Photos and stories of my journey across the US and Canada
I am back in Durham after my big 2025 road trip and have now resumed posts. I apologize for being so far behind but I have reviewed and prepared pictures taken through August 31 for posting and will post a few things at a time so as not to overwhelm people. I will continue to review and prepare photos taken in September and will have them ready when I exhaust the list I have already.
Thank you for your patience!
I will eventually (probably the summer of 2026) be creating a number of pdf files which list all my previous posts, enabling visitors to find specific posts from earlier trips (over 1,400 and counting). I know how to do it, I just need the time. Lord knows I had plenty of that at home in the weeks leading up to my departure, but it was consumed with other projects, prepping and packing. I will let everyone know when they are completed and will email them to anyone interested.
If you use the calendar grid to the right, go back to May, 2025. Then click on May 13th. There you will find a post I made which contains 100 links to some older posts from 2018 (San Diego)/2019 (Eastern Canada) to give you an idea what I’m talking about. You may also use the calendar grid on the right side of this page to go to any other month the blog existed. I started the blog in the Spring of 2016. I traveled and took photos for two years prior to that but have only posted a select few, and some of my early posts only included 1 photo (I was a blog newbie) and I need to post more from the tens of thousands of photos I’ve taken.
FOR THOSE OF YOU NEW TO THE BLOG:
Welcome to my travel blog, where I post photos of my trips throughout the United States and Canada. For details on my intent for this project please click on “About” in the upper right hand corner. If you have comments or requests please feel free to contact me by clicking on “Contact” in the upper right hand corner.
If you are new to the blog please note that you are seeing the most recent posts first. As you scroll down you are going back in time. You may read statements which may not make much sense right at the moment because they may refer to a discussion earlier in the blog. If you want to find posts for a specific place (e.g. Grand Canyon) enter it in the search box. You may also use the calendar grid to use the “way-back” function to time travel back to a particular day’s posts.
Enjoy, and PLEASE feel free to share the blog address with others. Also feel free to copy and save any photos I’ve taken. You should be able to right-click on them and save them to your device (but if you sell them and make a gazillion dollars, please slip me a zillion or two. We’ll just keep that between us). The photos are best viewed on a computer or tablet, not a phone. The larger the screen the better.
Today’s impromptu trip will take me back up to the southern tip of the Turnagain Arm, where I will once again take the Portage Glacier Road turnoff towards the Begich, Boggs Visitor Center. This time I will travel beyond it to go to the coastal city of Whittier, a town with only way to get there on land. Not just a road, mind you, but a road through a railroad tunnel. To get there I will have to drive my car through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel through Maynard Mountain – on top of the railroad tracks!
Here is a map of part of the road in from Hwy 1.
(Photo credit: Google Maps)
Yesterday I had driven in as far as the Visitor Center, on the left side of the map. Coming here today I now knew it was closed but would stop there anyway to use the restroom, as I didn’t know how long the wait might be to get through the tunnel. You may be able to see on the map above that the railroad tracks go through another mountain before getting to the tunnel I will be driving through, whereas the road goes around that first mountain.
As you will see in a moment, this is only a one lane tunnel. Train traffic (the Alaska Railroad, with passengers, as well as freight trains) get priority access to the tunnel, then vehicular traffic queues up at each end to wait for the tunnel to open to their direction of travel.
This is the road going around the first mountain to get to the tunnel..
There is a large lake next to the road, and I stopped at an overlook hoping to see the Portage Glacier. It is at the far end in the photo above, and obviously visibility was very poor. The glacier comes right down to the water, but even if it had been a clear day I don’t think I would have been able to see it. I believe there may have been a ship from near the Visitor Center which takes tourists out, but everything was closed for the season.
Before getting back in my car I spotted the railroad tracks coming out of the first mountain on my left.
The road continued up to the toll booth and there were then multiple lanes where vehicles line up, by type, to wait for the eastbound vehicular traffic to be allowed through the tunnel. I paid the $13 one-way toll. The green light was on so I was told I could proceed directly to the tunnel.
Above is the view I had driving in the tunnel. Yes, I had to take the photo while I was moving, but the speed limit was only 25 mph and I was very careful. Other people have posted videos on YouTube.
The tunnel is 2.7 miles long, the longest in the US. There are 8 Safe Houses, one every 1,600 feet, within the mountain in case there is a stoppage, earthquake, or other calamity which would force traffic to stop. Each Safe House can hold up to 55 people and has amenities to accommodate them for a period of time.
