A Million Dollar Drive

The drive between Ouray and Silverton is part of the Million Dollar Highway.  It was built in the 1880s by Otto Mears to ship out ore from the silver mines in the area.  It passes over Red Mountain Pass at 11,018 feet.  There are no guardrails or shoulders.  The 25 miles of that road take about 42 minutes of drive.  The trip is a real delight to passengers.  I was very glad John was driving and I was doing the looking and photographing.

You can clearly see in the next two photos timberline or the tree line.  There is an altitude where there is not enough oxygen for trees to live.  

This is the visual on our GPS (really directions from the Map app on our phones).  Notice the hairpin curves in the road, as well as the information that the next 18 miles will take 34 minutes to drive.

As you can see, there isn't a shoulder  on  the right side of the road to allow a disabled vehicle to pull off.

Here you can see the drop off on the right side, unprotected by a shoulder of guardrail.

Another reminder of the curving road ahead--15 miles per hour, please.

 We have been on this road, either one-way and two-way, 3 or 5 times in recent years.  We never tire of the beauty.

Good Memories

When we began traveling, we began saving mementos and putting together scrapbooks, printing photos we had taken and combining everything to tell the story of where we had been. But scrapbooks take up lots of room and can be heavy, not to mention a lot of work to make.

I began blogging in 2006 and soon wished there was a way to print out the blogs in chronological order. But blogger doesn't accommodate that. Then I learned about Blog2Print, a service that takes a blog, from blogger and other services, and prints it in book form. I was delighted.

Usually, I wait till the end of the year, but our trip through Canada and Alaska is special and needs its own scrapbook (blog book). So I ordered a book of just the blogs on the trip. At the end of the year I will have another book made of the time before and after that trip.

Today the Alaska book arrived in the mail. What a treat to begin looking over those wonderful adventures. Here is what we received. I could select the photos for the front and back covers.





Inside, all the blogs and all the photos are included. These two pages are from two days in Fairbanks.



This book is lighter and more compact than a scrapbook would be. And we can enjoy the photos and stories for years to come.

Thoughts About Alaskan Trip

This was truly the trip of a lifetime.  This was our second trip through western Canada and Alaska.  But this time was different.  The first time we were tourists—eager to see all we could and go “ooh” and “aah”.  This time we experienced the journey.  The 2004 trip was our first long RV excursion.  Is that the difference?  Or is it our age and, I hope, some accumulated wisdom?  Whatever, it was even better than before.

In addition to stunning scenery and abundant wildlife, what did we encounter this trip?  Canadians and Alaskans must really love and respect their lands.  We saw almost no litter.  The RV parks are really nothing to write home about.  We found what we needed—electricity (20 amp or 30 amp often, rarely 50 amp).  Some parks even provide their own power with generators. Sewer hookups are unusual.  For one reason, permafrost makes it difficult to run the lines underground.  Two times we encountered parks that required us to take our trash with us.  It seems Yukon no longer provides trash pickup.  Except for a provincial park and two national parks in Alberta, we almost always had wifi and at times it was very fast and reliable.  It was much easier to get email this trip and I seldom had trouble posting my blog. These parks do make us appreciate the amenities we encounter in the lower 48.

The local people were almost invariably friendly and helpful.  RVers provide a major portion of their annual income and they are grateful we are there. All along the route, gas stations are very RV friendly—plenty of room to maneuver and no worry about low canopy roofs. We had no trouble finding diesel fuel, wherever we went.  We carried a 5-gallon container of diesel, but never needed to use it.  We experienced a sense of camaraderie with other RVers on the same journey.

The roads are mostly 2 lane and often have no shoulder.  In places they are downright awful.  The good news: traffic is light and you can drive as slow as you wish or need to without worrying about interfering with other vehicles.

We experienced a summer that locals call “a little winter.”  It was cool, often cloudy and rainy.  We didn’t sit outside much.  But we did get out and go places, often on foot.  The weather didn’t stop us from exploring.  We only had mosquito issues a couple of times.  We never encountered what we have read about—hoards of what some call the Alaska state bird.

