A Free Morning and on to Mt. McKinley

We had a free morning to enjoy the Wilderness Lodge. The scenery was gorgeous, and it was fun people-watching. Dick used his laptop, and I rusticated.

INTERIOR OF THE PRINCESS WILDERNESS LODGE:



THE LINE FOR COFFEE WAS ENDLESS!



We had time to catch a shuttle to the Denali National Park Visitor Center - I'm so glad we could fit that in because it was a very informative and entertaining place.




Dick's notes:

Fri 5/21/10
Coffee shop a zoo, long lines but the kids are pleasant and friendly. Great staff! Visit VC. Talk to gal about trail-less park. When caching mentioned, she is in Anchorage in winter and teaches it in local schools. States that she grew up in small town near TC, I’m so amazed I forget to get the name of the town.
At lunch our waitress is Nicole. We talk about where we are from, she says Minnesota, we say Traverse City, she steps back and says she thinks she has waited on us before. When we tell her that this is the only time we’ve visited the dining room, she says ”No. I mean in Traverse.” She works at the Happy Hog in the winter!!!
We load the bus for Mt McKinley. A clear day and the mountain is fully visible in all its glory.
After arrival, check in, visit room, and enjoy dinner, and???
it’s time for bed

The bus ride to the McKinley Princess Lodge was two hours plus. But the scenery was so breathtaking that it flew by. They say that the mountain is only visible a few days a year, so once again we had the pixie dust. It was glorious and cloudless and we could see it clearly all day. Such luck! (Denali is the Athabascan name for Mt. McKinley.)

Fairbanks to Denali

Our beautiful train to Denali:


Waiting for the bus ride to the depot: Front lobby, Riverside Lodge: COACH FROM RIVERSIDE LODGE TO RAIL DEPOT: This was a great train ride. We left Fairbanks around 8 a.m. and got to the Denali depot around noon. We sat upstairs in beautiful observation cars, and had wonderful views of everything along the way. Breakfast was served on the first level - the food was great, and the service was great also. Here we are at breakfast: Dick and I in the observation car: At the village of Nenana, every year they have a contest to see when the river will thaw, or "go out". This year it thawed on April 29 at 9:06 a.m. People bet on the exact date and time of the thaw. It's as good as winning the lottery!

Nenana is 65 miles southwest of Fairbanks on the George Parks Highway.
Nenana is at mile 412 of the Alaska Railroad, on the south bank of the Tanana River (just east of the mouth of the Nenana River), and at mile 305 of the Parks Highway.

It is an historic community - an Athabascan Native Village 56 miles (as the raven flies) from Fairbanks and 75 miles north of Denali National Park. Nenana has air access, with a 5,000 ft. paved runway for float and ski planes.

Nenana Ice Classic 2010

The Jackpot for the 2010 Nenana Ice Classic is $279,030.00. The payout will be made on June 1st The winners are: Chris Arnold - Purchased his ticket at Marylou Redman/Diamond Jim's in Indian, Ak Donna Smith - Purchased her ticket at Carrs/Sageway in Wasilla Alison Foley - Purchased her ticket at Carrs/Safeway - Bently in Fairbanks April 29, 2010 9:06 AM Alaska Standard Time Tanana River went out Tripod clock stopped.

This is where we learned that "na" means river. Talkeetna, Chena, Tanana, and Nenana are all river names.

Here, just for you, are 16 seconds of our train ride through Alaska:

Denali Natural History Tour

Dick's notes:

Thurs 5/20/10
Board train for Denali Princess in mist and rain. Rain clears as we move south. See Dall sheep and 3 dead wolves from train. Not see Denali.

From station, shuttle to lodge. Check in and go on Natural History tour with driver Gary. He has been in Alaska 9 years, ex-long haul trucker. Very passionate about park.
From the bus we see caribou, very pregnant moose, artic hare (10 feet away) spruce grouse, ptarmigan, artic ground squirrel, and best of all a mother grizzly and cavorting cub.
Tour has stops at wilderness center, cabin for reenactor, and a talk with native Athabaskan.
Dinner at the bistro

We settled in at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, and freshened up for our Natural History tour.

