Road Trip - Alaska Bound

A couple more pictures....

2010-08-29T17:23:00.000-07:00

Dick wanted me to post these two pictures. The first is us as Eilson Visitor Center, 66 miles inside Denali Nat'l Park with Denali (Mt McKinley) in the background. The 2nd is the gi-normous tractor that our Canadian friends have. You really don't get a true perspective of just how really LARGE that tractor is!

Add caption

We are home!

2010-08-24T07:28:00.000-07:00

We finally made it home on Wednesday after driving just over 11,000 miles in the RV and around 2700 miles in the jeep! It took me two days to clean the RV as it was just coated in dust from the 6 weeks of camping at Denali where everything was dusty and dirty!

We had a great time in Wisconsin at Dick's family reunion. That was his mother's father's side of the family. Then on Sunday we visited with his cousin and some family from Dick's father's side. Between the two gatherings I think I gained 4 lbs!!

We left the greater Chicago area and drove to Dayton, Ohio where we spent the night at Wright Patterson AFB at the family camp. We also discovered that one of the best, if not the best, aviation museum was in that area so we delayed our trip home by a day to visit the museum. In particular Dick wanted to see the plane there on display similar to the one his Dad flew in Korea. Also they had retired presidential planes there that I wanted to see. It was interesting but a bit much for me as I was overwhelmed with the sheer number of aircraft there on display!! There were 3 large hangars full in addition to two smaller hangars with the presidential planes and experimental aircraft.

It was a truely spectacular summer and we had such a great time.

Wisconsin

2010-08-14T06:43:00.000-07:00

We are near Kenosha, WS now for a family reunion today. Tomorrow we'll drive a short distance into Illinois and stop at his cousin's house for the night and visit with family on his Dad's side. Then we'll make the final leg of our trip to NC beginning on Monday.

Wednesday we drove across Montana and Thursday we drove thru North Dakota and Minnesota where we encountered really strong winds and that makes for tough driving. Then we were awakened in the night by thunder, lightening and driving rain. Yesterday it poured and poured as we drove through Wisconsin. There were reports of flash flooding and tornado watches in effect. Fortunately we only experienced driving rain and we did manage to drive out of the worst of it. However, about the time we got parked in the campground and as Dick was hooking everything up outside, it started to rain and lightening again. He got soaked! Wish we could bring some of that rain with us to NC!

On our way home

2010-08-08T07:49:00.000-07:00

We are in Canada now slowly working our way home. we will stop in Wisconsin for a family reunion of Dick's mother's family.

We are driving south on the Cassiar highway which is a drive through the mountains & wilderness. It is really beautiful although our visibility is limited as it has been quite rainy. we are camping in Stewart, Canada and will viisit Hyder, Alaska which is just a couple miles away. Hyder is like a lost piece of Alaska as it is on the coast and bordered only by Canada. It is a very small community with dirt roads and looks mostly like a coastal ghost town. I think its population is 100. It has one claim to fame and that is Fish Creek. Black and grizzly bears gather at the creek this time of year to fish for the spawning salmon. Yesterday we watched a grizzly sow and her cub fish for salmon. She had to work at it but she did catch a nice size fish! There are two kinds of salmon in the creek, pink and chum. The chum are really large and can reach 50 lbs. When she would get near the fish they would start flipping out of the water. It was really fascinating to watch.

Her cub was a spring cub, meaning born this spring and just adorable! he was so cute and small. He couldn't yet catch fish so he would play with the dead ones - after they spawn they die. The dead fish were nearly as big as the cub and he had fun wrestling with them!

There are numerous glaciers around here and we will visit some today. Too bad it is raining again today but oh well. That's pretty typical for this area. However it is supposed to be sunny for the next several days after today. Of course we have to leave tomorrow!

photos...

2010-08-02T21:35:00.000-07:00

Here is the wolf that we saw today. He looked small to me and lean. We heard that only the alpha male and female are collared but I wonder if this is true, this guy doesn't look all that alpha to me!! But then, what do I know...??

And this is a caribou, which, when domesticated, is called a reindeer.

Good-bye Denali!

2010-08-02T16:36:00.000-07:00

Our little slice of heaven.....

We left our campground this morning with the new campground hosts that came in to take our place. We are sad to leave as we loved our "summer home" there! Currently we are at the park headquarters doing laundry and we'll leave for Anchorage tomorrow.

The weather during all of July was way less than stellar to say the least. We had rain, and more rain, and more rain with the occasional view of sun. But happily our last weekend in the park was bright, sunny and warm! That was even more enjoyable as we had friends in the park that we know from Colorado so we were able to enjoy sitting out by the campfire with them!

Our last bus ride into the park was last Thursday and turned out to be quite a suprise! That morning when we got on the bus, it was, as usual, quite cloudy, so we figured ho-hum, another not so nice weather day. But what a suprise as it cleared up and Denali (Mt. McKinley) was out in all its spectacular glory! It is such a sight to see as it rises around 18,000 feet above its base and is 20,320 feet high in its entirety. Mt Everest, although higher than Denali, has a vertical rise of 12,000 feet above its base. Unfortunately, I have not yet downloaded those pictures so I'll have to do that later.

