Midnight in Denali. I just returned from an evening campfire with the RV park owners - a wonderful couple from Florida who decided two years ago to buy an RV park in Alaska! So they have Alaska in the summer and Florida in the winter - not bad. Joining us at the campfire was a young man named Bent from Switzerland (now living in Quebec) who flew to Anchorage a few days ago and plans to bike back to Quebec over the next 3 months - a total of 8,000 km or 5,000 miles. The stats are: he has a $3,000 Japanese bike, a few kilos of supplies, an interest in people and he works in "ventilation" or as we would say in the US (HVAC), heating, ventilation and air conditioning, a profession he plans to return to when he gets back to Quebec. Having driven this route to Alaska I know he has a lot of ups and downs and gravel roads.
It's after midnight and the sun is still flooding into the camper! Everyone in this RV park is asleep except me.....
Morning in Denali. The big decision - Go north to the Denali Park entrance and see if I can get a reservation on a bus to take a guided tour of the park or head back toward Anchorage. I met a couple in the park that said they were told that if they waited a couple of days they might be able to get a spot in the park campground. Since I didn't feel like being herded around (even if I could get a reservation), I headed south. Another good reason to skip Denali was that it was covered in clouds.
The road between Anchorage and Tok is amazing - perhaps the best scenery I've seen the entire trip. The road is probably one of the most difficult to drive - when the sign says you should take the curve at 35mph, they mean it - a couple of times I felt myself starting to careen towards the edge - forgetting that I have the T@B behind me. The clouds and sunlight today were spectacular. I made very poor travel time since I kept stopping to take photos.
I met an older guy (perhaps my age) named Bob who was sitting by the roadside painting the dark mountain and the white glacier pouring out of it. He gave me a little history of the glacier and said the glacier had melted quite a bit over the past 20 years. He showed me where the glacier had been compared with its present size. Maybe there is something to this global warming talk. He also said that during the earthquake of 1964 all of the glaciers slipped about a half mile. While passing through Anchorage, I heard a report of a 26 year old woman who was killed when she slipped into a glacier crevice while hiking.
Roadside Painter
I am spending the night in Glenellen - at a small roadside campground. I am heading for Tok and Canada tomorrow.
June 27
On the road from Glenellen to Tok and then on to Canada. It's not goodbye to Alaska yet - I am thinking of a side trip to Skagway, Alaska. The first part of the Alaska trip was a wonderful trip - and certainly worth a second visit.
The trip into Canada was uneventful - on and off rain - beautiful clouds, lightening and terrible roads. Summer is the road fixing time so you can count on a lot of roadwork and gravel - sometimes for miles. The travelers who come to Alaska in August have the benefit of all the new roads. At first I was thinking - aren't the Canadians great to keep this road maintained so well for all of us Americans to pass through Canada. Well, today I learned that the US government pays Canada $34 million a year to maintain the Alaska Highway.
I stopped early at a campground in Beaver Creek, Yukon - right on the Yukon/US border. It is a very interesting campground - they have a BBQ every night with ribs or salmon and salad, potato salad, pasta salad, etc. If you pay for the BBQ at $16.95 camping is free. If you don't pay for the dinner, the camping is $21 - needless to say most people had the BBQ. Everyone in the campground eats together - interesting social interaction. Following dinner the owner took everyone on a nature walk. It was one of the more interesting hikes I've taken - every plant was pointed out along with it's medicinal uses. We walked through a tundra on a sponge-like surface and lady slipper orchids were blooming everywhere. At one point, he asked us to feel down a hole about 10" deep - it was ice! It's the permafrost on which all the plants grew. We also saw evidence of a grizzly bear digging for roots. The hike was followed by a campfire and socializing.
June 28
Long drive from Beaver Creek to Whitehorse - 495 km. It rained on and off all day with grey skies and muddy roads. I decided this trip is getting to be too much driving so I took the turn off for Skagway, booked a campground for two nights and signed up for a cruise tomorrow. A 12 hour cruise to Juneau - the capital of Alaska - and not a road leading to it. It's surrounded by water.
