6/30/2009 So Long Denali

A travel day for us again. We're stopping in Anchorage for the night on our way to Seward, where we'll be for the next week.

Before I tell you about our day, I like to share some pictures I took at eleven o'clock last night. Yes, that's the sun! Still very much up!

Look how light it is...at 11 p.m.! This is still strange to us even after all the time we've been here.

OK, on with our day. This is one of the first scenes we saw as we pulled out of the RV park this morning. Sheesh, what a way to start the day!

I really need you to feel my pain. I have to spend my days sitting in that cushy leather captains chair in the truck for several hours every travel day and spend my time looking at scenes like this! Don't you feel my pain? Are you saying to yourself, "Oh thank heavens I don't have to do THAT!"

In this next picture I want you to take notice of the trees.

These are the evergreens of Alaska. The only kind I've seen so far. They are called Black Spruce trees. I was expecting big evergreens, Blue Spruces, Douglas Firs, all kinds really. Instead, there are these skinny trees with branches no longer than the arm of a seven year old child. What do Alaskans do for Christmas trees? Can you imagine how much a tree for the holidays must cost if they have to be imported? I bet there are a lot of artificial trees here come Christmas time.

We never expected to see a four story igloo!

Ok Here's some more scenery shots. I've been thinking about this and I was meant to take these pictures to help stimulate our economy. Let me explain. When I take a picture like this....

or even this.....

I'm using the battery in my camera which ultimately makes it run down. In order to restore it I need to plug it into the charger which runs by electricity of course. The more electricity we use in the campground, the more they have to pay in their monthly bill. The higher the monthly bills, the more money the electric company makes. The more money the electric company makes the more dividends its stockholders get. The more dividends paid to the stockholders, the more money they have to spend. the more they spend, the healthier our economy is. So you see, you think I'm out here having a good time, seeing all this beautiful country of ours when in reality I'm out here doing my part to stimulate the economy. And you thought this was all fun and games.

When you were a kid did you ever lay on ground in your backyard and look up to the clouds in the sky and play "What Do You See?" As we were going down the road today I happened to look up and this just jumped out at me. Bob saw it right away too. Do you see the dog?

As we were going down the road we came upon about a half dozen cars pulled over on the side of the road in a designated parking area. I had been really into the scenery we were passing and suggested we pull over too because I wanted Bob to take a few minutes and have a chance to really enjoy the sights before us. He pulled over and when I got out I noticed that everyone was in one area and all had cameras and they all seemed pretty excited. I thought maybe a bear or a moose was in the field. I looked but didn't see anything and asked one the guys standing there what was everyone looking at. Here I was looking at the field when I should have been looking beyond. The peak of Mount McKinley was visible. Not the whole mountain, just the peak, but it was still a sight to behold. Look at dead center.

See the mountains with the snow on them? Those are BIG mountains so you can get an idea of just how huge MT. MCKINLEY is. Its the tallest mountain in all of North America at just over 20,000 feet.

One fella was there that was coming from the south and had seen the mountain before the clouds rolled in about 40 minutes prior to stopping here. He got a picture of it and shared it with us. Just incredible. I am really hoping to see it on a clear day before we leave here.

We traveled through Wasilla on our way to Anchorage. No, we didn't see Sarah or any of the other Palins but what a nice town Wasilla is!

We couldn't help but notice all the fireworks stands.

I don't get it. Come 4th of July....it isn't going to be dark enough for fireworks. When do they use them?

We finally made our destination of Black Spruce Fam-Camp in Fort Richardson. We're only here for one night and tomorrow morning we'll pull out and head to Seward. One nice thing about this place... FREE laundry! I scrounged enough for a load just to take advantage of it. We'll be back here in a few weeks when we're here to pick up our friend Dianne at the airport.

Wow, I'm caught up. Being away from the blog for those nearly two weeks,,,,well, I thought it would take me a lot longer to get back to a day to day basis. It's one in the morning, I've got to get some sleep. Until tomorrow.......

6/29/2009 Back to the Park

After Bob took care of some maintenance things this morning we made our way back to the National Park to tour the Visitor Center more thoroughly, watch the movie about the park and take in the Sled Dog Demonstration.

When we arrived we realized we were just in time to make the bus for the Sled Dog Demo so we got in line right away. Because parking is limited in the kennels area it is strongly recommended that one takes the free shuttle from the Visitor Center. Probably 99% do.

Because this is so popular there isn't always enough seating for everyone in the stands. Today was such a day.

Jan, the Ranger was explaining to us how the dogs in the park came to be.

In the early days of the park, skiing, snowshoeing and dog mushing were the only ways to get around the park in the winter. Harry Karstens, the first superintendent of the park and a veteran dog musher, established dog patrols to monitor the park boundaries, discourage poachers and to keep in touch with neighbors in nearby communities.

Today the dogs still help rangers patrol the park. Each winter the Denali dog teams log about 3,000 miles, forging the trails, contacting winter visitors, collecting weather and wildlife data, hauling firewood and supplies to the backcountry. Dog mushing is the mode of transportation of choice because it is silent and non-polluting and fits in with the character of the wilderness of the park. Oh yeah, and you don't have to worry about running out of gas.

These dogs love to run! These dogs LIVE to run! They showed us a demonstration and I was surprised at how the dogs are handled. They are by no means hurting them, let me make that clear now. Here's what it looks like so you can understand what I'm saying.

See in the picture above how the dog's front legs aren't on the ground? They are brought to the sled this way because they are so strong that if they were allowed to walk to the sled on all four the handler wouldn't be able to control them.

These dogs are just chomping at the bit to get going.

And they're off!

In just a short while they race around the course and come to rest in front of the crowd.

Most of these dogs on this team are just a year old.

These dogs are just beautiful and just a picture of health.

I was especially taken with the dog on the left. Aren't these eyes just mesmerizing?

The Sled Dog building is one of the originals built in 1929.

I was going to a run around the grounds as the musher but the dogs just didn't seem to be interested.

It was time to get back on the dreaded school bus and check out the Visitors Center in more depth.

The first thing we did was see the movie, "Denali For All Seasons". While I certainly would not want to be here in the dead of winter when the temps run to fifty below, even at that time of year the park is just beautiful. In spring, with the snow melting off the mountains and rivers running fast, the fields come alive with color of spring wildflowers. The park wildlife numbers increase with the newborn animals in the spring of the year. Summer brings the influx of tourists, hikers, climbers and campers. The park is truly alive. Fall brings the lessening of tourist season crowds and leaves change colors and animals get fat for the winter and once again the snows come and for the most part the park is quiet and the wilderness thrives. And then the cycle starts again. This park is so incredible, it touches your very spirit and soul.

This is one place I could come back to again and again. Put this on YOUR bucket list of places to visit. You won't be sorry.

After the movie we went to the wildlife exhibit downstairs. Here were lifelike animals for an up close and personal look-see.

These aren't your usual stuffed animals. In fact, nothing about them is real. In fact, they are made of plastic. Since this building is not open in the winter time, and therefore not heated, the exhibits had to be made of material that could withstand the extreme cold. Plastic fit the bill.

In September there is going to be a PBS special all about Denali. I think its a six part show. Do yourself a favor and watch it. If Denali isn't on your traveling bucket list now I bet it will be.

We made our way back home for the rest of the day. While watching TV Bob and I felt "something". We looked at each other and both said, "What was that?" We had experienced our first earthquake. Actually, earthquake tremor is probably a better description. The 5th wheel shook a bit, no big deal but definitely noticeable.

Tomorrow we're on the road again. We're heading to Anchorage as a stopover to Seward.

6/28/2009 The Quinn's Do Denali

In anticipation of the great day we have planned I was up before the alarm went off. It was either that or the pitter patter of raindrops on the roof that roused me from my sleep. No, it couldn't be rain, the weatherman said sunshine today. The weatherman blew it again, it was drizzle I was hearing. Stupid weatherman. In no time at all I was ready to go. Lunches packed, cooler filled with liquid refreshment, crock pot filled with beef and veggies to cook all day, let's get this show on the road.

We were told yesterday that the line would start forming at 8:45 for the 9 a.m. departure of our shuttle bus. We didn't want to take any chances of being late so we gave ourselves 25 minutes to make the 8 mile drive to the park. Mark this one up to another park we didn't have to pay an entrance fee for because of our park passes.

Needless to say, we were the first ones in line since we had given ourselves plenty of time to get there. the weather even started cooperating and the day became just cloudy.

Just minutes after we arrived 8 people, not of this country, got in line behind us. Of course we didn't understand anything they were talking about but it was clear they understood English.... when it benefited them.

We had a bus full and a second bus was even added for our time slot.

Though I'm not positive about this I do believe some that were slated for our bus were transferred to the second one. Here's why. When the group, not of this country, got on the bus right behind Bob and I they each took a window seat. None of them sat together. They all wanted window seats for photo opportunities and they all had very impressive cameras with the largest lenses....oh I wanted one of those lenses bad! So this practice really threw an fly in the ointment for seating. Finally, everyone had a seat and it was time to go.

We were setting off on our 8 hour, 132 mile roundtrip exploration of Denali. Denali. I like saying that word. Denali. Sounds exotic doesn't it?

Our ultimate destination was the Eielson Visitor Center. This Eielson person must really have been impressive because if you remember we just left the Eielson Air Force Base. I don't think they just pick a name out of the phone book and start naming important stuff after that person. Know what I mean? I'm sure when we get there we'll find out who this person is/was.

Our bus driver, Marilyn, was just the nicest person. Such a sweet lady. After going over all the safety precautions of the bus and such, she explained that since she had to keep her eyes on the road that it would be up to us to keep an eye out for wildlife and that we were to yell STOP if we saw anything. In turn, she would stop the bus so that we could get pictures and just observe. Ok, with all these eyes we are sure to see anything that moves. Yep, that was the plan. We weren't going to miss anything. No siree, we've got eyes looking everywhere. Bob and I were helping look out the right side of the bus as was the couple in front of us, the couple in back of us and there were several others we knew were keeping a watchful eye out on our side. Now the left side, or driver's side of the bus, was another matter. The eight WINDOW seats taken by the group not of this country, well nothing was seen out of those windows because the seat occupants were all sound asleep. Every one of them. The group, not of this country, must have been suffering from jet lag or they partied really hard last night. They could not keep their eyes open. In addition, a father and his ten year old daughter were sitting right across the aisle from us and the girl had the window seat. Do you think she was interested in looking for wildlife? No way, she had her I-Phone with her and played games the whole 8 hours we were on the road. So much for that set of eyes. And of course the open fields were on their side! Our side of the road was heavy brush and rock. For the first three hours our wildlife sightings consisted of five, count em' five snow shoe bunnies. No massive moose, no sly foxes, no large antlered caribou or fierce looking wolves. Bunnies! We got freakin' bunnies!

We stopped for a potty break and I got this scenery shot.

The road we are traveling is paved, two lanes (for now, it will later go down to one lane and dirt or in today's case, mud) and 90 miles long. It is the ONLY road in Denali. There is no other in all of the six million acres of this park. Visitors can freely drive the first 15 miles and that's it. A special permit must be obtained in order to take your vehicle beyond the ranger guarded turnaround point.

