It is Memorial Day and we have finally arrived in Alaska. Today's travels took us from Beaver Creek in the Yukon to Glennallen, Alaska. Before departing the YT, we encountered some folks we had met while spending the night at Watson Lake. Unfortunately, they were experiencing a problem with their vehicle and will probably have to spend another few days in Canada while parts are delivered and repairs are made. Fortunately, some fellow travelers helped them out with a lift to Beaver Creek and the RCMP helped out with connections to have their vehicle towed. Like us they are on the way to Anchorage, but could not accept our offer of a ride with their vehicle and a trailer full of goods in the Yukon.
We crossed the border in Port Alcan and promptly had our eggs, frozen chicken and half a tomato confiscated by an otherwise friendly Border Agent. Naturally, Deb had to alter the dinner menu. Our next encounter was with an active wildfire which we had heard about. The active zone was no longer near the highway, but many trees have been destroyed in the area. The entire area has been very dry as witnessed by a number of lakes that are nearly dry and the haze that you may have noticed in many of our photos is the result of all the dust in the air.
Road conditions were excellent to fair but better than others we've suffered through. Deb has become quite fond of driving down the middle of the road or even on the wrong side when conditions require it.
We spent most of the day traveling either along or through portions of the St. Elias Range and the Wrangell mountains, but my favorite mountain photo of the day (above) was taken from a back row of the Northern Nights Campground & RV Park where we are spending the night. More photos here.
You've heard of taking the road less traveled. That was us today, from Whitehorse to Haines Junction and on to Beaver Creek. The trip took at least two hours longer than expected due to road conditions that the locals describe as good, meaning that they are better than they were three months ago. For us, a 17km stretch of gravel and a 30+km stretch of gravel and packed sand/ground, is far from being good. At speeds of as low as 5mph and averaging about 10 or 12 then 25 to 30 over other areas that were red flagged (meaning stop now), it was not the best of days for making progress. On the other hand, we did enjoy some great views of mountains in the St. Elias Range that reach from here to the shores of the Gulf of Alaska and a brief visit to a really nice welcome center in Haines Junction.
As we sit here at the Beaver Creek RV Park, we are only about 100 miles from Tok, AK and about half that distance to the Yukon Territory/Alaska border. Hoping for some better road conditions, we have set a target of Glennallen, Alaska for tomorrow which would put us in Anchorage on Wednesday. These are the photos from today's trip.
We spent the entire day today in Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory, right along the Alcon, now more known as the Alaska Highway. We just happened to catch part of a documentary on TV this afternoon that gave a bit of a history of the road as it was constructed in WWII, an amazing feat. I've included two photos of vehicles that were involved in the joint operations by the U.S. Army with Canadian military and civilians. The vehicles are on display here at the Hi Country RV Park, a really lovely spot which we had also visited during our trip through the area in 2007.
Most folks who visit Whitehorse know of the S.S. Klondike, a sternwheeler built in the 30's which is now on display as a National Historic Site. These steamers were used to deliver goods and passengers up and down the Yukon River and most of the balance of today's photos are from our self-guided tour of the boat. It is pretty amazing to note that when these boats were operating, the downstream leg of the trip was a scant 15 hours while the upstream leg would take 3 or 4 days.
Click here for photos.
The photo journal for today includes our passage through the Great Northern Rockies from Toad River to Watson Lake, British Columbia and on to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory. The first of these two days could be known as the Day of the Buffalo (plus more bears), but the second day we saw only one female caribou with her young calf. The rest of the animals for that day were the variety with two legs (construction workers), but on the plus side of that, we took a break at a neat little cafe at Johnsons Crossing in the middle of the long work area. Photos from both days can be found here.
We are now in Whitehorse where we have elected to take our second down day. We made a short excursion into town where we picked up just a few provisions and visited a local landmark (more on that with some photos in your next installment).
Just a quick note to share some photos of bears and more. We are in Toad River this morning after a late arrival last night. You will keep in mind that photos are shot through bugs and dirty windows and mostly while in motion. I missed the wolf, but you can see other animals here.