My only disappointment at the park is that we haven't seen too many wolves, yet many of our campers have come back telling us about the pack of wolves they saw up close and personal. The pack, according to the rangers, has 12 adults and 5 puppies and this pack has been seen quite frequently along and near the road by many of our campers. We have tried, in vain, so many times to spot this pack! I guess as a consolation "prize" we were treated to a lone wolf walking down the road this morning as we were driving to the park entrance so I did get some nice photos of him.

Yesterday a cargo plane crashed in the park near headquarters, unfortuantely killing the 3 people on board. We will never know, but I like to think that the pilot in his last moments was able to steer the plane away from the employee camp, headquarters and visitor center before crashing. Although a tragedy in itself, it could have been so much worse as the crash was very near several population centers.

We watched these two Dall sheep come down a very steep mountain side, go across the stream and then up a steep hill and bank onto the road. I love this photo of the one in the stream.

We will be heading home soon and are looking forward to seeing everyone! I'm glad to hear that it has finally rained on our homestead!!

Bus humor--

2010-07-27T13:49:00.000-07:00

When you go into the Park, you ride on a bus that is essentially a school bus and if you go all the way into the park, you'll be on that bus for about 11 hours. That's plenty of time to get to know your fellow passengers and bus driver! Our bus driver told us that some one actually asked him "when do the caribou change into moose?" Oh my, I know that people from afar are not well versed on the animals that live in Alaska, but really, do you think that animals change from one species to another?? Only in a Harry Potter movie does that happen!!

There's always alot of joking about people encountering animals and being eaten so here are the definitions:

A person on a bicycle - "meals on wheels"
Person walking on a trail - "trail mix"
Person on a bus - "canned meat"

Well that's humor, Denali style!

Departure time is approaching...

2010-07-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

It’s our last week here at Denali and we will be sad to leave! We’ve really enjoyed meeting people from all over the world and sharing the wilderness of Denali with so many people. In particular, we've had a lot of visitors from Israel, Switzerland, and Australia.
Last Thursday we were granted a pass to drive the road in our car. Unfortunately, you really can’t see that much from a car so the experience wasn’t all that great, however, we did spot some moose out at Wonder Lake and that was worthwhile! We’ve seen a lot more bears than moose!

The road into the park is all gravel and beyond the first 29 miles, quite narrow. Parts of the road are cut out of the mountain side and are perched on very steep mountain sides. Its really quite scarry, especially if you are on the outside of the road! You look down and it’s a really long way down!! I took this picture of a bus coming at us on a very steep section of

the road. Notice how narrow the road is. Hard to believe but there is enough room for two buses to pass, albeit very closely!! We’ve had a lot of rain so the danger of rock and mud slides also exists and there was a small mudslide late one night. The park service was able to get it cleared and have the road ready to go by the next am.

The road near Polychrome Pass:

A couple of nights ago as I was closing all the shades I looked out and there was a lynx standing no more than 15’ from the camper looking straight at me! What a beautiful face he had with the black tufts of hair on his ears. Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo as I was more concerned with radioing Dick to watch out for the lynx. He was walking Chena and I really didn’t want him to come upon the lynx with Chena in tow.

The campground is on the Teklanika River and there are bears moving down the river getting closer to the campground. They’ve been spotted on the river a number of times and are getting closer to the campground every day. The rangers say that its just a matter of time before they come into the campground. They will most likely come in from the river which is the further point away from us so we probably won’t see them. We have been cautioning our campers to be bear aware! There’s never been a bear fatality here in the park so I don’t worry about it too much. It’s really interesting how easily the wildlife and people coexist here. For the most part the wildlife ignores the people. It is really important to never let the animals get food from the humans – when that happens, the animals see humans as a food source and that’s when the havoc begins. The saying is so true, a fed bear is a dead bear.

Some of the animals in the park are wearing collars so that their movements can be recorded. The wolf picture in a previous post has a collar. Yep, I think they're tracking him to see when he will arrive in Raleigh for the first football game! LOL, GO Wolfpack!! Many of our visitors have seen the pack - there were 7 pups to start but now there seems to be only 5. The pack has been seen with the pups in tow and several adults. We have not been that fortunate and I am soooo jealous! One of our visitors had a photo of a wolf with a caribou hind quarter in its mouth!!

Time to go, we have to do laundry today!

Only 2 weeks left!

2010-07-19T17:56:00.000-07:00

We are in Fairbanks today, grocery shopping and running errands. Its hard for us to believe that we only have two weeks left as campground hosts!

The last time we were coming into the park we saw a really large wolf just walking down the road. He walked right by our car. I have been hoping for an up close and personal view of a wolf so I was excited when we found this guy!

While driving back from doing our laundry we ran into this trio of Dall Sheep on Polychrome Pass. The pass is the most frightening portion of the road as it is narrow and winding and has dropoffs like you wouldn't believe - 600 feet or more and very steep. As we go around each curve I mutter the prayer, "no bus, no bus" as my fear is that we will meet an oncoming bus and there will be about a foot between our car and the bus as we pass! It's not so bad when we're on the inside curve but when we're on the outside, it really scares me to death!!

I don't have much of a lynx picture but this is one that Dick took shortly after we started the camphost gig where the lynx a nd the dog were having a faceoff.

Well we have to get on with the shopping so good bye for now. Will try to write something more intelligent next time I'm on a computer!

Laundry day again -

2010-07-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

Here it is July already and before long we'll be packing up and heading home. We are hearing how horribly hot it is on the east coast, we're not looking forward to returning to that!!

