Alaska 2014 Week 6

Alaska 2014 Week 6

June 27  From Valdez we drove to the Russian River. The Russian River is where you go to fish for Salmon.  Its changed somewhat since we were there 10 years ago. Before you had to line up on the road outside the park and wait your turn to go in.  You had to wait til someone caught their limit of 2 salmon and  had to leave before you could get in.  This time we drove right into the park and paid for two nights with no waiting time.  Both us and the Halsteads got great parking spaces for our RVs where we had plenty of room for our slides.  The first day that we got there we fished on  the RV side of the river but neither Larry or I got any fish.  I got a few nibbles but no bites.  They were swimming by me and jumping out of the river in front of me but no such luck as even a nibble.  Larry noticed the other side was having all the luck.  To get to the other side, you had to pay $5 to ride the ferry.  At least the $5 covered for round trip.

June 28  Today Larry and I decided to take the ferry across and try our luck over on the other side of the river.  We did find out the we were at the end  of  one salmon run and supposedly the next run for the reds was coming any day.  I was telling Larry, 10 years ago when we came here people were catching fish left and right I couldn’t understand why it was so slow.  That’s when we found out we were in between runs.  Larry just had regular boots on that day and he was getting wet, the water here is pretty darn cold.  So at lunch time he was ready to call it a day.  He and Mem took a ride to Soldotna and found a great sports store and Larry got a good deal on some hip boots and some lures and weights.  Jim brought my lunch over to me (what a sweetheart) but I gave up fishing around two that day with no luck.  Larry and I both tried again that evening on the RV side of the river but to no avail but just because it was fun.

June 29  Larry got out there early this morning and by noon his luck changed he pulled in a nice salmon.  I hadn’t got over there yet.  I was having a lazy morning.  Mem texted me and  said you better get over here, Larry just got one.  Jim and I  finished up lunch and we both caught the ferry and rode over.  By the time we got over  to where Larry and Mem were, Larry had caught his second one.  I was so happy for him.  He had a smile a mile wide.  Not long after I got over there, I finally got a bite.  I was so excited.  I got a beauty of a Rainbow trout.  When Larry got ready to go he offered to take my fish with him and fillet it for me.  That was so nice.  I fished for a few more hours but no one was getting any bites so I decided to call it a day.  I was happy.  I got a big fish finally.

June 30  We spent the night in another quiet roadside pulloff.  It looks like moose tracks all around the spot where our RVs were parked but we never saw any.  In fact we haven’t seen any wildlife since we have arrived in Alaska except eagles.  Now I will admit, eagles are awesome.

Jul 1 We stopped in Wasilla.  Jim wanted to go see if he could run into Sarah Palin haha.  We googled her address and got close but weren’t sure.  So we stopped in the Best Western which is on her street and the girl at the desk told Jim that her street is closed to public but if you go out on the Best Western Dock and look at 2^nd house to the left that is Sarah’s house.  So we did haha.  Sure enough we could see it.  I remembered what it looked like from watching her show on TV.  The house is not very extraordinary but my goodness they do have some awesome views and no they can't see Russia from their back yard!  The 2 pictures below the back of their house pictures are across the lake from them.  It was just beautiful.  There was a plane parked at the dock and Jim looked up the tail number and it was registered to a company owned by Bristol Palin, their daughter.  I guess they are using her as a tax write-off.  We met another lady on the sidewalk at a shopping center and was asking questions where we might find a Wasilla pin, and other questions, and Jim asked her if she knew Sarah or ever shook her hand and the lady’s daughter said she did once, so Jim shook her hand (she was about 12 years old) she got a kick out of  that.  Then he asked the lady if she knew where the Palins ate at and she told us a place where all the locals go including the Palins.  So we went, but the waitress said Todd and the kids eat there but she hasn’t seen Sarah in there.  But Jim was still happy to think she still might have sat where he sat.  Too funny.  

