Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Quick Impressions at the Half-Way Point

Denali National Park
As I write this, we are sitting in our trailer in Seldotna, Alaska (on the Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage). Because of its relatively moderate climate for Alaska (it rarely gets below -10 degrees Farenheit here) and its abundance of retirees it is considered by some to be the "Florida" of Alaska.

Campsite near Whitecourt, Alberta, Canada
This is roughly the half-way point of our trip. Bronwyn is working on detailed blog entries about each part of the trip so far, but her ability to upload pictures and post the detailed blog entries has been limited the limited availability of internet at our campsites and the limited bandwidth where we have had internet access. Thus, I've decided to provide a quick summary of our trip so far. Joan (who prefers to be called Joanie) has also created her own blog about the trip at http://joaniegaskins12.blogspot.com/.

June 1 - We got up early to fly from Amsterdam to Iceland to Washington, D.C., where we rented a car and drove to Annapolis, Maryland to visit the grandkids (William and Ruth) and also spend some time with their parents (Helen and Thompson Graves).  Mostly we slept.

William and Ruth give a puppet show
June 3 - We drove from Annapolis, MD to Mooresville, NC.  We could not stay at our home in Charlotte because our house is rented until July 30. The original plan was to stay at our lake house, but the house was empty because we moved all of the furniture out so that the house could be gutted while we were in France. (The lake house is still small and simple, but at least the roof doesn't leak any more and mildewed ceiling tiles are not falling out of the ceiling.)

June 4-11 - We spent an exhausting week moving furniture, making the lake house semi-habitable, preparing the truck and trailer for the trip to Alaska, and dealing with various other loose ends. On the eve of our departure, the electric trailer jack froze up and a window broke, which necessitated two emergency repairs. We found a replacement jack (which we purchased two minutes before the RV dealer closed for the weekend), but the replacement window had to be ordered from the Airstream factory so Rick (with the help of a neighbor who had access to a race car shop) fabricated substitute window out of Lexan.

Rick, Frankie (the dog), Joanie and Bronwyn
ready to hit the road (note the clean truck and trailer)
June 12 - After completing the repairs and hastily throwing the last few things in the trailer, we departed for Alaska.  Our first stop was a pleasant RV park outside of Nashville, TN.

June 13-16 - We raced across the United States to Pocatello, Idaho via Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Wyoming and southern Idaho.  Along the way we stopped at the Apple Valley Hillbilly Garden and Toyland (an off the beaten path of Americana that definitely can be missed), the Bailey Yard (one of the largest railcar sorting yards in the world) and the Soda Springs Geyser, but mostly we were just trying to get to my counsin's house in Pocatello where we were picking up her daughter (Alli), who is the same age as Joanie. For the first two days, the heat and humidity were oppressive and I was wondering why I had packed long-sleeved shirts. In Wyoming we hit ferocious 35 mph headwinds that knocked 4 mpg off of our already dreadful gas mileage. We also started seeing wildlife, including a couple of bears and lots of antelope. In Pocatello, we picked up Alli Gunter, who is Joanie's second cousin and the same age as Joanie.  Alli would be accompanying us for two weeks until Anchorage, AK.

Milepost Zero of the Alaskan Highway
June 18-20 - After a day of rest and relaxation with family in Pocatello, we headed north to the Alaska Highway, which begins in Dawson Creek, British Columbia. By the time we reached northern Montana, I was glad that I packed those long-sleeved shirts. We even picked up a tailwind as we entered Alberta. Our gas mileage exceeded 10 mpg as we paralleled the Rocky Mountains through the plains of Alberta, but quickly dropped as we began making our way through the Rocky Mountains into British Columbia. Joanie and Alli spent most of the time giggling in the back seat. In Dawson Creek, BC, we visited museum about the construction of the Alaska Highway (amazing) and had our pictures taken in front of Milepost zero, the official start of the Alaska Highway.





