John and Barbara Vacation 2009, 2010, 2011

Lake City, CO -- End of Sept, 2nd visit with my folks on their Alaska road trip

2011-10-19T20:57:00.000-07:00

I was happy to have a chance to see my folks in Colorado, so work site visits in Albuquerque and Denver provided an excuse and airfare. It was over two months since Rahel and I spent time with them in Alaska! Our photo selections are on Picasa here.

September 24-26, 2011. After getting the rental Jeep Laredo, stopping for burritos, and doing a quick site visit, Rahel and I left Albuquerque late on Saturday morning for the 5-hour drive to Lake City. Santa Fe was as congested as ever, but the drive on up across the border, over Wolf Creek pass, and along the upper Rio Grande River was very nice. Perfect timing to see the miles of golden Aspen leaves too. So the reason for meeting in Lake City, in the middle of nowhere, is because I've got my eye on a small piece of land overlooking Lake San Cristobal, and wanted to go have a look around before the snow might arrive. Rahel is always excited at the possibility of being in the mountains (and is also keen on this 10-acre spot with a great view) so we all arranged to meet for two nights at the lake.

Donna from Hall Realty was kind enough to meet us at Lake Cristobal to ride up the mountain and show us the exact location of the mining claim. We took one of two ways up, both of which are nothing more than jeep trails (former mine trail/roads) that go from about 9000' elevation at the lake to 10800' at the level areas of the parcel. I think the road is about three miles, but it is tough for anything less than a real off-road vehicle. Our city slicker Jeep was struggling in a few locations. Passengers were occasionally required to get out and help push. Well, we made it up, and in time to walk around and take in the evening autumn colors over Colorado's 2^nd largest natural lake. That view is what makes this place on the east side of the San Juan mountains so nice. And the scrapes and rock dent on the passenger door were part of the fun too.

Next day, mom, dad, Rahel, and I drove around the lake and took the alternate route up Round Top Moutain to spend a little more time looking around. We explored a few of the old mine sites along the way, where a few people are actively digging in their tunnels and rock tailing piles. Our ride was good for most of the trail, but things got too steep and rocky near the top, so the last ½ mile was on foot. Very remote, but cell phones work and town is not far. I hope to drag my parents up there again next year! Plenty of nice RV campgrounds nearby. Juju can run around....

Rahel and I drove on to Denver, where she left on Monday for work travel, and I stayed a night with an old college friend in Boulder. He went along with me on the site visit in Arvada too. For a big city, Denver has some nice places nearby to get away. Dallas is a decent place, but I always felt that I moved the wrong way from Lubbock. :)

Until next time,

Jay & Rahel

Summer 2011 Travel Alaskan Adventures

2011-10-19T20:25:00.000-07:00

Dear friends and blog followers,

Click here for my pictures with descriptive captions.
A note about pictures. Over the 4 months we were on the road, I took thousands of pictures. I have to limit the pics because I would bore everyone with all thousand and I would run out of space on Picasa quickly. I put up 64 this time, but will try to do less from now on.

The last update I uploaded was from Glacier National Park. This one comes a day or two after we leave Yellowstone and the Teton National Park area.

Barbara and I return to Yellowstone National for a 4 day visit to one of our favorite places. Our route will take us to Helena MT and then to West Yellowstone. Because of our late day arrival, we will stay outside the park in the Baker's Hole Forest service Campground. We get up early the next day so we can be at Norris Campground early enough to get a site. Everything works and we are in Yellowstone Norris for 3 nights and 4 days in the park. All the memories of our past trips to Yellowstone are refreshed and we are truly glad we returned. I hope everyone will look at the pictures with descriptions.Yellowstone does not disappoint us. Over the last 32 years we have visited 4 times.

After we leave Yellowstone and Teton, we venture south along the Green River and the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. This area is full of interesting surprises and we take longer than planned. There is more to do than I ever imagined. We spend most of one day at the Flaming Gorge power dam Visitor Center were we take a tour and watch the construction on film. We spent Sept 20th and 21st in the area.

Our next target is Lake City Colorado. There we will meet up with Jay and Rahel and the will spend part of 3 days with us. Jay has a work project in Albuquerque and another one in Denver. He likes to visit Lake City because he is looking a land to purchase. Lake City is an old gold mining town that over the last 100 years has not changed much. No much gold now days but still lots of people that come to Lake City for the summer months. A few of the mines are starting back up because of the high price of gold.
We were to meet up at the Highlander RV Campground and Jeep rental. This was our first hookup to the services in 120 days. It was nice to have the steady electric and water. The water came from a spring about 60 feet above the campground. It is a nice place run by some very accommodating people. We will spend 3 nights in Lake City. 9/23 - 9/26

The fun starts when Jay, Rahel, and the realtor arrive. Maybe Jay will do an update for those 3 days. That visit will be one that Barbara and I don't forget.

.

Summer 2011 Travel Alaskan Adventures

2011-09-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

Dear friends and blog followers,

Click here for pictures with descriptive captions

Barbara and I are slowly making our way back to Texas. Barbara just turned a year older and it will not be long before I have another birthday. We are doing well and have plans to experience new adventures before returning to Lubbock. The weather has really been good with temps in the mid 40s to highs of 80s. We understand that Texas is still hot and dry with wild fires burning around the Austin and Possum Kingdom areas. We have also been informed of the loss of Bastrop State park. This saddens us as this was a favorite.

8/31/2011

My last update was from the Meziadin Lake Provincial Campground. This is a good one, but we must push south and east along highway 16 toward Prince George, BC. It is a good road with lots of stops and scenic pullouts.

One of the pullouts fits our need for the night. We spent the night here in 2009. This is near Topley and as usual other travelers like this pullout, therefore we are not along.

9/1/2011

We made it to Prince George, BC. The Walmart has been upgraded to a Super Walmart, therefore we can stock up on just about anything we need. Super Walmarts are somewhat new in Canada and this one really has lots of people at it.

At Prince George we have to make a decision on the route we are going to take toward home. We decide we will take Colombia Icefields Parkway (route 93) south from the town of Jasper. In 2009 we took BC route 97 south through BC and then into Washington, therefore routing this time will be a little different.

9/2/2011

Mostly just travel days across BC and into Alberta and the Canadian Rockies. Jasper and Banff make up two of the Canadian National Parks in the Rockies, that some consider the most scenic spots in North America.

We do some tourists sites in Jasper and make a few phone calls because we have not had had cell service in the last 10 days. Our overnight stop will be in the Mosquito Creek Campground just north of Lake Lucerne, a popular lodge and ski resort built in the 20s by the Canadian railroad. This is Labor Day holiday and the park is packed with travelers making it difficult to find camping sites. Mosquito Creek fortunately had an overflow area that we used. The Colombia Icefields Parkway connects the two parks and near the town of Banff we can jump back into BC for a trip through Kooenay National Park in BC that follows route 93 all the way into the US. We cross the border at Roosville. We also are back in the Mountain time zone and the long days of sunshine are much shorter.

9/6/2011 – 9/8/2011

Along the way we find Loon Lake, a BC Forest Service Park. This place is hidden off the pavement with about a mile of bad gravel road. When we get there, we find it is a great place and the price per night is free after Labor day. Free is good and the park is nice so we spend 3 nights here. We met a few fellow travelers in the park and the time passes quickly. Be sure to see my pictures of Loon Lake.

It is not far to Glacier National Park in Montana (about 60 miles) so our next stop will be in the Apgar Campground near the west entrance. The nearby towns of Colombia Falls and Whitefish, Montana offer services and shopping.

9/9/2011 – 9/14/2011

Glacier National Park is always a beautiful place to come to. On the north is the US Canadian border and the Waterton Glacier International Peace Park, a Canandian US Park formed in 1932. We vacationed here in 1981, 2009 and this year. This is the first time we stayed on the west end of the 100 mile round trip Going To The Sun Highway that connects the west end town of Apgar and the east town of St Mary. This road is also an historic and world engineering landmark. The Sun road is the main attraction and that will take all day to travel, so be sure to pack a lunch and stop at Logan Pass visitor center to eat it. The maximum length is of vehicle is 21 foot long because of the narrow width in some areas and the switch back turns along the way. It is very scenic with wildlife, waterfalls, snowcapped mountains, glaciers and wildflowers. We had a few delays because of construction in the Logan Pass area that slowed travel.

We walked a good portion of the wood planked foot trail that snakes it way up the Logan mountain to the Hidden Lake.

Our campground at Apgar is located on the Sun road just 2 miles from West Glacier, the community at the west entrance of the park. We are also located very near the west tip of McDonald Lake. McDonald is a beautiful lake that was formed in a glacier basin thousands of years ago. The water is clear with depths of 300, thus making it a diver’s delight.

Along the south shore is McDonald Lodge, a beautiful historic Lodge that has been a retreat for the honeymooners since it building. Until the Sun road was constructed the only access to the lodge was boat travel from the Apgar area.

We were camped here for 5 nights.

That is about all for now. We will travel to Yellowstone National Park on the 14 and 15^th.

John and Barbara on the road

Summer 2011 Travel Alaskan Adventures

2011-08-30T21:48:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends and Blog followers,

Click here to view pictures with descriptive captions

Note... Special day on the 28th

Note... the days are much shorter and the sun hours are changing quickly. The Land of the Midnight sun is no longer with us. Temps range from the high 30 to the 60, so the weather is just perfect. We have had more rain than usual, but it has not been a big problem.

8/22/2011 - 8/23-/2011
This week starts with us at Tok, AK, the gateway junction into Alaska. Since we are traveling south we will join the Alaskan Highway and drive to Watson Lake and then back track 15 miles to the junction of highway 37, the Cassiar Road.
Barbara spent an hour at Tok gifts shops and we ate at Fast Eddies cafe and hotel. They have good food and free wifi. I sent up the a blog there. Spent the night at the Toroso station, one can wash the rig, dump the tanks, spend the night, and fill with fuel.
We get the rig gassed up and the filled the fresh water and we are heading to Kluane Lake for a nice scenic turnout for the night. It is at Destruction Bay, another one of the historic spots on the Alaskan highway. This is the ceremonial spot on the Alaskan Highway that the north met the south road construction crews and the Alaskan highway (Alcan) was completed.
We pass through Haines Junction and Beaver Creek and we are now in Yukon Canada, always very scenic and great government campground. We rate them as #1

8/24/2011
Travel day to Whitehorse, Yukon Terrority. We don't have much to do here, but we did some shopping downtown and purchased a Hank Karr video. Hank Karr is a Yukon story teller and singer.
We shopped Walmart and spent the night with about 20 others in their parking lot.

8/25/2011 - 8/26/2011
Travel day to Big Creek campground in the Yukon 40 miles north of Watson Lake. A very nice government campground with all the wood furnished. Located next to the Big Creek many of the sites sit just a few feet from the bank.
We spent 2 nights here.

8/27/2011
We leave Watson lake and the Sign Post Forest and back track the 17 miles to the junction of highway 37, the north end of the Cassiar Highway. This travels Beautiful British Colombia north country. This is an alternative route that takes us back to the lower 48. It is more scenic and the road condition is good, so here we go. Our target is Dease Lake Lyons Club campground on the Tanzilla river. We make several photo stops along the way and drive the speed limit of 45. We stop at Jade City for some time and a sandwitch. Read about Jade City here.
There is no need for speed along this scenic highway. We will make the Dease Lake in early evening.
We will spend two nights here.

8/28/2011

It's a special day for us. It's Barbara's birthday. We plan just to hang around the camp, maybe watch some movies and cook out on the camp fire. The day passes fast and we are still watching movies past midnight. From our site the river is running with white water and is noisy. Sure makes for a great stay.
She is getting used to birthdays on the road, as we are always on the road during August.

8/29/2011
Travel day to the junction of highway 37 (the Cassiar) and Meziadin Junction,

At this junction, we will spend 2 nights in the Meziadin Provincial Campground. This is a 5 star campground that even has satellite delivered internet powered by a Honda generator as the park does not have a electric grid connection. I used a file picture from 2 years ago but it looks the same today. After a nice fire we watched more movies including the King's Speech.
Just a note... we see mining operations all along the Cassiar, so the price of gold is opening old mines.
Tomorrow we will travel to Stewart, BC and Hyder Ak. for the day. More beautiful Northern British Columbia to see.

8/30/2011
We traveled to Stewart, BC and Hyder, AK for a full day of adventure. The drive is about 45 miles through some of the most scenic landscape that nature has to offer. Check it out here The combination of the two towns makes for interesting conversation.
I spent the afternoon at the town Museum that showcased mining. The town also has the only Toaster Museum. This showcases early electrical appliances and radio.
Up to 20 glaciers with some of them coming almost to the highway give windshields vistas that are almost unbelievable . The Salmon Glacier is the largest in the world that can be driven to by car. We also spotted bear grazing along the highway. A raging Bear River follows the road for miles.
This town has seen a lot, good and bad. In the early days, mines drove the economy until 1984 and then it was bust time. At the present time mines are beginning to start operation for gold, silver, and copper. Must be making money, because we saw high grade ore being sent slung on slings underneath helicopters to waiting ships in the port. I took pictures of the large bags of ore at the dock.
Several movies have been made in Stewart. A few are Bear Island, The Thing, Iceman, Leaving Normal, and Insomnia.
If you drive about 2 miles past Stewart, you will cross back into Alaska at Hyder. Claims to be the Friendliest ghost town in Alaska. The big attraction just outside of Hyder is the US Forest Service Fish Creek wildlife viewing area as you drive into the Tongass National Forest. Often times bears will be eating salmon as they spawn in the river. This attracts photographers from all over.

That's about it for now

John and Barbara on the road

Summer 2011 Travel Alaskan Adventures

2011-08-22T19:33:00.000-07:00

Dear friends and blog followers,

Click here for my pictures with descriptive captions

This is a special edition of our blog. In this entry, we take some lesser known side roads well off the normal routes in Alaska. Much of the next 10 days will be in an area with no cell or wifi service, therefore we will be dark during that time. Much of this entry is devoted to old towns and mining old, either gold or copper. We get a touch of gold fever while camped at the Little Nelchina. I detail our adventures along the McCarthy road leading us to the Kennecott Copper Mine in the southern Wrangell-St. Elias national Park. After leaving there, we travel the west and north park boundary to the Nabesna Road that takes us to the old Nabesna Gold mine, still in the Wrangell-St. Elias national park.

08/14/2011

Today is a travel day east and north along what is called the Glenn Highway (Alaska route 1) and is the most direct way from Anchorage to the Tok Junction and the Alaska highway (Alcan) . It connects Anchorage to Glennallen where there is the Richardson Highway to either the north or south. The south will take you to Valdez or Tok to the north.

We traveled to the 137.6 mile post on the Glenn and stopped for the night in the Little Nelchina State Recreation area (abandoned for 10 years) and found it to be just right for us. Description is 9 campsites, 15 day limit, no fee, no drinking water, with fire pits, and grayling fishing. Enough camping wood was stacked at the fire pit for a few days. I even hooked up the electric water pump to pump water from the river to the RV

We liked our site and decided to extend a few days.

08/15/2011

We found that it had gold in the river and this is a mini gold rush era in Alaska. Two longtime local guys , Alan and Dennis, from up the road came to do a little panning for gold. They came back the next day and brought the equipment to do mining using a gasoline lake pump with a special suction device along with a sleuth type separator box that they had constructed. Of course they knew how this all works and within 2 hours they had vacuumed up and separated a few flakes of gold. They plan to take this equipment up the river about 20 miles where there is a larger concentration. Both of them have studied prospecting for gold in this area and I believe they will have good success. Good luck to them. Alan is the owner of the Slide RV and lodge and Dennis is and retired engineer that worked in power generation field.

08/16/2011 - 08/17/2011

I checked the wheel bearings and adjusted the brakes on the trailer. I changed the oil on the Honda generator. I have an hour meter and the recommended 50 hour change intervals come more quickly than I would have ever thought. I have all the water I want, therefore the car and trailer gets a good wash job. It is nice to see them clean for a day or two. We spend a lot of time in and around the park. There are some hiking trails along the Little Nilchina, so I hiked a few of them. This place is packed with mining history. At the turn of the century, there was a mule pack train that moved along this river delivering supplies to the town of Nelchina, now just a ghost town with little trace of the past.

We meet more Bob and his wife, Kahren, who were out cutting wood for the winter. They are nice and give us some salmon nicely vacuumed packed. We gave them some of Jack Reed's good Lubbock grown pecans.

The day light hours are giving way to the season change and we have dark nights and much shorter days. A few leaves are starting to fall.

08/18/2011

The time has come again, and it’s time to travel. We are heading east into Glennallen with plans to turn south and head to Chitna, AK. This will take us to the end of the pavement and a campsite where we will leave the RV for a long day trip to towns of McCarthy and Kennecott.

We find a Dept of Transportation campground called the Copper River DOT campground that will work just perfect. We meet up with Alan and his wife Liz that are traveling with Dick and Nancy. We had met Alan and Liz earlier near the Yak ranch on the Edgerton Highway. Be sure to check the Yak picture, because you may not know yak crap.

08/19/2011

We all have the same travel plans to McCarthy and Kennecott so we caravan together. The distance is 59 miles one way and it will be nice to travel with someone on this really bad gravel stretch of road. Described by the Milepost editor as

“The McCarthy road is a gravel road built along the old Copper River & Northwestern railway bed. Watch for old rails and railroad ties embedded in the road or lying along the roadside. The McCarthy road ends at the Kennicott River, 59.3 miles west of the town of Chitna, AK. There is no gas or diesel available on the McCarthy road.”

To make matters worse, it looks as if it will rain all day. We are eager to get there, so at 8AM we are off to a long day of adventure. The 60 miles takes us 4 hours to complete and we had no problems, just a few scenic stop along the way.

At the end of the road we get to walk a ¼ mile gravel road and a bridge to the town of McCarthy where we will catch a local shuttle into Kennecott and the Kennecott Mines National Historic Landmark located in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. This is the largest of the US national parks, it is larger than 11 Yellowstone parks. It is larger than some of the states in the lower 48.

We tour the Kennecott Copper Mine and see the remains of the Mill house and most of the infrastructure building still standing. The mine closed in 1938 after mining and concentrating at least $200 million worth of ore. It had the best grade of copper ever found and supplied the copper for the world for many years

After visiting the mine we took the shuttle back to McCarty and spent some time at the Museum, store, and the historic Golden Saloon. McCarthy has no electricity, paved streets, and nothing except a foot bridge to cross the Kennecott river. There are a few generators running behind the stories. Supplies are brought in when the river is frozen or carried across the footbridge.

We were able to make the 60 miles in less time, but it still took about 3 hours to get back to the campground. Alan made a big fire and we had a good time around the fire telling stories. A little later we had smores using mints, that worked really good.

A little about Alan and Liz Johnson… Alan and Liz work for Honeywell Avionics as software engineers in the “fly by wire” control systems of the new age airplanes. They write programs that control and then furnish feedback to the computers onboard. They work for a while and then go home to a 38’ catamaran sailboat anchored on the eastern coast of Panama. This is their home. There blog at http://svkopelli.blogspot.com

A little about Dick and Nancy Maynard… Dick is a retired mechanical engineer with professional license and sometimes does church construction. He spent his working career as a field superintendent at job sites around the US. Nancy is a retired office manager.

08/20/2011

We say goodbye to our friends at the Copper River DOT campground and turn north to Glennallen and than toward Tok Junction. However, as I said early in this post, we got a touch of gold fever. On the north side of Wrangell-St. Elias NP we decide to take the Nebesna road that takes us some 42 miles into the park to the Nebesna Gold Mine that was abandoned in the late ‘40s. It is also the road to the Rambler Gold mine that I will hike up to. We set up camp at mile 16.6 in a site with a view to the southwest over Kettle Lake toward Mount Wrangell. Tomorrow we will drive to the end of the Nebesna road.

We did the dump station thing at Glennallen as we traveled through.

08/21/2011

Our Nebesna road adventure started about 10AM with us driving about 44 miles into the very scenic Wrangell St.Elias NP. The 55 degree weather was clearing with a lot of open blue sky giving us a perfect view of the mountains. The road for the first 20 miles is fair, but the next 20 are potholed and sometimes very rocky. There are a few areas that still have the corduroy road that used wooden timbers for the surface. We will ford several water crossings along the way, but these are not a problem as they are gravel and the water was not over a foot deep. In all directions the views are very scenic with some of the most impressive mountains in the world. To each side of the road the wild flowers grace the landscape.

This is hunting season in Alaska and this is a favorite for subsistence hunter and sport hunters. They hunt moose, dall sheep, and caribou. This is a national park that in 1983 opened it to land grants that brought people in to get free land. They are still a few private owners along the Nebesna road. Most of these folks have left and headed for warmer areas.

We drove to the end of the road and I walked another few miles to the trailhead to the abandoned Rambler Gold Mine. The trail was 1 mile each way, but the trail to the mine was up a steep mountain side. I made the mile, but had to stop for many rest stops along the way. The effort was rewarding as the views were great and I got to the mine to take pictures. It is somewhat scary walking into an abandoned mine, what if there is a bear in there. I took a few pics with flash. The return hike was easy as it was downhill all the way. I estimate that I walked about 7 miles today.

On the way back to the camp, we meet Alan and Liz as they were traveling toward the end of the road. We talked for a while and then we drove on to a water crossing to wash the truck of the mud we got on the McCarthy road. That worked out nicely. I use the Honda generator to power the small pump so Barbara can rinse as I used the soap and brush. On the way back, we got a few pictures of the mountains as the sun set in the west. A very good day

8/22/2011

We are leaving today and heading for Tok or Haines Junction , but are not sure because of the weather.

Therefore, this is house cleaning and blog writing. We are getting some rain and I have some concern about the road condition because of the rain falling.

That is all at the moment

John and Barbara on the road

Summer 2011 Travel Alaskan Adventures

2011-08-14T16:08:00.000-07:00

Dear friends and blog followers,

Link to my pics with descriptive captions
News from my weather station.... Over 2 inches of rain fell in Lubbock, should make the national news.

We spent 2 nights at Williwah on the Whittier/Portage Glacier highway and then a night in Anchorage. Went to Alaskan Wildlife Conservation and saw the wood bison.
We spent the day visiting downtown Anchorage and a few museums and got a stamp for Barbara. Did the Alaskan Experience Theater in downtown. Worth the admission of $6 for the two of us.

Made it to Palmer on the 10th and expect to be here 5 nights. Spent the the 11th at the Independence Gold Mine on Hatcher Pass. Closed in the early 50s and has been transformed into a state park. Google it, very nice
Plan to spend some time in the old town of Palmer and we have a great camp site at 10 buck and the wood is furnished. It is perfect weather about 70 clear blue sky.
Spent the afternoon of the 13th at the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center. Interesting place.

That is about it for today. We are sitting around a camp fire listing to the radio after cooking a bratwurst. No bear stories just a black and white cat came through the campground. We are camped next to the Matanuska river, the river you follow after leaving Palmer.
This campground is at the end of the Palmer Muni airport and lots of light planes take of and land here during the day.
We are leaving the Palmer are traveling toward Glenallen.

John and Barbara on the road

Summer 2011 Travel Alaskan Adventures

2011-08-05T22:07:00.000-07:00

Dear friends and blog followers,

Be sure to read to the end of this entry
this is the point where Brad and Bev
make turn to head back to Santa FE.

Link to my picture site with descriptive sub captions

Our last blog was sent up from Seward, AK. Jay and Rahel were leaving for the airport in Anchorage for their trip to Dallas and back to work. It was a great 10 day visit with a lot of adventures and excitement for all.

