07/24/2010 - Home again

Here it is Saturday evening, 07/24/2010, and we have finally completed Our Alaska Travels. The prior 3 days were spent driving across several of the north-central states. Our evening of 07/22 was spent with our son and his family in South Dakota. Friday, 07/23, was spent driving across the balance of South Dakota and most of Iowa. When we stopped in Iowa the area about 20 miles of us was having heavy rains and flooding. Saturday afternoon we arrived home at 3:00 pm. The vehicle odometer read exactly 29000 miles, meaning that we traveled 10,525 miles on this trip.

Our only real bad experience was when we were driving by Jackson, MI, on the interstate and we received a stone crack in the windshield, just below the drivers normal sight line. We were surprised as we traveled all across the northern area of this country and Canada, over dirt roads and roads that had 'loose gravel' because of patching and road reconstruction going on with no problems, and then here in a busy highly traveled area we had a problem, only abut 100 miles from home.

During the last few days as we were just traveling we discussed many of the new and exciting experiences we had during Our Alaska Travels. As you re-read the postings in this blog you will also remember them.

If you enjoyed traveling along with us electronically you may also want to consider seeing our state of Alaska in person yourself - it is an experience that you will never forget, and one that you will want to share.


Signed:
The Wayward Traveler and
the 3 Weary Wackos

(p.s.. - that is their own nickname).

07/21/2010 - Wednesday

Today was a day of travel, with no photographs taken.

We left Banff, AB, Canada this morning a little before 7:00 a.m., and crossed the border into the USA at Coutts, AB, Canada, just north of Shelby, MT., at 11:00 a.m.

We followed the TomTom 'quickest routing' to Billings, MT, arriving there at 7:00 p.m. We traveled slightly over 700 miles today, with most of it at 75 mph, the posted speed (it was 60 in Canada).

As the four of us discussed at our supper today in Bozeman, MT, this is the most stressful time of the trip, just driving to get home as the vacation sight seeing is over (we stopped between here and home on the way out). And, it takes time.


Signed:
The Wayward Travelers.

07/20/2010 - Tuesday

Today was a somewhat relaxing day of touring. We drove from Jasper to Banff in a little over 6 hours, stopping at many wonderful natural sights. Unfortunately the only wildlife we saw today was a coyote that ran across the road in front of us as we were still in Jasper.

The photos above are (left to right, top to bottom) Athabasca Falls, Lake Moraine and 4 tourist standing in front of a waterfall along the road, blocking our view.

Today is the last day of vacation / tourism, as tomorrow we start our homeward travels, stopping in South Dakota to visit our son.

I will still attempt to keep the blog going until after we arrive home, so keep checking it.

Signed:

The Wayward Travelers

07/19/2010 - Monday

Today was our travel from Dawson Creek to Jasper, and took about 6 hours (300 miles) to Hinton (just east of Jasper National Park), and then another 1 hour (45 miles) to the town of Jasper itself, where we are staying tonight.

On the way, between Grande Cache and Hinton, a motor home in from of us had some problems. The hitch bolted to it's frame came loose and the car it was towing kept banging into the back of the motor home until the driver could pull over. There was a motor home following it and pulled over to help so we did not.

Once in Jasper we did some sight seeing. First photograph is of Maligne Canyon. And then of course are photographs of some of the animals we saw (deer, elk, black bear).

Signed:

The Wayward Travelers

07/18/2010 - Sunday

Today was a short travel day. We left early this morning for the 280 mile drive to Dawson Creek. the weather was clear and somewhat warm. It started in the mid 50s and got at high as 71.

When we were in the Ft. Nelson visitor center yesterday they gave us a document of about 5 or 6 pages containing points of interest between Ft. Nelson and Ft. St. John (just north of Dawson Creek). Unfortunately the document listed the mileage from Ft. Nelson but there were no mile / kilometer markers along the road. Some of the places listed appeared to be on 'restricted' side roads.

