We went through Anchorage, picking up Gerry's parts, and headed south past Girdwood ski area and up the road towards Portage glacier and Whittier. We found a campsite down a little road next to a small waterfall and settled in for a campfire in the mist. I hope we get to see the sun on this trip. So far it's clouds and misty rain.

Gerry was happy to get the roller bearings replaced in the jeep today. The guy who rebuilt the engine years ago for Gerry had undersized bearings. Quite unbelievable. The guy was in Cleveland and did a horrible job in the engine rebuild. He put the wrong heads in, screwed up gaskets, used the wrong bearings, and now we are left to think....what next? Gerry is going to replace the main bearings while he has the engine apart, as they are 0.002" under tolerance right now. The bearings are 0.004" clearance and should be only 0.002".

The best part of the day for me....eating. I made blueberry pancakes for breakfast that melted in my mouth and then dinner was excellent. The rest of the day was spent with laundry, reading, and playing with Honey. What a rough life!

We took the trailer out and it appears to be tracking well. Since it was unloaded, the tongue weight wasn't enough to check out how well the moved axles work because the empty trailer weight is all on the rear of the two axles with the current ball height. We are going to load it up this afternoon and try it again.

Sandy picked up some steamer clams for dinner that were really good. For dessert, we ran out to Coldstone Creamery for ice cream. It was really good. Gerry likes sweet cream mixed with fresh strawberries. Gary had the same and enjoyed it. Sandy had mint mixed with brownies and white chocolate, which looked really good. I had coffee with heath bar and caramel.

This next trip is down through Anchorage to the Kenai Peninsula. It is supposed to be very gorgeous and I have never been past Whitier. We'll probably take a week or two and hope for good weather. Many people have warned me about the threat of eagles. Specifically, the eagles like to pick up little dogs and feed them to the baby eagles. After a couple of nightmares where Honey was taken back to the nest and had to wrestle all the baby eagles, I decided I will keep her real close to me and on a leash at all times.

I am going to go down to the trailer and see if Gerry needs any help on his work. I hear grunts and groans and figure I'll try to help before the cursing starts.

We went back to Gary's house and settled in just in time for a share of Chinese food dinner. I ate so much I couldn't even have dessert. Gerry enjoyed his crem-brulee, though. We watched the first two hours of a four hour Stephen King movie, 'The Storm of the Century'. It's pretty slow.

Last night we had a beautiful drive up towards Hatcher Pass and stopped at the Mint Glacier Trailhead. We camped in the end spot with a roaring river to lull us to sleep. We scrounged up enough wood for a fire and rounded the night out with roasted marshmellows.

We went for a 13.5 mile hike today up towards Mint Glacier. The glacier appeared to have extremely receeded as we could only see a small icy glacier hanging far above the valley. The glacial till encompassing much of the bowl told the tale of a much larger glacier, melted away in time to create the roar of the river we slept by. Rain began to come down in a steady drizzle and our pants became drenched in the sections of trail with tight bushes. Honey got soaked, too, from the grasses overhanging the trail. We were tired, wet, and hungry when we arrived back at the camper. After a bite to eat and a nap we decided to move on and explore further up Hatcher Pass Road. We followed a dirt road up towards an old gold mine and camped at the side of the road with gorgeous views of the rugged mountains. I made curry chicken and broccoli for dinner that was delicious. The curry seasoning I made at home to use up a bunch of my spices and the sauce was with milk, butter, spice, a little brown sugar, and thickened with constarch. Served over brown rice it was delicious.

No better excuse to head out into the woods.

Despite my unnerving chanting the sun remained hidden and rain trickled down all day. Honey was under the weather and got sick from the burger the night before. She slept most of the day and was happiest curled up on a lap in a blanket. We had thought of going camping up Jim's Creek today, but not in this weather. Instead, we stayed inside with Gary and watched a Contender boxing match between the US and UK. The US won in the final fight. A couple of friends of Sandy's came up from Homer to visit and pick up a horse. Amber said to give her a call when we head down there next week and she can advise us on tourist activities.

Time slips away. It's midnight here and I feel like it's only 9pm. Maybe I'm becoming a night-owl.

Gerry and I looked at the campground at the state park and might try staying out there a night or two early next week. We would want to bring a canoe or bicycles, though. We should be able to rent them at the air force base just this side of Anchorage. I think a canoe sounds best and it would be fun to see Honey in one. She freaks out on bridges, so might not do so well in the boat. I can bring her bed and blanket and put them on the bottom of the boat so she can lay down.

Gerry and I made lasagne for dinner tonight. It came out really good. Gerry was the assembler of the dish and is heavy on the sauce and meat. I figured I could add some more cheese when I reheat some tomorrow. I like mine loaded with cheese. Fortunately there was enough garlic and great taste that we ate ravenously.

We learned later that the crews are working to repair the road enough to get sttel and crews in to repair the road further down. The road was pretty rough and we wondered what the cabins could be like up ahead. (We have come to understand that rural accomodations are more rustic than urban expectations.) We kept seeing signs advertising two places with cabins and food. I found it hard to believe this rough road had the traffic to justify two bed and breakfast and lunch and dinner places. We continued on taking in the scenery and anticipating what was up ahead.

