Trapper Creek, AK - Heading South

The overnight wind blasted away all night. We were rockin’ and rollin’ in our RV whenever a gust hit us broadside. Did I sleep? Well, it took me a long time to get to sleep and I awoke early.

It’s raining and has been raining all night. I see no let up in sight and the forecast is for rain continuing into Monday afternoon. Oh, good. We donned our raincoats and hitched up the Jeep and headed out. Hey, look at this wind sock. They put this on the bridge because the winds are really gusty through this canyon. But, today, they are even gustier.

I’m holding on to the seat. We got a bit of fog.

Wind, fog, what next? Oh, yeah, rain.

But then we found the Creekside Inn with its fabulous cinnamon rolls. But, when we arrived, we found something on their counter, warm from the oven, that tempted us even more: strawberry rhubarb coffee cake. I look pretty dopey in this picture - looks like I haven’t awakened yet. Maybe I just need a jolt of the sugar that's in these little bits of sweetness.

I guess that’s why we travel: to sample foods from different parts of the country. Ha, Ha.

Saw some real adventure vehicles in a parking lot along side the road. They can not only go off-roadin’ they can go of shorin’. How many spares do they need? But, then, I'm not going where they're going.

We stopped at the North and the South Denali viewing spots along the highway. Very nicely State Park developed parking areas which are also camping spots with no hook-ups. But our views of Denali weren’t so great. Well, we had the best views possible a few days ago. Can you see Denali here? Nope, well neither could we or anyone else at this spot.



The signs say it’s there but you couldn’t prove it by me. Not today.

We stopped at the Veterans Memorial and found lots of information about Alaska in the World Wars. We probably didn’t know too much about the WWII battles in the Aleutian Islands but we found out lots here.

All I used to know about Attu was that it was the last island in the Aleutians - this I learned from doing crossword puzzles. Here I found out about the battle of Attu where the Americans fought and defeated the Japanese who were dug in on the island.

Interestingly, wind, fog, snow and ice disabled and killed more soldiers and damaged more equipment than did combat during the Aleutian campaign. The fog was sometimes so thick that you had to look out of your aircraft window to see the runway center stripe for takeoff. Ferocious winds called williwaws scoured the Aleutians, twisting steel runway mats into bizarre art forms.

When the AK National Guard was mobilized and called to fight in WWII, the Alaska Territorial Guard was formed. It served at home with honor and without pay throughout the war. It was formed as a home defense unit charged with watching the coastline for any possible invasion. Here is the memorial to them.

We finally landed in Trapper Creek where we are to stay 2 nights so that we can visit Talkeetna tomorrow.

While it is legal to shoot bears in Alaska, waking a sleeping bear for the purpose of taking a photograph is prohibited. (I would think it might also be dangerous.)