Jul 2  We are staying at the Driftwood Inn RV Park in Homer, AK You can see the ocean so I guess  you could say we have an ocean view location.  Although the picture looks like we are right on the water we are really up on a hill overlooking the water.  We walk the dogs along the ocean road.  Its very nice.  We have full hook up.  Its pricey $55/night but well worth it since we are in Homer and ocean view.  The spaces are very tight though.  I’m glad we got here when we did, I think Jim would have had a hard time manuevering our big rig around other campers.  You can tell the people who live in Alaska vs the people from the lower 48, especially around the water.  The Alaskans are wearing shorts and tank tops and us lower 48ers are wearing jackets and longs pants.  Little kids are swimming in the water and my dogs are shivering especially my Chinese Crested.  She has to wear her flannel pjs to go outside half the time. 

Jul 3  We met some nice folks on either side of us and the Halsteads.  Both families live in Alaska.  The folks next to us were here with no children.  Their daughter is in college so it was just them on vacation.  They have never been to the lower 48 but are looking forward to traveling the lower 48 when their daughter graduates from  college.  We had a great time visiting with them.  The folks on the other side of the Halsteads live on the AF base in Anchorage and are here with 4 of their 5 children.  They are really a nice family.  We’ve really enjoyed talking with them.  We went to the lagoon on the spit today to see if the Kings were biting today and they were.  The lagoon is a man-made fishing recreation area.  Supposedly the townspeople put Kings in the lagoon so they would come back to spawn year after year.  The Kings come into the lagoon with the tide comes in and the fish start biting like crazy.  Before the tide comes in you can see the kings swimming around in the lagoon and they are huge but they don’t seem to bite.  As soon as the tide comes in the fish go crazy and people start catching like crazy.  Its really fun to watch.  Ten years ago when we were here a couple were living in an old boat along the side of the road.  We were surprised to see that they are still living in it.  I was also surprised to see that they have collected quite a few other old boats and are surrounded by them.  Their boat by itself 10 years ago was pretty neat, but collecting all these other boats seems to be taking away from their uniqueness and its kind of looks like a boat junkyard now.  Its too bad.

Alaska 2014 Week 5

June 22 we left Whitehorse and continued on the Alaska Highway.  All this time we have been pleasantly surprised that the Alaska Highway has been paved, but we have started to experience 3 mile stretches of gravel roads and lots of ice heaves.  We just took it slow and had no problems with the heaves.  We are still seeing lots of wildlife.   

June 23.  We spent the night in a roadside turnout.  We had a quiet evening and a nice peaceful view.

June 24.  We made it to Tok, Alaska today but not before we saw an awesome grizzly bear along the side of the road.  We pulled over and watched this huge animal for a good 20 minutes and he was about 15 feet from our RV.  He could care less about us he was enjoying the flowers along the road thank goodness.  At Tok we went to dinner at Ed’s Restaurant recommended by a lady at the visitor center.  It was a very good recommendation, they had the best burgers. 

June 25.  From Tok we traveled to Valdez, Alaska.  What a lovely town.   Jim and I have always wanted to go to Valdez ever since we heard about it after the big Exxon oil spill.  We both thought it was a big town.  But it is a very small fishing village.  One of the things that surprised us the most was when we went to the two museums in town there was very little information about the Exxon oil spill.  Most of the history is about the 1964 earthquake that caused the people of Valdez to have to move the town and caused the death of 32 people.  It is an amazing story of how the people literally rebuilt their town after the earthquake.

June 26.  We are still in Valdez.  Even though it is a small town, we are enjoying out stay here.  The people here are so nice.  We had dinner at the Fat Mermaid and the owner came over to our table and talked to us and told us how she got her restaurant started.  She was joking around with her brother to come up with a name for the restaurant and she wanted a name that people would remember and they came up with the Fat Mermaid and they both liked it and she’s been in business for 25 years. The owner of the campground we are staying at feeds the eagles nesting in the trees surrounding the campground every evening.  He puts on quite the show.  He stands out in the parking lot and holds a fish up in the air, when the eagles see it and fly toward him he throws the fish on the ground and the eagle swoops in and picks it up.  It is quite the sight.  One morning we woke up to watch an eagle giving himself a bath in the lagoon in front of our motorhome.

