Happy Anniversary

It was on May 10, 1970 in Oshkosh Wisconsin that Dan Johnson asked Nancy Cole to marry him. It has been an incredible ride ever since.

I had just gotten back to school (University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh) from my father's funeral. Dan was there to comfort me. And when he asked me to marry him, I said yes with no hesitation.

We have lived in many different places, have had many different and exciting experiences. But Dan has always been drawn to Alaska - the last frontier. So, with our girls grown and married with families of their own, we packed up and headed North.

Actually, in 2007 Dan flew deHaviland Beavers for Taquan Air in Ketchikan, but I remained at home (for various reasons). I probably thought I'd give in to him and he'd get it out of his system. He sent emails home to some of you in the form of "Letters From Camp Ketchikan." I flew up for visits 4 times that summer. I must admit, I too fell in love with Ketchikan (which is amazing because it rained every time I was here).

When my mom passed away in 2009, I knew Alaska was still tugging at Dan's heart and that this time I'd be going with him. In 2007 we celebrated our anniversary with a dinner at Bar Harbor Restaurant. In 2011 we again celebrated our anniversary there. So, this year it was a no-brainer..........Bar Harbor Restaurant. I had gotten to know the owner, Scotty, last year as he had a Fish & Chips booth on Dock 2. He had the best clam chowder I'd ever eaten. I called for reservations and just happened to mention that it was our anniversary.

We had a very nice dinner. Some people we know were dining at the table next to us (by chance) and Scotty came over to wish us a very happy anniversary.

It was a very nice ending to a busy work day for both of us. I think the Bar Harbor Restaurant is one of my very favorite places.

                                            So here's to another 41 years!

Bar Harbor right behind the restaurant

Sometimes It's Sunny in K-Town

Yes, even if it is hard to believe, 

Sometimes it IS sunny in K-Town........

Deer Mountain

Deer Mountain and Salmon Landing (foreground)

Looking across The Narrows at Gravina Island

Holland America's Volendam at Dock 2

Diamond Princes (Dock 3) & Holland America Zuiderdam (Dock 4)

The dock at Taquan Air

Dan coming back from his last freight run of the day

Pulling up to the dock

Tie it tight, guys

Unloading mail and oysters from Coffman Cove

All finished unloading the freight

Time to ramp the airplane.

Sometimes it's not..............

Looking down the hill on Jefferson St where we live

 

Dan's Flight; Anchorage to Ketchikan

May 24, 2012

I have a couple of days off, so I thought I would take a breath and make a posting to catch you all up on what we have been doing. I'll let Nancy fill you in on her stuff.

After a smooth and beautiful cruise up from Prince Rupert, we arrived in Ketchikan on a bright and sunny day. We'd hoped it was an omen for a good season to come. We moved into our apartment and settled in for our first night back in K-town. We awoke to heavy rain and 25-30 mph winds and 42 degree temperatures. That continued for 12 of the next 14 days! The other two were light rain and only 10-15 mph winds.

We hit the ground running. I had to go through recurrent training and of course take a drug test. This time everything went smoothly. I was in and out in 15 minutes. (See last year's post for how it could have been: "Dan's Letter From Kamp Ketchikan; May 31, 2011)

Taquan was in the process of training 5 new pilots, so things were a little hectic. I wasn't able to fly for a week after I got here. Then my currency ride lasted 4-tenths of an hour and I was good to go. After 3 days on the line I asked for 3 days off to help Jared fly his PA-12 from Anchorage to Ketchikan. We had a weather window that looked good and we didn't want to lose it.

