Sunday, June 14, 2015

We are in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada.  And we finally have decent Internet service, although my email is acting odd.  I have to sign on through the Internet to send anything.

First, the view out our window:

We won’t have a lot of spectacular views out our window on the caravan trip.  The primary concerns for where to camp are convenience and enough spaces.  I think we’ve always been close to fuel and frequently within walking distances of attractions.   I’m glad this time that we got a view of trees.

The caravan is going well.  It’s a nice group of people and our RV technician, Roger, has earned his keep in many ways.  Tires have been changed, loose brackets fixed, refrigerators fixed and that’s only what I know about.  Luckily, we've only used him for advice on fixing a bracket.

On Monday, June 1, we went to see the local village totem poles.  Typically, totem poles stand outside a home or along the river bank, but the government worked with the natives to locate some together to enjoy and preserve.

After lunch, those who wanted gathered to walk to the place where the two rivers join and hear Spike (the caravan leader) talk a bit about the history.  The First Nation people (which we would call Native Americans) have lived here for thousands of years.  The rivers provide transportation and food.  There’s a recreation of a native village nearby.  We visited it and had dinner there that night.

 We pulled out of Hazelton, British Columbia, on June 2, headed to Hyder, Alaska.  The caravan is a sight to see.  People point at us and even stop and take pictures.

 We have 26 rigs, 52 people and 22 dogs and one cat.

Hyder, Alaska, sits right on the Canadian border across from Stewart, British Columbia.  It’s a small town and the only way to get there is through Stewart or by sea.  It used to be a large port for the mining companies, but I think airplanes did that in.  It’s the most southern Alaskan town that you can drive to.

It’s also at the southern end of Glacier Highway, which does live up to it’s name.  We visited the Salmon Glacier west of town and had our first chance to throw snowballs.

Coming back from Salmon Glacier, we had our first bear sighting.

We were so excited!

We’ve eaten well on this trip and Hyder was no exception.  One nice thing about the caravan is that the staff can recommend restaurants in a strange town.  We use an IPhone app, Urban Spoon, which has been real helpful in the lower 48 states, but if there’s not cell service, it doesn’t work!  So the staff recommendations have been helpful.  We ate at “The Bus” in Hyder, for great fish and chips.

 You’ll see lots of people in yellow vests in my pictures.  These were handed out as we checked in for the tour.  It makes us easy to spot and helpful when there is a paid admission.

When we left Hyder, we had to go through Canadian customs.  They are real picky about poultry products coming in from the US because of the bird flu.  The Alaskans were having some fun with a sign on their side of the border.

The sign says Eastern Sektor, Checkpoint Charlie, You are leaving the American Sector.  The stone building on the right is a very old checkpoint.  (I think Checkpoint Charlie was a checkpoint on the Berlin wall.)


And another glacier – I think this one is called Bear Glacier.

We left Hyder on June 4, and headed for Dease Lake, British Columbia.  We have three one night stops before we reach Skagway, Alaska.  Distances up here are bigger than Texas. This is just some of the beautiful scenery on the way to Dease Lake.

On June 5, we departed Dease Lake and headed for Watson Lake. It was a rainy day, but we got to drive through great scenery.

 This is our caravan at a rest stop.

 We also see a lot wild flowers along the road and a lot of lilacs when we pass a residence.  I think I need to find a place at home for some lilacs.

Watson Lake is known for it’s sign forest.  During WWII, it became apparent that Alaska and western Canada would be a target for the Japanese and we had no way to supply anyone.  So airfields and the Alaska-Canada highway was built.  The airfields are quite long and I suspect are backup airports even today.  They are still in use and maintained.  Anyway, one of the soldiers stationed in Watson Lake during the building of the highway got homesick and put up a sign pointing to his hometown.  And thus a tradition begins.  The forest covers several acres now.  Several of our tour group posted signs of their own.

 The next day, Saturday, June 6, (it is hard to keep track of the days!) we headed for Teslin, Yukon.  Along the way, we notice things spelled out with rocks.  It's the local version of graffiti.   

More beautiful scenery.

And a decent restaurant with an international flair.  Here’s part of the menu (prices are in Canadian dollars).

At the Continental Divide, we stopped and took a group picture with the dogs.  The one cat wasn't having any part of it.

And then it was on to Skagway, Alaska, where many started their quest for Klondike gold.  These people were nuts.  Dawson, where the gold was found, is almost 500 miles inland.  And the Canadian authorities wouldn’t let you go without 2000 pounds of supplies – which you would need to survive the trip.  And the first thing you needed to do was climb 30 miles up the mountains to reach the Yukon river.  It’s too steep for wagons; most of the horses used died on the way up, giving the trail the nickname of dead horse trail.  And they were climbing in winter.  Most worked with a partner, carrying goods up the trail a way and then heading down for more.  It was back breaking work.