The last 3 days have been unbelievably gorgeous in the park. It's supposed to hit 80º here in the park. that's unusual! Today there's hardly a cloud in the sky and Mt McKinley is out for all to see. It is soooooo spectacular!

We will get a pass that will allow us to drive our car the entirety of the park road (about 90 miles) for the 3rd week of July. Although only 90 miles, it usually ends up being a 10 hour trip all the way in and out as the max speed is 35mph and often less. we also have to pull over and stop when any vehicle larger than ours approaches and there are a lot of those (buses and construction equip). We are looking forward to that and are hoping for some great wild life viewing although it is hard to see from our car so we will probably "hang" with the buses so we have the advantage of all the spotters on the buses.

Not much else to report - all is well and COOL in Alaska. 80º is considered a hot day here!

Hi!

2010-07-07T16:36:00.000-07:00

Another day in paradise! We’re still having fun here in the wilds of Denali National Park! We begin each day with a walk through the campground with Chena. By the time we have walked both campground loops, Chena has calmed down and walks on the leash like a normal dog rather than the excited, darting every whichway, dog that she usually is! She gets lots of walks throughout the day and is loving RV life!
Yesterday we rode the bus further into the park and finally we saw a wolf up close and personal. It was kind of fun as we were observing a lone grizzly bear when the wolf happened along. The bear picked up the scent of the wolf and started following the wolf. Meanwhile the wolf is “trucking” through the area giving the occasional glance over his shoulder to check on the proximity of the bear. Then the bear lost the scent and gave up the chase. Bears and wolves don’t normally fight each other, I think they are both at the top of the food chain. The only thing that bears have to fear is another bear. A male bear will kill cubs because a female bear will not mate if she has cubs.
We also saw a hare running through the brush with a coyote hot on its trail. We’re not sure if the hare escaped or not, as we lost sight of them in the brush. Other than that, it was sort of a dull day on the bus, the animals were mostly hiding out. They were probably being lazy and hiding out in the shade as yesterday was a gorgeous sunny day. Even the mountain was out for part of the day which is a treat in itself as only about 25% of the visitors to Alaska ever see Mt McKinley.
Dick stays busy during the day playing Mr. Fixit for our campers. We have a lot of first time RVers so they often need a little help. We’ve had several who have run their batteries down. NPS has given us a battery charger to help these folks out. We had another camper who thought he had no propane and he had just picked up the RV. Well, it works better if you turn the propane valve on! Many of our campers are foreign and I particularly enjoy visiting with these folks. Although foreign, many of them are living in the US right now. Had some kids that just graduated from college and they are taking the summer off before entering the workforce; good for them!
Me, I stay busy reading, scrapbooking and cooking. I bought a cast iron dutch oven to use in the fire pit. I made a beef roast in it the other day and it was really really good!
We will be heading to Fairbanks a little later today to grocery shop and hopefully get the parts we need to install the inverter. When we got back last week we discovered that we needed additional parts before installing the inverter soooooo…..we’ll try again today.
It looks like a gorgeous cloud free sunny day today, I almost hate to leave the park on days like this. We had several rainy days this week so we really appreciate these nice days!
Enough rambling, hope you are enjoying your summer!

Wolf:

Ooops....

2010-07-01T13:32:00.000-07:00

We happened upon this "little" oops when we were in Fairbanks the other day. They are building a new bridge over the Chena River downtown and this crane toppled over into the river. The boom hit the pilings for the new bridge. Fortunately, no one was hurt. It sure did mess up traffic downtown! One of those rare instances where there is "traffic"!

Thursday, hello!

2010-07-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

We are at the Toklat camp today doing laundry. On our way here we saw two grizzlies taking a snooze in the grass beside a stream. Then one of them got up and started digging around the tree roots. Before long out popped a ground squirrel. Two quick leaps by the bear and he had his lunch. I guess the rule here is eat or be eaten!

When we drove to Fairbanks the other day, the mountain was out. Mt. McKinley is often referred to as Denali which is "the Great One". Only about 25% of the visitors to Alaska get to see Denali as it is often hidden behind clouds. It is so much taller than anything around it, that it has its own weather system.

More pictures

2010-06-29T14:25:00.000-07:00

We rode the bus for about 25 miles yesterday and came upon this sow with her two cubs. I call this photo The Approach:

This 2nd photo I snapped just after the above, the dark cub hauled off and smacked the blond cub beside the head. It was a classic sibling move...reminds me of my brothers. LOL!

The Family. I took all these pictures from the bus which is at times quite difficult as everyone is vying for position to get the best photos. In some cases you end up shooting thru glass.

Pictures from our Friday trip when we drove to Toklat

2010-06-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

Dall sheep on the road.

The sheep on the left is actually scratching his head with the other sheep's horn.

Bull moose taking a rest in a mossy bed.

Hello from Teklanika campground!