There are several small tenting campgrounds in the park along this road. You are bussed in with all of your equipment and dropped off. There is one small RV park, no hookups, probably no generators allowed though I don't know that for sure, and once you park, that's it, the vehicle doesn't move again for three days. The idea behind all this is to keep the animals safe and environment a true wilderness. In fact, this is the first place in the world established as a national park to conserve wildlife. In 1917 Congress established two million acres as a National Park and it was first named Mount McKinley National Park.

Someone in the back of the bus on the driver's side yelled STOP! BEARS! You can bet everyone was awake then. We had a mama grizzly bear and her cub. Our wildlife count just jumped up by two more bear.

A little further down the road and we had fox!

It laid there for quite a while then just got up and walked away.

All along the ride, Marilyn, our bus driver, was telling us about the park, the animal's habits, what it was like here in the winter and lots more interesting information. It is not uncommon for the temperature to reach fifty below in the dead of winter.

We stopped at the Toklat Rest Stop for a bit of a longer rest stop. There was a Quonset hut type building which housed a small gift shop, some displays and a ranger to answer questions.

Outside was display of antlers that have been found in the park.

The scenery from this stop.

We were all really getting bummed out and discouraged that we weren't seeing the wildlife we had hoped to see.

Fours hours after we left the Wilderness Access Center we reached the Eielson Visitor Center, 66 miles into the interior of the Denali National Park.

The first we noticed were these antlers outside the center.

These antlers were taken off the animals that died because their antlers somehow got so intertwined during a mating fight that the two moose could not disengage and they died together. Can you imagine the struggle that took place as these two huge animals tried to get away from each other and couldn't? I could feel their frustration!

This is the view from the front of the visitor center. Wouldn't it be nice to have this view outside your office window everyday? The people who work in this visitor center do.

On he way up here we passed this cabin in a field off the roadway.

This cabin is available for artists to use. It doesn't have to be an artist that uses paint as their artistic medium, it can be any kind of material used to make art. The cabin is used for the artist to use his surroundings as inspiration. For payment, the artist must agree to donate a piece of their art to the Eielson Visitors Center. This one particular donation stood out for us. Its a quilt depicting the four seasons in Denali. (Double click to enlarge)

They had a table full of pelts from animals in the park. Bob liked this one.

Some more scenery pictures.

I have to tell you, I was so surprised to see SEAGULLS!

And even more surprised that it chased this eagle! I don't know if it had a nest of eggs or young and was afraid the eagle was going to help itself or not. (Again, double click on picture)

Now here is what most of us came here for. The spot in which to see Mount McKinley. The highest peak in the North America at 20,320 feet. There are few days when the peak is visible. Today was not one of them. Here's what we saw. Where you see all those clouds, that the peak. We've learned that there are about 10 places in which to see this mountain so hopefully we'll be near one of them on a day when its visible. I've seen postcards...it is impressive!

It was time to get back on the bus for the 4 hour trip back. We were all hoping that we see more wildlife on the way back than we saw on the way in,

I'm happy to report that the wildlife was there for our viewing! First up was caribou and they were playing. Here they are running and chasing each other.

We watched this group run from a green field to a snowy area close by. They looked like they were just having the best time chasing each other.

A little later we found another small herd of caribou hanging around this snowy area. Marilyn explained to us why they favor the snow. In a word....flies. The flies like to make a home, if you will, in the nose of a caribou and lay its eggs. Because the nose is moist and warm its the perfect environment. The caribou know that the flies don't like the cold temps in the snow areas so therefore hang out there so that their noses don't become fly incubators. You know, you just never know what you're going to learn when you read Quinn's Awesome Journey.

Further down the road we came upon a wolf that was in the middle of a mid-day snack.

Here is a picture of an active landslide. Its still in the process of falling.

Sorry, have to subject you to yet another scenery shot.

Before I forget we also saw about 20 Dall Sheep. Now I took a picture of them but they looked like little tiny white specks on a brown mountain. We used binoculars to see them and even with those these animals were still small. So I'll add them to our wildlife count but I don't have a picture.

We were just riding along and all of sudden we heard a half dozen people yelling STOP! STOP! Two more grizzlies.

Another caribou showed itself to us.

So today we added quite a few more animals to our wildlife count.

We were very happy to get off that bus. Its been a long time since we've been on a school bus and I can guarantee you it will be a long time before we're on one again! Our very comfortable seats in our truck felt oh so good!

We got home and when we walked in the aroma of the beef stew that had been cooking all day met us at the door. Oh, what a good dinner we had!

What an absolutely great day!

Wildlife Count:

2 Black Bears

4 Moose

2 Marmots

5 Snowshoe Hare

4 Grizzly Bear

22 Caribou

20 Dall Sheep

1 Wolf

1 Red Fox

1 Bald Eagle

1 Golden Eagle

and a Dead Porcupine

6/27/2009 Traveling to Denali

I was up early this morning so that I could get what laundry we had done before we entered the land of outrageous washing machine fees once again. Bob was still sleeping when I slipped out with laundry bags and detergent in tow.

We were on the road by ten and headed for Denali. On the way we had to pass through North Pole.

This town takes its name very seriously.

It truly is everything Christmas.

The McDonald's sign pole is decorated in a red and white candy stripe.

Even some of the town's street lights are candy canes.

We passed Santa's Fireworks, Santa's Videos and Games, Santa's Deli, Santa's this and Santa's that.

Here's one welding company that even gets into the spirit of the town's name.

There's lot of water in the way of lakes, streams, ponds and rivers in Alaska.

These roads here must take a real beating in the winter time. Each dark section across the road in the picture below is a repaired frost heave. We saw them just like this, mile after mile after mile.

As usual, we had the road to ourselves all the way to the Denali Motel and RV Park where we'll be for a few days. This park is located 8 miles north of the Denali National Park so we're close to our sightseeing destination for the weekend.

After arriving at the RV park and getting set up we drove to the park to make arrangements for a shuttle bus trip into the park tomorrow and we were lucky enough to get the last two seats for the 9 a.m. shuttle.

Back at the house we made lunches, and got everything ready for the beef stew that will cook in the crockpot all day while we're gone.

This is it for the day. Big sightseeing tomorrow!

Wildlife Count:

2 Black Bears

2 Marmots

4 Moose

and a Dead Porcupine

6/20 - 6/26/2009 The Week from Hell

I'm putting this whole week together because I want to put it behind me as quickly as I can. I can truly say I hope I never have another week like this one.

Without going into particulars all I will say is Bob and I had some issues to deal with. No, no, that's wrong, I had some issues that I had to work through. Nuff said, I'm fine, all is good. Now.

We left Sourdough Campground on the morning of the 20th headed to our next stop.

The scenery was pretty along the way as usual.

We're in Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks. Its a nice Fam-Camp for which we are paying $16.00 a night. I finally got to do laundry! A dollar per wash and dry each.

Unfortunately, because of this difficult time we didn't get to do anything in Fairbanks. We managed to go to the commissary twice, the BX, Walmart (twice) and to one other store.

Bob was able to go fishing in the lakes here on base a couple of times and did the catch and release thing. Other than that we watched movies, read and watched TV.

I had heard about a place called The Knotty Shop and we passed it on the way in. Within the first few days here we went to visit it.

Outside of the shop on the front lawn were "sculptures" made from none other than knotty pine.

This was is called: ALASQUITO

We moved inside to see what that held. There were stuffed specimens of the animals local to this area.

This adorable little girl had this Davey Crockett coon skin hat put on by her dad. Her dad just wanted to see what it looked like. Big mistake. He had no plans of buying it he said, he just wanted to see what it would like. The little girl got a new hat because she went ballistic when dear old dad tried to remove it.

If you wanted to make giant mosquitoes for your own lawn ornaments The Knotty Shop had the raw material for you.

As I mentioned earlier we are in an Air Force base. Think jets. Think very loud jets. Fighter planes. Taking off and landing several times a day. Flying low overhead in tight formations and practicing maneuvers. Then there were the huge, huge cargo planes delivering who knows what. Noise. Deafening noise. Rattling windows. And after two days, we didn't even hear it anymore. Simply amazing.

Coming back from the commissary one day we happened upon two moose. A very close encounter. They were right there! Paying us no mind, just grazing in the roadside field. And I didn't have the camera with me. Actually, I did, but didn't know it. It was on the floor and I didn't know it until the next day that it was there all the time. The photos would have been fabulous! True closeups. See how my week went?

I was reading Linda's (new friend that I helped earlier) blog and read that she too was in Eielson AFB fam-camp. The friends they are with are retired service so they could stay here too. I went and knocked on her door and she and her husband were surprised to see me! He swears I'm following them! Little does he know that unless plans change we're going to meet up in the next campground too.

We went to the commissary and did a large grocery shopping again, filling the freezer to practically overflowing. If nothing else, we are eating well!

Next stop....DENALI

Wildlife Count:

2 Bears

2 Marmots

4 Moose

and a dead porcuine

6/19/2009 Even in Alaska....

We wanted to be up and out early this morning. It didn't happen and I don't know why. We were up, we just couldn't get moving for some reason. Since the place we stayed in was nothing more than a large parking lot with hookups it wasn't hard to see that we were the last ones to leave. It was ok because we didn't have all that far to travel anyway.

Now we did have one stop to make first. Hooray! American prices!

Today's destination is Tok, rhymes with Coke. I think its important to tell you that because we were calling it Tok, rhymes with clock until we were corrected.

I'm got to meet one of our readers here at the Sourdough Campground. Treasa and Bill are workamping at this campground for the summer. Treasa and I have been corresponding for awhile now and I was going to finally meet her. And Bill too of course.

After we got set up and I went and knocked on Treasa's door. Did I think to bring my camera with me? Noooooo. After howdy do's and talking for awhile I made my way back to the rig only to find Bill there talking to Bob,,,but Bill didn't know who Bob was until Bob happened to mention my name and Bob didn't know who Bill was because he didn't put it together with the name Treasa I had mentioned.

Sourdough Campground has a cafe and for dinner they were offering reindeer chili served in a sourdough bread bowl and a chicken and corn chowder also served in a sour dough bread bowl. It worked for us, we now had dinner plans that didn't include the use of any of our own pots and pans.

We went over to the small cafe and sat a table (several small tables for two pushed together) and sat down next to the wall so as to leave plenty of room for others to join us. It wasn't long before another couple came in and was looking around and we asked if they would like to sit with us. Since the seating was a little tight they sat down in the chairs that would leave a place setting between us. We started discussing where we were going in Alaska and getting caught up in the excitement of each other's trips. Within minutes another couple joined our table sitting in the place settings at the other end, still leaving a gap between us and the first couple to sit. The six of us introduced ourselves, talked about full timing, Alaska, fuel prices, campgrounds and just all kinds of things. Other diners were coming in and taking seats all around us in the small cafe. A single gentleman came in and the first couple to sit with us invited him to join us. He sat down next to me and we all introduced ourselves. And that was the end of the conversation we were having as we knew it. NONE of us got a word in edgewise after this guy sat down. He knew everything, he had been everywhere, he had done everything, he had Master degrees or PHD's in everything according to him. He was a photographer and part time botanist too. He was BORING! I watched Bob's eyes glaze over as well as the man of the couple who first sat down with us.

