Anchorage, next to the last day

Today was a down day where we just took it easy.  We had an incredible lunch at Humpy’s, aptly named for the shape of salmon.  Lunch consisted of battered and deep fried Alaskan cod and chips.  It was mucho delicious.  Tomorrow we will kiss the RV on the nose and say thanks for getting us here and so long, amigo.

One of our RV neighbors who lives here in the park (there appear to be a number of them) introduced me to his husky yesterday.  The dog goes a long way toward speaking English.  He really does say, “I love you.” 

Wish my eyes were the color of his.  Blue, blue, blue. 

So, today the neighbor tells me to wait a minute and into his motor home he goes and comes out with a tiny little angel.  See pictures.

Is that cute, or what?  I got some major dog-fix off this little one.  Neck sugar and more neck sugar!

Okay, tomorrow we will be on our way to Florida and our own furry family.  Can’t wait to see them.

Northwestward Ho to Anchorage

Yes, this is an example of the roads we have been on for several days.  Thank goodness, we have finished the last mile of rough road and bumps and dips, and copious potholes, bad patches and gravel stretches followed by mostly badly paved stretches of highway.  

We are sitting in the RV in the same park where we stayed last year after going to the airport and renting a car so we can get around between now and Tuesday afternoon when our flight departs.

Parked behind us is a Chalet with the tag number of FUN 231; our tag last year was FUN 232.  HA, what a coinkidink, huh?  I took lots of pictures of mountains today but I can’t put all of them on the blog so I’ll try to put some of them on here and some on Facebook. 

 

Then there was the glacier that has dissipated over the millennia.  We drove down an impassible gravel road with ess curves, blind curves and a single lane wooden bridge.  We thought $100 was a bit pricey for a guided tour so we went back up the horrible road, over the even more horrible bridge and stopped at a scenic overlook and good passable pictures.  Cannot imagine how it could have been worth that much money to see it up close and personal. 

The mountain range that we followed today was the Chugach Mountains and had some very impressive peaks and glaciers.  The second mountain picture is of Mt. Sanford which is over 16,000 feet high.  Click on the picture to make it bigger and look above the cloud cover.  It's a monster.   We crossed many creeks and rivers, some big, some small, but all moving rapidly.  Some of them were gray and cloudy with the material from the glaciers above and others were crystal clear. 

We traveled 276 miles today which gave us a total of 5769 miles for the trip.  My fanny feels every one of those miles.   This picture shows us pulled over as far as we could safely go, waiting for this bus to pass.  A truck was in front of it with a sign saying two buses were following.  We were grateful when that was over.  Just another scary day on the Alaska Highway.   

Tomorrow is Memorial Day so I don’t know how much will be open but Anchorage is a tourist town so we may find things happening.  Anyway, we have most of Tuesday to sightsee and shop for doodads before our plane departs at 5:00.  After we leave Anchorage, we have a layover in Seattle, then Cleveland, then to Orlando where we land at 11:15 a.m., June 1^st.  I’ll probably be crabby by that time.

Alaska Highway north in the Yukon and Alaska

Guess I spoke too soon when I bragged about the Alaska Highway being not as bad as the Alcan through the Yukon. Today, we drove 170 miles on the worst stretch of road on which we have driven – other than the Alcan, that is. At this point, neither of us can say which road was worse. We arrived at our home-away-from-home this afternoon beaten to a pulp. The scenery was worth all of the discomfort as we travelled on a road named “The Top of the World.” What breathe taking panoramas of valleys and low lying mountains.

BUT: We spent the night in Dawson City as mentioned in the last post. The ferry across the Yukon River was memorable, at least to me, since swift currents and raging waters are not in my list of favorite things or things to participate in. We waited while the ferry disgorged its travelers on the other side and then for its return to our side of the river. Did I mention raging river?  

