Cruising Prince William Sound

After enjoying the Saturday night salmon fish fry and pot luck, we went to church Sunday morning at the Epiphany Lutheran/Episcopal Church. Jean the Episcopal Pastor warmly greeted us and we heard a great message from Lutheran Pastor Phil. After church we did a drive up Mineral Creek and as Gary took a nap, the gang showed up. After warm greetings and refreshments and war stories, we read a note from Nan Vanden Berg, causing us to remember Ike. Nan, it was a Sunday....Great is Thy Faithfulness/Amazing Grace!
On Monday morning we did the Stan Stephens cruise of Prince William Sound. We all agreed it's the best money spent so far. We saw humpback whales, sea otters, harbor seals, bald eagles, horned puffins, steller sea lions, black bear and amazing glacier shots. It was nine hours long but a great lunch was provided. If you're going to do Alaska glacier cruising, this was better than Seward or anything else we've been on. Long learned personality characteristics are being displayed along with the joshing and joking that goes with a fun group of funny people - with that lead in can you spot the picture of the "two queens and a princess," and who's who?
It was cool at the end of the day, so we jammed into Rykbost's RV for the cheese and wine post picture review. First Gary's computer pictures of the day and then Bill's. It was great fun and a little old people crazy - good thing our kids weren't there. After the morning hike we're headed up to Chitna today to do the bush. Next p[ost in a couple of days.

Anchorage, Seward and back to Valdez

Anchorage, Seward, and back to Valdez

Thursday/Friday, June 19/20

On Thursday morning, we had breakfast at our campground and Mickey got to talk country /bluegrass with both waitresses, comparing the merits of Vince Gill, Carrie Underwood, Trace Adkins. But according to the bluegrass waitress and Mickey, the best groups are Nickel Creek and Bela Fleck! (Ahh, someone speaks my language!) We hit the Glenn Highway (there are only five of them in Alaska—highways, that is) and proceeded to the big city. We had about a twenty minute wait for construction - at night they close the Glenn altogether for blasting.The incongruity of Anchorage with its traffic, commercial, not-very-pretty setting versus the rest that we’ve seen of Alaska made us hurry on through. We did stop at a Fred Meyer (think Walmart, but three times more upscale) and bought some staples: caulking gun, putty knife, tripod and the wine was10% off if you got six. The Turnagain Pass, also known as the Turnagain Arm, was named by Captain Cook when he had to turn again because this wasn’t the right passage to wherever he was going. The Turnagain Arm is noteworthy in that if you walk out on the tidal flats, the glacier sand and silt has a quicksand quality and over the years several tourists have been lost to a terrifying drowning death as the tide comes back in. The local rescue department has developed a device that pumps air down around the legs to break the terrific suction. Like with so many things in Alaska, it’s beautiful but also potentially dangerous. We saw several mountain goats along the cliffs and had lunch at a beautiful turnout setting.

The drive to Seward is spectacular and special for us in that it’s our fourth time traveling to Seward. We stayed in the same campground that we did eleven years ago, right along the water, with sea otters eating lunch right outside our back door. The first time we came, we camped in a small tent and the wind was so bad and the tent was so small, we both got beat up. Tonight, after a wonderful crab and halibut dinner at the Crab Pot, we enjoyed the small boat harbor walk around and saw the results of the returning fishing boats. Seward is home of the Mt. Marathon, where a marathon is held every 4^th of July. It’s a climb up a steep slope of 3,000+ feet and back, and the record is 42 minutes. Look closely at the one picture and you can see the thin outline of the trail. In the past we’ve seen a movie of the race and when they come down, they’re not running but doing 15 foot leaps from spot to spot. We saw our first bald eagle on our way to Seward! He was flying and so graceful.

Stats: 238 miles; 20.6 gal; ll.4 mpg; 46 mph

Friday morning Gary tried unsuccessfully for an oil change while Mickey slept in. Keep in mind, sleeping in meant 7:00. Six am wake-ups have been the norm for our entire trip. The Alaskans refer to it as “you can sleep in the winter time; play in the summer.” We experienced the usual construction traffic stop of twenty minutes for road paving, waiting for the pilot car. We buzzed through Anchorage again and found a Midas in Palmer for an oil change. While driving up the Mat-Su Valley, Gary missed a fantastic show of a mountain because he wouldn’t stop…he was too busy composing this journal entry. Even with Mickey typing for him, she was able to see the beautiful possible-picture and was looking for places to stop. She told him to stop in a driveway, for crying out sideways (Kristina’s favorite saying), but his brain was totally focused on dictating his journal!!! As is often the case, we’re on the road going to “we don’t know where!” Rough planning, but not exact “where are we going to stay tonight” has served us very well. We were especially happy to hear from our friends last night, that they have arrived safely, and we look forward to meeting them in Valdez Sunday. And for you 14^th Streeters, we were excited to hear about the apartment building vote. For us especially, the email voting option was much appreciated.