Soon our dinners were served and I realized that we didn't have napkins. I got up to get us some and plastic ware for the last couple to sit down with us as they didn't know to get their own. I should tell you now I was wearing this sweatshirt. (Yes, yes, I jumped into the Atlantic Ocean in the month of February back in '03. What can I say, a polar bear plunge was on my bucket list, and besides, it was for charity)

Because I was so bored with our own table conversation when we were finished eating, I turned around in my seat and asked the couple sitting behind me by themselves (they were sitting on the far side of the table, side by side, facing my back) where they were headed. That's all I asked. "Where are you folks headed?" The lady responded, "Are you from the east coast?" Aww c'mon, I don't have that much of an accent! I replied, "Yes, we're from Delaware." Big grins! A nudge from the husband with an "I told you so!" She said that they noticed the Happy Harry's logo (a drug store chain) and the town of Lewes named on my sweatshirt and ended this sentence with, "We're from Delaware too, only slower, lower." I just can't believe it. All the way in Alaska and we meet someone from Delaware, our home state. Well, Bill and Katie Reeves, we're pleased to meet ya! Yes, I did take a picture of these Delawareans but they both had glasses on and the flash and overhead lighting made their eyes look like laser beams were coming out of their heads so I opted not to use it here.

Before I forget, Bob raved about his reindeer chili and my chicken and corn chowder was also good. Each meal cost us $10.00 each. While it was good, I think it was a bit pricey for what you got. For ten bucks the pie should have been included with dinner instead of $3.00 a slice since there was no salad offered or a soft drink, iced tea or anything else other than water to drink.

By now its getting close to seven and we have to join the others from the campground for the daily evening Pancake Toss. This nightly game is part of Sourdough Campgrounds claim to fame. The game's host places a five gallon bucket on the low stage and from approximately twenty feet away from it the participants from the campground's guests throw pancakes (leftover from breakfast) at the bucket with hopes of getting one in. The prize? Free pancake breakfast the next morning. I'm sure the pancakes are tasty as is the reindeer sausage but even with coffee, juice, maybe even toast and possibly homefries,,,,twelve bucks a piece for breakfast is ridiculous. Neither Bob or I threw our pancakes into the bucket. No breakfast for us!

While standing there watching the pancakes sail through the air I felt this tap on my shoulder. When I turned I saw Linda, the newbie blogger I helped while we were in Whitehorse a few days before. She needed a quick refresher course in one of the functions so I went over and helped her out.

Back at home it was still early so I went for a walk in search of our fellow Delawareans. I found them two streets over and was welcomed with open arms. We sat and talked all things Delaware. Beaches and crabs and subs and home state news. Since it is so light so late none of us paid any attention to the time. I finally asked if they had the time since I didn't see a clock anywhere. Eleven thirty! OMG....where did the time go? I thought for sure Bob would think I had run away or something. This sun out till late at night is just so hard to get used to.

Tomorrow we move to Fairbanks.

6/18/2009 HELLO ALASKA!

We got an early start this morning but we needed bread so we stopped at the local market. Now this store was not the supermarket that most of us know. There was no bakery, no floral shop, not even an entire aisle devoted to nothing but cereal. Think small. Four aisles tops. This is the only store for this area. Of course I had to check out prices. Philadelphia Cream Cheese. Last December I was buying this for 99 cents an 8 oz. block. No fancy flavors, just plain Philly Cream Cheese. You'll never guess how much it was here. How about $5.79? Yes, you read that right. $5.79! I even called the clerk over so that I could make sure I was reading the price right. Cereal, every kind, even more expensive than the last store I checked. $6.99 per box. Ragu, not the big, giant jar, the feed a family of four size. $4.89 Bread, plain white bread, a brand I never heard of, $4.29 a loaf. This better be tasty bread!

We were taken with these mountains with cloud covered peaks.

We pretty much had the road to ourselves and when we started out the roads were nice and smooth.

We followed the mountain range above for quite awhile.

I don't know the name of this range but if it was up to me I would name them The Zebra Mountains.

We finally saw another rig on the road.

This looks like a painting doesn't it?

The scenery was just breathtaking!

As is happening everywhere, the water levels were way down in sections of this lake.

I don't know if we slowed down because we were appreciating the scenery or the these rigs were really speeding down the road, but all of a sudden we had company which was unusual for us.

As we were driving around this huge lake we changed over to the dirt roads.

Of course we're all going pretty slow so that we don't kick up dust for the ones following behind us in this line of six rigs. I could say a lot about the lack of courtesy from the driver of this rig coming from the opposite direction, but I'll be nice.

These purple wild flowers lined the roadway for a pretty long ways. Just another aspect of the beautiful scenery.

Bob and I had no sooner talked about the nice road conditions when we hit WASHBOARD! Now we thought the washboardy roads from the other day were bad. They were a piece of cake compared to these. These mini ruts were deep making for an extremely rough ride. I thought for sure that when I went into the fridge I would find our milk had churned itself to butter because of the constant vibration.

You can only drive these conditions for so long, especially when they go on for miles and miles. We pulled over to take a break and couldn't help but notice how dirty the truck and rig are. This is just killing Bob because he takes such good care of them.

I guess we shouldn't feel too bad cause everyone else's is just as dirty.

We have to give the highway department a lot of credit. They mark the roadways very well where the frost heaves are giving warning to slow down.

A Goin' Down the Road picture.

We saw our first roadside moose! Bob was taking a look out the window and the next thing I know we're pulling over and Bob's yelling, "Give me the camera".

Soon we saw the sign we were watching for!

Of course there was a much nicer sign welcoming everyone to Alaska.

A park bench that straddles the border.

We got to our stop for the night and weren't there 20 minutes when this was noticed right outside.

It took us 14 days to get here, but we have arrived!

Wildlife Count:

2 Bear

2 Marmot

2 Moose

and a Dead Porcupine

6/17/2009 Who Knows?

Neither Bob or I can remember this day. We drove. We stopped somewhere beyond Watson Lake for the night.

We do remember that we met a very nice couple from California, Doris and Al. We also met a man from Holland who flew into Vancouver, Canada and is riding his BICYCLE to Alaska! He had it shipped ahead of time so that it was here when he arrived. I cannot even imagine doing that. He has a tent that he carries and few changes of clothes. That's it. Oh no, not me.

6/14 - 6/16/2009 Whitehorse, British Columbia

We pulled out of Dease Lake this morning with Whitehorse as our destination. Oh what a ride! And what scenery! (Now I had posts written for these days but computer problems took over and I've lost all of that, you'll have to trust me that the scenery was spectacular!)

While the scenery was beautiful, I have to tell you, the roads .... well, to put it bluntly....sucked! Now we have been on washboards roads before but these were WASHBOARD ROADS! (Take note of the all caps.) The washboard sections were numerous and length of each washboardy section got longer with each one.

We have never been so glad to pull into a campground. We decided to stay in Whitehorse for two days just to get a rest from the truck. Bob from navigating steep hills, sharp curves, washboard roads and me from just sitting there, taking pictures and taking in the scenery.

As luck would have it as soon as we pulled into the campground it started raining. And it rained for two days. Nonstop. And we didn't have cable, or WIFI and attractions we would have been interested in were outdoor ones.

On Monday, I decided to pass the time I would go to the laundry room and get that out of the way. Uh-uh! No way. $5.00 per load. $2.50 to wash and $2.50 to dry and I could have done all the laundry and had four medium sized loads. Nope, I can wait, after all we still have clean towels and underwear! $5.00 to do a load of wash.. sheesh!

Monday evening I went to the computer room and met a fellow blogger who happened to be a newbie at it. I helped her get her blog set up with maps and weather stickers and a counter and showed her a few tricks of the trade. In our couple of hours together she shared with me that she and her husband were traveling with another couple. Bob and I had decided a long time ago that we wouldn't be interested in traveling with another couple or couples for a long period of time. A weekend or even a week we could do but that would be our limit I think. My new friends experience just backed up our thinking on that subject. These couples should not be traveling together. One likes to get on the road early and other likes to sleep in. One likes to eat at home and eat in a restaurant as a treat and the other wants to eat two meals a day in a restaurant,,,,everyday. One wants to stay in Walmart parking lots all the time and the other likes the running water and electricity of a campground. Oh no, this wouldn't work for us.

We woke up Tuesday morning to more pouring down rain and decided to stay yet another day. Its no fun traveling in the rain.

6/13/2009 Trees, Bears and a Mudslide

It's time to move on. Even though we are paid for two more nights here and we don't like to do that, well, sometimes its just better if you suck up the loss and move on. This is one of those situations.

We noticed the clouds moving in this morning as we were tearing down and packing up. We couldn't see the tops of the mountains.

On the way out I caught this glacier in my viewfinder. Take note of the blue color.

A going down the road picture, first of what may be many today.

Bears!

We saw three bears today! The first one Bob saw from a distance down the road giving me plenty of time to get the camera ready. That really doesn't take all that much because it sits on my lap every time we're in the truck.

He didn't seem to be too afraid of us although he did head for the woods.

The second one we saw just came out of nowhere and it just isn't good practice to slam on the brakes when one is towing 35' of 5th wheel at 50 miles per hour, throwing it in reverse and backing up to take a picture of a bear that in all likelihood is deep in the woods by the time you get backed up all the way. You'll just have to take my word for it that we saw a second one.

The third one we saw was a ways down the road and made a fast exit into the woods before we could get close enough for a picture that would depict a bear versus just a black blob that could be a bear....or a tree stump. Yes, we've been fooled by several tree stumps.

I think the bears should sit on the side of the road on their haunches and raise one paw in a wave, if you will, as we pass by. They don't seem to get it that humans would much rather have that than picture after picture of their ass ends as they beat feet into the woods.

We had such pretty scenery along the way. Canada has beautiful lakes. So serene.

Here's another one of those going down the road pictures.

As I mentioned yesterday there was a mudslide on a road that we need to use in order to go north. It is now open during work hours but with an escort only. We were flagged down and told that we would have a half hour wait for our escort. The flag lady explained all the rules for following the lead and told us to shut down the engine to the truck. As it turned out we only had to wait 17 minutes and we were underway.

OH what a mess this!

There are several pieces of heavy equipment working at removing the mud off the roadway.

This piece of equipment got buried.

When this first happened the mud was halfway up the side of standard sized pick up truck. We saw a picture on the Internet and try as I might I can't link it here.

Water and mud are still flowing across the road and we were instructed not to stop for anything.

Look at the trees towards the back of this picture, that's how deep the mud was over everything.

Coming out of the woods with that you can imagine we were glad to see this pristine scene. (Another way of saying A Going Down the Road picture)

You have to wonder who designed this road and bridge? Who puts a single lane bridge right after a curve in the road?

I'm sorry, but I gotta do it!

Now there is rhyme and reason as to why we took this route!

We couldn't not come here and not go through a town named after none other than my own BOB QUINN! Or stop by the airfield of Bob Quinn Lake Airport!

We would have stayed here if weren't towing our own "lodge" behind us!

I tried very hard to find out who this Bob Quinn is, or maybe was, but I couldn't find a thing. I googled that name and could get the community, the airport and the lodge. Its a mystery to me.

