Sunday, August 5, 2012

The first Palmer stop - Genesse anyone?

We arrived in Palmer for the first time back on the 26th of July.  After checking in at the RV Park we headed over to the Palmer Golf Course.  I joined up with 2 other guys who were walking the course and on the second hole a single player riding a cart caught up with us.  We let him play through and I couldn't help but notice that the basket on his cart was filled with Genny Cream Ale's.  This really really surprised me as I hadn't seen Genesse Beer since leaving New York way back in 79.

I asked him if he had imported those from New York and he told me that ne had purchased them at a place called the Brown Jug right here in Wassilla Alaska.  He also kindly offered myself and my playing partners a can, which of course I took him up on.



The next day we went to visit the Independence mine (I'll post some pics and a write up on that someday) then drove to the Brown Jug.  The guy was right, Genny was everywhere!





I didn't even know there was a Genny Ice or Light!

Oh, and here's one more picture.


Is? Was? apparently no difference in Alaska!

Happy Sunday

We are back in Palmer this Sunday morning.  We stayed in Homer through Thursday morning, then  we drove up and spent the night in Cooper Landing.  (Map)  We left Cooper Landing and, based on the campground reviews in Anchorage, we decided to head up here to Palmer.  (Map)

The campground in Cooper Landing was a Princess Resort facility.  It had a beautiful nature trail that we hiked.  The trail went down a fairly steep hill and then followed the Kenai River.  We did the hike in the morning then headed over to Portage Glacier and took the boat ride over to the glacier.  Here's a couple pictures.




We got lucky with the weather (again) as it was a sunny day!  After the boat ride we headed up towards Beluga Point on the Seward Highway then hung out and waited for the Bore tide to come in.   What's a bore Tide?  Follow this link.

We did all that on Friday - then we drove up to the campground and cooked dinner!  What a long day.

Yesterday we drove into Anchorage and got to visit with my former employers Sam and Maggie Bliss. They live in Florida now but visit their daughter and her family ever summer so we got a chance to stop by and get some advice from Anchorage locals.  After seeing them we went to the street fair/market in downtown Anchorage.

This morning marks the first day of the "head for home" phase of our trip.  We should make it back to Tok today (Map).  We need to be back in Santa Rosa by the 16th of August.