What a long, strange trip...


Riddles on the Road 2009–Deep South and Eastbound...

Well, we’re back in Southeast Texas; five days to departure back to Oman. And it is HOT. It was downright heartbreaking to descend from Red River, New Mexico, temperature 76 F (mid 20's C) to Texline, TX 102 F (42-ish C). The hottest weather we had experienced before that was Fairbanks, AK at a balmy 82 F (30-ish C, I think).We melted, physically and spiritually. But alas, so goes the end of an adventure–the impact of reality. And the reality of it is, we experienced some of the most beautiful environments on Earth, with incredible weather to boot, but it was an adventure with a beginning and an end. But this brings me to another point: Reality. We live out our lives each day, in our routines, in our houses, on our paths, in our own little microcosms, but we don’t often allow ourselves outside of what we know. This summer, we gave up a house on a foundation, bought a house on wheels, and set out to live and breathe and feel places we have never been. We broke the mechanism of routine. It was a risk, but it has paid off.


I just finished a book about dropping what you know to seek what you don’t. You need to do that to grow. One of the most poignant statements from that book is this: “...life cannot be understood on a flat page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his [or her] breath...” We have given ourselves incredible, tree-fringed mountain vistas; wildlife, up close and personal; we have discovered personal strengths and points to build on; and hopefully, more than anything else, we have planted seeds to exploration and discovery in our kids. That success will be evidenced in the years to come.


With arriving at our final destination in Wesson, MS, we will have traveled approximately 9700 miles, passed through 14 US states and three Canadian provinces, visited 22 National parks and recreation areas and nature refuges and just about as many state or provincial parks, and met countless people from every corner of the world.





On that note, let’s complete the Riddles on the Road 2009 journal:

Yellowstone National Park

After beating it to Great Falls, MT to sign away the house, we passed through the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park. If you did not know this little tidbit of knowledge: Yellowstone is the oldest national park ON EARTH. It’s also a live caldera that erupts every six hundred and forty thousand years or so–-last time it erupted was about six hundred and forty thousand years ago...We spent three nights there, exploring geisers and sulphur springs and chasing wildlife.


















































Jackson Hole, WY

OK, so we drove 79 miles, but with construction down the south path from the park, it took hours. So we stopped in Jackson Hole for the night. There’s a picture of me somewhere, standing under the arch of elk horns that ornate each corner or the plaza in downtown Jackson. Now here’s one of the kids:


After leaving Jackson, we took the scenic route through Northeastern Utah into Western Colorado, on our way to Pagosa Springs, CO for a couple of days in hot springs (sorry, no pictures–too busy soaking!). The highlight of the drive had to be Hwy. 550 from Montrose, CO to Durango, CO, through Red Mountain Pass, elevation 11, 075 ft. If you need to perk up your blood, the road through Ouray to Silverton will do it for you...The road sign for the drive is the first picture (what it does not show are the sheer drops–no right shoulder of the road!!)...

From Pagosa, we headed over to Red River for two days of fishing with family. We did more fishing than catching, but it was fun all the same:






























We hope you have enjoyed virtually and vicariously living our trip this summer. It’s always good to share! We know we missed many friends along the way, mostly due to having to push through a couple of spots we wish we could have spent more time enjoying, but we hope this journal was at least a bit of time shared, knowing we enjoyed your neck of the woods. And know this: we found many places we want to re-explore in the very near future!

Take care and prepare of RotR 2010!!



“Leave...Don’t worry. Everything will still be there when you get back. It will be you who will have changed.” –Donald Miller

Riddles on the Road–The Great Descent

Here we are in the van, getting ready for another day of travel

WOW! North American is top-heavy! With the weight of Canada and Alaska bearing down on the rest of the continent, I’m surprised the US and Mexico have not been compressed into Central America (I’ll bet Panama was once the size of California but has been squished into it’s present size by the weight of Yukon Territory alone!)

After 7 days of driving (OK, two days were light travel because we did not want to blow past everything there was to see), we finally made it back to the US, Montana to be more precise–Shelby, Montana to be exact. And we splurged and got a hotel for the night (we really, REALLY needed to shower). The Alcan Highway progressively improved after YT, and the countryside was incredible! This issue of RotR is the wildlife issue–we did not realize that the Alaska Highway also served as the world’s largest petting zoo!




















Yukon Territory and Northern BC

YT
The roads were atrocious and the mosquitos had killed all of the wildlife. We escaped the area with our lives and have just begun to walk upright after the lumbar-twisting roads. (But the landscape was nice to see. It was the Tundra afterall.)




A family picture with fireweed that paints the roadsides of YT.









Northern BC
Now THIS is the wild! There are signs EVERYWHERE warning of animals on the road. After the disappointment on not seeing all of the wildlife we had hoped to see in Alaska, we were more than satisfied: bears, bison, deer, elk, horses (shoed and branded, but don’t tell the kids–they think they were wild ;-)), moose, stone sheep, and a couple of caribou, as well as a great deal of fowl: Canada geese, magpies, eagles, hawks, ducks...Here are pictures:













Canadian Forest Bison--there are supposedly only 250 or these in BC, and I think we saw all of them!










"Wild Horses"




















"Da Bears"













Mom and Cubs!!!


























Stone Sheep...eh?


























And the weather was cool and refreshing as well (not to rub it in to all of you in the American South and the Middle East right now–we’ll be there soon enough!)

Along the way, we found the Road Sign Forest in Watson Lake, so we did not get lost:


















And at one place we camped, we articulated a moose skeleton Drs Kai and Emma, budding paleontologists, discovered in the bush.