This was taken while standing in front the the Bob Quinn Airport runway. This short section of hardtop is not the runway, the runway is off to the right.

This was our traffic pattern for 99% of our day. I'm not kidding one bit. For mile after mile we were the only ones on the road.

We are soooo tired of this scenery! NOT!

I think these road engineers have a really sick sense of humor. I'll apologize for the poor quality of this picture but it shows what I'm talking about all the same. We are going down an 8% grade, on a gravel road and we came to this.....

That turn had to be one of sharpest hairpins we've had to deal with to date.

Trees. I have seen 2,426,138 trees today. Give or take a few thousand. Go back and look at the pictures and take notice of how many trees are in each one.

I've seen big tree, little trees, bright green trees, dark green trees, leaning trees, dead trees, trees on hills, trees on mountains, trees in valleys, trees lake side, trees on river banks, trees lining the roads....a real big bunch of trees! Ok, I'm better now, I just had to get that out of my system.

We were supposed to stop today in Iskut, British Columbia. We had a campground picked out, it had WIFI, it had cable, a nice view from the site, the price was right but the town it was in didn't have a store in which to buy beer and Bob was out. After the drive he had today through a mudslide, hairpin turns, 8% downhill grades, well at the end of the day he would have really enjoyed popping that top. So we kept going. We ended up in Dease Lake about 50 miles further up the road. Its a good thing. We're that much closer to Alaska, we bought beer, we have WIFI, its all good. Except. We don't have cable and our TV's are analog. We don't have those magic boxes yet and for just one night its too much trouble to set up the satellite dish. Thank heavens we have a good sized DVD selection and ones he hasn't seen as yet. I have WIFI and if I can play Scrabble online I'm a happy camper.

I'll leave you with this....

Oh yeah, a forewarning....the farther north we go, the prettier it gets, the prettier it gets, the more Going Down the Road pictures you will be subjected to.

WILDLIFE COUNT:

4 Bear

2 Marmot

and a Dead Porcupine

6/12/2009 We've Got BEAR!

We saw our first bear last night! We went out to the same road we covered the night before and drove out 19 miles. On the way back, about three quarters of the way back, I saw a bear along the side the road. The land sits a little lower than the roadway and it was just by chance that I saw it. I told Bob I saw one and he stopped and backed up. The bear was watching us at this point and started towards the woods to hide but not before I got this picture. So we've seen our first, a black bear. Pretty good size too.

When we got back last night we were surprised to see almost every space here in the park filled. That hasn't been the case this week. For the most part its been a few rigs coming in late in the afternoon and clearing out in the morning leaving us and the couple next door who are the workampers. We had heard there was a mudslide further up north and that the road was closed for a few days. Seems like word has gotten out about this closure and people came in here to spend some time. We also heard that small rigs can get through once in awhile, when there is a break in the clearing I guess. One such rig came here today. Look how dirty it is! That isn't shadows you see on the front of the rig, that's dirt and truck isn't a light colored truck its navy blue.

Its the road we'll be taking but we're supposed to be here until Monday so it didn't really affect us. It would be open by the time we need to travel. Now that has all changed. Bob looked at the extended weather forecast and it may rain by Monday. We don't want to get caught up in that area that is already weakened so we're pulling out of here tomorrow. We heard this afternoon there is one lane open and they are alternating traffic so it will probably be slow going. Luckily, we're only traveling 190 miles to our next stop.

Today brought our first cloudy, overcast day that we've had in quite awhile now. We did go into town to go to the museum but it wasn't open. I really was disappointed that the "toaster museum" was closed too. I took the pictures of U.S. - Canada border monument and the storehouse, today in fact. I was in the States a whole four minutes.

Other than that short trip, updating the blog, watching TV, playing online poker and making dinner we didn't do much of anything today. Oh yeah, I did make a banana walnut bread and burned it. Burned it bad. I was able to cut the top off and its now edible. New toaster oven, what can I say, I need to learn the ins and outs of this one.

So that's our day in a nutshell. Nothing exciting, just another day.

Travel day tomorrow, don't know if I'll get a chance to post or not. The campground we're going to is suppose to have WIFI, let's keep our fingers crossed.

6/11/2009 64,000 and counting...

SCROLL DOWN, THERE IS A NEW POST. THANKS!

Is it you? Did you turn the counter to 64,000? If so, please leave a comment and let me know who you are and how you found our blog. And, of course, anything else you'd like to say.

Thanks!

Snookie

6/11/2009 We Take A Self Guided Auto Tour

We took off this morning around eleven headed for Glacier Highway and ultimately Salmon Glacier.

The tour guide brochure we have, given to us by the campground we're in, starts us out in none other than Stewart and finishes up 22 miles later at the Summit Viewpoint. We've already shown you the street in Stewart.

The second stop was The Storehouse, Eagle Point. In 1896 the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers was dispatched to check out the Portland Canal area and to build four storehouses. The group built the storehouses as instructed with the fourth one being built at Eagle Point, at the border between the U. S. and Canada. In 1903 the boundary was permanently set resulting in two of the storehouses being on Canadian soil.

To the left of the building in the picture above you can see the monument representing the U.S. - Canadian border.

The small buildings were well built and meant to be comfortable quarters for small work parties. Inside each storehouse cement, rope, tools and kitchen utensils were kept.

We must have been a kinder, gentler nation back then. We let each foreign entity know that these were United States owned storehouses by the cornerstone placed on each building. Instead of threatening sanctions or all out war in case of destruction, we just put these words on the buildings.

Next stop on the tour (#3) was to be Hyder, uh, been there, done that, no need to re-hash Hyder.

Stop four brought us to the Tongass National Forest Boundary. Do I have a picture of this sign? No. Did Bob ask me if I wanted him to stop so I could get one? Yes. You are going to have to use your imagination here. Picture a sign, good size, 4 x 5' color it brown, put the words Tongass National Forest on it. Got that in your minds eye? Ok, good, that's the picture I didn't take. Ah, but I can tell you about this forest. Its big. Its huge. Its humongous! This forest covers 16.7 million acres and has approximately 11,000 miles of coastline. Picture the states of Maryland, New Hampshire and Vermont all grouped together, that's how big this forest is. It received its name from the Tantakwan clan of the Tlingit Indians that lived in what we now know as Southeast Alaska. In 1907 this land of glaciers, mountains, waterways and thousands of islands was placed in National Forest status.

Stop 5. Moose Pond, was named for the fraternal organization, Loyal Order of Moose, so don't get your hopes up on seeing moose here.

However, bears do frequent the area as do geese, ducks, frogs, squirrels and bald eagles. We did see a little beaver in the pond. You can see the little fella in the center of the picture. Wildlife just abounds!

Stop six brought us to the Fish Creek Wildlife Viewing Area. What a great idea this was! It is in the creek that runs along side of this walkway that the grizzlies and black bears come to feed on the salmon which come here to spawn.

The Hyder community members built this safe walkway for visitors and townspeople alike to watch the bears feeding. Of course we didn't see any bears feeding here today, the fish don't come in until next month through September. We did talk with one couple who had seen a bear on the road on the way in. In fact, they had passed us and were surprised to hear we didn't see it. We probably would have but we had to stop for about 7 - 8 minutes to try to find out what was making the screeching sound in the truck. We had slowed way down in driving because of kicking dust up and evidently picked up a rock between the dually wheels and it was positioned so that it made a very loud screeching sound, kind of like fingernails on a chalkboard magnified a thousand times. Ooh, I just gave myself goose bumps just by typing that! We stopped, got out and looked, couldn't find anything, got back in and pulled forward and stopped immediately because THE SOUND was still there. We thought, Oh great, here we are with no cell phone coverage, no idea as to what is wrong with the truck, we don't know a soul, passerbys were few and far between and we're now six miles in on a dirt road. Bob decided to back up just a bit in case something was caught in the tires and thankfully that was the problem. The offending rock dislodged itself and all was quiet again. But we missed a bear!

This must be quite the attraction because the parking area was quite large as is the walkway itself. The walkway could easily, comfortably fit 100 people (or more) including their photography equipment. We walked the entire length of the walkway in both directions from the parking lot and walked away with a picture of a beaver, the viewing of several robins and two mosquito bites.

Had we stopped at #7 on the tour we would have been able to hike the Titan Trail. Its a five mile hike, in bear country. Uh-uh. Nuff said.

Stop # 8 brought us to the Riverside Mine. Or what is left of it that is. Discovered in 1915 by the Lindeborg Brothers it was later sold and became known at the Riverside Mine. A four thousand tunnel was dug and constructed in 1922 and the mill was built in 1925. The mine changed hands several times and was worked off and on until 1961. During some of those years this mine was the most productive property in Alaska for silver and copper.

The buildings which consisted of the mill itself, the dormitories for the workers, the dining hall and kitchen have either burned down, washed away in the floods and generally just deteriorated over the years. All that is left are these iron pieces.

What we think is the entrance to the mine.

Further up the road we came to Stop #9. It sure didn't look anything like the covered bridge shown in the brochure. Its called the Texas Creek Bridge. At one time it was the only covered bridge in all of Alaska. This bridge gave access to several mineral claims in the upper Texas Creek Area from when it was built in 1932 until 1965 when it was damaged under a heavy snow load. Finally, in 1978 the remains of the bridge collapsed. This is what's left.

Sad isn't it?

There were five more stops on this self guided auto tour but we didn't get to see them. As we were on our way to # 10 the road got very narrow going around a curve and and there was NO guard rail and it looked like there was a recent small landslide. We just couldn't take the chance of one of those good sized rocks getting caught between the dually wheels.

We passed several good sized waterfalls on this road. Not that they were so much big in height but that the rushing was great.

LaVon, Bob picked this tree out,,,,just for you.

Snow was still very evident in this area.

Those of you who personally know us, know that Bob takes very good care of our truck and rig. They are always clean and well maintained. THIS is killing him!

There's no point in washing it, we're still running these local roads and they aren't paved. I do know that he can't wait to wash it though!

Another day in Stewart - Hyder.

6/11/2009 We Went Bear Huntin'

Last evening we went bear hunting. We weren't armed with rifles but only with a camera. We didn't get to shoot one. Why? Because we didn't see one.

We had been told that the bears were coming into the area in preparation for the salmon run. One has been spotted in our campground but we didn't see it. We were told they were out on the road and we were told where to look, we didn't see them. We know they are around because there is piles of bear poop all over the roads. Hmmmm....I guess there is no more question now as to whether a bear S _ _ its in the woods now is there? They don't! They do it on the roadways!

We did take some pictures of what we saw.

We saw ducks!

And waterfalls....there are so many waterfalls around here it isn't funny.

When we returned home last night I got on the computer to check email and play Scrabble and check out Facebook and see who updated their blogs. I got an email from my dear friend LaVon that just didn't make any sense to me at all. She wrote:

"Snookie, while you are in Alaska, would you please talk to her about the hospital image of her state? She really needs to fix that." (The "her" LaVon is referring to is Sarah Palin)

I read this over and over and over and could not figure out what she was saying. So I wrote back to her:

"What the hell does this mean?"