Gold was discovered in 1896.  News reached the world in 1897 and it was 1898 before those who survived the journey reached Dawson.  By then, most of the land had been claimed and there were few opportunities

But the gold rush inspired the building of a railway and the White Pass and Yukon railroad still runs today.  Early in the 20th century, steamships started bringing tourists.  Tourism continues today as the main industry.

Many of the buildings in Skagway date back to the gold rush days.

The scenery is gorgeous.  This river is next to where one of the gold rush trails up the mountain started.

And here are Steve and I actually on the trail.

And a better picture of the trail.  Can you imagine carry 2000 pounds of supplies up it 30 miles, 50 pounds at a time?

Skagway sits on the ocean, but it’s on a narrow fiord.

This was the view from our door at night.  Lots of small fishing boats.  (And people who put them in and out all day and night!)

And in the morning:

As many as 5 cruise ships can dock at Skagway at once.  Note the Disney ship on the right.  One day our guide said there were 12,000 visitors that day.  Less than 1,000 people live there normally.  

We left Skagway and headed for Whitehorse, Yukon Territory on Thursday, June 11.  We’ll mostly be following the route the gold miners took, except we have roads and bridges and vehicles.  We stopped at Caribou Crossing for lunch and a chance to interact with a mushing team that competes in the Iditarod dog sled race.  I played with the puppies.

Again, the scenery is spectacular.  Pictures don’t do it justice.

Whitehorse is the capital and largest city in the Yukon.  Its’ population is about 23,000.  There are only 33,000 people in the Yukon.  If you want to get away from people, this may be your place.

Whitehorse is a good stop for us.  It has a Walmart and an even better Canadian store, so stocking up was easy.  We also took a trip to Miles Canyon, which was a canyon the miners had to come through.  Because it’s so narrow, the river runs fast and there’s a whirlpool near the end.

And, continuing our tradition, we also found some great food!

Tomorrow we head out for Dawson City, Yukon Territory.  This is where the miners were headed to find their gold.  It’s a town full of history.  And hopefully, we’ll have decent Internet!

There are times on this journey that I want to just stop and enjoy what’s around me, but I know that around the next bend is another beautiful view.  The land is so immense that to see much of it, we have to keep moving.  And I know we’ll still not see it all.

As the song says,

“There's more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found

(Tim Rice, The Lion King, Circle of life.)

So we’ll enjoy as much as we can as we move along.

Deb

Sunday, May 31, 2015

We are at ‘Ksan Campground in Hazelton, BC.  And this is the view out our rear window.

And here’s what the view looks like without clouds.  If you look closely you might see the moon rising over the mountain.

We are fairly far north and this was about 9 pm.  We’ll be in Alaska for the summer solstice (June 21; longest day of the year) and will have about 22 hours of daylight that day.  

Our drive from Fraser Lake to Hazelton was a great drive.  The scenery became more mountainous, and we actually started seeing wildlife!  The first animal was a bald eagle flying across the road and then into the woods.  We were traveling next to a river and it may have been fishing.

Later, I spotted a black bear in the woods next to a stream, peering out watching the traffic pass by.  Then, three deer beside the road.  And then it happened.  Shortly after one of the numerous signs we’ve seen warning of badgers, deer, elk and moose, we actually saw a moose cross the road!  No pictures, it all happens too fast, but our caravan leader promises we’ll see plenty of wildlife in places we can take pictures.

As we traveled, we started seeing the mountains above in the distance.  Somehow, between the wildlife and seeing snow capped mountains again, it felt like we are now really on our Alaska adventure!

We did have one other animal adventure.  We came over a little hill and traffic was stopped in both directions.  There were 5 or 6 people trying to capture a horse that had broken out of his pasture.

Every time they caught him and tried to lead him back to his pasture, he broke away.  They finally led him across the road, which was where he was trying to get to.  There were two beauties waiting for him.

Traffic finally moved on.  You can see the dark clouds in the picture.  We drove into the storm, which wasn’t too bad, but it rained fairly hard.  This area seems to have plenty of water and the rivers are swollen and swift.

Our campground is on a point between two rivers and I was a bit worried that if we got any more rain or snow melt, we might have to evacuate.  The boat house was half under water.  But the river has receded so we should be ok.

We’ve always joked when packing for a trip in the US, that if we forget something, we won’t be far from a Walmart.  In Texas, we were a couple of hours from one and here, at the moment, we’re more than a half day’s drive.  It would be an overnight trip to go.  They are going to get much sparser as we go.  Telephone service is also different.  Even in the remotest part of Texas, we could usually get a cell signal.  Here, we’ve seen more pay phones than I’ve seen in years.  You just can’t always get cell service.  