Liard Hot Springs
We spent the evening of June 20 at Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park. The hot springs were a welcome relief after a week on the road. After soaking in the hot springs, we barely noticed the bad storm that passed through the campground during the night. We later learned that the storm washed out the road near Dawson Creek so we were fortunate to sneak through before the road was closed.

Signpost forest in Watson Lake, BC
June 21-24 - As we winded our way through the mountains along the Alaskan Highway we were generally impressed by the better-than-expected condition of the road although there were occasional frost heaves, intermittent sections of gravel and frequent waits for road construction. We were also excited to start seeing more and more wildlife, including bears, caribou, and something that was either a large fox or perhaps a wolf.

Joanie panning for gold on Eldarado Creek
We turned off of the Alaskan Highway shortly after Whitehorse,YT and headed north to Dawson City, YT - the epicenter of one of the biggest the Klondike Gold Rush. We camped for two nights outside of Dawson City on Bonanza Creek, where the richest gold deposits were found. Joanie and Alli tried panning for gold, but they only found a few flakes of gold (not enough to pay for the gas, as I had hoped). One of the surprising things about Dawson City was that there were active small mining operations on almost every creek in the area. I had expected Dawson Creek to be a tourist town with museums about mining, but it was an active, gritty mining town with a tourist veneer.

On the road to Dawson City we started seeing more and more vehicles on the side of the road with flat tires and at the campground we started hearing horror stories from the people who had just traveled the route that we planned to travel after Dawson City. The owner of the trailer next to us had seven flat tires and a broken axle in one day. We kept our fingers crossed that we would not be the next casualty.


Paddle wheeler graveyard on the Yukon River near Dawson City
June 25 - Although we had heard horror stories about the drive from Dawson City, YT to Chicken, AK, we decided that we would make the drive as slowly and carefully as possible rather than backtracking for hundreds of miles over roads that were only slightly better. The drive began by crossing the fast-moving Yukon River on a vessel that looked more like a World War II landing craft than a ferry. The "ferry" could handle two RVs at a time and it deposited us on a freshly graded bank of gravel where a bulldozer was waiting to help drag us up the bank if we could not make it on our own. The first part of the drive to the U.S. border was steep and narrow in spots, but paved. After that, things began to deteriorate. Within the first two miles of entering the United States, the trailer in front of us hit a frost heave and broke an axle on what was supposed to be the best section of the road. The guidebooks described the next two sections of the road, which were narrow and unpaved, as poor and worse than poor with eroded edges, no guardrails and thousand foot drops. The guidebook advised anybody with a fear of heights not to sit on the right side of the vehicle.

Moon Lake where moose frolicked outside our trailer
while we were sleeping
After taking four hours to drive 109 miles, the four or five buildings of Chicken, Alaska were a welcome sight. Thankfully, after Chicken, AK the road started getting better although you still had to keep a watchful eye for frost heaves and potholes. By the time we returned to the Alaska Highway near Tok, the Alaska Highway seemed like a pretty good road. We spent the night camped beside a small lake (Moon Lake) near Tok, Alaska. I was exhausted from the drive and slept soundly. The next morning we learned that fellow campers had observed a mother moose and her calf swimming and feeding in the lake near our trailer during the evening after we had fallen asleep.

End of the Alaskan Highway in Delta Junction, AK
June 26-28 - We spent the next three nights camped near Fairbanks, Alaska. While we were in Fairbanks, we took a paddle wheel cruise down the river, visited a recreation of a Athabaskan village, and checked our various other attractions. Mostly, we rested and went shopping to get ready for two nights of primitive camping in Denali National Park.