Skagway is another town with many childhood memories listening to radio stories of the adventures in the Yukon, Whitehorse and Skagway. Yes, they really do exist.
The drive to Skagway was another truly amazing road - first climbing a mountain, into the couds, then descending a total of 3,500 ft. in 13 miles. I hope I can make it up the hill when I am ready to leave.
On the road from Whitehorse to Skagway
June 29 - evening
A day off from driving. I booked a day long cruise from Skagway to Juneau (the capital of Alaska that can only be reached by boat). Unfortunately, Juneau is like Skagway -- geared for the cruise trade. It was filled with jewelry shops and tee shirt places. There were four cruise ships in port - each with 3,000 people so the town was full. Some of the people from the cruise ships took extra land trips -- one was a helicopter flight to a glacier that was reached by bus. They had a flight of seven helicopters flying overhead at one point. Only $500 per person for the 1.5 hour flight. Others went on a $200 fishing adventure for four hours. I guess I am just too cheap -- I couldn't spend money on that.
The three and a half hour trip to Juneau was great -- overcast day but lots of great clouds and whales and eagles to watch. I keep saying this but Alaska is really quite remarkable for it's scenery. There were about 50 of us seniors on the boat with two young women running the show. Lesley (33 yrs. old) was the captain and has been a captain for 12 years - she did narration along the way pointing out interesting facts about glaciers we were passing by trying to spot the whales. Jennifer was the deck hand and attendant. She provided morning coffee and muffins and an evening dinner of chili.
Lesley, Captain of the Fyiordland - Skagway
Finding and Internet connection has been a bit of a job. Last night I thought I had it solved by going to the Skagway library -- only to be asked to leave when it was found that I was not on an approved computer. Photos from today's adventure will be coming at a later time when I can find a connection that will accept photos. the following photo of sealions was added July 3...
Sealions basking on their breeding rock near Skagway
Skagway is not what I expected. I guess I expected a Wild West town of the Klondike days but it's changed. Skagway now caters to the cruise crowd. Four medium cruise ships were docked in the harbor. The main street "Broadway", had the old west look with the wooden sidewalks and old buildings as, I am sure, Disney would have envisioned them.
Broadway in Skagway, Alaska
The shops, however, were very high end jewelry shops filled with diamonds, gold nuggets, flashy bangles and other rare gems. While the shop names are all Italian - Genoa, DeLucci and Alberto, the owners speak in some non-Italian language - Indian, Pakistani, or Iranian or perhaps a combination of all three. They appeared to have made their shops a family affair with other members of the family taking up stations behind counters of Swiss watches, pearls, diamonds and gold nuggets. To prove their worldly credibility, their sign name dropped their other locations; St. Thomas, Nassau and, of course, Skagway, which adds a certain ring of authenticity.
June 30 - a few complaints
It was a long day of driving from Skagway past Watson Lake to Coal Creek in British Columbia. It started off by having to climb the 13 mile - 3,500 ft. mountain on the only road out of Skagway. Half way up I ran into clouds so driving was pretty precarious. The rest of the drive was pretty boring after the beautiful Alaska scenery. The only area of concern is the signs warning of buffalo on the road. Apparently BC lets some of their buffalo roam wherever they want.
I am starting to do a slow burn about the cost of gas in Canada. My goal now is to head south to the US and get out of the $3.50 - $4.00 gallon gas stations in Canada. Back to the good old USA and its $2.50 gas.
As of today, I have reached the 7,300 mile mark. This trip has ended up being alot more driving than I expected. AAA mapped out the route and said it would be 4,311 miles from NH to Anchorage - I have another 4,000 plus to go.
The great thing about the T@B is its portability and ease of pulling behind a standard auto. The downside is that you are stuck with public washrooms and showers at the RV parks. These range from outhouses without toilet paper to spas with piped in music. Some charge for the shower and some include it. The problem comes when you get into the shower and then find you out that you need four quarters to turn on the water. So far I have managed to avoid using the T@B's Portapotti for almost three weeks. I want to bring it back unused! Tonight I am parked next to the "Empress"; a $350,000 coach with a toilet, shower and spa. At least its shadow is shading the Tee Two.