Monday, July 25-26th
We took Jay and Rahel to the bus for their trip to Anchorage. We then went back to the campground and got ready to leave for Soldotna, on the west side of the Kenai. Therefore, we will call this a travel day.
You can not travel the Seward-Sterling highway without finding new adventure. It is only about 80 miles, but the Kenai is full of surprises such as wildlife and fishermen. At this time of the year the fish are running and fishers are here from all around the world. As we drove across the Kenai and Russian rivers, we could see them standing "shoulder to shoulder" while fishing the rivers.
We overnighted for 2 nights at the Fred Meyers store at Soldotna and stocked up on supplies as we are heading up to Captain Cook State Park for 3 nights.

Wednesday the 27th - 29th
We are at Captain Cook State Park. This is north along the west coast near the original oil patch in the Cook Inlet. Barbara and I liked this park in 2009 and wanted Brad and Bev to see it.
At this park we did some beach combing for agate rocks, walking the nature trails, and wildlife watching. This park has designated and "social" trails. This was a good time of the year to see the many wild flowers along the trail. We even had a very close encounter with a mother moose on our way back to our site. The moose let us pass without any problem.
Our next site neighbors, Larry and Diana from Eagle River near Anchorage. They showed us some very strange rocks that they had collected on the beach to the north. They have come here for several years and have collected many of these strange rocks. This link reflects some of their work. The rocks are referred to as Sprint Rocks and they have many in their collection. They gave us a rock of our choice. Very interesting rocks.

Saturday July 30th
Travel day back to Soldotna on our way to Homer. We found a brand new Super Walmart at the town of Kenai and that meant that we would spend a few hours in Kenai before returning to Fred Meyers for another overnite.

Sunday August 1 - 6th
Homer is full of adventure. First we find a couple of side by side camp sites in the town campground on the Homer Spit. This is backed up against Kachemak Bay, the bay with a beautiful view of the mountains across Cook inlet.
Homer is a must visit town on the Kenia. Here are a few links, be sure to click on them and then travel to the "End of the Road" along with us.
Homer wiki link
Homer link 2

We road the town tour bus (Homer Trolley Tours) that included a narrative driver to some of the more notable sites.
Historic Salty Dawg Saloon about 1/4 mile from our campsite.
The Pratt Museum in Homer
Lots of Homer stories, so check them out, but don't forget Tom Bodett and his "We'll leave the light on for you".

We enjoyed Homer very much. We did the usual tourist such as the Homer CoC visitor center and the Islands and Oceans Visitor center. We enjoyed the campfires on the beach, the late evening story telling around the fire, the tides that go out and come in, watching the bald eagles watch us and the fish cleaning area and the company of Brad and Beverly, our friends from Santa Fe.
On Monday the 1st a strange happening occurred on the beach just 50 feet from our camp site. A 178 foot beach landing craft sailed to the waters edge, placed an anchor down and just let the tide go out. About 6 hours we found out why. The owner of the Helenka B needed to re-couple the port side propeller shaft that had slipped out of the coupling. The ship, built in 1942, was a mine sweeper that served in 3 wars. It has since been shortened by 40 feet and made into a utility beach landing craft. See my pictures of the ship and the repair.

Brad and Beverly, our travel buddies,
Our campsite on the Homer Spit would be the location that Brad and Bev turn back north toward Anchorage to start their return to lower 48 and then on to Santa Fe. They have to be back on Sept 1st, so this will give them about 25 days to find their way back to New Mexico. This was planned in the beginning, but we are already missing their presence as we were together every mile for the last 2 months. Sometimes we blazed the trail and sometimes they did, together we logged nearly 5500 miles. We have worked together and played together and experienced many adventures in the Land of the Midnight Sun and the Last Frontier. We drove the ALCAN, camped at the 30 mile Tec campground in Denali, drove to the Arctic circle, experienced nature at it best, shopped every store along the way, and had lots of meals together around a campfire. There was never a dull moment. Brad is a ham radio operator as I am, therefore we had good communications along the way. This helped out a great deal.
Along the way, Brad and I would work together and complete many useful modifications to our rigs. We both like to tinker with electronics and mechanical project, so we came prepared and with a list of things to do.
Happy trails
John and Barbara

Summer 2011 Travel Alaskan Adventures

2011-07-27T13:42:00.000-07:00

Dear friends and blog followers,

Link to our pictures with descriptive captions.

This is a special blog entry, our son, Jay spent a few minutes pounding the keyboard. His entry was finished up beside the campfire at our Seward AK, campsite. I wish he had more time to help with these entries as he is much faster on the keyboard and a much better writer. If I had these skills in the past, they have diminished in past few years.
I'll try to retrace our southern adventure trail from Denali National Park where we spent a wonderful 10 day adventure to Seward AK. At this time we have Jay and Rahel, John and Barbara, Brad and Beverly in our little caravan. Jerry and June Bauler will meet up with us in Seward.

I will insert Jay's blog first, and then mine after that.
From Dallas to Denali was a blur, replacing a kitchen sink and getting ahead with work. Rahel and I spent less than 12 hours in Anchorage before catching the Denali Star train to the park (highly recommended) and a campsite at Riley Creek. Didn't even have time to seal the leaky seams on my tent so we got the full rain experience! July is the wettest month in Alaska, I'm told. Backcountry hiking in the tundra is a spongy thing, taking a lot of effort to walk, and a bit of planning to bush-whack through the willows and alder bushes. Upper Teklanika River was too wide to cross comfortably (ask the wet kid from NYC we spoke to after his fall with backpack into the main braid) so we made camp on the west side, content to do day hikes in the rain and eat mostly rehydrated backpacker food. Other that the glacier view and mountain scenery, finding just-ripe wild blueberries was my highlight. Push forward to Saturday, Rahel and I climbed back to the park road, thumbed down a camper bus, and got back to the park entrance for a rendezvous with ma and pa Harris. Luxury!!

Flashback three years (to the week) when I was camped at Wonder Lake, Denali, and missed a chance to hop a plane around Mt. McKinley, aka Mt. Denali. This time, we booked a two hour summit tour out of Talkeetna, with our fingers crossed for good weather. Lucky us with the blue skies, and lucky for my dad Talkeetna Aero had one extra seat (copilot spot, naturally) for my dad. Dave was a great pilot and the trip was something we agree will be a highlight for the rest of our lives. Look for the photos to come. Hard to compare, but imagine circling Mt Everest, seemingly close enough to touch the face outside your window, then down the glaciers and crevices to the base camp.

Forget Anchorage, let's push south to the Kenai Peninsula for royal RV camping, hot meals, and cold IPAs (ok, and Alaskan White ales for Rahel). We stayed two nights at Williwaw campground, which was situated below a series of glaciers, south of the spur road to Whittier, AK. Short hikes, dense understory vegetation, lingering snowpack, and superb mountain views there. Up early with my dad! Want coffee? Start the generator! :)

Sitting at the table under the rain-sheltering canopy here in Seward for the third night. Dying fire is giving in to the rain drops but we've had our lucky fill of sunny days while here. Rahel and mom played cowgirls for the day, taking a horseback ride around Resurrection Bay, across braided rivers and up the forest for a true adventure experience. Dad and I hiked up Marathon Mtn for several hours, making almost 3000 feet of elevation gain before the snow-laden bowl above town. Good sleep awaits tonight. I'd vote for sleeping in tomorrow but we're dropping them at the port in the morning for a day-long boat ride out to the bay and Prince William Sound.

Ten days can fly. Vacation is winding down and brutal Texas heat await. Maybe I'll quit my job and come here to work on a fishing boat. Train for a ranger position at the park. Or brew IPAs in the forest. Rahel will work on a horse farm, specializing in Friesian horses and Border Collies. Probably not, but everything has been as amazing as one could hope, and we'll come back. Check for more later.....

Jay & Rahel

7/19/2011
Our destination is Seward, AK, but first, lets stop in Talkeetna. Talkeetna is a historic small town near the base of Mount McKinley. It is located on a 15 mile spur road that spurs from the Parks Highway, the main highway from Anchorage to Fairbanks.
We have spent time in Talkeetna in 2009 and Jay in 2008. It is a laid back place with roadhouses, museums, gift shops and adventure air flights to the summit of Mount McKinley. Jay and Rahel had researched reviews on the charter services and booked a flight on Talkeetna Aero Service. The night before the flight we had a hard rain and the prospects didn't look good for a sight seeing flight. As most everything works out, the skies cleared and we had a "perfect 10" weather day. Jay asked if there was a single seat available and the pilot said the copilot seat was. Jay asked if I wanted to go and that was all it took, the three of us were in the air headed for the summit for a 11/2 hour flight. Jay treated and that made it even better. What a day to remember. The flight was spectacular and Dave the pilot was the best in the business. I don't have the space to show all the photos but flying directly into the snow capped mountains was a big "WOW". This year 9 climbers have lost their lives on this mountain, a little more than the normal average of 4 per year. At the 14000 foot camp we saw a small plane stuck in the snow. Inexperienced pilots fly in and get stuck in fresh snow. They have to walk a path before the plane can get up on the new snow. Our pilot was a first responder with updates to the emergency responders.

7/19/2011 - 7/20/2011
Our travel south took us to Anchorage and then around the Turnagain Arm to the spur road toward Whittter, a port and an old army base back in WWII days. We were going to camp at the US Forest Service Williwaw campground. Very nice scenic spot at the base of the Portage Glacier. Lots of hiking trails filled with beautiful wild flowers at their peak time. Good weather and a day hike to the USFS visitor center was nice. Camp fires and camp ground talk made the day pass quickly.

7/21/2011 - 7/24/2011
Today we welcome Jerry and June Bauler, our neighbors across the street on 79th street. They have driven up from Lubbock to fish the Kenai. We will visit with them here in Seward and Soldotna. He is booking fishing charters for salmon and halibut.
Seward AK years ago was the ice free deep port that most of the freight for the state came through. It had a large Alaskan State Railroad switch yard and that took the trains north past Anchorage to Fairbanks. It also carried tourist from the large ocean going cruise ships. In 1964, that changed somewhat. The largest earthquake recorded caused much damage to Seward and especially it's rail system. The town recovered and the Alaskan State Railroad survived, but tourism became number 1 business in Seward.
We had been to Seward in 2009 and marked it as a must return. It is a great place with the small boat harbor, the enormous fishing attraction, and the daily excursion boats out into the Gulf of Alaska. We like this place and it did not disappoint. We hiked, rode horses, took day trips to study geography wildlife, flowers and people.

Summer 2011 Travel Alaskan Adventures

2011-07-18T13:04:00.000-07:00

To our friends and blog followers,

Up date number 5, I think

Time is really moving along and I am posting this a few minutes before leaving Denali. In a few minutes, Jay and Rahel should come from their back country camp and we will head to Talkeetna, about 150 miles away. I guess I will call it a travel day.

I am putting up our Denali pictures and hope you will read the captions and look at the wildlife shots. Click here for the picture link
Look at the pictures and give names to the ones with no names. I will revise the caption after you name that flower.

Our stay in Denali has reminded us that we will have to return in a few years, one just can't get enought of Denali and the state of Alaska. We camped in the Teknilia camp ground and traveled all over the park via the bus pass that we purcahsed. It is a bargain and I don't have to drive.

I am cutting this short because of time and the fact I want to catch up with my blog. When Jay and Rahel join us, maybe they will blog their experience here. I'm sure that they have had a good time in the few days that could squeeze into their busy lifes. Jay and Rahel few into Anchorage and rode the Alaskan Railroad to the park. Although we were in the park at the same time we have not seen them.

We leave the park for Talketna and there Jay and Rahel will take a scenic flight tomorrow for a view of the park and Mount McKinly, if the weather permits.

Then on to toward Anchorage area, where we will make updates to this blog.
Stay tuned for more as we have many miles to go.

John, Barbara, Beverly and Brad caravaning on the Parks highway

Summer 2011 Travel Alaskan Adventures

2011-07-17T23:56:00.000-07:00

Dear friends and blog followers,

To view pictures with descriptive captions
click this link

This starts our 4th week of our 2011 Alaskan adventure. This will cover the return to the ALCAN highway and on north toward Fairbanks. Our plans call for a few days at Fairbanks, but as it turned out we extended a few more days.

6/26/2011
We will miss the Haines AK area, because we had settled in Chilkoot State Park. We liked what we saw each day. Simply spectacular scenery and the abundance of wildlife makes this a must see.
So today becomes a travel day that over the next few days will take us 640 miles north along state highway 3 and the ALCAN highway 1, through Haines Junction, Kluane National Park and Preserve, Destruction Bay, Burwash Landing, Beaver Creek. All of these historic places are in the Yukon Territory. All of these places had their beginnings during the building of the Alaskan Highway. We will cross the border back into Alaska just north of Beaver Creek.
We found a really nice pullout on Kluane Lake and decided that was far enough for the day, therefore we would spend the night there. What a nice view of the lake and Soldier Summit.

6/27/2011
Today is a travel day that will take us to the Yukon Terrority and Alaska border. This was the day for bad road, over a hundred miles of it. Active construction caused many delays and then rain on top of that. We stopped at the Beaver Creek information and had a nice visit with the man in charge. Very nice and knowledge guy. We pushed on the 35 miles to the border and stopped for the night at the pull out under the border signs on the Canadian side. Good view of the border and all the signage.

6/28/2011
Today, after crossing north of Beaver Creek, we are back in Alaska and driving toward Delta Junction, the end of the Alaskan Highway, historic mile 1422. We spent an hour there visiting the museum and seeing the sights at the junction. Then we take state highway 2 due north to North Pole and Fairbanks. When we cross the border we lost the road construction, gained an hour time, and got cell phone service. We spent about 3 hours at North Pole having a late lunch and shopping at the gift shop. Just another 30 miles to Fairbanks where we will spend the rest of the week.

6/29/2011
We are in Fairbanks and have several days of activities planned. First we head for the University of Alaska Museum of the North at Fairbanks. This is a world class museum. We bought a Toursaver coupon book that gives us half price on several tourist adventures in Alaska, and the museum was one of them. We spent most of the day at the museum that also includes a botanical gardens and a wildlife research center.

6/29/2011
It is time for tire rotation on the Suburban and I purchased the tires at Sams Club so that is the place that i will take it. It would be a few hours before they would finish so we had a few hours to shop at Sams. It is always costly when we go there and that was no different today. Brad purchased a Sony camcorder so he could do some video recording along the way.

6/30/2011
Barbara and Beverly did some shopping at Fred Meyers and Brad and I did some work on the rigs. We met up with a friend of Brads that owns 600 storage units in Fairbanks. Ken and his wife Anna are also world wide game hunters and have a very nice trophy room that we were invited to see. Trophies from all around the world and many from Alaska also. After a nice visit in their lovely home, we went to eat prime rib at the Turtle Club.

6/31/2011
We are finding a lot more to do in Fairbanks than we planed, so it looks as if our stay will be extended a few days. More visiting around the campground and more places to go.
The girls decided that it was a good time to do the laundry. Here in Fairbanks you have to wait in line for the washing machines as this is a busy place.

7/01/2011
It is raining here so we are confined to our RV. We watch movies and do some card playing. Also a few trips to the Super Walmart.
It is time for tire rotation on the Suburban and I purchased the tires at Sams Club so that is the place that i will take it. It would be a few hours before they would finish so we had a few hours to shop at Sams. It is always costly when we go there and that was no different today.

7/02/2011
Ken and Anna come by our campsite and we visited with them for a time. It is raining again.

7/04/2011
July 4th is active in Fairbanks. We were planning on attending the 4th celebration at the town park. This is a large park called Pioneer Park. Instead, we decided to drive to the Arctic Circle. It is about 240 miles round trip for us and that will take all day. This historic road is called the Haul Road or Dalton Highway and is about 75 percent gravel. We get an early start so we can take our time with so many stops along the way. The name Haul road name was derived from the role it played in the 18 wheelers during construction of the pipeline. It is the road that follows the oil pipeline to Prudhoe Bay. AK. Common sites along the route are freight haulers, grizzly bear, moose, caribou, Dall sheep, musk ox, and many birds. It also home for many mosquitoes.
Services are few and far between along the Haul road, therefore we must be prepared before we start this adventure. We stopped at the Yukon crossing BLM visitor and enjoyed the visit with the host. Nice place.
Our day was long, but we are glad we made it to the Arctic Circle.

7/05/2011
This is the day that we visit Pioneer Park. It has a aviation museum of the planes that have been used in the building of Alaska. A lot of bush pilots and what they did in the early days. Many are called heroes because they did so much, some gave their life for the betterment of the small communities.
The park has also dry docked a restored stern-wheeler called the Nenana. She carried freight and passengers on the Nenana river and Yukon rivers in the '40 and '50s.
We spent most of the day at Pioneer Park. Very nice place and no entrance fee, so free is good.

7/06/2011
This is the day that Brad and Bev strike out for the El Dorado Gold Mine tour and the stern-wheeler Riverboat Discovery cruise down the Chena river. We did the same adventure in 2009 so we op out on this one. Nice, but costly.
Barbara and I spent the afternoon at the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum. This is a "five star" auto museum that showcases the best of the best before 1930. Truly an unbelievable auto museum. Many autos displayed are one of a kind and all are American made.

7/07/2011
Today is a travel day to Denali National Park, about 4 to 5 hours south on the Parks highway. On our way out of Fairbanks we again stopped at Sams for a few last minute items and fuel. Brad purchased a Sony video camera so he could record some video along the way.
We stopped along the way at the Nenana visitor center. We are actually a day ahead of our reservations in Riley Creek campground, we spent the night at the Denali visitor center parking lot and then to the campground the next day.

That's all for now... Next report will be from our activities in Denali.

Summer 2011 Travel Alaskan Adventures

2011-07-10T19:55:00.000-07:00

Dear friends and blog followers,

This is week 3 of our travels... Yes I know that I am about 3 wks behind, but maybe I will catch up next week. We are presently at Denali

For recent pictures with descriptive subtitles click here.

We arrived in Whitehorse, YT on the 18th in need of groceries, fuel, and propane for the RV.

We had several activities in Whitehorse that would take us two days. Whitehorse is a busy town and a crossroad for the ALCAN (highway 1) and the Skagway to Dawson City highway (highway 2).

6/19/2011
Our plans were to go north to Dawson City and west on the Top of the World road to Chicken and back to the ALCAN via TOK junction. That changed on Monday morning because of the Top of the World road became impassable. We call the Dawson City visitor center and they called the border crossing to get the latest conditions. Rain had been falling for days and was not expected not let up. Roads were soft, washed out, and dangerous. At this time we decided not to go to Dawson and would continue on to Haines junction and turn south on YT 3 toward Haines, AK, a popular scenic coastal town on the Lynn Canal near the Chilkoot inlet. We missed Haines during our 09 trip. This turned out to be a good move and led us to a week of new adventure. The distance from Whitehorse to Haines Junction was about 120 miles and then to Haines another 130 miles. We would have to return to the ALCAN via the Haines leg, but that was not a problem.

This was out last night in Whitehorse.

6/20/2011

We traveled to Haines Junction and visited the visitors center where we watched a video and gathered information. We turned south and the adventure began.
The wonderful views from the windows of our rig last just about all night long as we are still in the land of the Midnight Sun. On toward Haines... Our destination would be about 10 miles north of Haines on Kathleen Lake in the Chilkoot State Park. This would also be in Alaska to we would see the border crossing about 60 miles north of Haines. That meant that our cell service would again work and we would be 3 hour earlier that our CST time.
Because of our no hurry pace we stopped at a scenic pullout and spent the night.

This adventure trail would take us through some of the best mountain views with snow caps and spectacular windshield vistas we have encountered. Along the way we would see many wildlife and now we would also see many bald eagle checking us out while perched from the tree limbs.

6/21/2011
We arrived at Haines and stopped at the visitor center for local information and guidance. We traveled the 10 miles along the Lynn Canal to the Chilkoot State Park and found it to be wonderful, just right for our needs. Just 10 dollars per night for great scenic sites.

We booked a day ferry trip to Skagway AK, therefore that would use a full day on Wednesday the 22nd. We thought that 3 days in the park would be enough, but because of more activities that we planed we extended our stay to 5 days in Haines.

6/22/2011
Today was our trip to Skagway on the Skagway Fast Ferry, we had to depart early, so we set the alarm. The trip is about 20 miles in the Lynn Canal and will take nearly an hour each way. Nice day and nice comfortable boat. Skagway is a shopping town and is the orginial gateway to the Gold rushers of the 1890s. So much history and so many shops. Skagway is also the port to many of the very large cruise ship that travel the Alaskan inland water way routes.
It is not uncommon to have 3 or 4 of these ships in port and that means that over 10 thousand may walk the streets of Skagway. Brad and I did the National Park museum and film presentation and the girls shopped. Brad and I did some historic sites and the girls shopped. Must be 25 jewelery stores mostly owned by the cruise ships that sell a good selection of almost any stone from anywhere in the world. Lot of tanzanite and diamonds. This is also a destination for honeymooners from European countries. Skagway is the headquarter of the Whitepass and Yukon rail that gives a sighseeing adventure over the famous White Pass gold rusher route of 1897.
So much history, so much to see. We like this place. The four of us attended the National Park narrative tour of the town led by a park ranger. Nice day but we have to get back on the ferry back to Haines.

6/23/2011
Today was a sight seeing day around the park. We watched the bald eagles and hunted for bear. We hiked a trail in the forest and walked the shoreline at Kathleen lake. The eagles put on a show as they will swoop down and capture fish and other prey from the water a few feet away. One fisherman had a close call with an eagle as it tried to snatch the fish from his line. Even with the daylight so long (about 21 hrs) the days just fly by.

6/24/2011
Today we spend some time in the town of Haines. We visit some of the local shop and eat at the Fireweed sandwich shop, good place to eat. The building dates back to WWII and served as a quarter master depot. We went back to the visitor center and got more information. We booked a seat on the Fjord Express to Juneau, AK.
Brad and I visited the Hammer Museum and the girls went shopping.
The rest of the day was spent viewing the sights around the Chilkoot inlet and the State Park.

6/25/2011
We booked a seat on the Fjordland Juneau Express. This would be all day wildlife site-seeing trip starting at the Haines small boat harbor early in the morning. At Juneau, we would dock and have about 4 hours in Juneau for us to do about anything we wanted to. We took the Mount Roberts Tramway ride up the Roberts mountain where we could look over the city. We also saw a live Bald Eagle that had been injured and was being rehabilitated. We walked the old town area and ate at the Twisted Fish Company. The tour also included a trip to the Mendenhal Glacier just a few miles from Juneau.
While at Mendenhal Glacier, I met up with Jack Weatherly and his wife, a co-worker that I worked with for 30 years. They were on a cruise ship docked at Juneau.
This is also a port to many large cruise liner that bring in thousands of travelers from all over.
The Fjord Express was the highpoint of the day. This was a very nice trip on the Lynn Canal to the whale watching areas. The Captain and his assistant did everything that was possible to make it enjoyable. The captain did a narrative along the way. The Fjord Express is a family run and staffed business that started in 2001. Just getting glimpse into how all this works is worth the trip. The deck hands name is Iris and she is a hard working 23 year old deck hand that works on the boat during the summer and is a school teacher during winter. She grew up in Haines and has lived in Haines year around.
Back on board and headed back to Haines. This would be our last night at Haines. Nice place.

That is all for now, end of week 3 on our Alaskan adventure.