The tunnel was originally built in the 1940’s for the military. Whittier was originally designed as an Army port, to allow military supplies to come in by ship and then be transported upstate by rail. The tunnel was converted to dual use in 2000, allowing vehicular traffic to share the tunnel with trains.
Whittier is still mainly a port city, but it also hosts cruise ships and obviously attracts a tourist following. As you will see in the next post, there are some places which offer lodging to overnight guests.
When I got through the tunnel I saw a small harbor to the left of the road, and it is where the cruise ship dock is located. There is a larger harbor closer to town.
The first building I saw when I got to town was the Inn at Whittier.
Because some of the windows were boarded up I assumed it was abandoned but I have since learned that the restaurant and lounge are sometimes open but the hotel rooms remain closed. Even the restaurant may have been closed now that cruise ships were done for the season. Whittier was basically a ghost town while I was here, but then again it was cold and raining heavily at times so people wouldn’t have been inclined to be out wandering around. I pretty much stayed in my car and positioned it so I could take pictures out the windows.
Whittier lost many structures in the 1964 earthquake. I read that most wooden structures (the original Army barracks and support structures) were then burned and rebuilt. The Inn was probably built new after the earthquake, but I don’t know why it has fallen into such a state of disrepair.
There is another building that Whittier is perhaps best known for. Begich Towers:
It is 14-stories tall and is made up of of 3 connected towers. Probably 99 percent of the people who live and work in Whittier live in this building. It was built in 1957 for the military and was renamed and converted to condos in 1972. It is essentially self-contained, with a grocery store, bank, etc. inside. There is a small school behind it with access by an underground tunnel.
There is another concrete building in town which was built for the military. It is only 6-stories tall, and is called the Buckner Building. It was first occupied in 1954 but closed in 1960, soon after the taller building was built and when the Army presence ended. It gave Whittier the nickname “The city under one roof.”
Even without the Army, Whittier is an active port and there were shipping crates stacked everywhere. That and fishing are probably the two main things that people who reside here do for a living. There were many fishing and pleasure craft both in the water and parked on trailers on land. There were some small businesses that cater to tourists, but they were closed for the season.
Here are some of the things I saw as I drove around the small town of Whittier.
That is a small residential building. I guess it accommodates overflow from the big tower, or provides housing for port workers.
After studying the materials I picked up at the Seward Visitor Center when I arrived yesterday, I discovered that there was another part of town I hadn’t seen yet. I thought I might go to the Aquarium, and on the map it was a few blocks south of where I had been yesterday. The person I spoke with had verified that they opened at 10am and that was when I arrived – to find it locked, with a sign indicating that it opened at noon!
I made a command decision to go on a road trip to a place I had hoped I might have stopped at on the way down from Anchorage yesterday, but with the poor visibility I passed it by. I stayed in Seward for about an hour and then headed off on my new plan.
(Photo credit: Google Maps)
This is the view looking south at Resurrection Bay from the southernmost part of Seward.
That is a wide view. Here are two shots zoomed in a bit:
It looks like it is closed in by mountains. This is why I reposted the map showing my route down from Anchorage. As you can see at the bottom of the map above, there is a large opening out to the Pacific Ocean, but from town the view is looking southeast so some of the land masses you see are islands beyond the east side of the opening, and you can also see “mainland” mountains on either side of the Bay which close in a bit as they approach the opening.
Here is a photo looking up “Main Street” (actually, 4th Avenue) from the Aquarium. It goes on for several blocks before reaching the area I was in yesterday. 3rd Avenue, one block to the left from this view, is Highway 9, locally known as the Seward Highway, which is Highway 1 from Anchorage as far south as Tern Lake, where Highway 9 turns off to come down here. The highway ends just south of the Aquarium.
There were lots of stores and gift shops, and more restaurants, down at this end than there were where I was yesterday. Most of these restaurants were still open and had not closed for the season.
This is the “not-open-until-noon” Aquarium:
This is the original railroad station, located next to the Aquarium. It now houses some gift shops.
There was a large parking lot, and tables scattered about for tourists to relax and take in the views of the Bay. I could also see a bunch of mountains from down at this end of town, mainly going up the east side of the Bay.
On the opposite side of the Aquarium was a large research ship operated by the University of Alaska – Fairbanks.
There was a mural on this side of town highlighting the recreation aspect of Seward.
