Alaskan Adventure Ends 27 July 2008

We are in Dubois, WY at my cousin’s house on the Wind River. Janice has a warm, cozy home with the Wind River in her back yard and the beautiful red cliffs behind that. I love it here and hope we can come back every year (in the summer) if she will have us.
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We spent our last two days in Canada driving through the Jasper National Park. We drove in to Jasper, very touristy area, and got information on some of the more interesting sites to visit. The next morning we drove up to the Miette Park Hot Springs. There is a wonderful spa there that has just been refurbished with two large hot pools and two smaller cold pools. We stayed there for a couple of hours enjoying the waters. Then we drove down the Ice field Highway to the Columbia Ice Fields. What a beautiful sight!

We were able to take a bus up to the Athabasca Glacier and then a specialize vehicle onto the glacier and then spent about 10 minutes walking around. It was awesome!

From Jasper National Park we drove to Lake Louise. We didn’t stay there long. There were a lot of tourists there plus no inviting little picnic tables or anything to entice you to stay a while. I’m glad we stopped though. It’s someplace I’ve always wanted to see. Then on to Banff. Gary didn’t want to stop so we just drove around the city. It kind of reminded me of Vail. We did make a couple of stops that day. One of the Information Centers we stopped at had brochures on two places that looked to be interesting stops for our last day in Canada.

Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump near Fort MacLeod and Fort Whoop-Up in Lethbridge. Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump is on the National Historic Site and I was surprised at how large the facility was that houses the information on the site. It is 7 floors up to the area where you walk out on the actual jump site. Inside the building is displays of the history about the site that was used for about 6,000 years until the buffalo were almost extinct. The whole thing is very well done and worth the visit.
Fort Whoop-Up has a scandalous history as its name indicates. A couple of fur traders from Montana started it and things got so bad there that the Northwest Mounted Police was formed in order to not only bring law to the Fort but also to have a Canadian presence there as a US flay was flying over the Fort. Anyway it was all very interesting.
I guess Gary wanted to be back to the lower 48 real bad because we bi-passed Calgary and headed for the border. So here we are in Dubois today. We will leave Monday to head for Denver where Kay will fly home for Alison’s surgery. My aunt and uncle live near by and will go with me to The Ranger Lakes. The road to Ranger Lakes is open 3 or 4 months and is above 9000 feet. After Ranger Lakes I will head for Wichita, Kansas for the Wichita Open, Kelly will be playing in. Kay will rejoin Spud and me at that point.

My dog Spud Randell

Having Spud on this trip and others in the past can get you very well acquainted.
Starting in the morning he normally gets us out of bed by getting up and knocking my ladder around as he gets out of his bed that is located between mine and Kay’s cab seats.
He will usually go back and forth in the RV for a while, get a very long drink of water and if were not out of bed by then he will position his self next to the ladder and start his whining, looking back and forth at Kay and then to the upper bunk at me. When he does this his eyes are like moon pies. When I get out of bed he wants to play so I knock him around with my socks and this will cause him to run back and forth in the RV playfully growling at me. I go through the motions of making the coffee and he is whining and looking at me with those moon pie size eyes. Next I will usually sit on the pot and that makes me a captive audience for him. Its like, when I sit down, he says, “I’ve got him”.
Eventually I take him out for his morning sniff along, peeing and dumping. After all this whining you would think he was bursting but no way, he has to sniff everything in sight and eventually pee on a few things. Normally Spud takes a dump about 3 times a day most of the time it’s not in the morning but when he does take a dump it’s a big event because he can’t dump just anywhere, it has to be a very special place. I can always tell when he is about to deliver because he starts sniffing frantically and going in every which direction but trying to get under bushes or small tree limbs. The other day, after finding this wonderful place to take his dump, he was in the middle of his session (balancing on his two front legs) when a ground squirrel ran out of the bushes and started raising cain with him and it startled him a bit and he fell over forward. In his defense, they are real loud. Anyway, I cracked up laughing.
When we are traveling he sits on his pallet between us with his head facing the back of the RV. When we stop and try to get out of our seats he won’t budge. He is on his pallet and he ant moving. The only thing we have found that will get him to move willingly is to pick his collar up and he jumps to his feet because he thinks he is going for a walk. When he is in the RV we remove his collar with the leash attached to it and I hang it on my rod and real. When we leave the RV Spud likes to sit in my chair behind the steering wheal. People walking by think it’s the cutest thing and some of them take photographs of him. A lot of people make very complimentary remarks about how beautiful he is and that, of course, thrills us. When we are out walking him and we meet someone else with a dog he tries to hump everyone of them and some are, of course, offended. It seems that every bow wow dog (small yappy dog) we meet wants to fight him but he usually won’t give them the time if day.
We finely got below Prince George, BC and that means our satellite started working. If Kelly can get on TV we can watch him.
I have tons more on Spud but that should bore you enough so, anyway that’s my dog Spud.