This was a five hour bus tour that felt like an hour - and left you wanting more! We learned about the history, culture and wildlife of Denali National Park from a sincere, passionate bus driver whose life has been changed by being in the wilderness. He narrated beautifully, he was knowledgeable, and he even read us poetry. It was the most successful wildlife tour you can imagine. We saw caribou, moose, grizzly bears, ptarmigan, Arctic ground squirrel, and snowshoe hare. Unbelievable. The bus drivers were all exclaiming about how rare a day this was. We've been sprinkled with pixie dust.

MOOSE (2) This was a very pregnant moose. I'm sure she's a mama by now.





CARIBOU (2) Did you know that caribou and reindeer are the same animal? The difference between caribou and reindeer is that reindeer can fly. We have it on good authority!



DENALI SCENERY


VISITOR CENTER


GRIZZLIES (4) There's at least one bear in each picture. One of them clearly shows the cub. This was the most fascinating part of the tour for me.









ATHABASCAN MAN DESCRIBING CULTURE OF NATIVE AMERICANS



DENALI SCENERY


BACK TO THE WILDERNESS LODGE FOR DINNER

Fairbanks

Dick's notes for day 2:

Wed 5/19/10
Fairbanks Princess Lodge.
Get up and chase caches, 1 nano, 2 magnetic key holders. Can’t get across the river.
Paddle boat ride. Discover that the native culture presentation is commercial enterprise by the paddle boat company. We forgot to put the memory card back in camera. None for sale in gift shop. Fred Meyer only 1 ½ mile. (Isn't it interesting that Frederick Meijer in the midwest and Fred Meyer in the west have the same type of department store...) On the way I discovered a walking/bike path across the river. Drop coin in decon container. Get back and buy Bill a beer while I have Salmon chowder and a salad.

MORNING AT LEISURE:

Well, it's a good thing we didn't have any excursions planned for the morning, because the hotel restaurant was extremely slow in serving. It was a buffet breakfast, but I was silly enough to order just blueberry pancakes and not the buffet. It took forever. It was a real blueberry breakfast breakdown.

STERNWHEELER RIVERBOAT CRUISE:

Fully narrated cruise along the Chena and Tanana Rivers on the Riverboat Discovery.
We saw a bush pilot's demonstration, and a native American fish wheel. We went ashore at an authentic Athabascan village and saw furs, artists, and heard about the native culture. The boat stopped at what used to be Susan Butcher's house and saw the sled dogs that run the Iditarod. It was a great demonstration of how they are harnessed, how enthusiastic they are, and then they took off running pulling a 4-wheeler where we could see them from the boat. This was a great excursion.

The reason why there are no pictures from this day is because I left the picture card in the USB port of my computer at home. (Wince) Dick made a special dinnertime trip to the Fairbanks WalMart to get a new card.

Destination Fairbanks

Dick's notes from our first travel day:

Tues 5/18/10 The adventure begins!
Flight @ 2:30. Start with breakfast @ Omlette Shope, one last pass through TC and then to airport aprox 11:30, check bags, one overweight ($70), then to security and disaster. Nancy is obviously a threat. Off with shoes and then all bags pawed through. Although she had containers in clear bags, another one needed. Once that was done, bags screened again and then we were allowed to proceed.
O’Hare went smoothly, flight was long. At SeaTac we get a chair and travel to Terminal N (walkway, tram, walkway) to meet with B&J. Wheel chair leaves. After lunch, back at the gate there has been a change in gate and time. Round up another chair and make the change. On to Fairbanks and bags, they made it!! As we fly in at midnight local, we could see the sunset on the horizon.
Board bus and wait. We learn that we are the first group through. It’s the young driver's first trip. We are waiting for 2 more people. We wait. Another plane lands, we wait. Finally 10 (ten) more board. Now he says we are waiting for 2 more people.
After a while 3 more board and we are good to go, but oops, we can’t. You have to remove the chocks from in front and back of the wheels first. (How funny!)
Finally, we get to the Princess Lodge in Fairbanks, check in and go to bed, it’s been a 28 hour day. I don’t think it ever got totally dark

COACH FROM FAIRBANKS AIRPORT TO PRINCESS RIVERSIDE LODGE:

We arrived at midnight. There was a wait for the bus. Basically we just arrived at our room and collapsed!