On 4th Avenue, the three windows of the Seward Brewing Company caught my eye because of the stickers plastered all over them:
You get the idea….
Closer to the harbor I found the Mariner’s Memorial.
Inside were lots of memorials to people lost at sea. Here is a small portion.
There were many more, but I figured they’d be so small that you wouldn’t be able to read them.
Here are some other things I saw as I walked around the area on this side of town:
Here is another angle looking at the harbor from near the Mariner’s Memorial.
Here is a small mural on a cannibis dispensary called the Tufted Puffin:
Here are two mountain views from north of town looking east, towards where my Airbnb was located.
I would have a long drive to get to my surprise destination, and will return to Seward for the night, but will have another set of mountain pictures from Seward taken before I leave tomorrow morning for Homer.
I arrived in Seward around 330 in the afternoon, having driven down from Anchorage. I will be here two nights before moving on to Homer.
This is the main runway at the Seward airport, which I passed as I was approaching town. Seward lies alongside Resurrection Bay and there are lots of mountains with some snow and glaciers on them in just about every direction. The best mountain photos will be taken the morning that I leave but you will see some each day.
This next photo is looking a little to the right from the same spot.
I chuckled when I saw this sign on the Visitor Center. It indicates that if you were headed to Seward, Nebraska you must have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way.
Fishing is the main occupation in Seward and this sign shows some of the many types of fish that are caught here. I would have Black Cod (Sablefish), which I had never heard of, for dinner.
Looking at the map it appeared that there is only one road in to Kenai Fjords National Park. I would have liked to learn more but as you can see, the visitor center was closed for the season. There are 8 National Parks in Alaska and this is one of only three which are accessible by car.
Seward has lots of murals scattered around town. This is one of the bigger ones, showcasing the local fishing industry.
Being a fishing town, Seward also has a number of charter boat tours which go out on Resurrection Bay. Most were closed for the season, as were most of the restaurants in this part of town. There was a dock for cruise ships but that season had ended as well. The town was very quiet.
Here are some photos of the harbor:
Below is a photo of the 1964 Earthquake Memorial, showing both the American and Alaskan flags. 13 people in Seward died as a result of the earthquake, and a portion of the water frontage slid into Resurrection Bay. Much of the fishing infrastructure was destroyed. I had seen a photo up in Anchorage of the severe damage to the railroad yards here in Seward.
This was on the door to my Airbnb foyer (I was in the Timberwolf suite). They were wrong about the access code but we quickly got it straightened out.
I have friends in Raleigh who are huge jigsaw puzzle fans and I was pleased to see this completed puzzle mounted on the wall inside my suite.
I will go back into town tomorrow morning before going on another excursion for part of the day.
I have now gone past the Turnagain Arm and will continue driving south to get to Seward. Here are some of the things I saw along the way:
I am now on the Kenai Peninsula for the next 4 days but will not be going to Kenai Fjords National Park, which lies in the mountains between Seward and Homer.
The sky was starting to clear in places, but I was driving alongside mountains, some of which had snow and glaciers on them, so they created clouds in some spots.
I saw this nice little cabin near a lake and thought it might be a nice place to be in the summer. The access bridge needed a little work, though:
At one place, this was looking back at the road behind me:
And this was looking ahead:
I finally reached Tern Lake. This is where Highway 9 branches off from Highway 1 to go towards Seward, while Highway 1 continues on to Homer. I will be going there in two days.
After I turned onto Hwy 9 I had been on the road for 5 hours and still have 40 miles to get to Seward. Here are two mountains I saw before I got to the tiny town of Moose Pass.
Today I will drive down to Seward – a trip I started to take shortly after arriving in Alaska before I reversed direction to go up and actually see Mt. Denali when it wasn’t shrouded in clouds. Google Maps said this trip should only take 2 hours and 20 minutes but as you will see, I stopped to take lots of photos so it took longer than that.
Here are two maps. The first map will cover the next four days. After spending two nights in Seward I will go from there “down” to Homer (by going back up to Hwy 1 and then west and south).
(Photo credit: Alaska.com The Alaska Map)
Here is another map which shows that today, after I leave Anchorage, I will be driving near the bases of mountains the rest of the day.
(Photo credit: Google Maps)
The first part of my drive will be along the Turnagain Arm, a body of water which branches off of Cook Inlet up near Anchorage. As you will see, there were low clouds which resulted in less than ideal photos. When I go back north in a few days it will be a beautiful day and I will get some better shots.