OK, the first few photos in this set are from the tail end of our trek through Montana, but the rest cover some various views along the way from the US/CA border (where we were treated quite nicely BTW) to Dawson Creek where we are residing just a short distance from "Mile 0" of the Alaska Highway or Alcan where we will be rolling along tomorrow.
NOT shown in the photos is an animal (or perhaps an alien) that Deb spotted along the way today. She says it was about the size of a turkey, had a purple/grey color, long legs and resembled one of the nasty critters from Jurrasic Park.
We're looking forward to arriving in Alaska and yes, the above is the actual forecast for the next few days in Tok.
Click here for our photos. Be sure to see the captions for some information.
I know you have all be growing just about as weary of hearing about all the rain we've been seeing as we are in the experience. Well, great news; the sun began to shine just as we were crossing the border into Canada and it has been nothing but sunshine ever since. As a matter of fact, I'm observing a sunset through the windshield (at 9pm local time) as I write this. A beautiful sight, lighting up the landscape that we will be entering tomorrow.
Replacing the rain is insects of all shapes and sizes splattering the front of our RV by the thousands. It has been so bad that we had to stop and clean the windshield along the road today so that we could see sufficiently to continue. When stopped for the night, Deb joined me for another scrubbing of the front of the rig and it seemed that some of the critters were attached with super glue.
This is our third night in Canada. Night one was spent in Lethbridge, night two a bit to the west of Edmonton, both in Alberta, and today we crossed into British Columbia and Dawson Creek. We are staying at the Northern Lights RV Park, a location we knew from our May, 2007 trip with Tracy and Jeff's RV.
As I've noted previously, we've not been taking a whole bunch of photos, but if I get a chance tonight, while we have WiFi, I will upload what we've captured so far in Canada and send them along.
Leave Hardin, MT. Rain on, rain off. Start construction, end construction. Climb a mountain, descend a mountain. Repeat, combine, repeat, repeat. All this on I-90. Now, do it all over agin on I-15. Arrive in Helena, MT after about 6 hours of the above. Now, don't get me wrong, it is still worth making the trip, it is just that we are getting pretty weary of the rain part. As to the construction part, we'll take it, hoping to take advantage of the improvements on our return trip.
For those of you that have been following our adventures since the beginning in 2007, you're probably wondering about the absence of photos since we started this trip. The primary objective of this part of the journey is to get to Alaska. Of course, we enjoy what we see along the way, but we are not taking much time for exploration; however, we were happy to spot more antelope along today's route, along with our first two buffalo and our first moose.
Some photos from today, mostly taken while on the road, are included here to give you some sense of this part of Montana, including the moose.
So you say..."What new record?"
Both our RV and our car are the dirtiest they've ever been!
We started the day driving through some dust, dirt and light rain, then it all got cemented when, a bit later, we drove into a fog that was so heavy we could barely see a few feet ahead. Fortunately, this was just as we were approaching a rest area.
As we drove through this part of Wyoming and Montana, we could not help but wonder at a few things:
- just how vast this country is, with lots of wide-open spaces
- exits along the interstate that lead directly to dirt roads
- only 150 years ago, wars being fought over these lands
- more antelopes than cattle and people - not really, but...
- another small population county seat - He'konemâhoeve'ho'eno
A few photos to share - click here.
Just a quick note today to keep you informed of our progress. Continuing with some pretty high winds, not quite as bad as yesterday, and construction, we finally reached Three Flags RV Park in Black Hawk, a place we stayed during our 2009 adventures with Mary and Bill.
Yesterday, I failed to note that we had passed by the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD, and today we passed the area of the Badlands and made the obligatory stop at Wall Drug where the coffee still sells for just 5 cents. If you are interested in reading more about these locations, you are invited to review our blog entries from the Summer of 2009. Just click here and scroll down the right-hand side of the blog to find the blogs from that period.
One personal note to Theresa - your nice loaf of bread will NOT make it to Alaska, or even to Canada since we already enjoyed about a 1/3 of it with our Ziti dinner tonight.
After another day of difficult driving in the wind from Council Bluffs, Iowa via I-29 then I-90 to Plankinton, SD, we were so very pleased to encounter some bright spots to end our day.