2010-06-29T14:07:00.000-07:00

Our first week at Teklanika has been great. Through Friday we had nice sunny weather and but for the mosquitos, you could stay outside in your shirtsleeves. Saturday through Monday were rain days but it really wasn’t so bad as it would rain for a bit and then the sun would peek out and then rain a little more. Dick is really enjoying himself talking to all the campers and helping them out when needed. Yesterday we had a couple come in a really big 5th wheel and a large 4 door Frieghtliner truck built for pulling his 5th wheel. Well he wasn’t paying attention and took out the bottom of his slide on a post that he hit. Fortunately it appeared to be just cosmetic damage but still costly. He could have easily made the curve but messed up. It happens…. Well then his slides would hardly come out, maybe dead batteries? Then a bit later Dick discovered that he had two generators going with a leaking gas can between them and he wasn’t even at their site!! So Dick had to rectify that situation! We do have generator hours from 8-10 am and 4-8 pm. Mostly we have had to ask people to move their tents as they are not allowed to camp off the provided gravel pads. The grass looks so inviting, I can understand why they pitch their tents where they do! The majority of our campers are in some sort of RV, a lot of pick up campers, trailers & 5th wheels and motorhomes too. The campground can accommodate RV’s to 40’ so we do get the occasional big class A in here but not too many.
This morning we had a little excitement when Dick came upon a lynx who was starring down a lady and her dog that were not all that far away from the lynx. Her dog was really well trained as she told it to sit and it did and didn’t make a sound! Ha, that would not be Chena! So the lynx and the lady just starred at each other for a minute or two and then the lynx went in the brush. Dick got a neat picture with both the lady and lynx in it. I am thinking that I will keep Chena very close to me and just walk near the camper where I have good visibility!
We makes rounds of the campground numerous times a day because we need the exercise. We are supposed to at least make rounds at 10 am and 8 pm. After our 10 am rounds today, we decided to ride the bus further into the park to see what we could see! For the last several days all the campers have been telling us about all the bears and wolves that they have seen. We didn’t have as good of luck as some of our campers but we did have a great bear viewing of a sow and her two cubs. Also saw a wolf with 2 pups but they were really far away in a gravel bed. Also saw a few caribou and sheep which have become rather ho-hum to us at this point!
I will be posting this tomorrow when we go into Fairbanks for our weekly shopping trip. We are picking up a new converter which will allow us to power the TV, stereo, charge camera batteries, make coffee without having to power up the generator. Our old converter died while we were watching Alice in Wonderland and we were just getting to the good part so I am anxious see the rest!

I am re-reading James Michner’s Alaska – it is much more relevant when you are living in the middle of the book so to speak! Not much else of interest, we are having a blast and haven’t gotten borred in the least. Wish you could be here with us!!

Hi from inside Denali National Park!

2010-06-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

We are 53 miles inside the park today at a workcamp doing our laundry. They have several computers here that are available for employee use. Our campground is at mile 29 so we had 23 miles of the road that we were able to drive in our jeep. That is way cool because cars are not normally allowed to drive on the park road. the park road goes in about 90 miles or so and that's the only access by road in and out.

We had a great photo op on the way. A group of dall sheep were standing on the road so I got some great pictures. Unfortunately I will have to wait until I am able to use my computer before I can share them with you.

Last night there was a wolf in our camp although we didn't see it. He left his scat which is how we were able to ID it as a wolf. so I will have to be careful when walking Chena and we also will be advising tent campers to take care and also others with dogs. I may have to sit up all night and watch what goes through the park when most folks are sleeping!!

Monday or Tuesday we will drive out of the park to Fairbanks which is about 2 hours or so away to pick up supplies and something we need for the motorhome. I hope I will be able to post some photos then.

Dick is staying busy at the campground meeting and greeting. You know he is a natural for that! We have a radio & sat photo to communicate with park dispatch.

We are loving it to say the least!! I must say that we are not enjoying "feeding" the mosquitos though!!

Maggi and Dick

Solstice

2010-06-22T00:51:00.000-07:00

Today is the longest day of the year. It is almost midnight and it is quite light outside, the sun is still up. I could go outside and read a book without a light. Its a beautiful evening, I guess by lower 48 standards, it looks to be around 7:30 pm maybe. The sun will go down for a couple hours I guess but it definitely won't get dark!

Here are some photos of our trip into Denali:

We've gone nuts -

2010-06-22T00:44:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful 3 days in the park and saw lots of wildlife - bears, a wolf, arctic fox, moose, caribou, ptarmagin, loons, trumpeter swan, rabbits and squirrels! Oh yeah, LOTS of mosquitos and a few robins! We loved it so much that we decided to volunteer for the vacant campground host spot at the campground. This means that we will be camped at this campground through the end of July acting as campground hosts. Our duties will be to greet other campers and answer questions, make sure all food etc is kept secure and away from any wandering critters like BIG BROWN BEARS and help visitors with whatever they need. In exchange for that we will have a campsite provided to us as well as propane, fire wood, diesel fuel, water and sewer. No electricity - who needs it right?? LOL, we have a generator for any electrical needs that we may have. We will be able to drive out of the campground one day a week for grocery shopping (that will be 2 1/2 hrs away), laundry, internet and phone access. No we won't have a telephone and no wifi. Just us and the bears! We work 32 hours a week and can use the bus system as much as we like and also will have use of the National Park Service employee facilities. Work will be mostly hanging out in the campground so its not exactly hard work!! We are excited about it and think it will be a real adventure. I will only be able to update the blog once a week now but I will look forward to hearing from all of you as it will be our weekly connectio to the world.

At this point we haven't a clue as to what is going on in the world. I kind of like this oblivion!! We do check the stock market when we are able to make sure that we still have a retirement account.

Chena in her new back yard!!

America the Beautiful!