I left the railroad tracks in the shot to illustrate that the Alaska Railroad runs right alongside the highway.
There are beluga whales in this body of water, though I didn’t see any. I also read that in the winter large chunks of ice occupy much of the Turnagain Arm.
The photo above is looking back at some of the mountains I had driven past thus far.
Ahead of me it looked like the sun was trying to break through the clouds above the water.
Further down the highway I reached the point where the road would turn right as part of a brief u-turn around the end of the Turnagain Arm before going southwest, away from the water. That turn is where the small town of Portage USED to be, before it was effectively destroyed by the 1964 earthquake. The quake caused the land to drop 6 feet which put it below the high-tide level, thus rendering it unable to support the town any longer. The only thing that remains is a building inland near the railroad tracks which the Alaska Railroad now uses.
Shortly after passing “Portage” I turned off on Portage Glacier Road. I wanted to visit the Begich, Boggs Visitor Center for some information I might need for later in my trip. Before reaching the Visitor Center I stopped at a parking area called “Moose Flats”. I hung out there for a while, hoping perhaps I might see some moose. I did not. I did see this sign for something called the “Trail of Blue Ice” which is part of a network of trails which go all the way north to Nome, Alaska.
This is a walking bridge which took me away from the parking area and out to a small lake.
After giving on my hope of seeing any moose I drove a few miles away from the main highway to the Visitor Center which, of course, was closed for the season!
I had already exceeded the 2 hour and 20 minute drive time and still had a long ways to go.
After my daytrip to Hatcher Pass I decided to revisit some of the overlooks north of the airport in Anchorage (where I had seen a moose yesterday), hoping lightning might strike twice.
This is looking out at the soon-to-set sun (still up in the clouds). It was taken from one of the overlooks which is right at the end of the main runway at the airport (but located downhill near the water), and every few minutes a jet would come roaring overhead.
I stayed at the overlook a little while longer to watch the planes and then started driving back towards downtown Anchorage, planning to stop at a few other parking areas. When I got to an access road for the airport I spotted 3 moose, not far off the road. I pulled off right next to the road I was on and got out with my smartphone.
Two cows and a bull (one of the cows is in the lower left, next to the orange marker) were on or near a little hill. It looks like they were penned in by fences but the area to the left is wide open as you will see shortly. They really liked the little hill, and moved around a good bit. I stayed near my car but on the side opposite the road so I didn’t get hit by someone else who might be distracted by the sighting. The moose were on the other side of the fence so I didn’t worry about being so close.
Soon the bull came down to the corner and the two cows were on top on the hill.
One of the cows started making a move toward the gate where vehicular traffic can enter or exit the airport (not the main entrance, but probably for workers), and where the moose could “escape” to the side of the fence I was on.
She stopped because she saw something yummy to eat.
She finally made her move for “freedom”
Meanwhile the bull was following her. He would stop (to eat) before he got out and would eventually go back to the hill.
The cow came around the end of the fence and I had moved back to the “street side” of my car. You can still see the bull’s legs inside the fence on the other side of her.
I had already warned the woman in the photo below to keep back and she was now running for cover (and there wasn’t much distance separating them).
Then here came cow #2, making her escape. She had evidently walked right past the bull and why he didn’t follow her I don’t know.
Both of the cows went off to an area just out of view to munch on vegetation on a nearby hillside.
Meanwhile, the bull had retreated to the fence side of the hill, but could see the two cows who had gotten out.
He climbed the hill…
and came toward me. I thought he was going to go right back to the corner…
but he turned around and I thought he was going to go out the gate…
but then he changed his mind and went back towards the corner.
He finally made his way to the gate (perhaps because there were no longer cars and people hanging out close to it).
And he was out!
He soon trotted over to where the 2 cows had gone.
I THOUGHT I had started taking video after taking the photo above but was sadly mistaken. When I realized my phone wasn’t recording he had already reached where the 2 cows were.
According to the time stamps on the photos, the whole process took about 8 minutes.
Here are some of the things I saw as I completed my exit from Hatcher Pass.
This post is kind of short, as I decided not to include some of the photos I had prepared because they were too repetitive.
Below is a photo looking back at the way I had come so far.
And the next photo is looking at the road still ahead.
And another one looking back between some of the hills near the road.
