Did my daily exercises and showered. There was solid, darkish overcast outside. Checked email. We left at 8:54 with me in the RV and J following in the Jeep.

We got to Alaska Performance RV & Marine at 9:01 to have them fix the slide and the oven pilot light. (Read about the slide mechanism failure on July 14, 2009.) The pilot light had become harder and harder to light, and when it did light, the flame was really weak and would frequently get blown out. It sure made cooking things in the oven exciting. :) We left at 9:15 in the Jeep.

We went to Gwennie's Old Alaska Restaurant, a favorite of mine, at 9:24 for a big breakfast. I had a Denver omelet and coffee, and J had an Avocado & Cheese omelet and hot water for her own tea bag. J was blown away by the amount of food and really liked the potatoes. We left at 10:25.

We drove around Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport to look for moose and didn't see any. We saw a bald eagle fly by really low when we were at Point Woronzof. We also drove by a nearby Mictotel where J had photographed moose on a previous visit. No moose there either.

Then we went to Kincaid Park at 11:15 to look for moose. One person we asked about moose sightings said there was one along a path not too far from the road. We went to check it out, and there was no moose to be found.

We stopped at Costco to fill up the Jeep, then headed south on the Seward Highway.

We stopped briefly at Potter's Marsh to look for birds. There were some red-necked grebes, but the setting and light weren't very good.

I had some Clif Bars for lunch as we drove.

We reached Falls Creek, part of Chugach State Park, around 12:55. Falls Creek has a series of small falls and cascades with lots of moss on the banks and boulders that begins near the road and extends at least 1/4 of a mile upstream. J had photographed there before, but it was the first time I had been there.

I talked with Tim from Alaska Performance RV & Marine while photographing, and he said the slide was working just fine. He thought it might not have worked for us if our battery was low. I didn't think that could be the problem, but later it occurred to me that the batteries could have been low because we were at the end of some extended boondocking with poor solar-charging conditions, and maybe the batteries were low. Anyway, we had been living without the slide for weeks for no reason! They were able to fix the pilot light in the oven.

We had a blast photographing Falls Creek, and it was nice to get some great images after looking for moose with not much success for two days. There were occasional rain drops while we were photographing under the solid overcast. We left at 4:40.

It started to rain steadily on our way back up to Anchorage.

We got to Alaska Performance RV & Marine around 5:10 to pick up the RV. We left at 5:15 with me in the RV and J following in the Jeep.

We went to the Costco parking lot because it was a lot flatter than the Sam's Club parking lot. We each showered and J ordered some prints to be made at the Costco. We had dinner of leftover roast beef with cantaloupe. I edited images from today. J went into Costco around 8:00 to pick up her prints and to do some shopping. The checkout lines were too long so J didn't purchase any of the other things that she had picked up. We left Costco at 9:08 with me in the RV and J following in the Jeep.

We returned to the Sam's Club parking lot at 9:20 and parked with the other RVs in the unofficial overnight parking area. I processed some images for the blog, had a slice of blueberry pie, then finished a blog entry. J had some Amarula and I had some Asbach Uralt.