2010-06-22T00:31:00.000-07:00

I took this picture 66 miles into the park at the Eielson Visitor center. I just thought it was neat with the flag in the foreground and the beautiful Alaska range behind it.

Posting comments...

2010-06-16T18:04:00.000-07:00

If you wish to leave us a message you can click on comments and abox should open up where you can type a message. Then at the comment as box click on the arrow to see a drop down menu and select anonymous, then click the "Post Comment " box and hopefully your comment will post! Be sure to leave your name so we'll know who you are!!

Still in Fairbanks

2010-06-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

We are still in Fairbanks and enjoying playing tourist and visiting with friends. Last night we had dinner with a friend that I used to work with when we lived here. We had a great dinner of ribs, beer can chicken and risotto! It was great and I love eating other people's cooking! Our wonderful hosts:

We leave here on Friday morning heading to Denali National Park which is about 3 1/2 hours away. We are kind of excited about this trip as we will be camping 29 miles inside the park which is kind of special. There are only about 52 RV sites available inside the park and I never thought we'd be able to get a camping site at this late date but we lucked out on that! You have to stay a minimum of 3 nights so we will be out of touch for a while. No cell or Internet service. Just us, the bears, moose and wolves! It would be neat to hear the wolves howling as that's an Alaskan experience we've not had! We will be allowed to drive our RV only into the camp so we will have to leave our Jeep in an overflow parking site. The park has buses that go 90 some miles into the park and that is the only way you can visit. You are not allowed to drive your vehicle into the park unless you are going to the campground as we are. And for that we get a special permit that allows us to only drive in and drive out. We will be able to use the bus system inside the park as much as we want. The park services uses school buses and a round trip all the way into the park and out takes about 12 hours. No food or water is available in the park and there are only pit toilets. It is a long day to say the least! We will pack sandwiches and bring water of course!

There is one time a year when the park allows you to drive into the park in your own vehicle and that is the weekend closest to Sept 15th. You have to apply for a permit and the permits are chosen in a lottery drawing and 400 vehicles a day are allowed in for a four day weekend, weather permitting. Sometimes, weather closes the road and so you may only get in part way or not at all. We won the lottery twice and it was a wonderful experience to drive in. the animals seem to be very active that time of year as they are preparing for the winter that is arriving in Denali by mid-September.

We are being lazy today, we slept in until 9 am! I can't remember the last time I did that!! We are going to an antique car museum in a bit.

BTW, we have driven 5232 miles in the RV so far!

Hope everyone is having a great summer, wish you were here with us!

Good morning!

2010-06-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

Gee, we have no where to drive today! We're just going to hang out in Fairbanks and maybe get some laundry done. It is supposed to be a nice day - maybe Dick will fix the window on my jeep so that it goes up and down! That will be novel since it hasn't worked in several years.

We appreciate the comments you have left for us! We love hearing from all of you! Every campground that we have stayed in has had wi-fi but most of the time the reception in the RV is very poor if at all. Patiience is the name of the game as it takes a while to post anything. I have had a little more success in logging on than Dick has had. However, he has his Blackberry. Interesting that some of the time he has been able to receive emails on his Blackberry but couldn't make a phone call. We have great phone reception here in Fairbanks and will be here for several days if anyone needs to talk to us.

Melissa, we enjoyed our visit with you although it was brief! When we get back we hope to have more visiting time. I guess that depends on if your Dad goes back to work. Hugs and kisses to you and the family.

Lunch bunch, my ears burn every Thursday around noon! Now why is that?? LOL! Miss my lunches with all of you! Wish I could have brought you all with me.

WE are camped on the banks of the Chena river - that's the river that our Chena was named after. She loves reading her "pee" mail at each new stop!!

The beginning and the end...

2010-06-13T22:50:00.000-07:00

The beginning of the Alaska Highway: This sign used to be at the beginning in a round-a-bout but there were a lot of accidents so they moved it a block or so over - its not really at the beginning anymore.

And the end of the highway in Delta Junction, AK.

More bears along the way - this guy was an adult grizzly I'd guess, he was a nice size. Photo is not so great 'cause I took it through the window.

ALASKA!! – Saturday, June 12, 2010

2010-06-13T22:38:00.000-07:00

We made it!! We felt like silly little children grinning from ear to ear when we crossed the border because we were so excited to back in this state that we both love so much. We stopped and took pictures and chatted with some other travelers and then got back in the RV for the final leg of our journey. On this night we drove to Delta Junction, AK which is the official end of the Alaska Highway. It is raining in Alaska – oh well, wait 10 minutes and the weather will change.

Border crossing:

The weather – I must say that when I first stepped out of the motorhome in Denver and encountered nice cool, low humidity, air, I thought I had died and gone to heaven!! It was in the 70’s and I needed my polartec in the evening. As much as I love the south, I do really miss the low humidity of the west.

We have encountered a bit of rain here and there as well as winds that buffeted the motorhome a bit. But all in all, it’s been a great drive and the weather has been fairly nice. I think this morning, Sunday, June 13, was the worst when we drove the final 100 miles to Fairbanks from Delta Junction – it was rain all the way. We arrived in Fairbanks around 10:45 and checked into a campground that is conveniently located in town. Then we headed over to one of our favorite restaurants to enjoy a Sunday champagne brunch. We were happy to find out that some things had not changed!