Alright, in spite of all my phobias, we made it across without incident and went on our merry way toward the US border which is located at Poker Creek, Alaska, which is the northern most point of entry into the US. When we got there, the affable border guard offered that he had a stamp of a caribou and asked if we would like him to stamp our passports with the icon at Poker Creek, Alaska. I jumped at the chance. Love the stamp on my passport. The population of Poker Creek is two, and I think we saw both of them in the guard post upon our US entry. We wondered what these two guys did to draw duty in Poker Creek. 

We saw this young moose today.  Hard to get a proper photo though. 

We are in an RV park that is off the beaten path and the woman who is the owner is admirable to say the least. She’s pushing 70 and is riding an ATV pulling a trailer with a log on it and told me that she had been painting. She says she built this place and has been here 50 years. We are lucky because she opened only three days ago. We hope to see Mt. Sanford (16,237 ft.) in the morning. There was rain in between us and the mountain when we arrived this afternoon which obscured our vision of the mountain. It appeared to be covered in snow and must be a sight when the weather allows.

We had lunch in a turn out at West Fork Dennison River where Cliff fulfilled one of my wishes from last year by trudging out into the muskeg (wet bog stuff) to a dead Black Spruce tree where he used his trusty hatchet to chop it down and harvest about a foot of the trunk. These trees grow so slowly and I can’t wait to cut it into one-inch slices and polish them so that I can count the rings to see how old the tree was when it died. 

We finished listening to our audio book today. It was “Treasures of Khan” written by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler. It was 15 disks long and was a great asset to our trip. When driving on the Alaska Highway or the Alcan, one needs distraction from the pain of the roadway.

There are 18 mosquitoes on the window screen beside me trying to get in and “suck our blood” but we will not be their victims. Bless the person who invited screening!

Tomorrow, on to Anchorage.  Picture of the day:

Northern Yukon and upward

There was nothing in our travels that made for adventure today, not even $6.00 a gallon gas. We left our spot in the Boya Lake Provincial (as in Providence) Park this morning at about 7:30 and set out for Dawson City, Yukon Territory. The park gave me some opportunities for great shots across the lake. However, I walked on pine tar and maples blossoms that stuck to the tar which made me very annoyed when I got back to the RV and found that I could not wear my shoes inside the RV. Grrrrr. Took a while to get them clean. Two days, to be exact.

We decided that the Klondike Highway is an improvement over the Alcan through the Yukon that we took last year. It still had some rough spots on it but nothing like the Alcan. The only wildlife we saw today (other than signs alerting us to wildlife) was a snowshoe rabbit, that narrowly escaped demise under the wheels on the right side of the RV, a couple of chipmunks, a ground squirrel and a red fox with what appeared to be a ground squirrel in its mouth. So much for the fauna in the Yukon. Yawn. Guess we got lucky yesterday.

Dawson City was home to Jack London and Robert Service, who is Cliff’s favorite poet. He was looking forward to finding a saloon where he had heard that an enthusiast recited Service’s poems. It seems that the person is no longer performing, but we walked down the street to see if the village hawkers had anything with which we could not live without. Having lived in tourist traps all our lives, we recognize merchandize which is now made in China, when we see it. There were some pretty things, but nothing tempting enough to buy.

In the last two days, we have encountered foreigners who are on tour in motor homes for four to five weeks. Hope they brought lots of money and go into Alaska and spent lots of it. We met them last year also.

We are sitting here at 1000 +/- feet with occasional snow on the ground in transit today and it is 83 degrees outside and down to 91 inside the tube. I didn’t pack shorts because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t need them. HA. And because I don’t know nothing ‘bout ‘lectricity, I told the park shopkeep that we only needed 15 amp, not 30 amp. So, here we are, sweltering in the Yukon heat, with no air conditioning. Lord, have mercy. I won’t make that mistake again.

We have to take a ferry across the Yukon River tomorrow to be on our way to the good old US of A and Anchorage. Really looking forward to being on a ferry across a raging river. NOT! Beyond that we have a bunch of miles of unpaved or gravel road before getting to the real road. Well, we will overcome. The pioneering spirit lives in us.

