Mayor Stubbs the Cat, the Dr. Seuss House, and Other Trail Tales

After three days on land, we travelled on June 4th by deluxe motor coach from Denali National Park to Seward. For most of the trip we motored on the Parks Highway, a route that winds through the interior from Fairbanks to just a few miles north of Anchorage. It was named after George Parks, an early governor of the Territory of Alaska.

Our daylong journey spanned 361 miles and treated us to more magnificent scenery. Although the views we enjoyed on this journey were quite different from the wilderness sights we remembered from Denali the day before, the scenery on this bus trip was still awesome. Our bus driver Scott had served in the military at one of the bases near Anchorage. He fell in love with Alaska and decided to retire there; he drives coaches for travel agencies during the tourist season to add income to his retirement salary. He was quite knowledgeable and shared many facts and observations about our surroundings. He asked us to yell out, "moose", or "eagle", or "caribou", when we spotted wildlife beside the highway. Although we were travelling on a highway, we did pass through areas with rivers rolling beside us and mountains towering above us. We saw a number of golden eagles, one bald eagle, many swans, and several moose on this trip.

Much like Nebraska, the state of Alaska is predominantly rural in character with just a few cities and many small towns and hamlets. But the population is even more sparse than Nebraska's population. At noon, we stopped in Talkeetna, one of these small towns on our journey. One of its hotels had a dining room which catered to tourist buses. We entered the building to find a lunch buffet prepared for us where we could make our own sandwiches and serve ourselves side dishes, while we gazed at the mountain views outside the dining room windows. We also learned about the quirkiness of Talkeetna. This unincorporated town has a population of about 900 people, a town council, and an honorary mayor which is a cat named Stubbs.

Talkeetna serves as the base for climbers who attempt to climb Mount Denali and it hosts several air taxi firms which support the climbers and also offer flightseeing tours of the area. In March, the town sponsors an annual Oosik Classic Ski Race and in December each year it holds a celebration of winter called Winterfest. Also in December is the Wilderness Woman Contest and Bachelor's Auction. Another town we passed through was Willow, an unincorporated town of about 2,100 people. It got its start in 1897, when gold was discovered in a nearby creek. Today it serves as the official starting point of the annual Iditarod Sled Dog Race, which has a ceremonial start in Anchorage but is restarted here.

Several well-known Iditarod Race mushers make their homes here. In 2015, a major wildfire devastated a large swath of forest near Willow; we saw its effects in parts of the forest along the highway. Between the towns of Talkeetna and Willow is a truly unusual sight. It is the Goose Creek Tower, often nicknamed the "Dr. Seuss House" for its resemblance to the houses of Whoville.

This tower is a 185-foot tall building that looks like houses built on top of houses. The builder says it is meant to be a home, not an observatory. However, it offers amazing views of Mount Denali at the top. He stopped piling one house on top of another because he reached the height limit to avoid infringing on air space. To read more about this Alaskan oddity and to hear the builder describe his creation, see this link:http://www.odditycentral.com/architecture/goose-creek-tower-alaskas-whimsical-dr-seuss-house.html
(Blogger's Note: Several of the photos included in today's blog were found in the public domain on the internet rather than from the Rife photo archives). We also passed the outskirts of Anchorage, where we had begun our Alaska trip several days before. About 4:30, we finally arrived in the port city of Seward, a town of about 2,500. Seward was named after William H. Seward, President Lincoln's Secretary of State, who was responsible for negotiating the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. Alaska was sometimes nicknamed, "Seward's Folly", before its economic riches in gold, oil, and tourism became known. Seward is the gateway to the Kenai Fjords National Park and the terminus of the Alaska Railroad. Its port facilities see many cruise ships launch from its shore each summer, including the one we sailed on.

We rode toward the port with great anticipation, but our bus driver took a message that we would be delayed because other buses were in the queue before us. So Scott drove us through the town of Seward for about 20 minutes, describing its highlights and pointing out his favorite seafood shacks. At last, we were allowed to proceed to our ship - the Holland America MS Zaandam.

With excitement, we climbed the gangplank, showed our travel documents, got our photo taken, and followed the maps to find our stateroom. Before we could unpack, my wonderful safety fanatic husband insisted we both try on our life vests so we could be prepared immediately for any emergency. Just after we got them figured out, it was time for us to scramble to our assigned spots on the exterior deck for the required emergency drill. The captain had given several announcements over the speaker system to make clear that anyone who did not attend the drill would not be allowed to stay on the ship. We were queued up in lines 10 deep back to back with strangers, while our stateroom cards were scanned to record our attendance. Any passengers with claustrophobia had quite an introduction to their cruise! Finally, we were dismissed, so Calvin and I returned to our state room to unpack and get acquainted with our temporary home. The room was well appointed with ample closets and storage space for our belongings, a comfortable bed, a desk, a couch, and a refrigerator. The best feature was our private balcony with two deck chairs for viewing the ocean in comfort. Here we watched the launching of our ship out to the Gulf of Alaska at 8:00, before finding a dining room that was open late for dinner.