Home again

8-8-09

We arrived home about 2:00 PM yesterday. It has been a fun trip and I very much enjoyed seeing all the country we covered, it was everything from magnificent snow covered mountains to farmlands. We made friends with our traveling companions and expect to travel again with Bill and Carol.

We traveled 8088 miles spent $3618.00 for gas. The highest price we paid was in Watson Lake, Yukon Territory $1.29 per liter which equals $4.90 a gallon. The price ranged from that to a low of $2.49 a gallon in Oregon. We got 7.4 miles to the gallon average.

The only other major expense we had was campground fees. We didn't keep exact count on those but they ranged from $0 in roadside rests, where we stayed several nights, to as much as $35 a night. We spent a good deal of time at the Elk's clubs along the way. During the trip I learned that you can have a guest with another RV at many of the Elk's clubs. I'm not sure if that apply s to them all, but every place we asked it was allowed. Bill, being retired Air force was able to get us into some very nice military campgrounds as guests, which were very reasonable.

As we arrived home Margaret yelled “yippeee” she is very glad to be home and has been smiling like a kid with a new pup. I know that she also enjoyed the trip as I did, but it was a long ride home, we drove 300 and 400 miles a day after we left Hyder, AK. The trip up didn't seem as long because we stopped along the way and visited relatives and friends and were in no hurry.

So ends our Alaska trip for 2009

Home again

8-5-09

Tonight we are in Redding. CA a little over 200 miles from home. The last few days have been considerable different driving experiences. Going across Alaska and the Yukon and parts of BC one could drive for 10 or 15 minutes and not see another car. That has all changed now we are back to battling for a small piece of the road along with thousands of others. I will do one last post in a few days after I add some things up like gas cost, camping costs etc. Thanks to all of you who read this it has been fun and educational to me

Herb

Pictures

Hyder & south

8-01-09

Last night after watching the bears and salmon we decided to go out for dinner. During the day we had asked several people where the best place to get seafood. Everyone said The Bus. All agreed there were some other very nice restaurants in the area, but The Bus was the best. We found it but unfortunately due to a power outage it was closed. A picture posted.

We left Hyder this morning about 9:00 AM and were surprised to see fog over the water. This is really a special place. There are some very different houses throughout this small town. As we left we took of some of them and more pictures of the glaciers.

As we were leaving we saw a spot in the road that we had traveled yesterday that had washed away by the raging river. It's been unusually hot here and the snow is melting rapidly.

A hundred miles south of the junction of hwy 37a (to Hyder) and hwy 37 the landscape changed to farmland, there seemed to be hay everywhere, large rolls, not bales that I usually see. We also passed through some lumber towns. We also saw huge clouds of smoke in a couple of places, the result of wildfires.

We ended the day at Burns Lake, we drove 300 miles today and only have a little over 1500 miles to home

Hyder bear fishing

Cassiar Hwy and Hyder

7-31-09

I mentioned bike riders in my last post, shortly after leaving the Whitehorse area we talked to a young couple on their bikes which were loaded with all kinds of gear. They were from Austria. There plan was to ride from Fairbanks AK to Argentina. When asked how long they expected the trip to take they answered 1 ½ years. I can't imagine doing a trip like that, I would be done before reaching the top of the first hill. Even if it was downhill all the way I wouldn't want to do it.

We spent the last two nights in roadside rest areas as we came down the Cassiar Highway. There are few services and not many RV Parks on this highway, the one we did check wanted $22 to dry camp.We chose the roadside rest that are free. These are quiet and a lot of people use them. We quickly learned that the mosquitoes like these places as well. Despite all our screens and carefulness they seem to get inside. We both suffered many bites and learned anything that was not covered would get bit.

Today we arrived at Hyder AK and we are staying at the camp Run-a-muck RV park. Hyder looks like a town from 50 yrs ago, there are lots of rundown houses and many closed businesses.

Tonight after dinner we went to what is called the Boardwalk. It's on the edge of Fish River. It's a place where you can see the bears feeding on the spawning salmon. We saw hundreds of salmon and 3 bears. The bears seemed full and lazy, although they walked up and down the river the only thing we saw one of them eat was the carcass of an already dead salmon. It was quite a sight and we have lots of pictures and some video of the bears. Although there were lots of salmon they were in the water and do not show well on the camera.

We also ran into Bob & Pat and talked to them for a short time, you may recall they left our group a few weeks ago.

Fairbanks to Whitehorse going south

7-28-09

We left Fairbanks on the 26^th and headed south on the way home. We saw a bear sitting by the roadside acting as if he was just watching the traffic go by. Margaret took his picture, we also saw 2 more moose but we were by them before I could stop.