June 29-31 - After a beautiful 3-hour drive from Fairbanks to Denali National Park, I was excited to see the campsite that I had to reserve six months earlier. I had chosen the campground because it was supposed to have a view of Mt. McKinley (the official name of the mountain also known as Denali) when the clouds parted momentarily to permit a view, and lots of hiking trails. Upon arrival we were informed that the campground had been closed to all but hard-sided campers and most of the trails had been closed due to an aggressive bear in the area. A hiker had thrown a backpack loaded with candy bars and soda at the bear as an attempt at self-defense so the bear now associated backpacks with food. The original plan was to reeducate the bear by planting daypacks and pelting the bear with rubber bullets and beanbags whenever it touched a backpack so that the bear would associate backpacks with pain rather than food. We never saw the bear, but apparently it mauled somebody near the campground the day before we left so they decided to trap and kill the bear instead of reeducating the bear.

Fox on the hunt in Denali National Park
During our time at Denali we had a few breaks in the clouds where we thought that we saw the top of Mt. McKinley, but we were never quite sure. Regardless of whether we actually saw the top of Mt. McKinley, the best part about Denali was the wildlife. We saw lots of moose, hundreds of caribou, two foxes, several grizzly bears (from a safe distance),

I had been worried that two nights at a primitive, somewhat isolated, campground would be difficult but I think that we were all reluctant to leave Denali.

July 1-3 - We drove from Denali National Park to Anchorage on July 1, and stayed at an RV park near downtown Anchorage for the next two nights. Between the midnight sun and the train horns, it was not easy to sleep, but it was nice to do some laundry and have a sewer hook-up. Bronwyn and I also snuck out for dinner with just the two of us while the girls had a movie night in the trailer.

Bronwyn at Spencer Glacier
On July 2, we walked over to the Alaskan Railroad depot and caught a train to the Spencer Glacier whistle stop, where a Forest Service guide led us on a hike to base of Spencer Glacier. Along the way, we passed numerous other glaciers and lots of wildlife. It was a long day, but very enjoyable. The next morning, we got up at 3:15 a.m. in order to get Alli to the airport. She was flying to Portland, Oregon to join a family reunion. Joanie was particularly sad to see her contemporary depart. For the rest of the trip she would not have anyone her own age to giggle with in the back seat.

Bronwyn tries out a new gadget
for zapping mosquitoes


Mosquitoes are certainly present in Alaska, but not as bad
as we expected.

Friday, June 17, 2016

Idaho or bust!

Left Rock Springs at 9:39 am

This morning was beautiful at the Sweetwater Fairgrounds.  The sun was shining and the winds had died down, so we decided to cook breakfast out on the camp stove.


My cowboy cooking breakfast


This was a relatively short day for us.  We were headed to Pocatello, Idaho to spend some time with family, and to pick up cousin Alli who will be joining us for the next two weeks.  Alli and Joanie are the same age, so we thought it would be fun if Alli could join us for part of the Alaska adventure.

In addition to the excitement of seeing family, it will be nice to stay in one place for more than one night!  We have been pushing hard to get here since leaving Charlotte, and after all the other travel, I am pretty worn out. 

We had two MUST stops today.....Little America, WY and Soda Springs, ID.

Little America is what Wall Drug is to South Dakota and South of the Border is to South Carolina.  You see the signs hundreds of miles before you actually get there.  We have special memories of Little America, as this is where we learned that we had shredded a tire on our Great Southwest Adventure five years earlier.  We were hoping not to have a repeat performance.  Another thing that is sort of a family tradition is to take a photo of family members on the Sinclair Oil dinosaur.  I am not sure why this is a tradition, but it is.  So, Joanie and Frankie obliged, and here you are....

Joanie and Frankie in Little America, Wyoming

Soda Springs is the other obligatory stop.  The geyser at Soda Springs is on a timer, so you can plan your day around seeing it.  It goes off every hour on the hour.  For us, it was a good time to have a picnic lunch and stretch our legs.


Soda Springs is also on the Oregon Trail.  

In the past, we have stopped at the Oregon Trail museum in  town, but we decided to skip it this trip.  We were too excited to get to Pocatello!

When we arrived in Pocatello, Heather and Joe were still at work.  Alli was there to greet us, along with Diana, Bob and Jim.  So wonderful to see our family that we have not seen in a couple of years.