June 27. We went down to the wharf to watch the people fish and we ran into some guys fishing and one of the quys we met told us he plays music for the Fat Mermaid so we told him we were camped across the street from the Fat Mermaid so we would come  see him play.  That evening, we went over to the Fat Mermaid and it turns out some of the local nurses and college professors were celebrating a birthday party and included us in their party and we had a good time.  The guy we met at the wharf is a Hawaiian and we asked if he knew any of Iz’s songs and he did so he was playing requests for us.  His name is Ty and he lives in Vegas in the winter and we got his card and we are going to look him up when we go to Vegas this winter so I guess we will be his groupies now haha.    

Alaska 2014 Week 4

Alaska 2014  Week 4

June 16, we headed North on Canada 16.   We saw a big grey fox on the side of the road.  Jim suggested going to the Flying J at Hinton.  Larry said he wasn’t going to comment one way or another on that idea after the last Flying J in Calgary haha.  But we found it right outside Hinton.  It sure is a far cry from our Flying J’s in the U.S.  It had a dirt parking lot and no Denny’s.  It’s actually affiliated with Shell gasoline.  After getting our fuel at Flying J, we continued on Canada 43 West.  We got our first windshield ding and we weren’t even on a gravel road yet. Bummer!

                       

June 17, Continuing Canada 43 West to Dawson Creek.  We will get on the Alaska Highway at Dawson Creek. The beautiful mountains are gone but we are going through beautiful farmland in British Columbia.  We also ran into construction to widen the road for about 10 miles.  However, the construction was to the side of the road, and the highway was just fine. We spent the night at a Walmart in Ft. Saint John. Before we bedded down for the night we visited the Ft. Saint John Museum and watched a video about the highway and toured the museum itself.  They had some wonderful artifacts from people who lived in the town from back in the day.  It was very interesting.  I fixed dinner in the motorhome and after we ate, Jim decided he wanted to get ice cream so we found the dairy cream and treated ourselves and the dogs to ice cream. 

June 18, we continued on the Alaska Highway and had a good day for spotting wildlife.  We saw mule deer, a female moose and 4 black bears. That evening we stayed in a roadside pulloff.  We had a waterfall on the right, and mountains on the left!  It was a very peaceful evening.  Except when we pulled into the pulloff it was pretty bumpy and one of our cabinet doors flew open and our dishes and bowls came tumbling out on the floor and 4 of our 8 bowls broke all over the floor.  Thankfully my Aunt had given me these heavy duty plastic bowls years ago and they survived the big turn-out.  Thank you Aunt Sheila!

June 19, Continuing on the Alaska Highway proved to be another great day for spotting wildlife.  We saw our first bear about 1 minute into our trip.  Then about 5 minutes later we saw another one trying to get into the garbage can on the side of the road at one of  the roadside pulloffs.  Then Mem saw two bears laying down in the grass on the right of us in a ditch.  I missed those darn it.  Then we came upon  a herd of mountain sheep.  We kept seeing the mountain sheep for several miles and it was pretty amazing to watch them skim along the side of the mountain.  That evening we stayed at the Liard River Hot Springs Campround.  As we were setting up our RV a black bear ran through the park I couldn’t believe it.  Anyway Liard River is where they have these wonderful hot springs.  So once we got settled, we drove across the street where the hot springs were and enjoyed a nice relaxing afternoon in the hot springs.  When we got back to the campground we were told that there was wifi in the lodge, so we took or laptops and ipads over to the lodge and got on-line for awhile.  For some reason I could not get on-line with my laptop so I couldn’t do much with my blog.  As we were walking back to our RV, we saw the biggest buffalo I’ve ever seen walking thru the park.  Jim decided to get up close and personal to get a picture.  He got within 20 feet of it.  I couldn’t believe it.  The buffalo looked pretty mean but he didn’t seem to bother Jim.  Thank God.

