We Interrupt this Broadcast...

To bring you a brief note.

Or two or three.

First, I'm aware that it's been more than nine days. I have not forgotten you, faithful blog readers, but I'm so busy soaking up everything about Alaska and running around like a crazy person trying to DO all the things we want to do in the limited time we have, that I just don't have time to sit down and type out everything in the kind of detail I want to.

The bad news is, tomorrow is our last day in Anchorage, so I don't see myself posting 'catchup' blogs tomorrow.

The good news is, if I don't get to it before then, we should be in Alberta, Canada within four-ish days or so, and I think that province is a little on the boring side, so I should have time to type then.

My current plan is to divide the actual Alaska trip into locations (one blog entry for the first part of Anchorage, one for the Seward trip, one for the Homer trip) instead of days, but if anyone has unbelievable objections to that, speak now.

Okay, you can go back to reading. Just wanted to let you know what's going on--I've loved sharing this trip with everyone and can't wait to get back to it!

P.S. It's 10:24 pm and it looks like late afternoon with all the light outside. How DOES anyone sleep here? I can fall asleep fine, it's convincing myself it's time that's the problem.

Day 9

Day 9 Lions and Tigers and GRIZZLIES, Oh my!

Today we started out in Tok and everything was wonderful because we are IN ALASKA. My mom said she could see better today. Obviously it’s because we’re in Alaska. I slept fabulously last night—better than I have this whole trip. Why? Because we’re in Alaska!

We. Are. In. Alaska.

I love everything about this place. I love the way the trees are such a vibrant dark green, the way the rain falls like a mist. We stopped at a creek earlier, in case the salmon were spawning even thought it’s a little early, so that John could see them. But alas, no salmon. It’s okay, though, because he got to see the creek and how clear the water is as it rushes over smooth river rocks.

Today, I saw something I’ve never seen before. We were all looking out the window (well, minus Josh who was napping and my mom who missed it) and we saw this mass of blondish/brown. After a second it finally registered in our brains that it was a grizzley! Nine years. Nine years I lived in Alaska and I NEVER saw a grizzly. I told John he must be a good luck charm because he’s seen almost every animal you could hope to see up here. The grizzly saw us and then whirled around and ran back into the woods. He was enormous and I was excited to see him, but I hope I never see one any closer than we were.

The drive today was only 328 miles, but it took all day because we took our time a little more than we did other days. We stopped for lunch in the booming metropolis of Glennallen and ate at the Caribou Inn. It was yummy! My dad got fried halibut (just like the night before…he’s into variety) and John and I got reindeer sausage. My mom got soup, which was good too, just not as unique to Alaska.

After lunch we drove and drove until we finally got into south central Alaska. I love the whole state (see gushing in paragraphs above), but south central is home. I know my home is currently in Georgia, and I do love the south too. But this is one of the places that I feel at home and comfortable instantly, even if I haven’t been back in a while—in this case, nine years.

The road followed the sides of the mountains and while it offered incredible views of the steely blue rivers rushing by below, it also provided some lets-hold-our-breath-and-hope-we-make-it moments, since the RV is big and the road was a little on the small side.

We got to Anchorage in time for dinner (food is a big theme of our vacations) and picked Alison and Chad up from the airport late, late, late.

And then the real vacation began.

Day 8

Day 8

We spent the night in Rancheria, Yukon Territory last night. Good news—I didn’t get eaten by any bears. We hit the road early and were hoping to hit the Alaska border by bedtime. Initially I had thought we might need to stop at Kluane Lake, since you can’t make as much milage on the Alaska Highway, but we thought we’d push it and see where we could go.

Just as we were about to leave the campground, I noticed that the camper sounded funny so my dad and John jumped out to check stuff under the hood. Turns out we needed more oil. Personally I was a little surprised that we hadn’t taken care of that before we left—until my mom pointed out to me that we’d driven almost four thousand miles since Georgia.

Once we left Rancheria we got to show John some glimpses of the ‘real’ Alaska Highway. A lot of the highway has been paved and some areas have even been ‘citified’ with things light streetlights. Not so with the road after Kluane Lake.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Kluane Lake was BEAUTIFUL. John has declared it his favorite lake. Personally, I would never be unfaithful to Mucho Lake that way, but it was impressive. First, the size of it is pretty unbelievable. We read something in the Milepost about how quickly storms can whip up on the lake. You can set out in a boat when it’s perfectly clear and get in the middle and face a vicious storm. John found an island in the middle of the lake and according him, that’s where he’s building his house. Note that I said his house. I’m not sure he’s willing to share his lake with anyone.

