Hope you guys like wildlife photos!
This male elk was protecting his harem, watching as we pulled up and snapped photos.
A female was about 15 feet away; she walked up to the edge as if checking in with him to see if it was okay to stay there and graze:
The rest of the harem grazed nearby and stayed pretty calm while we eavesdropped. The light was poor so these photos needed touching up but we definitely checked “ELK” off our list! 🙂
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We are absolutely positive that we will never again have this close of an encounter with a grizzly bear! (Or at least we hope we won’t!)
This “griz” was right on the side of the road, digging up roots and eating them. We took photos from the truck. He paid us no heed at all.
To see a video of him/her digging in the gravel for roots, click here.
All we can say is “WOW”!!
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No, not us!! This truck here:
A strange way to drive down the highway, with an 18-wheeler facing you.
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This is the last bit of great scenery we saw in Alaska, before crossing into Canada.
The Tanana River.
(CLICK TO ENLARGE)
More to come!
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Someone asked a question on Facebook about why the wheelbases of big rigs in Alaska are so long. Jack says they are so long in order to fit extra long loads.
Here is a photo of the long wheelbase being utilized:
Down in the states, the wheelbase would be much shorter on most trucks. In other words, the wheels would be much closer to the body of the truck and this sized pipe would result in more rear overhang, thus needing more permits and a more complicated set up. So to avoid that, the wheelbase has been lengthened, since these kinds of loads are commonplace in Alaska.
Since Jack has a long wheel base he can haul another trailer behind this one, as seen here:
This is the second trailer – it has a load of sheet pile (sheets of metal that are driven into the ground and used for road construction or for bridge construction).
(In the first photo you can see part of the second trailer but it’s hard to make out because there is another trailer of pipe behind it. In the second photo I erased the pipe behind so you can see the load on the second trailer better.)
Here are a few more photos of the Salcha-Valdez pipe haul.
The last piece of pipe being loaded!
Jack is so happy to be on his LAST VALDEZ RUN so he can get back on the Dalton!!
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Here’s Tyson “Bubba” Stollings – Jack’s big fan – showing his version of push trucking. Maybe one day he’ll be doing the real thing!
Here are some photos of the job Jack is presently working on, hauling huge pipe sections from the port of Valdez to Salcha where there is a railroad bridge being built across the Tanana River.
Empty trailers, waiting for the pipe.
This is a photo from an earlier post: the trucks loaded with 2 lengths of pipe each, and more pipe in the background that still needed to be loaded and hauled to Salcha. Each section is 6 feet in diameter and 43 feet long. That stack has been transported by now but more has arrived from other barges.
Eight inch wood dunnage cradling the pipe. It gives space for the forks to pick it up and set it down, and the pipe chalks (upper wood pieces) stop it from rolling until they get it tied down. Each piece of pipe is 25,000 pounds.
The trucks have to stop at quite a few roadwork sites along the Richardson Highway. This is in the canyon just north of Valdez.
A couple of days ago Jack was held up at some roadwork for almost 2 hours. Since the Richardson is one of only a couple of major highways in Alaska, there must have been a line of ticked-off tourists 10 miles long!
Anyone interested in more information about this bridge project can go to this link: State of Alaska webpage.
In September of 2009 Jack took part in a fundraiser for the Special Olympics in Seattle, Washington. Over 250 trucks lined up and drove through part of the city to create the “World’s Largest Convoy 2009”.
Jack signs photos and talks to his fans.
And he catches a photo with the Special Olympians.
In the next post there will be more photos from this fundraiser.
Happy Fourth of July everyone!!
Not sure if you’ve ever tried to take a digital photo of the northern lights but it will most likely turn out grainy unless you have a very expensive camera (or you know some really good tricks and in that case please share!). So I took 9 of Jack’s aurora shots and put them together in thumbnails after running digital camera noise removal on them a couple of times. If you don’t know what this means don’t worry about it, but the shots turned out kind of surreal. Click on the image below and check it out.
You can see the side mirror in one of them – he obviously took the top 3 from the truck. The bottom 6 shots show one formation getting larger from at first just a wisp in the sky. The northern lights are a winter-only phenomenon for us since in the summer it’s light throughout the night, from May until August. This awesome kind of sighting is a big perk for us in the winter, and boy do we deserve it after months of bitter cold and darkness.
Click here for a couple more shots of northern lights – these taken from our house. Have a great week!
Jack had an unusual wildlife sighting the other day on the Richardson Highway (the road that connects Fairbanks to Valdez). A grizzly bear crossed the road in front him, so Jack pulled over for a possible photo since the bear was now on the left side of the road and easy to see from the driver’s side.
As soon as he snapped the photo of the bear, a wolf stood up out of the brush and trotted off, away from the bear.
Then the bear turned around and followed the wolf into the woods.
It’s pretty rare to see a wolf by the road, much less a bear and wolf in such close proximity. Was the bear following the scent of the wolf? Was the wolf injured? Unfortunately, we’ll never know.
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