Shelly's B-Day

We'll be gone for Memorial Day weekend, so we did the flowers for Mom and Dad today. While we were getting flowers, we picked up some for Shelly's birthday!

The cemetery was a little bit overgrown - I guess they haven't had their spring spruce-up yet. Mom and Dad have just about the first real flowers. There are a bunch of fake flowers there.

I'm sure that they'll mow and have everything shipshape by Memorial Day.

Tonight was Shelly's birthday party and we had a great time. It was fun to talk to Barb and Jim, Adam and Melanie, and of course, Shelly and Chris. We met some of their friends - it was a good group with lots of very cute toddlers and children! Izzy has taken her first steps just this week, but she didn't perform for us this time.

Chris made the cake from scratch - it was yummy. It was his first attempt at baking anything! A good time was had by all - I'm so glad we went!





There was a contest to see who could use a picture of Shelly in the most creative way - we won!

Actually, to be brutally honest, we won because nobody else did anything! Thanks for the bottle of wine :)

Such a Pleasant Day

This expedition began as a maintenance run for our cache at Walton Junction. Everything was fine there, and it was a beautiful day for a drive, so...we picked up a few on the way home:

5/14/2010 You found Wheelhouse by the bay (Traditional Cache)
Got back today but something was different! The slip is empty! The boat is gone! We sure hope that whoever took it had permission. Using the new cords and the nicer weather we made a quick find. TFTC

This cache was at the Maritime Center, and the ship
state of Michigan" had gone sailing.

5/14/2010 You found By Nine 9 o'clock the "tea" is over (Traditional Cache)
As mentioned in our log for a nearby cache, this town was my ancestral home.

(Fife Lake)

The Battenfields and George Van Pelt came here at the end of the 19th century. My great aunt Suzy lived just down the street. The library is new to us, we will have to come back when it's open. Thanks for the fun. Took nothing, Left Jack Squat!

5/14/2010 You found West Sharon Access Site (Traditional Cache)
Boy do the cache and contents ever look familiar! We were out checking our cache across the river and just had to grab this one. (Or maybe it was the other way around.) This is our first visit to this new launch site. Probably not our last. Thanks for the fun, much better than a night at some motel.

(Kelcutah placed this cache. The cache container was a prize that Dick put together for the Expo Event in Grayling. Kelcutah chose the ammo can over a free night in the Jacuzzi suite in the Days Inn!)

5/14/2010 You found Take a Walk on the Mild Side (Traditional Cache)
This town is my ancestral home.

(Fife Lake)

My grandmother was a Battenfield who married a Van Pelt. The families migrated here at the end of the 19th century. Many of my ancestors are buried in the Springfield Twp. Cemetery. Numerous uncles were farmers in the area. As boy, over 60 years ago, we often came into town on Friday nights to watch movies on the wall in the park downtown. We feel that it was a sad day when the Inn changed hands. Thanks for the memories.

5/14/2010 You posted a note for Walton Junction (Traditional Cache)
Wow!! We think the cache might be haunted! The original container seemingly appears and disappears with out notice. Be careful!

(We put out a new and different cache container at this location because the old container kept falling to the ground. The last finder claims that he found both containers! We came to check it out but we only found the new one.)

My Day So Far

Went to neighbor Mary's house to sign up her housekeeper, Cheryl, to come to our house too, in the future. I can't call her a cleaning lady, because I think she's an upgrade from that, so for the time being I'm calling her our housekeeper. She comes here next Wednesday - hooray!

Then I sat in a dental tech's chair for an hour getting my teeth cleaned, and listening to Kathy's stories. Dick picked me up and we went to the mall. We bought new ditty bags for our trip and some approved travel sized items to put inside. Dick got some sport pants and a really attractive polo shirt.

On to the food court for a really late lunch and some carousel-watching. China Wok, of course. While I finished up, Dick went down to the shoe store for new shoes and sox. Then back to Target for shoe polish.

