We went to an Eskimo olympics friday and saturday.  This is called the Two Foot Kick.  You have to jump using both feet to kick the ball and land on both feet and maintain ballance your ballance.  One of the young man kicked the ball at seven feet eight inches.  The One Foot Kick is just one foot and you have to land on the foot you used to kick the ball and maintain balance on the one foot.  The record for the game was ten feet.   It was really neat they did a lot of interesting games.  One is called the ear pull.  The take a string made out of a sinew from an animal and tie the ends together.  They then put it around their ears opposite and pull.  One man had to have twelve stitches to put his ear back on.  They had stick pulling contest and a lot other games. 

This is the blanket toss.  They get up to forty feet. 

They choose a Queen Friday night but they also had Princess too.  This picture is for Savanna,

Ande and Afton.  Their Mothers or Grandmothers helped to make their dresses. 

This is for the boy's all those who love trains.  Lincoln, Eli, Ethan and Jack.  Dad's too.  This is the little engine that could, and did.  He pulled ore out of the mines,  he pulled lumber around the sawmills.  His was a tough job because he was so small and strong he could go places the bigger engines couldn't go.  Now he's retired and takes kids for rides around the park. 

We have seen Totem poles but this one had a cabbage in front of it.  Cabbages up here grow to a hundred and fifty one pounds.  Around Fairbanks they grow all kinds of vegetables including tomatoes.  It's because of the longer days they mature faster, and usually bigger. 

Were on a tour in the Denali Park.  You can't drive in.  It's a seventy mile tour bus in.  Takes eight hours.  We saw this mother bear and her yearling.  We saw two bear chasing each other across a hill.  Saw a number of other bears. 

We ran into fifteen Doll Sheep.  Mostly males.  One herd was up on the side of a very steep hill.  They stop and let you take pictures out the windows and you can't talk or make any noise.  On most animals they pass a little way past them and then stop.  They don't want the animals to become accustomed to humans.  Kinda hard to get good pictures that way but its the only way to see the park. 

This old boy said, Take your best shot.  There were a lot of moose in the park.  We Saw Bear, Moose, Caribou, Doll Sheep, and Eagles and other small animals and birds.    Eagles that flew with in feet of the bus but was to fast to get a picture.  They flew several times right past the windows.  

 

We did not get to see Mt McKinley today.  Clouds down to low.  It is seen less than twenty percent of the time.  You will never know how big Alaska, and Canada is till you have traveled even a small part of it.  In the seventy miles into the park out of six million square miles of park.  Everything we saw was large scale.  Beautiful beyond discription and they tell us every day the park is different.  The coast and the outer islands off the bays and seeing the ocean and even though our boat was over a hundred foot long it bobed like a cork even though the sea was fairly mild.  They still do the tours even with swells twenty to thirty foot if there far enough apart. 

We've spent a lot of time sight seeing and taking side trips.  Stoping at small towns and walking the board walks.  Our next major stop will be Fairbanks to visit the Tundra and the North Pole.  Be there a week or so.

We stayed for two nights in a motel at Anchorage in the worst drug infested area.  We made it ok.  It was good for american food and near normal prices.  We went to a market festivial  downtown.  There was a bout two hundred booths set up.  It was fun. We found city life boring We booked a campsite and also a day long cruise at Seward.    We got to our campground and set up our tent, it rained again, down at the boat ramp they had a cook out.  We've never tasted such good halibut, the dinner for seven dollars was big, good, great, wow.  Sunday we went to church at Seward.  It was a branch.  There were about fifty people there and when they asked the visiters to stand there was only about twenty people left. 

  Monday the day of the cruise.  It was raining hard but when we got on the boat it stoped raining.  Nice boat,  They filled all one hundred and fifty seats.  Its fast at twenty eight mph.  We got to see all kinds of birds nesting in the cliffs up close since the brought the boat within twenty feet of the cliffs.  Scared me at first being so close in such a large ship.  We went from island to island to see the seals and birds. 

We went to Addison glacier.  It is hugh. Nearly a thousand feet thick at the base.  We were so close close that I couldn't get the whole glacier in the picture.  He took us less than a quarter of a mile close.  There were like rifle shots, they were loud it was just the ice cracking.  Even as close as we were if you were not watching at the right spot you would just hear a very loud noise and look just in time to see the ice hit the water.  I did these next shots.  I had my camera set to to two pictures a second while holding down the button so I got a good series of pictures. 

This is the beginning.

This is when it was its biggest.

This is the end.  Lasted about fifteen seconds.

Seals having a discussion of whos boss.

This is a humpback whale.  The first time I saw him his tail was out of the water.  We followed him for about a half hour, but all he did was hump his back for us.  We had dinner on the boat around noon and on the way back we docked at Fox Island and had an all you can eat Salmon and Steak dinner with all the trimmings. Couldn't have been a better day.  The captian did the tour.  He talked the whole time telling us everything he could about everything we saw.  Everyone commented on how this was the best cruise they have ever been on.  It someone saw something in the water he would stop or turn the boat around to have a look.  He was really fun. 

 

Were in the Yukon, and yes were not yet extinct as this Mamoth is.

Mom fell in love with this baby Mammoth.  Reminded her of each of Her Grand Children so She gave a hug for each Grand Child.

Cost up here are so high we decided to pump our own water to save a bit.

Lots of Buffalo herds through the Yukon.  Saw baby ones too.

Yes and this big fellow crossed the road right in back of our car within feet.  I didn't get out to take this shot.  To close.  I think he could give quite a bear hug.

