Mt. Rushmore

We went up to the visitors center at the base of Devils Tower right after arriving yesterday afternoon.  Since we weren't planning a long travel day today, we went up again this morning before heading out.  Again, all the pictures are RAW and consequently unpostable.

This has been our shortest travel day so far.  We reached Mt. Rushmore by early afternoon.  I thought I had seen some steep roads, but today I drove my first 10% grade.  The RV did about 20 mph all the way up.

Nicole and I went to see the big heads, and in the gift shop saw one of the original drillers doing a book signing.  Nancy stayed in the RV with Sadie.  She had been here with her folks in 1966.  Way back then, the whole placed consisted of a gravel parking lot big enough for maybe a dozen cars with a couple of those humongous coin-operated binoculars for viewing the presidents.

As you can see, they have made a few improvements since then, and by the time we got back to the RV, she had decided that maybe it was worth a quick look after all.

Day 13
Devils Tower, Wyoming to Rapid City, South Dakota

Daily Mileage:  154.4
Total Mileage:  3,309.5

Son of the Morning Star to Spielberg

Hardin is a tiny, unremarkable town.  We chose to overnight here because only 15 miles away is the Crow's Nest, a tiny, unremarkable hill where George Armstrong Custer, Son of the Morning Star to the Indians, drew his last breath.  What I hadn't anticipated was that I-90 runs right through the site which made it both sad and a bit surreal.

Custer and his men were buried where they fell.  The markers in this fenced area just below the summit of the Crow's Nest show the location of each grave.  Custer was buried where you see the black stone near the center of the picture.  The following year, 1877, the officers were moved to cemeteries elsewhere.  Custer was reburied at West Point.  The remaining soldiers and civilians are now buried around the marble monument that sits on the crest of the hill just a few feet behind where I am standing.

Just a short distance away is a memorial to the Indians who fought and died here.

Tonight we are camped at the KOA Campground where Steven Spielburg and his crew stayed when they were filming the climactic scenes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  It sits at the entrance to the Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming and we can see Devils Tower from the RV.  We got a front row seat because the campground closes for the season tomorrow and it is nearly empty.  I have a number of photos, but I shot them all in RAW format with my Big Canon because the battery in my point-and-shoot Canon died at the Little Big Horn and I haven't gotten around to converting them to JPEGs yet.

Day 12
Hardin, Montana to Devils Tower, Wyoming

Daily Mileage:  258.2
Total Mileage:  3,155.1

Lost in Billings

We took advantage of our first morning back in the Homeland to stop at Safeway and restock our larder.  Afterwards, we drove by the capital building and would have taken a picture or two but couldn't find a place to park.  On the narrow streets, we were lucky to find a place to turn the RV around.

We gassed up on the way out of town and it was mid-afternoon before we needed to fill up again.  By then we had reached Billings, Montana's largest city.  There was a gas station near the exit, but I missed the turn to get to it and continued on into the city.  Finding another station, however, took awhile, and by the time we did, we were totally lost, though it took another 5 minutes or so driving around to realize it.  We finally found a Lutheran church with an empty parking lot and pull in. The road atlas insert for Billings was the size of a post-it note and had proven useless and Google Maps seemed like our last option, if we could get an internet connection, which was no sure thing.  The search for gas has once again sent our stress levels soaring.

Suddenly, Nancy saw someone come out of the church and bolted from the RV.  She caught him just as he was getting in his pickup and asked for directions.  When he found out where we were headed, he told her to just follow him.  At the first intersection, he apparently forgot he was leading us and turned the corner on a yellow light.  The cross traffic started to move, but there was no way I was going to lose him, so I gunned the RV and ran the light.  I didn't have the luxury of a wide slow turn and the right rear wheels jumped the curb, opening cupboards and dumping a Costco size container of biscotti on Nicole's head.

He took us right through downtown Billings during the evening rush hour, but in about 15 minutes he had us back on the Interstate and on our way.

Grateful but drained, we were glad our destination for tonight was just 40 miles further down the road.

