Our travels have always been about people and places.  We certainly have the good fortune to sit next to interesting people in restaurants, in campgrounds, standing in line for almost anything.  The places are there for the driving and looking the people sometimes require some effort on our part.  Read on.

We reluctantly pulled out of Chena RV in Valdez leaving the most wonderful owner/operators we have run into.  Judy was there to greet us in the morning with suggestions to make our day better and to welcome us back in the evening with questions about how we enjoyed our activities of the day.  She and her husband are very solicitous and go out of their way to make RVers feel welcome.  Wash the coach? by all means use as much water as you need.  TV? here is the included cable and a decoder box.  Wifi, included and a good strong signal with a fast connection to the internet (backhaul – as the techs say). 

We drove back up the Richardson Highway, the only road in and out of Valdez, over the Thompson Pass, stopping at Worthington Glacier to walk out and take a look at it.  We pulled into Copper Center, which is on a loop road off of a loop of Old Richardson Highway off the highway, got that?  We did not eat at the roadhouse, mostly because we had just had lunch and weren’t planning to spend the night there.  After an hour or so of poking around, we headed up the road a few miles to the Wrangell-St Elias National Park and Preserve Visitor Center (I will not spell that out a gain).  As promised in our Days End subscription, an Escapee Only source, there is a double ended pull out with signs on the side road to the Visitor Center, just outside its gates.  There are no signs forbidding over night parking, which in Alaska, we are told, means it is permitted.  We went into the center and talked with the rangers, one of whom seems a bit rigid and questioned the propriety of such use of the pull out but agreed that so long as it isn’t signed there was nothing she could do about it.  After watching the film about the park we bought two copies for distribution to our children and beyond, just to make them envious!  Then we drove out to the pull out and set ourselves up for dinner and the night.

It seemed that Palmer was to be our next stop as I had our mail sent there for pickup at General Delivery.  We did not know when it would arrive and really did not want to pay for a campground.  I got out the Days End section for Alaska which I have printed out, and checked on Palmer.  The only Escapees in Alaska who offer overnight stopping are the Mathews in Palmer.  We called and were welcomed warmly.  On arrival Dave was out in the yard to show us where to set up.  He courteously let me ground guide Carol into backing into a fairly tight spot.  After a brief tour of Palmer during which we found our mail waiting for us we returned and brought a bottle of wine and some dip into the house for Happy Hour.  It is great to make new friends. They are very attentive and when we started talking about what to see in Palmer Dave reopened his memories of being a volunteer in the visitor center and gave way too much to do in a day.  The next morning he greeted me with a list of all the must see and do things from Palmer down through Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula. 

Short history course.  There was a depression in the 30’s.   One attempt to alleviate the troubles was a program of colonization of empty areas.  200 families from Upper Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and one family from Oklahoma were transported to Palmer Alaska in 1935.  Some 60% did not take advantage of the return ticket that was available.  All of the construction was done by imported workers to plans drawn in Washington.  Some of the designs fell a bit short, the barns are too small for their intended use as dairy barns.  This is a surprisingly rich agricultural area and there are dairies, hay farms and vegetable farms thriving in Palmer. 

There is also a Musk Ox  (they have no musk and are not oxen being most closely related to goats) farm that sells the combed out under hair of the musk oxen which is shed in the spring to a native coop that weaves the most gorgeous pieces from the spun yarn.  It is very warm and very strong and oh yes VERY expensive.  The participating natives are able to stay in their villages up near the arctic circle and continue their culture and life style thanks to the cash they earn from weaving these scarves and other articles of clothing.

Oh yes the other thing they are trying to do is to domesticate the musk oxen.  The first new animal to be domesticated in 1,000 years.  They expect the project to take a total of 250 years.  193 to go.  The first place these animals were raised on a farm was in Vermont.

Have I run on enough?  Nope.  From the Musk Ox farm we drove up Hatch Pass to Independence Gold Mine state Park at the top of the pass.  They started serious hard rock mining there in 1937.  Production peaked in 1941 and 1942 brought orders to shut down as gold was not military necessity and the resources they were using needed to be redeployed.  They struggled to keep the mine open claiming they could produce a precursor to tungsten, but the ore was of such poor grade that they never shipped an ounce.  By  1943 the site had been abandoned.  The mill works have collapsed and only the living quarters remain intact.  The tour was great fun and the area is wide open for exploration.  the weather was superb and it being Saturday Alaskans were out in force hiking and sunning where ever we looked.  We finally returned to the coach to a quiet dinner and a chance to record this.

To see all the pictures from this trip Click Here The pictures from this blog are near the end.

Onward to the Kenai Peninsula tomorrow.