June 20.  Another great day for wildlife.  The next morning we dumped our tanks and got on the road about 7:15an,  As we were leaving the Campground, a herd of  buffalo including a few babies were walking down the road in front of the campground.  Then we kept seeing black beans, 2 grizzly bears, Larry saw a moose, 4 buffalo and (two were fighting).  In the last three days we have seen a total of 20 bears so far.  The last time we came to Alaska we saw a total  of 4 bear on the whole trip and three of those we had to use binoculars to see them.  This trip so far has been unbelieveable.  We stopped at Watson Lake today and hung a sign with our name and city and state and of course we had to document it with a picture.  We have been impressed with the fact that the Alaska Highway has been paved all the way so far.  But today we ran into some stretches of gravel.  The first stretch of gravel was 3 miles long.  So we were thinking this isn’t so bad.  Then we ran into another stretch of gravel and wouldn’t you know a pickup truck came barreling down past us and we got another ding in our windshield, this time it was on my side.  So it looks like we will be getting windshield work done in Whitehorse.  We hit one more stretch of gravel road today.  It was 7 miles long.  Thankfully no dings while traveling that stretch.  Ten years ago when we traveled this road, I’d say at least a fourth of the 1400 miles was gravel so we are pretty happy to only get this much; otherwise the road has been great.  We are spending the night in a roadside pullout again.  It is a wonderful spot overlooking a lake and a snowcapped mountain in the background.  We met a biker (as in bicycle) who stopped by for a short break.  He told Jim he is riding from Prudo Bay, Alaska to the Southern part of South America.  He said he is averaging 60 miles per day.  That is probably 25,000 miles.  Jim thinks he’s ridden about 1500 miles already.  So far today we have driven 4400 miles; only 600 miles to go to get to Alaska!

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June 21 We made it to Whitehorse, Canada today.  We are staying at the High Country RV Park.  We are going to stay two nights here.  Jim and Larry went and washed our tow vehicles.  They were filthy dirty.  We also got our windshield dings on our motorhome repaired too.  We ended up having three of them.   Lucky for us as we were setting up, Larry noticed a guy repairing a motorhome across from us and let Jim know so Jim went over and asked him if he could fit us in and he came over and repaired ours tonight too.  So we won’t lose any time tomorrow having to wait around getting that done.  The lady in the office told us this is the longest day today there will only be 3 hours of darkness today.  Jim says it won’t be a problem for him, he is really tired daylight or not, he will sleep good tonight.  After seeing all that wildlife the last three days, we didn’t see any today.  We did see two porcupines though.  They are really weird looking.  We are looking forward to staying put for a couple of days and doing some sightseeing.

Alaska 2014 Week 2

   

June 2, We left Presho, SD and had a pretty busy day.  We headed for the Badlands, SD.

On the way, we stopped to see a Prairie Homestead located at the entrance to the Badlands park.  We’ve gone by there many times and always wanted to stop and check it out so today was the day that we did.  It was pretty interesting.  It was an actual house lived in by an actual prairie family.  Even though it was extremely rustic it had a homey feeling to it.  From there we went on to the Badlands.  We have been here many times before but this time we discovered they have wooden walkways to the best spots to take pictures.  It was great not having to climb up the mounds to get the good shots.  From the Badlands we drove to Wall.  We stopped in the town for ice cream and soda and visited a few of the shops.  We mainly wanted to show Wall to Mem and Larry.  You can’t come thru Wall without stopping.  From Wall we went to Sturgis, SD.  We went to our regular campground, the No Name City Campground.  We have stayed here many times for Bike Week.  Unfortunately, the campground has been sold 2 times since we first started coming to the campground.  Jim and I were good friends with the original owners and really enjoyed our time at this campground.  We would stay a month at a time and became like family.  The second owners seemed very nice but they didn’t even last a year.  We have no idea what happened to them.   The new owners seem nice and his father use to own a campground close by and now own a diner outside of Sturgis and he is helping his son with No Name so I hope he makes a go of it.  We really like this Campground and would hate to see it close down.  We stayed a few days here and visited a few of the Black Hills must see places

June 3 we visited Mt. Rushmore.  We visited the Borglum museum first to get the history of why Borglum chose the site and the presidents he chose to carve.  Then we are lunch at Keystone at one of the saloons.  We then went over to the monument.  I love the side view of Washington.

June 4  We went to Deadwood and met up with friends that we met at No Name City during Bike Week about 3 years ago for lunch.  We had a wonderful time catching up with Ken and April and hope to meet up with them again in Las Vegas next winter.  I have to give Ken credit for teaching me how to be a better motorcycle rider on these black hills in SD.  He sketched out the hills on paper and showed me where I needed to position my bike when I took the corners on the hills and I tell you I became a much more confident rider after that year riding up here in the Black Hills.   After lunch, we took the trolley tour over to see Wild Bill Hitchcock’s grave and some other points of interest in Deadwood.  Then we took a ride through Spearfish Canyon and took pictures at the Bridal Veil Falls.