Summer 2011 Travel Alaskan Adventures

2011-07-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

Dear friends and blog followers,

update for the week of 6/12/2011

Our last entry took us to the border and into Calgary. This will chronicle another week of adventures along the ALCAN highway. This is really where the historical travel starts, but we'll need to get to Dawson Creek, BC.
For pictures and descriptive subcaptions click here

6/12/2011
We traveled from Calgary to Edmonton, AB, then to the West Edmonton Mall the largest in North America. It lives up to big as it has a theme park and almost anything else inside. The girls shopped and shopped and the hours got away from us. Brad and I had some maintenance and other projects to do and that filled our day. We decided to just spend the night in the parking lot after the security people said it would be OK.

6/13/2011
A travel day from Edmonton to Grande Prairie. The day light is now getting much longer. We don't see the sunrise or the sunset. Sun is about 20 hours a day and with twilight, there is not a real darkness. Brad bought some material at the hardware store to darken his windows for sleep time. Grand Prairie is a busy town with lots of stuff going on. We stayed at the WM with a petty much a full parking area.

6/14/2011
Another travel day except now we are experiencing the beauty of the spring along the ALCAN. Miles of wild flowers adorn the highway and high lite the vistas seen through our windshield. And then the wild life such as bear, wolf, wood bison, moose, birds, and people. The humans may be the most interesting. Each evening we select that special place along the road to make camp. The view in the evening is with the sun high in the west and in the morning the sun will be high in the east. Just can't describe some of the views.
We spent the night a historic provincial park called Kiskatinaw at the 21 mile post where the curved wooden bridge spans the Piece river. This was an original work camp in 1943.

6/15/2011
Another travel day north and west. We drove to Fort Nelson and went to the visitor center. This is another boom town from mining and oil related activities. Lot of new construction and hotels. We finished the day by driving about 30 miles north to a large pull-out where we would spend the night.
The cars and the trailers were very dirty and needed washing. We used river water to bucket wash everything. The river was running hard and fast with big snow chunks floating by from the snow melt.
I went outside at 0300 hrs and took some pictures. See this link for the picture made in "land of the midnight sun".

6/16/2011
Our target destination for today is Laird Hot Spring provincial park. It is a popular place with a natural hot springs. We enjoyed it in 2009. After setting up at the camp site and eating, we walked the quarter mile to the spring and got in the very hot water. This is a wide spot in the river and has been in service for a long time. I think it was close to midnight and had plenty of day light to return about 0130 hours. Read about it here.

6/17/2011
Another travel day and today is the Watson lake visit. Watson Lake is known world wide because of the Sign Post Forest. Started with a sign painter during the highway construction and continues today with about 70 thousand sign from all around the world. Read the Wiki about the Sign Post Forest here. Enjoyed a few hours there and drove about 30 miles north where we spent the night in a pull out along with one other traveler.

6/18/2011
Today we are heading for Whitehorse, YT and to the Walmart to stock up with stuff. Plan to spend a couple of days there to visit the local attractions. I pick up with that on the next addition of our travel blog.

Until next time

John and Barbara on the road

Summer 2011 Travel Alaskan Adventures

2011-07-02T07:18:00.000-07:00

Dear friends and blog followers,

update for the week of 6/05/2011

Click here for link to pictures with descriptive captions

It's been a while since I have put up a update as to our travel plans and other activites. This summer of 2011 found us making plans to return to Alaska and western Canada. In February 2009 we traveled to the "Last Frontier" and enjoyed it so much that we decided to return. This time we would travel with our good friends from Santa Fe, Brad and Beverly Cottingham. Plans were made to do this in 2009, but at that time, due to unexpected events they could not travel with us.

In early 2011 we made plans early, worked hard getting ready, and marked the calendar for a June 5th leave date. This turned out to be a great time to flee the extreme heat and drought conditions in the Texas Panhandle area. In addition, our friends Lowell and Vickie from McAllen, Texas were planing travel to Washington, Oregon, and the north west US as part of their summer escape from the hot south Texas heat. They would travel through Lubbock and stay at out house and then we would caravan to Palo Duro State Park where we would attend the presentation of the Pioneer outdoor amphitheater musical drama "Texas" . They would accompany us as far as Billings, Mt. At time we would go north into Canada at the Sweetgrass port of entry and they would continue to the west into Glacier National Park.

We left Lubbock with Lowell and Vickie following behind. Because The Silent Wings Museum on the north side of Lubbock had a special events day, we stopped there on the way north and enjoyed several hours looking at all of the exhibits. Then the drive to Palo Duro where we enjoyed the evening and the next day at the Panhandle Plains Historic Museum in nearby Canyon, TX. Also enjoyed the wildlife and spent time exploring the area. We spent two nights at Palo Duro.

We joined up Brad and Beverly at Trinidad, CO on I25, the afternoon of the 7th where we would spend the night. We were early enough to enjoy the free welcome to Trinidad and ride the historical tour bus around town. The driver is a history buff and does a good job explaing the early days of colorful Trinidad. Trinidad is a early railroad town with a interesting past. Very informative tour about town.

6/8/2011
Left Trinidad, Co and drove to Wheatland, Wy where we spent the night in the city park in the RV area. It was part of a large sports complex and was very nice. We were glad to find it as the weather had turned bad and the storm clouds were growing. Just got rain but no other problems. On our way up I25, we stopped at a Camping World near Thorton Co, for Brad to get a recall done on his refrigerator.

6/9/2011
Travel day north on I25 along the Bighorn National Forest. Beautiful drive in the very green rocky mountains. They have had a lot of rain and everything is greed. Lots of wind generators and livestock grazing. On into Sheridan for fuel and then I90 to Billings, Montana.
This is where we say goodbye to Lowell and Vicki as they go west and we go east. We will meet up with them next year at the annual Blue Bonnet rally in Bandera. We spent the night in the Cracker Barrel parking lot.

6/10/2011
Another travel day toward the US Canada border
Lot of rain has fallen and we had to detour because of a washed out highway (US87) just to the north of Billings near Lavina on 87. Not a big problem as the detour took us through some nice country roads. Lots of water but we continue to Great Falls, do some sight seeing and shopping. On toward the boarder to a pull out to spend the night, just a few miles south of the port of entry at Sweetgrass, Mt/Coutts, AB, Canada.

6/11/2011
Another travel day north into AB Canada
Entered the port of entry with no problem and continued the short drive to Calgary where we spent the night at the Flying J. We wanted to get a early start to Edmonton, AB and to the big mall there.

Just a little review...
We don't plan on more than 2 to 3 hundred miles per day. This keeps us busy and active with sight seeing and visits to area attractions. We drive slow so we don't miss anything. We try to use the internet to check out the "must see" attractions along the way. We limit our expenses by using free or low cost overnight spots. No reason to purchase expensive camp grounds just for a few hours of rest time. Much of our saving goes in the fuel tank as fuel is expensive and will get more expensive as we go into Canada.

Stay tuned for more updates

blog update starting Aug 22nd

2010-10-02T11:42:00.001-07:00

To the blog readers,

For pictures with descriptive captions click here...

August 22nd 2010 finds us at Sault Ste. Marie, pronounced Soo Saint Marie, Michigan's oldest city founded in 1668. This is our 24th day on the road. The temps have cooled off some and the weather is very pleasant. We have really enjoyed our time in the upper Michigan Peninsula. We are still in the United States but just a mile separates from the Sault Ste Marie, Ontario port of entry. This will be our port of entry for the Canadian leg of our journey. An easy description of our location is on the most eastern end of Lake Superior.

We had planned to spend some time here in Sault Ste. Marie because of the many points of interest, therefore we needed a cheap place to hang out. We choose the Kewadin Casino RV Campgrounds. It gave us water, electric, and the important wifi internet connection. The Casino also gave us cheap meals and even a free one. Hard to beat and deal like that. We spent 3 nights here. During the time we spent in the many POIs in the downtown area, I would say that the area of the Soo Locks was the most interesting. We spent several hours watching the great lakes ship pass through the Soo locks. More than 11,000 ships pass through them each year and we were fortunate enough to see one of the 1000' foot talanite cargo ships pass through with only 3 feet clearance on the side and about 10 feet on the front. The locks drops or raises the ships a distance of 21' between lake Superior and Lake Huron. The locks are on the Saint Marie river also the home to 3 hydro electric power plants. The Edison electric plant was built in 1908 and has 36 turbines still running after 102 years. Another historic POI is the Mackinac Bridge and Mackinaw city that connects Michigan Upper and Michigan Lower Peninsula. Some of our time was spent at the museums arounjd the locks. We took a tour boat ride around the different parts of the Soo Locks and even traveled through the Poe lock. The locks are part of the Corp of Engineers. I enjoyed a 5 hour tour of the Valley Camp, an old Great Lakes steam powered coal freighter taken out of service in the 70s and made into a floating museum.

Just a note... Lake superior is a exciting place because of the important history all along its shores.

Our next adventure starting aug 24th will be spent alone the Canadian north shore of Lake Superior. We traveled highway 17, scenic and historic route alone the east and north toward a town called Wawa, ON. It is best known for the many natural waterfalls located alone route 17 and the fact that it was the connection point of the of the Trans Canada Highway some 50 years ago. It is also the home of the Famous Wawa Goose a often photographed landmark in north america. We stayed at the Rabbits Blanket Provincial park and the Wawa RV Resort. From Wawa we took route 101 toward Hawk Junction, Timmins, ON and Val-d'or in Quebec. We did a nice hike to the Pothole Falls near Hawk Junction. Just a note about the highways along here... A lot of nice road and lot of very poor roads some worse than anything on our Alaska trip. Timmins has an active gold mine that has scheduled tourist tours. Our travel plans are changing somewhat, the original plan was complete our Canadian leg and then come into the Bangor Maine area to visit my cousing and start our travel leg down the east coast. We made the decision to drop down into New York state via Ottawa, on to the Cornwall port of entry. This puts us in the Robert Moses State Park, in New York. We visited the Eisenhower Locks, 40' rise or lower of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. We spent 2 days on the Barnhart Island Beach campground. We visited the Power Project center at the St Lawrence FDR Hydro Power Project, a 2000 megawatt plant. Its length is 3300 feet and is divided into two sections, one half for the US and half for Canda. Just a few miles into NY is a GM power train plant and a Alcoa Aluminum making cylinder heads for GM. These are located in Messena Township, New York.

From Massena we traveled the 160 miles toward Altona, New York, the home of my second cousin Sandra. She lives just outside of the Androdack State park on a farm with 5 huge 3 megawatt wind turbines. She worked for Nobile Power, the company that owns and installed the turbines.

From Altona, NY, along with Sandra, we traveled 2 hours south to Hague, New York to spend 5 days with my cousin Dick Dykstra and his wife Rena. They live on a heavily treed mountain top in the Adirondack State Park. We have a great place to park the RV that gave us 360 degrees of scenic beauty. One evening we sited 5 deer, a fawn and a wild turkey in the yard next to the house. We took a day trip to Lake George for a ride on the Minnie Ha Ha steam powered excursion boat for a ride around the lake. Lots of visitors there because of the Labor Day weekend.

From Hague, our travel plans take us back north on I87 to Plattsburg NY and then back into Quebec, Canada to continue our adventure toward Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

For now that is all

John and Barbara on the road heading east into Canada

Blog update starting Aug 1 2010

2010-09-16T20:14:00.001-07:00

To the blog,

I have also posted pictures here with descriptive captions.
Here is another picture link with descriptive captions
Please view these as they will help understand just where we have been.

I have used links to some of these locations because I do not have the time and the talent to properly describe them.

Aug the 1st found us in Bennett Springs state park, a Missouri state park located about 20 miles north of Lebanon MO built by the CCC during the 1930's. Along with us was our friends Paul and Jean McClure from Lake Livingstone, TX and Jim and Fonda Hatfield from Shongaloo, LA. We had a nice site with services and a private front yard. We were planning to spend 5 days at the park. In the evening hours we would attend the 42nd annual Brumley Sings at the convention center in nearby Lebanon.
Bennett Springs is a popular fishing lake that has a fish hatchery and is fed by one of the many springs in MO. Many folks come from all around the US for the Fly Fishing school held on the river.

Aug 9th we stayed at the Lake Michigan State park at Zion, just north of the Great Lakes Naval Base. We spent a few minutes at the navel base visitor center. At this point we were traveling north on the west side of Lake Michigan through Chicago, Il Milwaukee Sheboygan, and then toward Green Bay Wi. Our target was the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the home of the YOOPERS'. There we would spend about a week. Our overnight stops were Green Bay, Carney Lake State Forrest near Iron Moutain, Marquett, and then the National Forrest Bay Furnace campground for 6 nights. We met up with friends and visited historic Christmas, MI, and Munising. We really enjoyed our 6 days around this area. We met several folks in the Bay Furnace campground that became our special friends. These were folks that know the area well and gave some of the secrets of the area. The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is full of scenic waterfalls, museums, and things to do. The town of Iron Mountain was the home of a Ford Motor assy plant that converted during WWII to building the CG4A cargo glider, one of the only remaining ones is at the Silent Wings Museum in Lubbock. We spent the morning touring the Iron Mountain attraction. We went down into the mine shaft for a close inspections. I spent the afternoon at the Cornish Pump Museum, featuring the largest Cornish pump in the US and many other exhibits. We also took a trip south on park road 13 to the historical town of Fayette, MI. Fayette was founded in 1867 by the Jackson Iron Company. It was once a busy industrial town that produced pig iron from raw iron ore. It is now a Michigan Historic site.

We had the pleasure of meeting Peter Bensing and his friend Melody. Peter has worked at the local hardware store for 40 years and has a talent for great outdoor nature photography. He also has connections all over this area, therefore he can go anywhere to take these pictures. He gets up early and works late for some of the special shots. I will place, with permission, some of his pictures on our Picasaweb site at a later date. We met Ron from Tennessee. He fell in love with the UPPER early in life and still comes back each summer to spend time in his playground. We met Kathy and Mike from Florida who grew up in the Detroit area, buts come back to the UPPER to fill up on the magic found in this area. Mike and Kathy picked a lot of wild blueberries around the area and made a blueberry pie. In addition to the blueberry pie they made an apple/rhubarb and an apple then invited us to their site for pie and ice cream. The pie night was enjoyed by all. We met Tom who retired early from working at a Chicago Power Provider and has since found life on the road very satisfying. Tom has an mailing address at the Escapees in Livingstone TX, but winters in Mexico and travels the UPPER during the summer.

Munising is a interesting port town on Lake Superior that served as a iron and coal port during during the early 1900's. We spent time there visiting the local sights and points of interest. Great Lakes shipping was important then, as it now.

From the Munising area we traveled to Andrus Lake State Forrest where we met up with Mike and Kathy again. She had saved a great camp site for us on the Andrus lake. The next day we attended the annual Wild Blueberry Festival in Paradise, MI. We traveled to Whitefish point to the Shipwreck Wreck Museum and spent most of the day there. Then off to the blueberry patches for more berry picking, what a day.

That is all for this update...
The next update starts at Sault Ste Marie, Michigan... (Sue St. Marie) The location of the Soo Locks...

new blog updates for friends and family from John and Barbara Harris

2010-09-08T18:06:00.001-07:00

To the Blog. update from April to July 30th 2010

I have a lot of catching up on past vacation days. So lets get started.

My last blog update was from the Casita Rally held Bandera Texas

I have posted pictures with descriptive captions here

After the the Bluebonnet rally we moved to Canyon Lake Corp of Engineer campground called Potters Creek. It is a campground where can use our Golden Age pass, therefore $8.00 per night was a good deal. It was a convenient stopping point on our way to Houston where our friend Jack Reed was going for his annual eye checkup on the 4th of May. We used Potters Creek for a base camp for visits to several towns around the area. We stayed here until Friday the 30th.
We had reservations at Stephen F Austin state park on Sunday the 2nd of May.
After leaving Stephen F Austin we headed to the Dallas area to visit Keith and Beverly Sims in Grandview and then to Jay's house in Dallas. We had a great time with Keith and Beverly.

June 16th 2010
Next we decided to beat the heat and head to Red River NM. We stayed at our favorite campground, Columbine. We had good weather and a very nice site within 10' of the river. Brad and Bev joined us on the 19th, spent the night and left Sunday evening. Jean and Tony Boeckman from Medford OK came by on their way to Santa Fe and camped across the road. They followed us to Brad and Bev's house in Santa fe. We had a delightful 3 days visit with them all. We left for Lubbock on Monday the 28th.

Now fast forward to July 30th 2010
We packed up the trailer and head out for the north east and south east Canada. Our first night is a 450 mile trip to Hugo Lake COE in southeastern Oklahoma. We are headed to Queen Wilhelmina State Park near Mina Arkansas. We were camped in QWSP on monday when we noticed some friends that we know from near Livingston, TX walking up to our camper. They saw our rig and came by to say hello. Just a by chance meeting. They were in route to Bennett Springs State Park in Missouri to attend a gospel music event called Brummley Sings in Lebanon. We left Lubbock in triple digit temperature and all the way through Arkansas we drove in record breaking temps.

I think I will end this update and start the next on August 1st... More to follow

John n Barbara on the road

Our Texas Hill country rally and adventure

2010-04-30T11:02:00.000-07:00

For more updated pictures click here

Hi to all,

We left Lubbock on the 8th of April heading to Bandera, Tx in the middle of Texas Hill country. Stopped by Chuck and Susan Lewis's new home in San Angelo very near the State park there. We spent several hours with them talking about old times. Chuck and I worked together for 30 years.
We spent the next 4 days at South Llano State Park south of Junction, Tx. This is a very nice park for hiking and birding.
Next we went to Garner State Park near Uvalde and spent 3 night there. This a old CCC park built in the 1930s. This park feature over 500 sites an has been a generational rec spot for many. The Frio river flows through it.
From there we went to Lost Maples State natural area. Features a big grove of Big Tooth maple trees and a lost of scenic hiking trails. While we were there, it rained very hard and closed all the roads outside the park. Mostly the low water crossing but the road to Bandera was closed by a rock slide. We left on Sunday for the 45 minute scenic drive on highway 337 to our annual rally at Bandera. Our 7 days went quickly at the rally. We renewed friendships and met new people as well. We also visited our neighbor from Lubbock Donna who now lives in Kerrville.
At the present time we are camped at Potter Creek Corp of Engineers Campground on Canyon Lake about 45 minutes due north of San Antonio. Very nice place so we decided to extend to Sunday the 2nd of March. We then head to Stephen F Austin State park.
Will try to update when I have time.

John and Barbara on the road again

Caught in Homer Alaska by the Google Camera and other

2010-03-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

To our blog following friends,

Some of you may remember a picture of the Google camera car that I took while in Homer Alaska. Barbara and I were walking in downtown Homer and the Google car drove by, so I took a picture of it. We later passed it on another road. I was sure that it was taking pictures, so I checked the street view and I found myself.

Just to do a quick update...
Our last outing was the first of November 2009 at Davis Mountain State park. We had several home projects and then a trip to Dallas for Thanksgiving.

While in Dallas for a few day, I got the opportunity to go for a ride in Scott Carter's new experimental Extra EZ airplane. Very nice and a ~200MPH 4 seat plane. For pictures and descriptions of the plane click here. Some of the first pictures were taken by my son Jay, from a chase plane. Jay took this one for the cover of October 2009 Contact Magazine. His plane won Reserve Grand Champion at the Oshkosh flyin in October 2009. Scott started his Extra EZ in 1997. This was his second home built with his first be a Long EZ that began around 1980.

After that, we were back in Lubbock and back to the home projects. I finished a long standing tile project, did some painting in the utility room and repairs to a backyard deck. I still have several remodel projects but they are not pressing. The end of 2009 has come and gone and we are making plans for 2010. We have plans to spend time on the road again, maybe traveling to the eastern part of the country. Our first trip will be to the annual Bluebonnet Rally in Bandera and then to Dallas for a few days.

I have a hard time with the idea that I have been retired for over 13 months. The time has disappeared very quickly. I just don't know how I ever had time to work a full time job.

I've been upgrading the suspension on the Bigfoot, along with replacing the tires. I figure I had around 28K miles on the Marathons. I also replaced the worn spring shackles with heavy duty ones. I also replaced a broken window glass and a rearview camera.

We look forward to the Bluebonnet rally this year and visiting with friends from all over the country.

John and Barbara from Lubbock

Our Davis Mountain State Park week 1st issue

2009-11-11T07:50:00.000-08:00

To the blog

It has been a few days since I updated everyone, so here I am, back to blogging.

Click here to view pictures complete with descriptive captions

Friday Nov 6th 2009
Barbara and I returned from our wonderful Alaskan adventure on October the 11th. We had already planned this Davis Mountain trip last year while at Davis Mountain with Keith and Linda Turner. On this trip we are pleased to have Jack and Booty Reed joining us. Barbara and I are thankful for the friendship of Keith, Lynda, Jack and Booty and for good times shared in campgrounds around the state. I worked with Jack and Keith at SPS. When all of get together as we are now at Davis Mountain State Park we gather around the campfire in the evening and cook out. We build a nice big fire and stand or sit close so as to knock the mountain air chill off. Of course we engage in story telling, table games, and planning other events.

Davis Mountain state park is a great place for a visit during November because of the nice weather, cool nights but warming into the 70s during the days. The park is about 280 miles (5-6 hours) from Lubbock south of Interstate 10 very near Fort Davis.
The park also has a good variety of wild life. Each evening we are treated to the parade of deer, wild hogs, foxes, skunks, and many other 4 legged animals that come wandering through the campsites, and a few even stop to visit. Starting about sunup, hundreds of birds flock to the area to check out the many bird feeders hanging from the trees.
Another feature of this area is the bonus of clear view of the heavens at night. On most any night one can travel 15 minutes to the McDonald observatory for a "star party" along with looking through some very nice telescopes.

Sunday Nov 8th
Today started with nice clear morning with a temp of 37 degrees. We had decided to go up the hill to the Davis Mountain state park Black Bear restaurant next to the historic Indian Lodge for Sunday lunch. The lodge was built in the 1930s by the CCC and is still operated by the State of Texas. The lodge has undergone a recent restoration that restored some of the rooms back to the original look along with the CCC crafted furnishings. After a good lunch we did a short hike back to the campsite to watch the Nascar race from the Ft Worth track. After supper we gathered at Keith and Lynda's site for desert and a campfire. We had a visit from a gray fox and a skunk. The two got somewhat close and scared each other each leaving in the opposite direction.

Monday Nov 9th
Another beautiful day at Davis Mountains, early morning is cool and crisp, but quickly warming into the mid 70s and clear blue skies. During a hike to the bird watching building, Barbara and I visited with a fellow traveler that was having a problem returning his slide out to its stowed position. The Keith Jack and John campsite repair service was able to resolve the problem. That enabled them to travel on to Big Bend. The problem turned out to be an electrical interlock that was not made up. It was a lazy day around the campground with the girls playing table games. I worked on a few repair items on our trailer and did a little waxing and cleaning. We did a few more nature hikes around the area during the mid afternoon. After supper we settled in around a campfire to end the day.

Tuesday Nov 10th
The big news of today is that our hummingbird feeder was knocked from the tree last night and damaged. Maybe a raccoon, but we are not sure, it could be almost any of the many visitors that come each night. We will do a day trip to the Fort Davis National Historic site and visit the town. We spent several hours at the Fort looking at the many exhibits including a film presentation and the many restored buildings. The Fort was open from 1854-1891 and served to protect the interests of the pioneers traveling west between San Antonio and El Paso.
After that, we went down to the Jeff Davis Court house area and did a walking tour of the town square area. Some of the old buildings were the Limpia Hotel and the bank.
We returned to the campground and had a wonderful pot-luck dinner around the campfire.