First, we chose to park our rig at Hills RV Park and Campground, just off I-90 at exit 308. This is not an RV Resort but is nicely kept with all pull-thru sites and easy access to the highway. The owner is quite nice and friendly and was kind enough to make some suggestions for dinner, which leads me to bright spot number two:
We add our endorsement of the 5-star rating. Owned and operated by Teresa L. Bathke, Al's I-90 Cafe is located just across the street from Hills RV Park and is a must try spot for anyone traveling through this area. Teresa is quite an excellent cook and we very much enjoyed our meal of some delicious soup, followed by a hot roast beef sandwich (made with Teresa's own fresh bread), with mashed potatoes and homemade gravy. It must be noted that Teresa does everything that is required to run this place and mostly on her own. We welcome her as the latest addition to the followers of this blog and wish her all the best.
We elected to proclaim a "down day" following a difficult drive of only about 225 miles across a good portion of Iowa yesterday. The major problem was a chilly wind that we were driving against for the entire distance (I really don't want to know how much it affected our gas mileage). Of course, this was also compounded by plenty of construction along the way and some rain, most of which was encountered when Deb was driving. Ah, but that is typical.
Most of today was spent in the less glamorous aspects of our travels, like laundry, cleaning, cooking, checking fluid levels, tire pressures and making sure that the TV antenna that I reported on earlier is sufficiently secured until I get a chance for repairs.
Tomorrow we will be heading first North and then West and you'll probably be hearing from us next from some location in South Dakota.
We are spending this night at Sudbury Court Motel and RV Park. It is advertised as "Clean, Comfortable, and Affordable" and holds true to all of the above. The RV park boasts only about 20 sites, but it is nicely kept and includes WiFi. Unfortunately, being located 7 miles from the interstate, it is not widely known and as a consequence there are only three sites occupied as we sit here tonight.
If you are like us, you've never heard of Marengo, Iowa, but it is the County Seat of Iowa County with a population of around 2500, much smaller than what we normally think of as the seat of county government, although it is not that much smaller than where we spent our first full month in an RV in 2007 in Folkston, GA.
After all these years in an RV, I finally managed to do it. I failed to lower our TV antenna when we hit the road this morning and within just a few minutes it was attacked by an overhanging branch. This is something we always try to be careful about and Deb even reminded me several times this morning, but... I guess I'll be searching for parts.
It has the best of roads, it has the worst of roads (repeat - over and over). Alex, the question is: What is Interstate 80? In our travels since 2007, we continue to find more and more of this. The country's highways are in really bad shape. We encounter construction area after construction area, but only rarely do we have the opportunity to enjoy the results. Then we went from bad to worse when we needed to travel North on Indiana highway 49. If this is not the most battered and worn-out surface we have ever driven on, it has got to be a close second.
Tonight we are staying at the Sand Creek Campground near Chesterton, IN. I don't usually post such statements, but I suggest you avoid this place unless, like us, you are very low on options. For those of you who know Deb really well, you will understand when I say that she is (predictably) not thrilled.
Not to be entirely negative for today's entry, we were pleased to note that the RV and boat manufacturing industries seem to have recovered quite nicely since our last visit to Indiana in 2009. Have no doubt, roads and RV park aside, we continue to enjoy our travels.
We have actually already left PA and we're spending the first night of this Ultimate North American Road Trip in Ohio. We expect to arrive in Anchorage, AK, sometime in the last week of May. For this night, we are resting ON the Ohio Turnpike. We were previously not aware of this option, but for any of you who might be traveling through this area in an RV, there are four Service Plazas on the Turnpike that provide RV sites where it is possible to stay for the night with electricity (for a charge). Here at the Portage Service Plaza near Streetsboro, OH, there are 10 sites available, half of which have 50 amp service. It is evident that there are not too many folks aware of this availability since we are the only ones here as of 10pm. As a bonus, there is also a Starbucks here.
Since we have traveled and reported on much of this route we are taking from PA to AK, I will be doing my best to provide commentary and photos that are at least somewhat of a departure from earlier blogs. Consequently, with only the above exception, I'm not including any pictures today since we've spent most of the day on Interstate 80, which we've covered a number of times in the past; however, before today, I had never seen the sign near exit 111 in PA.
