We’re off and heading to a new campground in Seward where we will stay a week - which will be nice. At times, I’m getting tired of moving so often. Sometimes, I’d just like to stay put and go nowhere and do nothing. But, right now, we’re up in Alaska and attempting to do and see it all. We can sit and do nothing when we get back to Mesa, AZ in October. And, I intend to do a lot of sitting. Yeah, right. If you believe that, I’ve got a car I’d like to see you.
No, Gary and I are both type A personalities. We go into a store with a list and check off what we’ve bought from it. When we have a day off, I’ve got a list of things in my little journal that I’d like to get accomplished during the day. During the day, I check off what I’ve done. If I didn’t get something done, I move it to the next day.
Now, you might think that I concentrate so much on checking items off a list that I don’t have time to smell the roses. Nope, I’ve got ‘smell the roses’ on my list and I check it off when I’ve got it done. Ha, Ha. No, all those times we’ve spent with friends, all the hours on the trail and all those time in museums - those are the roses. But, here I’ll have to admit that I’ve got lists of trails that I’d like to hike in every area that we’ve covered and a list of the local museums that we can visit. However, I don’t have ‘visit with friends’ on any list. I’m not that bad. Almost, but not quite.
But, here we are on the road. I’ve read the appropriate pages in the Milepost, I’ve got my camera at the ready, I’ve got our reservations all made, I’ve got the GPS programmed - see, my lists kick in.
Beautiful drive - two volcanos across the bay.
We found a small lake on the way.
We found a large ‘lawn mower.’ We think that the Alaska DOT is clearing lots of trees and brush along the highways to protect drivers and animals from collisions.
Typical Alaska drive: lots of beautiful scenery, small pockets of people along the road, other RV’s heading places. Then we hit Moose Pass. Now, here it got interesting. There was this cool water wheel and a grinding wheel right by the river. And, of course there are several stories about the town. First it was named around 1903 by a mail carrier making his rounds with his team of dogs who met a moose on his route who wouldn’t let him get by. Then there’s the story about the water wheel, a local landmark and hard to miss on the road with this sign:
Sure enough, there was a grinding stone run by a large waterwheel.
This is a third generation waterwheel. Originally built by Frank Roycroft to cut lumber for his homestead, it was rebuilt by his step-son Ed Estes, in 1976 and then rebuilt by his son, Jeff Estes in memory of his father. And, here it is.
Gary took advantage of it.
Hey, now, my knives will cut tomatoes. Yikes, and my fingers, too.
The rest of our journey was uneventful and we pulled in about 1:00, with enough time to head into town to explore.
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