We are beginning to have fun getting ready for our cruise.

Home for a rest, and after this I think I'll go out side and cut daffodils. It's another supremely gorgeous day!

MORE DAY;

I deadheaded all of the daffodils and dug all of the dandelions out of the perennial garden. Hey - deadheaded daffodils & dug dandelions - how alliterative! Dick is splitting wood and adding it to the woodpile in the shed, and also getting the Schoolhouse ready to give to Baby Izzy.

Down by woodhenge, in the old volleyball court area, there's a strutting goose patrolling the entire field. Yesterday when I came through in the golf cart, he just walked around quietly until I got a little too close. The he flew to the river and swam around honking very loudly! He was still there today, so I'm thinking that maybe there's a nest somewhere around there. I think I'll just let him be for a while, although it takes 28 to 35 days for the eggs to hatch.

GenFest Invites

The invitations for GenFest are ready to mail! The envelopes were all stuffed and addressed and ready to go, so we took a drive over to the Grawn Post Office, jut for something different. Well...I hope everything got mailed correctly. The woman behind the counter was very flustered - lots of customers were in the lobby waiting, and she was obviously having trouble operating the equipment and finding things. When it was my turn, she said, "I just started as Postmaster here this week!" Gee, and it's already Tuesday!

I had a small package to send to Laurie, and the Postmaster was befuddled as to the best way to send it. I left there thinking that none of my things might make it to their destinations!

10 Years ! of Caching

On May 1st, 2000, selective availability was turned off and the GPS satellite system was available for civilian use. Three days later the first geostash was placed. Ten years later and there are now over 1 million geocaches and 4 million registered users! Boy has our hobby grown!

For Christmas, 2002, Jana gave Dick his first GPS. It took six months to break it in, and we first went geocaching on Monday, June 16, 2003. So for us, it's only been 7 Years ! of caching.

We have found a cache in every county of Michigan:



and in 41 States of the Union:



In two weeks we're going to Alaska with the Sniders to pick up an Alaska cache. While we're out west, we're also going to find a cache in Washington State, and then go visit the original cache site in Oregon. It's no longer there, but there's a plaque or something at that site.

Happy Anniversary Geocaching!

Morels

Some people say that you find morels under an ash tree. Some people say that you find them by a stump. Some people say that morels grow where trillium grow. Some people don't say!

Our nephew Ed spent 14 hours searching for morels in a couple of days last week. All Dick had to do was to open the guest room door! Sixteen morels, as fine as you please.

10 Years ! Petoskey, MI

This was a different kind of an event for us. We drove up to Petoskey to attend a Tenth Anniversary Geocaching Event because there weren't any events in our neck of the woods. If you attend one of these you get a special icon. It was different because we didn't know anybody there! (Well...Radman showed up toward the end). You always meet nice new people at an event, though. I especially enjoyed talking to BroomLady and kdnydnr (kidney donor).





The hosts were the GageClan, and they were very friendly and kind. In addition to the event, we found six other caches in the Petoskey area.

I copied this history of geocaching from the event page. Thanks, GageClan.

History of Geocaching:
On May 3, 2000, Dave Ulmer proposed a way to celebrate the demise of SA. He hid a bucket of trinkets in the woods outside Portland, Oregon. It's all there. The container. The trinkets. The log book. The rule of take something, leave something, sign the logbook. Today the site of the first "stash" is marked by a plaque ("Original Stash Tribute Plaque" at GCGV0P). Other caches of interest include: Gc35 "Power Island Placed 7/16/2000 this cache is the oldest cache in Michigan. It is located on an Island out in the water of Traverse City, Mi. GC36 "Geocache 612" Originally placed on 8/21/00 by Gregory Benn , this cache is the second oldest active cache in the state of Michigan. The rest as they say is history....

The Teachers' Lounge

In 1990 we bought a pontoon boat from Torch River Marine in Torch River. We named it The Teachers' Lounge. Over the years we have had many adventures with this boat. When Dad was living, we used to enjoy taking him fishing in the surrounding lakes. I remember fishing in Long Lake, Spider, Arbutus, Green, and Fife Lakes. Mother would not ever go with us - she never did enjoy being on the water.