We did see the bear above along the road.

When we arrived in Dawson Creek we stopped at the visitor center which is at the start of the Alaska (AlCan) Highway, i.e. Mile 0. See the photo above. The other important part of this is that we drove the Alaska Highway the entire length. The official starting location is at Dawson Creek, British Columbia, and the official ending location is Delta Junction, Alaska. We just drove it in reverse, with a side trip to Skagway. Also, on our way up we drove it from Haines Junction, Yukon, through Delta Junction, to Tok.

That is about it for today.

Signed:

The Wayward Travelers

07/17/2010 - Saturday

Today was a somewhat short day of travel. We had scheduled a road distance of around 330 miles between Watson Lake and Ft. Nelson. I had chosen Ft. Nelson and the relative short distance by looking at larger towns along the way for hotels.

We left somewhat early and headed mainly east, but having to travel South than east following the Alaska Highway and how it winds around the mountains.

Our first stop was at Liard Hot Springs, a provincial park containing two hot springs. This was about 2 hours, or 120 miles from Watson Lake.

The highway today had several 'repair' locations where either there was a flag-person and having to follow a pilot vehicle or just pebbles spread on top of tar, with the normal traffic pressing the pebbles in to the tar. There was also a large number of places with loose stones, from prior repairs, just laying on top of the road.

Large wildlife we saw along the road today included:

Bison (several individual ones and one large herd blocking the road),

Caribou,

Moose (one cow with calf, one cow, and one bull unfortunately I was not able to)

(take a photo of the bull),

Black Bear.

See the photographs above of some of these animals.

We arrived in Ft. Nelson around 2:00 pm today. When I was planning this trip I felt the distance between Watson Lake and Dawson Creek (our stop tomorrow) was too far for one day.

Signed:

The Wayward Travelers.

07/16/2010 - Friday - the beginning of the end

Today we traveled from Skagway to Watson Lake, Yukon. As mentioned in yesterday's post, we are leaving Alaska and starting our ride home. There are a few things to stop and see along the way home, just not so much here in the Yukon.

After leaving Skagway this morning we stopped at the top of the hill (approx. 66 miles from Skagway) at a little town named Carcross (shortened from Caribou Crossing). The photo top left is of the oldest trading post / store in the Yukon, which is in this town.

From here we headed northeast and turned onto the Alaska Highway. We stopped for the evening in Watson Lake, on the border with British Columbia. When we stopped at the motel that I called for reservations, they nor their second motel could find them. In addition the rooms where not yet cleaned because, as the person behind the counter said, the crew did not show up today.

Anyway, we decided to cancel the room reservations and started a search for two rooms in a different place. The visitor center gave us a few names. When we mentioned where we did have reservations the look on their faces more or less said 'bad decision'. We did find rooms at the second place we stopped at. There is more to say about this place, but there was not a whole lot of choices in this town. We stopped here because it was over 300 miles to the next town of any size.

This motel, 'Air Force Lodge', is a remodeled barracks used during WWII when the Alaska Highway was being built. We talked with the owner who said he got the building for nothing when he purchased the land. He refurbished it and has been open for 5 years. However, the down side is the rooms are somewhat small, there are no bathrooms in the rooms, but they are down the hall. There are four separate rooms: Men's bathroom, women's bathroom, men's shower room, and women's shower room. In addition, shoes are to be taken off at the door. I am glad that I wore socks today.

The most notable thing about Watson Lake is that it is home to 'Signpost Forest'. I am sure that we have all seen signposts with distance to various towns (for example, 999 miles to NYC, 2000 miles to Los Angeles, etc.). The practice supposedly started in this town during the construction of the Alaska Highway when one of the soldiers posted a signpost with the mileage to his hometown. Now there are over 6,000 signs here (see top right photo).

Well, tonight early to bed, early to rise - as there is not much else to do here.

Signed:

The Wayward Travelers.