We are dry camping at Snaring River Provincial (state) camp grounds near Jasper, Alberta and intend to go sit in the hot springs and tour the Ice Fields tomorrow.

We are south of Calgary, Alberta and will make futher post later.

18 July 2008 Homer and Return

Some of the scenery between Homer and Tok, Alaska

We had an enjoyable time in Homer. Gary went out on an all day fishing trip on Sunday. I stayed behind because it is too expensive and I don’t care that much for fishing. I told him he would have to come back with at least 20 lbs of Halibut fillets for the trip to pay for itself. Halibut are bottom feeders and you can find plenty of them about 300 feet down in the ocean. Well, Gary caught his limit of 2 and I now have over 20 lbs stuffed in our little freezer in the RV. Does anyone have a good recipe for grilled Halibut? While in Homer we went to a Farmers Market that the city holds on Saturdays, and then did some wine tasting at a winery that blends different wines with fruits. We ended up with a Shirazzberry (Shirazz and raspberry). Would have loved to have tried the Chilean Chardonnay with Rhubarb but they were sold out. Speaking of Rhubarb, Gary and I stopped at a roadside all inclusive store, restaurant, gas station, etc in the Yukon and had the best Rhubarb pie I’ve ever tasted. This lady also makes home made sourdough bread that could rival anything you get in San Francisco. As a matter of fact, we stopped there on the way back and bought a whole pie and 2 rounds of sourdough. (They won’t make it home).

We stayed at a campground run by the borough just north of Anchorage. It was so well kept and picturesque. Gary took a few photos of it but I think he was concentrating on all the “snow” from the Poplar trees. It was flying everywhere.
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On our way north the next day, we stopped at a Musk Ox farm for a tour. Very interesting. I had Gary stand by the main man, Goliath, so Autumn can see that they are not that large. Plus they don’t smell at all except, as we were told, during August when the males rutt.
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Then it was back to the worse roads of the trip. We should have been able to make it from Tok, Ak. to Whitehorse, Yukon all in one day. We did that going up to Alaska but that was on a Sunday. On Thursday, the delays for road construction both in Alaska and Canada held us up for about 2 ½ hours. In one instance we waited for the workers to clear away a blast area for about 1 ½ hrs. Then we had to endure the “frost heaves” – makes for a very tiring drive. Didn’t make it to Whitehorse that day!

Hopefully, we will be in Alberta in another 3 days. That’s where the next part of our adventure starts.

13 July 2008, Seward, Alaska

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We only stayed in Anchorage for one night. Anchorage is a large city which we would need more than just a day to explore so we decided to go on to Seward. The drive down the Seward Highway is absolutely beautiful. And Seward is a lovely seaport town. The town is built to one side of Resurrection Bay, and the city has RV/camper spots right on the bay. We had a lovely place practically on the water. There was a cute little otter that swam up and down in front of our spot. (I say little, they grow to about the size of Spud).