John and Barbara along with Keith, Lynda, Jack, and Booty at Davis Mountain State Park

Starting our 4th month on the road and homeward bound... then computer failure.

2009-10-22T23:35:00.000-07:00

To the blog

Link to the pictures with informative captions

We truly had a wonderful time, and adventure of a lifetime in Alaska, "The Last Frontier". It's hard to describe, but we felt some of the magic in the land of the "midnight sun" and the "northern lights". We originally had planned for just the scenic value and the Denali adventure, but we found out quickly that their was much more than that. We found history, geography, geology, really good restaurants, museums, visitor centers, glaciers, flowers, fish, birds, planes, trains, bears, moose, caribou, reindeer, wolves, but I think that the best were the many people that we met along the way from all parts of the world. Many showed interest in us and we of course, were interested in their stories and lives. Never before have I seen the number of tourist and RVs heading to all parts of a state as I saw in Alaska. They walked, rode bikes, motorcycles, RVs, buses, trains, small boats, ferries, big ships, and airplanes. We drove for days on the Alaskan Highway, also called the ALCAN because of the construction during WW2. Each day, around every bend in the road, was another bonus or a WOW. It was truly a pleasure and an honor to live in a country where we could travel like we did. Other than fuel we were able to control costs most of the time. The usual for a campsite was $15 or less, except the night we were in Prince Rupert, and that was $27 with full hook ups. Some nights were free and yes, we had unbelievable nice campsites. The National Park System and the US forest service was usually around $5 to $8 with our half price senior discount.
We traveled in 10 US states and 3 Canadian Provinces during the last 100 days. We logged ~12,400 miles on the truck. The trailer was about 300 less than the truck. I think that Barbara and I walked about 50 miles on the many trails, just a guess. We felt that on some of the trails we walked the footsteps of some of the Goldrushers of the late 1800s. We had mostly perfect weather with little rain. We had very few bugs and almost no mosquitoes. We had no mechanical problems other than a windshield wiper motor control board and a balky heater in the trailer, both of which I repaired on the road with no expense. No flats or broken glass. Not too many wrong turns, but than there are not many roads up there.. And the roads for the most part were just fine if you took it slow.

You might enjoy these two Youtube links. We had a short cut on the desktop for easy access to these mp3 files. We would play them many times before our adventure ended.
Springtime in Alaska Johnny Horton
North to Alaska Johnny Horton

Thanks to all the friends that wrote and followed along on this blog as we traveled those many miles. Thanks for the many friends we met along the way. I am still getting a few email asking questions about the Texans.

Much has happened since my last posting. On Tuesday the 6th my trusty laptop booted and then went dark. It was dead and remained dead for the rest of the trip. We rely on the laptop for mapping, blogging, and it also serves as the display for the rear camera on the travel trailer. I will try to update you.

We spent 4 days in the Arches national park and the Moab, UT area. Moab is a tourist city and We traveled US 191 south toward the Canyonland Needles National park. The Needles park is about 30 miles west of US191 at the junction of State road 211. We stayed in the Needles park for 2 nights in the Squaw flat camping area that has 26 sites. The first night was in a group area because the park was full when we arrived. The next day we did a self guided tour of the park. We walked several of the trails and spent some time at the visitor center where we watched a video about the park. We attended a ranger program that was about the different early ranchers that were the pioneers in the area. One of those persons was a interesting woman named Marie Ogden. She took over the local newspaper called the San Juan Record and also established a cult following called the Home of Truth. Many of the buildings are still standing on the road 211 going toward the Needles park entrance. You can read about Marie here. This area was the also the center of the uranium mining boom of the 1950s.

On wednesday the 7th We left Needles and drove back to US191 and south to Monticello and then to southwest on 491 to Cortez. Purchase propane at Cortez and drove east on US 160 to Mesa Verde National Park. We arrived at Mesa Verde national park in the southwest corner of Colorado just west of Cortez on US6. We spent the night of the 7th in the park at Morefield camping area that has 435 sites managed by Aramark. It is located 15 miles into the park. We went to to the Far View visitor center at and did some of the self guided things. Barbara and I have been to Mesa Verde back about 1981. We woke up on Thursday with the temp of 29 degrees. This was to be our last camping of our Alaskan Adventure for our next stop would be in Eldorado, New Mexico at the lovely home of Brad and Beverly Cottingham. We left Mesa Verde on thursday and drove through Durango and on to Alamosa where we would turn south on US 84 toward Santa Fe. In the high mountain passes the temp would drop into the 30s and while driving through Chama, NM we got into a blinding snow and ice storm. That didn't last long and the weather on to Santa fe was good. we arrived at Brad's about 5:PM.

Oct 8th 9th and 10th
We camped out at Brad and Bev's in their driveway. Only the second time we had been hooked up to electricity since July 1. We visited and caught up on a lot of things. Barbara and Beverly cooked some nice meals in the big fully equipped kitchen. Remember, we have not been in a real kitchen since the end of June. I helped Brad move his satellite dish up on the roof. It was a 15 minute job, but it took us about 3 hours. We drove 10 miles to Lamy, NM and ate lunch at the Lamy Station Cafe. It is also featured in this youtube video. Enjoyed it very much. After lunch, some of the local historians gave us a personal tour of the Rail and Hotel museum. Lamy is a historic town that was the rail center of Santa Fe and is the rail stop for Amtrack service. The location is a few mile east of US 285 on highway 33.

Oct 11th
The long 300 miles home after 110 days on the road. We had a uneventful drive back to back to Lubbock and some realities. Monday was a holiday, then on tuesday a trip to the post office for over 3 months of mail.

John and Barbara back in Lubbock

our stay at Mount Rainier National Park Sept 27th and 28th and on toward Arches/Canyonland National Park

2009-10-05T12:24:00.001-07:00

To the Blog,

Link to the pictures and descriptive captions.

We left Olymic National Park on the Olympic Peninsula and drove toward Mount Rainier. Olympic is just about as far north and west in the continous US as you can go. Very enjoyable time in the rain forests and along the Pacific costal beaches.

Again we find excitement as we come back to Mount Rainier National Park after being here with our son, Jay, 26 years ago. This is an old park (around 1923 for with the campground we are in) and it a few places it may look a little worn out. We enjoyed two nights in the park and hiked some of the interesting in park trails. The best one was the Grove of the Patriarchs. It is about two miles into a grove of old growth Doug Fir, Western red cedars, and Western Hemlock. Some of the trees are 300' feet tall and 1000 years.
When we drove into Rainier campground, a fellow traveler greeted us with a "Hey Texsan". He and his wife were camped in the site across the road. They are from Midlothain, TX. He had lost his job do to the economic downturn, so they decided to vacation to the northwest.
The morning of the 28th as, we left Rainier, we were greeted with a snowstorm for a few miles along highway 12. We are heading to Yakima, WS and beyond. This takes us along the Yakima valley where all the apples and other tree fruits are grown. The river is close by and is controlled by irrigation diversion dams used for the crops. This goes on for a hundred miles. When we get to Yakima we stop at the visitor center and get a free sample package of apples, pares, peaches, and tomatoes.
We continued out drive toward Boise, ID and then to Salt Lake City, UT, and to Arches/Canyonland in the southeast corner of UT.

We are now at Arches/Canyon and heading for the Needles campground.

Fellow travelers that we have met along the way

2009-09-27T16:24:00.001-07:00

a few more pictures and our present location

To the blog,
We have met many fellow travelers while on our 10,000 mile (as of now) adventure and I welcome them.
Many have been helpful with answers to our questions and all have had an interest in us wandering texans. These are the ones that I have a card on or in a few cases, I just remember them.
Thanks all

Jennifer and Tom Griffin, Williams Lake, B.C.
Ken & Sherry Patrick   Kamloops BC
John W King. Sr Denham Springs LA K5PGW
Bill and Lil Pensacola, FL (WB4ORN)
Mark & Brenda Erb Edmonton, AB
Gold Rush Peck of Hope AK
Christopher Sorbi Montana
Ellen & Orval Baldwin Oshawa, Ontario
Jesse & Kathy Clifton Fairbanks, AK
Mike and Teri Myers   Florence OR
Pat & Charlotte Yates   Crosby, TX
Scott Robbins Bend OR
Paul & Lynn Goulet Florida
John & Marium (WL7CFA) Anchorage, AK
Dave & Dee Hanrahan Homer AK
Theodor Fremd   paleontologist working for the NPS
Russ and Lauri Sequim WA
Jim Mountifield    Prince George BC

John and Barbara on the return leg

An update on John and Barbara and our wonderful adventure... heading for Olympic National park

2009-09-27T16:13:00.001-07:00

To the blog,

Link for pictures and descriptive captions Be sure to check the pictures, as I am not blogging much of our day to day activity except in picture captions.

FYI should be another blog and more pictures shortly.

We are on the move and for one reason or another, I have let the blog fall behind. We had made plans with Jay to meet him in Olympic National Park and to work with his calendar we were going to have to cover some ground. As it turned out he had a couple of things that came up and he will not be able to me us. Sorry for the absence on the blog.

Some of our recent adventures were driving and camping along the Gold Rush Cariboo Highway 97 south from Prince George, BC. The highway got the name from the gold rush days in the 1860s. Many towns on the road are named after mile post bunkhouses or the person that owned the shelters along the way. The scenic highway is well traveled and busy. There is still some active mining in a few areas. Two railroads follow the highway closely. Because of the mountainous nature of the area, seven tunnels are cut through some of the mountains.

At the present time we are on the west side of Olympic National Park in the Kalaloch beach campground on Pacific coastal scenic highway 101. The weather has been perfect for about 10 days straight and we have enjoyed our time in three of the Olympic National park campgrounds. We have 5 days in the park, at Sol Doc campground, Kalaloch campground , and the day at Hoh rain forest center.
This is about as far west and north in the lower 48 that we can go and this is the turn around point for us. Tomorrow, the 27th, we'll turn the rig toward Texas. Not sure of the route, we'll let the GPS start us out. The GPS indicates 2020 miles to Lubbock.

John and Barbara from the turnaround location

we'll moving on... We are Prince Rupert and heading for Prince George

2009-09-17T09:34:00.001-07:00

To the Blog

Link for pictures and descriptive captions

Breaking news..
After 77 days without hookups we got hooked in Prince Rupert at the Prince Rupert RV Campground, because it is getting late in the year the provincial park outside of town and it was closed for the season. We have done well without hookups using the generator when needed.

At the present we are in Prince Rupert, BC on the west coast. This is a busy little town with a lot going on. Prince Rupert is a major port on the inland waterway system. It has a huge container shipping terminal port for shipping containers all around the word. We watched it from a viewing point high on a hill and the activity looked like a little city of ants each carrying something back and forth. The containers are handled from train or truck and placed on ships, much of it automated handling.
I am posting this link to google that will show the location and other informative pictures.
I am able to do this because we also have Wifi here in this park.

We spent the day in Prince Rupert yesterday. We wandered around the visitors center and had lunch at Smiles Seafood restaurant. It has been operating since 1934 at the same location. We walked around the downtown area and viewed several of the many totem poles carved by the native Indian craftsman. I chose to visit the CN railroad museum while Barbara was doing some shopping. We also watched the planes come and go at the Seaplane port. This is just like a airport, except that the runaway are water in the bay. The planes taxi out and take one of two runaways. They have radial piston engines that have a lot of power, they get in the air very quickly.

Our next stop will be along the Yellowhead Highway, about halfway between here and Prince George, BC. We will be in Prince George the next night.

John and Barbara form Prince Rupert

The continuing drive south on the Cassiar and visit to Stewart and Hyder

2009-09-16T08:32:00.001-07:00

Hello Bloggers,

click this link for pictures with descriptive captions

NOTE...
Want to get the travel fever? Get the Milepost, the bible of the north country travel, it doesn't matter what year edition, just pick a section and start reading. The Milepost contains road descriptions as well as the history of the area. If you are a Ebay-er, spend a few bucks and have it sent to your front door. Ours is a 2005 that came from the Red Wing Public Library in Red Wing MN that was discarded. Make sure that the edition that you are considering has the large fold our map, it is important.

Sept 13 2009

Our first 60 miles heading south on the Cassiar Highway has about 20 miles of gravel road and with some soft spots on a detour. The rest is paved wide one lane with no center stripe and no shoulder.
An update...After having driven the entire distance, this is a very nice scenic road and I am glad to have traveled it.

We spent the night on the road at the Simmons Lake overlook. Very nice scenic spot with lake and small cabin on the other side. 367.2 milepost It rained most of the night, sometimes a hard rain. We wondered how that would turn our because we were expecting a 20 mile section of gravel in the morning. It turned out they had just seal coated it and it was a very good road even in the wet weather. Tomorrow the weather is expected to clear by afternoon with mostly sunny on Monday.

Sept 14 2009 from Lake Meziadian Provincial Park BC

Nice day at sunrise and a low hanging moisture cloud hanging over the Meziadian Provincial Park.. This is a beautiful campground with a 12 mile long lake attached. Also the first Provincial campground that has a generator and solar powered wifi hotspot.
We drove into Stewart and Hyder today for another full day of sightseeing and adventure. This Cassiar highway that we have been traveling is a scenic wonderland of mountains and glaciers. Stewart, BC and Hyder, AK are old mining towns that are trying to hang onto something and that is tourism. The mines are all closed although there is still a lot of exploration by mining cos. Only about a 1/3 of the people are left because the mines have shut down. It is a walk back into history with all of the old building and attractions. We enjoyed the day very much. This is a link to the Stewart Hider web page. Well worth the time to read about these two historical places. It is also the gateway to the Tongas National park. We spent some time at the fish creek where the bear come to fish. It also has a large glacier that you can drive to.

Sept 15 2009
We are leaving the Lake Meziadian park and heading south to the Yellowknife junction and then to Port Rupert, BC. This will put us into Port Rupert this evening. It is a side trip that will add about 300 miles, but we don't want to pass it by. More later

John and Barbara

Whitehorse, YT and south to Carcross and Skagway, AK more gold rush history and a nice scenic drive

2009-09-12T13:33:00.001-07:00

Dear Blog,

Just an FYI... We will not have cell service until we get back into the states. Best way to get in touch is email. We use Skype for outbound calls when we have a Wifi connection. Our cell is 806 790 9299 and anyone is welcome to leave voice mail. When we get service we can retrieve the voice mail

link to pictures with descriptive captions

FYI... A few of the readers might wonder why I put so much "Gold Rush" stuff in the blogs. With well over 100,000 rushers from all over the world coming into this area and heading for the Yukon in the 1890s, it is possible that you may have had a rusher in your family. We don't know of any in mine or Barbara's. The museums and libraries in this area, are a hangout for the gold rush history buffs.
Many pictures that I used in this posting are from the descriptive interpretive signs on the pull out spots along the highway. There are many of these and each denotes some historical event or a scenic view of some kind. Rather than try to write about them, I just took a picture of them. Use the enlarge button in the gallery and I think you can read them. Each one has a piece of history to report and I think you will enjoy reading them.

And for those that have been following my "looking for Sargent Preston and King", I found them in Skagway. Check out the attached picture.

Sept 9, 2009
Another big day as we head down to Skagway, AK, this afternoon. This morning was a shopping trip to Walmart (not far), Canadian tire, the Super Store for food items. We also went to a bank to change American dollar for Canadian dollars. We pay our camping fees with Canadian dollars.

A reader wrote and asked about the fuel prices.
Note, these are from Whitehorse, the prices in the remote areas will be around 20% higher
The prices for unleaded gas and diesel are ~$1.009 per liter, so if you do the math, it is around $3.60 us dollars. We also needed propane and a 30lb cylinder cost about $30.00 us dollars to fill. That is about $12.00 more than it is in Lubbock. Today's money exchange is ~$1.04 Canadian for $1.00 USD. When we entered Canada, in July, it was $1.08 Canadian for $1.00 USD. Whitehorse is the last big town before we head south on the Cassiar highway. This is the more westward route down toward Stewart, BC, Hyder, AK, and on to Prince Rupert, BC. My propane tanks are full as well as the two 5 gal extra gas cans, so we should be good to go.

More about the historical and scenic route that we are on at this time. We are camped at the city campground in Carcross, YT. This is another gold rush trail of the late 1890s. Carcross is on the Yukon highway and is north of Skagway about 50 miles, the entry port of the majority of the 1898 Gold Rushers. Up to 100,000 rushers from all over the world came through this port or the other nearby port of Dyea. They followed the White Pass trail or the Chilkoot trail up and over a 3000 foot mountain and then built boats to sail down the Yukon river to Dawson City. It took many trips up this pass to carry the almost two tons of material to build their boats, food and supplies to live on. Only about 30% of them made it to Dawson City. This trail is still used by many hikers. The narrow gauge White Pass and Yukon railroad was built starting in 1900 and completed 1902 and is an international historic civil engineering landmark. Check it out at wpyr.com. There was so much history made here in a very short period of time.
We left Carcross early for a day trip to Skagway. I spent several hours at the museums and around the rail center while Barbara got in some last minute shopping. The weather was rainy but that didn't slow us down any. There were 5 large cruise ships in the harbor, so the stores were busy and everyone was having a good time.

Sept 11 2009 our 73rd day on the road
We spent the morning in Carcross at the WP&Y railroad museum and a short shopping trip to a 100 year old store that is still in business. Our plan this afternoon is to travel the 250 miles toward Watson Lake and stop at a YT campground in that area. We made it about 230 miles to the Big Creek YT campground. Nice place, so we built a really nice fire and then I worked on the blog.
I meet a couple here in the campground from Vancouver, BC. One of them has grandfather that was a pastor near Dawson City during the height of the gold rush. They are visiting some of the places where he lived. Of course, as with most of the gold rush towns, they were short lived. Very interesting chat. They have found information and he has shared a lot of personal documents that have been in the family since the gold rush.

Tomorrow we will spend a few hours in Watson Lake and then turn south on the Cassiar route, highway 37. That is where I will post this blog.

That all for now.
John and Barbara..... still wandering along the Alaska Highway

another day at Valdez, on to Tok and Whitehorse with link to pictures

2009-09-09T10:38:00.001-07:00

Dear Blog,

link to pictures with descriptive captions

Sept 4th 2009 Labor day weekend

note... This blog entry is a little screwed up and jumps around a little. Did not mean it to be that way, but we have been busy and writing while driving is a bit difficult. just kidding but time for blogging has been a little short.

We are still in Valdez enjoying the town and our wonderful adventure in Alaska. The season is changing from summer to fall rapidly. The nights are now in the 40s with the days warming into the 60s. Each day seems to be noticeably shorter by a few minutes, we still have ample sunlight for our activities. Today we drove over to the other side of the bay to the Valdez Marine Terminal. This is the oil facility that loads the oil on the tankers that transport it to the rest of the world. This is almost a small city with all support infrastructure. About 800,000 barrels pass through the VMT each day at a speed of about 3 mph. A barrel is 42 gallons and the transport time from Prudhoe Bay to VMT is 12 days.
Along with the VMT is Alyeska Ship Escort/Response Vessel System (SERVS) that hopefully has the resources and talent to contain any oil spill that might happen. All tankers that enter the Prince William Sound are double hull tankers and have special escort ships that maintain precision guidance in the channel.
Just the amount of human effort that went into these projects is truly hard to believe.

In the afternoon we decided to break camp and head back north to Glennallen. This is the big turn-around that starts us on the route back home. We still have a lot of places to go and both of us still have the adventuresome spirt. So here we go... At Glennallen we take the Tok cutoff (Alaska A1) that takes us back to the Alcan Highway. The big WOW of this 250 mile stretch is that we drive almost all of it around the west and north perimeter of the Wrangell-St. Elias national park. We have the pleasure of view the breath taking views from the north as well as the west. Our camping spot for the evening is a pull out along the north side of Cobb Lake. The trees in this picture are black spruce with white spruce mixed in. Trees don't grow very tall here and the tree line is only about 3000 feet altitude. If you look at the routing of the Acan Highway, it is easy to see why the road goes north so much, the Wrangell-St. Elias mountains are in the way. Just a note about the road condition, bumpy with lots of pot holes, frost heaves, and many pavement breaks (gravel replacement sections). We just have to slow down and enjoy the scenery.

Sept 6, 2009
We had a nice drive this morning into Tok. More bad road and great scenery. The tourist season is winding down and the stores are having clearance sales, so that entertained Barb while I did some work.
It is time for maintenance on the Suburban again, this time in addition to the normal items, it will get a new fuel filter. The trailer will need the brakes adjusted. Both will get a good wash and detail cleaning. There is a service station there that if you fill up, you can use their wash facility.
After the wash job and some shopping in Tok we decided to continue our drive to the southeast and overnight in the Yukon Territory. The Yukon Provincial campgrounds are always very nice. These campgrounds are a bargain, check out my pictures with the captions and you will see why there are so nice. We stopped about 30 miles into the Yukon Territory at the Snag Junction Campground for the night. There were only 2 sites left and we took one that was on the lake. It was late and getting dark, so we didn't scout around any.

Sept 7, 2009
Got up the this morning and we were delighted to find this was a beautiful place. It in fact was so nice we just decided to spend another night here. I caught up on the maintenance stuff and Barb found things to occupy her time. We built a fire in the early afternoon and had our hobo special again for supper. We were looking at the Mile Post and found that one of the featured photos was of our campsite #4 looking over the picnic table out onto this lake surrounded by trees and mountains. Of course, I also tried to take the same and will attach it to this blog. Earlier in the day we met Denny and his wife from Anchorage that were overnighting in another site. He has lived in Alaska for years and knows a lot about the area. He came by our site and alerted us that he observed a common loon, bald eagle, 2 trumpeter swans, from the bank of the lake. We also got a good look at these. The trees, crystal clear blue sky, mountains, and a full moon were all reflecting in the water. Another WOW on our Alaska Adventure.

Sept 8, 2009
Another spectacular morning with the lows in the high 20s and the clear skies. A low hanging moisture cloud is just above the water. No sign of the swans or any other wildlife. About dark last night a group of around 20 German tourist camped in the group site. This morning some of them went down to the lake to brush their teeth.
Our plan for today is to drive the 280 miles to Whitehorse, and stop at the Walmart there for supplies and overnight stay. We need a few items at Walmart and propane for the RV. We stopped several times during the day and got to Walmart around 7pm.

When we get to Whitehorse, we will have driven all of the Alaska Highway (Alcan) 1520 miles one way (Dawson Creek to Delta Junction and on to Fairbanks) or around 3,000 miles round trip. This give us a total miles in Alaska of around 5000. Our total mileage is 7800 miles from Lubbock.

Tomorrow we leave Whitehorse and travel to Carcross in the evening. I think I will leave the trailer at the campground in Carcross for the day trip to Skagway on thursday.

John and Barbara from Whitehorse YT

The Glenn Highway, Valdez another interesting port city on Prince William Sound

2009-09-05T12:35:00.001-07:00

To the Blog,

Link for pictures with descriptive captions

I think the last time I blogged with you, was just before leaving Palmer, in the Mat Su Valley area. We had a good time in Palmer attending the State Fair. You know that good things are in store when you make your plans to leave town, but you need to do three things on the way out of town. We needed to get fuel, dump the tanks, do some emailing and post the blog. I noticed that the Fred Meyer store had a gas station with a dump, so we headed to the station and they had a dump and a gas pump so close, that I could fill the truck while dumping the tanks. Well guess what, the Dairy Queen next door, had a wifi hotspot so we got everything done while dumping the tanks. Good start for the day.