Traveling to Alaska with a 36-foot 5th wheel trailer, that happens to be your home, is not for the faint of heart.  Knowing you are not just miles from any technical help you might need, but at times 500 to 800 miles from that help, leads to a sense of vulnerability. 

We didn’t drive the Top of the World Highway to Dawson City and Chicken, as many do.  We didn’t drive the Cassiar Highway or go to the Arctic Circle.  No flightseeing excursions.  No chartered fishing trips.  All of these were choices we made and we have no regrets.  For others, they may be the highlight of their trip. We did what we wanted, when we wanted.  Walking Valdez and Haines several times.  Visiting a botanic garden outside Fairbanks.  Going to Rica’s Roadhouse and watching Alaskan residents net fishing. Some days we did nothing.

Although it was the most expensive part of the trip, we are so glad we took the Alaska Marine Highway ferry from Haines to Bellingham.  It saved us 2 1/2 weeks and hundreds of miles of driving and we were tired of driving.  And we were able to again see the Inside Passage, at least part of it.  We really did nothing for 3 1/2 days. 

Let me repeat, the scenery and wildlife were spectacular.  That is what we enjoyed the most.

We considered buying a smaller trailer to make this trip.  We spent several days last summer shopping.  We never found something reasonably priced that we felt we could live in for three or four months.  At this end of the journey, we are glad we didn’t get another trailer.  That purchase would have saved wear and tear on our Montana, which is home, but would it save money in the long run?  We would have a trailer to sell now.  We aren’t sure the amount we would lose in that transaction would be less than the damage we must deal with on the Montana today.  We’re glad we went in the Montana.

Our only advice to others—take as much time as you possibly can. There is so much to see and to savor. Don’t hurry. It is much better to be “full” and ready to leave than to rush through it and miss things you really want to do.

There are lots of ways to see Alaska. You can take a cruise or a cruise and land tour; you can RV on your own or join a caravan. You can stay in commercial campgrounds all the time or boondock most of the time. You can RV in a pickup truck camper, a 5th wheel or travel trailer, or a motorhome. We did it our own way and loved it. No regrets. Nothing we wished we hadn’t done or were sorry we did do.

We stayed in commercial campgrounds all but two times during the trip.  If you are reading this post, you probably followed our journey on this blog.  We also followed another blog of a couple RVing in Canada and Alaska, but boondocking almost all the time.  They spent a whole lot less money.  And they experienced the journey differently than we did.  From what we read, they were very happy with they way of doing it.  Just like we are happy with our trip.  You can read what they did here.

What did it cost?  I will only include rv park expense and fuel in Canada and Alaska and our ferry trip back to Washington.  Everyone has to eat, wherever they are.  We spent some money on tours, etc.  Those are decisions everyone makes on their own.  I will say that the bus tour through Denali National Park and the boat tour to Kenai Fjords National Park were highlights of the trip and worth every penny we paid. 

RV park expense—26 campgrounds for 84 days, $2709.16.  This was $32.25 per day

Diesel fuel—6,300 miles of travel in Canada and Alaska, $2,517.49. That is 40 cents per mile.

Ferry trip back to the lower 48—$4605.00.

Bank charges were $129.39.  That was mainly foreign transaction fees for credit card purchases and $9 fees for using ATMs that weren’t part of our bank’s network.  If we leave the US again, I will investigate a credit card with lower foreign transaction fees.  I’m not sure if using all cash would be less expensive.  It would result in more frequent trips to the ATM so we wouldn’t have to carry a lot of cash around.  We are used to charging everything because we get 1% back on all purchases and we pay the bill in full each month.

