Greetings from Tok, Alaska!

Well, we have safely made it to Tok (pronounced Toke), Alaska, and are settled in quite comfortably at the Mooseberry Inn Lodge B&B.  Hotels are scarce and not always the highest quality along the Alaskan Highway, so I was glad to find a sweet, cosy B&B.

But, let me backtrack a moment...and tell you about the WONDERFUL evening we on Friday night. It began with dinner at The Bridge, which is a new, upscale restaurant right down on the river in Anchorage.  We had a corner table right on the window and were able to watch the fisherman trying to grab one of the 30+ pound salmon that flow right through the heart of Anchorage.

It was a beautiful setting, and a beautiful table and my wife was beautiful.  Here she is, with her plate of Alaskan King Crab Legs -- yum!

So that we got to try a variety of meats, I ordered the skewers...which had Rockfish, Salmon and Reindeer on them, as well as vegetables and roasted potatoes for each of us.

Dinner also came with an appetizer bar with salad, cold snow crab legs (we found that we prefer them served warm), beet salad, cole slaw, antipasta with salmon...and most surprisingly, sourdough rolls with a spread of cream cheese mixed with salmon (awesome!).   Natalie was so full and wasn't going to have the rolls and spread, but I gave her a taste, and she decided she really did need to join me.

After dinner, we went to a place called the Taproot.  Natalie and I aren't big bar people, but we love live music, and the Taproot specializes in acoustic music in a wonderful setting. They have good food, and it is strictly NO SMOKING!  So we saw a band called Alameda, from Portland...and it isn't every day you get to see a band made up of: a male drummer, a male acoustic guitar player / vocalist...a female vocalist / cello player and a female bass clarinetist.  They were great, we scored a front row table and even found an Alaskan Whiskey called Outlaw which was actually quite good.

Today Natalie closed her time with Time For Speech.  They have an annual picnic for the children and families they work with, and we felt very fortunate and blessed that we just happened to be here for it.  Natalie's boss, Kathie, has been a present from Heaven, and gave her an A for her time here in Alaska. Natalie has been desperately wanting an A in clinic.  And she got it from the Director of the Alaska Speech & Hearing Association!  Way to go, Natalie!  It was neat to see the therapists interacting with the families outside of the clinic.  They are very much like family and I was deeply appreciative that Natalie was able to sit at their feet and learn for an entire month.

This photo is of Sarah (on the left), one of the other therapists and Natalie's boss, Kathie, on the right.  Other than a mosquito infestation (I thought we had big mosquito problems in Texas, but they are nothing compared to Alaska!), it was a very successful event, and Natalie and I stayed to help them clean up, then made our way out of Anchorage.

It was an uneventful trip, other than the Moose sightings.  As we were driving out from the party, I missed my turn, and as I was slowing down so I could turn around, Natalie once again cried, MOOSE!  And sure enough, right in someone's front yard, there was a mama moose and her 2 kiddos...right next to the main highway!

Several hours later, we again saw a mama moose and her 2 cubs, and then, not far from the B&B we saw a male moose.  But these are things you get used to here in Alaska...and everyone is thankful it was a Moose and NOT a Grizzly Bear!

We are 90 miles from the Canadian border here in Tok, bound for Whitehorse, over in the Yukon Territory tomorrow evening.  Looks like the weather should be clear and partly sunny for the next couple of days, which certainly makes traveling this far that much easier!