Gary met a fellow View owner from the RV Forum who lives in Seward. He wanted us to get in touch with him so he could show us some of the sights. What a stroke of luck! John took us to Bear Lake (one of the little lakes off the main tourist drag) and we went kayaking. I had to laugh though as John let Gary and I have the two seater kayak and he told Gary to sit in the back and follow my lead when paddling. I finally gave up since “I wasn’t doing it right.”
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We did see about 6 or 8 Eagles at the mouth of a salmon stream. Couldn’t believe the Eagles let us get so close to them. Plus, we also got up very close to a couple of Loons. John took us all around the bay that afternoon. We told him he should have a job as a tour guide as he knows so much history about the area.

The next day we went on a cruise to Kenai Fjords and saw a couple of the big Glaciers – Bear and Aialik. We sat right by Aialik for about 30 minutes and listen to it crackle the calve. Pretty awesome! We saw rare sea lions, puffins and other sea birds. But we really wanted to see whales. . .
There were a couple of juveniles Humpbacks, but not the big guys. Just as our captain was about to give up, he spotted one (really only about 4 years old) and this whale put on a show for us. He breached a couple of times, rolled over and waved his fins at us and even flapped his tail in the air. If I didn’t know better, I would say he was trained at Sea World. We also saw quite a few porpoises that the captain was hoping would play with us, but they didn’t seem interested.
We left Seward this morning and are spending the next couple of days in Homer. Gary hopes to go fishing while we are here. It is very expensive to go out on a fishing charter these days due to the increase in fuel. But Homer is where they catch the 100 to 200 lb. Halibut. The other day, some guy caught a 350 pounder here. This is also a very touristy town. We are camped out on the Spit overlooking the Kachemak Bay.

Monday, July 7 - In the Muck

If you look real good yu will see McKinley

We left Denali yesterday afternoon and are heading for Anchorage. Stopped at an RV park that had a couple of dry camping spots left. Trouble is these spots were in the muck. It has rained in this area for the past couple of days, not a lot but enough to make the ground muddy. I will have to clean the rig again when we get to Anchorage.
Mt McKinley was visible as we were driving down from Fairbanks the other day so we stopped and got a couple of pictures. This was a good thing as the mountain was in the clouds when we got there. Kay had an allergy attack before we left Fairbanks, so she was pretty miserable the whole day. We weren’t able to stay at the National Park since we hadn’t made any reservations. But we did get up the next morning and took a bus ride up into the park about fifteen miles. Gary was hoping to see a brown bear or caribou but only saw a couple of Dall sheep up the mountain about fifty miles away.

Talkeetna, Alaska
We stopped at Talkeetna after we left Denali. That was the town that the TV show Northern Exposure was based on. It is quite touristy which kind of surprised me since it is off the main highway about 13 miles. Gary did get a photo of the mercantile store that played a big part in the TV show.

Fairbanks'

I'm adding a update because we are heading south tomorrow and I don't know when we will have access to the internet again.

Above you will see the Alaskan pipe line, Eldorado gold mine and some of the gold that was panned. I panned 7.5 grains of gold and I think Kay did 6 grains. We had a good time and it was quite educational.

4 July 2008
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We finely reached the end of the Alaska Highway in Delta Junction, Alaska.
The mosquito above gives you an idea how big the bugs are around here. Spud doesn’t seem to mind though.
Got to our RV park and took the first day off to clean and get our act together. Kay washed our travasack sheets and they came back with rust colors all over them. Seems the water around here is loaded with iron and it sticks to your clothes. Found out we can go to Safeway and buy Iron Out and it will remove the iron. Kay, to say the least, is not happy.
Yesterday we took the River Boat Discovery trip http://www.riverboatdiscovery.com/ down the Chena River and it was very enjoyable. Stopped by to see a dog sled team in action which was quite exciting. The dogs are so friendly and enthusiastic. Then went further down the river to an Athabascan Indian village. Toured that and viewed the different aspects of their life after the white man settled in the area. Even were able to pet the reindeer at the village. After doing the River Boat Discovery trip we went to Alaska Salmon Bake which is located in Pioneer Park http://www.akvisit.com/ . I was not impressed with the salmon but we set with a German couple and had a nice visit, they were very friendly and knownageable about their travels.
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Got back to the RV Court and our spot was taken up by one of the folks that came in with a large caravan. Anyway we are in another spot and are ok, but that’s the pits to come home and find someone occupying your spot. Today we are going to a 4th of July celebration, here in North Pole. Afterwards we will do the El Dorado Gold Mine thing.Tomorrow we are going to Denali. http://www.nps.gov/dena/