One other consideration.  Telephone.  I added Canadian roaming on my Sprint phone so we could use it in Canada.  We felt there would be enough places with no cell phone coverage that we should have a calling card for pay phones.  Before leaving the US, I bought an international card from a Kroger store, only to find when we reached Canada that it didn’t work in Canada.  (The card included a Canadian flag.  Go figure.)  Next, I picked up a $10 Telus card in Canada.  On reading the fine print, it wasn’t honored in Northern British Columbia or Yukon. I was able to use it once in Jasper National Park.

The trip of a lifetime.  Make it, in an RV, if at all possible.  You won’t be sorry.

Blogging the Journey

On May 17, we left Littleton, Colorado, headed for Canada and Alaska.  Friday, August 28, we drove off Alaska Ferry M/V Columbia in Bellingham, Washington.  Back in May I decided I would blog every day of our journey to Alaska and back.  I have done that.

We use the blog as our scrap book and get it printed in book form, with all the photos included, through a service called blog2print. We get a hard cover book and a downloadable copy, which I burn to a CD.  (You can never have too many backups.) For 2012, I intend to get one book printed on our Alaska journey, a second with blogs from the rest of the year.  The daily blog posts will be a great trip journal.

Many bloggers post every day.  After this experience, I have an even greater appreciation for what they do.  I enjoy blogging.  My college degree is in journalism, but I have done very little writing many of the years since then.  Since beginning this blog is 2006, I have really enjoyed using (and I hope improving) my skills.  It is fun.  I find myself looking at my world in terms of how I will blog about it.  I think in photo captions and blog titles.

However, over the 100 days between May 17 and August 24, I began to feel real pressure to get the daily blog done.  Each afternoon or evening I had to download dozens, sometimes hundreds of photos from our two cameras, decide which ones belong in the blog, then put the blog together.  When we were without internet, I learned to use Microsoft Live Writer so I could do the blog and then publish it later.

All of this explanation is to explain why I will continue to blog, but the posts won’t be done every day. 

Yesterday, we drove from Mount Vernon to Ellensburg, WA.  We are staying in a KOA, something we rarely do any more.  They are often more expensive than other parks and they usually attract families with children.  We prefer adult parks.  However, when we checked RVParkReviews.com, we decided this was our best choice here.  Tomorrow, we think we will head to Pendleton, Oregon.

The temperatures here are the warmest we have seen all summer.  Finally, shorts weather!  The high temp yesterday was 85 and today it is supposed to get to 90. 

During this journey, we have had incredible good luck (we’ve been blessed) to get good views of Mt. McKinley and the volcanoes Mt. Redoubt and Mt. Iliamna west of Homer and Ninilchik.  Yesterday, we got a quick peek of Mt. Rainier.  That is unusual, too.  Because of the route we were driving and all the tall trees, I never got a good photo, but we did see it.

Alaska–Day 100

We’re back in the Lower 48!  The Columbia arrived at the dock in Bellingham, Washington, right on time, at 8 am Pacific Time.  The ferry runs on Alaska Time, but when we drove off, we were in the Pacific time zone.

We drove 20 miles to Mount Vernon, where we parked and hooked up and started getting our refrigerator cold.  We drove to a nearby Walmart to restock an empty refrigerator and panty.  Since we buy way more than food there, we ended up spending over $300.  But the same items would probably have cost $100 more in Alaska or the Yukon (if we could even find them there).  So, it wasn’t too bad.

For the last week in Alaska, I cooked according to what we needed to use up, so it is nice to be restocked.

It feels good to be here, off the water, off the frontier, driving on good roads.  It is time to head for home.

Alaska–Day 99

No shore time today.  After we left Ketchikan late yesterday afternoon, we picked up a salad (me) and sandwich (John) from the Cafeteria and had dinner in our cabin.  Near 8 pm, the captain announced there was a great sunset.  I went to the forward lounge to take some pictures.  We also saw some porpoise playing in the water.  No pictures of them.

Later, they paged anyone with medical training to come to the Purser’s Desk.  About an hour later, it was announced that the ship would detour to Prince Rupert for a medical evacuation. This morning over coffee, John learned a crew member had a stroke last night.