Just when we had started to get the teensiest bit disappointed that John was just going to have to believe our stories about how bad the Alcan used to be, we started to near the border. On a positive note, if anyone’s curious to what pergatory is like—I know now.

This road was BAD. And I mean, really bad. It doesn’t even deserve to be called a road, much less a highway. We were flying over bumps, tilting to the side at uneven sections of the road and slamming into potholes. And all that was when we knew the bad sections were coming and could slow down.

On a good note, the road eventually quit alternating between good sections and bad sections, which meant it was easier to be on guard. On a bad note—that meant the road was all bad.

In the middle of this desolate wilderness area with a road that would make the devil ask to go back to…*ahem* ‘Memphis’, it started to pour. REALLY pour. I didn’t even know it stormed in Canada! I had given up my weather checking obsession because I thought surely I wouldn’t have to worry about severe thunderstorms in the Yukon. But the dark blue, almost black, cloud in the distance started to make me wonder…

And then it started to rain. Or so we thought. After a minute we noticed it was exceptionally loud and bouncing off of the windshield almost like…hail. Sure enough, it was hailing! It only lasted for a few minutes, and we only saw a few flashes of lightning, but after we’d been driving for a while we saw hail piled up on the sides of the road. It looked almost like patches of snow, but I knew it was too warm for that. Turned out the hail must’ve bounced off the road and the landed in piles along side it.

At least now I know they do have bad storms in the Yukon too. You just don’t hear about it because no one’s there to see them.

After the storms let up a little we came to Beaver Creek, which is about twenty miles from the border. The Canadians have their customs office/border crossing here, so basically if you ever need to flee the US and not have the Canadians know you’re in their country for refuge, as long as you stay on that stretch of road, you’ll be safe. Take note fugitives. The sky had made it so dark outside by this point that I was just hoping we could all hold it together long enough to make it to the border.

The Port Alcan border is what a border station should look like. None of this four lane garbage like we saw when we came into Alberta. Nope, this was a teeny building with, as far as I could tell, one man working there. He welcomed us home and we kept driving the three miles that would take us to where we had semi-planned to stop.

The owner of the restaurant at said place told my mom when she walked in to do recon that the grill was off and we could have something fried or have a cold sandwich. Now, I know we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto (or the South, as the case may be) but in my day, people were a lot more welcoming in Alaska than this guy was. So since my dad and John and I didn’t really want to stop anyway, we left his rudeness behind and pushed for Tok. After all, can you really drive the highway through Tok and not eat at Fast Eddy’s?

Fast Eddy’s has apparently been a tradition with my parents for quite a long time. I remember when we moved up here in 2000 and stopped at Fast Eddy’s to eat dinner and my parents explained that we always stopped there. It must have stuck in my brain, because eating dinner there last night just seemed right. AND yummy. It’s a good thing we’re going hiking a lot on this trip or we’d weigh the camper down so much we might not make it back over the rough patches of Canadian highway.

The Canadians seriously need to consider highway maintenance in the Yukon.

Eh?

Day 7

DAY 7

Is it bad on a roadtrip when you’re keeping a journal like this and have to look back at old entries to see what day it is now? Roadtrips like this, where you get up and drive, drive, drive are kind of like that movie Groundhog Day. I could almost promise you that it’s the same day over and over, with the exception of the changes in the scenery.

Today has been SO full of everything. Scenery, miles, fun, animals…We woke up this morning and were on the road around 6:40, which is the earliest we’ve left so far, since the first day. Within a span of two hours we saw a moose, a deer, a rabbit, and another black bear! Today has actually been full of black bears. Four have been spotted from the camper today. My dad saw all of them, John saw three and I kind of saw three (the cub John saw was just a dot out the window by the time I saw him) and my mom saw two of them. I cannot BELIEVE how many bears we’ve seen! In all the times we’ve driven this, we’ve never seen so many. We have seen tons of buffalo too, which I thought was really exciting. And rock sheep (they eat rocks). And at least a couple caribou. Just a few minutes ago we saw the only animal we felt like we were missing—wild horses. John and I even saw an otter, happily swimming along on his back.

