Date: 14 June 2001 (Thursday)

Start: Grandview RV Park & Café MP109.7 Glenn Hwy

End: Black Spruce Travel Camp, Ft Richardson AK (99 miles)

It was 47f, cloudy, with some fog, and sprinkles when we arose.

We did breakfast in the little house and continued south on the Tok Cutoff (Alaska Hwy 1, aka the Glenn Hwy. The drive was a little exciting in that we went up through a cloud layer (low visibility) and got between two layers. Then we entered the upper layer of the two and came out above that to find yet another layer. The road was rather twisty but well paved for here.

Our views of the mountains and other scenery were limited to that which we could see in our layer. It was really strange.

As we approached Palmer, both layers below us disappeared, then the high level clouds broke up a bit so we had partial sunshine. That was nice.

We used a military travel guide to select the Ft Richardson (Army) Travel Camp over the Elmendorf AFB Famcamp based on facilities afforded. When we checked in with the very friendly retired Coast Guard camp host, we received some advice and maps along with the site assignment. Based on that, we made reservations at the Air Force Resort at Seward AK after we leave here (four nights here, three there).

We went to the base library to connect and receive e-mail; it’s a friendly place and we’ll go there again Saturday to update everyone again.

We did lunch at the deli at the combined Elmendorf AFB/Ft Richardson BX/PX & Commissary, then bought a few clothes at the PX and food at the commissary. Both are modern facilities and well stocked.

We saw a lot of training flights in progress at Elmendorf; F16’s circling and doing noisy touch-and-goes, a group of C130’s doing the same and in the midst of that, a single B52 took off and went away, followed by a C17. Lots of traffic today. The camp we’re in is under one end of the runway so we get to hear a lot of the "sound of freedom".

I took off to see about maintenance on the truck. I found I’d be best off if I get up early and go to the Elmendorf service station, so I’ll do that. Diesel fuel is $1.499 per gallon here; a welcome relief after the $189.9 in Tok and $2.00 or more in Canada (after conversions).

We headed for downtown and stopped at an RV place to get stuff for the little house (tank additives, toilet paper, etc.). We were able to park very close to the log house visitor’s center, and collected a bunch of literature from them. We took a hike on part of the Tony Knowles path where it looks out over Knik Arm. We stopped at Simon and Seafort’s restaurant to make reservations for tonight; we loved this place when we were here six years ago on the cruise. Then we went to CompUSA and bought a cable I want for this laptop to help me categorize and file pictures better, using a hard disk I brought along.

Then back downtown to Simon and Seafort’s. It was as good as we remembered. Dolores had king crab legs (fresh, of course) and I had a salmon topped with toasted hazelnut butter. A Napa valley chardonnay complemented these. Then wildberry ice cream for dessert.

The view from S&S is out over Knik Arm to the mountains in the west. With the sun still up and sparkling the water in the foreground, it was quite a sight. They have some unique screens that cut down on glare while allowing good viewing.

We had had enough by then, so it was back to the little house in the army woods under the air force flight traffic pattern (thank god they stop training flights about 7 pm).