Day 11
Helena, Montana to Hardin, Montana

Daily Mileage:  299.1
Total Mileage:  2,896.9

Back in the U.S.S.A.

The wind was still blowing briskly when we turned in for the night, but this morning, all is calm.

We got an early start and about an hour later pulled off at Lethbridge to gas up.  The terrain here is heavily eroded with deep gullies.  Lethbridge, a fair sized city, sits on the flat prairie hundreds of feet above the highway which is descending a steep hill as you pass the turn off.  The exit ramp turns sharply into another gully then climbs up the side of it to the town.

I had barely left the highway when what to my wondering eyes did appear--The High Level Bridge.  Built in 1909, this railroad bridge spanning the gully ahead is, at 300 feet high and a mile long, the longest and highest bridge of its kind in the world.  I would have loved to get a picture of it, but there was no place to stop and take one.

By 11:00, we were at the border.  Not surprisingly, it was quite a bit larger than the Canadian Customs Station in Beaver Creek, but not much busier.  There were just 3 bikers ahead of us, and in about 10 minutes, we were cleared and on our way.  Perhaps in keeping with the, all-business, no-smiles atmosphere of a serious international border check point, there was no "Welcome to Montana" sign.

Montana is different from Alberta.  There is actually a small, completely isolated cluster of mountains that pop up to the east of the highway within spitting distance of the border.

We are now on I-15 headed south.  Just past Great Falls, the Interstate begins following the Missouri River upstream towards its headwaters.  Until now, I had no idea that it starts off flowing north towards Canada.  We followed it for miles and must have crossed it at least a dozen times so far.

Tonight we have reached Helena, the state capital.

Day 10
Fort Macleod, Alberta to Helena, Montana

Daily Mileage:  301.9
Total Mileage:  2,597.8

A run for the border

Americans like to think of Canada as the United States North and the folks up here as just a more polite version of us, but the truth is that Canada is a foreign country, not a carbon copy of the US.

We all needed a day off the road, but now we're eager to get back across the border as quickly as we can.

Leaving Edmonton, we are now traveling almost due south on a very good, 4-lane road.  To the west, the Rockies are still visible in the distance.  To the east, the prairie stretches to the horizon and beyond for hundreds of miles.  And there is a cross wind.  Not as bad as we experienced in the Yukon, but bad.

After Saturday's incident with the gas, our awareness level on this issue is high.  Up till now, I have been looking for a station when the tank hit 1/4.  We now want to refuel before it gets that low.  Since we have made it back to civilization, I figured our worries were over, but I was wrong.  It turns out that it's easier to find gas on the Al-Can than here where nearly 2 million people have been sucked into just two places, Edmonton and Calgary, leaving hundreds of miles of land with only a handful of farmers and no gas stations.  Still, I was not too concerned.  I'd just gas up when we reached Calgary.

Wrong again.

The highway runs along the eastern edge of Calgary, through what appears to be a commercial/industrial area, and from one end to the other there is not a single gas station, not even a single sign for a gas station.  With Calgary fading in the rear view mirror, we were in panic mode once more.  Then we caught a break.  Just a few miles out of town we found an exit with a station.

New rule:  Start looking for gas when the gauge hits 1/2!

We only made it as far as Fort Macleod today, but I can almost see Montana from here.

Day 9
Edmonton, Alberta to Fort Macleod, Alberta

Daily Mileage:  303.3
Total Mileage:  2,295.9

The little mall on the prairie

The West Edmonton Mall is a monument to consumerism.  It has 800 stores.  It is the largest mall in North America.  If the story ended there, I would not have had the slightest interest in seeing it.  But there is more.  It is also the leading tourist destination in Alberta and for me that made it worth a visit.

If you've ever been to the Mall of America in Minnesota, you should have a pretty good idea of what the mall here is like.  The same people own both.

Knowing the Minnesota mall only through the stories I've heard, I can only speculate that both malls share a lot of the same features and that here they are simply bigger and badder.  What is unique to this mall I can not say.

In addition to 2 large food courts, the Edmonton Mall features several "streets" with sit-down restaurants.

