Hello From Alaska

4,500 miles – Days 21 thru 26 - Part 1

To get out of Dawson City in the Yukon we took a ferry across the Yukon River. Coyote was hitching a ride here. 

Entered Alaska on Monday, June 15 on day 20, via the ‘Top of the World Road’

      For those who know our 1-mile gravel, twisty road with switchbacks to our home in Colorado … multiply that by 175 miles and run it along the top of the mountain ridges from Dawson City to Tok, Alaska. (Yea!… no flat tires, no cracked windows). About half way along that road we crossed the international border and dug out our passports. Then closer to the end, we lunched at Chicken, Alaska (they couldn’t pronounce or spell Ptarmigan) .. Good chicken soup there also.

Raffi (baby coyote’s new name … short for Rafael) and Vicki enter Alaska … finally!

FAIRBANKS

Now Fairbanks was supposed to be a couple days … but a medical mishap needed to be dealt with, so we booked an RV Park for 6 days and decided to see as much of Fairbanks as we could. Well, there is certainly much to see! So pictures … that do better justice than paragraphs.  

Dogs … Mush dogs, sled dogs.

We had an image of fluffy Alaskan huskies … but our notion was quashed when we saw this demonstration. These are lean mean machines, these puppies.  And they really do love, I mean LOVE to run. We listened to Jack London’s ‘Call of the Wild’ driving here and it was a perfect set up to see this.

Sea Planes

… everywhere… mostly on the water. Although just behind this one in the picture is a short landing strip above the beach if they had their wheels on.

Weather

Everyone is asking how cold it is here. This dispels that impression also. We have not worn jackets or turned on a heater for over two weeks.  Wish we'd brought shorts.

 And the sun

ALWAYS.  Dan’s new joke is “Let’s hurry up and get there before it gets dark.” Dark sets the next morning at quarter to 1:00 a.m. and morning is at 3:00 a.m. Even the two hours after sunset till dawn is not dark … just dusk.

However, we figured out the trick for making it dark … close your eyes.

We checked out the Alyeska Pipeline, did some gold panning (mine was worth $14; his was $20); and found a baby pony … he stood only to my knees.

OK ... now you'll have to go check out the next post ... 'Fairbanks' for the rest of the story.

Fairbanks

Part 2 of "Hello from Alaska" Days 21 thru 26 - continued.....

Sunday Mass

     We again returned to familiarity and an opportunity to express gratitude for all the incredible natural and man-made marvels we’ve been privileged to experience. Even here at this little church (Immaculate Conception) we were blessed.

The University of Alaska Museum

This was a impressive museum … thanks for the suggestion, Randy. This was more history (which I love) then was natural exhibits, yet lots of nature in the way of  a standing 8’9” grizzly and a polar bear and lots of all the other animals found in the north.  Also a charming art gallery of local artists … past and present.

A grizzly standing that tall would not even notice my bear spray!

Other Goodies

We also had dinner at a Salmon Bake on Pioneer Park … mmm good … salmon, prime rib, crab legs, salad, desserts and beverages all included.

For those who geocache … they brought us to some great places not found in those pesky tour books.

As this is the summer solstice, there are many kinds of celebrations around Fairbanks, a midnight baseball game (we didn’t go); a Run to the Midnight Sun 10K that started at 10:00 p.m.(we went and watched - lots of strollers and wheel chairs and crazy costumes and even some racers with numbered t-shirts); and a street fair … we went and scored a lot of free stuff and bought some souvenirs.

Saturday found us doing our own 10K. Thanks to our Fitbit … we clocked 16,580 steps which is 6.8 miles. Thanks to our girls for that little toy.

A mystery solved.

At every parking lot … grocery stores, college, etc. we saw some strange posts. Electrical outlets for every parking spot. We thought maybe for electric vehicles. No … heating for the winter. I’m sure they wanted their cars to start at negative 40 degrees when they came out of the stores. So … cords hanging out of every car grill.

     Now you don’t find that in the tour guides!

New Friends

Finally Raffi Coyote (in the center) wants you to meet his new friends (he is as friendly as the people here)… a red fox and a baby grizzly.

Denali Next

Tomorrow morning we head to Denali. We’ll be camping at Teklanika campground 29 miles inside the park. Remember the sunset painting I found in the doctor’s office before we left home? Reports are that this remarkable weather also provides great clear views of Mount Denali. Sure hope so!