The M/V (Marine Vessel) Columbia was built in 1974 at the cost of $20 million.  It is 418 feet long, 85 feet wide, with 103 staterooms, a crew of 66 and is authorized to carry up to 499 passengers.  It has a vehicle capacity of 2,680 linear feet or approximately 134 tween foot vehicles.

Again, the water was incredibly smooth in the morning. The fog added to the beauty.

It rained a lot during the day, so viewing the scenery out the windows was often difficult.

We had about and hour and a half of open water during the afternoon, meaning there was no island between us and the open ocean.  That meant more swells and rolling of the boat.  An hour before we reached this area, they suggested we take Dramaine and use care when moving around the ferry. The water wasn’t so smooth during that time.

The clouds did clear and we could see some more, including a rainbow.

Tomorrow, we finish this part of the journey and arrive in Bellingham, WA.

Alaska–Day 90

Today we left Alaska, at least mainland Alaska, and drove into Yukon Territory.  The border crossing was completely uneventful. “Let me see your passports, Where do you live?, How long will you be in Canada?, Will you be dropping anything off in Canada?  Have a good day.”   I’m glad I didn’t get rid of any fresh vegetables.  When we entered Alaska, I had to give them my tomatoes.  Then I drove to a grocery store and bought some more tomatoes from Mexico.  What is the issue?  Anyway, today it was easy and quick.

We spent 46 days in Alaska, after 32 days moving through Canada.  Since leaving Colorado May 17, we have driven 7,127 miles.  Most of that was towing the trailer, although we have probably driven 500 to 700 miles sightseeing without it.  We drove 2,748 miles in Alaska. Plus, we drove 1,838 miles between leaving Santa Ana NWR and leaving Colorado.

We have approximately 450 miles of driving between Tok and Haines.  Our ferry ride to Bellingham, Washington, will take three and a half days.  Even counting the four days we will spend in Haines, our trip from Tok to Washington will only take 10 days.  It may be expensive, but we are certainly glad we don’t have three weeks of driving to reach the border.

Today the road was very rough most of the way.  We saw frost heave, pavement breaks and gravel patches.  When John opened the refrigerator after we were parked, the orange juice container fell out and came open, spilling juice all over the kitchen.  Thank heaven the floor is vinyl, not carpet.  Two shelves in the door had come loose, as well as two regular shelves sliding out of place.  What a mess!

Alaska -- Day 88

This is our third night at Tolsona Wilderness Campground, Glennallen. I have really enjoyed our stay, especially today. I described this campground in my post for Day 78. Today was sunny and warm and I didn't have a whole lot to do. I enjoyed sitting outside, looking for birds to photograph, spending time trying different settings on my camera. Most of all, I enjoyed sitting quietly and listening to Tolsona Creek flow past.

We spend most of our time in commercial campgrounds and it isn't often we are parked next to a stream and not often it is quiet enough I could even hear a stream like this. It was a time to be treasured.

We leave here tomorrow, spend one more night in mainland Alaska, then three nights in Yukon Territory. We will be in Haines, Alaska, in Southeast Alaska, for four nights. Next will come a ferry ride and this wonderful summer in Canada and Alaska will be over. It has been quite a journey--a wonderful journey.

The day we arrived here, John noticed one screw on the RV exterior was loose and he tightened it. He decided that today he would check as many of the screws as he could find to see if any more needed tightening. He did find one storage door fastener that was loose. It if had gotten worse, he would have had to crawl through the basement storage from the other side to open that door. Luckily, he found the problem before it got that bad.

He also had made a note to check the 5th wheel hitch in the truck. Why? He had never worried about that in the past. It's good he checked. One of the four anchors holding the hitch to the truck had come unfastened. The bolt was still there and he put it back in place. He couldn't find the cotter pin that holds it in place, but he removed the one that holds the front license plate in the front hitch receiver and used that to secure the bolt. Whew! Glad he found that. God was certainly looking out for us there.



This is the only bird picture I took today. The gray jay came to see what I was doing.

