Thursday, June 30, 2011

Wednesday June 29, 2011

Our first stop Wednesday morning was Crow Creek mine about six miles from Alyeska Resort in the Girdwood area. This is a gold mining community with many of the old building still standing and much of the old equipment on display. The whole place was kept up very well with both wild and domesticated flowers to accent the grounds. Crow Creek mine also offers the opportunity to pan for gold, we didn’t pan for gold but we walked down to the creek and watched other “prospectors” for a while. The host told us that weddings are often held on the premises in fact they were making preparations for a wedding on Saturday. After the gold mine we headed down to Portage Glacier Valley Cabins and R.V. Park. We stopped at a visitor’s centers and got information on various Glacier Cruises and then had lunch. After lunch we decided to purchase tickets to take the glacier cruise tomorrow out of Seward. As soon as we parked the R.V. we drove the car to Whittier to see what we could see. Whittier was an old military town surrounded by mountains and glaciers. It has become a sea port town mainly for fishing and shipping industry; cruise ships provide many tourists that also benefits the Whittier community. In order to drive to Whittier a toll tunnel was built through the mountain which is shared by both trains and automotive traffic. We had to schedule our entrance and exit at the specified time for auto traffic. Upon returning to the campground we ate supper, Stanley and I got haircuts, we all got hot showers, and prepared for our cruise tomorrow. Since we have access to a gas grill here at this campground I volunteered to grill chicken so we have it ready to eat whenever we need it. I grilled the chicken over at the pavillian and visited with several other campers. It is always interesting to hear of other travel experiences. We are trying to get to bed a bit earlier since we need to get up early in the morning and travel to Seward by car.  
  


 Mining Truck

Marie and Merrill

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