America’ s last frontier
Panorama Alaska Mountain Range, Denali Park, Alaska, USA Photo by Barry Epstein
Mimi and I were about to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary( August 20, 2011). I really wanted to show her the raw beauty of Alaska and she agreed. For months, I meticulously planned and then executed an incredible three week trip. My local knowledge was useful for the thousand mile drive into remote areas of Alaska that revealed an array of diverse colors and allowed us to clearly capture the wilderness experience. I was a bit worried that Mimi, a Singaporean, food and shopping centric woman, would not get the Alaskan experience but she did and she loved it. The food was ordinary, the accommodation was rustic but the majestic mountains and scenery was spectacular. I was able to take Mimi to my favorite places that I remembered and the hard work in planning paid off.
After flying 5 hours from Perth to Sydney and then 14 hours to Los Angeles again on the amazing A380 we headed towards customs. We both have dual citizenship so we use our American passports when entering the USA. We made it to customs to find a very long line. As soon as we got to the end of this line, I commented to Mimi that this really sucks. The guy in front of us immediately turned around and said,“ You got that right mate.” It was Crocodile Dundee, Paul Hogan himself. We were stunned and pleased. He also had just arrived from Australia. I said, Paul, how’ s your tax situation going. It was widely known throughout Australia that he had major tax issues with the Australian Government as I believe his story was aired on 60 minutes. We chatted for about an hour and he was a very nice guy. We overnighted in LA then flew to Seattle and on to
Panorama Fall Colors, Denali Park,
Anchorage Alaska to
Alaska, USA begin our drive to
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