Monday, December 14, 2015

As Natasha reminded me, it’s been months since I’ve blogged.  So here’s an update of the last several months and what we think we’re doing in the near future.

The last time I blogged we were in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.  The next night we parked at Caliper Lake for one night, which normally wouldn’t get a mention, but it was the closest park job we did.  Here’s two pictures to show how close to the trees we got:

 

Steve did a great job and we were able to open all the slides.  And we didn’t even hit a tree on the way out!

We spent a few days in Duluth (back in the USA at last) and then moved on to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, which is on the northern side of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, on Lake Superior.  To really see the Pictured Rocks, you need to take a boat trip.  This is representative of the rock formations and layers you’ll see.  Note the kayakers at the bottom of the picture for scale.

We then moved on to Mackinaw City, Michigan, and, of course, visited Mackinac Island.  No motor vehicles are allowed on the island (except emergency vehicles) so everything moves by horse or bicycle.  This was the first time I’ve ever seen luggage on a bike.

This wagon was making deliveries to the stores.

It was a charming place, and the fort on the island has an interesting history.  The fort (and island) were captured by the British in the War of 1812.  I always forget that war was fought on both the east coast and the Canadian border.  But on the whole, the island felt too perfect.  I felt more like I was in Disney World than in a real town.

After that we headed for Detroit, Michigan, and the wedding of Steve’s niece, Kelly.  It was a fun weekend with all of Steve’s family, including his 92 year old dad.  This is a picture of the bride and her dad, Steve’s brother, Terry.

Our trip home included a stop in Elkhart, Indiana, to get an estimate and materials ordered for some work to be done on the trailer.  Elkhart is the RV capital of the US so it’s easy to find experienced people to work on RVs.  We wanted to have the carpet replaced with solid flooring in the living area and one of the grey tanks had developed a leak last spring, so that needed replaced.  Luckily, the leak was near the top, so we didn’t have much trouble with it unless the tank got full.  Then we emptied it.

So, one night in Elkhart and then it was back home to West Lafayette!  I think we arrived home on Thursday, September 10, in time for the first home game on the 12th.  We had been on the road for 9 months and it was good to get home.

Steve had scheduled some home maintenance work for when we got home and getting ready for that meant organizing areas of the house that had been neglected.  We plowed through that, with Steve making multiple trips to Goodwill and a trip to the dog rescue with the rest of our dog paraphernalia. (Sniff.) We also had to take the trailer back to Elkhart to get the work done that we wanted.

And then it was off to Disney World (yes, again) with the Stewart family.  After years of doing all the planning, I find I really enjoy just going with the flow with someone else doing the planning, down to costumes for the Halloween Party.

Then, on October 29, we got the news that Natasha’s mother, Olga, staying with Natasha in Plano, TX, had fallen and broken both wrists.  Natasha was able to take two weeks leave, so I flew down on November 12 to start helping as she went back to work.  That meant I had to pack my stuff in the trailer before I left, as Steve would drive the trailer down after Thanksgiving.  It might have been smarter to drive the trailer down at that time, but Steve wanted to have the wheel bearings repacked and new tires put on the trailer.  Having to replace a wheel bearing is about the only damage the trip to Alaska and back did to the trailer. 

On November 13, my great nephew, Benjamin, arrived to my niece, Jessica, and her husband Bryan.  Then, sometime that week, we got news that Steve’s dad had fallen and broken his elbow.  He lives in assisted living and Steve’s sister Nancy is nearby, so it wasn’t urgent that he get there immediately, but since his sister had bought plane tickets for a trip in December, we expected he might have to be there when the cast was removed.

Then, November 22, we got word that little Ben had been airlifted to Greenville, NC.  After many anxious hours it was determined that he had a kink in his aorta, something that affects one in a hundred births.  They operated on him on the 24th and he went home on December 3rd.  He seems to be recovering well and is receiving lots of love!

I flew back to Indiana for Thanksgiving and then returned to Plano.  Olga was progressing nicely, but still couldn’t lift Maria.  Steve flew to Maryland to be with his dad Dec. 8 -11.  He and our friend, Rich, will be driving the trailer to Texas this week.

All in all, it’s been a much more hectic fall than we imagined, but we’re hoping for calmer days ahead.  When Steve arrives here, we’ll mostly be back on the schedule we had anticipated, staying with Natasha until after Maria’s birthday celebration (Jan. 4th) and then heading for Florida.  We’ll be at Disney with Natasha for a conference and then there’s a reunion for our Alaska tour in Florida at the end of January.  We’ll visit with family and friends until it gets warm enough to head north, swinging by to visit my family and friends along the way.  We expect to be home for Easter.

Always assuming nothing else comes up!

Deb

Sunday, August 23, 2015

We are in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

It was a dark and stormy day.  Actually, 2 dark and stormy days.  The storm on the drive to Winnipeg yesterday was so bad we pulled over and took a nap until the worst was gone.  It took out a lot of electricity, including at the park we are staying at.  It’s been up and down several times since, but mostly up.  The wind is wicked and the clouds are scurrying across the sky.  It’s a good time to be curled up in front of the fireplace with a book.

Unfortunately, we have no fireplace and I’ve read all the real books I brought.  Curling up with my iPad and Kindle app just isn’t the same.

We have no photos for the last couple of days.  As we neared Winnipeg, the scenery began to look alot like Indiana, mostly flat and you could see trees on the horizon.  As we left Calgary, the only trees we saw were planted as wind breaks.  They are definitely needed up here.  The wind is fierce.  We have seen some windmills, but nothing like the numbers we have in Benton County back home.

The windbreaks are serious.  A typical one has at least three staggered rows of trees with a row of bushes on each side of the trees.  It frequently surrounds not only the house, but the barn buildings as well.  We get a little peek into some through the driveway opening as we pass by.