The next big WOW was the excitement that the Glenn Highway (Alaska A1) offered. Wonderful views of the valleys, mountains with high passes, glaciers, and the river of the Matanuska River valley, then windshield fills with the Wrangell Saint Elias National Park mountains. These are five close together mountains with peaks of 13000 ft or more. They are big when we first saw them at mile 266 (from Anchorage) and we are still about 50 miles away. This is another spectacular mountain range that is straight ahead of us and Barbara and I both realized that we had completely forgotten about this National Park that our highway is taking us to. Another adventure ahead on our Alaskan vacation.

Facts about Wrangell St Elias National Park established 1980

Larger than 6 Yellowstones over 13.2 million acres 20,000 square miles
It has only 2 roads that inter the park and those only a short distance
from 1911 to 1938 the worlds largest producer of copper (Kennecott) ore nearing 90% copper,
The peaks attract climbers from around the world

We visited the National Parks visitor center and walked a short hike, watched a movie about the park and talked to the rangers. Very impressive and we thought we had seen everything that Alaska had to offer. Another bonus adventure.

At the crossroads town of Glennallen we turned south on the Richardson (Alaska A4) for our trip to Valdez, at the south end. The should keep us busy for a few days. This is also gold rush area, but bigger than the gold was the copper rush, that was the real money maker, far beyond the gold. It doesn't stop there, try "Black Gold and the Alaskan Pipeline, tourists, RVing, history, earthquakes, birdwatching, weddings, museums, glaciers fishing, small boat docks, The Alaska State Ferry, Prince William Sound excursions, major cruise line ports, and even the hugh disaster known as the Exxon Valdez (that is still paying $$$$ off and will be for years). All are big money makers for this area and I don't see gambling on the list, this place is just down right exciting. The earthquake of 1964 and the resulting tidal wave, destroyed Valdez, that made it necessary to completely rebuild in a new location about 3 miles away. The new Valdez is turning 45 years old and some of us are old enough to remember 1964.
I stopped at the Valdez museum and spent several hours reading about the area. Some of the 1897 All American Gold Rush stories are almost unbelievable. This was the wild gold rush days when men came here to make a fortune. Few did and many died trying.

It time to get out and about for the day is nice

from Valdez, AK

John

Barbara and John at the Alaska State Fair in Palmer and new picture link

2009-09-03T12:12:00.000-07:00

Hello Blog,

picture link with descriptive captions

We spent 2 1/2 weeks on the Kenai Peninsula and drove around 700 miles. Sure glad we didn't pass this area up. This was a fun spot in our great Alaskan adventure. Anyone thinking about an Alaskan trip needs to reasearch the Kenai.

We left Walliwaw, a USFS campground on the banks of the Portage Creek in the rain, but within an hour the rain had stopped and we were in Anchorage, at the Sams whse. Another $100 and we are on our way north and east on highway A1, called the Glenn highway. I think this is the turnaround point on wonderful Alaskan adventure, we are traveling the same road that got us here, except the opposite direection. We stopped at a Goodyear dealer in Anchorage to have a tire inspected because it was showing strange wear pattern in a small area. He told me not to worry about it because it was normal, I guess we will see. I hope he is correct. I have not had any problems of any kind other than the windshield wiper problem on the car and the heater problem on the trailer.
We arrived in Palmer, stopped at the Fred Meyers store and did the dump station deal. Then we debated if we should attend the Alaska State Fair that was in progress. Several described it as a country type fair. We decided that we could camp in their RV parking area and spend several hours attending the fair. Barbara and I really can't remember the last time we were at a fair so this was a flash back to younger days. We really are the same two that used to walk the dirty mid-way and ride the crazy rides at the Lubbock fair. So much for the flash back... We enjoyed all of the attractions, exhibits, the food, the giant vegetables (see picture), the free shows, and even the midway. As the daylight faded away and sounds and the colorful lights of the midway came on, memories took us back to another time in our life, and that was nice. What a evening of entertainment for us seniors (got our discount at the gate $6 instead of $10). I can tell you that prices are a lot higher for everything but we contributed a fair share to the local economy. A lot different than in the mid '50s when Dad would give each of us $2 in quarters, drop us off at the gate and tell us not to spend it all in one place. So much the same, but so much different... Would you believe the Beach Boys, circa 1961 (or what's left of them (2 original))were the opening night headliner, first hand report from a old timer, gives it thumbs up. However, another big crowd pleaser is the Kenai Peninsula Racing Pigs. We saw the same pig race at Ninilchek a few weeks back and it was just as exciting tonight. I reported about the pig races in an earlier post.
We walked back to the RV parked in a grass field parking lot filled with all kinds of rigs, just outside the gates. I were tired and as I walked through the maize of rigs with generators running, I wondered just who all these people are, for this is also the place that the workers park. Alaska is said to be a place for the misfits and others that are hiding from something or somebody. However, we have had not even had a hit of trouble. We have seen less police in the last 60 days then we see in 1 day in Lubbock.

BREAKING NEWS
Be sure to check the picture gallery. My friend and co worker from Roswell, NM, Champion Racer Ron Lynch agreed to do a Grudge Match with a local powder puff champ, in a high powered open class racing go-kart match. Here is the result. I think that Ron (in the red kart) is setting up her for a pass, but time has run out. Normally when Ron shows up at the track, they just hand him the trophy...

Sorry Ron, I couldn't resist.
reporting from the Alaska State Fair in Palmer

Update for 8/31 through 9/2 Wittier, AK and picture link

2009-09-02T12:31:00.001-07:00

Hello blog readers,

link for new pictures with descriptive captions

I have had a few question and comments that I will answer in this blog.
Several have asked how I send the pictures and blogs to Goggle and how do you connect.
I have learned to do most of the writing and organization of the blog while sitting in the RV where it is comfortable. The blog is composed just as any Google email and sent to a special address. Google makes it easy, they have a good offline email program except the spell checker doesn't work when offline. When we leave the campground for a day trip, I might hunt a convenient hotspot. We almost never have internet access while at the campsites. Wifi signals don't travel very far. I have some favorites such as Holiday Inn and some other unsecured hotels, they reach out farther because they have more power and access points . I have learned where to look and often I find a signal easily. Several visitor and welcome centers and almost all libraries have wifi available and if they don't, I ask the person working there. Most know exactly what I am asking and direct me to a hotspot that is nearby. I paid for access on two occasions, the first cost was $3 for 15 minutes and the second was $6 for 24 hours. I can receive my email from two accounts within a minute or two and then transmit my picture files and blog. Total time is less than 10 minutes. I can usually can answer most emails at the same time. Of course, browsing the net takes a little longer. Once at a gas station in Jasper, I was able to get the job done at the gas pump.

Another question is How do I leave a comment to the blog?
I am not sure, I think at the bottom of the page there is a button that will post a comment. I don't see the completed blog unless I am on line. Maybe someone else can help out. If that doesn't work, just drop me an email. I will try to look next time I get hooked up.

And the last question for the day is When are you coming home?
We are not locked to a date, but sometime during the first 2 weeks of October. We are still having fun and you can not see Alaska in just one summer. I will say that fall season is on top of us, the leaves are changing color and some are falling. The temps are in the mid 50s to mid 60s and those long days of sun are gone, but about normal for this time in the lower 48 states. The days will get much shorter and some of the campgrounds will start to close in the later part of this month, so I guess we will head south like the snowbirds do.

The last 2 days have been somewhat slower than normal. Just outside of Hope, we stopped at a scenic overlook and saw dozens of Beluga whales swimming in the Turnagain Arm bay. They put on a good show, sometimes clearing the water while jumping The salmon are spawning and the whales are feeding on them. Our 100 mile drive from Hope took us out of the Kenai and into the Chugach National. We arrived at Walliwaw, a USFS campground on the banks of the Portage Creek about 2 miles from the Portage glacier. Portage glacier is just one of the many large glaciers between the east end of Turnagain Arm and the seaport of Whittier on the Prince William Sound. Lots of history around here... earthquakes, gold rushes, railroads, fur trading, and the WWII war construction and protection of Alaska during the 1940s and then the cold war after that. Whittier was called the "secret port" because it was so well shielded for from foreign enemies. The Alaskan Railroad laid it rails from the main north south line to Whittier, thereby making it the largest supply line for all of Alaska.
We visited Begich, Boggs visitor center today. It is built on the remnants of a terminal moraine left by the Portage Glacier. We spent about 2 hours there. Very nice visitor center, it offered information, guided walks, films, and exhibits. We also hiked one of the trails that took us along the river where we could see many salmon spawning. Nice walking and a little over a mile.
After the visitor center, we drove the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel between Williwaw and Whittier, AK. This is a 2 1/2 mile tunnel that is actually a train tunnel, but in 2000 it was widened and updated to allow cars and trucks to use it. Check out the pictures I took while driving the tunnel. It is only one lane, so traffic has to wait for the green light, before entering. In Whittier we walked around the dock area and visited the town museum. Wittier has several charter services that do day trips to the Prince William Sound. The PWS is a hot spot for cruise ships, tour boats, kayaks and small boats. Cruise ships bring passengers from all around the world for the connection to the Alaska Railroad that will carry them on the overland route to Fairbanks and Denali. Almost anywhere along the highways you will see people fishing from the banks. They just park their cars, pull out the hook and line and fish.
I get a little involved in museums so I spend too much time in them, according to Barbara. I will post just two of the pictures that I took, they are of an old army housing unit and at the time (1950) it was built it was the largest building in Alaska. Now it is just a ghost of the past, see the pictures in the gallery.

Sept 2nd Our target today is Palmer, AK in the valley just east of Anchorage. This is where all the vegetables are grown. Growing season is short, but they get 20 hours a day of of sun during the summer months.

John and Barbara reporting

our new location for Aug 29th, 30th and more new pictures

2009-08-31T13:35:00.001-07:00

August 29th, our 60th day on our Alaska adventure.

link to pictures with descriptive captions

I've had a few emails from friends that are "riding along with us" on our big adventure and I want to thank each of you for your comments. If anyone has questions for either myself or Barbara, please email me. We have driven over 600 miles on the Kenai Peninsula and enjoyed every mile. All the towns on the peninsula are interesting because of their history and each has a nice visitor center that is a also welcome center.
If you enjoy the excitement of of fishing, hunting, sightseeing, gold prospecting, or just getting away from the normal, this is the place. Our location is 10 miles east of Anchorage across the water of the Turnagain Arm, but by the Seward highway (shortest), it is almost a hundred.

The weather is wet and cloudy, but clearing and blue skies are expected later in the day. We are camped in Porcupine US Forrest Service campground near Hope, AK. It features 24 dry camping sites, 2 water pumps, and two vault toilets. On the plus side, the views of the Cook Inlet/Turnagain Arm, with the mountains in the background are excellent through our picture window looking north. The campsites are well kept and are perfect for our purpose. They are a bargain at $7.00 per night. The camp hosts are a couple from Missouri (retired dairy farmer) and were drawn to Alaska because of its natural beauty. They have been here for 8 years now. I encountered a small black bear yesterday afternoon. No problem, the bear went about his business and I just walked on. We love to watch the low tide expose the beach. At the low tide, I will guess that we can walk 1/4 mile out on the beach. These are good beaches for discovery, but forget about swimming, the water is very cold.

We hit another discovery adventure today. We did a day trip to Hope, AK, on the north coast of the Kenai Peninsula about a mile from our campsite. Hope is the first gold mining boom town in Alaska. It was started in 1896 with about 3000 miners coming with the idea of striking it rich. Many did well but the Klondike rush drew all but a few away from Hope in '96-'97. The gold rush came back and the area grew. Please try to read the pictures 4853-4855 in the picture gallery. I hope you can use the zoom button in the upper right to view in detail.

We were doing the walking tour of Hope when we met Gold Rush Pec, the famous prospector that was featured on the Travel Channel a few years ago. He is a part time miner that also does personal tours of Hope and gives a welcome and a handshake to tourists. He has a partner and together they do a mining demonstration next to the museum. He is a colorful man in his 60s that rides a four wheeler around the area that is equipped with a shotgun, shovel, goldpan and other tools of the trade. He loves to tell you stories about the town and the gold mining. You will recognize him in the picture album.

We spent several hours in the Hope Museum. The Millers are the caretakers of the place. Both Bill and Phyllis have put a lot of work into the place. Bill came to Kenai Peninsula as a young US Army soldier and was stationed at Whittier Army Depot about 45 miles from Hope in 1949 and never left. He worked the areas of Hope and Sunrise. Phyllis worked in the Post Office and never left, somewhat common for folks around here. Some of the old 1900s building are still in service and a few have been repaired and rebuilt by Bill and Phyllis and moved to the museum for viewing.. Lots of work, skill and dedication shows in this museum. Bill and Phyllis have written their personal memories of the 1964 good Friday earthquake in book form. Many parts of the Kenai sank from 3 to 8 feet. Much of Hope was under water and some of the building had to have the foundations jacked up. Bill has a 1947 Dodge Power Wagon, that was the first year for the civilian issue (not a military issue), it was made the same, except came with extras such as front winch and a live shaft in the rear for powering anything needing a flat belt. It might be used for a sawmill or thrasher. He has kept it serviceable all these years. He added an "A" frame to the front of it for lifting.

Today is Sunday the 30th. The sun is shining and the temp is ~48 degrees and warming, a beautiful day is forecast. We will be moving on to Whittier for a stay in the USFS park called Williwaw. It has 60 dry camping sites and is located at the base of the the Portage Glacier. Whittier is a sea port town located on the west end of the Prince William Sound and during the early 1900 was a major supply route for the area. During WW2 and into the cold war time, it was a military supply depot. On our drive to Whittier we will travel a tunnel that is used for trains and cars. The cars travel at certain times only and that depends on the train schedule.

Stayed tuned

from Homer to Kenai, Nikiski, and Texas Flag flies over Captain Cook State park in Alaska and an important birthday celebration for Barbara

2009-08-28T12:00:00.001-07:00

To the Blog,

click here for New picture link with descriptive captions

In my last blog, we were in Homer. I should have mentioned that Homer is the home town of Tom Bodet, and as he said for years, "we'll keep the lights on for you". I think you'll remember Tom.
Tom must have a lot of money, because the Homer Electric Association charges $.208 per KWH, the highest in the state. They generate from a hydro plant and a natural gas fired plant. HEA offered a large reduction in rates if the city of Homer would allow them to build a clean coal technology plant, the city fathers turned it down because it has to do with coal. FYI, coal is everywhere up here and the Healy coal is being shipped to South Korea. Homer used to be a coal producer for a European company about 90 years ago.

August 25th
We left Homer around 1400hrs on Tuesday. Before leaving, we walked the beach at low tide for a few hours. We dug for razor edge clams. These clams bury in the sand with a digging foot. They have an opening in the sand where they take in water and food. The shell is sharp and can cut your hand if not careful. The idea is to dig down beside it and grab the clam's head and pull it out of the sand. We dug several different places, but since we don't really know what we are doing, we came up empty handed. We saw several people with clams at the cleaning station, therefore we know they exist here. We drove north along the coast, usually within a few hundred feet of the Cook Inlet, the passage of water north and west of the Kenai Peninsula. Our destination for today is Captain Cook State Park, located on the north west corner of the Peninsula about 100 miles from Homer. We made a short stop at Ninilchik beach where we did a little beach combing and gathered enough coal to fill a 5 gal bucket. Coal has been found on the beach for hundreds of years and some of the locals drive there truck to the beach and gather it up, using it for heating in the winter. It varies in size from small golf ball to a big cow pattie size. The color is from brown to dark black. It is easy to break up and will burn under the right conditions and leaves a yellow ash in the firepit.

We stopped at the town of Kneai visitors center for information and checked email (free Wifi) did some shopping and ate at McDonald's. Walmart is building a new Super Walmart just a block away. I would guess that it will open in a couple of months.

Aug 26th
From Kenai north is oil country. The first oil wells in Alaska were drilled about 50 years in a little place called Nikiski. Oil has brought highways, employment, and money to this area. Captain Cook State Park is at the end of the Kenai Spur highway just past the last oil field. There are 53 campsites here and we had our choice of almost any of them. We chose one with a view that looks out across the water to the volcanoes on the far mainland shore more than 50 miles to the southwest. One of the more well know is Mount Redoubt, last erupted in May of this year dumping about 1/4 inch of ash on Anchor Point and Homer. Mount Augustine is currently spewing steam, check my picture, really neat. In the evening we get a really gorgeous sunset across the water. The days are starting to shorten up, we are loosing sunlight every day and we are seeing the foliage change.

The campsite that we chose also was ideal for displaying the Texas State Flag. Anyone coming into the park gets a good look at it. This flag was given to me on my retirement by my friends and co workers, Terry Paxton and Ron Griffith. I worked with these guys for over 25 years and I think they knew I needed a Texas flag while traveling in Alaska. Thanks Griff and Terry!

Barbara and I walked the beaches of Captain Cook and looked for agates. We found many, mostly quartz. The beaches come alive with a opportunities to dig clams, fish, and hunt for neat rocks. Ever since Barbara and I have been camping, we have collected rocks for our back yard and this trip is no exception. Every rock has a interesting history so we fill in the blanks with wild guesses. Our gross vehicle weight is increasing each day... remember Lucy and Desi Arnez in the Long Long Trailer where Lucy loaded the back of their trailer under the bed and caused the front of the trailer to lift up. I've started calling Barbara, Lucy.
After our field trip, we built our usual campfire, except this time we used that coal that we collected down on the beach. We started the fire with wood and broke up our coal into crushed pieces and put it in the fire. It burned fairly well, but put our some smoke. I went back to the wood fire for cooking. We seasoned a Silver salmon fillet and baked it, it turned out perfect and tasted great.
With the some of the remaining coal, Barbara is going to tie a ribbon around it and give everybody a chunk of coal.

Aug 27th
Guess who is having a birthday tomorrow while traveling in Alaska??? 1949 you do the math...
We made our plans for the day, we will drive to the 40 miles to Soldotna for fuel, an overnight at the FM and use their dump station. Should be a short drive and we can spend time in Soldotna and Fred Meyers. This is a neat store and we did not have enough time the first time we were here last week.
Tomorrow our plans are to drive to the town of Hope. Hope was one of the original gold rush towns in Alaska. In 1896 3,000 miners rushed to Hope and found 400 ounces of gold, but the Klondike gold rush began and all but 150 miners left for the Klondike. The next year 10,000 miners rushed back to Hope. Gold panning is still a big draw in Hope. We still have our shovel and pan, so I expect to strike it rich, maybe. I have an made an image of our route starting on the 28th. We plan to travel the Slilak Lake road for about 17 miles. It is more scenic, an if we choose to spend the night, it has a nice campground on the lake.

Fred Meyer is very busy place, the parking lot is nearly full and most of the 30 pumps at the gas station are in use.

Aug 28th Barbara's birthday and we are still at Fred Meyer's in Soldotna.
Booty Reed had entrusted a gift to me before we left Lubbock, I kept it hidden in the trailer. The timing was perfect, Booty called and I gave Barb the gift and card during the conversation.

I also gave her a special heart shaped chunk that would make any girl happy! Special gift for a special girl.

John and Barbara reporting from Soldotna on the Kenai Peninsula.

another day, another adventure Soldotna, Homer, and points west, new pic link and the wiper fix

2009-08-25T01:38:00.001-07:00

To all,

link to new pictures with descriptive captions

We left Seward on Friday the 21th and headed for Soldotna on the west side of Kenai peninsula about 75 miles to the north and west. Passed through some scenic country and along the Kenai river. Our first stop in Soldotna was the visitor center where we learned about the beginnings of this crossroads town. This is a hub of the west side and the market place between the far north near Cook inlet and Homer on the south. The town formed after the railroad started building some infrastructure in the late '40s. The Kenai River flows through the town and provides world class fishing for local subsistence and visitors from around the world. The world record for a King salmon caught here is 97lbs. I took a picture of it displayed in the visitor center. I guess one of the big attractions is the Fred Myer store at the east end. The store is larger and more stuff than a super Walmart. It was also our overnight spot on Friday. They even provide instructions on where to park and a complete dump station facility.

Saturday the 22nd
We decided we would go south 8 miles to Homer because a town on the way was have the regional fair on Saturday that we wanted to attend. We will come back to Soldotna because we have to travel the same road. We stopped at Ninilchik, an old Russian town from before the US bought Alaska back in the 1840s. We found a free parking spot in the church parking lot. The fair was in full swing with all the usual community stuff. The stock show, exhibitors, food sellers, and barrel racers. I think the new Alaska governor was to make an appearance in the late afternoon. One event that Barbara and I had never been to was a pig race. It is held on a closed 100' course and starts with a posting of the pigs in a starting gate. The gate opens and the three pigs put on a exciting one lap race. The course has two 1 foot hurdles for the pigs to jump over.The winners go into a final that decides the main event winner. It is all in fun and a few helpers take $1 bets just before the start, if your pig is a wiener, you get a plastic piggy bank. I never thought pigs could run so fast! It is all for charity. We spent over 3 hours there and enjoyed it very much.
We rolled into Homer around 1700hrs and found a nice campsite on the north (harbor side) of the Homer Spit. All of the permanent small boat docks are located on this side. The Spit is a natural sand bar that has been reworked making it less subject to erosion from the sea. It designed to break the waves and wind making the dock area a safe harbor. The spit is a very busy place with fishing and sight seeing charters and on the far end even a lodge. We have spent some of our time following the tide. The tide difference between high and low is ~26 feet, this makes for a treasure of stuff on the beach. The beach is easy to walk. It has been a little rainy and cool, but has not kept us from spending time outdoors.

Sunday the 23rd The weather was overcast and rainy for most of the day. The windshield wiper problem came up again and this time, I decided to see if I could repair it, as it was really annoying having to pull the fuse to turn the wipers off. I removed the cowl air intake grill and was able to hit the controller to make it stop, so I know where the problem is. I got out my tools and removed the wiper motor controller mounted on the back of the motor. It is a circuit board with surface mounted components that included two small black plastic enclosed relays. I was not sure, but I figured one of the relays was sticking in the closed position. I got out my box cutter and carefully cut the plastic top from both and cleaned and burnished the contacts using a dollar bill and contact cleaner. All went back together and every thing is fine now. I expect no more problem from it.
In the afternoon we visited the Pratt Visitors and Cultural Center to see some of the most astounding wildlife displays and a museum. We watched two films and spent about 4 hours there. Very nice place. Homer is the home of political correctness and the art crowd for this part of Alaska. They even replaced all of the city owned sedans with Ford hybrid escorts to reduce their carbon footprint. I have not see any yet, but I am feeling better anyway. Watched a DVD and went to bed a little early.

Monday the 24th Rain off and on till around 1300hrs. and just a FYI... the windshield wipers are still working great. We went shopping at the Salvation Army Thrift store and purchased a Yahtzee game, new old stock, still shrink wrapped. Good buy $1.50.. We also did a driving and walking tour of the town. We walked the old part of town. We drove up on East Hill drive and got some good shots of the town and the Spit with a twin glacier in the back ground.
I was walking along Pioneer Ave, when a small car came by that had a really strange 6 foot mast anchored on the roof. I took a snapshot with my camera, but could not figure what the mast was used for. Later, we were driving along Kachemak Drive road and I saw it again. This time it was stopped so I pulled up beside it and noticed it had a bunch of lenses around the top. I asked the driver what they were and he said it was a Google mapping car. It has 13 cameras at the top of the mast. So in some future Google street view, I will show up taking a snap shot and later driving toward the mapping car.
I also got pictures of a boat being lifted from the bay and moved across the street to a winter dry dock. It is getting close to that time of year up here.
Built a fire and had a hot dog cookout while watching the sunset over the harbor, nice. We will hook up and head toward Soldotna sometime tomorrow .
Just an FYI on the Wifi hotspots in Homer... It is everywhere, I have had a connection on demand, while in our campsite on the beach. The one that I am using is called spitswspots. I am a free user, therefore I have to sign in every hour. That is no problem.

