Hello Everyone. I hope you all are doing well now that the weather is cooling down a bit. We are having 50 degree weather and lots of sunshine. Our evenings are getting down to the low 40's and high 30's. We had our first spill of Termination Dust last weekend. We were watching Moose Rutting and it snowed on us. So you know what that means? Summer is officially over, no more construction, and the animals are coming down to town to munch on the shrubs and remaining flowers. Having the large moose, bear and wolf running in front of cars, I do drive much more cautiously. This week on the way to work, a large moose crossed the road and flipped a small car into the center median and totaled the car. I was about 7 cars behind it all. The gentlemen in the other cars wished they had their shot guns. If you remember from last year, the animals killed from traffic are given to the "roadkill lottery." If the animal is not claimed in no many hours, the meat is given to a shelter. Then a wolf was killed by a car near the Air Force Base. This is a bit ironic since the base has about 6 packs of wolfs that are getting very aggressive and the military can not catch or gather the wolfs to place them out in the bush rather than in the Anchorage area. So I will tell you my "Sheryl" funny story. As we are driving to get to the train for our float trip, I had to call David in Memphis to ask "how do I get to the train station?" Nancy looked at me so funny. She said, "don't you live here?" Yep, I do but David is the type of person that once he has been somewhere he can get there again. I am the type of person who knows I have been somewhere but getting back to there may prove too much of a challenge. So I get to the corner that wasn't the corner David told me to go to, I couldn't find it. I knew I was lost and low and behold, a police car pulls up next to me and I ask Bob if it would be okay for me to ask directions. Bob said it made no difference to him. See not all men are afraid to ask directions!!! So the police man kind of shook his head because he realized it wouldn't be easy to direct me to the train station so he said, "Follow me." Gosh, now that is cool - a police escort to the train station!!!! so I followed him. Once we got in front of the station I turned and started to look for a parking space. We decided to find one close to the entrance and I got out and started to get our day packs. Guess who drove up behind me? Yep, Mr. Police Officer. I walked up to him to thank him for the escort and he beat me to the punch. He said, "Does your husband know you can't follow?" I said, pardon me and he said "This isn't the train station." Ooops. Then he offered to take me, or us, to the REAL train station IF I PROMISED to follow him this time. I did! We got to the station with plenty of time to get our tickets and board when the conductor called, "All Aboard!" Now come on, wasn't he the nicest police officer you have ever heard about. He came back to get me to the correct spot. He could have kept on driving and saying "she didn't listen so she can figure it out." So Nancy, Bob and I did the Spencer Glacier Float trip. We had spectacular weather and a terrific adventure. Bob is posing in front of our wonderful Alaska train. On our trip to the Glacier we saw Beluga whales in ocean. Nancy and I visited the train engineer and I got to blow the train whistle as we approached the crossing. It was pretty cool when two trains passed each other only 3 feet apart. The conductor opened the train door and Nancy and I got to wave to the people in the other train. They were very surprised to see us waving to them. The next picture is of the Whittier Tunnel. It is the second longest highway tunnel and the longest combined Railroad and highway tunnel in the United States. Some days it takes 2 hours to get through the tunnel. The photo was taken as I stood in the front end of the train. The car was the last one through before our turn. The road has train tracks and paved road for cars. The tunnel has only one foot clearance on each side of the train as it goes through the tunnel. It is very narrow and very dark. Before the tunnel was completed in 2000, cars had to be transported on a car carrier on the train because it wasn't paved. You can imagine how thrilled Whittier was when cars could drive there on their own. Whittier is a tiny town of 182 people but it is a LARGE cruise ship port. Whittier was destroyed from the tsunamis by the 1964 earthquake and 13 people in Whittier were killed. Whittier has one apartment building, where all the residents live, one cafe and No School. Homeschooling is the only option. There isn't a grocery store either. They have to travel through the tunnel to get food and "stuff". The closest Target is 40 miles towards Anchorage! And Whittier is considered in the metropolitan area. Don't you feel lucky???? So there is your history lesson. After we had a picnic lunch, we loaded into the our rafts for our float trip. The third picture is from shore looking at Spencer Glacier. It is 2 miles away - it doesn't seem that far away. Our guide told us it feels a lot more than 2 miles away because she is the one rowing the raft with 6 adults. Can you tell she rowed for the University team? Love those arms. Last year she had very long hair and she just cut her hair for "Locks of Love". The picture of the mountain is where they, the State of AK, is putting a hiking trail and cabins to rent during tourist season. The State Park is very busy during tourist season so they, the raft company, feel parts of Spencer Glacier may be destroyed. We shall see. The next few pictures are from the many floating icebergs in Placer River. One of the icebergs had rolled the day before which is why it was so shiny versus the frosty appearance. The close up of ice is the iceberg we got to touch. We took a chunk of ice and tasted it for our "glacier snow cone". It tasted great. I thought the last photo of a dirty iceberg. The dirt appears because as the glacier grew and withdrew it absorbed all the rocks and soil as it moves. Spencer Glacier got its name because a Railroad worker was killed when he fell into a crevasse in 1914. He was the person who traveled to pay the employees building the railroad. A very well-liked fellow to get a Glacier named in his honor!I have to apologize that I have lost my "technology" curve. I can't seem to get pictures to go into the blog side by side. I don't know where my knowledge went!!! If you find it let me know. I hope to have another lesson soon so I can write it down. I hope you enjoyed our Spencer Float trip. I will have more next week.
Until then, Have a happy day! Sheryl the Nanuq of the North.
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