Becky Cockrum Photography

August 25, 2008

A day in which bright colors attract my attention after my morning coffee…

The northernmost Denny’s in the world…

The women’s bathroom at Pioneer Park…

A boy on the playground at Pioneer Park…

Buses in the parking lot at Pioneer Park…

Flowers at Pioneer Park…

August 19, 2008

We took a drive to Whittier from Anchorage which was quite beautiful in itself. The tranquility and scenic beauty of Turnagain Arm made the drive quite a peaceful experience. The purpose of the trip was to see the sea-level glaciers of Prince William Sound. When we arrived in Whittier I discovered that I had no memory card in the camera. The memory card was in Anchorage along with the spare camera and spare memory cards, doh! We went to the few stores in Whittier but no luck, so I took these pictures with the cell phone camera.

Mom purchased a disposable camera and was anointed the official event photographer for the glacier cruise. She had a wonderful time and even bought a second camera on the boat after using up the first one. Here she is taking pictures…

As we approached the Blackstone glacier we encountered some sea otters swimming about. You can almost make them out in this picture…

Here is a waterfall across the bay from Whittier where a lot of birds were hanging out.

The dogs waited in the car while we were cruising the glaciers and they were quite happy to be underway once again…

Getting to Whittier involves a journey through a 2.5 mile one-lane tunnel. The tunnel was built by the military in WWII and was used for train traffic only until they started allowing morotists to share the lane. So the traffic takes turns, trains, cars one way, cars the other way. It was quite fun driving on the train track through the tunnel. Here is a picture of the entrance to the tunnel on the Whittier side.

August 18, 2008

We visited the Anchorage Museum where we saw a local art exhibit, native history and culture displays, and natural and technological history displays.

They had a nice moose…

Here is a bear skin boat. In the spring the native hunters walked into the hills for their hunting activities. After they bagged the bear, they fashioned this boat from local materials and floated downstream with their catch.

The display about whaling had this huge pot that the natives use to render the fat from the whale. Dick was a good sport and posed by it for scale…

There was also a photographic history of the Iditarod sled dog race. Here is a sled from the race on display.

8-24-2008

I spent a few nights camping in the Denali NP area and now have come back to Fairbanks for a few days to wait for a bit more fall color to appear in the trees. So here I am playing with this little squirrel last night at the campsite in Denali NP…

I took this picture of a pond with cattails along the way to Fairbanks. That would be Mt McKinley in the background…

Some other things I found interesting along the way were these dried fish. They dry the salmon in the sun on wooden frames to make food for the dogs in winter. Once dried like this the fish will keep a long time and not weigh much. So this is what they feed the dogs in the sled teams. Looks so tasty!

Here is an actual fish wheel, I was surprised how huge it was. They scoop up the salmon in the nets and they slide down the channel in the middle. They are only allowed to use this for some designated time period…

So here I am in Fairbanks, finally got a nice shower and a fine meal. I am writing this post from the internet lounge at the RV park where Shadow and I will be sleeping tonight, the River’s Edge RV Park, on the banks of the beautiful Chena River. I expect to spend a couple more days here, maybe visit Pioneer Park or rent a boat, see a movie, these are my ideas as of now…

I have gotten behind on the posting to the blog as my access time has been sparse. I will post pictures from the glaciers and Anchorage museums soon.

August 16, 2008

Well it was Saturday Night and what better fun could we have had than enjoying the performers at the Golden Nugget Camper Park in Anchorage Alaska. The music of Paul Brown was fabulous as he sang and played the guitar, saxophone and harmonica.

The Irish dancers were also a lot of fun as they stomped about in Irish rhythms.

The German tourists from the tube bus has fun and gave it a whirl on the dance floor.

Our excellent hostess Bernie (who manages the camper park) chimed in on the drum.

There was also an auction and all you want barbeque hamburgers and hot dogs… Twas such a fun evening.

August 14, 2008
We drove up to Fairbanks to see what that was like. We visited the Botanical Gardens and the University of Alaska Fairbanks where they were growing giant cabbages as well as many other beautiful plants.

Then we took a cruise on a sternwheeler tourist boat on the Chena River. The boat looked like this one except ours was bigger and had one more level.

This is a photo of a float plane on the Chena River. The pilot took off and landed several times for us.

The boat stopped in a native village where Mom took this nice picture of the post office with a sod roof and flowers growing in the sod.

After the boat ride we drove to North Pole Alaska which is about 10 miles southeast of Fairbanks. Here is a picture of Mom and Dick in front of the post office. It was raining there so we did not do much else except eat.

Next day we drove back to Anchorage. Dick was not feeling well or we might have visited Pioneer Park. We decided to take the road through Glenallen (The Alaska pipeline road) which was a little longer than the road back through Denali, so we made a loop and saw some fresh scenery. Here is a picture of us under the pipeline near Big Delta.

Here is a picture of Shadow basking in the scenery along the road…

The ice cream truck drives through the Golden Nugget RV Park each evening around 9PM. All the big kids here just love their ice cream. If a town has only one building, you can be sure to get ice cream there… The red bus is the German tourist bus. They sleep in tubes in the back and sit in the front. The rest of the pictures are from around Anchorage. We saw the presentation of Aurora borealis photographs by a local photographer who has dedicated the last 25 years to photographing the Northern Lights in Alaska. Twas a very beautiful presentation. We have not seen the Aurora yet but maybe we will get lucky.