Month: September 2017

Hello again everybody!

As I’m sitting here thinking about what to write in this post, I can’t belive we are already done with our time in Alaska, driven back down the Alcan and the Cassiar highways, and have already been in Washington 2 weeks.  How time flies!  Today is the last day of September…how did that happen???

We truly loved our time in Alaska and also the drive to and from there.  It all was an experience we will always remember.  Even though the weather was not great, especially the last few weeks, it was spectacularly beautiful and unlike anywhere else we have been.  We try to capture it in our pictures, but I know they do not begin to convey the vastness and beauty we experienced.  The hiking we did there was exhilarating…I imagine all our pictures (and there’s more in the links below!) of mountains, hiking trails, and glaciers must look a lot alike.  “Oh, there’s another giant mountain with glaciers on it they are hiking again…”  but it does not feel that way when we are hiking.  Each hike and trail has it’s own unique beauty and our experiences on each hike were all different.  We did 2 hikes twice – Portage Pass (Whittier) and Mt. Marathon (Seward), taking visitors back to favorite hikes.   I think the hiking, challenging ourselves and experiencing the vast outdoors was good for our souls.  It makes us happy 🙂

We retraced some of the Alcan highway on our way out, then picked up the Cassiar highway, a 450 mile long stretch of road that goes further west than the Alcan.  It took us down near the southeast Alaskan panhandle, where Jueanu, Ketchikan, Sitka and the inside passage are, where a lot of cruise ships go.  There are no roads into those areas, only boats and planes can take you there, so we did not get to see that part of the state.  We did stop in Stewart, BC, which shares the boarder with Hyder, Alaska and there’s one road that you can take into Hyder.  They both are very small towns, surrounded by mountains, waterfalls and glaciers.  Hyder Alaska is on the Prince William Sound, on the opposite side of  the sound from Whittier.

We met a nice couple, Vince and Vickie, who are from Louisiana, at one of the campgrounds along the Alcan.  We traveled with them for a couple of days, and they joined us in Stewart/Hyder.  We had fun going to see Salmon Glacier together and also watching for bears at the river where they come to feed on salmon before hibernating for the winter.  Salmon Glacier was at the end of a VERY rough, pot hole filled, gravel road, about 12 or 15 miles long.  It took us over an hour (each way) to drive those 12 or 15 miles to get to the glacier.  But wow!  The biggest glacier we saw on the entire trip, other than the one we landed on in the helicopter.  It was amazing.  Lots of pictures in the attached link.   We saw LOTS of bears while in Stewart/Hyder also.  One in the RV camp, right by our RV, 2 or 3 in town on the streets in the evening, and 2 at the bear viewing area I mentioned above.  They all were black bears.

Choosing Alaska as our first destination on this journey was ideal for us.  It pushed us to figure out the whole RV thing.  We are still learning, but boy do we know so much more now than we did at the beginning of this trip!  It also took us to a whole new environment to explore together and that is good.

I’ve put together several albums of pictures from our last days in Alaska as well  as driving along the Alcan and Cassiar highways.  Hope you enjoy!

On the road again:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pknoM4F3tXVoUjR8Y

Salmon Glacier:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pkxa7KFeg4ADNIX8_

Stewart BC/Hyder Alaska:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pkzLGKFgC_-C6AIGF

Crow Pass hike:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pk1wWBGX2CjUlwIlK

Turnagain Arm Drive and Portage RV Park:  we stayed at this RV park twice, for about 3 – 4 weeks total, it is near Girdwood.  We were here for both Bill’s and Samantha’s visits.  We loved this RV park, we had fantastic views right our our door, and it was close to Whittier, Girdwood and only a little over an hour to Anchorage.  We drove the Turnagain Arm each time we went to Anchorage or Girdwood, which was dozens of times.  The Turnagain Arm goes along the Cook Inlet.  It was one of the most beautiful drives we have done on this trip and we stopped many times at the turnouts along the road to take pictures.  Here’s a round up of pictures from that drive and RV park:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0plFbuzrTXneTOLmm0

Hello!  I wanted to provide a quick update on our travels – we decided to skip Vancouver, BC.  After a careful look at the map and talking to fellow travelers, it seemed too difficult with the RV.  It’s a big city, and we would have to stay about 45 minutes – 1 hour outside the city to avoid driving the RV into heavy traffic and potentially difficult roads with such a big rig.  We could have taken a day trip with just the truck into the city, but in the end we decided to skip it.

So we crossed the boarder late yesterday afternoon into Washington.  We are parked at a lovely RV park in Ferndale, WA, which is near Bellingham.  We’re off today to a hike at Mt. Baker, we have a ferry trip to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island planned for Sunday, and we’re getting the oil changed and tires rotated on the truck Saturday in Bellingham.  So excited to get a good hike in today – we all need it, especially Gerry!!  He had a doggy daycare day a few days ago while we were in the Prince George area, which tired him out a bit, but these days he is always full of energy!