This morning I figured it out. I went into the blog, as I do every morning, to see if there are any comments, where the counter is because its getting kinda, sorta close to the next turning, and I usually re-read what I wrote the day before. Most times when I re-read I find mistakes that I made such as leaving out a small word like - of, it, is - because I think faster than I type sometimes. And I fix misspellings. Now most of the time my computer's "Mr. Dictionary" sends out Mr. Red Squiggly Line when my fingers try to go faster than they should when typing and I hit a wrong key. Heck I'm looking at Mr. Red Squiggly Line right now because Mr. Dictionary doesn't like the words kinda and sorta. Now this is of no help to me when I type the wrong word but it is spelled correctly. Sometimes I write hear instead of here, or there instead of their. I know better but again the fingers are flying over the keyboard and I'm trying to get it down before I lose my train of thought I guess. Here's what happened with what I wrote yesterday:

"Well, I have to be honest with you. I think we could present a more hospital image for newcomers to this country coming through this way. But it is what it is. Welcome to America!"

Of course I MEANT hospitable. LaVon, your email makes sense now! I think ill leeve the misstake their sew this posting makes cents!

We're going exploring again today so I'll have more for you later.

6/10/2009 Three & One Half Hours in the States

We went back to the USA today, only for three and a half hours but we were back in our country.

We took a short two mile ride to Hyder, Alaska. On the way we stopped at this logging operation. There was no activity today so I don't know if its still operational or not. Maybe its a seasonal thing, I really don't have a clue. But I got some nice pictures all the same.

Take notice that the "buildings" just left of center in the picture below are actually mobile homes with sloped roofs built over them.

Logs in the river, just waiting for operations to begin again.

We drove another mile or so down the road and crossed over into Hyder, Alaska. No one was there to check out passports, no border crossing at all in fact, Just drive in.

The beginning of the Alaska Highway!

Well, I have to be honest with you. I think we could present a more hospital image for newcomers to this country coming through this way. But it is what it is. Welcome to America!

We followed the dirt road through the town and out the other side. We stopped for some scenery pictures.

We saw this beaver's dam, but of course not the beaver, that would be wildlife.

There was a good amount of traffic on this road although we don't know where they were going or what's at the end of this dirt lane. We wished the people would slow down some, they leave an extremely dusty trail behind.

We just turned around after awhile because we didn't know if this road could go on for miles and miles or not and what would be at the end anyway? Somebody's house?

We passed the RV park here in Hyder, Alaska. Its called "Camp Run A Muck". There was only one RV here today.

Have you ever seen a golf cart with snow plow on it? This was a first for us.

A little Post Office for the hundred or so residents of this little town. The snow must be a huge factor here. It seems everything has a second steeply pitched roof over it.

We laughed when we saw this sign. This was quite a large General Store but it was closed so we didn't get to go inside.

One of the few businesses open but we didn't stop.

We did go inside this little log cabin. It was typical gift shop type place. It sold postcards, t-shirts, handmade jewelry, snacks,,,typical stuff.

Our next stop was the Sealaska Inn.

This fella met us inside the door.

It was here we met Robin the barmaid. What a nice lady!

She told us all about what life is like in Hyder. I'm glad I don't live here! She came here with her family in the 70's when she was still a youngster in school. She stayed until she was an adult and then moved to Canada for ten years. She's been back for the last twelve I believe she said. Her youngest two children were born in Canada so they have dual citizenship.

Life in Hyder. I couldn't do it. No way. No how.. No nail salon, no hair salon, no stores other than a general store that isn't always open and two gift stores and two bars. That's it. Oh wait, there is a school and an administrative type building in town. The school is available for the fifteen school aged kids in this town but it may close next year and then the kids will have to go to Stewart, across the border. The sad part is the parents of the kids will have to pay for their children to attend this school. In years past, before Hyder had their own school and they attended in Stewart, the State of Alaska paid the fees. The state doesn't want to do that anymore. One more worry for these parents.

I asked her how she did clothes shopping, household shopping and the such. She said she either went to Terrace, a five hour drive away or flew to another town located north of Hyder but that is pricey and there's no mass transportation on the other end. Though she didn't say, I guess you had better have a friend on the other end with a car or you paid for taxis. Needless to say she does a lot of online ordering. On a dial up connection. There is no high speed Internet connection in this part of the state, at least not in this town.

Grocery shopping. I asked about this wondering how in heck she fed her family. She calls a grocery store up north, they pack up what she wants and take it to the post office. The post office delivers it to the local seaplane company and her groceries are flown down here once every two weeks. She could get them every week if she wanted to but she shops bi-weekly because of the cost of shipping on the seaplane. Oh no, I couldn't do this, I don't want somebody else picking out my food for me.

Now this bar is home to a big biker's celebration every year and we just missed it! It's the destination of bikers that come from all over the country meaning the lower 48, actually, both and the USA and Canada. It is known as the Iron Butt Rally. In years past this rally may bring in over 150 bikers, this year there was only about 90. Robin said even though the number had diminished it was still a heck of party.

It was time to move on as we wanted to also visit the Glacier Inn.

It was here the act of getting "Hyderized" started. I'll explain that later.

Iron work on the outside wall.

Before I show you the inside of this building let me explain that the wall paper is worth about $80.000! Yes, $80,000 wall paper.

Money! Dollar bills, United States currency, Canadian and some other countries thrown in for good measure.

The ones in the middle of the picture below are bills that are discolored by age and smoke.

This building was rebuilt in 1929 after a fire that leveled it in the fire that destroyed the Hyder business section of town. At the time it was a drug store and said to be the most modern and best equipped in all of the Territory of Alaska.

The drug store was sold in 1939 and continued as a variety store and the post office. In 1949 it was sold again and turned into a bar. Quite the hot spot of the day.

Nineteen fifty six brought yet another owner, Lloyd Fillion. He made many improvements to the bar and renamed it the Glacier Inn. Business was booming due to the mining going on in the area.

In 1957 one fellow came into town looking for work. After spending an enjoyable evening in the Glacier Inn he wrote his name on a two dollar bill and gave it to Lloyd to tack up on the wall behind the bar. It was his insurance of one more drink in case job opportunities didn't come his way. The tradition was born and today $80,000 in currency from all over the world adorn the walls.

Around the same time Lloyd started the custom of "Getting Hyderized". It was their way of giving welcome to the Glacier Inn and the town of Hyder. To get "Hyderized" one must down a shot of "whiskey". No one is told what it is until it is gone. We've heard it was 151 proof grain alcohol. We didn't get Hyderized. This bar, known around world. is still owned today by the same family. Lloyd's daughter, Jody, is keeping the place going and it will be turned over to her children when she retires.

Look at the round thing in the picture below. Do you know what it is?

Its a snowshoe for a horse! In fact, the horses got so used to them and liked them so much in the snow that they wouldn't leave the barn unless they had them on.

Hyder has been the scene for several movies. In 1991 Leaving Normal with Christine Lhatti and Meg Tilly was filmed here. Insomnia, The Thing and Bear Island have also been filmed here in addition to some commercials.

It was time to move on.

Some scenes from town as we drove through.

I haven't gotten the whole story on why Hyder is referred to as a Ghost Town yet. Maybe because at one time the population was over 10,000 and now its only a hundred.

We hope you enjoyed Hyder, Alaska.

6/9/2009 Pictures Taken at 10:05 PM

I just came in from taking these pictures. I took them at 10:05 P.M.

STILL VERY MUCH DAYLIGHT!

We are having a hard time getting used to this.

6/9/2009 We Are In Stewart, British Columbia

Its our usual day after traveling and we pretty much stayed put today. We're going to be here for a few days so there is no rush to go out and see all there is today.

Bob fixed a few things around the house that he wanted to get done and I puttered inside. I looked into doing laundry today only to find out there are no laundry facilities here. We have to go in "town" to the King Edward Hotel. There's a new laundromat there. $2.75 per wash...$2.75 to dry. OK RV'ers... breathe,,,,in,,,,, out,,,,, OUTRAGEOUS! Isn't it?

Before I go any further I wanted to let you know that we have wonderful friends who are always looking out for our welfare. They email us, call us and sometimes leave comments on the blog. Barb from Missouri is such a friend. She left a message on yesterday's post telling us about the benefits of Bear Bells. Here's what she wrote:

Some stores up there sell "Bear Bells" (yes, the campground store where we are sells Bear Bells) which are worn by hikers - the bell display says the noise is supposed to scare off bears. The display also lets you know how to identify if bears are in the area - broken brush, tracks, and the presence of bear poop with Bear Bells in it!

We did in fact go to downtown Stewart today as we needed Pepsi's and beer. Oh yeah, bread and milk too.

A Little History

The first exploration of this area took place in the late 1800's. Founded by brothers John and Robert Stewart, by the early 1900's the population swelled to nearly 10,000, all due to gold mining. The area was prosperous and this boom town flourished. Until World War I. The population then plummeted to less than twenty. After the war three major mines were established and once again the population grew.

Today there are more opportunities for employment other than mining. Today's job market includes logging, transportation, hospitality and retail. The population isn't nearly what it used to be as there are approximately 500 people in this community today.

As I said earlier we took a ride "downtown". Here's Main Street, which in actuality is 5th Avenue.

A closer look....

I thought these decorations for this store were a little strange, appropriate but strange.

We didn't go into the market pictured above as that is a convenience type store I believe. We went to the regular grocery store. I don't know how the people here do it. I priced some things just for comparison. The big box of Tide Detergent, I think its like 120 loads of wash. In the states we would pay probably around $21.00. Here it is $32.95. Cereal, all kinds, all brands, $5.99 a box. Dish detergent, Dawn, Joy,,,good sized container but not the biggest one...$4.59. We would pay $2.89. Cookies, Chip -Ahoy, Oreos,,,six bucks a package. Candy bars: Snickers, 3 Musketeers, (Milky Way not available in Canada, or at least this part of Canada for some reason) anyway...candy bars - $1.29 These aren't even the giant bars that we can get now in the States for 99 cents. I can't wait to cross the border!

Next stop, the government run liquor store. It was closed. For lunch, 12:30 to 1:30.

To pass the time we went across and down the street to check out Stewart's Estuary Boardwalk.

It's a long boardwalk with viewing spaces with placards giving you information on wild life or birds that you may see in the area.

After taking the walk out on this we made our way back to the truck for the ride to the liquor store again. It was open this time. The lady working there gave us some ideas on things to see in the area. We just might be taking you to a TOASTER MUSEUM! I never knew there was such a thing but if its open, we're going.

I've been telling you how expensive things are here, well, here's proof.

The last 30 pack we bought we paid $18.99 on sale!

There were some pretty flowers for me to admire outside the liquor store.

Let's see what I can find in my file of goodies.

Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.

A woman has twins, and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt , and is named 'Ahmal.' The other goes to a family in Spain ; they name him 'Juan.' Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him (oh, man, this is so bad, it's good) .. a super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

And finally, the Question of the Day:

Does a clean house indicate that there is a broken computer?

6/8/2009 Signs of Alaska

Up early again this morning. I don't know if it's the sunlight, which is coming through the windows at just before four thirty, or the excitement of what the day is going to bring. The excitement of what's around the bend when we're driving around a curve. The excitement of who we are going to meet today. We are lovin' this trip!