We spent the night at Lake creek Yukon Government Campground. There are lots of very nice government campgrounds that seem to get little use, perhaps it seems that way because of the down economy. This morning we said goodbye to Bill and Carol, they like to travel at a slower pace, not as far each day as we go. They were great traveling companions and we will miss them the rest of the trip.

The road home is just as bumpy as it was when we were going the other direction. Tonight we are Staying at the Pioneer RV Park a short distance south of Whitehorse. This place is full, it is nice but a bit close together for our liking. They do offer a good wi-fi connection and I'm sure that helps draw people in. Many of the places say they have wi-fi, but in order to use it you have to be very close to the antenna.

Thank goodness we have an electric hookup, it was warm enough the we had to use the AC.

Margaret and I are both amazed at the number of bicyclist we see pedaling with their bikes loaded with all kinds of gear far from any town. I complain about driving the distance, those folks are dedicated. I did notice that none of them appear to have a weight problem. We have seen a couple of people walking, making no effort to get a ride. One guy on a bike had his dog running along side of him.

Anchorage Photo

Here is an excellent picture of Anchorage sent to be from my friend Bob Pinheiro. Bob is the one who first got me interested in doing the blog. He has been very helpful and encouraging the whole way. Thanks Bob

Leaving Fairbanks

Tomorrow ( Sunday) we leave Fairbanks and head toward home. As we go through Canada the availability of internet connections is going to be slim so if their are no posts for a while you will know why.

Fairbanks

7-25-09

We are parked at the Elk's club on the Chena River and it is close enough to walk into town. We walked across the bridge and watched a parade, our second in a month. This parade is part of a week long celebration called Golden Days. Lots of unusual cars and floats, many I'm sure you could only see in Alaska. We enjoyed ourselves but left about ½ way through, 1 ½ hours was enough. We checked out the street vendors. Margaret got a picture of a man holding a wolf pelt, we were told it weighed about 200 lbs in life and was captured in Tok AK.

Today at 2:30 PM was the start of the Rubber Ducky Race, a fund raiser for the Chamber Of Commerce. At 2:30PM the ducks were dumped into the water at one of the bridges so as I write I am waiting for my duck to come in. I hope he is in the lead paddling like a real duck to avoid disappointing me and Margaret cause if he won we would share the money, If he does win its worth $10,000, if not I will just have fond memories of my yellow ducky. My phones on the table beside me waiting for the call.

Yesterday we went to the University of Alaska Museum and learned more about the history of Alaska, the animals and people that inhabit the area and how they got here. I have been reading “Alaska” a book by James Michener so I'm getting a healthy dose of Alaskan history.

This afternoon I took a nap while Margaret, Bill and Carol went to North Pole to mail some cards and have them post marked North Pole actually its just a town with that name. The smoke from the wild fires was very evident. Margaret was told that there are over a million acres of forest buring now, ususal cause is lightening strikes

Margaret got a pictures of me crushing aluminum cans, Trying to come up with some gas money to get home.

So far this trip we have traveled 4570 miles and according to Microsoft Streets And Trips we are 2982 miles from home. The motor home averages 7 MPG...........OUCH.

Denali to Fairbanks

After the long bus ride on the 21st, Margaret and I had had enough of riding buses so yesterday we did some repairs on the motorhome and took life easy. We didn't want to ride the bus again so we left the park this morning and went to Fairbanks where we are staying at the Elk's. Bill and Carol decided to stay another day and will catch up with us in Fairbanks.

On the way here we encountered a lot of smoke from wildfires in the area. It got smokey enough that Margaret had to use on of her particle masks.

We are looking forward to the Rubber Ducky races on Saturday. If we win I will be sure to tell you, if not you will never hear of them again.

Denali National Park

7-21-09

We arrived at Denali camp ground and spent the first night. It is as stepping off place to get into Teklanika campground. Teklanika is about 30 Miles down the road. You are not allowed to take your tow car and you reservations must be for at least 3 days. Once you are here and have parked your rig you can only travel by Bus and then only to West. If you go east past the checkpoint , your reservations are canceled and in order to get back into Teklanika you have to get new reservations and pay again. The reason is they do not want traffic in and out of the park

Today we took a tour bus and went for a 91 mile trip into the park all the way to Kantishna where the road ends. They had other tours and if I were to do it over again I would opt for the shorter 66 mile tour. Mileage I speak of is one way. The bus seats are not very comfortable but they made plenty of stops for restrooms and rest breaks, but at the end of the day it felt like a very long bus ride.

We did see a lot of wild life, several bears, elk, caribou and several birds including bald eagles. unfortunately those we saw were a considerable distance away.

We also got to see Mt. McKinley and took several pictures which I hope to post along with some of the animals we saw. We were lucky to have seen Mt. McKinley on a clear day, we were told that happens about 30% of the time.