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.

Patrick's Point, Arcata, CA

16 July 2009

My apologies for the delay, but we have been opting for campsites in state parks rather than RV parks--quieter and more room for the kids to move, although they are unplugged. SO, here I sit in a coffee house in FAIRBANKS, ALASKA! Yes, we made it. To all of the nay-sayers who thought it was an ambitious trip to get here, well...the ambitious part will be getting back to park the van in time for our flight back to Muscat ;-b

So here is how the blog is going to work, I am going to catch you up with the Redwoods, CA and Crater Lake, OR; the Inner Passage Ferry we took from Bellingham, WA to Haines, Alaska, Yukon Territory and Alaska State will come later (there's just so much to say!). On that note:

Redwoods, CA to Crater Lake, OR

Wow. Green. Ginormous. Solitude.

After a night midway between Yosemite and the coast, we entered Humbolt County, CA. Known for many things medicinal and psychologically therapeutic, nothing was more so than The Redwoods We stopped for a break in Leggett, CA, where the “Drive Thru Tree” is:


























Emma in a Trunk



Then it was down the “Avenue of the Giants”, just outside of Eureka, CA. Now, there are trees, and there are TREES. But these magnificent works of time and nature were spell-binding, and to try to describe the majesty of these beasts would only insult them. There are no words in any language for the experience of the Redwood forest. 2000+ year old trees; the largest living organisms on Earth. Even David Attenburough can’t wax poetically enough to deliver an understanding. You can only live the Redwood Forest to know the captivating power of life is holds.



















Patrick’s Point, our residence for two nights, was also incredible (lamely, the word repeatedly rolled out of my mouth time and time again–I was dumbstruck with the beauty of the place.). Tide pools, sea lions, trees to the cliff’s edge, hiking trails, and GREEN, GREEN, GREEN.











Kai was SO into the trees, one actually sprouted from his face!




Emma hiding out in a local Native American house.

Reluctantly, we pulled camp to make our push to Alaska. We almost settled in.












Crater Lake, OR




After a very enjoyable drive through Jedediah Smith National Forest and numerous other national forests fostering towering Red Giants (and a pit stop for oil change and laundry in Crescent City, CA), we entered Oregon and hit Crater Lake sometime around sunset. Thinking we could camp on the rim, we made for it, but alas, the entire Crater area (inside the National park) is owned by a resort The lodge at the top was nice (the sunset over the lake MUCH more so), but not camper friendly. So we dodged a few deer (Kai is a master deer spotter. We did not hit one ) and camped in the resort-owned camp grounds lower down and spent the next day hiking and fishing and bike riding and celebrating Kai’s seventh birthday. He loved it.



























All in all, so far, GREAT! We'll sit and rest in Fairbanks until SUnday or Monday, then begin "The Great Descent". Look for an update for The Inner Passage and Alaska SOON!!