Whitehorse, Yukon to Fairbanks, Alaska

Sunday 29 June 2008

Lunch time, again. Their was also a beautiful lake behind me. Very large deer flies, black flies, mosquito’s and other types of bugs pretty well kept Kay in the RV. Sometimes it seems like I keep my head up my rear. I would assume most banks have the same policy that requires their card holders to let them know when they will be using their credit cards in xyz country. To make it worse, I was in my bank, in Seattle, last Monday and Tuesday and it didn’t cross my mind to tell them I would be using my credit card in Canada. I’m lucky my first transaction was to get cash on my ATM card. I later found out my ATM card was frozen but I didn’t sweat it because I had my credit card. Now I find out the credit card is frozen too. We are at the Hi Country RV Park, $15.00 cash and no hook-ups, in the capital of the Yukon, Whitehorse http://www.hicountryrvyukon.com/ . Kay went to the front desk, a while ago and the weighting line to camp here for the night was seven RV’s. They are totally booked but were calling other camp grounds to see if they could accommodate others. We had plans to go into town and have a nice trout dinner but now we are afraid to spend any money until we get the credit card issue fixed.
Nock on wood, but my little View has performed beautifully, my gas millage, so far, is 17.024 MPG, not bad. When I was estimating our cost for this trip I used 17 MPG at $5.00 per gallon. The $5.00 per gal is fairly close at $4.87 per gal. The roads have been very good but are getting a bit rough and were hearing they will get rougher. I can tell anyone that is interested in taking this trip that they need at least 2 or 3 months to do it right. We can tell, already, that we are going to be pressed for time.
Sigh Post Forest in Watson Lake, Yukon

Crossing Teslin Lake

Our crowded parking space, along with the tenters. Luckily these tinters have family with a 40 footer and a 34 footer. They live in Juno, Alaska.

30 June 2008
Decided to drive on, from Whitehorse and head for Tok, Alaska. Had to exchange $140.00 US dollars for $138.95 Canadian so I could buy diesel. We drove 392 miles and my gas gage is sitting between ¼ and ½ full, not bad hu? I will be calling my credit union tomorrow and hopefully get the credit card situation straightened out.
Finley made it to Tok, Alaska late in the afternoon. I think the last 90 miles took us two and a half hours. We made better time on the sections that were gravel rather than the paved sections. Some of the road was so rough we could hardly get over 30 miles per hour but that probably didn’t hurt the gas mileage either. We are tired and will probably hit the hay early. It’s a good thing Kay made the black-out curtains because it doesn’t get dark until around eleven o’clock and the sun comes up around 4:AM. It has a lot of RViers are really messed up but we're doing fine. This RV camp has wi-fi but they want $2.95 for 1 hour, $4.75 for two hours and besides my credit cards won’t work.
Our phones are working and you can call any time you won’t for the next few weeks.
Some of the scenery after leaving Whitehorse, Yukon

As some of you know, Kay and I sleep in a Trava Sak. A Trava Sak is similar to a sleeping bag but has one long sheet that covers the inside. One side of the Trava Sak is for winter and the other is for summer. I have had the summer side on top because it’s summer but last night I got a bit chilly, the temperature was 40 degrees in Whitehorse this morning. I have fixed that by putting the winter side on top, so maybe I well sleep better tonight. It is 9:35 PM, 52 degrees and it is raining real lightly and you know how that sounds in a RV.

Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Got up this morning and got my credit cards working again and headed to Fairbanks, Ak. Actually we are staying in North Pole, Ak., a suburb of Fairbanks. On the way we stopped at Rika, a historical road house. Almost bought Riley and Autumn a blue jean jacket trimmed in pink fur but couldn’t find the right sizes. Drove around Fairbanks and stopped by Fred Myers (a Kroger store) they have diesel for $5.09 and if you have the $100.00 credit they will knock off .10 cents per gallon, what a bargain. We are at the River View RV park in North Pole, Ak. http://www.riverviewrvpark.net/ We intend to stay around here tomorrow washing RV, clothes etc. We also intend to check out the things we can do around here. Hey, phone works, got credit, what else would one want?

Saturday 28 June Watson Lake Yt.

It's time for my side of the travel saga. After only a few minutes with our new grandson, Gary pulled me away from that precious angle and off we went. I will say that leaving at 5:00 a.m. does put one ahead of the traffic.

Our first stop in BC was a snug little campground with wood ferns, tall pines and a little creek running right behind our campsite. Would have been ideal but for the trains running on the other side of the creek every 20 min. At the next campsite, equally beautiful with the tall pines and the idealic lake view we had. Gary was trying to get a straight shot to the southern sky so he could use the satillite and see the Golf Channel. So we camped next to a mesquito infested swamp. We did meet a couple from Vancouver who had been traveling in their View J Model for the past couple of years full time. They had done the four corners of the US and Baja Mexico. They asked us over to visit - and this is what gets me the most - their rig was pristine. Mine starts off clean goes to shabby in a couple of minutes and then gets downright dirty. I'm giving it a thorough cleaning when we get to Fairbanks.

The Alaskan Highway has lived up to it's name. It is just beautiful -the mountains, rushing rivers, pine trees and aspens, wild life. We've seen black bear, buffalo, Stone sheep (they look like small mountain goats) and a grey wolf. We got photos of all but the wolf. Gary was trying to make it up a hill and didn't want to stop for a quick photo. What a loss as they are very rare. This afternoon, we did have a little rain off and on while we were driving. Otherwise the weather is as close to perfect as it can get.

Black bear and her 3 cubs and Stone sheep

Lunch break

Some of the many Buffalo we saw

We are at Campground Cervices RV Park in Watson Lake, Yukon. We hope to be in Whitehorse, Yukon tomorrow night and Tok, Alaska by Monday afternoon?

Start of Alaskan highway

Monday, 23 June, It seemed like it took us for ever to get out of Seattle. Kay and I went to the Boeing Credit Union to open her an account for transferring her 401K to a IRA saving.
They required certain information and Kay didn’t have all of it so we went to the library and she printed it. By then it was to late to go back to Boeing so we went to Costco to get her prescription refilled. That didn’t work either because her prescription had expired and would take a fax from her doctor to get it refilled. By then her doctor’s office was closed and would have to wait for the next day. We drove south on I-5 looking for a FlyingJ to spend the night at but found a very nice Wal-Mart and spent the night their. They did not allow overnight parking but told me if I went to the end of the parking lot she would ignore me. Got to my rv and the parking lot guard was already their talking to Spud. He was good natured and after a brief conversation he assured us every thing would be ok.
Tuesday, we went to Boeing and every thing went well and on to Costco and got her prescription.
Tuesday, 24 June, We finely crossed the Canadian border at Abbotsford, BC. Abbotsford is a little bit east of Vancouver and a really good place to cross the border. The Canadian border guard ask me where we were going, did we have any guns, pepper spray or mace and I said no. She ask me if this was my rv or was it rented. She ask how many was traveling with me and I said, my wife and I and one dog. She did not ask for any shot records or anything else. She ask me if I was aware of the long distances between city’s in the far north and I said yes. She ask me if I had the financial means to take care of a break down or sickness and I said yes. She ask how much ready cash I had in the bank and I said plenty. She said I needed for you to be more specific, so I said seven thousand and she said “happy travels, be careful”. That was it, It took me about three minutes at the border and we were on the road north.
We spent our first night at a Provincial Park (State Park) with no hook-up’s. Very wooded and a large river behind our rv. The couple next door were from Australia and their friend from Denmark were touring Canada in a rental.

