Independence Mine

Day 7 June 22

We woke up to cold, wind and rain. We drove up Hatcher Pass Road to an old gold mine, now a state historical site. It was one of the most productive mines in Alaska and operated until the 1950's. We walked around among the buildings a bit, then went back to the motorhome and put on warmer clothes. I ended up putting on long underwear (in June!), and we left to explore again. We were much more comfortable in our warmer clothes, and walked around for quite a while. The scenery there is magnificent, too bad we couldn't see any for the rain!

Later we drove down to Palmer, and I visited 2 quilt shops. We wandered around and found an outdoor craft fair. Bought some homemade chocolate truffles.

We camped at Montana Creek Campground, off the Parks Hwy. The King salmon fishing was open in this particular creek at 12:01 Saturday am. By 8pm, there were many fishermen gathered at the riverbank, waiting for the countdown. Steve said it was like New Year's Eve. He kept trying to convince them since we were on FL time, 4 hrs ahead, that it was really midnight his time, and he should be able to fish right then. He ended up getting up at 4am, and tried his luck. No one was catching anything.