Diana prepared a wonderful summer meal with two of my favourite food items.....barbeque ribs and corn on the cob!

Joanie and Alli shucking the corn
Life is good!


Arrived Pocatello at 3:30pm
Mileage = 266.1

Thursday, June 16, 2016

America the Beautiful

Today started with a quick stop at Dunkin' Donuts....for Joanie, of course!  I felt obligated to help eat a portion of the 1/2 dozen....fortunately there happened to be sour cream doughnuts in the box!

After that All-American meal, we headed to the Golden Spike Tower and Bailey Yard....the largest rail car sorting yard in the United States...if not the world.

Joanie in front of a Union Pacific rail car


Just part of Bailey Yard


The Golden Spike

Fascinating to watch all the activity....especially the hump yards where the rail cars are sorted and moved to tracks for their outbound destinations.  There was a docent at the top of the tower who was happy to answer any and all questions.  I am glad we stopped.....it was very interesting.
It is nice when we have one interesting stop on these long days of driving.

We headed out of town, caught I-80, and continued our journey west toward Wyoming.
While Nebraska is a fairly flat state, the terrain starts to change as one approaches the Wyoming border.  The high desert is a lot scrubber and rocky, with views of the snow capped mountains on the horizon.  We also saw a change in the wildlife.....fewer deer and more prairie dogs and antelope.

I drove the first half of the day, which I realized was a good thing when the winds picked up once we hit Laramie, Wyoming.  It is a little scary pulling a trailer when the wind is gusting.  And in Wyoming, those conditions are pretty typical.  Rick handled it like a champ, and we arrived safely at our destination.  It was so windy, we had to really hold on to the door of the Airstream when we opened and closed it, for fear that it might get torn off its hinges.  It was a lot cooler in Rock Springs too.....84 degrees, probably 75 if you factor in wind chill....a pleasant change from the heat we had experienced since leaving North Carolina.

The campground was pretty desolate, as it is used mainly for the county fair in August.  The spaces that they rent out to campers are in the livestock holding area.  Taking this into consideration, one might think that this area could be pretty disgusting, but it really was not bad.  Although the area is all gravel and treeless, it had electricity, water and sewer.  That's all it takes to make this girl happy!  Frankie enjoyed this campground too!  He loved being free of his car seat in the truck and running free in the little grass that existed in front of the main entrance to the fairgrounds.

Looking forward to seeing family tomorrow in Pocatello, Idaho.

Left Holiday RV Park at 9:15am
Arrived Sweetwater Fairgrounds at 6:00pm
Mileage = 486.9 miles

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Missouri and Nebraska are really wide

We spent today in the car.  For what seemed like a long time.  We drove from Danville, MO to North Platte, NE.  Nothing really exciting happened...although I did think we had a flat tire when we were driving on NE-2 upon entering Nebraska.  Turns out, the road could use repaving.

Left Lazy Day Czmpground at 9:30am
Arrived Holiday RV Park near North Platte, NE AT 8:15pm
Mileage = 581.9 miles

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Saint Louis bound.....

We were hoping to drive about 400 miles today.....with The Lazy Day Campground as our destination for the evening.

The highlight of the day was our midday stop at Apple Valley Hillbilly Garden and Toyland near Paducah, KY.  How can you pass up a place with a name like that?  I discovered it on an app called Roadtrippers, and then looked it up again on Tripadvisor.  Both indicated that this was a worthwhile stop.

Where to begin on describing this place?  The owner greeted us as we walked up, and he gave us a tour of the place.  His dream is to build a structure to show all the toys he has collected over the past 30 years.  In the meantime, he has created a garden out of discarded objects (aka junk).....much to his neighbors' chagrin!

Western ghost town.....I think

This place has been many things...including a gas station

My favourite....the hillbilly shower 
Look at all these toys!