There is an amusement park with a variety of rides including at least 2 different roller coasters.

There is an ice rink, 2 miniature golf courses, a rec room, sea life shows, and a replica of Columbus's ship, the Santa Maria.

There is also a hotel in the mall and a very large aquatic park.  That last one was my personal favorite.

Day 8
Edmonton, Alberta

Daily Mileage:  21.5
Total Mileage:  1,992.6

Re-entry

Last evening was delightfully warm.  Today it's just hot--82 degrees by early afternoon as Edmonton popped into view, a cluster of tall buildings rising out of the prairie into a hazy cloud of its own pollution.  If I had a lick of sense, I would have turned around right then and there.  I didn't, of course, and a few miles later, my mobile motel room was caught up in a river of vehicles whose drivers all seemed a bit more eager than me to reach their destinations.

We decided our best bet was to drive straight to the West Edmonton Mall, find a place to park, and take a little time to get our bearings.  What could go wrong?  There would surely be lots of signs to lead us there, and the mall has 22,000 parking spaces.  It seemed like a no-brainer.

Well, let me tell you.

The closer we got to the mall, the heavier the traffic became, until it was literally bumper to bumper, and though there were plenty of signs, they were, as they always are, intended primarily for the locals who already know where they are going.  Then there was the parking spaces.  Most were in parking structures where I dared not take the RV, and all the others I could see seemed to be already full.

I started circling the mall.  I took a right turn.  I took another right turn.  I knew where I was. Then it happened.  As we entered Edmonton, Nancy had asked how we were doing for gas.  It was low, but not critically so, and I had said something I though meant that.  What she heard, however, was "We're running on fumes."  So right in the midst of my attempted circumnavigation of the mall, she panicked and insisted we find a gas station.  I stopped my circumnavigating and was instantly lost.

After 20 minutes or so of aimless wandering, we finally found gas, then a quiet spot in a much smaller mall, and Nicole used the WiFi from a nearby restaurant to pull up Googe Maps and figure out where were and how to get from there to the RV park.  It was only then that we realized we had tried to go to the mall on a Saturday afternoon!

Another 20 minutes and we were camped for the night, at last.

Day 7
Valleyview, Alberta to Edmonton, Alberta

Daily mileage:  226.3
Total Mileage:  1,971.1

The end of the Al-Can

It was a long, cold night.  We were up and on the road at first light.  When we stopped for breakfast, I snapped this picture of the RV.  Poor baby needs a bath!

At 9:45, we finally reached Dawson Creek, the end of the Al-Can and the beginning of the Canadian prairie.  An hour later, we crossed from British Columbia into Alberta and entered the Mountain Time Zone.

A couple of hours later at the town of Wembley, the highway turned from southeast to east and became 4-lanes.  This may not seem like such a big deal, but it is the first time I have driven on a 4-lane road since 35 miles out of Anchorage on the first day of the trip.

For the rest of the day, it was cruise control and easy sailing.

We stopped for the night in Valleyview.  There actually is no valley or view, but it's our first warm evening, our laundry is caught up, and we've all just had our first showers in 6 days, so not much else matters.

Day 6
Historical Milepost 114, British Columbia to Valleyview, Alberta

Daily Mileage:  266.6
Total Mileage:  1,744.8

The longest day

This was our first night without water and sewer hookups and we woke to find the black water tank full and the fresh water tank empty.  Fortunately, I was able to get water out of a hose at the gas station and the park had a drive up dump site so I could empty the waste water.

Once on the road, we began to see bison almost immediately, and it was not long before we passed a  herd of several hundred, grazing on both sides of the highway.  After that, we never saw more than one or two at a time, but we did see quite a few stone sheep and caribou, often on the roadway.  This stretch of the Al-Can winds through mountains which limits tops speeds to the 30 to 40 mph range and makes it easier to avoid hitting any of the critters.

In the midst of the mountains lies Muncho Lake.  Your first sight of it comes at a pull-out at the north end of the lake.