There will be 24 rigs in the caravan and just about as many dogs.  All kinds and all sizes of both rigs and dogs.  There are truck campers, big motor homes, fifth wheels like ours and travel trailers.  Spike and Lindy, our leaders, have a motor home, two small Maltese (like Obi, but smaller) and a large van, with a number of spare tires on top.  Hopefully we won’t need to make use of those.

We’ve been enjoying our mountain views, getting caught up on chores (laundry, cleaning, etc) and meeting our fellow travelers.   Here’s Steve folding laundry with his new folding board Diana got him.  She and I were chuckling at Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory folding his laundry and I mentioned that Steve thought he’d like one.  So she ordered one for him and one for Greg.

 Tomorrow will be busy with local sightseeing and last minute preparation.  There’s a bakery in town that bakes gluten free bread pretty much when someone orders some, so they’re making me 3 loaves I need to pick up tomorrow.  Now I just need to make room in the freezer!

Then, Tuesday morning at 9:30, the caravan takes off for Hyder, Alaska, the bear capital of the US.

Deb

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

We are camped at Beaumont Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada.  It’s located on Fraser Lake, but unfortunately none of the campsites has a lake view.  But we didn’t do too bad.  We look out into a grove of what I think are aspen trees.

We’ve seen a lot of aspen, as many of the older pine trees have been killed by the mountain pine beetle.  Aspen seems to be the main tree filling in.

When we left Lac la Hache, our sliding hitch wouldn’t slide in.  This hitch allows us to tow a fifth wheel trailer without a long bed truck.  When we need to make sharp turns getting into and out of a campsite, extending the hitch gives us more flexibility.  We can tow with the hitch extended, but sliding it forward positions the weight of the trailer better on the truck.

So, Steve got on line and found a dealer for the hitch a few hours up the road in Quesnel, BC.  We use the Internet so much on the road, I don’t know how people did this before the Internet.  So we headed for Quesnel.  We are headed up highway 97, also known as the Cariboo Highway.  And in spite of what Word says, that’s the way it’s spelled on the signs.  No caribou sighted, though.

This is a land of rivers, lakes, ponds and swamps.  You sometimes see Canadian geese “floating” on grass, which looks odd until you realize there’s water there.  But at anytime you can round a curve and see water in some form.

Here’s a small pond:

And shortly after that was a lake.

And then a creek through a cow pasture.  We’ve seen lots of cows in herds much larger than we saw in the states.

I think this is the Fraser River joining us again.

We finally made it to Quesnel and after a stop at Walmart (no deli and standard can size seemed to be 28 oz.), we found the hitch dealer.  The mechanic who worked with us was young, but knew what he was doing.  It took awhile, but we were back in business and on the road again.  And the hitch has never worked as well as it does now.  Yay!

Our stop that night was Canyon Creek RV Park in Hixon, BC.  There are two things of interest in Hixon: Hixon Falls and the Take Out Restaurant.  At least that’s what was posted in the office. So after getting set up, Steve ran to the takeout and got dinner.  It was a good burger with bacon and mushrooms.

If we could have parked facing the opposite direction, we would have had a good view.

But it was a nice park and we enjoyed our stay.

The next day we headed for Hixon Falls, which was all of 5 miles away.  It’s spring and the wild flowers are out.  It reminded me of vacations we used to take in the Smokey Mountains.

The hike was a short hike, so I decided to try out the backpack I bought for Obi.  Since he’s gone blind, he doesn’t like to take walks and sometimes we can’t leave him behind.  Since all the dog backpacks I liked were in the $200 range, I decided to try a baby backpack.  He didn’t fuss at all and carrying him on this short hike went fine.  Of course he’s usually happy if one of his humans is within reach.

We did reach the waterfall and I think it’s the best one we’ve seen on this trip so far.

And since my picture got in this post, Steve’s should too.

Tomorrow, Thursday, we head for Hazelton, British Columbia, to join up with our caravan.  Everyone’s supposed to be there by Saturday and we head out on Tuesday, June 2.

Deb

Sunday, May 24, 2015

And we’re in a foreign country!  We’re in the Canadian province of British Columbia.

We left Bellingham, WA, on Thursday and headed east.  We could have headed north, but then we would have ended up driving through Vancouver before heading east.  By heading east first, we bypassed a major city and crossed the border at a typically uncrowded border crossing.