John

our perfect day on the Gulf of Alaska... and more... plus another new link for pictures

2009-08-21T13:42:00.001-07:00

To the blog followers,

link to new pictures with description captions...

I put these blogs up in hopes that some of you will just ride along with us on our adventure. I enjoy doing this and a few of the followers have given positive feedback. I think that if you check "follow this blog box", you will receive email notification when a new posting is put up.
I do hope you enjoy riding along with us, so let's get going on another exciting day. Blogging also gives me a log of travel info.

August 19th... The day is perfect for a boat ride. We are boarding the Glacier Express, a 150 foot 250 passenger excursion catamaran hull boat powered by two big Cat diesels. Our adventure will be a 6 hour 120 mile trip out the Resurrection Bay, to the Gulf of Alaska, into the Aialik Bay, Holgate Glacier and back through Harbor and Chiswell Islands. Everything about the cruise was perfect, good weather, smooth sea, and lots of points of interest. A Kenai Fjords National Park ranger narrated the entire trip. We saw the hump back and the oraca (killer) whale. We saw Steller sea lions, Dall's porpoise, bald eagles, puffins, and a variety of other sea birds. The Holgate glacier provided lot of action with the falling ice and the loud noise as it falls into the water. The captain stopped the engines as we just sat in the calm water with no other noise. I got a series of shots using the rapid fire of my camera. A nice lunch was provided as well as coffee, cookies and cokes. We were able to go anywhere on the boat because at this time of the season it is only about 50% booked. The captain of the boat would stop for just about anything of interest. During WW2 this was a fortified area with bunkers high atop some of the mountain peaks. I carried my GPS so I could monitor the location and the speed of the boat. Top speed was ~27 mph and we traveled 126 miles.

August 20th... This was to be our last day in Seward, be we found more to do, so we extended another day. We went to the Alaska Sealife Center. This is a 3-4 hour self guided tour of a Sealife research center. We enjoyed it very much. We then just sat and watched the fishing activities alone the shore. Every few minutes silver salmon were jumping out of the water and several fishermen were casting their lines out in hopes of catching a big one. Quite a show. From Aug 8-16, is the 54th Annual Silver Salmon Derby with prizes worth over $100,000. That may be the reason we saw so many fishermen around the area, especially the dock area. On the way back to our campsite we stopped by our favorite hotspot, the Holiday Inn Express, and checked our email. There are many others in Seward, but this one works well for me. At supper time, I built a smokey fire for the hoboes (ground beef, potato, carrot and onion wrapped in foil), an old Boy Scout favorite. Seward is another town that we have enjoyed very much. No disappointments, just great adventures everyday.

A little note of interest... This town was almost wiped off the map in the 1964 earthquake/tsunami. There are still reminders in several location around town. It was one of the towns most affected by the Exxon Valdes tanker accident, and was involved in the recovery.

Tomorrow we move on to the western part of Kenai Peninsula, Homer, Kenai, Soldotna, and Anchor Point.

John and Barbara

Surveillance in Seward

2009-08-20T20:52:00.001-07:00

With a sophisticated linked security camera system, we are tracking the Texans. Even though this image is a poor screengrab, I'm sure we can zoom and enhance the photo to verify that it's them.

On to Anchorage and then Seward more exciting wandering in Alaska and new pic link

2009-08-19T11:31:00.000-07:00

more pictures

Hello Blog,

We left Denali Saturday the 15th and headed south on the Parks highway #3 toward Anchorage. The weather was a bit wet with a drizzle type rain, therefore there was no chance of viewing Mt Mckinley from the south side. We decided to travel the extra 30 miles to Talkeetna, a old pioneer historic railroad town 130 miles south of Denali and in the Talkeetna Mountains. The town is a big tourist stop because of charter services making connections to the railroad. The Alaska Railroad serves passenger and freight from Seward in the south to Anchorage, Talkeetna, Denali, and then to Fairbanks to the north. It carries many passengers as one leg of tour packages. We did a walking tour of Talkeetna, population of ~300, so that didn't take more a few hours. The town serve as the base camp for all the climbing and charter air operations for the Mt McKindley charter services. We visited the museum and did some shopping in the old log cabin type stores on the square. Jay had made an overnight stop there on the Alaska Railroad last year and recommended the Roadhouse as a good place to eat. We enjoyed our meal there. It started business in 1944 and still very popular in the area. After that we continued on to south into the vegetable growing Mat-Su Valley area of Willow, Palmer, and Wasilla. Both Wasilla and Willow are modern bustling cities with all the big name, big box stores found anywhere else. Starting around Willow, I got the sensation of these towns serving as bedroom towns for Anchorage. We drove into Anchorage about 1900 hrs.
Saturday night was spent at the WM accommodations in Anchorage. We shopped at Sams Whse and Wallmart to restock the shelves. We drove downtown and found that they are celebrating the 50 years of statehood. We did a walking tour of the downtown area. This is a clean and neat area with some of it rebuilt after the 1964 earthquake. We visited the visitors centers and the exhibits in the Federal building. We did some shopping in various stores before leaving town.
We are now heading south toward our target of Seward. The drive is beautiful. We are driving along the railroad that is between the highway and the Turnagain Arm bay of the Cook inlet to the Gulf of Alaska. On our left side is the Chugach Mountains with some blue sky and a few clouds hanging in the air around the sharp peaks of the mountains. This is in the Chugach national forest area.
As we drove, we encountered some rain showers and when I tried to turn off the windshield wipers, they would not turn off. After messing with all the controls, I pulled the fuse. Of course it started to rain again, so I had to install the fuse. To my delight, everything went back to normal for the rest of the evening. I know I will have to deal with this again as, things don't fix themselves. I suspect the intermittent wiper control as the problem.
As I have said in the past, this is an a continuing adventure and this is really a scenic route with the mountains, the clouds, and many lakes and streams. We drove by the Johnson river and found fishermen standing shoulder to shoulder along the bank just as far as I could see, fly fishing for salmon sponning.
We stopped at a pull out along the highway with a information sign reading that this was a trail to the river for viewing fish. I took the short trail and sure enough, the river was clear and several salmon chug were swimming by. I could have netted them easily. We decided this was a great place to stop for the night. By this time it was getting toward dark and starting to rain. We got into the Bigfoot and turned on the heater. The heater would not do anything. I used a test light and found the thermostat to be working, therefore I would have to inspect the outside compartment. We just covered up and went to bed. In the morning, I removed the electronic control board and discovered a small green spot of corrosion caused by moisture and DC voltage. I cleaned that up and sprayed it with WD-40. I believe that it is fixed. This was important because we use the heater every evening and morning.

Monday morning the 17th we drove the 30 miles to Seward and made camp in one of the town owned campground located 1 mile from town. Nice campsite with all the different plants around it. We went on a walking tour of the harbor area and gathered information about the points of interest. We drove to Lowell Point and saw a few sea lions and a pair of adult bald eagles in a tree. Their nest had to be 6 feet in diameter and was about 50' up the tree. On Tuesday we are going to a glacier called "Exit Glacier" , a glacier in Harding Icefields located in the Kenai Fjord National Park. They offer Ranger talks and walking trails to see the Exit Glacier close up. Monday evening we had a campfire and grilled hamburgers.

Tuesday we have the Exit Glacier visit and a visit to the tour boat companies on the Seward docks. We may take a cruise out in Resurrection Bay and a glacier visit to the "calving" (glaciers shedding huge blocks of ice into the ocean) of the Holgate glacier viewed from the water. Also we will see the big whales, puffins, sharks, Dall porpoise, steller sea lions, and a few bald eagles. This time of the year, we can get good price discounts on the packages as the attendance is falling off. Barbara made a crockpot with chicken, vegetables, and biscuits. We will start the generator as we leave camp and when we get back, we will have a chicken and dumplings dinner. While we where at the Exit Glacier we saw some friends that we had met at the Teklanika a few days, so we visited with them in the late evening and had a enjoyable time. The crockpot worked perfect, it's nice to come back to the campsite and have the hot meal waiting for us.

Wednesday is clear and no rain is forecast, so we are going cruising. I better get ready. I'll report on our cruise in a few days, stay tuned.

John

Denali - Wonder Lake

2009-08-15T13:12:00.001-07:00

I thought I'd put a couple of photos here. These were taken in July 2008 from my campsite (#7) at Wonder Lake. It was a lucky break in the clouds that day.

Jay

Denali in the rear view mirror almost... and link to new pictures

2009-08-15T11:14:00.001-07:00

Dear blog,

Link to a few more pictures

As every day has been, today was also another exciting adventure. We started this day early with a visit to the sled dog demonstration. Dog sleds are the means of transportation that the year around Ranger staff uses to travel around Denali Park in the winter. The Park has around 40 Alaska Husky sled dogs that are trained to carry supplies to the out posts in this park. The ranger gave a talk on the type of dog and the sleds they use. The dogs are out in the open and you can get up close and personal with them. These dogs are ready to go to work. When they harness up the first dog, the others are barking and straining at their leash, hoping to be chosen for today's task. The ranger takes a short hot lap in a sled that has rear wheels on it because there is no snow, yet. And I should mention, the lead dog is named King. After the dog sled, we hiked the two miles back to the visitors center because it was a nice morning and the trail took us through a lush green spruce, birch, aspen taiga (boreal forest) filled with many flowers, and small animals. Back at the campsite, built a fire and grilled chicken for lunch. Then off to the theater for a enjoyable Ranger program on the Lynx and the Wolverine. After that, we stopped by the Murie Science and Learning Center for a few hours study of the park. The Murie is a library of information on park history and the different things that affect the day to day operation.

Tomorrow we leave and head south toward Talkeetna, AK We were just two of the approximately 450,000 people that visited this park this year. Barbara and I feel that this is a truly great adventure in a very special place. The National Park service has kept this park just about the same as it was over a hundred years ago. It doesn't have a lot of human shapeing or interventions. The park is open June 15 to Sept 20th.

FYI... filmmaker Ken Burns is doing a 12 hour, six episode public television series to highlight the 100 years of the National Park System. Some of the footage will be from Denali, might be worth watching. It starts this September.

I will send this in the morning because I have access to WIFI. We will keep you posted

Our 10 day Denali National Park adventure and picture link

2009-08-13T18:43:00.001-07:00

For our friends

new picture upload

For a little history about this trip. We had planned along with two other couples to make a Alaska trip this year. But as is the case, sometimes thing don't work and we had somethings come up that caused us to shift dates and plans. It looked as if we could not travel to Alaska this year, maybe pushing it to 2010.
In June, Barbara was talking to Jay, our son. He had vacationed in Denali last year and he came up with the idea that he could schedule his vacation so as to meet in Banff, AB, Canada. For many years we have had a interest in this area of Canada. We had, as a family visited Waterton Peace Park in the early '80 and marked it for a return. Jay worked on his calendar and we were able to make ours fit and off to the Canadian Rockies we went. We just extended ours to include a Denali trip.

We arrived at Denali Thursday, after traveling the 120 miles from Fairbanks. We traveled through thick smoke from a forest fire west and south from Fairbanks. see picture in Pi Fires are commons here, mostly caused by lighting. They can burn for a long time, but without the wind, they don't travel very fast. This one was a big one that had been burning over a month and still not controlled. The first night at the park was spent in Riley Creek campground, near the Wilderness Access Center. This is a big place. At the entrance, is a small town on state highway 3 with several large lodges, many parking lot style RV parks, gas station, park touring services, and plenty of restaurants, there just to serve the crowd of people that visit this park. This park attracts people from all around the world. This campground is filled with foreign visitors with rented motorhomes. Very easy to spot the rentals, big sign on the side that say " 1-800-RENTRV". We talked to a old German couple that said that every detail is arraigned by their travel club back home.
This afternoon we were able to stop by the Riley Creek Mercantile, to tour the Denali visitor center, and attend a evening ranger program in the amphitheater about the myths that the Athabaskan Indians held about the big black ravens. He weaved the Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven" into his talk that was mostly for the kids.

We are a little over 5 thousand miles and more than 35 days on the road and at the Teklanika campground 30 miles west into Denali for 10 days. As I type this, I look out the front window of the Bigfoot and see a view of the Teklanika River and the mountains in the background. From this campground, we can only go west on the green shuttle bus , but that takes us to all the areas west of mile 30. It takes us to our selected area and we get off and can spend several hours and then to get back to Teklanika we can choose any east bound shuttle. It makes a stop at least every hour. Tomorrow we will take the shuttle to Wonder Lake in hopes of catching a view of Mt Kinley at 20,320 feet, the tallest in North America. During our stay in Teklanika we can use that bus as transportation to any location and get on off just by telling the driver.

Our day 37 adventure started at 0745 hrs and took 7 1/2 hrs and traveled 110 miles was to Wonder Lake. The driver was a woman with 8 years of driving in this park. She has a microphone on and will comment on the park features and the many animals that we see along the way. The road is gravel and very narrow in spots. Denali offers new and different beauty that Barbara and I have never seen before. The braided rivers, the glaciers, the lakes, the mountains with their many different looks offer a 360 view that keeps one entertained for the whole trip. Our turn around point was the Wonder Lake campground on the bank of the lake. Jay camped in the number 7 spot last year, so we decided to get our picture made in that same location. Phylis, the camp ground host joined us in the picture with Mt. McKinley in the background. She has been hosting in this location for 20 years and I would guess that she is nearing her 80's. She is a very delightful to speak with. Jay had told us about her and to look her up if we got to Wonder Lake. Yesterday was a day just to ride the bus and plan for the days to come. We had purchased a back pack at the Canadian Tire store in Dawson Creek for ~$8 (good buy), so we packed it with sandwiches and snacks along with water and bear spray, so we were set for the day. This backpack has a very loud shrill audible device built into it that will scare any animal away. Have not needed it yet, but first person reports confirm that bears are in many places. We also carry bear spray with us at all times. We have seen many bears at a distance on our trips on the bus.

On Saturday the 8th we did some housekeeping, hiked some of the trails at this campground and planned for the next day. Had a nice evening around the campfire with some fellow travelers from BC.

Sunday the 9th was a rain out. It started raining in the early morning hours and continued off and on most of the day. We watched DVD movies for part of the day, than around 7 PM the sky cleared and the sun came out. The very long days of sun are now becoming shorter and by midnight, it is only the moon.

Monday, Aug 10th, morning temps dropped down into the lower 20s degrees. That gave the windows a good coating of frost, but, by 0800 the temp is already 36 degrees with clear skys. I get to watch the sun come up over the mountain and it looks like another beautiful day in store and we are getting ready for a Denali adventure. The bus stop is about 1/8 mile away.
We are fortunate to have a warm trailer with the cold weather package. We turn down the heat at night and the heater comes some on to keep it at the set point. Power and battery management come into play everyday, as there is only two times a day that generators can be used. We have been unhooked from the grid now for 41 days and so far no problems.
We boarded the shuttle bus to the Eielson Visitor Center and very soon we started to seen the bears, caribou, and a big moose. This was a special day because the driver spotted a big grizzly along side the road, about 100 yards to our right. The bear was moving toward us and would be crossing in front, therefore we advanced very slowly and would stop once in a while to observe. The bear stopped at a stream and just laid down in the stream for about 5 minutes, got up shaking the water off, and then crossed directly in front of us. He would look at us, but seemed undisturbed.
We ate our picnic lunch at the Eielson, looked at all the exhibits, and did a short hike on one of the trails. This is a 12 million dollar visitor center and is very politically and architecturally correct, I think it may be a indoctrination center to shape the young minds. One note, this building was awarded the highest honor for being self sufficient (off the grid as there are no power lines in the park, beyond the entrance) as far as the electrical needs. It has a 5KW hydro on a small creek, 2.5 KW of solar panels, and a propane powered generator of some kind. Guess what, they have a 12.5 KW trailer mounted Kohler running the place. One of the displays in the visitor is a computer screen that shows the different power sources and how each one is working. The ranger in charge told me that it has not worked for the summer season and that the solar panel system inverters are a big problem (the company that installed them is not supporting them) and on top of that the propane generator is not working and the hydro is also off line (lack of water in the creek). He told me that they are embarrassed and that is why the computer screen is off line. The power was off twice while we were there as they are switching from the very limited solar to the Kohler each time the sky gets cloudy. There is a park maintenance ranger stationed there to do this.
On the way back from Eielson, the bus had to make a quick stop for a red fox sitting in the road. The fox just sat there and looked at us. The driver moved to the right as far as possible, but the fox just sat there. Everyone got great pictures at a distance of 15-20 feet. This was a beautiful red fox that entertained us for about 10 minutes.
Not far down the road we saw a big gray wolf chasing a snow shoe hare. This happened right next to the road in front of us. Survival of the fittest played out in Denali today.
We got a 1 mile hike in as we asked the driver to let us off the bus before we got to the our campgrounds. Nice hiking weather as the temps are in the 20's at night and upper 50's during the day. We saw the first change of the foliage indicating the summer is gone and the autumn is here today. Just a note about the long hours of daylight. This is changing very quickly... 6min and 38 secs of less day light than the day before. Within the next week we will have more than 1 hour less daylight. I guess we better head south.
Another nice campfire to end the day of adventure. We watched another movie... Get Smart.

Wednesday...
Got up to another cold frosty morning with sun and about 27 degrees. We decided to pack a lunch and do a hike down the Teklanika river to the bridge. It was a nice hike of about 4 1/2 miles and 4 1/2 hours on a braided river bed of rocks and sand. At the present the river is narrow compared to the size of the river bed, so we chose to walk in the river bed. We spotted a pair of caribou on the other side from us. Lots of bear tracks and scat, but we did not see one today. My pocket GPS reported that the first leg took us 2hrs and 3 minutes and that equaled 1.05 mph. It was slow walking because of the rocks and many channels of the braided river. Sometimes we were forced to backtrack and reroute. We also saw more signs of the quickly approaching autumn with the birch leaves turning color. The cool evening and the clear skies told it was going to get cold tonight. Another campfire and a movie... Monster Mother-in-law

Thursday...
It really did get cold. We recorded a 20 degree outdoor reading about 0600 hrs. I looked at the propane level and decided we could stay for only another day before heading back to the entrance. It was easy to see the propane level as there was a nice frost ring around the tank. This coldsnap had caused us to use more propane than expected.
We caught another bus that took us back to the Eielson center. There are some trails and events that we wanted to see before we left. On the way there, we saw a young gray wolf stalking a snow shoe hare. The wolf/hare thing played out right next to the bus. This time the hare was lucky, the wolf pounced but the hare went into a hole just in time. The wolf just got a mouth full of fluff. The wolf started digging, but gave up. Lucky day for the hare.
We stopped several time to view Mt. McKinley, the skies were clear and this morning was the first time we had seen it. Very spectacular! At our first viewing we were 30 miles away and it dwarfed the mountains around it. At Eielson we were about 15 miles away. Sure looks cold up there! One of the rangers that was working at Eielson also works on the North face where most of the climbing takes place. He said that an average year 500 attempt to climb and about 40 percent succeed in making it. He also said the park maintains climbing ropes on the difficult areas. Many fly into the glacier, that would let them start about half way up. He has been to the summit many times.
We returned to the campsite around 1800 hrs and made ready for our departure tomorrow. We will camp at Reilly Creek tomorrow and the following night.

Thursday we spent the day at Reilly Creek and the visitor center. I am at the lodge and somewhat pressed for time because of a low battery on the computer, so that is it for now.

John and Barbara

got Coldfeet about going north to Coldfoot, AK.... Blog may go dark for up to 10 days

2009-08-04T00:46:00.001-07:00

Hello friends,
t
he first two pictures are from the UAF campus
the last two are from the sawmill where we got the wood. This place is huge with these conveyor spitting out wood as we worked below them on the pile.

We have enjoyed Fairbanks very much. This is our 5th day here and our 35 day on the road. We spent almost all day on the University of Alaska at Fairbanks campus on Sunday. We visited the excellent museum along with the Botanical gardens. Also visited the large animal research facility. Today we shopped for campfire wood and the best price was at the sawmill. Got a good size load for $16 dollars, of course we had to load it., but with the cheap help that came with me, we got it done quickly, It is much better than buying the little 6 dollar bundles.

Barbara and I decided not to go any further north, instead we will leave and head toward Denali National Park tomorrow. This is the home to the tallest mountin in the US. We will be staying in the park at the 30 mile mark. Teklinika campground is the one that once in, you don't leave until you leave the park. No travel other than the inside park shuttle. The only wifi hotspot is at the entrance, that is also the only cell site.
This is somebody else work on Teklinika, but it has some nice pictures.

John and Barbara

Picasa link to alaska album 9

WE STRUCK GOLD in Fairbanks, AK and new picture link

2009-08-01T23:55:00.001-07:00

Picture link to extra pics
In the 1st photo, Barbara is talking to Jay on the Skype phone. This campground has free Wifi that allows us to use the USB connected phone on the notebook computer. This has allowed us to have phone service all through Canada. Only Version and Alltel work in Canada and at roaming rate of about $1.25 a minute.

In the third photo is the gold that I panned. After weighting, it amounted to about $21.00 worth.

In the 4th or last photo, Barbara is holding a $40,000 gold nugget mined from a local mine a few years ago. They didn't allow us to take it.

Hello Blog

I am behind in my blog updates. It is easy to fall behind because we have been busy from sun up to sun down, and that is about 20 hrs a day. We try to get about 7 hrs sleep, but it is hard to sleep when the sun is shining in the window at midnight. We purchased three windshield sun blockers at Walmart and fitted them to our bedroom windows yesterday. That really helped.

We are in Fairbanks at the Chena River State Campground. Very nice and affordable, it is located in town on the treed banks of the Chena River that runs through the middle of Fairbanks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chena_River The campground has some hookups, but to save a little money, we chose the dry sites as we don't really need the hookups.

Yesterday we did a few of the popular tourist sites. The first one was a trip to Fox, an old historic gold mining town about 12 miles north east on highway 2. This is a gold mine that is still operational using a water and sluthe seprater. The mine is called a "drift" mine and they allow the public to pan for gold. We panned and were rewarded with a small amount of gold. Not really nuggets but gold grains. In any case it was fun and valued at a few dollars that we did not have to declare. The second was a 3+ hour stern wheel riverboat trip down the Chena that was fun and educational. We were happy with both.

Today was an day to do laundry and some general planning as to the rest of our stay in Fairbanks. Our plans call for visits the Georgeson Botanical Gardens , the University of Alaska Museum of the North, and the Large Animal Research Station. These are all located on the University Campus only a few miles from our campsite. We also will visit the Pioneer Air Museum. We also planned our time and route to Denali National Park, about 130 mile southwest toward Anchorage.

Stay tuned, we may head for the Arctic Circle to check the weather, aren't for sure, yet. We would take Highway 11 north on to Coldfoot and Wiseman.

John

This is a link, to the routing that we followed getting here. We are at the 5K mile mark because traveled a lot of extra miles while in Banff and Jasper with Jay.

