Our Alaska Trip Part XXIII More Travel Observations

 This is the 23^rd in a continuing series about our trip through Canada to Alaska

 Let’s start with a Top of the World Highway update from the Yukon Highways and Public Works site:

 Highway 9, the Top of the World Highway, motorists are advised that the Taylor [Top of the World] Highway in Alaska is now open from the Yukon/Alaska border through to Tok. There will be a pilot car operating from roughly MP 81 to MP 91. Expect delays. There is no camping or stopping on the Taylor Highway between Chicken, MP 67 and the Boundry/Taylor Wye, MP 95, except in designated BLM campgrounds.

 Rv.net reader Dave had mentioned that he was expecting to get through Sunday following a pilot car.  Since WiFi in the area is intermittent, we can assume he hasn’t been able to report further.  However, he did email to say, “The Taylor and Top of the World Highways are now open, with a pilot car escort through the bad sections. Come to Chicken and Eagle Alaska. They need the business!”

 In normal times, I check facts and spelling fastidiously.  That’s difficult on this trip, so if you see errors that need correcting, please use the comment section to get the correct information out to readers.

  

From the “Small World Department” of the RV blog come these two coincidences from recent days.

 While in Anchorage we visited the Alaskan Heritage Center, which is an excellent way to learn about the cultures of tribes and clans in the state.  In one of the replica habitats, Bob Babbitt got into a discussion with the young presenter (I think he said his name is Sean). Bob mentioned that he did his internship in dentistry on the Ft. Defiance Navajo reservation in eastern Arizona.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The young man, an Athabaskan native, said to Bob, “Maybe you know my mother.”  He did indeed know her.  Aurelia had been a dental assistant in his office during that residency.  It just so happened that she was there that day visiting her son, which brought about a surprise reunion.   His mother now works with the public health service in Alaska.

 

 

And the second coincidence concerns my long-time friend Sam Casey, a veteran truck-camper RVer and a representative of Signtronix along the East Coast of the U.S.  Sam established an internet friendship with Margie Goodman of Anchorage, who recently bought an RV and plans to travel to the East Coast.

 Sam mentioned to her that he has a friend traveling in Alaska who is writing a blog about his trip.  Margie replied that she has been reading a blog written by a guy who is on an Alaskan caravan.  The coincidence of two people thousands of miles apart who had never met being linked to us is incredible.

 

Today we delved deeply into the history of the Homer area at the Pratt Museum.  Some excellent displays, but we were magnetized by presentations on video and audio that kept us listening for at least an hour.  Then we visited the cabin at the museum, where we listened to a resident who had been here since 1954 telling visitors about the hardships people endured years ago homesteading before there were services and roads. 

Sunday we joined about a dozen members of our group catching a charter boat to the tiny village of Seldovia.  We departed the Homer Spit in the rain on a two-hour trip across Kachemak Bay to the 265-population Seldovia.  Once a Russian fishing village and later the center of the halibut industry in Alaska, now it is about 10 businesses that cater to boatloads of tourists.  On the way over, “rafts” of sea otters lounged on the balmy bay watching over numerous, varied flocks of sea birds.  If you’re coming this way, plan to stay a few days in Homer to take in all the beauty and history this area has to offer.

While we were enjoying our cruise, another group from our caravan was out catching their limit of halibut on a very successful fishing trip.  Tuesday we hookup for a long drive to Palmer, looking forward to new adventures.

 

 From the “Never-Bored RVers,” We’ll see you on down the road.