I was reminded (again) that British Columbia is my favorite province for a reason. Today was so breathtaking as far as scenery—I told John earlier that I’m on sensory overload, basically. My brain is still trying to process everything we’ve seen today. We drove around and up some mountains, stood on the side of the road at a mountain lake and later a river and just enjoyed the scenery. We saw some mountains that were entirely made of rock as we drove into the Canadian Rockies. And then there was Muncho Lake, which is traditionally one of the reasons I would rather drive to Alaska than fly. The water is a irredescent robins egg blue. It seems almost like it glows from a light underneath it, but the color is from copper oxide in the water. There are seven miles of coastline that the Alaska Highway follows and they were all gorgeous. I must have taken a dozen pictures of the same scenes because I wanted to capture them on my camera. The blues and greens mixed with the soft white clouds made the whole scene look like something from a fairy tale or a dream. Pictures kind of show you why it’s so special there, but they don’t really capture it. We were talking about that today, as we drove along a windy mountain road in a country that apparently doesn’t believe in the value of guardrails—this whole landscape, just like Alaska, is so BIG that it’s hard to get perspective from a picture. You try to record what it truly looks like, but you really can’t. But, judging by the hundreds of pictures on my memory card (and we’re not even to Alaska yet!) I am going to keep trying.

It’s raining again—it seems to do that a lot in Northern Canada. We’re almost to Watson Lake, which is the town where we’d originally planned to stop today, but I’m not sure right now if we’re going to stop there or keep going. Probably stop, since it’s past six and today has been a looooong day, even though I feel like time flew by today more than any other day. Probably because I spent so much time looking out the window…

We ended up driving a little further. I've decided it's the daylight that makes everyone want to keep going. It's hard to think about going to sleep when there's no sign of the sun setting anytime soon.

The RV park where we are has wi-fi (finally!!!), which is good. What's not so good is that as we pulled in my mom shared a fond memory with me from last time we stayed here when she saw a grizzly bear track. Great. I told her she should have told me that tomorrow AFTER we spent the night, but it was too late.

Stay away, grizzlies. We have a gun and we know how to use it.

Day 6

DAY 6

I think I’m wearing out the Dixie Chicks CD Alison got me for my birthday. Seriously, though, if you’re a country fan at all and can drive out west without listening to “Cowboy Take Me Away” and “Wide Open Spaces” over and over…well, I just don’t get you.

We left the campground at about seven this morning, after heating up last night’s leftovers for breakfast. Last night it was FREEZING! And I’m not sure I’m exaggerating. I didn’t check the weather, all I know is that I don’t remember the last time I was that cold. I think tonight I’ll sleep in, oh, five layers of clothing maybe? That and the blankets should keep my organs from completely shutting down. Brrrrr! Don’t get me wrong, I adore cold weather. But I don’t think I have the appropriate clothes. I tried to pack warmer clothes, but it’s so hard to even picture needing them when it’s 100 degrees when you’re packing.

Northern Alberta looks suspiciously like Alaska, minus the mountains. The trees and vegetation is pretty similar, though. We stopped at a roadside bathroom, which my mom was not thrilled about. If you haven’t had the pleasure of using a Canadian “rest stop”, they’re basically glorified porta poties. It’s a real building, but inside is a metal “toilet” over a pit in the ground. Ah, Canada.

I got super exciting at the rest stop because now it really seems like we’re on our way to Alaska. I blame it on the cold, but I was so excited I ran circles around the parking lot. I only ran for a minute, so it’s not like it was a full workout, but I’d forgotten how fun running is when you can breathe without a snorkel and you’re not about to pass out from heat exhaustion.

When we finally got to British Columbia I was really, really, REALLY excited and in Dawson Creek, where the Alaska Highway officially starts? Well, I was downright ecstatic.

The beginning of the highway must’ve undergone some improvements since we were up here last, either that or we didn’t remember it well. It’s a beautifully paved four lane road. Don’t worry. We weren’t fooled, we figured it would get worse. And it did. At one point we were up against a hill on one side and a gradual drop off on the other. There was a river of water (not one that was supposed to be there) running off along the side of the road working on eroding it. We also drove over a narrow bridge over a river that started with a ‘K’. The bridge was narrow and was made of that metal grate stuff, so we went slow. My dad says if you drive too fast on that stuff, it jerks the car around. The view of the river from the bridge was awe inspiring, seriously. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. No pictures of that to show anyone—my camera batteries need to be charged AND I was too busy looking. I’m documenting a ton, which I really want to do so I can remember all the details of this trip, but I also have to remind myself to make sure I experience it and don’t just take pictures of it.

AND I saw my second bear (in the wild). This was on the side of the road and I was the one who spotted him. I thought at first that it was a moose (we were far away, okay? It was big and dark). Then I decided it was just dirt or something. Then I decided it was a moose. And then as we got closer I realized it was a black bear! He couldn’t have been terribly old, we’re guessing last year’s cub, maybe? He was feasting on a moose kill on the side of the road and ran off with a strip of moose in his teeth.