After we were settled in our campsite tonight, another of our bunch of Great Alaskan Holidays people came in and I talked to them briefly. Then a little while later, in comes another one. Of course, I walked over and talked to them too. Well, I’m so excited to find that they are Iva and David Sloan, who have done this rental trek 14 times. They are from California and are such nice people. I really enjoyed talking to them. Hope we will see them again.

The plan for tomorrow, Saturday, is to drive to a campground near Slana, Alaska, and then on to Anchorage on Sunday. Like last year, we will rent a car at the airport and then do some tourist things in Anchorage. After that, we will turn in the RV to Great Alaskan Holidays on Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Our fight out of Anchorage is at 5:00/ish. Time to kill.

Can’t believe that the time is almost over and it’s almost time to go home.

Finally out of British Columbia -- Hello Yukon!

Driving 45 miles an hour on average is tedious for most of us, but when you are on a road that is marked with red flags that warn you to “SLOW” because there is a very rough spot in the road, you just don’t want to go too much faster. Then there’s the fact that at some points the road is too wide and that at others, it is too narrow. It was pleasing, however, that we traveled for miles and miles without seeing another vehicle or human being. We could actually stop on the roadway and be certain that no one was going to be troubled by it.

We saw miles and miles of beautiful territory, but during the last 50 or so miles before we joined the Al-Can Highway, we saw the damage that a forest fire can do. It was horrifying to see.

Yesterday, we stopped at a place that claims to sell jade that is harvested locally. It probably is, but most of the merchandise looked like it came from China. A sales person told me that all of it was designed by them and manufactured in China. I’ve seen a lot of what they were selling at wholesale jewelry shows. Liked the rocks and the rock saws that were on display, but couldn’t “buy” into the rest of the story. 

We finally made it to Whitehorse, which is a good sized town by Western Canadian standards. Got gas, pickles, relish, and coffee flavored drinks and found a really nice campground that has fairly good WiFi.

Today, we saw two black bears, a porcupine (actually one alive and one more that was a little run down), a chipmunk who was hauling some major stuff across the highway, two moose and a squil, as in Rocky and Bullwinkle. 

We spent the night in a Provential park by a beautiful lake.  The picture is in the morning but I got some beauts the night before.  We traveled 316 miles today and unlike most days stopped around three o’clock and have enjoyed sitting on something that is not moving. Cliff made spaghetti with sausage and angel hair pasta for supper and as always when Cliff cooks, it was delicious. Had part of a Columbia Winery Cellarmaster’s Riesling, 2009, and it was very
good, if a little sweet for spaghetti.

We are now winding down and thinking about what we want to do between now and Tuesday morning when we turn in the RV. Tomorrow we are going to Dawson City where Cliff hopes to find somebody who will recite poems written by his favorite poet, Robert Service. There may actually be some other things of interest there. We shall see.

There is a lot of activity in the park and we are glad that we got here early. Looks like a busy night for this park.

Day three in British Columbia – May 25th

Well, today we paid our dues. We decided to take the westerly route to the Yukon and had been told that six miles were unpaved. HA! Most of the way through the north BC is “sort” of paved but not really. The GPS kept calling it “unpaved road”, but some of it passed as paved but had no stripes down the middle, not to mention the sides of the roads. Ugly, spoiled Americans that we are. The really good thing about taking the route through the wilderness is that we saw some really good wildlife. We saw two rabbits, three ptarmigan (birds), one mouse, six mule deer, one caribou and NINE black bears. Hope to see a grizzly tomorrow or the next day. Today was not much fun for me because of my phobias of water, heights and Cliff’s driving too fast for conditions. My stomach muscles are probably improved over yesterday.

The picture of the bear shown here cannot be topped. I couldn’t believe my luck to find a bear actually doing its business in the woods! Do you think I laughed and bounced in my seat??? You would be correct if you guessed yes.  There was no Charmin handy or rabbits with Teflon fur.

We made our first sighting of another Great Alaskan Holiday RV this afternoon when we stopped in some really remote spot of 58 +/- residents to buy gas. BTY, that gas was $5.76 American dollars. Oh well, we can’t just abandon the RV on the side of the road, can we? Besides how would we get to Anchorage to catch the plane home???

