wrote in message
...
On Thu, 7 Jan 2010 14:31:49 -0800, "Bill McKee"
wrote:

I guess we just look for dirt roads. The most interesting things are
at the end of one ;-)
That was one reason why we liked South Dakota so much. In the Black
Hills there are hundreds (thousands?) of miles of logging roads.
We put 2300 miles on a 4WD Suburban in 3 weeks, probably half in the
dirt.

I did take some back dirt roads, but they were not 4x4 required. Maybe if
there was rain, but I think most of AK is gravel and rock. There are so
many glacial moraines that they can gravel coat a road easily.

I agree, I suppose I was generalizing when I said dirt. They were
mostly rock, in Alaska and in the Dakotas. We didn't really use the
4wd more than a couple times in the Dakotas, and only because we had
it. In Alaska we did fine with a 2wd.
We figured out if you just fast idle along a road like that you do
not startle wildlife and you can drive right up to all sorts of
things.We came up on a family of black bears on a particular road we
liked around Coopers Landing in the Kenai that were just mildly
interested as we drove up them at about a walking pace. We looked at
each other for a few minutes and went our separate ways. I was mad
that my camera was out of film but that is always the way it goes
isn't it? We saw the only porcupine I have ever seen on that road too.
This lake is on that road
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/alaska/Kenai%20Lake.jpg



I just realized that is most likely Kenai Lake.