After brunch we went and found our friends Lee and Anna that we know from our days in Colorado. They are work camping in Fairbanks this summer. We had a great visit with them and will plan to get together this week. We want to show them around Fairbanks a little bit and show them where we lived here.

By the way, it is now 8 pm and the sun is shining and its beautiful outside. The rain clouds have moved on and we are hoping for nice weather although we hear that rain is in the forecast for the rest of the week.

Thank goodness we have room darkening shades in the RV or I’d never get any sleep as we haven’t seen dark for several days now. It looks like its about 4 o’clock outside. Sunset is at 12:39 AM and sunrise is at 3:02 AM. Right now, sun up time is increasing about 3.5 minutes a day. On the longest day of the year a baseball game is played that begins at 10 pm and there are no lights on the field!

North Pole is a small town just outside of Fairbanks, obviously, its not the "real" north pole!

Postcard world

2010-06-13T22:29:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel like we are driving through a postcard because the world we are in is so beautiful. The road just keeps winding west and north. We are surprised at how little traffic we have encountered for each night at the campgrounds where we have stopped we see a lot of other RV’s and cars heading for Alaska. But it seems that on the road we are spaced out and the necessity of passing another vehicle has been very rare. Often we don’t see any other vehicles in front of us. The occasional truck passes us going south and I’m sad to say that several Walmart and Sams trucks have passed us!

Time and progress does indeed, march on, and we are surprised at how “things” have changed. There were a couple of nights during our 1995 move to Alaska that we had to stay in VERY OLD motels that only had locks on the inside so that when you left your room you had to leave it unlocked. Once we got a ways north up the highway, it seemed that everything was old and from a different era. Today, in 2010, we saw a lot of nice new hotels and motels and many franchises from the lower 48. I don’t think we would have had to stay in one of those old beaten up motels. It gave us an appreciation for our experience in 1995. We can only imagine what it must have been like for the hearty travelers of the 50’s through the 70’s and even into the 80’s when the Alaska Highway was largely gravel and services were few and far between.

Kluane Lake has to be one of the most beautiful mountain lakes I've ever seen. These pictures don't do it justice. When the sun is shining, the water is a turquoise blue. That surrounded by snowcapped mountains is a sight to see!

Construction and Frost Heaves!

2010-06-13T22:22:00.000-07:00

When we drove to Alaska in 1995 we encountered a lot of road construction along the way. At times we would have to wait for 30 minutes or more for the “Follow Me” truck to lead us through the maze of construction equipment. There were a couple of occasions in the construction zones where we were driving on roadbeds that consisted of baseball size rocks. Mom and Dad also came through this kind of construction when they visited us in 1996 they cracked the windshield, headlights and incurred much paint chipping from the flying gravel on their just about new Honda Accord. So we decided we would be prepared, both having been scouts and all that! Dick built a really substantial shield to protect our Jeep from the flying rocks. Well we encountered almost no road construction the entire trip and what little we did encounter consisted of nicely graded gravel roadbed that was actually better than the paved roads. And that leads me to tell you about frost heaves!

Frost heaves occur when a road is built over permafrost which is permanently frozen ground. When the surface is paved it causes the earth beneath the road bed to heat up, thus melting the permafrost turning it to a jello-like consistency. The melting causes the road bed to “heave” creating a highway that is much like a roller coaster with dips that can be as much as a foot. It heaves from side to side as well front to back. Imagine cruising along at 55 mph and hitting this, you will be AIRBORN! We just heard about several people who broke their tow bars between their motorhomes and tow vehicle because they were unaware of the seriousness of frost heaves. We thought the frost heaves were much worse on this trip than before and that is because the road is older now. Frost heaves are a way of life up here and engineers are still trying to devise a road construction method that will preserve the permafrost. We passed over several experimental sections of highway on our way north.

Ooops, forgot this picture!

2010-06-11T07:49:00.000-07:00

I love getting good bear photos - this guy was along the side of the road. He wasn't too big so I'm guessing he was a juvenile that was recently separated from his Mom.

Wildlife sightings!

2010-06-10T18:27:00.000-07:00

Before we left Dawson Creek we went to the museum and saw a film about the building of the Alaska Highway. It was quite the engineering feat and was completed in about 8 months which is really incredible . It really speaks to the need of the military and the gumption of all those involved in punching the road through. Today, the highway has been rebuilt so that it is an easy trip. Here and there we can see where the original road was. The highway has been rebuilt, straightening it and leveling some of the climbs. It is actually shorter today than it was when built.

After leaving Dawson Creek we spotted 2 adult black bear! Unfortunately, I couldn't get the camera lens cover off in time so no photo....Then Dick saw 2 juvenile black bears on his side but I couldn't see them. We also saw a young male moose, a few deer and an owl. Bad camera day - no pictures!

We arrived in Fort Nelson in time to visit the museum there. They had a nice collection of old cars, trucks, and highway memorabila among other "stuff".

We left Fort Nelson this morning headed up the road to Watson Lake where there is the neatest "sign forest." There are thousands of signs from all over the world there that people have nailed up. We were looking for a Spring Hope sign that my parents said they put up in 1996 or 1997 but we coul\dn;t find it however, we did find this one that Dick's cousin put up in 2008.

Today was an interesting day. We drove in and out of rain and sunshine and met alot of critters along the way. These are Stone Sheep along the highway. they look more like goats than sheep but they are sheep. I took the photo out the front window so its not such a great shot.