We are in a Provincial park tonight by Boya Lake and it is beautiful!! The generator has decided to be persnickety so we had to deal with cold butter. Hope Cliff can find the solution in the morning. If not, we’ll cope. We had trouble with the generator last year too. This is why Great Alaskan Holidays lets us rent this vehicle for much less than regular – we call it a “shake-down” cruise. Working the bugs out before they rent it to people who pay full price and expect excellence.

Some of the areas that we passed through today were very depressed and showed signs of poverty. Sadly, I suspect most of them were inhabited by indigenous people. Not an expression of prejudice, just the facts.

Tonight, we had the third of our meals on the rainbow trout that I caught. It was augmented with fresh tomato and Vidalia onion over rice. Delicious, the leftovers will go into a bear-proof trash can tomorrow. New food tomorrow.

On the subject of bears: We could not believe our eyes when we sighted the second one and saw that a van was stopped by the bear which was very near the roadway. A woman was standing in front of the van taking pictures of the bear. She had a very long lens on her camera and I failed to see why she was standing within 15 feet of the bear and needed that sophisticated equipment. I was able to get a great shot with my plain camera (see right pic) and I did not put myself or the bear in peril. Let’s say the bear attacked her, who would be to blame??? What an idiot. Can’t imagine what was so important. Silly me.

Here is a picture of the typical road on which we travelled today. Does it remind you of a rollercoaster? Me, too. 

Northern Washington and British Columbia, Canada – Monday, May 23, 2011

We started our day at a KOA park south of Seattle, and so far, we’ve done absolutely nothing but move northward. Okay, we stopped for lunch at a turnout beside the Frasier River and Gorge. After seeing the churning waters of the river I decided that it would not be wise to either fall overboard or jump into that water. Made my skin crawl. We followed the gorge for what seemed like forever and on occasion it was beautiful. The Canadian Rockies impressed me – just like they were last year.

We bought a few supplies at a really nice Safeway (it was Publix-quality) in Bellingham and some Washington wine a lot cheaper than at home (yes, again). Wish we could have visited the vineyard for Chateau St. Michelle near Yakima but it was not on the schedule. The Safeway had a deli display of olives and other goodies which we availed ourselves of and they made up a large part of our lunch on the gorge. Greek olives, Greek olives with feta cheese, with pickled garlic – you’ve got the picture. It was all very delicious and we savored each and every bite.

We made it through the checkpoint at the Canadian border, probably because we look like old farts. Now, we have to sweat getting back into the good ole US of A. Passports are in order. But, unlike last year when we took the northern route and crossed into Canada at this same port of entry, we saw none of the other folks renting RVs for Great Alaskan Holidays. 

On the road north we saw the RV park were we stayed last year near Cache Creek but proceeded up the road to another park. We are backed up to Lac la Hache, a beautiful sight to see. It looks deep and probably has the coveted walleye in it. 

Canadian gas comes in liters and costs $5.00 a gallon and we have filled up once and still have at least three days before we are in Alaska. The good news, like last year, is that our gas mileage has improved and is now up to 8.2 miles to the gallon. Breaking in a Ford 350 is painful at the gas pump.

Although Cliff went in person to our Wachovia/Wells Fargo bank before we left and told them that we would be on the road and not to block our cards, we still encountered their rejecting of our card at this park tonight. After my call to the “Customer Service” person, I found out that they blocedk it after we bought gas after entering British Columbia. It seems that one must pay before pumping so the card has to be approved for a guessed-at prepaid amount (to avoid drive offs) that you think you might need. Well, that pre-approval process lead to the blocking. Thank you, Wells Fargo, for looking out for our best interests. Apparently, the computer has more power than the human Cliff talked too. It’s no surprise since it happened last year too. It’s true, it’s always something.

We have been amazed at the fields of dandelions along our route.  I noticed it last year, but the route we have taken this year has many, many more fields.  It appears that they grow in the crops that get harvested for wintering the livestock. 

Slow WiFi tonight.  Will catch up posts later with better speed.