You know you’re in Alaska when:

· There are bullet-riddled road signs

· Classifieds have more airplanes than RV’s

· Fishing report is front page news

· High prices for everything

· Frost-heave roads

· Friendly people

· Constant road construction

· Big Beauty

· The lady governor’s as good-looking as our lady governor

Our evening stay was Squirrel Creek Campground…unbenounced to us, the same place that our friends had stayed at four years ago. It had the usual: rushing water sound, mountain views, even a pond outside the door. Just a normal Alaska camp sight for only $12.00. Actually, Mickey picked this spot. Gary had picked the RV place just across the Creek because it had WiFi, but it was a dusty parking lot! Nuts to WiFi!

Stats: 370 miles; 32.5 gal; 11.4 mpg; 42 mph

Saturday morning we departed for our shortest travel day yet. First stop was the Worthington Glacier. The beauty’s a given. What is noticeably different for this spot and most of our trip compared to four years ago, hardly anyone is here. During our 40 minute glacier observation walk, there was one other soul hiking the glacier. Excitement for the morning was Gary getting dive-bombed by a seagall; must have gotten too close to the nest. Education for the morning was on types of glaciers: cirques, inside and outside crevasses, moraines and other interesting facts. We did see a moose and her calf, having just crossed the highway and entering the woods. The calf was bigger than we would have thought.

Thompson Pass and this whole section of the Richardson Highway is the most beautiful drive we’ve been on, so far. Shortly after the Pass, we passed through Keystone Canyon, home of Bridal Veil Falls. We’ve seen several bicyclists tackling incredible hills on this trip, but the first one we got to meet was Fuzzy Mitch, a 60+ year old classic Alaskan. Fuzzy lives in Homer, but over here to kayak the Copper River. He drove to Valdez and dropped off his bike, then went back to Cordova. He then did the 60-some mile Copper River run. At one point he said he was thirty miles away from any civilization and was concerned because he was in a side channel and the water was getting shallower and shallower. Fortunately he made it all the way to Valdez and we saw him biking from Valdez, sea level, to Thompson Pass, 2,160 feet and the rest or the way to Cordova. He let us know he was originally from Colorado, but continued the theme that we’ve heard so often on this trip ” it’s too close” in Colorado so he moved up here six or eight years ago because it’s more open. We’ll add “open” to “clean air” and “more air” as reasons for moving up north.

We are in the Eagle’s Rest RV Park in Valdez for the next three days. The "look up to the Heavens sign" was at the local Catholic Church. We did our short afternoon hike on Mineral Creek. It was somewhat disappointing, so we’re back at the camp, typing and drinking. We’re looking forward to the campground-sponsored fish fry tonight, king salmon they caught just this morning. We bring a dish to pass. Having a wealth of experience on church potlucks, I’m sure we’ll come up with a possible dish (meaning Mickey will). They're preparing the gas grill for the fish right ouside our camper. Mickey over heard the two employees talking about a camper who was complaining about somebody's dog stealing his sirloin right off his grill. The complaining camper was obviously not a dog lover. The employee and pointed out to the Raven with a satisfied look on his face as the real thief- watch out for those birds. Once again, we ran into Hollanders, as in The Netherlands, Michel (a guy’s name in The Netherlands. Mickey liked it because it was spelled with one “l”! She told him that was her name, too!) and Cindy. We told them about Holland, Michigan, and when they get back from their cruise, we’ll show them Tulip Time pictures. Just can’t get away from those Hollanders! It was a beautiful day for traveling today. We had sunshine the whole day and the views were spectacular. We haven’t had this good of a day since we left. However, the weather hasn’t stopped us from doing anything we had planned to do. Our God is an Awesome God!