We traveled the "Top of the World Highway" and made it

2009-07-30T11:53:00.001-07:00

To My Blog reading friends

new picture link...

Another chapter in our big Alaskan adventure. We have met so many friends from all parts of North America and also many from Europe also. Lots of young people visiting this part of the world. In our campground on the Yukon we meet a young couple from Liverpool England.
They traveled down the Yukon from Whitehorse in a canoe. They have been traveling the US and Canada for 4 years and are on the last leg before flying back to England.

While taking pictures at the Bonanza creek gold claim, I dropped my camera in the creek. I retrieved it quickly and removed the battery and card. When we returned to camp that evening, I used the hair dryer to warm it so as to drive any moisture out. To my delight, it worked fine this morning. I'll not want to do that again.

My last entry was my disappointment over leaving Dawson, YT. Dawson was a neat place with all the history about gold mining and the early day of the engines that drove some of the equipment. These old pieces of big iron are still there. I guess we have to move on.

This morning we left Dawson and drove west on the famous "Top of the World Highway" state road #9 that will take us back to the Alcan highway. We will cover 185 miles today and that will take all day long. We left our campground turned west and immediately started an uphill steep accent for about 10 miles. The road is in two parts, Yukon #9 and then a section of the Alaskan Taylor highway #5. The first 65 miles (Yukon) is pavement with a lot of gravel breaks, I guess it to be about one half gravel. The last stretch is very bad, all gravel, potholed, washboarded, very narrow in spots, switchback turns, steep inclines, no guard rails, and only one sometimes working gas station, makes this road a challenge. Most of the way it was second or 3rd but sometimes 1st gear in a few spots. This road will wear you out, and we were worn out when we pulled into Tok, Alaska. The evening before, I had covered the frontal area of the trailer and
car with protective covers. This road known for for broken windows and rock slinging. I wanted to be prepared, so I had packed all the necessary covers with me. It is also known for flat tires not because of speed or heat, it because of the sharp rocks and gravel.. One nice thing about this road is the top of the world panoramic view, we could see hundreds of miles in any direction. It is also is fairly close to the Arctic circle and is built along the peaks of these mountains and not in the valley near the rivers. The road starts at the ferry at Dawson, Yukon Territory and 64 miles later crosses the border into Alaska at a place called Junction. Junction has a population of 2, at least one of them is a border crossing guard. We got through customs and back into the US without any trouble, just had to show the passports and answer a couple of questions. As we left
the boarder we saw two caribou. The leg from the boarder takes us to the town of Chicken, Alaska, and old almost ghost town that was a gold mining boom town in the early 1900s. The population of Chicken stated on the town sign is 37 people. There is an RV campground and a store selling Chicken tee shirts. They will loan you a pan and let you pan for gold in the creek. The store attendant showed off his little amount of gold he had found. The area has no power from a grid, so small diesel generator sets were supplying the RV park and store.We finally arrived at Tok, AK and gassed up at an old station that advertised in the Milepost, "with a fill-up" get free use of their car/RV wash facility and a dump station. We washed the Bigfoot and
the Suburban and dumped the tanks. We were tired so we pulled to the side and spent the night. Gas prices are in the low $3 range. Today's gas mileage was an all time low of 7.4 over 190 miles.

We now have cell phone service, at least in this location. It has been 28 days without a cell phone. We have done just fine with Skype. I gave my buddy Tim, in Lubbock, a call and caught up on some of the news around the old office. At the time I was waiting on Barbara to finish her shopping at the North Pole Santa Store. Yes, we were in North Pole, AK at Santa's workshop.
Google Northpole, AK.

Our stop over tonight will be the WM campground in Fairbanks, AK. We called ahead for reservations. They will keep the light on for us.

We stopped at the Sams here in Fairbanks and purchased groceries. I'm going back to them tomorrow for a tire rotation and balance.

We plan to stay for a few days. Just one more item. The Merrymaid tag team of John and Barbara had to be called. Living in a 10 X 20 for a month makes a lot of mess. We also traveled some very dirty roads and it showed. I took the throw rugs out and mopped the floors. Got everything back together late.

FYI, we woke up to smoke in the air this morning that blocked the sunrise. Lot of forest fires here in Alaska. I am not sure where they are located.

And we have passed into the Alaskan Time Zone, 3 hours different from Lubbock.

John

Gold mining adventure for us on day 26, 27 and new picture link

2009-07-28T10:06:00.001-07:00

To the blog

http://picasaweb.google.com/bnjontheroad/AlaskaTrip6thAlbum?authkey=Gv1sRgCN6Fw9jlq-LKvAE#

Today we continued our adventure around the Dawson City, Yukon
Territory area. We have found that there is more to see around here
than we thought. We will have to spend an extra day or maybe two.
Took another ride across the big Yukon on the ferry, I think they are
getting to know us. Back to the Visitors center for Wifi connection
and more information. We can park and leave our car there as we walk
the town for the different attractions. We went to the Palace Grand
Theater, were we saw a movie of the return of the stern wheeler, Keno,
a boat that worked the river in the early days. The Palace Grand is
mostly original and has served the town for over a 100 years. It is a
theater and ballroom. It still has the movable wooden chairs with a
large operational stage.
We walked the town and looked at more of the the historic store fronts
and read about the early days of gold mining. That gave us the bug to
maybe stake our own gold mine and do some panning for gold on the
historic Bonanza Creek. First we visited the Dredge #4, largest of
the wooden hull dredge in the world. It is a Canadian Parks site now
and they preserve it as a preserved but non working site. It was used
until the early 1960s', than abandoned in place. We enjoyed the guided
1 hour tour with the guide and just Barbara and me. Unbelievable the
amount of engineering and "big iron" that went into the building and
use of this monster. Google dredge #4

Then off to stake our gold claim... Now you will have to use your
imagination and ride along with us. We are driving on a gravel road
along the Bonanza creek, the same spot as the "big find" in 1897.
There are huge mountains of rock large and small. We are thinking
that these are just large rock formations, and then we see the pattern
to them, these are the worm like telltale dredge tailing from long
ago. They big dredge would eat through the creek and river beds and
then deposit these tailings in a woven wormlike formation. The last
of the big dredges operated till the 1960s.

Note, The term "placer" is a Spanish word, meaning "a place where gold
can be recovered from gravel." As this suggests, placer mining is the
technique of recovering gold from gravel. Placer deposits occur in
several areas in the Yukon, though historically, most of the mining
has taken place near Dawson City. This area is particularly favorable
for placer deposits because it is in the unglaciated part of the
Yukon.

This is an area that look much like a gravel pit with bulldozers,
tractors, and drag buckets. In addition there are long trailer
mounted trommel. A trommel is composed of a slightly-inclined
rotating metal tube (the 'scrubber section') with a screen at its
discharge end. Lifter bars, sometimes in the form of bolted in angle
iron, are attached to the interior of the scrubber section. The ore is
fed into the elevated end of the trommel. Water (often under pressure)
is provided to the scrubber and screen sections and the combination of
water and mechanical action frees the valuable minerals from the ore.
The mineral containing ore that passes through the screen is then
further concentrated in smaller devices such as sluices and jigs. The
larger pieces of ore that do not pass through the screen can be
carried to a waste stack by a conveyor.
Each persons claim is marked with a bare tree or post standing 4 feet
or more. It is tagged with The claim name, the owners name, and the
date. The owner takes this information to the "mining recorder" for
records search and approval. All the land along these creeks and other
places that are property of the "Crown" are for open claiming, but the
big problem is that ALL that land is claimed. To maintain your claim
that is valid only for one year , one has to work or spend money to
the tune of $1000 per square mile supported by affidavit. The cost of
the lease is $25 and and the renewal is also $25. Claims can be
bought and sold with the permission of the Commissioner. Just as in
the early days, claim jumpers are still a problem. One claim holder
told me yesterday that the claim he was working, was the scene of a
murder a few years back.
I have written about the big mine operators, but the small time pick,
shovel, and pan operator is still here in big numbers. And yes, they
are finding gold, enough that many of them keep the claim for life an
come each year during the warm months. The population doubles during
the summer and most of the increase are miners. Last year, over 44
million dollars came from this area in gold.
Tomorrow, the 28the will be our last day in the Dawson area. My
travel guide and navigator, Barbara thinks that we need to move on.
Yesterday was another action packed adventure into Dawson history and
the exciting world of the early days when gold was king. In 1898,
60000 people lived in Dawson and in 2006 the population was only
1,800.

We've had a good time in Dawson so it is somewhat hard to say goodbye.

John

Jay's weekend in Calgary - July 17th-20th

2009-07-27T21:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I promised to write about Calgary, so I am. It seems a little late now, with my parents already near the Alaska border, but I'll give it a shot.

So, if you are curious about the city, current life or its history, order a copy of the recent Calgary Book of Everything: Amazon.com: Calgary Book of Everything (9780973806359): Roberta McDonald

It's a city of just over a million people, with a big downtown (but much of the city is subdivision-style single-family housing). Oil and gas industries help fuel the boom, and construction is still booming the city center. For more than one reason, Denver and Calgary are considered sister cities. I mostly ran around on foot near downtown, but ventured out to the Wild Rose Brewery by the farmers' market, and to a fun place called the Priddis Valley Gardens, where the owner throws occasional parties. Calgarians are grounded and nice, but will still give you a good-natured hard time when given a chance (probably more so if you happen to be from Texas). For a young person, it seems pretty accessable and interesting, but a bit expensive compared to the southern US. July is nice, but in January I'd think twice.

I stayed in the old (but trendy) Kensington neighborhood, in the 'Garden Cottage' at the River Wynde B&B (great place with a great owner), just a short walk across the Bow River from downtown. Prince's Island Park sits between the river and the tall, contrasting skyline. It was busy with families and all types on the sunny Sunday I was there. Crews were setting up for their annual Folk Fest. Many walkers and cyclists, with good pedestrian bridges and paths. Free CTrain (lightrail) service on 7th Ave through downtown, buses on 6th Ave. I had some good food (from breakfasts to burgers to sushi), and some good ales (especially the Cannery Brewing India Pale Ale and the Tree Brewing Hophead IPA, both from BC. btw, I never found the Central City Red Racer IPA (BC) or Pump House Dementia Double IPA (SK), so if anyone has a spare bottle, let us know--my parents might still have a bottle of Odell IPA from Colorado that they can trade you :).

I liked Calgary, and I'm sure I'll go back sometime--same goes for many of the places I saw. I was especially happy to spend that time with my mom & dad.

Cheers,

Jay

WOW, Big time in Dawson and the Land of the midnight sun and new picture link

2009-07-26T13:58:00.001-07:00

Dear blog,

http://picasaweb.google.ca/bnjontheroad/AlaskaTrip5thAlbum?authkey=Gv1sRgCK7M4u_awpe2swE

Our drive from Whitehorse was fairly uneventful. We left Whitehorse
going west on the Alcan and a few miles out of town, the road forked
and we went north on highway 2, the Klondike highway. I think the
distance to Dawson is 330 miles. There were a few sections of gravel,
but most of the road was good. This road is not as wide as the Alcan,
but there is not as much traffic on it. Much of the road parallels
the big Yukon River. This is the waterway that was used in the late
1880s to bring the mining equipment and everything else to Dawson. The
stern wheelers were up to 300 feet long with a flat bottom, using
steam as power. Many also pushed a barge in front. These boats could
only run about 4 months out of the year because ice conditions in the
river. In some area the boats would get stuck on sand and have to be
cable winched using the trees on the shores. For a few years it was
the only way to get to Dawson. The Yukon river has a lot of water and
flows nicely.

After driving for around 5 hours we found a nice campsite on the banks
of the Stewart River near mile post 222. This is a big river that
flows into the Yukon. Our front door is about 30 feet from the river.
The nice thing is that it's free. We are about 100 miles from
Dawson. All along the highways are large turn out rest stops. They
are made for the traveler to overnight if necessary. These are not
fancy. They are gravel and have a trash barrel and outhouse. Often
they have a historical marker describing the point of interest.
Travelers can stop for a few hours or a whole night. Many times if
there is one RV stopped, there will be others shortly.

At mile post 212, you can take the Silver Trail highway to a mining
town called Mayo and on to Keno, the dead end of that road. We chose
not to take this road.

At mile post 298 is the junction of the Dempster Highway. This
highway will take you to Inuvik, inside the Artic Circle. That is as
far north as you can travel on land. It is a near 500 mile of gravel
road that is considered good in some parts and because of weather
conditions (rain) it can become impassable. Long strethes between gas
stops are also a problem. We will travel this road for maybe 30 miles
to view some of the attractions.

Now, on to Dawson... July 25th, our 25th day on the road

We chose to camp at the Yukon Government campground called Yukon
River. Over a 100 sites with many of them placed on the west bank of
the river. We choose #48, very close to the bank. The town is on the
east bank, therefore it is necessary to take the ferry across the
Yukon. I would guess the distance to be about 1/4 mile. It operates
on demand 24/7 and is free of charge. The longest time we have had to
wait was about 5 minutes. It is large enough to carry a semi truck
along with some cars and trucks. It also carries passengers and
bikers.

Dawson City is a throw back to the 1890s. It has everything, history,
shopping, sightseeing, gambling, fine dining, and no paved streets
with all wooden sidewalks. The first place we visited was the town
visitors center on Front Street. It is housed in the old 1897 Alaska
Commercial Co store and staffed by men and women dressed in 1890
dress. These people also do organized walking tours of the downtown
area several times a day. Videos of the old town and the mining
operations are shown nob stop in the theater room. Hundreds of old
still shots are hanging on the walls. The Dawson City was Yukon
Territory first capitol city, but was later moved to Whitehorse. Some
of the town's buildings are original, with the others being restored
or replicated to near likeness of the original. All are wooden framed
with clap board painted siding. To control the dust, the street dept
runs a water truck up and down the streets. I noticed that the town
has a power station, but it is not used except when needed. The town
is on a 115KV radial transmission line from Whitehorse.
Some of the attractions date back to the early 1900. One that we
attended was Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall. We attended the 8pm
show and it was sold out with every seat filled. We sat in choice
seating with a very good view, in the balcony. We spent about 11/2
hrs there and Barbara walked away with a little more money than we
came with. That's a good thing!
Our next attraction was the cemetery area where many of the founding
pioneers are buried. The state has installed replacement markers, and
restored it the grounds. Many markers were made of 2 X 12 wooden
planks with the names painted on them. These had rotted away and now
are standing tall with the names painted clearly on them.
The RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) has a cemetery across the
road. The headstones reflected most died in their 20s to 30s with a
few living into their 50s. I think Sgt Preston may be working
"undercover", in that area of town.
Our next adventure was the Midnight Dome, a drive to the high point of
the area, called the dome. We celebrated a beautiful near sunset that
occurred 2342hrs PST, just as 150 towns people did on last June 21st
110 years ago. This is truly the land of the midnight sun. Very neat
and a little hard to get used to for Barbara and me… We were joined
at the top by two German couples camping out at the viewing area.
They have been traveling the US for 9 months and are on their way to
Alaska. They had their RVs sent over on a ship and then they flew to
the US. I chatted with him for a while. This adventure kept us busy
well into the next day.
On our way back to the campsite we drove through the town that was
still buzzing with activities. We stopped and took pictures on second
street of the store fronts at 1202 AM PST. These pictures were taken
with no lighting other than the skylight, unbelievable and hard to get
used to. I've said it before, you don't run out of daylight, just
energy.

bnj

Day 23 Whitehorse, Yukon Territory mile post 884 with new link

2009-07-24T09:27:00.001-07:00

http://picasaweb.google.ca/bnjontheroad/AlaskaTrip4thAlbum?authkey=Gv1sRgCMvri7ar7oqGtwE#

A little to add to yesterday the 22nd.
Found hotspot at a Watson Lake service station and made some Skype calls to my cousin Dick and Rena from Hague NY. We also talked to Lowell and Vicki from Mission, TX . Lowell and Vicki have spent a month in the boundary waters campgrounds in the Minnesota north country on the shores of Lake Superior. They have been without any form of communications for a month, they found out they did just fine.

We slowly made our way from the Liard River Springs Provincial campground, mile post 477 to the Teslin River Provincial campground. It is a park on the shore of Teslin Lake, one of the Yukon chain lakes. This was the last leg to Whitehorse, YT.

July 23^rd our 23 day

Our next point of interest was in Watson Lake, Yukon Territory, It is a interesting and historical point of interest called the " Watson Lake Sign Post Forest" and is reported to have 55000 signs from all around the world. Of course we got our wooden sign from the RV and Barbara and I displayed it along with all the others. We did not leave it as some do. It was a photo op that I will post up later. Please goggle Watson Lake Sign Post Forest for more information.

We pushed on to Whitehorse, YT and got into town just afternoon. Stopped at the visitor center, picked up information, and watched a presentation about the Yukon area. The gold rush days brought many thousands to this area in the 1890's and 1900's, and many made a fortune. We walked around this historic town some and purchased gasoline. This is a busy town that is also the capital city of the Yukon Territory. We also had a couple of items to pickup at the Walmart.

Wow, we were surprised to find around 60 RVer's parked in the parking lot. In the past, I have seen about a dozen before, but this is unbelievable. About the Walmart Lurkers... It is the Walmart corp policy to allow RVers' to rest stop on the parking lots. These lurkers spend a few hours and also a lot of money with Walmart. Some cities have enacted/enforced local laws to stop this and try and force the RVers' to patronize the local privately owned campgrounds.

Barb and I visited with a fellow travel from Ontario. Orval and Ellen have traveled Alaska before and were able to answer questions we asked and also pass along all kinds of helpful information about the area. He is a retired pipeline construction welder that has traveled to many locations around the world for the Brown and Root corp. They are on their way back to Ontario.

I asked at the visitor center where Sgt Preston was and they indicated that he was at Dawson City area checking on a gold mine claim jumper. I guess we will head that direction tomorrow. It is about 330 miles to Klondike and Dawson, which will be a two day drive at least. Dawson is a town on the Klondike Loop that at the height of the gold rush ballooned to around 300k population. There is still a lot of gold being mined in the area. We are equipped with pick, shovel, and pan, therefore I am sure we will be successful. Anyone wanting to purchase shares, just email me. In the above picture, you will notice that I already have a start on the gold mining. I think we will spend two to three days there before starting the second part of the Loop known as the "Top of the World Highway" that will take us to Chicken, AK. It however is not known for being a good road. At the Alaskan border going west, it turns to gravel and becomes a test of nerve and skills.

John and a little bit of Barbara

Another big day on the Alcan highway... day 20 and 21 of our exciting adventure and new link

2009-07-22T15:28:00.001-07:00

Good morning all,

link to http://picasaweb.google.ca/bnjontheroad/AlaskaTrip3rdAlbum#

Just a recap of of yesterdays travels, day number 20. We started the historic Mile "0" of the Alcan Highway in the middle of Dawson Creek. There is a mile post in the downtown area of Dawson Creek. We got a late start because of the oil change on the Suburban. I chose Walmart to do the oil change. I had the oil but not the filter. Their rate for changing oil, checking other fluids, and lube job was $18 Canadian. I furnished the oil that I had brought from Lubbock. They didn't have the correct oil filter on the shelf, so I had to go the Canadian Tire store that didn't open til 1000hrs. We left town about 1100hrs and drove to Buckinghorse Provisional Campground at mile post 175 where we had a picnic lunch. We stopped at the visitor center in Fort Saint John and talk to Barbara Sister Kim via skype. We also got more road information. The Alcan was good all the way to Fort Nelson. We drove through mile after mile of bright yellow canola fields contrasted with the dark forrest. The visitor center had a free Wifi hotspot, so we checked email and made some important calls on Skype. The day light was still good so we pushed on 60 miles west of Fort Nelson to the Tetsa River Provisional Park campground at mile post 344. Our campsite was directly on the noisey river. We spent the night with a large number of mosquitoes, but otherwise a very nice campground.

Day 21 began a rough day on the Alcan Highway. Within a few miles of the Tetsa river campground, we discovered the Alcan highway can really be a bad road. We had to stop several time for the flagman and that meant one lane and very slow travel. The work crews were ripping up the old frost heaved surface and were putting down new gravel. To their credit they do a good job of the repairs. The unrepaired rough places are clearly marked, therefore we slow down. Then we found ourselves in the worst dust conditions that I have ever experienced. The dust is caused from the very fine material mixed with the gravel. The trucks and RV's kick it up to form big clouds of dust. We ran about 20 miles with visibility less than 15 to 20 feet at times and heavy traffic front and rear. Hazard flashers and headlites on and driving very slowly, we made it to Toad River (mile post 406) where the road got a lot better. Toad River is a historic work camp site built in the early 1940's. Not much of a town, just a restaurant, motel, airplane runway, and gas station. It did have a free hotspot, so I checked email. The gasoline was $1.24 C money per liter. That is the highest we have seen to that time. The next gas stop was at Mucho Lake and was a whopping $1.50 C money per liter. We passed them up hoping for better prices down the road.

Just a note about the gas stops alone the Alcan. These are old time stations. They have a (1)unleaded, (1)diesel pump, water, and air that is about all. The storage tanks are above ground in most cases. The pumps are the old mechanical registers with no card reader slots. One has to think long and hard about passing up a gas stop. The distance can vary because even at best it is a hundred mile stretch to the next one, if it is open. The long mountainous grades can cause a big difference in fuel consumption, therefore we have to be careful. Some travelers carry extra fuel cans. I carry 2 five gallon containers but both are sitll empty. I suspect some carry the containers to Tok, AK, where fuel is about 50% less.
The Alcan Highway is a beautiful drive with a wide maintained and mowed area on each side of the road. I am sure that this is to keep down the road kill problem. The road is a non-divided and carries a lot of traffic. There are many trucks moving fast and many RV's moving slowly that stop often to take pictures. Many of grades are 7% with some marked as high as 10%. You have to be careful. So far we have not had any problem of any kind. We did get a really dirty car and trailer. Words can't describe just how dirty. We saw buffalo, bear, elk, rabbit, stone sheep and others. I can say that we have not been disappointed with any part of the trip. Every mile of this road is exciting with the wildlife, historical markers, beautiful landscape and mountains, and the many people we meet. Remember that this is open range for these animals, therefore they graze within just a few feet of the trucks on the road and don't seem to be bothered in the least. At these one-lane closers we can get out and talk to other travelers, sometimes for 10 to 15 minutes before we can move on.

We did not make but 140 miles today, because of the road and the many construction stops we made. However, we made it Liard Hotsprings Provincial Park at mile post 477. What a nice place to stop, with a beautiful campground and with 50 sites. The well kept sites have very thick wooden picnic tables and a fire ring with grill. It even features a natural hotsprings that is not a concrete swimming pool. The distance is walkable (about 1/2 mile), and with no extra fee, all you have to do is put your swim suit on and get in. It is a wide spot in the river and has attracted folks from all around the world. This bonus causes this campground to completely fill most every night. I stayed in for about 30 minutes. I felt so good when I got out, that when I got back to the campsite, I bucket washed that really dirty suburban and trailer, while Barbara cooked over the campfire. The only water here is a hand pump just across the road from our site. It works just fine with a little effort after I lubed the dry mechanism. We had a good meal cooked on the campfire. It is almost midnight (local time PST) and finally dark, so I will turn in after a little blogging. Just to remind everyone, we don't run out of daylight here, we just run out of clock. I fully except the rig to get dirty again tomorrow, but at least it is clean at the moment.

