ALASKA !!!

Saturday, May 28^th

Emerald Lake along the South Klondike Highway

       WOW…We finally made it!! We reached the end of our road trip but not our final destination. We arrived in Skagway, Alaska…and it is great to be back in the USA!! After driving 3,684 miles in 3 weeks we BOTH made it here alive. I was sure we were working on some new survivor show…3,684 miles – only 34 feet apart – towing 5 tons - only one will survive the trip after the other goes insane – who will it be ?!? The last 15 miles had me worried for the past few days but I couldn’t let Lori know that. The road into Skagway crosses the mountains through White Pass and descends from 3,500 foot elevation to sea level in 12 miles winding down the mountains at an 11% grade. Of course when the “Super Dave Adventure Tour” came through, the pass was socked in and the fog had the visibility down to about 100 feet. Luck and my sweet Ford “LDBKTRK” held strong and we arrived without any problems.  After parking the MLS at an RV park overlooking the harbor, we celebrated the success of our trip at the Skagway Brewing Co. with a dinner of beer battered  halibut fish & chips and a couple pitchers of Alaskan Ale. We then tried to ride our bikes back to the MLS (maybe scarier than driving the pass) and watched the cruise ships depart.

Bennett Lake with the marine layer moving over the summit

Our spot on the harbor in Skagway

Closer & closer...

Tuesday, May 24^th

Toad River Lodge...just a spot on the highway

             

            We had a lot of fun this morning and last night watching the beaver family as they ate, swam around and worked on their dam. Sometime during the night, they had cut and placed a couple 6” trees in the dam’s spillway to lessen the water being released. DAM, they are smart. We traveled only 75 miles north and stayed at a really nice provincial (like a state in Canada, eh) campground at the Liard River Hot springs. It was a pretty amazing place where you can soak in the natural hot spring pools amid the really lush, almost tropical forest. The water comes in at 53 degrees Celsius (that’s Canadian for almost boiling) but gets cooler as the pools go downstream and cool spring water comes up from the bottom. What a great reward for having traveled about 2,500 miles in the last 2 weeks. We were so “wet noodled” afterward that walking the ¾ mile back to camp seemed impossible, but having heard the story of how a grizzly killed someone at the springs 3 years ago made it much less impossible.  

Liard River Hot Springs, the hot pool at 108 degrees

Wednesday, May 25^th

The newest & bestest sign out of 71,001

Lots of driving today and we made it into the “Yukon Territory”. We were going to stop at Watson Lake for the night but it was not very pretty so we pushed on. We did stop long enough to visit the “sign post forest”, one of those AlCan highway stops that have grown famous. It was started during construction of the highway when a soldier hung the first sign. They now claim to have over 71,000 signs…make that 71,001 after we added our own. After that, we hit the road and soon almost hit a bear as she and her cub crossed right in front of us. We also saw a fox and a bald eagle flying by carrying a fish lunch. We stopped after crossing the longest bridge on the highway (1,900 feet long) on 78 mile long Teslin Lake. We only have about 300 more miles to get to Skagway, Alaska where we will catch the ferry to Haines. But we still haven’t found what we’re looking for…no wait…that’s the song by U2 we’re listening to right now.  

It was THAT close to hitting her

Thursday, May 26^th

            We made a stop early this morning at Johnson’s Crossing for their “world famous cinnamon rolls”. I’m not sure what qualifies them as “world famous” but they were the 2^nd best I have ever had – nobody has ever beat my great grandma Smith’s. We were also “saved” by an 80 year old self-proclaimed preacher who was traveling the highway in a rolling junk yard, pulling a homemade trailer, heading to Fairbanks with the Lord as his co-pilot. We dropped the MLS for a 2 night stay at Marsh Lake Government campground and drove the extra 25 miles to Whitehorse, a city on the Yukon river that was put on the map during the Klondike gold rush days of the 1900’s. Gold seekers would travel by ship to Skagway, trek over the mountains up the Chilkoot trail to Whitehorse and then up the Yukon river (the 3^rd largest river in North America) by any number of means. We visited the “Klondike”, a restored paddle wheel steamship from 1926 that was very busy on the river back then. When I stop and learn what it took to come up here in those days, I can’t help but feel like a wussy driving my Ford up the highway pulling all the comforts from home with me.