I took the Alaska Airlines milk run to Anchorage on a Wednesday. It stopped in Sitka and Juneau before landing in Anchorage at 9:30pm, some 5 1/2 hours later. I called Jared, but he didn't answer. I got a ride over to the Millennium Hotel (right on Lake Hood) for a burger and a beer. The Millennium is one of my favorite places. You can sit and relax while watching the seaplanes come and go from Lake Hood. They say one quarter of all the seaplanes in the world are based there. That's my kind of place. While I was having my beer I got a text from Jared saying he was in the air and would be at Lake Hood soon. Just as I was finishing my burger I saw the red PA-12 come taxiing in. I called Jared and he met me at the Millennium. He had spent most of the day changing the PA-12 over from wheels to floats and the test flight was from Big Lake, near Wasilla (you know, you can see Russia from there). We rented a car and drove to Girdwood where Jared's father lives. Although he was not at home, we were able to stay at the house. Girdwood is the Aspen of Alaska. There are lots of beautiful houses overlooking the mountain and Alyeska ski area. The view is so beautiful that most of the houses don't have curtains. I slept in the loft with a great view and no curtains. Alaska....summer....no curtains! Do you know how long the sun stays up in Anchorage during the summer? I put a clean sock over my face and got to sleep about midnight. The sun had gone down but it wasn't dark. Needless to say I was up early, which was a good thing. We had a lot to do before we could depart. It looked like the weather report was right on; clear and sunny.

We left Lake Hood at noon and climbed out toward the Turnigan Arm under clear blue skies and no wind! That rarely happens, but it did today. We passed Girdwood and climbed over the Chugach Mountains to Whittier and then crossed the Prince William Sound.

We passed Valdez and landed in Cordova, an hour and a half after leaving Anchorage. Part of the lake was still frozen. We taxied to the dock and were met by the operator. Three men in casual dress approached and asked where we came in from. They asked who was the pilot. Not wanting to lie, I quickly pointed to Jared and said, "He is." The man in charge turned to Jared and introduced himself and his companions as being from the FAA and wanted to know how they could help us. That's right, we got ramped checked. 47 years of flying and the second time I was ever ramp checked was in Cordova, Alaska, only days after the lake was open for landing and the gravel strip had only a half dozen planes on it. The guys were friendly and didn't give us any problems. We fueled up and were on our way to Juneau, 5 1/2 hours away.

Did I mention we were in Alaska? Yeah, that place of ice and cold. Did I also mention that the heater didn't work? I am just glad that I brought my winter jacket, fleece vest, Xtra-tuffs, wool socks and a roll of duct tape. There were so many air leaks in the back seat of that airplane it could almost qualify as an open cockpit! I taped up the window, stuffed our lunch bag and some old maps against the air leak in the door on the right. Did I say air leak? It was more like an air tornado. I unfolded a Sectional on my lap, not to navigate, but as a blanket to keep me warm. Did I say warm? Jared was in the front seat with the sun on him, just wearing a wool shirt, complaining about how hot he was!!!!

We left Cordova after filling our aux and main tanks with 66 gallons of fuel, and we burned just under 10 gallons per hour. That comes out to just over 6.6 hours, and we figured it would take about five and a half hours to get Juneau.

The visibility stayed better than 10 miles, sometimes way better, but the ceiling came down to about 1,500 feet. The flight from Cordova took us through a slit in the mountains toward the Cordova airport and the Copper River Delta (shown here on the right). We saw five moose there. From Cordova we stayed along the coast all the way to Juneau. We passed Yakataga, Yakutat, the Alsek River, Cape Spencer and Juneau. We had the Pacific Ocean off our right the whole way and a beach that was over 200 miles long below us. Some of the most spectacular scenery in the world was out our window. We saw over a dozen black bears, five moose, one grizzly bear, countless eagles and several whales.

I'll let the following pictures do most of the talking for the trip to Juneau.

Part of the 200 miles of beach

Icebergs

The GPS shows coming into Yakutat

Capt Dan having a great flight

Glacier with icebergs

More glacier

Glacier

Glacier

More spectacular glaciers

Cape Spencer

Cape Spencer Light House

Approaching Juneau

Mendenhall Glacier at Juneau

Mendenhall Glacier at Juneau

Seaplanes at Juneau

Wrangell

De'ja vu - All Over Again (2012)

Thursday, 26 April 2012

This morning we loaded up my Rogue with just the "essentials" that we would need for our nearly 5 1/2 months in Ketchikan. Our KTN apartment is fully furnished, so we packed only the things that we would really, really need.

And, we figured we would only need a little bit, as our KTN apartment is fully furnished, as I said.

We got the back hatch closed (didn't even have to sit on it like an over-stuffed suitcase) and we were ready to get on the road. Dolly Parton singing "Here We Go Again" is going through my mind, while Dan, sitting in the passenger seat is air-guitaring to Canned Heat's "On The Road Again."