We stopped for dinner at The Shepherds Inn at Mile 72 of the highway. The food there was delicious and the owners were Christians, judging by the books they were selling. My parents and I got strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert. Why oh why can’t we grow rhubarb in the south?

We ended up stopping for the night at a campground on the Sikanni River. There was a construction crew there, too. They had been working to dislodge some trees that had caught under the bridge and formed a dam that was making the river rise (pretty significantly). Despite the fact that John and Josh were the only ones not a little worried about the river flooding in the night, even though the problem appeared to have been fixed, we were fine and got to enjoy the views of the river.

Day 5

Day 5

Guess who woke me up this morning?

That’s right, I have officially passed on my need-for-milage genes. Joshua woke me up at five o’clock, smiling and ready to get on the road. And well, what could we do but give in to his polite request to get going? We took our time getting ready and drinking coffee and left at seven. There’s nothing better on a road trip than getting up early and hitting the road. Other than coffee. And pretty scenery. And yummy food.

We’re driving through Montana now, and there aren’t many places on earth prettier than right here. There are acres and acres of pasture land, backing up to a mountain range. Some of the mountains are still snow capped, and others have that deep purple blue that mountains have in the morning light. We’ve seen farms nestled in the shadows of the mountains and old buildings in the middle of fields that look like they’ve been abandoned. I love the colors out here. Bright blue sky, dark purple/blue mountains, BRIGHT green fields, and then the shadowy areas where the clouds filter the sun. Lest you think I’m just waxing eloquent, I’ll have to show you the pictures.

The border crossing to Canada went smoothly, later on in Day 5. At least, I guess it went smoothly. Back in the day (as in, the last time we drove this way) you didn’t need passports or anything to get through Canada. Which means that you pulled up to the border office place, rolled down your car window, they asked you a dozen questions (six of which were “do you have any guns?”) and then you kept driving. Like ordering fries at McDonalds, but without the fries. However, since the whole passport thing, I guess they make everyone go inside, or at least most people, because we weren’t the only ones who had to pull in. It could have also had something to do with the fact that John had to declare a rifle, which he brought to protect us from bears on the Alcan (Alaska-Canada Highway). In any case, it went well and I managed to resist the urge to give ridiculous answers to questions like “have you ever been arrested?” (Yes, officer, but just for international drug smuggling. I got it expunged from my record, so I’m good now). I didn’t think he’d appreciate the humor and much as I love Canada, I have no desire to spent my life in a Canadian prison (do they even have prisons?), so I answered honestly “no” to all those kinds of questions.

And then we were in Alberta. Blah. No, that’s not completely fair. There are some incredibly beautiful parts of Alberta. Most of it, even, is beautiful. It’s just that there’s a long stretch right as you cross the border that look suspiciously like Kansas. It makes no logical sense that it would be flat as far as the eye can see, since in Montana the land has hills and valleys, but there you go. Once we got to Calgary the scenery got a little more varied, since there are lots of rivers/creeks around there. And trust me, we had plenty of time to observe the scenery around there, since it took us over an hour to get through Calvary. I’m probably underestimating, actually, but I was reading, so I didn’t pay too much attention to the traffic jam.

Red Deer, the next big town after Calvary, was really nice. It seemed like the same kind of small city it would be fun to live in. Lots of things to do, but not overly “citified.” We drove just past there to Ponoka and pulled into the RV park where we planned to stop only to discover that Ponoka has a huge rodeo (“stampede”) next week. It starts on Monday and goes for a week, and the people who compete there go on to the Calgary Stampede. They already had 300 RV’s there (on Friday!) and the manager told us he’s expected about 1000. I can’t even imagine what that will be like, because it seemed crowded already.

We didn’t think we were going to be able to stay there, because I think they’re saving the spots for the people who are going to be there all week, not just overnighters like us, but the manager came to talk to my dad and they got to talking and he said he could find a place for us. He was such a nice man—welcoming and friendly—and he knows Lance Mackey, one of the Iditorod champions. Obviously I thought this was amazing, since I think the Iditarod is amazing and follow it every March. I also subject my students to Iditarod updates, which they secretly love. I’m telling you. Turns out the manager also lived in Georgia for a week when he was thinking of getting a job down there working with oil somehow. So he and my parents talked a little and then we went to eat at Dino’s, a place in town he had recommended. The food there was yummy—we couldn’t decide if they had started as an Italian place or a Greek place, but they had a little bit of everything. We talked to the waitress a little about where we were going and she said she’d like to go to Alaska, and that she was sure Georgia was pretty too. I hope she gets to travel one day, because even though I think Ponoka is gorgeous, she seems like she’d like to see the world. Talking to her and the RV park manager was really interesting. That’s part of the fun of trips like this—you get to meet all kinds of people and hear parts of their stories. As a writer, I think that fascinates me even more than it fascinates “normal” people, because I love stories of all kinds.