Stats: 85.6 miles; 6.9 gals; 12.4 mpg; 46 mph

Top of the World, Chicken, and Nebesna Road

We left Dawson City on Tuesday and took the ferry across the Yukon River. At six in the morning we were the only ones on board. The Yukon was running about 12 knots of glacier gray water. On the far side it's a rough gravel road that goes up and up. The one up being the furtherest point north that we've traveled, and the other in elevation - pictures of both. Rough road, slow going, and a little eerie feeling of being out of touch with civilization, but just beautiful scenery. Chicken Alaska was colorful. The name came when the locals couldn't spell or pronounce the local bird -Ptarmigan, so the gave up and called the town Chicken - close enough. We traveled through a hundred miles plus burn area from 2004 when we were up here last. I know it's nature taking it's course, but it sure looks bad.
We did our first dry camp next to Kettle Lake on the dead end Nebesna road. After dinner we watched and listened to "just us and God" nature. The quiet was loud. The mountain is Mt Sanford, part of the Wrangel St. Elias National Park. The four hour hike up Caribou Creek was easy to begin with but hard at the end. We crossed the creek on two foot of frozen snow/ice, with some amount of trepidation. Mickey had a CRS moment when as she was doing her thing she referred to swatting the skeeters away from her pearly whites. O well pasty white or pearly white, the skeeters love it just the same. We saw a snowshoe hare but no other critters. The two pictures are evidences of them though, one from a eatee and one from a eater. Karis look up that book that Mickey gave you and tell us which is which.
We're overnighting close to the Mantanuska Glacier, and have decided to do Seward tomorrow.
We're anxiously looking forward to seeing our friends on Sunday, for the obvious reasons but here's one we've discovered. After being on the road for a couple of weeks with just the two of us, it's apparent that that Miss Manners wouldn't approve of certain habits. Nothing really gross, just things like hair care (no problem with me - Mickey shaved it off), paper towel face baths, and certain other niceties of life. Anyway I'll clean up my act when you get here Lois.

Outhouses, Cinnamon rolls, Keno City, and Dawson City

Outhouses, Cinnamon Rolls, Keno City and Dawson City

Sunday – First outhouses…The ones in the states at “bladder flatter” stops were often times prefab plastic or concrete blocks, screens to keep the bugs out and specially designed venting systems to prevent stink. Most of the times they still stunk. In BC, they were plywood and more basic, but still screened. Once we got to Yukon, small sheets of plywood, no screens and doors, maybe. If you gotta go, bring your hat, not for sun protection but for the skeeters. Skeeters are particularly fond of pasty white flesh. Pasty white, for them, is the same as Grade A, prime choice sirloin for us. I don’t know how they tell their buddies that there’s some of that prime pasty white available, but they do and they all come humming. That’s why you need your hat…to protect your pasty whites. In spite of the skeeters, there’s a benefit to open outhouses…they don’t stink. So keep an open mind about open outhouses and don’t forget your hat. (Please keep in mind…this is Gary’s blog!)

Not far onto the Klondike Highway, we stopped at Mom’s Bakery, a place recommended by Guideposts. We weren’t sure it was still opened when we drove up, but we stopped anyway, and we’re glad we did. Tracie Harris (Mom) is a one-woman band…she lives, bakes, serves, feeds chickens, birds, chipmunks, flying squirrels, and people to the most fabulous cinnamon buns anywhere, all in the same place! She’s been at this place for 30 years, but lived in the Yukon all her life. She has her own garden of herbs. She puts a little of her mint in the frosting on the buns. It’s her grandmother’s recipe. And she uses sweet bread for the bun. They are as big as a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut! Tracie’s grandfather had come up during the gold rush, but was a year too late. Look at the picture of Tracie. Guess her age. You won’t believe how old she is! She said it’s the air up north. Gary told her she’s the second person to tell her about the air up north. The other one was John from Tatogga. She knows John! She said there are only 30,000 people in all of Yukon…that’s less than Holland! It’s not the fountain of youth, it’s the air of youth…up north air.

We stopped at Stewart Crossing information center before heading up the Silver Trail to Keno City. The woman at the desk was a BIG woman, eating her lunch. We asked her for information about Silver Trail and she pointed us to a rack of brochures. I bet she didn’t say more that a dozen words to us. We laughed about her being a “wealth of information.” We stayed in Keno City, the end of the road! What a great place! There are 17 people in the whole town. We met Mike from Yugoslavia, who’s been there about thirty-plus years. We met Ralph and Norma Meese, and their dog, Jesse. Ralph road truck for the mine for 35 years. We asked where the people came from to work the mine. Ralph said that when he started in the 50’s they were from all over the world. When he did lunch in the common dinning hall, it was two weeks before he heard English spoken – and then it was an Irishman which according to Ralph is barely English. Ralph drove truck hauling ore, and when we commented on how hard the life was, he said “that was back when men were men.” They own a farm down by the Junction, all organic. We saw it coming up and commented on it then…it seemed out of place from everything else we’d seen. They took two weeks off to travel last year because they had what are called “WWOOF-ers” (World Wide Organnization of Organic Farmers) to stay at their farm. These are international people who are interested in learning about other people’s way of organic farming. So for room and board, they come and work the ranch. It’s a win/win situation for the farmer and for the WWOOF-ers. We went through the museum at Keno City and Ralph guided us through, explaining a lot about the mining, shipping, tools, etc. Such wonderful people! The campground was secluded down by the river. Just a handful of people there. There was a couple from Switzerland who shipped their camper to Halifax and are touring for six months. Another camper had two sisters and their husbands, on their way to a party (can’t remember the name) that the First Nations have for the departed. One year after the death of a loved one, everyone meets at a place and they have a party in the departed’s honor. This family had their sister-in-law’s ashes with them, placed in a beautiful leather bag with Indian beading. At the end of the party, they will bury the ashes in a ceremony. Imagine!