June 5  We drove to Devils Tower.  It was disappointing.  It was a cloudy day and you could barely see the tower.  We went into the visitor’s center and picked up some brochures and tried to kill some time waiting for the clouds to clear up but it only cleared a little.  Mem, Larry and Jim walked up the walkway a little ways to see if they could see anything but it never did clear up enough to see it.

June 6  Jim has always wanted to see Custer’s last stand.  Needless to say that was our next stop.  The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument was very interesting.  We watched a very informative video and then went out onto a covered patio and listened to a Park Ranger interpretive program “Battle Talk”.  The Park Ranger has studied Little Bighorn Battle for over 20 years and was very informative.  He is a college professor during the winter months and a park ranger during the summer months so it was quite a treat to get his version of the battle.  The thing that I could hardly believe was that LTC Custer was known for always being lucky on the battlefield so when he got orders to go battle with the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians at Little Bighorn he was so sure of his victory he invited his family members to come along to see his victory.  And the end result was that he and all of his soldiers and family members met their death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876.

We spent the next two days working out way through Montana to Glacier National Park.

Alaska 2014 Week 3

On 9 June we headed out for Glacier National Park following I89N.  As we were going to check in we found out that the Road to the Sun was closed down after about 2 miles in.  We were pretty bummed about that.  We were going to stay at St. Mary’s Campground but Larry didn’t like the looks of any of the campsites; he was worried about getting TV satellite reception and Mem and Larry wanted WiFi so we went to a Campground that had WiFi and full hooks across the street from the Glacier National Park called Johnson’s RV Campground.  It turned out to be a little pricey at $50/night but the people were very nice. It was up on a hill and had an awesome view of the Glacier Mountains and the lake below it so we all agreed the price was well worth it.

The next morning (10 Jun) we headed toward the Chief Mountain Border Crossing into Canada which connected to the Cowboy Trail (Canada 22).  Both Jim and Larry were a little nervous going through the border crossing because they were going to check their shotguns thru.  They completed all the appropriate paperwork before hand but at the campground there were some stories going around about people having difficulties getting through the border crossings.  So they were prepared to go to the next crossing if they had any problems.  Both Jim and Larry felt that it was a case of one of those stories “that get bigger with the telling” but they were still concerned.  Well we got to the border and it turned out just fine.  Their paperwork was in order, and the two border control officers couldn’t be any nicer.

We stayed on the Cowboy Trail and stayed the night in a town called Longview and stayed at the Tails and Trails Campground.  It was a very small town.  After we got set up, we walked into town, mailed some postcards and went to the saloon which also serves as the café, and laundry mat and had a piece of pie and coffee.  The campground was full of prairie dogs and our dogs were going crazy trying their best to catch them.  I think those prairie dogs were tormenting the dogs, they kept coming up out of their holes and screeching and as soon as the dogs would see them they would go down and pop out of another hole.  Baxter was fascinated by them and determined he was going to catch them.  It was so funny.

Jun 11 we headed to Banff.  Larry decided he wanted to get gas at a Flying J in Calgary.  It looked pretty easy to get to by looking at the map.  So we got off the Cowboy Trail and went through the city traffic.  I started teasing Larry; here we left this beautiful terrain to get in this city traffic to save how much money?  Anyway we finally got to Banff and got

setup in the Banff National Campground.  We drove downtown and got the lay of the land for touring tomorrow and then we went over to the Starbucks and we all got on the internet and had an enjoyable afternoon drinking coffee and updated our blogs and facebooks,

Jun 12, we took a day trip to beautiful Lake Louise.  This turquoise lake never ceases to amaze me.  It gets its beautiful color from the Victoria Glacier that reaches toward the shoreline.  We decided to have lunch at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise.  It was a beautiful hotel.  The prices were very high so we opted to eat at the deli which was also high but we were there and we were hungry and after all it was the Fairmont Chateau.  We will probably never have the opportunity again. Haha!