Alaska -- Day 30

Finally, we have reached the Alaska Highway. The road was built in 1942 and 1943 by the US, following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. It runs 1387 miles from Dawson Creek, BC, (where we are now) and Delta Junction in Alaska. But, more on that later. We drove 256 miles from Prince George to here.

We realize we need to lower our expectations for the RV parks we stay in. We are at Mile 0 RV park and it is OK. Cost, $37 Good Sam rate. We had the same experience when we came here before. These parks only have campers from May to early September. John read a review of a restaurant in Fort Nelson (our next stop). The reviewer wrote, "The restaurant was OK. They cooked, I didn't have to. That's all that really matters." That has to be our attitude. We don't plan to pull off on the side of the road and boon-dock over night. So, any park that provides water and electric is giving us all that really matters.

The dandelion is not the BC provincial flower, but it really should be. They are everywhere. We can tell when we go up or down in altitude. Up--they are blooming; down--they have gone to seed.



The scenery is beautiful. These mountains have more rounded shapes--they are older, more worn than those in Jasper and Banff National Parks.



Most are covered with trees.



That is why we saw lots of logging trucks.



At times there we sharp curves.



We didn't see any washed-out roads or landslides across the road, but the rivers were muddy and we saw waterfalls frequently.



At one point, we saw a truck stopped in the middle of the road with a flashing yellow light. What on earth? we wondered. As we came closer, we saw it was warning of highway painting. Obviously, the traffic is so light they didn't need to put out warning signs. Just a truck in front and one in back. Ah, rural Canada.



Shortly before reaching Dawson Creek, we drove through Chetwynd, the Chainsaw Carving Capital. The 2012 International Championship competition was June 8-11. There were carvings all along the road through town.







By the way, John is feeling better, recovering from his cold. Now I have it, but I don't think mine is as bad as his.

Alaska -- Day 14

So far this Wednesday evening, we are the only rig in this campground loop at Park Lake Provincial Park in Alberta. We love it. The only sounds we hear are birds and ground squirrels. We have had a relaxing day—walking and running, weight training, working on genealogy, birding, airing the tires to prepare for departure on Friday, a haircut for John.

Days like this are as important as travel days and time as tourists. Years ago, before we began traveling extensively in our RV and before we went full-time, this is what it was like to “camp.” We don’t consider what we do “camping,” but we still enjoy spending time like we did then. We can’t do it in commercial RV parks but we can do it in state (provincial) parks that aren’t crowded.

All in all, a good day.

Alaska --Day 13

My morning walk turned into a nature walk as I took the path around Park Lake. I saw several different kinds of ducks, some White Pelicans, lots of red-winged blackbirds, and quite a few yellowed-headed blackbirds. I used to really like the red-winged variety, but there were so many at Santa Ana NWR that I wasn’t interested in taking pictures of them here. I did like the yellow-headed ones, though. Aren’t they beautiful?




These cute Richardson ground squirrels are everywhere in our campground. They are really cute, but if their numbers keep increasing, the RVs will sink into the ground where they have made their burrows.



After lunch we went into Lethbridge to visit the tourist information center and get some Canadian cash, fuel and groceries. At first, everything went well. The young people staffing the tourist center were friendly and helpful. The bank’s ATM worked fine. We were off to Wal-Mart. Things were the same as we are used to, and not the same. The produce was much better than we had been seeing in Montana and Wyoming. We found most of the brands we wanted. And saw some that were new and looked interesting. Wal-Marts have a definite blueprint. But, when we looked at the customers and the meat and the ethnic food sections, we knew we were no longer in the Rio Grande Valley. I found it helpful to have both meat and produce prices given both by the pound and by the gram. I find the metric system unfamiliar and confusing.