Northern Rockies Lodge

About halfway down the lake is a hotel that is open year-round.  The lady who owns the Coal River Lodge warned us to avoid getting gas there on our return trip as their prices are painfully high.  It is a lovely place, nonetheless.

From the southern end of the lake, the road climbs back into the mountains.  At the top of the pass lies Summit Lake.  It is not as large, nor as picturesque as Muncho.  I got out to shoot some pictures anyway, but the wind was so strong that I couldn't hold the camera steady without sitting down and it made my eyes water so badly I could barely see.  Needless to say, none of the shots were worth posting.

Descending from the pass, we reached Fort Nelson, the last significant town before we get to Dawson Creek at the end of the Al-Can.  It is located on one of the rare, flat places in this otherwise rugged country and people actually farm here. As we approached, we saw our first cows of the trip.  We also saw our first police vehicle of any description.

We had our dinner at the Buckinghorse River Lodge.  The proprietor, a somewhat overweight, 50ish fellow with a full blond beard who seemed to carry all his extra weight in front between his chest and and his belt, was our waiter.  Perhaps in keeping with the bucking horse theme, he favored western attire--straw cowboy hat, western shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots.  He also carried a small calibre handgun in a holster on his belt just above his rear pocket.  He didn't smile much, but the food was excellent.

Nancy is the navigator and she picked the RV park at Pink Mountain as our stop for tonight.  Although it made for a longer day on the road, it seemed like our best bet as the 300 miles from Fort Nelson to Dawson Creek are very sparsely populated, even by Al-Can standards.  We finally got there as it was getting dark only to be told they had no spots big enough for a 29 foot RV.  The lady at the check in desk let us know that there was a rest area only 60 more miles down the road where we can camp for the night.  Did I mention that it was already getting dark.  I was not thrilled.  Luckily, she was mistaken; the rest area was only 30 miles down the road.

When we finally got here, it was pretty dark.  The only marker, a sign with a picture of a trash can (the sole amenity) on it was nearly invisible in the head lights.  Despite focusing all her attention on spotting it, Nancy missed it.  Fortunately, Nicole managed to spot it.

This is called cold camping, and it's another first for us.  Cold camping relies heavily on the use of your on-board generator which runs off the same fuel as the RV engine, and we had no idea how much of a gas hog it was, so rather than wake up in the morning with an empty gas tank, we chose to just turn off everything and turn in early.

Day 5
Coal River, British Columbia to Historical Milepost 114, British Columbia

Daily Mileage:  396.1
Total Mileage:  1,478.2

A day of surprises

Another early start with clouds and rain dogging us all morning.  From Whitehorse to Teslin, the road threads its way through a series of mountain ranges, heading first southeast, then northeast, then southeast once more.  From there to the town of Watson Lake, the terrain forces the road down into British Columbia once, but for the most part it heads east.

At noon, somewhere west of Watson Lake, we pulled off at a rest area to make lunch and stopped in front of a set of roadside informational signs.  It was raining lightly, so we just looked out the window to read them and discovered to our delight that we were parked right on the Continental Divide.

As soon as we started down the other side, the weather turned beautiful and sunny.

At Watson Lake, we stopped for gas and got our second surprise of the day--the Sign Post Forest. It contains hundreds of signs of all kinds, and it was hard to do it justice in just a few photos, but I gave it a try.

Beyond Watson Lake, the road continues eastward, dipping into British Columbia 5 more times before finally turning south into BC for good.  Somewhere in this stretch, we spotted a wild stallion, a splendid looking animal, on the shoulder of the road.  As we slowed to pass, he never moved at all, and we could see that he was standing guard over a small herd that was grazing in the low ground next to the highway.

By this time, we were about out of steam and had selected Coal River as our stopping point. The Milepost map shows it as a dot where the Alcan crosses Coal River.  It turns out there is nothing there but a small cluster of buildings known collectively as the Coal River Lodge.

The Lodge sits on the far side of the river and as we slowed to cross the narrow bridge, we were amazed to see this bison at the edge of the road, scratching himself on a pole.

Our first bison.