Our plans for tomorrow call for a short drive (about 130 miles) to Watson Lake, Yukon Territory, located in the Yukon territory. I wonder if I will find Sgt Preston and King there? He was featured in a life sized cardboard cutout at one of the visitor centers, so we know he is around. I think I will play some of the radio series this morning. I have them on MP3 thanks to Brad Cottingham. I am sure there is still gold in the Yukon and I came prepared with pick and shovel. I'll have to get Barb to pick and shovel as I will be too busy staking the claim and taking the nugguts to the bank.

Another exciting day tomorrow. new bear sighting

John and Barbara

We are at Mile 0 of the Alcan Highway... Dawson Creek BC July 20

2009-07-20T08:09:00.001-07:00

Our 20th day starts in Dawson Creek BC. We are now in the Pacific time zone, 2 hours earlier than Lubbock. Still had a hotspot from the Days Inn across from Walmart. I am going to get the oil changed at this Walmart in a few minutes when they open. First time that the oil has been changed by anyone other than myself.
We will leave on the highway 97, the Alcan to Fort Saint John and then to Fort Nelson. Then to the Yukon Territory where we will meet up with Sgt Preston and his dog King.

John and Barbara

July 19, our 19th day on the road and more picture links

2009-07-19T12:18:00.001-07:00

Hello blog,

http://picasaweb.google.com/bnjontheroad/AlaskaTrip2ndAlbum#5360245191762525522

Yesterday we left the Jasper Park. Very nice park, one of the one we called home for 8 nights. We spent some time in the town of Jasper. The town of Jasper is a well kept and beautiful tourist town in the north east corner of Jasper Park. We drove east toward Edmonton on highway 16 to where it intersects with 40. Highway 40 takes us north to Alaska. This highway is a constant up the mountain and then back down the other side. Very steep accents and then the old 7% grade descents for 175 miles made for a long day. We were accompanied by logging trucks and other RV going north and south. The last part of the way we had stiff head winds and rain to add to the mix. We pulled into Grande Prairie, AB, in the rain and wind about 1930hrs local and made one right turn that found us in a Walmart parking lot. The computer popped up and indicated that "one or more wireless found" and in just a minute we were hooked up. Nice how things just work out. That is how it has been this whole trip, everything works out just fine. I did some email, surfing the web, and calling with Skype. Skype has been a life saver because our cell phone does not work here.

In the morning, it was still raining when we woke up. Walmart opened for business at 0800, so we did our shopping and ate at the McDonalds inside. We spent around $100 Canadian dollars, but we needed to stock up. The wunderground indicates wind and rain ahead and if we hang around this town for a while, the weather might get better. This is a place of 50,000 and has a lot of attractions, so we will spend some time here.

Here are a few select pictures that Jay took.
http://picasaweb.google.com/bnjontheroad/AlaskaTrip2ndAlbum#5360245191762525522

John

north to Jasper and photo link

2009-07-18T12:16:00.001-07:00

http://picasaweb.google.com/bnjontheroad/AlaskaTrip1stAlbum?authkey=Gv1sRgCMDziY6IjdGNag#

With a sunny morning on Wednesday, we drove about 2 hours up to Jasper from our Rampart campsite. The small town is a lot more quaint than the more-touristy Banff. From the top of The Whistlers (the mountain named after the Hoary Marmot, which makes a whistling sound), we could see some of the tallest peaks in the Canadian Rockies, several rivers & lakes of differing colors, and the village itself. The 25-passenger tram took us about a kilometer up to a point on the mountain (about 2300 meters elev), and we then hiked about 1.5 km further up on a meandering rocky trail. Above the tree line, when not enjoying the wider view, you start to notice the details of the mosses and small alpine flowers. Snow drifts still existed on the shaded north/east sides and it was about 20 degrees cooler than at the base. Good thing this boy scout brought an extra jacket for dad. After we made it to the broze monument on top, the downhill portion went pretty quickly. A cold India Pale Ale awaited me at the upper Alpine Cafe, where we had a snack before taking the 7 min ride back down to the valley (I think mom finished her Bacardi Breeze first though :). Our first pitstop was Petro Canada, where we updated the blog (after 3 days) and checked email, courtesy of someone's generous open internet. We rested our tired feet at a nice dinner in a crowded upstairs joint in Jasper, then made the twilight trip back to camp. South of town, we came across a small herd of elk, then saw a few shaggy white mountain goats wandering near the roadside about an hour later. And as we turned into our primitive campground, a medium-sized black bear greeted us about 5 meters away from the car (it was not nearly as photogenic as the one we saw the other day). Another nice, full day.

Today, Thursday, has been a restful time in camp. Dad and I sawed a fallen Doug Fir tree which had been blocking the short trail from our site to the river, and somehow managed to drag the upper part over the bank and let it go into the swift, cold N. Saskatckewan. We all three took about an hour hike north along the river, enjoying the warm sunny day, skipping rocks, and looking at the many different flowers (mom picked one--don't tell anyone). Back to camp for hobos on the fire and some good ale. It will be my last evening in the Rockies with the folks. The week has passed amazingly fast and I wish I had another with them.

We leave for Lake Louise in the early morn, where I'll catch the 8 am Greyhound back to Calgary (where I stay until Monday). Talk to you later!

Jay

To all,
This morning we woke up at 0530 so that we could get Jay to the Greyhound bus at Lake Louise, about 75 miles south of the campsite. We arrived early enough to venture up to Lake Louise and take some early morning pictures of the Lake. It was smooth as glass and the reflection in the water of the mountain and the glacier was perfect. After taking Jay to the bus, Barbara and I took a short trip to Moraine Lake. It is another pretty spot with a glass smooth lake.
This will be our last night at Rampart Creek campground. We have for the last four nights had a great place to enjoy. We have used it as a base camp and traveled to these different places. In the evening we would just sit around the campfire, listen to music, and talk about the day's events. The Canadian Rockies will always be a special place to us. The week spent with our son, Jay, made it very nice. We remember when he was young and we would travel to Yellowstone. This time he was a guide for us, he did the navigating and much of the planning.
Tomorrow we travel to Jasper, Ab, and then to a highway junction just west of Hinton on highway 16 for the trip toward Alaska.

for Vickie and Lowell, we got your voice message and will try to give you a call.

John

Next two days in Banff

2009-07-15T15:51:00.003-07:00

Hello blog,
Folks, it doesn't get much better than what we experienced during our daily outings in the Banff area. We left and did a short hike on the Bankhead trail, then went into downtown Banff and enjoyed lunch, and on to the historic Banff Springs Hotel. It was built in the 1880's and has served the well to do from around the world. The CPN railroad and this hotel brought visitors to the Rockies for over 120 years. Nice place to visit. On our way back to the camp, we drove the Lake Minneiwanka loop which we shared with a herd of Bighorn sheep.

John

Monday started with our first big rainstorm in the Rockies. Much better to be in the RV than trying to take down a tent in cold rain. We took the older Bow River Parkway to Johnson Creek, where a few waterfalls are within easy hiking distance. Which would have been nice if the rain hadn't set in for the whole morning. So we made Lake Louise village the next stop, in order to check on Greyhound bus options back to Calgary (for my return on Friday). Rain, rain, rain. Checked a few campsites along the Icefields Parkway to feel out the next spot to call home. Valleys on the tall mountain on either side of the drive are covered with large glaciers. For this eve, we'd had a few recommendations, but nobody had mentioned this little spot called Rampart Campground, but we were pretty impressed with a site right down on the noisy, silty Saskatchewan River. One of the nicer places I've ever camped. And luckily, the rain tapered off within an hour of setting up. Wet wood makes a tough fire, but we succeeded. It's roaring and keeping us warm at this moment (49 degrees at late twilight, 11 pm). If we get tired of looking at the mountain, we can turn the chairs and look at the river. :) With a little more luck, we'll have sun in morning for a drive up to Jasper, and a tram ride up to the top of Marmott Mountain.

Jay

Big day on the Icefields Parkway

2009-07-15T15:51:00.001-07:00

The 200 square km Columbia Icefield is about 40 km north of our Rampart campsite, with many visible upland glaciers in the rocky valleys. We left site #46 with the hope of some clearing weather (more rain fell this morning). Seems like my folks are adjusting to my lazy A.M. tendencies, and we got lucky with clearing clouds again. The off-the-grid Icefield Center visitor center is busy with tourists from all over, and the starting point for the big buses which would take us up to the Ice Explorer outpost, overlooking the Athabaska Glacier. From there, we hopped on a big-tired ice cat bus which drove us about a mile out onto the middle of the bluish ice. Rocky peaks and slowly sliding glaciers surrounded us on the south and north. I happened to have a few drinking bottles with me, so I filled them with clean melt water for another day. 20 minutes of running around on the craggy ice went pretty quickly. Back down to the base, we walked around the rocky moraine for a bit before driving back down south. Stopped at Wilcox Creek to fill the four water cans to put into the camper tank later (it had been a few days since we showered). It was only about 20 km north of camp when we saw a few cars rubbernecking on the right side. Something moving in the brush about 200 meters out there....what is it? Could it be? It was a large male grizzly bear! A bit far off to photo, and it started moving out of sight. But then it popped out of the trees closer to the road and I ran on down to get a better view. It paid no attention to the cars and strolled right across the road, with one vehicle having to brake hard to stop in time. Up the hill and on to green meadows. I didn't expect to ever see such a big bear up close. We were still talking about it when we spotted a small black bear about 5 minutes later, munching on flowering plants and enjoying the cool sunny day. Dad and I both got some good photos of the bears. I'm quickly killing my 2GB flash card--which is good. We will trek north again tomorrow, 2 hours to the village of Jasper. If the weather is good again, we'll take the tram up the mountain.

Jay

Yesterday we got a late start to the Icefields, but that is OK because the days are long with sunlight. We often are enjoying a nice campfire at 2300 local time with the last rays of daylight. The evening fires are really nice. The campsite comes with all the wood you can burn. Each campsite has a fire ring and a large. We can have a enjoyable evening even with the temp in the 50's because there is no wind and we have that campfire. The smoke just winds itself up into the tall trees. Today we stopped at Wilcox campground to fill our water cans with about 20 gallons. This is necessary because there is no water at this camp. The camp host stopped by and spent about 20 minutes talking to us about his many different volunteer hosting locations. He is a nice guy from Calgary that has been hosing since 1992. He had answers to our many questions.

We came back from the Icefield with the selected rock for our backyard. We may have to put a little more air in the tires. We have completed about 2200 miles so far and are at the jumping off point to Alaska. After we take Jay to the bus in Lake Louise on Friday, we will take highway 16 east toward Hinton. At Hinton we join the Alcan Highway #1 for the rest of our journey.

This morning (July 15 wednesday) we see blue sky, therefore we are off to the town of Jasper. We are going to the Jasper Tramway for a tram ride of 973 (almost 3000 feet) vertical height. We will spend most of the day in Jasper as we need to stock up on some items. Maybe I can put up a link for the pictures that we have taken. Wifi access is not all that hard to find, but uploading a bunch of pictures is difficult at times.

John

July 9th-11th: Our 9th-11th days on the road

2009-07-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

Hello Blog,

We are still in Calgary, but scheduled to leave toward Banff in the morning. We drove into downtown Calgary today and did some sight seeing. This is a very nice place, clean and well kept. Of course we went to Walmart and did some shopping. Prices for food are higher than in the states. Just about everything is higher. We are planing to go into town later in the evening and see the lights of downtown. 65 degrees here today and 105 in Lubbock. I think Lubbock has had 2 days of record breaking temps. We had a little rain here this morning. We decided to spend and extra day in Calgary so we could get a full day for Banff.

Friday the 10th
We left for Banff park about 1100 hrs and traveled about and hour to the park entrance. We purchased the Canadian National park pass for access to all the national parks. Cost was 136 Canadian dollars. We figured that with the 3 of us, we come out to the better than paying at every park. We decided to spend the night at the Two Jack campground near the town of Banff with 185 sites. We have met many fellow travelers here and the campground is live with campers.
The time is 1045hrs and I am sitting with Jay and Barbara at the campfire typing on the computer. It is still late twilight and it is near 1100 hours local time. All the campsites are lit with campfires. The park is forested with Lodgepole pines that are 100 foot tall. Low temps for the evening are dipping into the mid to low 40 tonite.

John

Saturday the 11th - Guest blogger Saturday
The Harris clan met the camping neighbors, consulted the maps, and decided to stay two nights here at Two Jack lake. We got a late start (by dad's standards), so we hit a traffic jam on Hwy 1, just before Lake Louise. Road construction can only occur in the summer, which is when all the tourists are here so... After about an hour, we split from most of the traffic and headed west into British Columbia. First stop, the lower portion of the spiral tunnel of the Canadian Pacific railroad, just east of Field, BC. In the early 1900's, runaway trains on the downslope became a problem around there, so a corkscrew tunnel was devised. Too bad we didn't have time to sit around and wait for a train, We went west to BC because one of my Calgary contacts recommended visiting Yoho Nat'l Park, including Field, and taking a hike at (the less touristy) Emerald Lake. The gourmet Bison Burger at the Truffle Pigs roadhouse in Field was excellent. Even better with a pint of ale. After our late lunch, we headed out to nearby Emerald Lake. Glacial silt makes the water a translucent green/blue, and the day was sunny and warm (which was very nice compared to the wet, cool summer they've been having). We hiked the 5.4km lake loop trail (mom got chastized for picking a few flowers..haha) and got a great feel for the place. Then headed back down the road to Natural Bridge, which is an odd rock formation along the Emerald River. Since it was still afternoon, we had time to drive up to Takakkaw Falls. Maybe a mile off the road, you can hike right up to the base of this 400FT waterfall, which is one of the more beautiful spots I've seen in a long time. Photos will be served later. Funny thing about the time up here: your internal clock is pretty worthless. When the sun angle feels like about 6pm, it's probably about 10. Hungry, and behind schedule, we cruised through the village of Lake Louise and spent some nice time at the big lake right before sunset. Then back through Banff to our campsite. More than a full day by my standards. But I'm pretty sure we'll have energy for a few more days like this.

Jay

Hello blog... day 8 and July 8th

2009-07-08T22:35:00.001-07:00

Good morning to all.
We went to the St Mary Lodge to try the Wifi thing and as usual it isn't working. We asked about other access and were told the Exxon station had service for pay. The cost was $3 for 15 minutes. I took my computer in and connected and updated email sent and received. AT&T has no bars in this area, so we purchased a calling card and called Jay and others.
With all my new found freedom (time) on my hands, we decided to come back to the camp and do nothing. I checked the oil and the water on the Suburban (ok) and did some other maintenance items on the trailer. I picked up some of the outdoor stuff in preparation for the short trip to Calgary. We did a hike of loop B and check the other campsites. It was about 60% occupied. We made a campfire, cooked hamburger meat and had soft tacos. The temps are down into the mid 50 during the night and the mid to upper 70's during the day. Perfect weather so far.
Broke camp about noon today and headed north. At the Piegan Port of Entry we were asked why we were traveling in Canada and then waved on through. We not even asked for passports or ID of any kind. Gasoline has been costing us around $2.59-$2.79 in the US and so far maybe about $2.90 in Canada. We weighted our rig on a scale in Cardston, AB and found it to weigh total of 14441lbs, trailer and Suburban. We are going to have to keep the rock collecting down as we are already on the heavy side. Nice set of electronic scales along side of the road. On board, 20 gals of fresh, no gray, no black and about 25 gals of gasoline.

We are now in a campground just on the east side of Calgary. This place is really busy with the Calgary Stampede going on. The place has good Wifi, so we can catch up on email and phone calls using Skype. Prices go up during the Calgary Stampede, $31 and no hookups. Maybe sometime tomorrow, I will post some pictures.

Hello blog..... Day #7

2009-07-07T14:04:00.001-07:00

This entry starts with a short recap of day 6. Our planned trip was was to Many Glacier, about 20 minutes north of St Mary. It is another entry into the park, of course our Golden age Pass allows us free entry into all parts and a nice 50% discount on the camping fee. St Mary is the highest price at $23.50 but with 50% off it is a good deal. The Many Glacier is a nice campground with shaded areas featuring Lodgepole pine, Subalpine fir, and Engelmann spruce. These forests were a result of the restoration effort after a 1936 lightning caused fire. The Lodgepole were introduced into the area at that time.
We ate a picnic lunch at the trail head of Swiftcurrent Nature Trail and then tackled the almost level 2.6 mile walking trail. The trail offers a wide variety of beauty, that includes glaciers, small glass smooth lakes, rushing streams, wild flowers, wild animals, and a little rain to freshen and heighten the experience. This trail is to some "The Crown of the Continent"...George Bird Grinnell, September, 1901.

Still no working Wifi access at the lodge and no cell phone service via ATT.

Tuesday the 7^th and our 7^th day and last full day at the St Mary campground finds us doing some clean up and starting preparations for a early morning leave toward the boarder Port of Entry at Piegan/Carway on highway 2 into Alberta. The days run will about 160 miles to Okotoks, a town about 25 miles south of Calgary. This town has a supercenter Walmart so we can stock up on supplies and other. We will travel on into Calgary on Thursday to meet Jay near the airport. Calgary is a large modern city with a population of 1.2 million.

The Honda generator is doing a great job. It provides us with power on demand and charges our battery set for use during the quiet time. Barbara loves it because it will run the microwave, and that gets used quiet often.

John

Hello Blog... 3rd day on the road...500 mile trip to Glacier National Park

2009-07-07T14:03:00.001-07:00

Today is starting our third day (July 3^rd) and we are heading to the East entrance of Glacier National Park. On our way out of Sheridan, WY, we stopped at the Holiday Inn, used their Wifi connection, sent and checked email. We followed I27/US87 and then joined I90 going west to Great Falls MT. Recent rains have made everything green along the highways. The landscape is beautiful with the long mountain passes dotted with black cows grazing on the hill sides. We are traveling along the north side of the Bighorn National Forest. This day is going to be a long one, the travel is slower with the mountains and the curvy roads. At Great Falls, MT, we joined I15 to the north to state road 44, than to US 89 into St Mary. The last 80 mile leg of this took 2 hours as the narrow road is full of switch backs and steep grades. It winds through the Blackfeet Indian reservation. Many little white crosses dot the shoulders of the road indicating the location of where someone died. We arrived at Glacier east entrance around 5 PM local time and found a real nice camp spot. Our plans are to spend 5 day here leaving on Wednesday.

Today is July the 4th, the campground is full. We spent some time making our spot (#151) into the best one in the campground according to Barbara. Lots of nice things about this camp site. Out or from window we have a view of the snow covered mountains sometimes with clouds drifting by. Our spot is very private with mostly aspen trees, Doug fir, and rose thickets all around. We went on a few hikes in the campground, visited with other travelers, went to the visitor center and saw a couple of films in the 230 seat auditorium. The St Mary river is about a 1/4 mile walk from out campground. We drove to the St Mary Lodge and gift shop. While there I got the Wifi access code, but it didn't work. We will try again today, maybe. We also drove a few miles on the Going to the Sun Highway. We plan to take a shuttle bus across the 50 mile length tomorrow. We built a nice campfire from old fence wood that we brought from Lubbock. For supper we had a hotdog roast on the campfire. Big fireworks show is planned at the KOA that is located about 1/2 mile to the East. It turned out that we got a spectacular show that lasted to about midnight local time. They fired off some of the big ones. We have no cell phones service. Only Verizon phones work here. We were interested in riding the old red open top scenic buses that Ford Motor Co restored and re-powered, but the price is a little high. We'll pass on those bus rides. However all the other buses are free and run every 15 to 30 minutes.

Today is the 5th (day 5) and we are starting early so we can get the early buses to take us across the park. The Going-to-the-Sun-Road is a very historic and beautiful road that was opened to travel in the early '30. It is restricted to vehicles of 21 feet or less in the pass area.

We started the day with a trip to St Mary Lodge in hope to hook to the internet to send and receive email. It is the only spot in town and it is not working very well. We took the free bus service to Logan Pass and did a small hike in the snow. The weather is in the 60's and nice. We got a close look at some large Big-Horned sheep and a big black bear crossing the road. The next bus to Avalanche Creek was a small diesel powered 12 passenger that is suited for the switchbacks and steep grades. The distance between St Mary and Apgar is 50 miles, round trip is 100 miles. This 100 miles and all the walking and hiking around took us just about 8 hours.
At the campsite this evening we had a fire and had our hobos.
All the campgrounds are without any hookups. The generators can only be run at 2 hours intervals during the morning, noon and evening, but we do well with large battery capacity and a large 1750 watt inverter. We have no off the air TV, but we have satellite and nearly 50 DVD movies from Don King. We have a good amount of canned entertainment. Water is from a common area spigot. It is also close enough to the water spigot that I can run about 120' of hose and fill the tanks.

Headed to Many Glacier tomorrow.

First and second day of travel to

2009-07-03T06:23:00.001-07:00

We left Lubbock around 1100 hrs and had a nice trip to Colorado Springs were we stopped for the night at Camping World. First day mileage was 495. We had a appointment with the service dept to have the recall done on the refrigerator. We did a little shopping in the store while the service man did the recall. It was good timing because we walked out and he was finished.

We left Camping World and did another 500 mile day to Sheridan Wyoming. Traveled on I 25 and then to I 90. Ran through a big rain storm just west of Cheyenne, we made a 20 mile detour that was not necessary, wrong turn and not listening to the nav devices. Some of the wind conditions and the mountain climbing have dropped the MPH down in the mid 9s. Stopped at the Walmart where we shopped for a few food items. We decided that this was a good place to stop for the night. There is some changing of plans, so tomorrow we will head toward Glacier Nation Park. So far, I have not snagged a good wireless connection, therefore I will save this as a draft and email later.

Preparation for 2009 trip

2009-06-20T09:01:00.000-07:00

It's June 20th and Barbara and I are getting everything ready for our vacation into Canada's Rocky mountains. Our departure date is July 1st, so we will be on the road over the big weekend. We will be meeting our son, Jay in Calgary on July 9th. This is also the end of the Calgary Stampede. We will leave Lubbock on July 1st and take Interstate 27/US 87 toward Amarillo , Dalhart, Raton NM, then north to Denver CO. We will take US87 all the way to Raton, NM then join I25 north to Denver. This might be all done on the first day, just depends on how far we want to go.

Our plans call for staying in Drumheller AB before going into Calgary. We will visit the Dinosaur Capital of Canada. On Thursday the 9th we will travel the 100 miles to Calgary and meet Jay at the Rundell bus stop just south of the Calgary Airport. From there we will travel into the Banff area all the way to Jasper. This will take about a week and at the end of that, Jay, will catch a bus back to Calgary. He has reservations at River Wynde B&B in the Kensington neighborhood, just north of downtown, where he will stay for 3 days before catching a plane back to Dallas. He wants to see some special points of interest around Calgary. At Jasper is when we have a choice as to venture toward Alaska or turn around and make a route back toward Lubbock. I guess it depends on a number of things. Stay tuned...

We both have been getting the trailer and the car ready so that maybe we won't forget anything when the time arrives. A few of the items that I carry for navigation are a notebook computer running three different mapping programs all connected to a single GPS receiver. I have done this for many years, but this will be the first time I have used a Delorme program called Topo07. This gives all the contour lines and many other topographical features. We will also have on board our Mio stand-a-lone navigation GPS. On this trip, we will be carrying more items and weight then we have ever carried before. We will have more food, more gear (also carrying gear for Jay), and more liquids. I expect the total combined weight of the Suburban and the Bigfoot trailer will be a little over 15000lbs. We have a lot to do on the 1st of July, therefore our leave plan will be around noon.