We sometimes left the pontoon at cottages that Lue rented - and we loved taking everyone for a ride. Even though we had more than one one close call, we never sank the boat. Once on Elk Lake, we made everyone put on their life jackets and we all got our ankles wet because of waves over the bow! Such excitement!

One year we anchored the boat at West End Beach to watch the Blue Angels. Everything went well and we all had a great time and a super view of the aerial activity. After the show a wind came up, and the Bay got very choppy. We had to go north to make our way back to the boat launch. John and Sharon stayed on board to help us get the boat back on the trailer. On our way back, the waves were coming at us from all directions, and we became awash. The motor was completely under water at one point. Once again, we did not sink the boat. Things evened out, we got more level, and the docking was successful. Whew. Talk about memorable moments!

In the summertime, we have had many, many good times on the pontoon with family. At one time or another, every member of our family has been able to go boating with us. When Dylan was little, it was a joy to watch him enjoy being out on the water. When he got a little older, his Grandpa would let him pilot the boat, and he took that job very seriously and followed all directions! When he was older still, Dylan and his Dad enjoyed tubing along behind the boat. It was kind of a bumpy ride, but they liked it anyway.

The past couple of summers, we haven't used the boat so much. One reason is that our summer weather has been a little chilly lately. Another reason is that we seem to run out of time because of so many other activities that we plan together. It seems that the two of us don't use the boat anymore when we're home alone either. It's taking up space in the pole barn, we're paying insurance on it yearly, and we don't use it that much. We wanted to sell it. But - selling stuff is always kind of a hassle, plus you never know who might show up at your house and "case the joint".

One day when we were out riding around, we drove right past Torch River Marine, and Dick stopped in to see how much we should ask for the boat. They made us an offer we couldn't refuse! We bring the boat to them, and they sell it for us for a fee. This really appealed to us as the perfect no-hassle way to take care of it. Today we took it over there and waved good-bye. They have 3 months to sell it, which Torch River Jim said would be no problem. Jim was impressed with the immaculate condition of the pontoon. It has always lived inside the pole barn, so it really is in good shape. We're hoping it will sell right away.

Heading out the driveway for the last time:


Torch River Jim:


Bye-bye pontoon:

Richard the Mentor

We have two Carols at the gym. One we call Carol O2 because she's on portable oxygen. The other we call Carol Kingsley because she lives in.......Kingsley!

Carol Kingsley has shown an interest in geocaching, and asked us if we could introduce it to her. We loved that idea, and we set a date. Dick printed out a bunch of material for her, and planned a route filled with easy caches - each one a different type. After gym, we all went to the Omelette Shoppe, and then we hit the road.

Here's Dick's description:

April 27 by basswoodbend (2586 found)
The Curse of the Blood Diamond by gonfishin

One of the gals at the gym had noticed that I often wear one of my Geocaching tee shirts when working out. She asked us to show her what it was all about.

Her husband thinks that it would be too physically demanding for her. We picked a selection of local caches which demonstrate that the challenge can be more mental than physical.

We picked a couple of park and grabs in town, ("Campus Plaza" and "Welcome to Traverse City") and then stopped by "The end of the line". She was excited and enthralled.

To give her the experience that "If it weren't for Geocaching, I'd never known this was here" we next did "Aerial Photo". "Wow! what a view!"

We added a regular ammo can to the route with a short walk with "Hidden Toy Box". She found it without assistance. To cap off her experience we turned to the Geo Pirates and their unique Patrick Murphy and "Captain Kidd's Treasure". Her shriek when the Captain was exposed brought the Pirates on the run and we had a nice chat.

She is hooked we think. As a finale, she asked to search for one that we haven't found and thus we came back here. She actually spotted the cache first. We were surprised when we opened the log book and discovered that we were also first finders and so we explained the FTF Dance ritual. Luckily we were deep in the woods and so no one could observe three senior citizens waddling around a stump. We took none of the stash, just signed the log at 2 PM and left our sig items and some hand sanitizer. Thanks for an enjoyable finish to a great day.