Stats: 300.6 miles; 25 gal; 12 mph; 47 mpg

Monday, June 16, 2008 – We slept in this morning (6:45)! We stopped at a rest stop on the Stewart River and Mickey made breakfast, bacon and eggs. It was good…Mickey was sick of cereal! The Klondike Highway has lupine all along the way. We stopped to take a picture because it reminds us of tulip lane in Holland. We saw our second moose, up close. He was in the middle of the highway! We took pictures as he kept running from our truck…down the middle of the highway! We made it to Dawson City before 1:00 p.m. We are staying downtown at Gold Rush Campground. We walked around downtown, did the Museum and continued to appreciate the hard life of Klondyker’s, came back for a while, then walked back to Kate’s Cabins and Restaurant for dinner. Mickey had her first crab legs! Headed to the Top of the World Highway tomorrow!

Stats: 189miles; 16.3 gal; 12mpg; 41 mph

Cassier Highway and on to Whitehorse

Why people go up north

The answer will be later, but first some details. We left Glacier View Campground in Smithers on Friday morning. Mickey met the Seavoys from the U.P. in this campground. They were headed to Alaska for the 14^th year in a row…their son lives there. She’s a retired school teacher; not sure what he’s retired from. Turns out that Woodall’s didn’t have anything on the U.P., or wherever they were headed one year, so she called them and they hired them! They travelled for Woodall’s for twelve years. After about an hour drive we reached the start of the Cassiar, filled up with gas and found that the first third had been recently paved and was very pleasant driving. The scenery is similar to the Icefields Parkway in that we were running river valleys with great, but smaller, mountains on either side. There was an incredible amount of bear scat in the road, which brings to mind another mystery question for this trip: Why do bears scat in the road? Because it’s warmer, they don’t get tickled by brush or Mickey’s answer, because they can. The totem pole pictures are of a display at Gitanyow. Gary thought they were religious objects, but Mickey corrected him and said that they are symbols of their tribes. We did see three bear on our trip today. Mickey saw one that was lying down in the meadow, chewing on breakfast, looking totally comfortable. At one point, we drove for about an hour without seeing another vehicle. The gas stop was at Tatogga Lake, where the only occupant appeared to be John the gas man. John said to Gary, “you need gas?” Gary said, “Ya, how much is it?” John said, “$1.50L.” Gary didn’t respond right away and John said, “Are you sure you want some?” The dynamics being, it’s expensive gas, but when you’re in the middle of nowhere you have no choice. John commented on traffic being really slow. He’s still working off his first 12,000 tank load this year, when last summer, at it’s peak, he’d get a load a week. He said he’s not seeing the big rigs, motor homes, big fifth wheels this year. He then made us feel good by saying, “You have a sensible rig for this kind of traveling.” His nice comment helped offset the $1.50L. Gary asked John where he’s from. He said he moved up from the big city. Gary asked what big city, and he said Vancouver. He asked him why he moved and he said (and this is the answer to the question above), “There’s not enough air there.” I don’t think John was speaking physiologically but psychologically. If what John says is true, that there’s more air up north, it would help explain a lot of things. It’s why we go to Young State Park, Makanawa Island, the U.P. or, in our case, Alaska. The affects of there being more air on our up north trip are already apparent…better sleeping, closer relationship, we’re laughing more, meeting interesting people, eating simple foods that taste good in the open air. And of course, there’s the great one, a confirmation that God, with His general revelation, did a little extra up north! So, when you start to feel like those people in Tokyo who put a quarter or whatever in a machine to breathe two minute’s worth of “up north air,” think about going up north. And thank you, John, for the best “one” (sorry, Bethany Keeley) so far. I did ask John if he had a family. He said yup, back in the big city. I said they must miss you. He said ya, they’re coming up to visit. I said, well, they must love you. He said they love me to be up here. I didn’t know quite where to go with that one, so we just let it lay and we proceeded on. We spent the night at the Water’s Edge Campground on Deese Lake. Fifteen dollars a night, pit toilet, no showers, but a view that was well-worth it. Skeeters were free. The benefit of the mosquitos being the size of a small bird is that you can feel their weight when they land on you; makes for easy brush-offs!