The day got even better when we saw this big guy and his herd along the road. The babies were so cute headbutting each other.

Wi-fi on the road is not all its cracked up to be! Most of the campgrounds we have been at have Wi-fi but it doesn't work so well. I think I am lucky if I get all this posted!

We are having a wonderful time and enjoying the roadtrip! Hope to see more moose tomorrow!!

Made it to Dawson Creek

2010-06-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

You know we had big grins on our faces when we saw this sign even though Alaska is still a long, long ways! Something like 1400 - 1500 miles I think.

We made it to Dawson Creek which is where the Alaska Highway begins. The highway is about 1500 miles long and was built during WWII to facilitate the movement of troops and support from the lower 48 to Alaska so that the US could protect itself from the Japanese. The Japanese actually did occupy a small portion of Alaska along the Aleutian Islands. I will bone up on my history of this famous highway tomorrow when we visit the museum!

We were driving through Alberta most of the day today and just entered British Columbia before calling it quits for the day in Dawson Creek. We left the praries where we saw so much canola, barley, wheat, and hay growing and entered the rolling hills where you see lots of telephone poles, black spruce, birch and aspen trees, and only the occasional house. We also saw many large herds of cattle and even a few bison herds. Still we could tell that there has been alot of building in the area and the towns look to be thriving with lots of new construction. We were told that there has been an oil boom in the area and that has cotnributed much to the increased town size and populations. It is beautiful country here, the sky is so big and the vistas go forever. For part of our drive we could see the Canadian Rockies to the west and that reminded me alot of Colorado where the mountains just rise off the prarie. Many of the mountain tops were snow capped and it was so beautiful!!

We drove through some rain yesterday and our Canadian friends lived on a dirt road so the lower part of the motorhome is a muddy mess now but that is to to be expected along the Highway. Near the end of the Alaska Highway, RV washing is a big business as everyone comes off the road looking like they've been 4-wheeling in their RVs! There is a lot of road construction going on and that entails driving on gravel and dirt roads at times. They water the road to help keep the dust down so even if there's no rain, you still get good and muddy!

Well it is 10 pm and still quite light out. We may be in total daylight by tomorrow night.I'm glad we've got good shades in the RV!

Well I must get to bed, tomorrow is another fun filled day on the road!

Waving hi from Canada!!

2010-06-07T21:01:00.000-07:00

We are parked at a friend's house 40 miles west of Red Deer which is about an hour north of Calgary. I met Wendy on the web in 2005 on a scrapbooking website and we have become web friends. It was really great to meet her in person after five years! She and her family live on a big farm so we have really enjoyed learning all about their farm. They have about 200 head of cattle and they grow wheat, canola, barley and hay. I was flabbergasted at the size of one of their the tractors, it made me feel very, very small! Was fun learning about farming here in the north!

Hello to my lunchbunch! I hope all of you are having a great summer. Now don't go talking about me too much while you eat lunch!! :-)

We brought Parker's BarBQue with us for our friends Willie and Jodi in Denver. I fried some corn bread for them too, they loved it! I made some field peas for our Canadian friends tonight and they treated us to home grown steaks. They loved the peas. Next time we are through I told them I would bring them a southern meal. Wish I had some grits with me as they asked me about those too.

Tomorrow we head towards the Alcan highway, the beginning is Dawson Creek - don't know how far we'll get and don't really care! From here on we are just gonna chug along at whatever pace feels good.

We got stopped at the border and searched again! This happened to us last summer when we went to the Maritime Provinces. I don't know.....maybe Dick looks like a thug?

Chena is doing better and seems to have settled into the routine. At first I think she was a little concerned about what was going on. Perhaps she was wondering where Chili was. I think she may have thought we were taking her away. She seems ok now, thankfully!

It is 10 pm and there is still light in the sky. It won't be long before we will have daylight 24/7. That takes a little getting used to, but it is great once you adjust.

That's all the news from the northwest for now! Hope everyone is well and happy!

On the road again!

2010-06-05T19:16:00.000-07:00

We're in Billings, Montana tonight! We had a great, but busy visit in Denver. Dick and I both visited our work places in Denver Friday and had lunch with former co-workers. We also had dinner & champagne with our dear friends Willie and Jodi. Wednesday I spent the entire day shopping for a few necessities while Dick and Willie replaced the batteries in the RV. We saved $200 + by stopping through Denver for new RV batteries. Thursday was laundry day and Chena's bath day. Friday was lunch with co-workers and get ready to hit the road again today, Saturday.

The "mechanics":

We are feeling really Alaskan now as we have added some duct tape to our car window. All good Alaskans use duct tape! My passenger window has not worked for several years other than intermittently and all of a sudden the window just fell down. The motor wouldn't put it back up so we were able to push it up only for the window to fall back down again. So we are using the duct tape to hold the window up. In the meantime Dick was able to find a complete motor assembly in Denver so he will be able to fix that. I told him that we should leave the duct tape so that we would look like Alaskans! HA!

My pilot:

Beautfiful Wyoming and Montana:

Wiile, Maggi, Dick, Jodi

Chena is not spoiled......

2010-06-01T20:45:00.001-07:00

Chena eating her dinner......

In Denver!