I suspect as this is cold-camping (boondocking) ... we will not have Wi-Fi. So adios for a week. 

3000 miles

Three Thousand Miles

Day 17, 18, 19, & 20

Hit the 3,500 mile mark! Living on the road is becoming less of a novelty and more of regular routine. Beginning to remember where we put things; who is responsible for what … bedding, meals, repairs, driving, and activities. Dan’s the chauffeur, mechanic, handyman and the chef (evening meals). Vicki is the short order cook, maid, excursion planner, relief driver and map specialist. We stay to about 300-350 miles a day and stop along the way frequently ...  whatever pops up along the way or is touted in the Milepost. Sometimes we stay 2 nights.

     Three weeks heading to Alaska and given that was (and still is) the original goal, we’re discovering Canada has much to offer. British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon Territory … long drives, expansive vistas, friendly people. First Nation museums everywhere … even on rest stops and next to gas stations. The picture is a canoe at the Teslin Tlingit Heritage Center.

     Water is everywhere, rivers, lakes, creeks … the roads follow the rivers. Watson Lake is 76 miles long and two miles wide and we traveled the entire length of it. The Yukon River and its tributaries follow us everywhere we go. As we journey north the roads are less kindly … still paved for the most part, but rough with frost heaves that have been patched in a potholed, irregular kind of way; and stretches of gravel.

Gold Rush

 We left the Alaska Highway in Whitehorse and headed due north to Dawson City (still in Canada). This was the goal of the 40,000 crazed gold rush stampeders in 1896. Michener’s ‘Alaska’ told wild tales of the Chilkoot trail and the Yukon River adventures of these daring but totally unprepared travelers. We walked in their footsteps, exploring those trails and visiting the buildings still standing. We took a walking tour of Dawson City and heard the tales of survival and craziness in that captivating time of American History.

Midnight Sun

What is interesting about this picture of Dan by the Yukon is not the river and not the great scenery, but the fact that it is 10:00 p.m. and the sun will not set for two more hours. But no worries ... it will return in four hours.

Gratitude Expressed

We attended Mass in Whitehorse just before we left and the comforting familiarity offered a contrast to all the new and unusual experiences. The banner hanging beside the altar is remarkable. The symbolism reveals the salmon swimming upstream through the canyons, the Yukon River, the gold, the snow, the church, the mountains and of course, the midnight sun … superb artwork.

Critter Count

     The critter count stands at 7 bears, 2 moose, 6 mosquitoes (intimately met), a flock of Geese heading north and 1 wooly mammoth (discovered at the Beringia Museum). Beringia is the name of the land bridge between Asia and Alaska thousands of years ago during the Ice Age.

Next ... Driving the Top of the World Road to Chicken and then Alaska!

Sasquatch, Speeding, 1908 Buick & Hot Water

Day 14, 15 & 16

The Prince George to Dawson Creek stretch yielded two places of interest. This is the Bijoux Waterfall. (Thanks to Wendell and Bijou for telling us about this!)

Sasquatch spotted!

Each year a select 12 chainsaw carvers from countries around the world are invited to a competition. The results are set around the town of Chetwynd … the Chainsaw Carving Capital of the World. These are little coyote’s favorites.

   Mile O 

Traffic laws in Canada

     We saw a sign that said “If you hate speeding tickets, raise your right foot.” Another declares ‘Speeding cars are impounded’.

Meet Mary and Johnny … young, audacious and caught! We met Mary and Johnny at the Fort Nelson visitor center. Maps and travel brochures spread out on a table, all their possessions scattered around them on the floor. What can they do for seven days? Yes, their car was confiscated for a seven-day time-out. She is from France, he from Belgium. Their attitude is one door closed, another opened. They had hit the road in a jeep, sleeping in the car or in a tent. Started in Vancouver and driving north 2,500 miles, heading for the Arctic Sea at Prudhoe Bay … they certainly are daring.

Peoples

      We also met at the visitor center, Elena, whose accent is definitely not Canadian. Such a engaging  lady … she showed us on the world map where she is from … a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean on the north eastern coast of Russia (not far from Alaska). Yes Russian. But don’t stop there, she left there 13 years ago and has lived in Germany and England and the Falkland Islands (off the coast of Argentina). And now she lives in the northern reaches of British Columbia. Intriguing! A chance meeting, an instant friend.