1st night at Emory Creek Provincial Park north of Yale, BC

Wednesday, 25 June, By the time we took Spud for a walk, made breakfast and cleaned the rv out, we were on the road by 9AM. Drove all day through beautiful mountains and rivers. The roads are excellent, can’t be beat, so far.
Stopped for the night at 10 Mile Lake Provincial Park. Very nice park but cost $19. Can. The first one cost $17.00 This park had a dump station but had to put $2.00 coin in to use it, so I drove on.

Most of the roads follow large rivers like this one.

One of the things that has surprised me about this trip is the size of some of the city’s we have driven through, like Williams Lake, Quesnel, Prince George and Dawson Creek and others. First of all, I never heard of any of them but Dawson Creek. Tonight we are spending the night at Mile “O” RV Park and Campsite with no hook-ups, cost $15.00 Can. Nice place and Kay has washed all our clothes. Got the grill out and grilled a Tee Bone stake and Polish sausages, a real good meal.

Today we finely reached the beginning of the Alaskan highway in Dawson Creak, BC
We are spending the night at a rv park with no hook-ups, cost $15.00 Can. Nice place and Kay has washed all our clothes. Got the grill out and grilled a Tee Bone stake and Polish sausages, a real good meal. Tomorrow we intend to drive as far as Fort Nelson, BC but we will see.

27 June, were in Fort St John, BC at a Safeway and they have great wi-fi so I guess I better post.

On The Road 18 June 2008

17 June, Keith called and told us Kathy was in the hospital and was hopefully having a baby soon. At 2:46 AM Keith and Kathy became proud parents. For a detailed blow by blow account of the night and a beautiful photo, click on Keith’s blog below. Or
http://fletcherbrathouse.blogspot.com/

Kole Kenneth Fletcher 18 June 2008


Kole, Kathy and Keith

After being at the hospital almost all night I was wound up tight and their was no way I was going to sleep, so we got in the RV and took off for Oregon, the first leg of our trip to Alaska.

We drove until we reached Trinidad, Colorado where we got a parking spot at Trinidad State Park for the night. We were so tired that we went to bed almost immediately.
The next morning we got up and drove to Brigham City, Utah where we spent the night at a FlyingJ travel center. (Next to a rail road track) Got up Friday morning and drove all the way to Nehalem Bay State Park, in Oregon and on the Pacific Ocean. It has been very cool or cold our whole visit here but that’s good sleeping weather and the day times haven’t been that bad. We have seen lots of friends and had a good time talking about our RV’s and our travels. Tomorrow we will head for Seattle and maybe to Canada? We intend to stop by The Boeing Credit Union, where I do my banking and check out some options for CD’s.

We are stoped at a shoping center in Seattle so we could get our computer work completed. We will probably go into Canada tomorrow.

Nehalem Bay State Park, Nehalem Bay, Oregon

Please note: You should be able to click on each photo for enlargement.

Preparing for our trip to Nehalem Bay Or. & Alaska

For the past few days we have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of our grandson Kole Kenneth Fletcher. Until he appears on the scene our trip to Oregon and Alaska is on hold and we don’t mind at all. Life is an adventure and Kole’s appearance will determine how we approach our Alaska venture.
The RV is pretty well packed and ready to go. I had the oil changed and the gas tank is full. I will fill the water tank Sunday and wait for Kole’s arrival before we fill the fridge.
After Kole’s birth we will head north and will be going through British Columba and Yukon and on to Alaska. On our return trip we plan to travel through Calgary, Alberta and if we have time, we intend to tour several of the federal and provincial parks. After Calgary we intend to stop by and visit Kay’s cousin, Janice in Dubois, Wyoming. From Janice house we will visit my aunt and uncle Norris and Wynell in Wiggins Colorado.

.Janice on her deck and Norris & Wynell's house

We will then head for Wichita, Kansas to see Riley and Reagan and to watch Kelly play in the Wichita Open. We expect to put around 10,000 miles on our 2006 Winnebago View