Two Alaska

[buswarrior]

Excellent report.

Living vicariously through your posts!

Happy coaching!
Buswarrior

[dtcerrato]

Plumbing was very successful & productive today. Got 2 out of 3 utilities, electric & water. Sewer is next. Got two hoses hooked to the bus, one for fresh cold water & one for running gray water into the woods. Real nice upgrade. Life is good...

[dtcerrato]

Took wifey out for her birthday yesterday. Galavanting around with the Jeep sightseeing wildlife and caught up with a large cow Moose moving across a large lake. Must have covered a mile... She sometimes was walking in the shallows & sometimes swimming intermittently bobbing her head underwater bringing up choice vegetation. A sight to behold.  Made our day. Life is good. 

[dtcerrato]

An old timer local told me that the female & young moose take to the water in early spring to rid their scents because grizzlies are extremely hungry coming out of deep hibernation... A thought to ponder on. Haven't played that much yet. Hard laboring establishing the homestead for the tiny house...

[lostagain]

You better take a swim with the moose...

JC

[dtcerrato]

Well finally got out yesterday & did some playing after steadily laboring on our AK parcel establishing our new part time homestead. Went to the bank of the Copper River along Nebesna road in Slana about an hour from where we're living. The salmon are running really strong now. The River bank was a 45 minute hike from the road parking. We hung out at a few fish wheels mingling with the owners as they worked the wheels hard. One family filleted 71 Copper River Red salmon that night into the morning. The veteran had slashed a nasty cut needing stitches on his 2Oth fillet. He said he kept filleting because he didn't want his sister to have to do all the work. Another fish wheel had been almost totally destroyed by a tree branch floating down River but they cobbled up a fix to get it going again. Said it cost them about 50 salmon! Golden and Bald eagle constantly winging overhead with gigantic perpetual glacier & snow covered peaks in the backdrop. That family is allowed 500 fish per season. If these families don't deep freeze 500 lbs of fish & meat now in the summer - they'll go hungry this winter. Needless to say we went home with fresh salmon. One of the girls was celebrating a birthday, when wifey dug into our camp bag and gave the birthday girl a bag of peach gummy candy - it was like handing her diamonds... - like we reacted when they handed us the salmon... All 6 of the local owners to these fish wheels are local to Tok & live within a few miles of us... We once again traveled 4x4 to the end of Nebesna road seeing over 20 hares. Words can't describe one of only two access roads into the continent's largest National Park & Preserve - Wrangell-SaintElias @ over 13 million acres. We have now traveled both of only two access roads (42 & 63 miles into the park's interior) we hope to return during this trip.and foot day hike some of the trails. On the hwy home we filmed three moose feeding in muskeg with beaver frolicking about.
Sorry we can't load photos as internet including wifi doesn't support uploading photo or video until we see larger cities..

[dtcerrato]

Well 8 weeks into our presence here in AK & just got on the road from upgrading our new Camp Malemute homestead. Sitting in a wayside rest area 100 miles S of Tok. No mountains on the horizon due to a smokey atmosphere - many many wildfires burning & yes prior to 4th of July... Before locking up for the evening wifey & I took a trail down to the bank of a raging Copper River. Didn't stay long because of the many fresh bear tracks around which tells us the salmon are running. Got 4G out here in nowhere land - go figure - the little 9'x9' shelter is what we built over the sub earth crib that houses all the camp's utilities (water, septic, & electric) we have option for data but didn't subscribe thus the 8 week lag for photos  A look thru the hatch in the shelter floor showing the "full basement" - crib under the shelter. The 1-1/2 cords of firewood stored well inside under the roof overhangs will prevent any more water rot to the total of 4 cords of wood that are on the property - mostly rotted over time.TIME TO PLAY NOW.

[dtcerrato]

The sign said, "No stopping on bridge" WTF?! 

[dtcerrato]

4G yippee...! Girdwood AK on the Turnagain Arm.
Photos are from Solomon Gulch in Valdez. A large salmon hatchery. These seals (& seagulls) we're consuming 100s of pounds of red sockeye an hour. Right before our eyes. At night the bears come out of the woods to devour salmon. The seals would work towards the gates during incoming tide to the point where you could walk across the salmon... A sight to behold...

[dtcerrato]

These photos were taken the next day returning from the tiny Town of McCarthy & the Kennecott mine in the Copper River Valley. This is the sister road to Nebesna where we talked about the fish wheels earlier in this post. The only two roads into the interior of the Wrangell- Saint Elias NP. We stopped when we saw the moose but to our surprise just outside the passenger side was the Beaver pond - look closely at the pond & the huge Beaver home. The lynx was tearing at & readying to feast on the beaver while the moose was really displaced on the lynx's activity. An awesome way to end a long day of 4x4 and almost back to the bus...

[dtcerrato]

Just wanted to stay on track being a bus related forum which all this should be related because we wouldn't be here if it weren't for our bus. Wanted to reflect on the almost 2 months of laboring in Tok to establish what we refer to as Camp Malemute. When we left Tok 8 days ago we left full hook ups - water, septic, & the power pole. Since then we'd been dry camping or boon docking and are doing really well with it. We went from mostly electric (water heater, & cabin heat & fridge to mostly LP (water heater, cabin heat & fridge). Haven't put any time on the primary Genny (6.5 kw) but have been enjoying the economy of our little 800 watt inverter Genny. It runs a 40 amp battery charger nicely that can be switched to either the house or engine batteries while keeping all our electric goodies (shaver, cell phones, tooth brushes, etc.) charged. At less than 1/2gal of gas in 5 to 8 hour run time. We'll be spending the $$ somewhere else... So much for trying to stay on track...  By the way wifey is enjoying picking the wild berries...

[chessie4905]

Many don't realize the benefit of one of the small gennys, when you don't need one for ac or heat. Especially since they sip fuel and are very quiet.
Are you the one that used the nufinish wipe on coating on your coach?

[dtcerrato]

That is really the key, is not needing A/C & switching to LP for heat.
It's coincidental you ask about the nufinish wipe (Wipe New). Just yesterday afternoon I took a series of bus photos of the rain beading up on the anodized Aluminum. Yes we applied it to all the aluminum and it is phenomenal how well it continues to stake all it's claims. It's been put to ultimate road test on our AK journey and continually jumps out at you to say "I'm still here". When we get to an area where I can upload photos, I'm going to rekindle the post with some photos showing it after multiple washes & pressure washing...

[chessie4905]

Good info. Friend has an 04 that needs some brightening.

[dtcerrato]

I highly recommend it, prep & following instructions will make it painless. The results are overwhelming...