Here we are bright and early getting ready to pull out of the spot we were in last night.

This was the scenery we had to endure when we left. LOL...yeah like that was hard!

This was one of first signs we saw. We see them for elk, moose and bear but we haven't seen any as yet. Bob keeps yelling out, "moose poop" but I haven't even seen that yet, I guess I'm always looking out the side window instead.

A going down the road picture.

We saw our first Alaska sign!

We pulled into the gas station behind this sign and there were about a half dozen other rigs already there getting gas, drinks and munchies. We are all going to Alaska.

We'll be staying in Stewart, visiting Hyder, Alaska this week and we'll see Bear Glacier on the way.

While in the parking lot I saw a bridge that we will be going over and I saw the mountain and I heard water, I just knew there was a picture waiting to be taken.

More scenery pictures.

More Alaska signs.

So we going down the road, lost in our own thoughts and all of a sudden Bob yells, "bear poop"! I yelled, "Stop!" Well, you know what's coming now don't you?

Let me explain something here. Bob is a hunter. Big time. He hunts in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Idaho and Canada. He hunts for deer, elk, moose and bear. The man knows poop! Bob had this idea he shared with me. He suggested I get a picture of moose poop and put it on the site next to the bear poop and have YOU, the reader, see if you could tell which is which. I told him that was a great idea but I expanded on a bit. I said I would take a picture of moose poop and post it with this bear poop picture and that the next time he got "the urge" that I wo......he cut me off right there. He's not going for that idea. Oh well, at least you'll know if you ever get lost in the woods and you see poop you'll know what animal was there before you. Always a learning experience here on Quinn's Awesome Journey isn't it?

I was reading something as we were going down the road and I looked up when I heard a really strange noise. I so didn't expect to see us on a single lane wooden bridge.

Look, I hate to bore you with scenery pictures but I just can't help it. Bear with me here.

We are just in awe every time we go around a curve.

Seeing this Avalanche Area sign didn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. For that matter neither did the Tsunami signs in Washington and we didn't have a Tsunami so maybe we'll luck out here too.

We had reached the Bear Glacier.

We had met up with a couple here that we had met in the last station. I was taking their picture in front of this scenery while Bob was in the 5th wheel. I had them all lined up in the viewfinder, they were smiling and then we heard it. A low rumbling, a crack and then the rocks started falling at a waterfall just across the street. Right in back of where our rig and truck were parked. It all happened in a matter of seconds and they looked at me and said, "Did you see that"? At this point Bob comes out and we told him what happened and he said he had heard it but thought a tractor trailer had parked right next to our rig. So we've seen our firsts, and hopefully last, avalanche. Thankfully it was a small one.

We saw lots of water falls along the way. With the thaw going on there are many. Some small, some large.

A little ways down the road we were stopped by this lady.

It seems the river overflowed and took the road with it. We were going to be delayed for a short time while the road crew repaired it.

We talked with Lourie about living here in this area and she told she hasn't been a long a time but that she hated it! She doesn't like snow and this area got sixty feet this past season. Sixty feet, I can't even imagine that.

She went on to tell us that her house is heated by wood and that this past season they went through eleven cords of wood. This is also heating a work shop. Her husband likes his tools warm. Her words, not mine.

She also told us that she grows her own veggies in a hot house during the summer because the produce they get in the stores leaves a lot to be desired. She said that Alaska get much better produce than the local stores do and that every one does a happy dance when a tractor trailer hauling fresh veggies turns over. She assured us that the driver is certainly given first aid if needed but the radios are busy notifying everyone in the area that a truck carrying good veggies is down. Everyone rushes in to help "clean up". And clean up they do!

We were allowed to go but we certainly enjoyed our talk with Lourie.

More scenery.

We reach our destination!

We pulled into our campground and were just in awe when we saw the scenery we'll have this week outside of the rig.

We'll see what the area has to offer and take you along with us.

Note to friends and family: No cell service in this area.

6/7/2009 Mosquitoes - 3 Quinn's - 0

Once again the sun was up by four but we managed to keep our eyes closed until eight. Since we didn't get much sleep last night I guess we were sleeping in no matter what.

Once our day started we got our tasks of tearing down and putting away everything so we can hit road underway. By 9:20 we were pulling out of our spot here in Bee Lazee Campground.

We started out with our destination being Burns Lake but since we had virtually no traffic on the road to slow us down we made really good time and were in the area in no time. Since it was still early in the day we decided to go even further to Smithers, British Columbia.

Some scenery on the way.

A going down the road picture. Take note of the brown trees in the center of the picture. They are pine trees that have been killed by the Pine Beetle. This little devil has killed tens of thousands of trees here in Canada. Everywhere you look there are dead pine trees. What a shame!

I thought these clouds were strange looking.

This was our traffic pattern for most of the day. Rough, isn't it?

I haven't seen any real wild life as yet. Oh yeah, there was that deer but we see them everywhere so it was really no big deal. Today we saw traffic sign after traffic sign with moose and elk on them telling us to be careful that we were in moose or elk crossing territory. I didn't see a one. Bob said we passed a pile of moose poop but I missed it or I surely would have had him stop the truck so I could get a picture. No,,,,no moose, no elk, no bears. Just these.....

We're traveling along the Coast Mountains and they are just beautiful!

There is a long line of snow covered mountains and with the spring thaw you can imagine how full the river banks are. This river is at flood stage or very close to it.

It seems I have a developed a penchant for old buildings, barns in particular, much like LaVon likes her dead trees. I found this one today.

We arrived by mid afternoon at tonight's spot in the Riverside Golf & RV Park.

I told you how bad the mosquitoes have been. You know, the ones with a bite that will bring a man to his knees? Well, they kept us up all night with buzzing in our ears and taking huge bites of us. Mosquitoes - 1 Quinn's - 0

I found one this morning in the bathroom and was determined to get him before he could get me. As I swatted my hand hit the shower door and I broke a nail. Mosquitoes - 2 Quinn's - 0

We had a big one in the truck cab with us today and he was so fast! We both took many turns trying to kill him but missed every time. He landed on Bob's nose at one point and when Bob swatted at him he hit his glasses and broke the nose piece off his BRAND NEW prescription glasses! Mosquitoes - 3 Quinn's - 0

But I'm thinking now maybe I should change the name to this post from Mosquitoes - 3 Quinn's - 0 to Mosquitoes 3 - Quinn's - HUNDREDS!

Tomorrow is another travel day for us. We're going to Stewart, British Columbia. We're actually going to spend some time here because there is so much to see in the area. We'll only be two miles from the southern end of Alaska so we'll be taking some day trips there.

6/6/2009 The Sun Comes Up What Time?

I heard Bob get up this morning and when I opened one eye I saw that it was daylight. It was time to get the day started since we have lots on our to do list.

We were up for only a few minutes when I heard.."Oh S_ _ _! I couldn't imagine what had gone wrong already as the day was still brand new for us. Bob came into the bedroom and said, "Look at the clock." I did. It read 4:35 a.m. 4:35???? "Oh S_ _ _! Yes, the sun is up that early here now. Oh great, I'm wide awake now. Bob went to the living room to his recliner since I had turned the TV on already. He was determined to get a few more hours sleep but I'm one of those unfortunate ones that there is no going back to bed for me. Black out material is in our future for sure! Or those black eye mask thing-ees.

Sun up at 4:30, dark not until ten...oh yeah, we're getting closer to the Land of the Midnight Sun.

We made a trip to Home Depot today and while Bob was in the store I struck up a conversation with a very nice guy when I asked for directions to our next stop. We must have talked about twenty minutes in total. You just meet the nicest people by chance. Bob got the weather stripping he needed to plug up some holes to keep the mosquitoes out and then it was on to our next stop.

We stopped at the local grocery store and that was a trip in itself. Bob stayed in the truck to look at maps and I was on my own. For the first time I ran into a place where you had to "rent" your shopping cart. Insert a loonie and the cart comes free from the row it is attached to.

I was so sorry I didn't take the camera with me. They had food I had never seen before. I asked a lady what one thing was and she spent about 10 minutes with me in the veggie aisle showing me all the Canadian delicacies. Have you ever eaten a fiddlehead? It looked like a green caterpillar type bug or worm all curled into a small circle. No way would I even attempt to touch one let alone eat it. Come to find out its part of a fern plant. Its the very tip of the new growth of a fern. Its soaked in some kind of liquid and is supposed to very delish! Don't look at me, I'm not trying one! In fact, I even posted a picture of one of these things a while back. Remember this?

I was surprised to see that all the produce was listed in pounds rather than,,,,rather than,,,,well, rather than whatever Canada's unit of measure is for pounds. And guess what? The potatoes on their shelves...yep, from America! They can sell them but I can't bring in four measly.....forget, I'll only get mad all over again.

I gathered, lettuce, tomatoes, radishes, potatoes, cauliflower, carrots and some pork chops and managed to get out of the store for twenty bucks, American.

Next stop, a haircut. They do things a little differently here. Hair washing is not automatically done and you pay about four dollars more if you want it washed. I had never had a dry cut before but I was so desperate I went for it. She did in fact wet my hair with a spray bottle but it was by no means soaking wet, just barely damp. As usual, I'll like this cut in two weeks when it grows out some.

Propane. Our propane tank needed refilling and we found out that it got an air-lock and no matter what the guy did he couldn't break it. So we ended up having to buy a new tank. If its not one thing its another.

Back home, Bob got busy putting the weather stripping in place so that we don't have a repeat of last night with the mosquitoes.

I made some phone calls to friends and family, got dinner cooked, we ate, he played online poker, I wrote this, he's sleeping now and I'm almost cross-eyed since I've been up since 4:35! I wonder if it would help if I wore my sunglasses to bed?

I've got some business to take care of on here before I close this.

Note to Lou: Lou, we did get our states map at Camping World. I looked all over online for a plain one like we have but all I could find are the real colorful ones and between you and me, I like ours better.

I want to welcome Dave and Edna from Powhatan, VA as new readers. I hope you enjoy the trip with us.

Earl and Chris from Quail Run were the readers who turned the counter tonight. I know they have turned it twice already and I think they may have a third time in there. Thanks for leaving a comment our QR buddies! Yes, we'll see you this winter.

We have a reader who is in the service because we are showing an APO address on the feeder line. Welcome! Thanks for your service to our country, we appreciate it.

I'd also like to send a shout out to our loyal readers. I appreciate you coming back and taking an interest in what we're doing.

Travel day tomorrow! We're headed to Lake Burns. I'll let you know how the trip goes.

6/5/2009 Liters & Meters & Loonies, Oh MY

Darn it gets light around here early! We were up early this morning and moving. I woke with a bad case of bed head so a shower was a must. Bob didn't hook up our sewer line so I used the showers here in the campground. There were decent and clean so I didn't mind.

I don't know why this happened but for some reason the outside doors to the bathrooms were left open over night. Can you say mosquito city? I swung my towel around and they flew out the door just like I wanted. I quickly shut the door when I thought they were all gone. Granted a few didn't make it out in time but me and a paper towel helped those stragglers to mosquito heaven. When I was done taking care of the bad case of bed head I realized that I somehow had woken the mosquito condo that must have been hidden under the sink or behind the toilet. The place was lousy with mosquitoes. Hungry mosquitoes. I could not get out of there fast enough! They dive bombed me!

