Flight To Alaska

Slept very little, but I was up at 4 a.m. and out the door to the airport at 5 a.m.   Temp at 5 a.m. in Houston a sultry 80 degrees.  Yuck!  Flight to Seattle was non-eventful.  Flew first class to Anchorage and was surrounded by rugged oil field roughnecks in their very late 50's or 60's who were loud, blustery and proceeded to get totally blitzed.  The stench of rancid alcoholic breath made me grateful for my sobriety.   They all calmed down when the in-flight movie started: "A Joyous Noise".  Suddenly the rowdy roughnecks put on headphones and became totally mesmerized by the Dolly Parton / Queen Latifa romantic caper. Whoda thunk it?

Picked up the motorhome, went through orientation and suddenly I was off into the rush-hour traffic of downtown Anchorage.  That wasn't as scary as I anticipated; maybe b/c I was exhausted.  Raided the local WalMart for provisions, then beat a hasty exit north out of town.

Spent the night at Bobby's RV Park in Chugiak.  Bobby spends his winters in Corpus; nice guy.  Huge, beautiful snow-covered mountains immediately to the east and south of the park.  Felt like I could almost touch them!  Trees just beginning to bud.   Temps at night in the 40's; 50's during the day.  It's wonderful!  Too tired to get much sleep, and that which I did get was interrupted all night long with leg cramps.   But I was warm and cozy, and I'm sure I'll sleep well tonight.

Drove up to Talkeetna, a very tiny, very rugged, picturesque (sp?) and old town.  I'm sending this from the tiny, wood-framed public library b/c I can get WiFi here.

I'll spend the night here in Talkeetna and then get up early and drive to Denali.  The mountains are massive and everywhere.  They are snow-covered to almost the base.   The terrain is mostly that end-of-winter-brown-but-just-about-to-turn-green color so typical of the change of seasons in the north.   Many clumps of snow still everywhere, and many of the lakes still have ice along the shores.  All is well.