From the get go, Joanie was not impressed.  It was hot, humid, and in her opinion boring.  It was definitely Americana with a capital A.  The garden is an oasis of bad puns.....one after the other.  There was a pot garden...made out of overturned flowerpots.  There was a gator pit made out of Gatorade containers strewn on the ground.  There was a garden of lost soles....filled with soleless shoes.  And the bad puns went on and on and on.  The tour lasted an hour, but that was only because we told the owner that we could not stay much longer as we still had four hours of driving ahead of us.  Otherwise, he would have been more than happy to spend the afternoon sharing more bad puns with us.

I really hope this guy can make his Toyland a reality.  It appears that he has very little money.....but a big vision of what it could be.  I admire hm for pursuing his dream.

We continued on to out campground in Missouri.  Uneventful drive, and we were pleased to see that this campground was well-maintained and had clean bathrooms.  We all took showers!


Left Seven Points Campground at 9:15am
Arrived Lazy Day Campground at 7:24pm
Mileage = 430 miles

Monday, June 13, 2016

30 hours to Pocatello


We are certifiable!  After being back in the U.S. for 1 week, 3 days, 17 hours and 23 seconds, we are on the highway to Alaska!






The last ten days have been spent:

• visiting family in Annapolis



• driving from Annapolis back to the Charlotte area

• playing some Bridge with our dear friends Michael & Nancy, 
who also put us up at their house for our first night back in town

• picking up Frankie after spending a year with my fabulous friends Susan & Luke

• cleaning and moving furniture back into our lake house (where we stayed for the past week)

• catching up with Susan before and after she took Joanie to the Selena Gomez concert



• getting the Joanie Mac (our beloved Airstream) serviced and ready for the trip

• enjoying Will & Jamie's visit for the weekend

• driving into Charlotte four days in a row for appointments, lunch, dinner & ice cream dates with friends whom we have not seen in a year





We are now on the road, headed west.  Spending tonight at Seven Points Campground, just outside of Nashville.  Rick has done all the driving....although I have offered!  Hmmm....I may get to play a lot of Spider Solitaire this trip!



Mileage today = 382.8 miles

Left Sherrills Ford at 1:00pm
Arrived Seven Points at 8:58pm


Thursday, April 28, 2016

Preparing for the Trip

We probably won't be eating like this in Alaska
We have been talking about driving to Alaska for a long time, but there never seemed to be enough time to make the trip. However, when we decided to take a sabbatical year, suddenly anything was possible. Originally the plan was to go to Alaska first, and then go to France, but after much debate we decided that it would be better for our daughter Joan to have a couple of months in France to learn to speak French before attending a French-speaking school in France. Thus, we postponed the Alaska trip until after the trip to France. Now, the time for the Alaska trip is almost upon us.

Our time in France has been wonderful (see our blog on our time in France for more details), and we probably are not prepared for the culture shock of going from France to Alaska, but we are headed to Alaska anyway. The differences in food will probably be the hardest transition. We have become accustomed to being able to walk to the local boulangerie to pick up fresh bread every day. In particular, Joan is going to miss the fresh pain au chocolat (croissant with chocolate inside). Bronwyn is going to miss the hundreds of cheeses and other delicacies at the local markets. Rick is going to miss the great inexpensive local wines. Instead of foie gras, coq au vin, and a cheese course for dinner, we may be having hot dogs and beans cooked on the fire with smores for dessert. Some changes will be welcome. Coffee will be served in bottomless mugs with every meal instead thimble-sized cups at the very end of the meal.

We will also have to adapt to living in a 28 foot long trailer surrounded by hundreds of thousands of acres of wilderness instead of a 4-story medieval home in a town that was first occupied before the birth of Christ. Of course, the trailer has some things that our French house does not have, such as a microwave and TV, but most of the time we will be in locations where we have no electricity and no TV signal so we may be living closer to the medieval lifestyle in the trailer than in our 15th century French home.