The Lodge consists of a gas station, motel/restaurant, a small home, and an RV park.  They have mostly shut down the park for the season and the only hookup still in service is the electric, but we were hungry and tired and that sounded just fine.  We parked then went straight to the restaurant for dinner.  We had just barely ordered when an employee came in and told us there was a bison in the parking lot.

Of course, we all ran out to see.   The parking lot is gravel with a number of sizable mud puddles, and the bison stopped at every one and took a drink.  He then began to use a tree as his scratching post. Fortunately, I have started carrying my point-and-shoot camera with me everywhere.

These are most likely the same animal.

By the time I had finished taking pictures, our food was ready.  Ironically, I had ordered a bison burger (I had never had bison before), and the photo below was taken within minutes of the photo above.

Day 4
Whitehorse, Yukon Territory to Coal River, British Columbia

Daily Mileage:  362.5
Total Mileage:  1,082.1

It only seemed like a hurricane

Yesterday we had high solid cloud cover with no sun visible all day.  Today is much the same with an added hint of rain.  According to The Milepost, the ultimate guide book for road warriors in Alaska and western Canada, the next 105 miles of highway are in rough shape. Still we are starting to get our act together, and by 8:00, I was on the road in high spirits.

Yesterday's journey had gotten us around the Wrangell Mountains at the northern end of the St. Elias Range.  Today, we are headed southeast down a long valley with the St. Elias Range to the west and the Dawson Range to the east.  After the stretch of washboard road we hit right after entering Canada yesterday, all my attention this morning was focused on the state of the highway, but soon the wind began to insert itself into my consciousness.  At first, it was just an annoyance, but the gusts grew increasing strong, then merged together into an incessant howling roar, and it became my whole world.  The winding two lane road we were on was an endless series of frost heaves and rough asphalt patches with numerous dusty stretches, some fairly long, that were just gravel.  Staying on my own side of the road required a white knuckle death grip on the wheel.  After 105 miles, the road conditions did improve, somewhat, but the wind barely let up and it began to rain lightly.  Finally, as we approached Haines Junction at the end of the valley, the wind died away and the day turned sunny and calm.  By then it was lunch time, so we took a couple of hours off to eat and rest up.

In the parking lot of the Kluane (pron. Clue ah knee) Visitor Center in Haines Junction with the St. Elias Mts. in the background.

The afternoon run from Haines Junction to Whitehorse couldn't have been more different. This stretch of highway heads almost due east through county that is nearly flat and so boring I found it hard to stay awake.

We reached Whitehorse, the Yukon Territory capital, about 4:30 and started looking for an RV Park.  We thought there were several good ones to pick from, but since it is now the end of the season, many are closed.  We finally got lucky on our third try, but they have already shut off the water to the showers and laundry as they, too, will be closing at the end of the month.  The uncertainty of finding a place to stay at the end of a hard day on the road has proven a bit stressful and left us all a bit frazzled.

Day 3
Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory

Daily Mileage:  286.3
Total Mileage:  719.6

Oh, Canada!

When it comes to the RV, I'm like a first-time father who's reluctant to even pick up his newborn for fear of breaking it.  Don't use anything until we absolutely have to--that's my motto.  As a consequence, we tucked in for the night without turning on the furnace.  We assumed, quite wrongly as it turns out, that we had more than enough blankets to keep us warm.  Finally, about 4:00, Nicole decided to take matters into her own hands and turned the furnace on.  In the dark, however, she was unaware that the thermostat was set at 55, so we still had no heat until after we got up this morning and discovered her mistake.  Amazingly, I started feeling warmer anyway as soon as I thought she had turned it on.  Ah, the power of the mind!

We naively thought that we would just pop out of bed this morning, make a cup of coffee, and be on our way.  We discovered instead that we were so disorganized that everything, even making coffee, seemed to take forever.  And then there was the waste water dumping, another one of those things I had put off for as long as possible.  In truth, it is a rather simple procedure, but, for obvious reasons, one you never want to screw up, so Nancy and I took extra care.  The hose was brand new, still in the box, so we had to unpack it, read the instructions, assemble the parts, read the instructions, hook it up, read the instructions, re-read the instructions, then open the valves and drain the black water and gray water tanks. Much to my relief, it worked just as advertised, but by the time we had unhooked the hose and stowed it away, the whole thing had taken a good half an hour.  By the time we were finally ready to pull out, it was already 10:30, just like yesterday.