The problem came at the Canadian Superstore Gas Bar. Our credit card didn’t work. And while John was struggling with that, I received a text message saying there was a fraud alert on our account. I called back, gave Card Member Services enough identifying information that they lifted the block on the account, and thought everything was fine. It is nice to know they realized there might be a problem when our credit card was used twice within maybe 15 minutes in a foreign country. But the trouble got worse when we tried again to run the card through and it wouldn’t work. To make a long story short, after a 10 minutes or longer call to Customer Service (at 20 cents a minute on Canadian International Roaming), we were assured the travel note on our account would make it possible to use the card in the future. But they wanted the Gas Bar to check our card and ID, then call Card Member Services, then the charge would go through. We paid by debit card and just hope it works in the future.

Then we went to McDonalds, ordered a snack, and used their free wifi.

Oh, the adventures of travel!

We wondered what this strange building was. When we got up close, we discovered it is a steak house restaurant.



Aren’t these painted barrels a good decoration outside a liquor store?



Canadian Pacific RR stores unused cars on a track near our provincial park. They store lots and lots of cars. This long line is only half of the ones they have there.

Alaska Trip - Day 2

After walking (me) and running (John) three miles, we left Cheyenne about 9:15 for an easy 185 miles to Evansville, just outside Casper, WY. We saw miles and miles of snow fence on the open country-side.



Often the landscape was brown, until there is a river or creek. Then we saw green grass and trees.



I-25 isn't very busy in Wyoming, which is a good thing when wide loads like this pass by. Each load had pilot cars in front and in back. That means there were nine drivers and nine trucks to move the three loads of something.



We passed three more roadside sculptures: a dinosaur, an Indian on his horse, and a jackalope.







More than once as we drove on the interstate in Wyoming, we wondered why Lady Bird Johnson's campaign to screen junk yards never caught on in this state. This is the worst example we saw today.



Wherever these folks are going, I wanted to follow them.



This statue is located where we came off the highway to reach our RV park. As you can guess, there is a lot of oil drilling going on around here. We have seen Halliburton equipment yards and a pipe manufacturing plant in the one mile we drove off the highway.



We were glad we called ahead for a reservation. River's Edge RV and Cabin Resort is almost full, mostly with local workers. It is new and has good wifi, but certainly isn't fancy or anything like a resort. Only two spaces were available after we parked at 12:30 pm.



Yesterday I wrote that I would be posting photos in a slide show during this trip, making it easier to post when we had limited internet access. I do this blog for two main reasons, to let family and friends know where we are and what we are doing, and to provide a record of our RV travels. At the end of each year, I have the year's posts made into a book. It replaces the scrapbooks we used to keep. John reminded me that photos in a slideshow don't print in the book. So I will go back to the way I usually post.

Alaska Trip Day 1

We left our great campground site at Chatfield State Park about 10 am. We only had a drive of 114 miles to the Terry Bison RV Park just two miles into Wyoming. A wildfire is burning northwest of Ft. Collins and the sky there was full of smoke.

Each time we drive on I-25 we are struck with the fact that the entire Colorado Front Range, from south of Colorado Springs to north of Ft. Collins, is developed. There is lots of traffic. After the miles of development and farm fields, we passed an interesting rock formation. Next the buffalo statue on the hill came into view.

We saw the sign for Terry Bison Ranch, where we are staying. Next, we were welcomed to the State of Wyoming. We enjoy driving through this state. As we approached the RV park, we saw a herd of buffalo (it is the Terry Bison Ranch, after all) and then some pronghorn (commonly known as antelope).

At our exit off the interstate, there are three fireworks stores. Colorado severely limits what fireworks can be sold in the state, but Wyoming is less restricted. So these stores just 2 miles into the state sell a lot to people from Colorado. the stores aren't exactly what I want as neighbors at night. This park gives 50% off to Escapees and Passport America members, so we only paid $19. It isn't fancy, but it will do for an overnight stay.

I plan to blog every day of our trip to Alaska. I'm not sure we will always have an internet connection to post the blogs, but I hope to write about each day's travel and adventures. Slideshows like I am using today will make it easier to post the pictures in a hurry when we do have internet access.