2010-06-01T20:26:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Denver this evening around 6:30 pm. It feels kind of good to be back here - and we are so loving the weather!! it is cool enough outside now to wear a jacket and turn off the A/C, no humidity!! Oh I miss this particular aspect of the west, I wonder if I'll ever get used to the humidity! The days will be warm but it cools off so nicely at night. Must say I can feel the change in altitude!

The wind was fierce coming across Kansas, a really strong and steady cross wind buffeted us most of the way thru Kansas. That's not all that unusual, we were just glad there were no severe weather in the forecast and no tornados! We drove thru Kansas in 2007 and we just missed severe weather by a day and we were running a day ahead of schedule. Had we not been a day ahead we would have been in the middle of some very deadly tornados that wiped out a town in Kansas. Was fun seeing the windmill farms in Kansas - There were windmills as far as you could see for a few miles. That's not something we see on the east coast.

The next few days will be busy as we get ready to start our journey to Alaska. I have grocery shopping & laundry to do. Hmm, that's not much like vacation.... We have friends coming over tomorrow night for dinner. They visited us over New Year's and they feel in love with eastern NC barbeque so we brought some with us from Parkers. I'm going to fry some cornbread to go with it and maybe make some field peas!

Just click on the comment button if you want to leave us a message. We hope you are all well!

On the road

2010-05-29T13:36:00.000-07:00

I love this! I am writing this as we cruise down I-20 in the rain. We just left Dick's daughter's house a bit ago and are now headed to Memphis. We should get through Atlanta in a couple hours, hope the traffic's not too bad there. It's 4:30 so I don't know how far we'll get tonight.

Corey's graduation was nice, about 225 in the senior class and can you believe the ceremony only took an hour?

Egads it is raining elephants, not much visibility at the moment..

Well we are officially on the road. We had to buy Chena, the dog, a sweater today as she got cold last night. I guess she missed having Chili to snuggle up with so she got in bed with us.

Laugh for the hour, a guy just passed us with what used to be a nice set of pillow top mattresses. But do you think they were wrapped in plastic? Nah, why would you do that? duh..... he may as well throw them off on the side of the road for they are ruined now!!

Well not much to report in this early part of the trip. Maybe we'll have a photo of the graduate tomorrow.

Take care friends and thanks for checking in with us!

Some background

2010-05-27T08:38:00.001-07:00

Dick and I lived in Alaska from 1995 - 2000. It was, without a doubt, the greatest experience of our lives and we love Alaska like no other place on this earth.    We've experienced REALLY REALLY cold temperatures and loved the novelty of it! I saw -53ºF while there and yes, your tires do get "square" and you just can't imagine how frozen and cold a vehicle can be when its been soaking outdoors in those kind of temps!

During our time there we had a pickup camper and spent our summers camping and driving. We haven't come to a complete agreement on our favorite vacation but its between our trip through the Yukon and Northwest Territories to Inuvik, Katmai National Park, or our trip to Cordova.

The trip to Inuvik took us on mostly gravel road to within a 20 minute plane ride of the Arctic Ocean. If you've watched Ice Road Truckers you may have seen something of Inuvik. We rode on a very small airplane from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk so that we could dip our toes in the Arctic Ocean.   This was really a spectacular vacation - a trip to Inuvik is definitely worth the time and effort if you ever get a chance. The road to Inuvik crosses mountains and plains and is just a long ride through awesome scenery unblemished by civilization for the most part.

To get to Cordova, you have to take a ferry or airplane 'cause you can't drive there! Out of Cordova is a 50 mile gravel road that takes you to the Million Dollar Bridge and Childs Glacier. The glacier is undercut by the Copper River and so the glacier cracks and falls into the river and the accompanying noise is like a warzone!! The force of the ice hitting the river throws boulders and fish onto the river banks and eagles and bears anxiously await these easy meals.

I'd have to say my very favorite trip was to Katmai National Park where we were up close and personal with lots of big brown bears! I mean close like less than 50 yards. Like good friends close, LOL!!   If you want to go to Katmai and stay overnight, you generally have to plan at least a year in advance, but it is completely worth it!

We begin our journey tomorrow, good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise, as we say here in the South!

The pictures you see are photos I took on our various vacations when we lived in Alaska and a few from a quick trip in March of 2007. Please leave us a message and let us hear from you!

Hello friends!

2010-05-24T18:41:00.001-07:00

In just a few days we'll be on the road and we are so ready to go! But geez, we are plagued with problems right now, the radio in the RV isn't working so Dick replaced that this evening. Can you imagine 12,000 miles without a radio??

And there's some pesky problem with the brakes, the brake light keeps coming on - that's not too bad but the awful loud ding, ding, ding alarm that accompanies the brake light drove us CRAZY today as we returned from a quick trip to Virginia to visit Dick's brother and SIL. They live in the beautiful Virginia mountains so that was a nice prelude to our coming trip.

Our first stop on our trip will be in SC to see our grandson graduate from high school. Oh my, I can't believe he is old enough for that! After a couple nights in SC, we will head to Memphis to visit with Dick's Mom and sister. From there, we'll head to Denver where we will replace some old RV batteries. Good batteries are a definite must as we'll be doing alot of dry camping and probably won't use the generator very much.

So here it Monday night and I've got only 3 days to finish getting ready. Tomorrow the RV will be in the shop (to work on that brake light) so ....guess I will clean house as I don't want to come home to a dirty house!

We hope that you'll check our blog now and then to find out where we are and what we're up too. Until then, we wish you a great summer!