WE'RE THERE

This glacier at the end is a minimum of two miles across and the glacier is twenty seven miles long.  We could see five to eight miles of it.  Were a long way from it. 

 

We stayed at this lodge and in the eating place they had seven thousand seven hundred hats tacted up on the ceiling. 

This place has senventy plus signs from all over the world.  It's hard to believe but they do go on forever.  Anyone can put a sign up or send it there.

Carolyn, this one's for you.  We love the Canadian Rockies.

We made it to the Alaska Highway.  Were on our way.  Another fifteen hundred miles and we'll be there. Last night we drove a hundred and forty miles from this point in the picture and got a tent space at Pink Mountain RV and motel place.  The night was warm and partly cloudy.  We got our tent set up and got in bed and about twenty minutes later all heck broke out.  Lightning, and teriffic rain came down and our place became a muddy river.  It rained hard all night and into the early morning.  Our new tent leaked up at the top.  We were wet by morning.  The tarp under the tent weighed about forty five pounds with all the mud on it.  We got every thing cleaned up and showered and on our way.  To night were in a cabin at Toad River Lodge in the middle of no where.  Most places up here have there own electrical generating plant because there so far away from everyone else.  We went over some very steep roads to day.  Some parts of gravel.

Jack, Ethan, Eli, Lincoln, eat your heart out cause this is the Grand daddy of all trucks.  It is listed as the largest truck ever made in the whole world. I've got more pictures when we come home.  Just a note, it burns 70 gallons of diesel an hour.  It has a 3300 hp locomotive engine for power.  We could easily put our whole house on this truck.  What a RV that would be. 

Mom wishes the kids was here to play on these blow ups.                                                                      

Roy, you can ride this train all day for only $10.  Its on a 3 mile track that does a figure 8 at a National run Heritage fun park here in Canada.  No we didn't ride it, but they let me climb all over and in it.  The engineer was a lady and she was good at running the engine. 

We got to Lake Lousie kinda late, were staying over in a cabin, this is the second cabin in a row, must be something to them.  There really nice, contains every thing you need,  Were a mile from the lake.  It is really beautiful, much more than the picture shows. 

Food prices are really high so far in Canada,  a basic hamburger cost more than nine dollars.  Tomatoes etc. extra.  Gas is a dollar nine a litter.  They tell us after we pass Jasper the prices will drop since we won't be in the heart of the tourist places.  With all the great lakes around there are a lot of destinations places for the very rich.   We eat out side the park and when we walked through the Lake Louise Hotel we found we could have eat for the same price since it is government run.  Blew that.  Most all the people at Lake Louise spoke a different language so we felt like the foreigner.  We may not have good internet for about a week.  We don't know at this time.  Phone service is very sparse most of the time, just in the city's. 

Glacier Park is big mountians, water falls everywhere you look.  There is this one stretch of road for about ten miles that is just hung on the side of the steepest mountain you could imagine.  There was road construction for five miles and we spent a hour just sitting.  The mountain sheep would come down on the road and some construction ladies had water cannons they would shot them with to get them off the road and away from people. 

We did the main road through the park and then on the east side just out side the park we found a KOA Camp and set up out tent for the night.  There was swimming, hot tubs, showers, horse shoes and a lot of other stuff to do.  Kids would love it there.  It was so clean and nice.  Tenting was really ok as it was easy to set up and the bed was just right.  It didn't freeze but we kept really warm.  We haven't had to were jackets yet and the weather has been great.

There are so many lakes here and most are miles long, like ten or so.  Very beautiful and not a wave on them for you Dave you would love wake boarding since there's no people on them.

Mom shouted, back up,  we did and there was this bear, just a small one beside the road.  We've seen two bears so far, but were told there all around us were ever we go so we need to make lots of noise to let them know were here.  While we were stopped others stopped.  A car from California stopped and a bunch of kids got out and started running to the bear.  I told the mother that the bears mother was probably just is the bushes near by and the better look out. 

We crossed over into Canada, both Mom and I had weird feelings about that but here we are.  Customs just looked at our passports and sent us on.

This was built  by the Prince of Wales. We took this for Savanna.  It looks like a real princess castle. It even had little tea party set.  Savanna you would have loved it.

Beginnings of Our Adventures

We left home about two O'Clock on Monday the 5th of July after having a great 4th of July.  We stopped and saw Patsy's sister at Inkom Idaho and them on to Dubois Idaho.  I take it that this farmer grows grain

for the Budweiser company. 

We got to Dillon and found a Taco John's and had super and then on to Butte where we stayed our first night.  Butte is quite a town.  It has a lot of old minning towers and at night they are lite up with bright red lights all over the town which is built on the side of the mountain.  They have a big open pit copper mine too.  The historic part of town is way up on the hill.  A lot of old buildings and houses.  We were impressed buy how they all seemed to be well kept up.  All neatly painted in and in good repair.

We drove by Flathead Lake.  It's big and beautiful.  The water was a dark but very beautiful blue water.  The lake is 30 miles long and very wide and surrounded by tree covered mountains. 

We got to Columbla Falls just on the edge of Glacier National Park about four O'Clock and got a motel room.  A man gave us some tickets to a Circus so we went.  As you can see the tent is full of holes and it was very small.  It was a traveling Circus and the people who put it on were so nice and family oriented.  We were impressed by how nice and neat all the people who came were.  The acts were small but very good.  They sure had some beautiful animals and the clowns were funny.  The children clapped and laughed the

whole show. 

 

Tomorrow we will visit Glacier National Park.  Montana is a large but beautiful State.  Great sunsets.