I still have at least 1 or 2 posts to do from our last stops in Alaska (lots of bears and a huge glacier!), so stay tuned.  Hoping to get that done in the next few days.  In the meantime, it feels good to be in the lower 48 again, the sun is shining, Mt. Baker looks beautiful and we can’t wait to hike it today!

Howdy!  Guy came to visit at the end of August and we had a great visit in spite of rain every day.  We moved to Valdez, Alaska, after Samantha and her friends left.  We made the drive in 2 days, it was about 7 hours all together.  We stayed at Bayside RV park, right in town and next to the boat harbor.  Valdez is a beautiful area, surrounded by mountains, glaciers and lots of waterfalls, and is on Prince William Sound.  I’m sure it is even more beautiful when it’s not raining…but I couldn’t tell you since it rained every single day we were there.  Steve and I finally bought rain boots, we couldn’t walk Gerry or go outside without getting our feet soaked.  The RV park was busy with a lot of Alaskans there to fish the Silver Salmon and fill their freezers.  Many of the campers had full size deep freezers sitting in their camp, they would fish all day every day, filling their freezer for the year.  Some were also fishing for shrimp and I’m sure other creatures as well….we were one of the few RVs that didn’t have Alaska tags.  The tourists are all leaving quickly  before weather becomes an issue.

We didn’t let the weather dampen our fun (pun intended 🙂 )  We did several hikes, and Steve and Guy went on a Salmon fishing charter.  We had booked a Halibut fishing trip, but it was cancelled twice due to high seas.  So they did the Salmon trip instead, which only goes out about 14 miles into the ocean, vs. the Halibut trip that went 50 – 70 miles into the ocean.  They each caught the daily limit of 6 fish, so we had plenty of Salmon for dinner and to ship home.  They saw sea lions, porpoise, seals, sea otters and eagles and also a spectacular rainbow came out while they were on the boat.  On one hike, a black bear came onto the trail, about 100 yards in front of us.  He looked at us and then went into the woods.  We were glad he wasn’t any closer!

We also did a great helicoptor tour of the mountains and glaciers.  We saw seals from the air, laying on huge chunks of ice floating in the ocean.  We landed twice on the tour – once on a beach that had lots of ice on it from nearby glaciers, and then we landed on a giant glacier named Shoup Glacier.  It was absolutely amazing.  The pictures do not begin to capture the vast landscape we saw.  None of us had ever been in a helicopter before and it is amazing what you can see when riding in one.  We have seen a number of glaciers on our trip so far, but what we see from the road or from a hiking trail is nothing compared to what they look like when you go way up and back into the mountains and land on top of one.  An experience we will not forget.

You’ll be happy to know we continued our bakery quest while in Valdez…. and I can report we found a great bakery right on the harbor front, in a converted 1950s camper.  Super cute and very good.  We went every day we were there.  Guy declared the breakfast croissant with ham and the blueberry scones “one of the best things I have ever eaten!”  The very nice young lady who was the owner even baked us 2 loves of bread – multigrain and a beautiful round loaf of rye.  We had asked about bread, she said she was done making it for the season, since she was closing in a few days.  Then she said she’d make some just for us – it was delicious!

We cooked tons of seafood while Guy was here – crab legs, scallops, shrimp, salmon, halibut.  Now you know why we hike even in the rain….we have to work off all the bakery goods, delicious dinners and ice cream!  We didn’t find any great ice cream shops in Valdez, but the grocery had  plenty!

Sharing a part of this adventure with Guy was great.  No one is prepared for how big and beautiful Alaska is, and I think Guy really enjoyed exploring a little bit of it.  He’s the last of our visitors for the summer – it was so nice having everyone – we are loving our RV lifestyle and are so thankful to be able to do this, but we do miss family and friends.  Visitors help bridge the gap a bit.

Guy, we love you and are so proud of you and the happy, healthy life you are living in Minnesota.  Thank you for coming to visit and sharing this experience with us.  Life is good.

Pictures at these links:

Hiking:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pkkIi-rWnzsvAFatq

Helicopter:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pkheVp9beEjy7lnJd

Salmon Fishing:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pkiPmWB61Ys8oyjZw

Valdez:  https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pklLl_bjzOJlcdG_Z

 

Hi Everyone – just wanted to let you know, I hope to get a post up soon that will have an update about Guy’s visit and lots of photos.  We’re currently traveling south through Canada again, heading for Vancouver.  Once we reach Vancouver we’re going to decide where to go from there.  We may spend some time in the Washington/Oregon area, depending on weather and fires affecting the area.  Otherwise, we may spend time in Idaho and maybe Montana if we can catch our friends Don and Patty there before they head back east too.  These are the big decisions we face these days….not a bad life!! 🙂

We just stayed in Stewart, BC, which is on the Canadian boarder with Hyder, Alaska.  Hyder is in the Alaskan panhandle, in the southeast of the state.  We drove over to Hyder yesterday to do some sightseeing.  This area is known for bears, and we have seen several black bears in the last couple of days, including one in the RV park yesterday morning, about 50 yards away from our RV!  And kids out riding bikes right by it!!!

All is well, it is still raining a lot and internet and cell is very spotty and weak when we do get it.

Go Buckeyes!