We saw our first wildlife! Ok, it was only a deer, but it was a Canadian deer!

We pulled over to get fuel and across the street was a little store that sold a little bit of this and a little bit of that,,,,including beer. While Bob filled the tank I strolled across the street. They had Bud Lite but I didn't see any 30 packs or any cases of 24 that were already put together. I saw a stack of cardboard beer boxes and guessed that you just had to put your own together. Its different country, what do I know? So I take my four six packs, neatly tucked into the cardboard box, and head for the counter. I'm busy looking around the shelves behind the counter, what's on the counter and not paying any attention to the cashier. Until she said, "That will be $48.35." I looked at her and chuckled and said, I didn't get these things on the counter I think you need to recalculate. She replied, "Are you from the states?" When I answered in the affirmative she said, "I didn't add in the things on the counter, its $48.35 for the beer." I just stared at her. Dumbfounded. She told me was used to the look as she gets it often. Needless to say I walked out of there with only two six packs. Canada is expensive! Cigarettes? How about $9.50 a PACK!

I looked up from the book I was reading as we headed down the road and saw this.

I was so relieved when I realized that we were in Canada and that sign meant kilometers per hour and not miles. Getting fuel is another place where we get confused. We get diesel here in liters not gallons. Remember when the U.S. tried to convert to this system? We didn't like it then and I don't like it now. And now I have to deal with loonies and toonies. A loonie is a dollar coin with a picture of a loon on it, hence the name. There is also a two dollar coin and it is nicknamed a toonie.

We pulled over for a rest stop and I took this picture of a dandelion gone to seed. I don't know why, I just felt compelled to.

Then I thought...Oh heck, take the whole group. They're weeds but then nothing is safe from this camera lens.

The rest of our trip to Prince George went without a hitch and just outside of our campground I saw this old barn. I just had to get this picture.

Tonight we're in Bee Lazee Campground in Prince George. Its a Good Sam park which gives us 10% off the $25.00 nightly fee for full hookups. It has level pull-thru sites, a heated pool, a clean laundry room ($1.50 each, wash/dry) but I didn't see the showers, the staff is very friendly and it's an easy access park. I would recommend this to anyone traveling north.

We decided we're going to stay here two nights as we have some maintenance things to take care of, fresh veggies to stock up on, laundry to do and I need a haircut. Desperately.

We don't know how they got in but the 5th wheel was overrun with mosquitoes! These things are so big you can see their wings flap! When you swat them, they are so fast that you miss, end of story. Then they hang in the air in front of you, just hovering, and stick their little mosquito thumbs up to their little mosquito noses and thumb ya! All the while in their little mosquito voices singing, neener, neener, neener! What was God thinking when he made these?

UPDATING

The updating has started. Scroll down because I like to keep things in order.

There's a good chance the counter is going to turn today, Saturday, if not today, then tomorrow for sure.

It's the same old, same old, if it's YOU who turns the counter to 63,000 then please leave a comment saying who you are, how you found the blog and whatever else you'd like to say. Thanks a bunch!

Snookie

6/3 - 6/4/2009 Alaska, Here We Come!

6/3

We got on the road just after nine on Wednesday, destination British Columbia, Canada.

As we got closer to Seattle we noticed something really strange. Look at these two pictures below, do you see anything....bizarre?

Take notice that there are three distinct sets of lanes. The ones we're in and two to the left. See the two median strips? Now look at the cars coming towards us. See the blue one and behind the black one? Now look at the sign hanging over the roadway. The writing is on THIS side of the sign. We figured out that this center lane is used at the discretion of the highway department. If they need more lanes southbound, they open the center lane that way, more traffic traveling north, then open it that way, hence the signs read both ways. Pretty ingenious isn't it?

These purple flowers caught my eye as we traveled north. I don't know what they are, sometimes they look like lupines and at other times they look like lavender. Either way the make the ride pleasant.

Now Bob and I have done lots of research as far as what we could take across the border. We knew his hunting rifles were something we didn't want to have to deal with so we left them back in Arizona. Case closed on them. Bob found out he could take one case (24 cans) of beer with him across the border so that's all we took. I printed out a list of how much meat we could take, what veggies and fruits and I was ok with that. Now the problem. I had some potatoes that I had every intention of making potato salad out of but was too tired once we got home last night after our all day sightseeing trip. I put them in a bag and had them in the truck. If we had been asked I would have handed them over. "Yes sir, I have potatoes, here they are all ready for disposal". Now you can bet your bottom dollar that if we weren't asked I wasn't volunteering that I had potatoes. I had read the forums and saw that the border guards were much more interested in weapons and illegal drugs than a couple of pounds of potatoes so I didn't see it as a big deal. Bob felt otherwise. He wanted me to throw them away before we even left. Nope, not happening. Before we got to the border though he pulled over and said, "Get rid of them." Talk about pissed! Oh. My. Gosh. I could have spit nickels! I absolutely did NOT want to throw away four pounds of potatoes! I saw a guy in a gas station and walked over to him with my bag of spuds in hand, calling Bob every name in the book as I went, and handed them to him and said, "Here, I'm crossing the border and I can't take these." He thanked me.

I didn't even want to talk to Bob. I was so mad! I know, it was only potatoes but it was the principle of the thing with me. If they asked I would have handed them over.

Ok, so we had a very quiet last few miles to the border.

We read all the advice online and took our sunglasses off so they could see our eyes. Bob answered their questions with yes and no and didn't make any small talk. The whole time I'm waiting for the border guards to surround the truck, guns drawn, yelling, "Give us your potatoes!" It didn't happen. Vegetables of any kind were not even mentioned. Probably because the border guard was more interested in why a red flag went up when he scanned Bob's border pass. He asked Bob if he had been refused entry into Canada prior to today. Bob said, no. The border guard then asked, "Why does the Immigration Office want to see you?" Bob said, "I don't know that they do". The border guard assured him that they did indeed want to see him and that we should pull over and park and that he had to go inside. It seems another man with the exact same name has not been an exemplary citizen like my Bob. After twenty minutes of questioning they deemed Bob acceptable for entry into their country. So we were on our way minus my bag of potatoes that never even came into question.

Hello Canada!

We made it as far as Hope, British Columbia, Canada and stayed in the Wild Rose Campground. A very nice campground to be sure but a bit on the pricey side compared to our previous stays in the military FamCamps. I almost fainted when he said $40.00. I quickly told him we were Good Sam members and that took it down to $36.00. Tax took it back up to $37.90.

We had a very nice site in this park with a view of a waterfall too. (look above the truck.)

The park filled quickly and low and behold, we were all headed to none other than Alaska. I even met one couple from Palm Creek, a park near Quail Run in Arizona. We exchanged cards with several other couples with hopes of meeting up again once we all get up there. We all agreed that we would call each other with "must see" attractions and touristy things to stay away from.

We did add Canada to our cell phone calling plan so that we can still call back to the states and to call ahead to campgrounds for info on space availability. I really don't think the latter is going to be a problem because everyone we've talked to has said that the tourism traffic is down significantly. That's a bad thing for British Columbia/Yukon/Alaska tourism but good for us! We won't have to fight for RV spaces. Now if only the FamCamps have room when we need them. We can't really make reservations because we don't know as yet when we are going to be where. We're flying by the seat of our pants on this trip!

We decided to call it a night so we could get a decent start the next morning but found it hard to settle down since it was still, not bright daylight, but still light out at 9:30. It was ten before we could say it was dark outside.

6/4

Up early because it was bright daylight at 5:45! We took our time getting ready and were on the road at just before nine. We wanted to make a stop at an attraction down the road and couldn't leave too early because we only had an hour's drive.

Just before ten we pulled into the parking lot of.............

The first written history of Hell's Gate is found in the journal of explorer Simon Fraser. The year was 1808 and he described this point in the river as an "awesome gorge".

Picture this, several rivers all merging at the same place and the water has to pass through an opening between the river banks that is only 110 feet wide. Picture this, 200,000,000 gallons per minute trying to get through said opening. Yes, you read that right. Two hundred million gallons of water. This we had to see and learn more about.

We had been given $2.00 discount tickets at the campground we were in last night but we didn't know how much the tickets were going to be. The discounts coupons saved us $4.00 off of the $34.00 entrance fee. Oh, this better be worth it!

We got our tickets and went to wait for the tram that would take us to the other side of the river.

Only four us boarded so we all had good spots for sightseeing and picture taking on the way down.

You just can't imagine how fast this river current is. No wonder there are so many rafting companies along the way.

We made it safely and quickly to the other side and we went straight to the suspension bridge. Now it doesn't swing, but it does bounce when you walk on it. An eerie feeling to say the least.

The water below churned like boiling water. Today this water level is at 160 feet deep!

Done with the bridge we made our way to the rest of the attraction which is made up of several buildings. The mandatory gift shop, a small movie theater, a museum, a restaurant and some outdoor fact boards. And a stove.

Legend has it that back in the 1800's when this place was a camp for the railway workers an unusual event took place. After the workers put in a hard days work they, of course, were hungry and looked forward to an excellent meal prepared by their cook, Johnny. Johnny was a pigtailed, Chinese man that was selected to be the Chef from amongst all the Chinese men brought over to work on the railway. He was a very good cook and closely guarded by the men he served.

One night Johnny disappeared and he was quickly replaced. No one knew what happened to him. A strange thing was that "Johnnie's stove" refused to light for anyone. Many tried but no one could kindle a decent fire in it.

A search party was sent out and Johnny was finally found. He returned to a very hungry camp and everyone was happy to have him back. He kept turning out meal after meal until he died on July 10, 1890. Even stranger is that on every July 10th the stove feels faintly warm even though a fire has never been lit in it since his death. There is also a smell of cigarette smoke in the air and things on the shelves in the gift shop are found on the floor when the employees come in in the morning for work. Could it be Johnnie coming back so he isn't forgotten? Its being investigated.

The road we traveled today was originally a fur brigade trail and then a wagon road in 1863. In 1925 it was opened to the automobile.

The railroad came through the canyon and caused a major rockslide which ultimately resulted in the "fishways" that are present today. More about them later.

A mural on a wall showing Simon Fraser trying to navigate through Hell's Gate.

Pictured below are the fishways mentioned earlier.

These were built because in 1913 when the rail way was being built there was a rock slide into the river. Although crews cleared the river bed as best they could it was not enough for the salmon run. You see, this is a MAJOR river for the salmon swimming up to spawn. The salmon were beating themselves to death trying to jump the rocks that were under water. An incredible number of sockeye salmon didn't make it to the spawning area and to this day the runs have not fully recovered from this catastrophe, almost one hundred years later and the effects are still felt.

These next two pictures give you an idea of how these fishways work. The salmon swim inside and jump the ladders built there. There are several levels so that all depths of water are covered.

After checking all the outside fact boards, the gift shop and the gold panning area we went inside to the little theater to watch a movie about the salmon runs. I can't believe how hard the salmon work to get to the spawning grounds only to die after, how did the movie commentator put it, "vibrating" with its mate. I thought that was a very delicate way of putting it since all ages would be watching this movie.