June 13, we are still in Banff.  We were going to ride the Gondola today to the top of the Sulphur Mountain.  Its one of the highest mountains in Banff.  But it rained all day and when it finally stopped the clouds were so low we wouldn’t have been able to see anything so we decided not to pay the $45 just to look at the clouds.  We went back to Starbu

cks and drank coffee and got on the internet again.  Then we went for dinner.  We went to this restaurant called Wild Bill’s Legendary Saloon.  Jim misread the menu and thought one of the items said Horse Pecker Burger, when it actually said Horse Packer Burger.  We all got a good laugh out of that one.  Anyway, Jim and I order the Horse Packer Burger and it was really good.  After dinner we strolled around the various stores and had a very nice evening.

June 14, we left Banff on Canada 93 North for Jasper National Park.  On our way, we stopped at the Columbia Icefield Glacier Experience which is about an hour and a half south of Jasper.  We got to explore the Athabasca Glacier.  We boarded a massive Ice Explorer bus with giant rubber wheels and rode right up onto the glacier.  It took about an hour and 20 minutes to do the trip.  The wheels of the bus are about 5 ft high and 4 ft wide they are huge.  The guy told us the part of the glacier that we rode on was as deep as the Eiffel tower is high.  It was an awesome experience.   

We also experienced the new Glacier Skywalk that just opened up 2 weeks ago.  It is a fully accessible cliff-edge walkway that leads to a glass floored observation platform 918ft. above the Sunwapta Valley floor.  It was an awesome feeling to walk out on this glass walkway and look down.

By the time we got to the Jasper National Park Campground (Whistlers Campground) they only had dry camp sites available.  It’s a busy weekend because of the Skywalk opening this week.  So we took it even though we were hoping to get full hook up.

Alaska 2014. Week 1

We left home May 27, 2014 and headed for Clarksburg, WVa.  We spent the night at the Clarksburg Walmart and visited Jim's sister, Sandra and her husband, Ronnie.  Of course we had to stop and get some WVa TLC hotdogs and some pepperoni rolls.  So needless to say, we had hotdogs and pepperoni rolls for lunch and dinner for a few days while on the road.

From Clarksburg we continued on to Indianapolis, Indiana to meet up with Mem and Larry Halstead who are going to Alaska with us.  They were visiting their daughter and her family before they left on
their big trip.  Their daughter invited Jim and I over for dinner and we had a nice evening visiting with their family.  We were all camped at the Indianapolis Fairgrounds which was very convenient to their daughter's house.

The next day we headed out to Elkheart, Indiana to visit the RV/Motorhome Hall of Fame Museum.  It was very interesting to see how the motor homes evolved over the years.  It also made me appreciate the Motorhome I have now versus having gone in 1816 haha!  We camped in the parking lot at the museum.

From Elkhart we went to Amana, Iowa.  This is a quaint German community and we stayed at the Amana RV Campground and went to the Amana village and had a delicious German dinner.  Jim surprised me and even he ate German food.

The next stop was Mitchel, SD.  There we visited the famous Corn Palace.  The Corn Palace gets a new design every year designed entirely of corn cobbs.  Unfortunately for Mem and Larry they were in the process of scraping all the corn off the building and getting the building reading for the new design.   We went inside and watched the movie to learn the story of how and why the Corn Palace was built.

We left Mitchel and were riding along when Larry calls Jim on the CB to tell us we lost the canoe we were carrying.  Jim looks in the RV camera and sure enough there was no canoe on the top of our truck.  We pull off the highway and here comes Mem and Larry dragging the canoe along the shoulder of the road.  The rack we were carrying it on was broke all to hell from the high winds.  We were thankful it did not hit the Halstead's RV or anyone else for that matter.  With the rack being broken we had no way of taking the canoe with us so Jim and Larry carried down the embankment and left it there.  It was dented up in the back and Larry saw a place on the front that could possibly be a small leake but it still would be a could canoe for someone going by with a pickup.  We continued on to a campground in a little town of Presho, SD.  Jim and Larry took our truck to get our tail lights welded that broke when the canoe rack broke and other than that we had a nice evening