Friday, May27^th

One of the cubs up a tree

            Today we set off on “Super Dave’s Yukon Adventure Tour” as Lori liked to call it. We traveled (without the MLS) on 56 miles of gravel road to a remote little village called Atlin that sits on the shores of 78 mile long Atlin Lake. The scenery was spectacular and we saw lots of wildlife including a grizzly, bald eagles, a wolf and a black bear with her 3 little cubs who we watched climb up trees when we got close. The village has about 400 people, mostly Tlingit natives (plus a few artsy hippies) and lots of its own gold rush history beginning around 1900. The old cemetery was an interesting clue as to how hard and dangerous it was to pioneer this area. Tomorrow we will finally be leaving Canada and entering Alaska, eh. Too bad, we will have to quit talking Canadian, eh?    

Lori & Spaz on a dock at Atlin Lake

the AlCan Highway...finally!!

Thursday, May 19^th

            We left the mountain country for a while and made it to “Grand Prairie”. We tried to save a couple bucks and set the MLS at the fairground’s camp ground where the petroleum expo was taking place…yeehaw!! We went into town to check out a really nice park with great bike trails going around a lake that we wanted to ride. We found a great RV park right there and decided to go back…hook up…and move there. Of course it started to rain so we paid the price of moving and setting up again in the pouring rain (note to self…don’t be a cheap ass…er…I mean frugal).

           

Friday, May 20^th

            WooHoo !! Sunny skies !! Took care of business early (laundry, shopping, post office and getting an oil change for my baby) and spent the afternoon riding the trails. We planned on not traveling today so we just enjoyed the park and staying put.

Saturday, May 21^st

Big day today !! We officially began our trip on the AlCan highway. Mile “0” for the trans Alaska highway is in “Dawson Creek, British Columbia” and as such has always held a place of mystic for me. I was as excited as Spaz is when she gets to play Frisbee just to see the markers and monuments to this engineering wonder. The Highway was began in 1942 by the U.S. military to help prepare our countries defenses. We spent the night camping 100 feet from a river in a campground that hasn’t changed much since it opened in 1949. We BBQ’d some pork chops, both sat on the same side of the picnic table and almost lost our dinner as our porker asses came close to flipping the table…chops and all…only our cat-like reflexes saved the night. Speaking of nights…the sun doesn’t go down until after 10pm which is hard to get used to.

We crossed the only original wooden bridge left on the AlCan

Sunday, May 22^nd

            Drove into the Canadian Rockies with more rain, fog with about 200’ visibility and Lori on the edge of her seatbelt with her eyes closed. We stopped early, about 1pm in Fort Nelson. I had read about a museum there and it was a good day to spend some time there as it POURED all day. Fort Nelson has history with the fur trapper trade and was established by the Northwest Fur Trading Company back in the early 1800’s. The museum had tons of cool stuff to look at but the highlight had to be spending a couple hours talking with the owner – Marl Brown – who is and looks like an 80 year old trapper. Marl has been there for most his life and has one of the coolest car collections you will ever see, AND they all run. He has many 1920 something Model A’s and a 1908 Chrysler that in 2008, he drove up the AlCan from Fort Nelson to Whitehorse. He showed us a 1927 Mercury flatbed truck that in 1979 he drove up from North Dakota with a model A on the flatbed and towing another.

 

 

He is one of those rare characters you hear stories about that pioneered this rugged country. He also had a crazy bike that he took out and rode, you gotta watch the video to believe. Marl was a treat and a highlight for us thus far. We left us with a hug for Lori and some great memories for me. Only about 650 miles more to Haines!!

Into Canada...eh!!

Saturday, May 14^th

This morning we sadly left Casper Wyoming and Nick and headed north again. We crossed into the southeast corner of Montana and ate lunch at “Little Bighorn Battlefield” where Lt. Col. George Custer and 260 of his men met their death in 1876. We stood on the hill where Custer made his last stand and looked out over the white marble stones marking where each soldier fell along with the red marble stones marking where the Indians died. This was not the site of a massacre, but a battlefield where 2 powerful opposing forces fought bravely for what they believed was right. The allied tribes of Cheyenne and Lakota Indians led by Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse won the battle but it ultimately led to their destruction in the next few years.