Below is the sign on the gate at the end of the dirt and gravel road which can be closed to block access over the winter months until the road reopens in the summer. It opens inward so people who arrive at other times can see the risks of traveling on the road up to Hatcher Pass. I had read that the road is usually closed from late September (though it was obviously open on September 25 this year) until July 1 of the following year!
It had taken a little under an hour to get to this point from when I started my descent from the apex, though I did stop many places to take photos. I didn’t measure the distance.
I still had a 40 minute drive on a very rural paved road to get out to Hwy 3 in Willow, and from there it would take an hour and 20 minutes to get back to Anchorage.
That is the view from an intersection on the west side of downtown Anchorage looking out at Cook Inlet. From here I would turn left and go south a short distance to work my way out to the overlooks near the airport. I was hoping I might get lucky and see some more moose, as the area around the airport seems to be a “hot spot,” and I still had some more daylight. As you will see in the next post, my thinking paid off.
I started descending Hatcher Pass, which became a long drive out to Hwy 3 near Willow. Much of the drive was on the unpaved dirt and gravel road. After I pass the gate which shuts off access from the west in the winter (at the end of the next post) the road was paved but was still pretty far from Hwy 3.
Here are some of the things I saw as I started driving on the road out.
I had parked at the entrance to the Hatcher Pass access road to take photos of the paraglider coming in for a landing across the paved road. I then started to climb the dirt/gravel road to the apex of the Pass.
The road was mostly in good shape for that kind of road but there were some washboard spots and several bad potholes. I flagged down a vehicle which was coming down to ask if they thought it was prudent for me to continue. They said yes, just drive slow and watch for bad spots, but they had seen several regular cars at the top.
The mountain above is along the continuation of the paved road I had arrived on. That road continues on to the Independence Mine site.
THIS is the road I will be on:
The photo above is looking back at the road behind me.
The photo above shows cars parked near the apex. You can also see some potholes in the road.
The sign when I started said “next 20 miles” but I believe the descent is longer than the ascent. It had only taken me about 7 minutes to get to this point (at a fairly steep angle) but I didn’t measure the actual mileage. I had also climbed quite a bit on the paved road getting up to the access road and now I would be going further down before going out to Hwy 3.
This was the view looking to the right from where I had stopped to take the photo above. In the lower left hand corner you can see part of the road going away from the apex:
I finally parked at the top:
I walked out the path to check out the view. This is looking straight out (west):
And this is looking slightly to the left:
Below is the view looking down at a road I could see from this high spot but it must just be for hikers as it goes back and to the right, away from the exit road.
Below is the correct exit road as seen from near the top. The road goes down, does a 180 to the right, then goes a short ways and does a 180 to the left before meandering out into the valley.
After this first hill it was a fairly shallow descent, and it was a loooong drive out to the point where this road was paved and another loooong drive to get out to Hwy 3 in Willow.
Today I will make a daytrip to Hatcher Pass, northeast of Anchorage. This excursion was recommended to me by one of my fellow Airbnb guests in Anchorage. He told me there would be some great views and that I might see some wildlife. Although I did not see any wildlife it was a beautiful day and it was an enjoyable drive.
Here is a map of the area. The road from Anchorage comes up from the bottom. At Gateway, Hwy 3 goes west towards Wasilla, Willow and, eventually, Denali National Park and Fairbanks. Where the roads meet in Gateway, Hwy 1 continues east towards Palmer, Glennallen and, eventually, Tok.
(Photo credit: Google Maps)
When I got to Wasilla I stopped at their Visitor Center to make sure the Pass was open to traffic. When I had read about it online it said that the road is often closed from late September to July (!) and I was here on September 25. The road I took isn’t shown on the map but if you draw a line from Wasilla to just above Fishhook and then to the red marker that is roughly where the road took me going up. After going over the Pass the dirt (at that point) road went west, roughly through the gap in the mountains, and eventually came out on Hwy 3 at Willow.
The road was paved all the way to the dirt/gravel road which climbed the Pass. If I had stayed on the paved road it would have taken me to the historic Independence Mine site. There are several mines in this area.
Here are some of the things I saw on my way up to the Hatcher Pass access road:
The photo above is of the view back towards the valley I believe I had driven through and is looking at the mountains east of Anchorage.
If you look closely you’ll see a paraglider above the mountains in the upper right of the photo above. I parked at the access road to the Pass and watched as the pilot gradually made his/her way to land across the paved road from where I had stopped.
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