Land of the Midnight Sun

The post are ordered with the most recent here at the top. There's also a list of the individual posts in the blog archive in the left column.

Our trip had come full circle. We had breakfast with Chuck at Gwennie's in Anchorage our first morning here. Then we pulled back into Anchorage just before our late night flight home and had breakfast again at Gwennie's. But we still weren't done with Gwennie's as it turned out. We took a last minute bump as we were ready to board our flight home... it was hard to turn down a free hotel and meals and $800 to wait another day to fly home! The hotel the airline put us up in was just down the street from Gwennie's, so we had breakfast again this morning at Gwennie's. And we're just about to go to Gwennie's for dinner right now before catching our flight tonight. Thanks, Chuck, for introducing us to Alaska and Gwennie's Old Alaska Restaurant!

Jan with Gwennie's Old Roadster



With Alaska's few roads, travel by plane is as common as by car. Alaska's many lakes are all the runway these planes need...



A plane had to make an emergency landing, due to low clouds, on the road outside the lodge where we stayed near Denali. The lodge let him park it in the parking lot until weather had cleared the next day.
 

Doug's Moose

Amazingly, we hadn't seen any moose in our journeys. We told George on our way back from dinner our last night with him and his imitable wife, Mare, to show us a moose. George turned down a side road and promptly spotted us some moose grazing on the side of the road. Thanks, George!

Kenai Chess Challenge 1

The players below are also all players on Papa's... 5 of the 9 people playing in the tournament were also Papa's players!

George Lombardi - George also directed the tournament, as he does every year (the tourney is his creation) and, with his wife, Mare, graciously hosted Chuck and Lori, and George V, and Jan and I in his home.


Chuck Sherwood - Gentleman, scholar, salmon chef, and all around good guy


George Voorhis - The Georges surprised Papa with George V's attendance. George V and I live 40 miles apart and we had to go to Alaska to see each other for the first time in a couple of years


Randy Parshall - Kindly hosted the tourney at his church


Ted Belanoff - From California - Just joined Papa's - Welcome Ted

Kenai Chess Challenge 2

And the winners are...

George Voorhis and Matthew Parshall tied for 1st


Ted Belanoff for 3rd


James Perrin for Best Under 1600


Randy Parshall for Biggest Upset



George Voorhis, the sandbagger... who knew he was a Superhero?!



Click image below to see tournament crosstable...

Surprise!!!

We were in Homer, about 100 miles south of George, the days before the chess tournament. The day before the tourney, George called and said he would be down near Homer that day, and maybe we could meet up and see his land in Homer and have dinner. That sounded good to us, but George was really vague about just how we should plan it. He said he had to meet a friend near Homer and would call us later that day when he knew what was going on. So he did call later and said he was in Homer and that we should come and meet him, but he was still being vague. We met him outside the Salty Dog Tavern in Homer and he said we had to go see what his friend was up to in a nearby gift shop, and then we'd go have a drink in the Salty Dog. We entered the gift shop, and I thought I recognized the back of the head of a guy paying for a purchase. I had to go around to make sure it was someone I knew... lo and behold, it was George Voorhis! He had arranged to come at the last minute and the 'George's' had kept it a secret. George Voorhis lives just 40 miles from Jan and I in Colorado, and the George's and I often play in a chess tourney in Colorado in February when George L comes down to visit. The George's have been friends since college and I met and played chess with them in Colorado tournaments for years before George L moved to Alaska. This was a total surprise to Jan and I... and I must say, a good one! It was like old-home week, playing a tourney together again some 3,000 miles away from our usual haunt. Well done, George's!!!

3 salty old dogs having a swill at the Salty Dog in Homer, AK...



It's a far piece from Loveland!



Checking out George and Mare's piece of heaven in Homer...



Movin' some pieces and tellin' some stories at George and Mare's...






George and Jan and I stayed at George and Mare's a few days. Chuck and his wife, Lori, came down from Anchorage and stayed in their motor home in the driveway. Chuck cooked us up some Alaska salmon one night... yummmmmmm! A good time was had by all!    George and Mare's home...



And of course the girls, George and Mare's dogs:

Lizzy Borden... her name belies her obsequious personality...



And none other than Bobbi Fischer...



Bobbi has a personality the size of Alaska. She chases moose out of the yard!


Not pictured, Seymour Butts (the cat)

Epic Homer

What a beautiful place, Homer Alaska. Grand mountains, volcanoes, glaciers, water water everywhere. George and Mare have a piece of land here... and the view of Homer is what convinced them to move to Alaska almost 20 years ago... I totally get it! We're staying at the Ocean House Inn, right on the water, with magnificent views of the mountains and water...



