As there are few pictures of our travels since leaving Fairbanks at the beginning  of July until we entered the Kenia Penninsula at the end of July, I'll just name the towns we stayed in during that time.   From Fairbanks we drove south on the Richardson Hwy. staying  near Paxton for the 4th of July weekend.  We had some great meals at the Meier's Lake Roadhouse and meet some very nice people.  A special thanks to Romona for her cheery service and for the beautiful turquoise earrings I got from her.  She has great beaded jewelry for sale at the restaurant.   We spent one day driving the Denali Hwy. which was beautiful but full of campers for the holiday.   Next, we went through the Wrangle-St.Ellis Mountains to the Kennecott Mining Town with beautiful views and a very interesting historical town managed by the National Park Service.   On the Edgerton Hwy. to the town of Chitina, we camped at Liberty Falls with the tent right by the falls. 

Next, we continued south on the Richardson Hwy. to Valdez, camping at Blueberry Lake Campground at the top of the mountains.  We stayed in this area for 4 days seeing eagles and sea otters everyday and enjoying the drive from our camp to Valdez going through the Thompson Pass with 500 ft. waterfalls and high rock face right up to the roadside.      Next, we go back up the Richardson Hwy.  to head west on the Glenn Hwy. where we camped in Palmer for 5 nights.  This area has many glaciers, mountains in every direction and a great flower and vegetable garden at the community center in town. ( I did find a camera disk that still has all the flower pictures from Palmer; so one day I'll do a post with these, because that was one of my favorite camera days.)  Palmer is only 45 miles from Anchorage, so one of the days we spent in the city getting supplies and an oil change.  Another day we drove the Hatcher Pass which rated number two on my favorite Scenic drives so far ( the Taylor Hwy. To Eagle being my number one favorite ).  Another day we did the hike on the Manachuska Glacier.  And the last day we drove around looking for moose, which we found,  and  the produce farms that Palmer is famous for, very different from Michigan, all tucked in the nitches of the mountains.

Our next destination took us north on the Parks Hwy. that goes from Palmer- Wasilla through Denali National Park area to Nenana and back to Fairbacks.  We camped at a couple rustic campgrounds along the Parks until we found the Nenana RV Park and Campground in the city of Nenana.  Here we enjoyed 5 of the most enjoyable days of our trip with people that treated us like old friends.  The owners Judy and Larry were so friendly and keep everything spotless.  We also became friends with Laura who moved there this year and is a licensed massage therapists.  I had the greatest message from her which isn't surprising since she used to do massages for the Denver Broncos.   One day we joined them for lunch at the Nenana Senior Center with home cooking and fabulous cinnamon buns.  Everyone there made use feel right at home.  There is a part of us that will always dream of what it would be like if we could live in Nenana.  

After saying goodbye to everyone in Nanana,  we went back down the Parks to do the Hurracane Turn train ride near Denali. We had loads of fun on the train meeting and talking with new people.  The conductor was very colorful and funny, great trip even with the rain.
Next we continued back south on Parks to Palmer again enjoying more drives through this beautiful area and chilling at the Manachusca River Campground. 

This post covers the end of July and it was almost time for David's sister and son to fly into Anchorage for a two week vacation with us.  Also in the middle of their two weeks stay, our youngest son was flying in for a one week vacation.   The five of us will be exploring the Kenia Peninsula, south of Anchorage.     
Goodnight and love to all.

After having a new hard drive installed on this laptop, I transferred the few pictures that where on my iPhone .   I'll try to piece together a little of of our travels in the month of July.

Good night for now,   Dave and Barb

When you exit the ferry in Dawson, the road is then called the Top Of The World Highway.  It runs for 79 miles  through  the Yukon and into Alaska at the junction  with the Taylor Highway.   This was two hours of  beautiful views and hairpin turns on dirt road with very, very few guard rails.  What an experience !!!    Here are a few of the 500+ pictures I took.

The first three pictures above are what I had downloaded when the computer locked up.   The next three I managed to get off my phone.  THEN...Do to technical difficulties;  that is, my neglect in backing up my hard drive,  all our pictures of Alaska up to July 29 have been lost.   The hard drive has to be replaced and the current one can't be read.  The computer is in Anchorage right now getting a new drive.  We can pick it up tomorrow on our way to get family from the airport.  We will hold on to the old drive in hopes that when we get down in the southern states later we can see about possibly retrieving the data, though we've been told it's very expensive.  Next time we post it will start with our current location here in the Kenia Peninsula, south of Anchorage.   This is a very hard lesson learned,  but I guess I will have to work twice as hard getting more pictures.   
Sara from the train, if you have a couple pics you could email us at             [email protected] we would really appreciate it.  It was really great sharing with you guys that day.
Judy, Larry and Laura in Nenana, our favorite town and RV camp in Alaska, if you have any pics you could email us of the camp, town and of you, we would really, really love to have some.  Thanks   Dave and Barb