     Driving the Alcan Highway is more than places and things … it is the whole world on one road … people with dreams and hopes and courage and friendliness. So far we’ve met Holland, Spain, Boston, Russia, Finland, Belgium and France ... and a score of Canadians and many from the States … all heading north.

1908 Buick

Canadians provide brilliant people as well. Check out this gentleman. Marl Brown, owner of this 1908 Buick … and it runs. He not only has this one, but Fords from the 1920’s and many more amazing vehicles, motors and engines over many acres and an inside museum of antiques and memorabilia. In 1987, he gathered them all into the “Fort Nelson Heritage Museum” and opened it to the public. These pictures are only one of many buildings. 

Boreal Forest

We are in the Boreal Forest – the northernmost of the world’s forests. This forest stretches around the world in a narrow band at approximately this latitude … 59°. (Our home is at 38° latitude). The trees are most remarkable ... the White Spruce are very tall and very narrow.  

Liard Hot Springs

We are in a unique ecosystem … world famous Liard Hot Springs. Because of the hot springs, this rainforest exists peculiarly in the Boreal. 53 campsites (we were lucky to get one of the last 3 sites on June 10 about 4 p.m.)  This picture is the half-mile boardwalk … through the algae, moss, ferns and wildflowers … to reach the hot springs. Hot pic

Stayed two nights here; leaving on 7/12 for encounters north … entering the Yukon Province of Canada next. Our traveling companion is eager to hit the road again. 
By the way … our little coyote still has no name. Does anyone have any suggestions? 

Oh Canada!

O Canada! Where pines and maples grow, Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow!

Days 11, 12 & 13 – crossed the 2,000 mile mark.

     The freedom to drive along the road and notice some place that could be interesting or even incredible … that freedom to respond and pull over … even turn around and go back ... that is a wonderful madness. Many times on our first two days in Canada, we did just that. We did set a schedule, a plan for how far to travel in a day, where or when to stop for the night. But the option to stray from the plan is what makes our trip extraordinary.

     Driving into Canada at the border in Idaho was touchy … so many people warned us they had the experience where their Roadtrek interior was tossed looking for contraband. Yet Dan’s friendliness and affability won out once again as the border agent asked a half dozen questions about our travels and what we carried and then waved us on.

    
 Our aim was to travel north to TransCanada Hwy 1 and then east to the Icefields Parkway in Banff/Jasper National Parks. But near the end of our travel day, fortuitously a sign appeared: ‘3-par golf and RV Park’. Early the next morning found us out on the most stunningly verdant golf course ... nature, exercise, and an embarrassingly awful score. The languid deer laughed with us as the trees and ponds reached out and snatched our balls right out of the air.

     
     The next day we pulled over to a rest area on the TransCanada to catch a sight we’d seen before three years ago. There we met a young lady who had been sitting there for over an hour waiting for a train to go by ... with no idea that one would even come. WHY would she do that? Because this is indeed an amazing place. The original 4.5% grade train track was prohibitive and many trains were lost (not to mention the difficulty and cost).

     In 1907 they replaced it with a double spiral through two tunnels … a figure 8 path across the Kicking Horse Valley. (See the picture) And again … miraculous chance … a train did come through! (The same good luck three years ago, when we stopped here). The train traveling east from British Columbia follows the track into tunnels that spiral inside two different mountains going east, north, west, east, west, south, east, north, and finally east again heading to Alberta. 

     Oh, that young lady? Visiting from Holland traveling alone in a Class B Travado across British Columbia.

Banff/Jasper National Parks

Marvels like the natural wonders of our earth cannot be expressed with mere words … so a few pictures … (that also fall short of the experience.)

We saw bears three times. 

 Lake Louise

Athabasca Falls in Jasper 

Weeping Wall in Jasper

Peoples ... Visited with the lady from Holland; a student from the Colorado School of Mines … from Australia; and two gentlemen on a hike to a waterfall … from Spain.

Leaving Prince George BC this morning heading north to Dawson Creek, where mile 0 of the Alaskan Highway begins.
(May be a while before we get internet again.)

