Friday July 4, 2014 Palmer, AK

A close up of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline

The Matanuska Glacier

Up with the sun. Well OK, the sun was already up for about 3 hours when we got up.  I fixed the coffee and we drank it as we got ready to travel.  Not much to do outside.  Put away the sewer and fresh water hoses and unhook from power.  I took the flags down and hooked up the Jeep last night.  We have about 260 miles to drive today.  Brad opened the radiator cap for me and I topped that off.  I think all the air is about purged from the system.  I also taped the bay door that has been giving us trouble shutting.  The first 110 miles today was backtracking to the Richardson Highway.  We got some better views of the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline.  We saw no animals along the way, just warning signs.  The road wasn't awful but I had to watch ahead for frost heaves and repairs.  There were sections with steep grades and sharp curves..  Much of the time I could do 55 without worrying about shaking everything loose.

We traveled without incident.  I only had to stop once and walk around to get fully alert.  Of course we did stop several times for my PR.  The distance by road was quite far and the road was curvy and narrow in places.  After over 250 miles of driving we ended up only 60-70 miles from we started as the crow flies.

Feeding the Bull Elk

We arrived in Palmer and at the Mountain View RV Park at 2 PM.  Since we will only be here one night I only hooked up to power, they have 30 amp but ask that no air conditioners or electric heaters be used.  Fat chance of everyone complying with that.

A lone Bison

I unhooked the Jeep because one of today's activities was to visit a reindeer farm.  

A really large set of antlers

I also put up the flags, both the large ones in the rear of the coach and the small ones up front.  I also hanged out our only 4th of July decoration from one of the mirrors, it is a plastic spinner in red white and blue..  As I raised the American Flag, I almost cried for the freedoms we have lost under the current regime.  I hopefully await the end of the error.

Feeding the Reindeer

At 4 we went as a group to tour a nearby Reindeer Farm.  The farm has over 700 Reindeer, 17 Elk and a rescued Bison.  We fed the Elk long clumps of grass and some people went in the pen with the Reindeer and fed them some kind of feed pellet.  Some of the Reindeer had huge sets of antlers.  I didn't know it but Caribou and Reindeer are the same animal.  They are called Reindeer if they are domesticated and Caribou if they are loose in the wild.

Happy Fourth of July

Plenty to eat

At 6 we gathered for a cookout at a pavilion in the park.  Our staff fixed hamburgers and provided all the trimmings.  We found out that the hamburger was made from the uncooked steak from the steak dinner in Dawson City.

After dinner Gerri was tired and went back to the coach.  Since the Jeep was unhooked I went out caching.  I picked one that I thought sounded easy and went for it.  After finding the cache I was headed back to the RV Park when I spotted a beautiful rainbow.  I drove for a long distance trying to find a place to get a good picture.  The rainbow faded before I found a good spot.