The radio in the restaurant was playing country music, which totally shocked me. Who knew they had country in Canada? John just rolled his eyes and asked where I thought Shania Twain was from. Hm. Canada. Who knew?

It was a loooong day, but we made good milage and I think everyone was happy with how far we went before we stopped.

Day 4

Day 4

Just after I wrote Day 3, we had dinner and I had a bite of John’s steak (okay, two bites…three bites…). Can I just say that I’m in love with Nebraska beef? It tastes like cow! I’ve never had steak with that much flavor. And the texture…

Basically, if you want to know what I want for Christmas? I want some Nebraska steak.

So we didn’t make it to Guernsey on Day 3, but we did make it to Ft. Laramie, which was only 20 miles short of our initial goal, which isn’t bad, I don’t think, since we’re still getting used to how this RV-ing thing works.

The RV park at Ft. Laramie was adorable. The bathrooms were all nice and clean and even had flowers stenciled on the walls, which made it seem like we were guests and not just people paying for a spot to park our camper and sleep. The air was crisp in the morning, as expected, and I loved how quiet and still the praire (is it praire there or plains? I get confused) was in the morning. The only downfall to this place was the train. It went through four times from about nine at night until morning, and let me tell you, Josh did not like the train. The first time (I wasn’t in the camper then) I’m told he got a look of terror on his face and then screamed hysterically. The second time I was with him and he was a little hysterical, but not so bad. The last two times the train came through he barely stirred—the kid kind of sleeps like a rock. Not sure where he gets that from…

From Ft. Laramie we continued on through Wyoming. We saw the first antelope sightings of the trip and we saw trains! If you have ever heard me describe the drive we made to Alaska in 2000, you know we saw a zillion trains. That’s right. A zillion. No overestimation going on there. Anyway, Alison and I started saying “look, a boat!” instead of “look, a train!” because we got so tired of seeing trains. So we spent the better part of yesterday with my dad pointing out all the trains and “boats” to me just because he knows I was sick of seeing them the last time.

Brief side note: I’ve also been drinking TONS of water because Wyoming scares me since we spent 24 hours in Cheyenne on our last trip up because I had to get IV fluids because I was so dehydrated. And the hospital wasn’t the traumatizing part of that stay. It was the fact that we had to stay in a hotel room for two days…outside of a train yard.

We decided that Wyoming is also gorgeous, but really, we already knew that. I have become even more convinced that I love the west. I love the big, open sky. I love seeing for miles and miles (except when it stormed yesterday). I love the smell of sage and praire and hay. The last time I was out west, I liked it okay and thought it was pretty, but I don’t remember feeling as comfortable out here as I do now.

We stopped in Sheridan, Wyoming because we needed to make a Walmart run and decided that Sheridan is adorable and we could see ourselves living there.

Once we got into Montana we saw some of the effects of the flooding they’ve been having out here. A little town called Roundup looked like it had been hit decently hard and we could see people cleaning out one of the restaurants that looked like it had been flooded. We also saw sand and dirt coming a few feet into the road from where the river water had washed up. After Roundup, we almost drove into a storm, but the road turned and we ended up driving between the two darkest clouds, which I thought was very convenient. The lightning was incredible to watch, because the sky was dark enough that it stood out and you could really see it flashing. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of lightning, but it was pretty neat. My mom kept trying to get a picture but the lightning was too fast. Even though we avoided the worst part of the storm, we did get caught in the rain. It drenched the road, the hills around us, the poor construction workers fixing a washed out road (who knew roads could wash out?). Since battling the storm sucked the energy out of everyone, we stopped in Lewistown, Montana, which meant we drove just over 500 miles yesterday.

John asked a gas station attendant for advice on where to eat, which he said the guy seemed to really enjoy giving. We ended up at the Four Aces, a little restaurant/bar/casino. Don’t get all nervous—the casino was a back room filled with mostly video poker and stuff. We didn’t play. We just ate steak and potatoes and marveled at the fact that the extent of the vegetables they offered was salad. I guess they figure steak and potatoes do just fine, and I can’t say I have a problem with that. We got a kick out of the fact that the waitress asked when she got our drink orders if we wanted anything besides coffee. Apparently coffee’s big in Montana, since everyone gets it there. The coffee was perfect for the restaurant—I wouldn’t drink it that weak at home, but diner coffee’s supposed to taste that way.

After dinner we went back to our campground, did some laundry (yay!) and went to sleep.