Our trailer and former truck

Our home from June through August
Because we are completely insane, we've allowed only 10 days after returning to the States to get ready for the trip to Alaska. We want to stay in Europe as long as possible and return to Charlotte in time for the start of school. The drive from Charlotte to Alaska and back will be roughly 12,500 miles and we don't want to spend every day driving so we will need approximately two months to make the trip. This leaves very little time to get ready for the trip after returning to the States. Thus, we are trying to do as much of the planning as possible before we return to the United States.

Planning a trailer trip to Alaska while living in France is not as easy as it sounds. Before we left for France we sold the truck that we used to pull the trailer and we put the trailer in storage. Thus, before we set off for Alaska we need to make sure that the trailer is still in good condition, purchase a truck to pull the trailer, get the truck ready for the trip, and pack the trailer. There will also be a million other little details such as repurchasing American auto insurance, purchasing American cell phones, getting the proper certification for our dog to go into Canada, and dealing with all of the hundreds of little problems that accumulate when you are away from your home for a year.

Another challenge has been trying to figure out when we need to make reservations for campsites and ferries. One of the advantages of traveling by trailer is that you have the ability to camp almost anywhere from a Walmart parking lot (not Bronwyn's favorite camping spot) to pullout on a dirt road in a National Forest. This creates a great deal of flexibility. On the other hand, at certain points in the trip, such as the ferry trip to Juneau, or camping in the popular National Parks, we will need to have reservations. Some spots need to be reserved six months ahead of time even though we can't be certain when we will be ready to leave for the trip.

We began planning for the trip before we left the United States, but the planning of the itinerary got serious in January 2016 because we knew that some reservations (such as the campsites at Denali National Park and Yellowstone National Park) needed to be made as early as possible. By mid-January, after many revisions, we finalized the itinerary and began to make reservations.

Dawson City - 1898
The basic itinerary (which is intended to be flexible) is as follows:
  • June 1: Fly into Washington, D.C. and drive to Annapolis, Maryland to visit grandchildren (and daughter)
  • June 3: Drive to Sherrills Ford, NC and pick up truck
  • June 12: depart from Sherrills Ford, NC (where the trailer is currently stored)
  • June 18: pick up Joan's second cousin in Pocatello, Idaho so that Joan will have a friend with her on part of the trip
  • June 23-24: visit Klondike Gold Rush sites in Dawson City, Yukon Territory
  • June 25 - drive to Chicken, Alaska on gravel road
  • June 26-28: visit Fairbanks, Alaska and surrounding area
  • June 29-July 1: visit Denali National Park
  • July 1-6: explore Kenai Peninsula
  • July 10-13: take Ferry to Juneau, Alaska and explore the surrounding area
  • July 19-22: visit Jasper National Park and Banff National Park
  • July 30-31: visit Yellowstone National Park
  • August 1: visit the sod house near Spotted Horse, Wyoming where Joan's great grandparents homesteaded during the Dust Bowl.
  • Make our way back to Charlotte via Mt. Rushmore, Badlands National Park, and many other places
Top of the World Highway near Chicken, Alaska
Rick also started looking at used and new trucks online to get a feel for what was available. The perfect truck needed to be able to pull a seven thousand pound trailer, with another couple of thousand pounds of gear, and to handle the notoriously bad roads of Alaska. We plan to go some places off of the beaten path that will probably require four-wheel-drive. Because gas stations can be a long way apart in Alaska, the truck needed to have as much range as possible (large fuel tank and/or good fuel mileage when pulling a trailer). With a previous truck and trailer we had run out of gas a couple of times and we didn't want to be having that problem on a remote road in Alaska. There is no truck out there that has everything that Rick wants at a reasonable price.

Our new truck - a Ford F250
After many hours of surfing the web for trucks, exchanging email with sellers of trucks, and many intercontinental phone calls, Rick finally settled on a Ford F250. Originally, he wanted to get a diesel because of its greater towing ability and fuel mileage, but to get the other features he wanted and stay within the budget, he ended up getting a truck with a gasoline engine. Hopefully, we won't end up out of gas on the side of the road.