Stats: 383 mi; 32.4 gal; 11.8 mpg; 46mph

Our first stop of the day for Saturday was a moose-shoot. He was having breakfast. (We thought about you, Laurel!) We stopped at Jade City, population 12. We were here four years ago where Mickey bought jade earrings. That store is no longer open. Apparently, there are a lot of rumors going around about the former owners, but no one really knows why it closed. So we went across the street to Cassiar Mountain Jade Store, where Mickey dropped a small wad. Gary met Emmet, a 60+ year old Bosnian Muslim. He’s been in Canada about four years and he talked about the incongruity of so much of the world hating America but they all want to move here. I think he called them a bunch of idiots, but with a heavy Slovic accent it may have been more duragatory yet. This illustrates the slow pace of life and news up here: Emmet wanted to know why those Democrats couldn’t settle the Michigan and Florida primary issues and get on with picking that woman or the black guy. Gary explained to him that that was a done deal as of about a week ago. Emmet said if they chose the black guy, wouldn’t that be something. What he said was, “There’s no place in the world except in America where something like that would happen.” It gave me kind of a warm patriotic feeling and we ended the conversation with me telling him, McCain’s a good guy too, Emmet. On the way out of the store, we met Peter and Vera Fischer from Halifax, Nova Scotia. They’ve been on the road for 25 days and Mickey noticed that Peter was wearing an S.S. Badger hat, acquired when they took the ferry across. In the course of the conversation, Vera referred to how long they’ve been gone and how long they’ve got to go at least three times. She even came right out and said, “I’m ready to go home.” He thought we were pretty brave by planning on taking the Top of the World Highway. Peter was obviously excited to be going even further north on the Dempster Highway. Look at your map; we’re talking serious Arctic Circle-plus driving. Vera kindda shook her head and again said she wanted to go home. We did notice that in the cab of their truck camper they had a little “foofoo” dog; hope that keeps Vera company and happy.

We got gas at the Junction and turned left on the Alaskan Highway. We stopped for lunch at Rancheria Falls Recreation Site and did a pleasant walk to the falls. They were very similar to Tequanaman in that the water had the same burned brown color, probably from the tannins. We met the Finners from Wildwood, Alberta, who were on a journey north, not sure where they were going. They winter in the States and we think were on their way back home, the long way. Shortly after we pulled out, we saw Peter and Vera at a rest stop, blew our horn and waived.

A little about our XM Satellite radio. The normal daily drill is to start out with CNN or Fox and get the news. After being sufficiently depressed, we switch to, if Gary’s driving, 34-Gospel, or if Mickey’s driving, 14-Bluegrass Junction. Occasionally we’ll do the laugh channel. For 100k we laughed with Bill Crosby, Bob Newhart, Ray Ramano, Jeff Allen, Henny Youngman, Jonathan Winters, and many others. They were doing a “father’s stuff” in light of Father’s Day coming up. Jeff Allen told two stories that we’d (Gary) like to share that were about teenagers. The first one was he said he has a teenage son who knows everything, questions his authority and doesn’t want to acknowledge his existence. He then said that teenagers were God’s revenge for rejecting His authority and denying His existence. He said he the Bible didn’t say how old Satan was when he rebelled against God, but I’m pretty sure he was 15. O.K., here’s your astronomy and geography lesson: XM Radio receives its signal from a west coast satellite off California. The further north we go, the flatter the angle; and when we’re on the lee side of a mounting, no signal. Gary’s hoping we find a flat spot in Dawson City on Sunday to hear Boston beat Kobe.

We are now camped in Whitehorse, where there is no cell phone signal. So we are out of touch with reality! However, we have a weak WIFI here at the campground, thus the new blog. We had dinner at the Yukon Mining Co., which was Gary’s Father’s Day dinner. The skeeters are persistent here as well! For you pilots the DC-3 is the wind tee at Whitehorse Airport.

Stats: 415 mi; 36.6 gal; 11.4 mpg; 51 mph