The weather is a cool 50 degrees, cloudy and a little bit rainy. Stacie said it's just getting us ready for K-town. I checked my smart phone and KTN weather is 43 degrees and rain. I guess she was right.

The first night we got to Alexandria MN, several hours past the Twin Cities. The second night we got as far as Havre (pronounced "Hay-ver") Montana.

High Plains in Montana

Home, home on the range. Where the (deer) & the Antelope play

We got our last "cheap" gas in Shelby, MT before crossing into Canada at Sweetwater, MT. We were getting gas for as little as $3.55/gal to $3.77/gallon. We knew that it would cost much more north of the border.

The next night we got as far as Banff, Alberta Canada, near the border with British Columbia.

Gas in Canada was now anywhere from $1.19/liter to as much as $1.35/liter. One gallon equals 3.785 liters (almost 1gal = 4 liters). Well, you do the math. We paid between $47/Canadian and $65/Canadian, and the exchange rate now is $0.96. Needless to say we only stopped for gas 4 times before getting on the ferry in Prince Rupert.

We decided to drive the Icefields Parkway between Banff and Jasper, AB. We'd checked the weather/driving report and found out the Parkway was open - no snow closures.

All along our route we had some sun, rain, rain-snow mix, snow, and.......rain.

We brought along our GPS from the airplane, just for fun. Dan programmed our speed into kilometers (yeah, I wasn't really driving 100 mph) and you can see by the bottom numbers what our altitude was. We were moving up in elevation. It was fun to see it go up all the way to 6700 feet and then all the way down to sea level on the coast.

Along the highway they have built Caribou crossings. You can't see it from this picture, but they are quite wide and there are evergreens and bushes planted so it looks like the landscape the Caribou have been traveling along. Sure has cut down on the Caribou vs auto-truck accidents.

Some of the beautiful mountains along the Parkway

This is the Crow Foot Glacier (elevation 6300 ft). Look at all that snow. Well, we just had to stop......

And have a bit of a snow ball fight...........

Top of the mountain is in the clouds

Getting closer to the Columbia Icefields and Jasper.

It's not an apparition, just a beautiful mountain in the mist.

Just past the Athabasca Glacier, as we were rounding a curve and down a steep hill we spotted some big horn sheep crossing the road right at a turn-out spot (how accommodating of them). We stopped and pulled out the camera. They were unconcerned....obviously not camera shy.

We stopped for lunch in Jasper, and then it was back on the road again. We needed to make Prince George that night (Sunday 29 April). The drive between Prince George and Prince Rupert is 717 kilometers, and, at 100 kpm, it would take all day the next day. We had stopped for the night in Prince George at our usual spot, The Bon Voyage. It's an older place, but very clean and reasonably priced. This year we saw that it was showing its age, and the price was creeping up the pay scale. I think on our way home we will check out a different place.

Once in Prince Rupert we stayed at the Crest Hotel. What a very nice hotel. We were in a luxurious room that was surprisingly inexpensive. We had dinner at their restaurant over looking the harbor. We treated ourselves to wonderful Filet Mignon and a glass of wine (which ended up costing more than the room).

What a treat the next morning. We didn't have to catch the ferry at 3am. We actually got to sleep in until 7am. There weren't a lot of passengers on this ferry. It was still early in the season. In fact, there were a lot of seasonal people that I'd worked with last year.

It was a nice sail to Ketchikan. This picture shows some light rain, but as the day progressed, the weather got better. The sun even came out. The wind was down and the crossing was smooth.

We even got a Canadian Coast Guard escort out of the Port of Prince Rupert. Dan then reminded me that this was the one year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden. Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me. Fortunately it was a very uneventful crossing.

Here's a beautiful lighthouse on the Canadian side of the border (which runs down the middle of the passage.

Lunch on board the Matanuska

 Oops, I forgot to rotate this picture of Dan eating some yummy pie, before I posted it. Oh well, your neck was getting tired of just sitting there anyway.

I can see Ketchikan from here (unlike Sarah Palin who thinks she can see Russia from here).

Well, here we are at last.....down town Ketchikan, or, as the locals call it - K-town, or shorter yet - KTN.

I got out my binoculars and I think I found our apartment, just up the hill from the Safeway grocery store.


At least it's not raining!