Our first surprise was another dump truck blocking the road. At first we thought it was a third crew from the State of Alaska. Gerry said it looked like it was moving, but when I looked it was stoppped with no one in it and a dozer was moving behind it. We backed up our of the way to wait for it. After a few minutes Gerry walked down to see what the hold up was. Next thing I knew there was the dump truck coming up the road with a dozer pushing it. And, the driver looked a lot like Gerry. It was Gerry. The guy's truck and trailer couldn't make it up the hill, so Gerry helped steer it while the guy pushed with his dozer. Without Gerry's help, the guy was patently pushing a bit, getting out and turning the wheel on the dump truck, going back to the dozer to push more, repeating and repeating trying to get up the hill. What perserverence! This guy turns out to be an 80-year old miner who is just getting started as a miner, but already seemed like a sourdough to me (just a clean-shaven one). His equipment said "bear-bones mining". I didn't ask whether it was named that because he had minimal equipment, or had found a pile of bear bones. I did ask him about how his mining is doing. He told me a story about a guy who had made $100,000 in two weeks with a sleuce box. This guy was not so lucky, having his best run be $20,000 in one week. However, he did add; "everything I have I bought with money I made elsewhere". He was determined to continue trying and probably will until the day he dies. A die-hard miner at heart.

Just a bit further on we forged a creek to get to the first lodge and drove up a hill to see a couple guys milling around a truck with a big dog. The guy in the flannel shirt with the white beard waved and smiled. We got out, learned his name was Lee, the owner, and introduced ourselves. His wife made us alllunch and we sat and talked for over an hour. They told us a lot about the history of the area and the lay of the land. Lee told us about the road ahead and said where to look for bears and fish. We found the fish, but not the bears. The fish were big three foot salmon near a bridge (the only bridge still standing in the creek after last August's flood). We gawked for a bit, looking over our shoulders for brown bears all the while. Then back in the jeep and down the creek we went. The creeks were fun to splash across as we headed downstream to the next set of cabins. We arrived there eight miles and eight stream crossings later. Delores hollered out to come on in. This 76 vivacious woman was home alone and we chatted about Bolivia, Chile, and the local area. We were anxious to head off, especially when she warned us of a very rough, rocky road ahead. So, off we went and eventually stopped in the middle of a creed 2/3rds up a mountain at 3:30pm. We could have gotten out to move rocks to keep going, but given the hour and the 30-mile return adventure, we elected to turn around. When we drove back through Delores' place, she waved us down to tell us what town in Wyoming her husband is from (Whe1tland). She showed us around and we took a turn at a Bolivian brass game, I think it was called Sappo. We headed out and had a fun drive back with a view of Denali. We also saw Delores's husband on the road and stopped to say hi. He was running late due to a breakdown in town. He was fixed and heading down the trek home.

Tomorrow we want to go back to a road north out of Petersville, as opposed to the westerly road we took today. A bald eagle just flew by low over the river, probably looking for salmon. A great ending to the day.

Tomorrow we're going jeeping. An atv would be great here as there are lots of trails that might be too tight for our jeep. But, we'll do what we can and have fun exploring. We drove in on Petersville Road, which was built for a mining town that we will drive to tomorrow. The town was there first and the miners had a long hard trek to get there through bogs and brush and forest. Winter was the preferred time of transportation of any massive goods. This road was finally built after a guy died trying to find his way on the path. I hope going backpacking gives me a taste of what it was like for the miners in the early 1900's. Doubt I'll find any gold, though, since I don't pan or have a metal detector. I'm not sure I want to get the mining bug, either. Some of the people I have met are pretty focused on hitting the paydirt. Seems a little like gambling to me.

We left our stampede road camp around 11am to head a few miles down the road to Healy where we are told there are more trails. Now we are stopped to use internet and haven't explored the roads yet. I guess you'll hear about that tomorrow.

Today we are heading south towards Denali and plan to go up Stampede Road. There will be no internet service until we get back out and maybe even until we are close to Anchorage in a week or so. We are excited about doing some jeeping. It may be muddy, though, as clouds have moved in and dropped quite a bit of rain early this morning. I haven't heard a weather forecast yet and this looks like it may hang around for a while. We have the soft top on the jeep, so a little rain is okay, as long as the mud doesn't get too deep.

We spent most of today doing chores and relaxing. Gerry worked on the jeep some and cleaned it up while I did laundry. It feels really hot outside, even thought it's less than 80 degrees. I look forward to heading back to camp to read and relax. Honey deserves a nice walk, too, but I may wait until after dinner when I expect it to be cooler.

The drive this morning has gone through a few old burn areas where the fireweed flowers have really taken over. The hills, burnt woods, and meadows are bright with this tall fuschia flower. What a great time of year to drive this road! The last time I drove it was in early September and the flowers were gone, being replaced by the joy of berry-picking. I wish there were berries now, but am not too disappointed since I know we'll have berries in southern Alaska, Washington, and Oregon.

Today we are heading to Manley Hot Springs, an 80 mile drive to the east at the end of the Dalton Highway. There are private hot springs which we can use and the town has a fourth of July picnic that we plan on enjoying. The three folks we camped with at Galbriath Lake Camp are planning to be there and I look forward to seeing them. We should be there in a couple of hours.

It's just a short distance from the Arctic Ocean, but access is limited due to oil activities. Last night we camped at Galbraith Camp on the tundra. We went for a walk on the tundra and it was spongy and wet, with too many mosquitos and horse flies. Camp was a little better, especially after we got a fire going. Three folks from the picnic in Wiseman came to the campground and we camped together. It was a pleasure speaking to them and learning more about Alaska.