Here comes the tram, we're going back to the top and continuing our journey.

One last look at the river from Hell's Gate.

A going down the road picture.

We couldn't get over how warm it was. Of course we aren't complaining, it felt good!

Did you know that Canada has a desert? I didn't and neither did Bob. Well, it does. We knew we were in it because the trees became sparse, the ground was mostly sand and the temperature rose!

Scenery as we're coming out of the desert. Here we are going down a 7% grade on a twisty - winding road. With scenery....

....without.

Three railroad tunnels.

I liked this little church. I wish the telephone pole wasn't in the picture, but it is what it is.

Here's a good example of recycling! These are tires painted white.

Another going down the road picture.

Now LaVon, I have not forgotten you! I hope your discerning eye can see the distinction of this dead tree. Before you look at it I want you to really think about this my friend. This isn't just any run of the mill dead tree LaVon. Oh no, this is a Canadian dead tree. Girlfriend, we have gone INTERNATIONAL!

What the heck, one more scenery picture.

I have read many posts on the RV forums about giving waving hand gestures (all fingers extended, not just one) as we pass fellow RV'ers coming from the opposite direction. I had taken notice that no one was waving at us and I was determined to remedy that. I was going to wave at the very next RV'er we saw. It didn't take long before one came in sight. As soon as it got within good viewing distance I started waving madly. Like a 3rd grade in school who knows the answer, PICK ME! PICK ME! I did not get a wave in return. The son of a ..... AHEM! Bob started laughing and said I wasn't doing it right. He said I had to do the RV'ers wave. He demonstrated. I laughed. We waited for the next RV, Bob gave the RV'ers wave and the guy waved back! Curious as to what the RV'ers wave is? I photographed it for you. Now you too can have RV'ers wave at you.

(note: bent ring finger on waving hand is not a requirement, Bob's finger doesn't straighten out due to jamming it many years ago breaking a fall.)

We pulled into Gold Trail Campground in Clinton for the night. It was listed in both of our Passport America and Escapee books. It didn't matter because everyone paid the same rate, members of these organizations or not. I liked the fellow who owns the place as he had a great sense of humor, the campground was nothing special, but it was adequate for a nights stay. At $15.00 it was very adequate. However, I didn't appreciate the fact that everyone got the same rate. I think he signed up for Escapees and Passport America (at no cost to him I don't think) just to get more exposure to travelers. Of course from a business standpoint it was a good move but from the traveler's point of view we want our discount off the going rate, at least this Queen of Cheap does!

WIFI was advertised which was instrumental in picking this campground. It didn't work. Oh great. Our next door neighbor had a satellite dish connection and offered to hook us up so that we could read our email. We were so thankful. I was having Internet withdrawal. It's not pretty, trust me.

Tomorrow's another travel day.

6/3/2009 HERE WE GO!

The day has finally arrived. The day we start the trek to Alaska in earnest. We'll be pulling out of McChord AFB in about an hour or so and will be heading for the Canadian border. We hope to be crossing this afternoon.

We figure it will take us about 10 days to make it to Alaska and that's driving almost every day! I'm sure we'll hit a point where Bob will say enough (!) I'm tired of driving and we'll spend two days in one spot.

Internet connections. This is a worry for me. Not every campground has WIFI and some that do have it set up where you take your laptop to a clubhouse room or something like that. That would be no problem except for the fact that I don't have a laptop. Well, we do, but I write the blog on and upload the pictures to my PC. So here's how its going to work until we get to Alaska where my aircard will take over again and we'll be good to go. I'll write the blog as usual on LiveWriter and if I can't upload then I'll just save it until we can get to a place where we have an Internet connection again. Its the best I can do. Check back every day to see if we have a connection or not.

We've been following some blogs of RV'ers who are already on their way to Alaska and we're hearing that the wildlife is out in abudance! Lots of pictures of caribou coming your way!

Ok, we're packing up, I gotta go. I'll keep this caught as best as I can.

Snookie

6/2/2009 Our Short Time in Elbe

We noticed all the railway cars on the way to Mt. Ranier and said that we would stop on the way back and check out this little town.

Little is right. I checked out the 2000 census and it listed a whopping population of twenty one. Ten households make up this little town but I have a feeling at the height of the summer of population swells considerably.

One of the hotels/motels is called the Hobo Inn and you guessed it, its made up of railway cars.

Want pizza? You would have to go to the Pizza Station for it and you'd be right again if you guessed it was situated in none other than a railway car.

You may have plans for a more substantial meal than just pizza so of course you would go to the Mt. Ranier Railroad Dining Co. for that lunch or dinner.

Ok, so you've worked hard all week at the pizza shop, or the restaurant, or handing out keys to the rooms at the Hobo Inn. Its Saturday night, where do you go? How about the local bar, the Side Track Room?

We stopped for a late lunch/early dinner and opted for the Side Track Room.

Above is only one end of it. The other half is home to the bar, dance floor, more seating, the juke box and electronic dart game.

While waiting for our dinner to arrive I went to check out the rest of the dining cars. This room is empty now but had three or four couple eating when we first arrived.

The second dining room and the all the paintings on the wall are for sale.

The gift shop with railroad related type things.

If you have a special occasion you want a private room for, arrangements can be made for this.

Our dinner arrived and it was delicious! Of course we both had burgers but they were good burgers! We had hand cut french fries and they were cooked to perfection.

This is the small church here in Elbe. Small being relative as the building measures 18 x 24. The steeple does rise to 55 feet and is topped with a iron cross. The church was added to The National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

Well this certainly has been a fun day! Seeing Mt. Ranier and visiting yet another National Park, a tour of a sculpture garden and a visit to a quaint little town. Yep, a fun day. And its not over yet!

Oh no, the fun never stops with the Quinn's. We went grocery shopping when we returned to the base. We stocked up even more things. I split this grocery shopping into two visits because I wanted to take advantage of the sales there were in place until the 31st of May and then have a shot at the new ones that started as of the 1st of June. All in all, we made out really good and should only have to buy milk, bread and fresh veggies/fruit in the next several weeks.

You should see our cabinets! Canned goods and packages stuffed everywhere! I really don't even have a clue of what all we have on hand.

We're headin' out tomorrow! Hooray, Alaska here we come!

6/2/2009 We Visit a Sculpture Garden

On the way to Mt. Ranier National Park I caught a glimpse of a horse made of what looked like metal out of the corner of my eye. I made a mental note to look for it on the way back. Am I ever glad I remembered!

We stopped at Ex-Nihilo (x-ne-high-low) Sculpture Park and were dazzled, surprised and in awe with every step we took. The sculptor, Dan Klenert uses metal and his imagination and creates the most fantastic sculptures.

Take your time and really look at the pictures, see if you can figure out what old pieces were used. (Double click the pictures to enlarge if you want.)

As we walked from piece to piece, and there were many to see, we could hear the music he works to. There had to be speakers all over the grounds because you always heard it. He was listening the day we were there to songs by the likes of Gordon Lightfoot and others of the genre all done by pan flute. It was so soothing and magical, if you will, because the sculptures were so whimsical. I took notice of everyone around and we all walked with big smiles.

We had a chance to talk with this amazing artist for a little while. He works in a big barn but you can't see inside. He keeps his next project a secret until its done.

Mr. Klennert gets his materials from junkyards, abandoned farms,recycling bins and sometimes even fans. He calls it all "rusty gold".

He says of this four acre garden, "It is a place where my metal offspring can run free and my creative spirit can hang out long after I'm gone."

This amazing sculptor said that he has been known to work for two days straight and it seems like a normal eight hour day to him. Time has no meaning for him when he's creating.

He doesn't just make animals and motorcycles!

Close ups of the material used in the pieces above.

His tribute to 9-11

Everything is recycled here!

Back to the sculptures.

He certainly does have a sense of humor!

A rock garden.

Fish.

Big bike and skeleton hanging.

This one is my favorite.

Inside the fence above is Dan Klennert's ......

It must be true, "one man's junk is another man's treasure".

One last parting shot before we leave....

We were so glad we stopped here. It is truly a happy place.

6/2/2009 As The Crow Flies....

On our way out the door today we couldn't help but notice our trash can that we carry with us.

We couldn't figure out what happened to it. Then Bob saw this on the side.

His little squirrel friend could smell the peanut shells in here and probably thought there was some still filled with peanuts and it wanted them. NOW! There was no waiting until Bob sat down in the chair with the bucket close by and throwing an occasional peanut its way. He played hell trying to get at it but he didn't succeed. Needless to say we threw the can away as it had seen better days anyway.

So we got in the truck for what I thought was going to be a short ride. We were on our way to Mt. Ranier and from the Commissary parking lot,,,well, gee IT'S RIGHT THERE! How long could it take us to get there? I had even told my forever friend Susan in Atlanta that we were only like 10 miles from it. As the crow flies. from the looks at how close it was, I figured twenty minutes and we'd be there. Little did I know. In actuality, it was 70 miles. looks can be so deceiving when judging distance!

On the way we pulled over at one of the many scenery vistas and saw the Alder Dam. This dam is 24 stories high!

A pic of the lake that feeds the reservoir at the damn. It was so calm and so serene, hardly a ripple moved the water.

Another scenery vista but the scenery looks rather ravaged after the spring thaw. Copper colors the water. During the time when the water was really flowing the water covered the rocks you see on each side.

The aftermath of the spring thaw. It almost looks like a war zone with fallen trees instead of fallen soldiers. I guess only the strong survived. You can see how the sides of the creek bed have been stripped of trees and brush and top soil.

Bob walked down into the creek bed to cross the small bridge that now crosses the small creek that trickles through this canyon now.

The bridge, consists of one long cut so that it is flat on top to give a better footing, and one rail. (Look center picture, he's standing on the bridge- this should give you an idea of how deep and wide this gorge is)

As we drove along, now an hour into this trip, we got a good peak at Mt. Ranier.

The spring thaw is still going strong as evidenced by this waterfall. Here I am sitting on the wall by this one. Oh wow...do I need a haircut!

Scenery along the way.

We were on that bridge in the center of the picture.

We're getting closer....Mt. Ranier is a volcano that was formed between a half and one million years ago and last erupted in the late 1800's. It peaks at 14,411 feet and is thought to have been at least a thousand feet higher at one time. The upper portion of the cone was likely destroyed by explosions and landslides.

It's June! You gotta at least touch the snow!

We couldn't help but notice that these trees didn't have branches on one side. Wind maybe?

We stopped at this one waterfall on the way up. The water was coming down with such force that you could feel it. You know how when you are near a live band and you can feel music in your chest? Well, you feel this from your feet to your knees and in your chest too. And loud???? Oh. My. Gosh.

A view from up above the falls.

The higher we went, the deeper the snow.

We finally got as close as we could. The roads were closed due to snow up further.

Look how wide the tracks are on this snow remover.

The harshness of the winter was quite evident on the roadways.

After seeing this I made sure Bob hugged the center line!

We passed waterfalls all along the way. I had to touch the water and it was COLD!

It was time to leave. We had a great couple of hours here but it was time to move on. So we said so long to.....

Since I had lots of pictures of the rest of our day I broke this post into three sections.