After our pitstop, we were back on the road again which had switched from paved to washed out gravel road (and we were glad to have these nice comfy buses which we were desperately hoping would not break down or suffer a flat tire out here because I'm not sure when/where help would arrive!) There was actuallymore traffic than I had expected. Apparently there is no gas crisis here (although the last price I did see was well over $4/gallon), as HUGE RVs were seen traveling the highway with us (fortunately not too often in front of us as these RV drivers are not acccustomed to the gravel roads and felt that 25-35 mph was a suitable speed).
At some point I noticed there were not very many trees to be seen and our driver explained that the tree line in Alaska is about 2700 ft. - much lower than we were used to seeing. It looked like the entire land was covered with some sort of brush but we were warned (lest we decide to go foraging out there) that the brush was pretty deceptive - about 10 ft. deep in places...places where bears and other critters like to hang out.
It took a couple of hours to reach our lunchtime stop - the Maclaren River Lodge, located on the banks of the Maclaren River which runs thru the Maclaren Valley from the Maclaren Glacier. We learned that there was a large party headed out to strike it rich - the Maclaren family split off at the east fork of the river and were never seen again. They couldn't name all these (or heck any of these) places after somebody a little bit more successful?
In any event, lunch was definitely not haute cuisine but the pie was definitely worth the trip! We sampled the blueberry pie (they got some great blueberries up here....please don't anyone tell me they are importing them from Maine!) and soemthing called "Maclaren" berry pie. Turns out "Maclaren" berries are apples, blueberries, strawberries and rhubarb all thrown together in a pie. Yum!
At some point I noticed there were not very many trees to be seen and our driver explained that the tree line in Alaska is about 2700 ft. - much lower than we were used to seeing. It looked like the entire land was covered with some sort of brush but we were warned (lest we decide to go foraging out there) that the brush was pretty deceptive - about 10 ft. deep in places...places where bears and other critters like to hang out.
It took a couple of hours to reach our lunchtime stop - the Maclaren River Lodge, located on the banks of the Maclaren River which runs thru the Maclaren Valley from the Maclaren Glacier. We learned that there was a large party headed out to strike it rich - the Maclaren family split off at the east fork of the river and were never seen again. They couldn't name all these (or heck any of these) places after somebody a little bit more successful?
In any event, lunch was definitely not haute cuisine but the pie was definitely worth the trip! We sampled the blueberry pie (they got some great blueberries up here....please don't anyone tell me they are importing them from Maine!) and soemthing called "Maclaren" berry pie. Turns out "Maclaren" berries are apples, blueberries, strawberries and rhubarb all thrown together in a pie. Yum!~later, tw
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