The hot tub is right outside our door...




The view from the hot tub...



The end of the road on the Homer Spit......




The Spit is where it's happening in Homer as far as tourism goes. The narrow strip of land/sand (maybe 150 yards wide) juts out into the bay for over a mile. The weather has been so beautiful while we've been here, the beaches along the spit are full of campers, RV's, tents, dogs... the signs of summer in Alaska. We're told a run of nice, clear days like this is very unusual... confirming Jan's and my claim of having good weather karma when we travel. There are shops and restaurants galore on the spit, as well as fishing and bear sighting flightseeing tours, and mooring and docking of deep water boats on one side. Homer is considered the Halibut capital of the world.

And Homer has a very nice, recently remodeled hospital that Jan and I can attest to since we spent most of our second day here getting me diagnosed and treated for a nasty case of bronchitis. Everybody we've met and dealt with here in Alaska has been very friendly, and seemingly very happy... what's not to like about this incredible place?!

We've seen quite a bit of wildlife, and have been surprised at how many bald eagles there are here. Probably our best wildlife sighting has been a huge bald eagle's nest in a dead tree with 2 young eagles ready to leave the next any hour now it seems... dad was hanging out in the nest today with the 'kids' standing on the edge of the nest looking with some trepidation out into the world, ready to take that first flight... it appeared dad was going to give them a shove if they didn't go for it soon! :) Oh, the location of this nest and these magnificent birds? Across the street from McDonalds in Homer!

Supersize that?

Fjords and Glaciers and Volcanoes, oh my!

Now in Seward. We're staying at a little B&B outside of town. Jan went out to check out the hot tub as soon as we got here, a nice one out in the open in the woods by a stream (everything is so green and luxuriant). She almost got hit by a swooping bald eagle, and scared a brown bear in the stream. Me, well I climbed in the hot tub and did some serious meditating... ahhhh....




The next day we took a 9 hour boat cruise/tour of the Kenai Fjords and National Parks. It was a rare clear, and relatively warm, day. We saw sea otters, humpback whales, orca whales, several bald eagles, puffins, murres, sea lions, and lots of homo sapiens. We saw several glaciers, stopping for a while at Holgate Glacier, where we heard and saw glacier calving.




Orca Whales, also knows as Killer Whales because they have teeth...



There are lots of bald eagles here...



Murres, also called Penguins of the North...



Bundle up... it's summer in Alaska!



Jan hiked up to Exit Glacier...

The Mountain

They call it 'The Mountain' here - Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in North America at about 20,300 feet. We spent 3 nights at Mary's McKinley View Lodge, hoping the ever-present clouds would clear so we could see the mountain. The original Mary, who the lodge is named after, was quite a woman. She homesteaded on the south side of the mountain (she thought the view was much better than that from within the National Park - she was right, it is the best and closest view) in 1962, after a local pilot (who she later became good friends with) told her that it was not for a woman to be homesteading out here in the wilderness. Mary did just that, and eventually wrote a best selling book titled 'Not For A Woman.' :) Mary was instrumental in convincing the governor of Alaska to build the very highway that now takes millions of tourists to Denali National Park, among sundry other accolades and accomplishments.

Day 1 was a bit of a disaster. Driving up toward Denali National Park, we pulled off to look at a lake. And promptly kicked up a rock which pierced our oil pan! Oh bother! Thankful for cellphones since nobody else came along the next 6 hours (except a couple with a flat tire who WE ended up helping out), we had to wait 6 hours for the rental company to send a tow truck and new car for us from Anchorage.

We spent the next day in Talkeetna, a touristy, artsy, and enjoyable town about halfway between Anchorage and Denali. We just kinda hung out and soaked up the ambiance of the locals, all out and about enjoying the long, warm days of summer. They say there are 2 seasons in Alaska, July and Winter!

Then, finally, our final night at Mary's, we had set our alarm for 1:00 AM (sunset) and again for 3:00 AM (sunrise), and were rewarded at 3:00 AM with our first view of 'The Mountain.' It truly is magnificent! It is surrounded by very respectable, good sized mountains. But when you finally see 'the mountain,' these other 'big' mountains seem tiny in comparison. Very impressive indeed! McKinley stayed 'out' for the rest of the beautiful clear morning until we had to leave about noon. We had our breakfast in Mary's cozy dining room with the mountain in full view...