Alberta

So plans changed Again. Originally, we were going to follow the road east to Banff, then Yellowstone, then south, but Shawna really wanted to spend time in Washington State. THEN we realized we’d be putting another 1000 miles into the trip going back west, so we changed plans and headed east again. So we landed in Alberta, Canada on Saturday. We had wonderful ideals for Jasper and Banff National parks, but they were overrun with people. We ended up camping in an overflow camping area with about 700 of our closest road companions. However, of all of the places we have seen so far, Banff National Park is hands down the most dramatic.






















SO we are finishing laundry and preparing for Yellowstone in Wyoming. You will probably hear from us when we land in Colorado.

Riddles on the Road–Destination: Alaska


This is a great picture of “Sonny” resting in Palo Duro Canyon. This is our House on Wheels


OK, so NOW I’ll get you caught up with us.

The Alaska Marine Highway Systems Inner Passage Ferry from Bellingham, Washington to Haines, Alaska

SO after a red-eye departure from Crater Lake (5:30 a.m.) We bee-lined it to Bellingham, WA. We heard traffic can be “difficult” from Olympia, WA to past Seattle, but fortunately we beat the rush and did not encounter the I-5 parking lot until half an hour or so north of Seattle. The estimated 9 hour drive took 11 ½ hours going at a full clip. Fortunately, the kids were champs on the drive; they were so excited to get to the ferry, they chilled with toys and car games, read books, and watched a few movies while Shawna and I sweated the traffic. We arrived last in line at the ferry landing, but we made it.






Our itinerary was Bellingham to Ketchikan to Wrangell to Petersburg to Juneau to Haines–it took approximately 69 hours. AND, since we did not know what we were getting ourselves into, we scheduled our trip too late, was next to the last car included in the trip and had NO berth to sleep in. SO we had to get a tent (we had not planned on “roughing it”.):






What is interesting to note is that people slept EVERYWHERE on the boat. It is designed for comfort: snack bar, full service restaurant, cocktail lounge, 2 observation lounges, movie lounge, gift shop, showers, and laundry. We pitched our tent and camped (used the Gorilla Tape to “stake” the tent to the upper deck) along with about 2 dozen others, but people bivouaced it in spots on the 2 camping decks, slept in the various lounges, and copped a shut-eye about anywhere they could set themselves. Here are 2 vagabonds we captured:



However, the scenery was WELL-worth the trip. We saw countless glaciers, traveled through the Tongass National Forest (the largest national forest in America) and witnessed miraculous wildlife: Steller seals, humpback whales, dahl’s porpoises, sea otters, innumerous bald eagles, terns and seagulls. But the pinnacle of the trip was on the evening of the second day, about 10 p.m., after we had put the kids down for the night (hard to go to sleep when the sun never sets ), Shawna and I stood portside at the stern for a nightcap of nature watching when a HUGE swirl about 20 feet from the boat caught our attention. Suddenly a very large male orca surfaced (its dorsal was easily as tall as I am) alongside, made a turn and slowly made his way down the passage; we watched him for about ten minutes. This was quite amazing because seeing an orca this high into the passage is very rare this time of year; they are usually down coast feeding and birthing. The US Forest Service ranger said we got really lucky. And only half a dozen people saw it; everyone else was either asleep or warming up in the bar (it was VERY chilly at night ). And of course, we whipped out the camera to take a once in a lifetime photo, and the battery died; we quickly retrieved the other battery–dead. And our phones did not have the distance by that time. Damn.


Here is some of what we WERE able to capture:


Humpback flicking its tail















Humpback waving bon voyage


Bald eagles on the lightpost--we saw bald eagles EVERYWHERE along the passage!


Stellar Seals on the bottom of the buoy











And here is some scenery:


Glaciers













A Lighthouse outside of Haines, AK






Alaska at 11:30 pm



And here are some totem poles we found:


















Just to note, Ketchikan, BC and Haines, AK are quirky, interesting towns worth visiting some day.












ALASKA (As much as I can give you to this point)


(The Cow moose in front of Eielson AFB)

SO we arrived in Haines, AK, kicked around a couple of hours (it was GREAT to be off the boat), then began the final stretch to Fairbanks, camping for the night at Million Dollar Falls in the Yukon Territory. Did not have a chance to take photos–the mosquitos had drained us of so much blood we did not have the strength (nor did we have a battery charger, so the camera was out of commission until Fairbanks). We stayed the next night in a quaint state park outside of Tok, AK (pronounced “Toke”, as in “have another, brother ”). Along the way to Tok, we saw our first Moose (a big bull in a lake), a black bear pulling a Jesse Owens across the road, and an arctic fox that almost became intimate with the drivers’ side tire of Sonny. Outside of Fairbanks, in the middle of Eielson Airforce Base (pictures strictly prohibited...unless you are a tourist with Texas plates and it’s your first up close moose encounter) we shot out first quality picture of a cow moose, with the phone (I LOVE technology ). We have also seen caribou and muskoxen and shrews--untamed--(just to juxtaposition wildlife for you ). Lots of life and we are right in the middle of it.

Now we are enjoying time with friends, seeing wonderful sights, and enjoying the warmest weather we have had since leaving Lake Mead, NV two and a half weeks ago (low 80's), as well as doing a bit of repair to the van--the Al-Can Highway ate up the shocks, so I had to replace them.

My apologies for the windbaggedness of this letter, but there has been SO much to catch you up with. I hope the pictures are worth it. Next contact will probably be in Vancouver or so as we begin The Descent. Take care for now.