Bellingham is a hilly coastal town, having great views of the ocean and/or Mount Baker, which is snow covered year round.  As we left, we headed straight for Mount Baker.  Shortly, we were in a wide flat valley, surrounded by mountains.  Even though everything is green, many of the fields were being irrigated.  Diana had commented that they hadn’t had much rain and that the weather was more like summer than spring.  Mount Baker had only about a third of the snow cover of a usual year.  The road to the summit, which usually doesn’t open until July or August, opened in early May this year, the earliest ever.

Soon, we headed north, to Abbotsford, British Columbia, to cross the border and stock up.  Canada doesn’t let you bring in any type of weapon (hunting rifles require extensive paperwork) and very little fresh food, so we planned to stock up in Abbotsford.  Steve also wanted to pick up an air card for internet access.

Unfortunately, that did not go smoothly.  In spite of advanced planning, finding the right store for Steve proved difficult and we ended up spending 5 hours in Abbotsford.  But, mission accomplished finally!

The Walmart was my first wake up call that I’m in a foreign country.  While some brands, etc., are different from state to state in the US, there are a lot of differences in brands and layouts in the store here.  And there was no deli!  Since I was hoping to pickup a premade sandwich and salad for lunch, that was unexpected.

The other slightly unexpected touch was that most items had English and French on them.  I had gotten used to the English/Spanish of the west and should have expected the French, given that one of the provinces is mostly French speaking.

Almost as soon as we crossed the border, we were out of the flat valley and into a hilly area with houses climbing the hills.  As we left Abbotsford, we headed east to catch the highway going north through Fraser Canyon.  There aren’t many ways north and Canadian Highway 1 through Fraser Canyon is one of them.  The highway follows the Fraser River and was one of the main routes to the gold fields.  It winds its way along a steep canyon, with the walls of the canyon covered with tall pine trees wherever the terrain is not too steep for the trees to grow.

The Fraser River seemed high and swift, which it should be in the spring.  We do see some snow on top of some mountains, but most snow has melted.

We found a nice campground nestled among very tall pine trees.  No satellite reception!

And being our first night in Canada, Steve updated our map on the side of the trailer to show we’ve been in British Columbia, Canada.

The map shows all the places we’ve been with the trailer.

The next day, Steve headed for Hell’s Gate, which we had driven through on our way north.  Hell’s Gate is the narrowest point on the Fraser River, being 115 ft. wide.  As you can imagine, the water is very swift there.  It was the worst place to get supplies through before roads and railroads and the worst place to build a railroad.  There are actually 2 sets of tracks, one on each side of the river.  Since the visit included an aerial tram and suspension bridges, I decided to stay with Obi at the trailer and get myself organized after our stay in Bellingham.

Steve took some wonderful pictures.  We took the Rocky Mountaineer train through part of Canada several years ago and it turns out that it followed the Fraser River for awhile.

We thoroughly enjoyed our Rocky Mountaineer trip and highly recommend it.

We left our lovely campground the next day, Saturday, and headed north again.  Soon we noticed a change in scenery.  The pine trees started to thin out and open meadows appeared. 

We start to see some farming, mostly what we would call truck farming with most of the farms having farms stands along the road.  Many have irrigation equipment.  All are closed at this time of year.  In fact, a lot of things are closed, as tourist season doesn’t really start until June.  Many of the roads along here require snow chains October to March and there are many towns that have gates north and south of them to block passage when the roads are closed.

Some vintage cars at a rest stop.  Note the thinning trees.

We finally reach our destination for Saturday night and are settled in when a storm moves in, first with hail and then rain most of the night.

One of the towns we had driven through, Cache Creek, received 10 inches of rain and suffered severe flooding.  Luckily, all we had was a very noisy roof and some standing water outside.  It’s days like these when we are glad we each have a pair of Crocs to wear for wet conditions.

The campground owner suggested the Edelweiss Restaurant in Lac la Hache, just up the road from us.  I’m glad he did – great German food and a lake view!

Tomorrow we are headed north and west again.

But that’s all for now.

Take care.

Deb

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

This is our last day in Bellingham.  Tomorrow we head into Canada (about 40 minutes away).  This morning, clouds had settled over the water and the view from Diana and Greg’s deck was down into the clouds.  I tried to take a picture, but it didn’t photograph well. Here at the house, we have bright sunshine and I can hear the birds outside. 

We took a load to the trailer last night, so that hopefully we can get everything that’s left in one load tomorrow.

There are restrictions about what food you can take in, so we will be shopping at the first Walmart north of the border.

For the next two months, internet and cell service may be spotty.  We will probably have our cell phones off to save international charges.  Steve will be getting a Canadian air card for internet access, but I don’t know how often we’ll be able to get internet access.  If you need to reach us, try Steve’s email or phone.  I’ll post as frequently as I can.

Take care,

Deb