We’ve been traveling on the Trans Canada highway and it’s been a bit of a surprise.  Most of the time, it is not a limited access highway.  It is also not exactly smooth.  All during our tour and after on the Alaska highway, we encountered this sign indicating bumpy roads:

But the Trans Canada highway has had at least as many bumps and the majority are not marked.

It has all been paved, which is a change.  I’m still working on getting all the dust out from our tour.  It may be a never-ending task.  While the Alaska Highway is technically all paved, there are sections that are being rebuilt that are gravel or dirt.

I’ve looked back over my blog and realized I never blogged about Dawson City, where the Klondike gold rush was.  We went there after Whitehorse on our longest travel day with the tour, about 7 hours.  I remember being really tired.  We ran into town to find some dinner and came back and crashed.  It was 10 pm and 80 degrees and the sun was still up.  Spike, our tour leader, claimed we were 150 miles from the artic circle.  Sunset was supposed to be around 2 am.  It was June 15, so we were only a few days from the summer solstice, June 21.

For a small town (population under 2,000), there’s a lot to do in Dawson.  There are many buildings from the gold rush era and Parks Canada (Canada’s national parks system) has taken control of many of them.  They offer a walking tour of Dawson and we had a wonderful guide, Jonathan.

The post office and bank are two of the buildings that have been restored.

They’ve also restored one of the saloons.

Here’s Jonathan talking about the saloons in town.

We also saw Jack London’s cabin, which has been moved to Dawson City from its remote site and two replicas were made with the original logs.  The other replica is in Oakland, California, Jack London’s hometown.  Jack is probably best known as the author of the book “Call of the Wild”.

We then drove up to Midnight Dome, a hill overlooking Dawson.  The view was very hazy.  It was only later that we realized it was smoke from the Alaska wildfires.

We did get someone to take a picture of the two of us.

The next day was mostly a free day, so Susan and I went shopping.  This store had great stuffed animals.  I wanted to buy them all.

Susan’s favorite was the standing bear.

That night we panned for gold on the creek where the first Klondike gold was found.  Most of us who panned found at least a flake!

And, yes, I tried my hand and got a flake or two.

And some of the women had very stylish boots!

We had two free days in Dawson and Steve and I drove back up to Midnight Dome to see if the view was any clearer.  It was!

I don’t know if you’ll be able to see the two colors in the river.  The darker water is the fresh water from the Klondike River while the gray water is the glacial water of the Yukon River.  The glacial water has microscopic dust in it from the glaciers grinding rocks.  Fish can live in it, they’ve adapted.

Later that day we visited the Dawson City Museum, which was quite well done for a city that size and included 4 steam engines.  The railroad used to come this far north, but highways put it out of business.

Steve captured a picture of this house boat as we walked along the river.

Reminds me of Tom Sawyer.

Travel in Western Canada and Alaska has gone from foot and river to train to roads.  Dawson City was a transportation hub because of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers.  The Yukon River is 1980 miles long and connects British Columbia to the Bering Sea.  It was a major waterway plied by riverboats until the 1950’s when a highway to Dawson City was completed.  I think a riverboat cruise of the Yukon would be awesome.

This post is getting very long, so I’ll close for now.

Have a good day!

Deb

Thursday, August 20, 2015

We are in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.  We left Maple Creek yesterday morning and reached Regina in the afternoon.  The farther east we go, the flatter the land gets.  It looks much like Indiana, only with mostly wheat fields.

And a lot of bugs.  At the beginning of our Alaska tour, they installed a rock guard on the front of the truck to protect the radiator.  This is what it looked like when we got to Regina yesterday.

That’s more bugs than any other portion of our trip.

Regina is the capital of Saskatchewan and the home of the training center for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (who aren’t mounted anymore).  We visited the historic lieutenant governor’s mansion and the RCMP Heritage Center.

The mansion was built in 1891 and is furnished in Victorian style.  It had woodwork like Les and Charlie’s house and furniture like Becky has in her living room.  It also had a beautiful portrait of Queen Victoria that was original to the house.  Her face had a softer look than I usually see and she was wearing her tiny crown.  She had the small crown made because she suffered from migraines and the weight of the most of the crowns was just too much.

This is a picture of Queen Victoria with her small crown that I took off the Internet.

I’ve read that Queen Elizabeth practices wearing the crown she wears to the opening of Parliament for several days before she has to wear it in public, as it weighs about 12 pounds.  That would take some getting used to.

Steve and I were listening to our guide and forgot to take any pictures!  But here’s a picture of the outside.

Next up was a visit to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Heritage Center.  The RCMP trains it’s recruits in the training center next door.  It’s a six months course and it’s tough.  The Heritage Center documents their history.  These two stand at the entrance to the center.

 

 

The RCMP started as the North West Mounted Police in 1873, when the North West Territory was what is now the Yukon, North West Territories, Alberta, Saskatchewan and additional land.  They merged with other units as Canada consolidated and now police most of Canada, except Quebec and Ontario, which maintain their own police.

Canada is so diverse that the force has a lot of different duties.  They assume responsibilities that the FBI and Secret Service do in the US and also provide local policing for areas that do not have local police forces.  For much of rural Canada, they are the only police force.

If you are interested, there’s a good article at Wikipedia.

In the lobby was a display of photographs and artwork.  I like this photo taken in Dawson City around 1900.

It was “rapid” transportation because you could make better progress on ice and snow than on the rough terrain with a wagon.

The other picture was this sketch called “Hero in Red Serge” by C. Caldwell.

It’s a humorous look at the various duties a Mountie may be called on to perform.

We’re headed off again tomorrow, with one overnight stop before we reach Winnipeg.  Steve says we’ll be home in 3 weeks!

Deb