Second Annual AuSable Expo Meet & Greet

I developed writer's block, so Dick wrote up our first hosting of an event for me!

At the MiGO Winter Social, Basswood Bend and Dino Duo, (our friends Tim and Susie) were awarded silver coins for our contributions to geocaching. Both of us were thrilled but confused, what had we done to deserve the award? 

Then Dennis of ss-dsk announced that he had to attend training in Grand Rapids to maintain his EMS certification the weekend that he had planned to hold his Second Annual Grayling Expo Meet and Greet and was asking for help. We had attended the first event last year and had a fun time. It was held in the lobby of the Days Inn next door to the Expo conference center. Misty, the Days Inn manager, offered to provide food and some prizes. Since Tim and Susie had volunteered to man the Geocaching booth at the Expo, we figured the least we could do would be to host the event. 

We had a great MiGO cake made at Meijer, and got Pepsi and chips to go with Misty's sloppy joes and Susie's beans. For door prizes we put together a cache in an ammo can, one of our coins, and a stuffed fish, in case there were any kids there. Misty added a few items including the grand prize, a night in their finest Jacuzzi suite.

We think the event went well although attendance was slim. We were competing with the opening day of trout season and a big event on Mackinac Island. We think every one had a good time. It only ran from 11 to 1, and who can turn down a free lunch?

For the prize drawing, each person entered their name on a card. We decided that, rather than hold the Grand Prize to the end, we'd let each person chose their own prize and that way everybody had an equal chance. Well the drawing began and we were surprised! The first winner chose - - The Ammo Can! Well she lives in Grayling, is a young girl and said she'd probably not use the free night. The next winner chose - - Our Coin! The third winner chose - - The Fish! What's with geocachers anyway? We were getting embarrassed for Misty but she was laughing as much as we were.

Eventually the suite as well as all the other prizes were selected, even the little plastic boxes we had used to represent geocaches on the cake.

We had a good time on our first attempt at hosting an event and will probably do it again. We left Grayling earlier than we had planned because we were tired, drove straight home and crashed.

Sprinkler Sleet

This is what happens in the Spring when you have activated the sprinkler system, but Mother Nature hasn't cranked up the heat!

Last Blast of Winter (I Hope)

Fins and Feathers hosted an event today at the Silver Lake Park. It's a great location - nice facilities and pavilion and everything. They provided food and good company - however - the weather was the absolute worst ever for April! The temperature was in the thirties, and the wind was fierce! There were gusts up to 30 mph.

So there we stood, in the pavilion, with no sunshine anywhere, and a very cold blustery wind. It was the kind of picnic where you have to anchor everything down with stones. Surprisingly, it was quite well attended, and the kids really enjoyed the playground. The adults were shivering in their stocking caps and mittens.

Well, you can have a good time if you've a mind to, and there were lots of interesting people to "meet and greet". I lasted for an hour, and then I sat in the car with the engine running. My parents didn't raise any stupid children! The radio said that the wind chill was 29. Dick bailed out about 40 minutes later and shivered all the way home.

After we had thawed out and rested a bit, we went for a ride. At one point, up ahead, it looked like smoke was blowing across the road - but guess what. It was snow! Boggling! The car thermometer said 45 degrees, but yet we had a miniature blinding snow event.

We were out checking coordinates for Emma's Shrine and the Barnum Cemetery - a very interesting afternoon. We're trying to delve into the history of the Barnum Cemetery and Mayfield in general. Rumor has it that Albert Starr Barnum, who donated the land for the cemetery, was the brother of P.T. Barnum, but we can't find any proof of it anywhere.

Emma's Shrine has been all cleaned up, and all of the trinkets and stuffed animals that people have left are now gone. The cleaner-upper left a note in our cache box saying please don't put any more trash on the grave. Maybe she thought they were our things. She very cheekily removed the urn and the flowers that had been hiding the cache, and just left the cache container sitting on the ground. We were glad we stopped by to rescue it. It has been relocated and enabled, and GeoPirates have already found it!

It was late when we got home, so we did Chinese take-away from the new China Lee at Chum's Corners. They do a really nice job. We couldn't eat it all, so we're having Chinese tomorrow too!