Monday,May 16, 2005: Anchorage, AK...Well it’s the end of the day and it has been a full one. I have to take a breath to figure out all I need to put into this update. We started out early; Lynn took Dave, Ben, and I to the KODIAK early. Dave and Ben showed up yesterday afternoon to get still shots and video to document the airplane coming to Alaska. We started by heading down to Homer for an early Demo, but we were able to do a little photo work on the way down. Cutting across a ridge I spotted a mother Kodiak with three cubs and with a big reduction in power we were going around for another view. It was amazing!
From there were continued on until we were flying over the Harding Ice Field where they were shooting as fast as they could. With very little delay we made it on into Homer to meet our next flight. This flight took us and the KODIAK across the Bay to Soldovia with a landing at Oyster Cove on the return trip.
Then it was time for a little air work and back to Homer. After a good visit we headed back to Anchorage to meet up with the rest of the team and make our way across the Alaska Range.
We'd been invited to Port Alsworth for a visit, a photo shoot, and dinner.
Glen Alsworth,his family, and all of the people there were great hosts! The time was well spent with them and the meal was way better than the typical great Alaskan meal. Thank you! The photo shoot was fantastic with the wonderful varieties of blue waters in all the lakes. We were in and around the mountains and over numerous lakes looking for THE great shot. They were all great by most standards.
After all of that my next priority was to get back to the hotel early to start trying to catch up on rest. Early on this trip still means 8 pm.Then Lynn and I start talking about tomorrow and it gets worse. We think we need to get packed up tonight so we can head out for the Ultima Thule Lodge tomorrow night. Paul Claus was kind enough to offer us a place to stay but it would also get us an hour and a half closer to our destination for Wednesday which is Juneau. Paul has been a friend for a while and he has one of those places that speak to Alaskans as well as tourists from around the world.
With the trip going that direction let me warn you that the log entry for tomorrow will be delayed by at least a day. Ultima Thule is far enough into the wild that I won’t have internet access so it will have to be posted later. As we head on down the coast we may have issues with Internet elsewhere as well, but I am promising to keep this TripLOG going all the way. Please keep checking in, we won’t quit until we get back to Sandpoint.
Packing up,
Kelly