Internet service at the RV parks is hit and miss. Once will have a free wireless network that you can use from your trailer, the next RV park's owner will ask, "what's internet". I have managed to use several town libraries to get th ejouranl out - I've even been asked to leave the Skagway library because I was using an "Unauthorized" computer - I am sure in another life the librarian was a mother superior at a halfway house in Brooklyn.
I was thinking today as I drove through the mountains, how many people would post a detailed description of their vacation on the web? The journal is really in response to a number of friends and family who wanted me to let them know how the trip was going. It may look like I am doing all this on the website but it's actually my daughter, Sara, who gets the daily (almost) email and posts it to the website. Without her, this journal would not be on the web. Thanks Sara. You are very welcome!
July 1 - mile 7,600 - Today is Canada Day - 138 years as a country
This was a long day of driving - 550 miles to Fort St. John, BC. It's at this point that I head south for Jasper and possibly Calgary - although I am trying to avoid big cities. The drive was fairly taxing - going through valley after valley - down one long hill then up the other side.
The day was filled with wildlife - on the way out of the RV park stood a buck deer sporting a new set of velvet-covered antlers. A mile down the road was a moose walking off the road towards the woods. Shortly after that I saw a dark figure running toward me as I drove down the road. I slowed to see a huge grizzly bear and two cubs running across a meadow and then crossing the road behind me. Seeing that confirms that you cannot outrun a grizzly bear.
Grizzly Bear in Jasper
That was followed by a herd of 15 buffalo lying down beside the road. A few miles further on was another herd of 75 to 100 buffalo on the road as well as both sides. This halted traffic for about 20 minutes until an 18 wheeler came through blowing its horn.
Then I came across three caribou standing in the middle of the road, followed by a black bear loping across the road. It was a pretty good variety of wildlife in one day.
I had breakfast and a gas up at an Alaska Highway road stop. The old guy who owned the place was doing everything - pumping gas, making coffee, fixing breakfast, cleaning tables and grumbling. We struck up a conversation when I asked what the main economic driver in the area was - he said, you are. He was pretty bitter - he said the traffic on the Alaska Highway had dropped off a lot over the past few years - I got a hint of that passing all the closed gas stations and cafes. He said that in the mid 90s he would have 120 trucks stop by each week, now he only gets 20. Plus, he said the newer RVs had huge gas tanks - some as large as 120 gallons so they didn't have to stop that often.
He also told me that Canada is having a big dispute over the Indian claims to their ancestral lands. He said that three tribes had claimed his land, which included his home, gas station and cafe. He said that he was going broke trying to fight this and the BC and the Canadian government were not helping but rather seemed to be agreeing to the claims. He seemed resigned to losing his property. He said if you win one tribe, you'll lose the next one in line. I paid the $10 tab for breakfast and left - he said he had to charge high prices because he needed to make a living and very few people were stopping.
July 2 - Jasper, Alberta Unable to connect to the Internet for three days - most of the RV campgrounds in this part of Canada do not have the service.
Today was driving again - this time from Fort St. John to Jasper - about 350 miles. Jasper is at the entrance to a huge Rocky Mountain park that ends in Banff near Calgary. The current plan is to spend a couple of days in the park if I can get a camping site. Most of the campgrounds are full because of the Canada Day national holiday. They should free up tomorrow. After this I will head into the US around Glacier National Park and then make my way east.
Jasper Glacier and Visitor Center
The drive today was through hundreds of miles of forest, which appear to be owned by the paper companies. The people here are into ATVs big time - caravans of RVs are grouped together in clearings in the woods - all with their ATV trailers towed behind. I saw about five of these. People getting together around a common interest - ATVs. The big highpoint of the day was seeing a huge bull moose standing in a pond beside the road.
Roadside Moose
to continue to week 5, roll over Alaska and click on week 5...