For the last 50 or 60 miles coming into town yesterday we were traveling almost due east, but just beyond Glennallen, the Wrangell Mountains rise abruptly and block further progress in that direction, so we are now forced to turn almost due north.  After about 15 miles, we alter course again, this time to the northeast, and by 2:00 we reached Tok, yesterday's intended destination and the northern most point on our trip south.

A left turn onto the Al-Can and a 94 mile run to the southeast brought us to the border. We had to stop for the obligatory "here we are at the border" photos then entered Canada in high spirits.  Our elation barely lasted a mile, however.  The pavement disappeared and the road became a washboardy dirt nightmare that was nearly undriveable.  The speed limit sign said 40 kph (25 mph) but even at 10 mph, it felt like the RV was going to be shaken to pieces.  Fortunately, the solid pavement returned after only a few miles.

About 20 miles into Canada, we stopped for the night at Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory, where the Canadian Custom Station is located.  Our inspection was perfunctory.  We stopped at the drive-up window.  We handed over our passports, the Custom Agent inside asked half a dozen questions, wished us a safe trip and sent us on our way.  I wish it was that simple catching a flight.

Day 2
Glennallen, Alaska - Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory

Daily Mileage:  248.3
Total Mileage:  433.3

On the road, at last

We were up and packing again before dawn.  It took 4 more hours to finish, but finally, at 10:30, we were on the road.

Lately, most of our days have been overcast and drizzly, but today it was all blue skies, white clouds, and sunshine.  Most auspicious.

About an hour out of town, the highway begins to follow the Matanuska River through the narrow winding valley that separates the Chugach from the Talkeetna Mountains.  Much to our delight, the autumn foliage there is at its peak.

Roadside view of Matanuska River valley

The autumn color of Alaskan forests, as is the case with most of the western forests I've seen, is yellow, and I confess I've always found them lacking, having spent my first 11 autumns surrounded by the reds and oranges of New England, but today I was truly wowed. The leaves seen against the bright blue sky looked like gold set on fire.

We hoped to get much farther, but due to our late start, we have only made it as far as Glennallen.  We are at an RV park that has only 10 sites and is not full.  We have water, electric, and sewer hook up but absolutely nothing else. Luckily, we have not been at this long enough to even know what's missing.

Day 1
Anchorage, Alaska - Glennallen, Alaska

Daily Mileage:  185

Total Mileage:  185

Packing

Our time estimate was just a little off.  We packed all day.  We did not get it all done.  Once again I am too tired to see straight.  The plan is to leave tomorrow.

Let's go shopping

Nancy and I were too excited to stay in bed past 5:30.  She thought we could get our last minute shopping done before picking up the RV and still have enough time afterwards to get it loaded for an early start in the morning.  The first item on our to-do list was to get a health certificate for Sadie (a requirement for getting her into Canada), so at 6:45, we were at the 24-hour vet clinic.  By the time we got the call to come get the RV, around 11:00, we had barely made a dent in our shopping list.  By the end of the day, we have been to 18 stores, some in multiple locations.

I am dead on my feet and we haven't begun to pack.  The plan now is to do that in the morning, hopefully in a couple of hours or so, and then hit the road.

Congratulations, you are now the proud owner of . . .

a 29 foot 2006 Gulf Stream Yellowstone motorhome.  After waiting semi-patiently all summer, the big moment finally arrived this morning.  This RV is both older and longer than we were looking for, but, happily, it is also quite a bit cheaper than anything else we have seen.  We went to pick it up this afternoon, only to find that we can't take delivery until sometime tomorrow.  The dealer hadn't realized until the last minute that it has seasonal license plates (good only from May to November) and it will take until sometime tomorrow to get regular plates put on.