the oil spill of some 20 years ago is still up front in the minds and people were reflecting on what changes it caused in their lives.  Small town museums gave that event most the space in their displays, even more than the '64 earthquake and tsunami.

I'll add pictures, this time the internet connection should be ok!

When we get an idea for the next trip, we will let you know!!!

Thanks for traveling with us!  Carol and Ned

Wasilla visitor center.

Hyder, Alaska

Telegraph Creek road.

Edge of the lava dike, along the edge of Telegraph Creek road.

The other side of the dike and road!

Black Bear feeding at Fish Creek near Hyder, Ak.

Success!!

Mama Griz and baby.

Where is that fish?

Got it!

Now, how did mom do it??