Leaving the US of A

We spent four days in the company of a variety of Roadtrekers in their natural habitats … forty Roadtreks covering a large section of Blackwell Island RV Park on the northern edge of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

     We made lots of new friends and enjoyed their stories, hints, suggestions, help and talents for all sorts of Roadtrek expertise and and travel experiences. Great suggestions for our trip north came from remarkable natives of Canada. Two people in particular stand out as the organizer and chief entertainer for our rally. Carol Ryan’s attention to detail made the rally a great success and her husband, Terry, added to the fun with his laughter and music and terrific sense of humor. Special thanks also to Judy for her great musical talent and advice from an authentic Canadian. Yes, we made many new friends in this group.

Our campground (see upper left corner of map picture),  was perfect. Excursions include a boat trip on the lake, a hike on Tubbs Hill and a visit to an old mission. Coeur d’Alene is beautiful and lush with nature’s gifts and the city protects those resources carefully. One highlight for us is Tubbs Hill … first picture is the hike from the boat, the others are us taking the hike (2.5 miles). 

The Old Mission was so interesting historically ... marking the history of early Jesuits and Native Americans.

My goodness, we picked up a hitchhiker at the Old Mission. Now Coyote has a traveling companion.

Crossing the border from Idaho to Canada at Kingsgate is next!

Interesting People, Unusual Places

     Day 5. I could list our stops and excursions and where we had dinner and stayed overnight … but more fascinating are the interesting people we’ve met and the unusual places we’ve experienced.  

The first day out we stopped at the most unusual zoo … The Swetsville Zoo (Google it). A gentleman who couldn’t sleep spent his nights creating fanciful creatures with a welding iron from old metal found items.       

     This chap in the picture is two headed and is upset about the flood from the nearby Cache La Poudre River in Fort Collins. We were the only ones there except this lovely lady with seven children. She had tats over both arms, a number of jeweled studs in her ears and a color streaked butch haircut. Talking to her, we found out she ran a day care, taking the kids on an excursion. It looked like she was having a great time as well as the children.

     We chatted with three gentlemen in the waiting room of a tire shop in Rawlins, Wyoming. I asked if they were local or traveling through. The first one said North Dakota. The second one said North Dakota, the third one just said ‘me too’.  There were eight of them, brothers, in-laws, wives and one teen … all traveling together in a large RV to Nevada for a family wedding. Seemed like a real close family! Oh … about that tire shop, we lost a tire … had a couple bulges in it. Rawlins was also our first official boondock overnight in the parking lot shared by Tractor Supply and McDonalds … both of which allowed free overnight parking.

Thermopolis, Wyoming is a strange place, calls itself the largest mineral hot springs in the world. There were hot springs bubbling up everywhere over many acres … even a Hot Springs State Park. They had large pipes to vent all the steam all over that part of town. The pipes were covered with brick tepees that grew large and grotesque with lime deposits over the decades. The hot water bubbles up the pipe and out the top and over the structure. The one in the picture is about 60 years old. 

     We avoided anything called an interstate, so we took a number of rural roads through varied and captivating landscapes … following the original Oregon Trail until we arrived at Cody, Wyoming. Cody has a lot to offer but the most fascinating was the information we learned about it … population 9,000 but has an infrastructure to support 500,000. BIG tourist spot. William Buffalo Bill Cody actually founded this town and intended it as a tourist draw. He sure succeeded. If you travel through Cody to Yellowstone’s east gate … be sure to stop at the dam built in 1910 and still going strong.

One feature about traveling in a Roadtrek is the friends … friends we haven’t met yet. When you pass one on the road we blink our lights … as do they. When you see a RT in the parking lot, you are instant friends. A sort of trust thing happens instantly. So we’re saying “hey” again to Kris & Tom from Pennsylvania and Tom & Judy who are full-timers originally from Arizona. Kris and Tom are heading to the same RT Rally we are going to in Coeur d’Alene and Tom and Judy are going to the photography rally
in Montana.

Yellowstone for two days … we casually scouted around in the 2.2 million acres and saw lots of unusual things (as we were spending time in a volcano caldera) … lots of steam and vapor and mudpots and waterfalls.

But … we didn’t see a bear, except this one (the guy on the left). And we hiked 15,350 steps … thanks for the Fitbit from our wonderful daughters, Deb, Wendy, Katie, Jen and Polly!

We can’t finish up here without mentioning the young fella on the bicycle with the solar panels, a really great golden curly beard and the legs of Hercules. He was biking across the country from Boston. Friendly and talkative and a lot of fun. He is a special education teacher.

P.S. Spent two nights in Yellowstone campground and boondocked at Walmart one night and Cracker Barrel another.