We took a trip on Monday......up north in Alaska.  Glennallen is at the junction of the Glenn highway coming east from Anchorage and the Richardson highway coming north from Valdez.  We travelled 235 miles, over the Alaska Range and on to North Pole.  Notice I did not say THE north pole.  It is an actual town just south of Fairbanks, with fast-food drive-ins and all!   A bigger town than we live in.                                                                                                      

 Our original destination was Delta, which is the junction between  Highway 4 from Anchorage and the Richardson, and the Tok Highway which goes on into Canada and beyond.  It is not a very big place other than that.  Crossroad Medical Center has just started up a new clinic in Delta, opening in March.  So, Joel and Karen had business to tend to there and made for a fun trip.

Moose were out foraging and we saw quite a few of them.  This is mom and yearling.

These are called the Rainbow Mts.(6,000 ft.) because of the various colors in the volcanic rock (red and green) and siltstone/ sandstone (yellow and pastels) on the talus slopes.  Of course now it's still dusted with snow.

 



Another 'beast' we got a peek at was this baby yak.  The nurse at Delta Junction raises yaks with her husband.  This little one was not doing well after birth, so she brought it to work in the van, to keep an eye on it.  We pestered it until it stood up...
kinda wobbly.  They have 120, or so, yaks and will be able to sell them for meat.  Ugh.


And yet, another beast Jon ran into was this mosquito at The Knotty Shop at Salcha.  The gift shop was closed but we viewed the burled animals on the lawn.  The burled logs come from Thailand.



To think, we're already at North Pole, Ak.!
The reindeer were busy molting their horns.
This one doesn't look like Prancer, or Dancer...... But Santa, poor guy, is stuck up there reading off his list.  After purchasing a Northern Lights Christmas ball for our tree, we found the recommended restaurant and enjoyed ourselves immensely.  I hadn't had chinese food for a long time.

We were surprised at the end of the meal by a phone call from our friends in Kabul.  This was a first and Jon talked to them for a long time, getting more of the details of the last week.  The only problem was hugs don't go over the airwaves.  But, we loved hearing their voices!!

 

WE started for home around 8 pm.  This photo of the Alaska Range was taken a couple hours later.  It takes a looooooong time for the sun to set this time of year.  We arrived in Glennallen at ll:30 and it wasn't really dark yet.  Dusky.

 This bull moose, and a few others we didn't stop for, was alongside the highway.  He lost his horns somewhere.  Hunters get real irked at all the easy sightings of moose and caribou out of season.

 Jon has decided to fly to Chicago tomorrow on the overnight flight and attend the memorial service for Jerry.  In fact, a LOT of people are going.  The cool thing is how Jan and Jerry's friends are hosting so many overnight and others are arranging for gatherings enabling people to visit and get to know each other.  He doesn't even have to rent a car! And, maybe he will be able to visit our wounded friend in the hospital. She should be back in the US by then.  I will stay home and mope..ha.  I'll keep myself busy helping Karen with some projects....and I always have the ones I brought with me.