We ended the day in central Montana at a tiny town called Harlowton built around 1900. We stayed at the city’s beautiful park/fairground where we had the place all to ourselves. This is about as opposite of Vegas as you will find. We walked through town and ate dinner at “Jail House Pizza” – and yes – it is in the old jail house.

Sunday, May 15^th

            Toady took us up through Great Falls, Montana. It was not what I had pictured; no mountains, just rolling farm/ranch land. However, I had always wanted to go there because my idols – Lewis & Clark - had great difficulty here on their way west. They spent 12 days doing a grueling portage around the falls. It was a bit disappointing in that the falls have been tamed by a series of dams to produce electricity. The NPS Historic trail center was very cool and to stand on the shores where my heroes trod was worth it. We spent the rest of the day’s travels calling each other “Dave Lewis & Lori Clark”. We’ve done alright so far, no major disasters (if you don’t count…losing the spare tire cover, breaking a handle on the grey water drain valve, crunching a wheel well cover, had the new space heater quit, bent the bike rack and lost the magnetic vent covers).We stayed in Shelby, Montana for the night at some crappy campground while the wind blew like a hurricane, at least we had better accommodations than my heroes.

Monday, May 16^th

            We’re in Canada, eh !! We crossed the border this morning after going through an RV cavity search, eh. The hoseheads made us pull the MLS into a giant garage where they closed the doors, asked us to open the slides and all compartments and told us to wait in a separate room while they looked for guns…drugs…or ???, eh. After 45 minutes they let us go and told us it shouldn’t take 2 more weeks to get to Alaska, eh. We didn’t stop till we made it to “Banff National Park” driving through more rain/snow. We camped near Lake Louis next to the still partly frozen “Bow” river and tried not to freeze to death. Its freaking May, eh?!? What’s wrong with these crazy Canadian hoseheads, eh? We blame Canada, eh!!

Tuesday, May 17^th

            Woke up to snow falling – almost an inch or two – but very beautiful. We took a short drive up to Lake Louis which is fed by 3 glaciers and was still frozen over. The mountains disappeared into the low clouds which were still dropping snowflakes. We have yet to see the steep, rocky ice-capped mountains this area is famous for. We planned to stay another night here (guess we like freezing to death) so we had time to explore. We did a 3 mile hike up a spectacular canyon trail to some waterfalls. Then we waited for a train to descend the mountains through a spiral railroad tunnel while my camera battery went dead (no really) so I didn’t get the cool pic of the train going into and coming out lower a short distance away. Oh yeah, we  almost hit a young black bear as he tried to cross the highway and did squish a squirrel as he tried to cross.

Happy Birthday Nick !!

Wednesday, May 11th

Are you kidding !?! Another day of driving ALL day in snowstorms! We climbed slowly to the 8,400 foot pass as we headed north through "Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area". By the time we reached the dam and bridge, the truck was iced coated. It snowed and blowed all the way to Casper, Wyoming but we made it without problems and checked into the KOA for a night into the 30's. We have a new electric space heater that decided to quit and could not find one to replace it anywhere in town cause this is summer !?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICK !! Thursday, May 12th

What a GREAT day...Nick's 25th birthday and we were in Casper where he lives to help celebrate. We met him at his work for lunch with a birthday cake and hamburgers. Later, we went to dinner at "Poor Boys" steakhouse where this photo was taken. I'm not sure from the pic who had the biggest smile all night, although I'm sure Nick had the biggest steak. It was great to see him and we had a wonderful day catching up with him and talking about his life.

We're on our way !!

We're finally on our way! We spent a 90 degree weekend in Vegas packing up and getting "Yukon" ready. We left Monday morning at 7am and by noon we were driving through Utah in a blizzard...who would've thought?!? We had lunch in the MLS at a rest stop watching it snow. We "camped" our first night in the super Walmart parking lot in Provo, Utah...not glamorous, but free. We made the first 300 miles...only about 2,600 more to go.

Day 2.....Tuesday.....May 10th

Another big test today...over the Wasatch mountains. The summit was at 9170 foot elevation...what a VIEW! It was a very slow climb pulling 5 tons but the Ford (and Lori) handled it great. We dropped into the Unitah basin in the NE corner of Utah and are living large tonight in the "Fossil RV park" in Vernal, the gateway to Dinosaur National Monument. We checked out the park but this is the only dinosaur we found.

Gotta love the sign he's holding that says "Mommy you're the best"