Camping – Page 5 – TooBusyForWork

Summer 2023 trip is begun!

There was a lot of prep work to get this trip started. First we had to get the motorhome repaired. We found a guy who does upscale fiberglass boats, and he did a great job with a quick turnaround. He said we were lucky it was before Memorial Day, because he gets busy as soon as people put their boats in the water! Then Kevin ordered the new solar panels, and my lovely son in law Nick helped him put them on the motorhome. They were luckily able to McGyver an approach to use the old mounting hardware on the new panels which saved him having to drill new holes in the roof, always a good thing.

I finished up the quilt I started at the quilt retreat too. It was cut with an Accuquilt Hunter’s Star die. I planned for it to go into my stash of baby quilts for future needs, but a friend I have been camping with for 8 years was diagnosed with cancer, so I sent it to her instead. It is PINK, way more PINK than I anticipated when I bought the fabric. I tried to tone it down with a dark quilting thread, but it didn’t do much for the PINK. I did experiment with my rulers on this quilt, and I like the result.

One thing I did differently on this little quilt was to sandwich it using pool noodles and basting spray. Why did I wait to long? It was so much easier to keep things straight and wrinkle free. I made Kevin buy me an extra set of pool noodles to I can do the bigger quilts I have too.

I also finished quilting 3 quilts for my quilt guild donation program. It is enjoyable, and I get good practice. I am still learning about my quilt regulator table, so practice is needed. I also had time to make a sample block from a new die I bought from Blue Wren, a circle in a square. It is basically a Drunkard’s Path variation where the circles adjoin each other. The fabric is not my favorite! I grabbed two fat quarters I didn’t like, and here is the result. I never would have tried this without the cutter, but I love it!

In preparation for the summer, I cut bunches and bunches of tumblers for a scrap quilt. I also cut 20+ bowl cozy sets out of a variety of fabrics for a class I am going to teach at the FMCA convention in Gillette, WY this August. The class size is 12, but there always seem to be a few extras, and I wanted some variety for the students to choose from.

Another preparation step was to buy a small bread maker. This makes a 1 pound loaf, just the right size for Kevin and me. It is quite easy to use, and we are taking it with us on the trip.

Really nice garlic butter rolls (we ate the others)

We tried to leave on Tuesday, 30 May, but we had to wait for an Amazon package that was late. We did get out on Wednesday, and decided to make it a long day. We drove all the way to Kearney, NE, about 450 miles, in order to sneak through a nasty wind storm forecast. We spent the night in the Cabela’s parking lot there, a place we have stayed in before. Lots of trains coming close by, but I put in foam ear plugs and crashed.

Thursday night we stayed in a fabulous National Forest Service dispersed campsite at Vedauwoo Recreation Area about 20 miles west of Cheyenne, WY. What a fabulous place! It is a popular climbing destination with a small campground but lots of dispersed but designated campsites. The rocks are amazing. We will definitely be coming back with the RZR to ride some of the trails. Absolutely no cell service, but the Starlink was ok with downloads of 8-15MB.

Lots of these rocks looking like giant building blocks

We are in Rock Springs tonight at the Walmart. As usual a bit noisy, but very convenient. Tonight’s dinner is salsa chicken in the Instant Pot and frozen Trader Joe’s Mexican corn. I better get going on it!

First week in Quartzsite

It has been busy, so that is my excuse for not posting sooner. Be prepared for loads of pictures!

We arrived on Saturday, 14 January. We basically got settled in to our site, and Kevin spread out all the outdoor paraphernalia we don’t often pull out. he has a new kitchen set up for the Blackstone grill, plus the rug and chairs all got pulled out. On Sunday we took our first ride with a local Side by Side (UTV) club called “Arizona Sunriders.” We had been following along their Facebook page, and they welcomed us on their ride. Here are some shots from the trip. We started out at the somewhat still active marble mine. I didn’t take any pictures because we did that last year.

We also visited a local landmark called Deer Run B&B. To put it mildly, it isn’t a real B&B. Instead it is a quirky spot at the end of a VERY rough trail filled with a hodgepodge of chairs, tables, and cute signs.

Part of the group at one of our stops. That’s Kevin at the back of our little RZR.

While on FB the trip had been identified as a relatively short, easy ride, it turned out into something that really stretched our skills and comfort! Luckily they later said it was probably the third hardest tour they do! We made it, so we feel accomplished.

On Monday we took a trip to Yuma and Algodones, Mexico. Kevin wanted to get new glasses, and he took his prescription from our ophthalmologist in Iowa to Western Optical there. He is quite happy with the new glasses, and they only cost $160 for frames, bifocal lenses, and coatings, about half the price back home. We ate Mexican food (of course!), and on the way back we saw three groups of feral donkeys along US 95 through the Yuma Proving Grounds. We only stopped to get pictures of this small group.

The weather has been wet and cold, both unusual for this time of year. On Wednesday it finally cleared up.

We spent some time just driving the RZR around the local area too. The top of a nearby hill shows part of the Long Term Visitor Area (LTVAs) near Quartzsite. Yes, it really is that crowded near town! However it gets a lot less crowded a mile or two away from town. Note this was middle of last week, before even more crowds came for the big rock show and the RV show (“The Bog Tent”).

We also took a trip to Parker, both to pick up the sticker that allows us to ride the RZR on Indian land, but also to grab some fabulous donuts at the little bakery there and to have lunch. We found a fabulous Indian place called Dee’s Cafe that I would recommend to anyone.

Yesterday we took another trip with the Sunriders to Swansea ghost town. It was a very active place with up to 750 people and multiple mines. Surprisingly most of the ore was originally transported to Los Angeles where it was shipped across the Atlantic to Swansea, West Wales, for refining and steel making. Eventually the mills were added to the town, and the town took its name from the former milling location. These are big ruins in remarkably good shape considering they are over 100 years old.

Rows of mountains from the site. Note the saguaros.

So far today we have driven the RZR some pictographs that are quite near our camp.

I have also been sewing. I now have all the rows done for a donation quilt that needs to be finished by the FMCA convention in March. Shouldn’t be a problem at all, which is reassuring.

The huge Big Tent RV show began yesterday, but opening day is a madhouse. We might go in the middle of next week, maybe at 9:00 am or 3:00 pm. Too crazy for me to be interested in prime time viewing. Besides, they always have good state fair type of food vendors – fry bread, funnel cakes, turkey legs, Asian bowls, all kinds of stuff! I do love my fry bread.

On the way west

We are finally in Arizona. As I noted in the last post, we spent Sunday night at a Walmart in Arkansas, then Monday night in the parking lot of the Grand Casino in McLoud, OK (near Shawnee, OK). We were able to have dinner with my sister and nephew in Oklahoma City which was nice. We saw high winds and red flag warnings were getting posted, so we left a few minutes before 7:00 am to try to make it to Amarillo, TX before the storm got bad. We barely made it. The last 30 miles or so were pretty white knuckled driving, but we got to our reserved spot at the Big Texan Ranch RV Park. We ended up leaving all but one of the slides pulled in. The winds were steady at 30+, and the gusts were 60-65+. Definitely not the time to leave the slides out. For anyone not familiar with the big slides on a big motorhome, they all have some type of vinyl covering over the top of the slide. Ours are made out of Sunbrella, and they fit pretty snuggly. But the noise they make when they start flapping in heavy winds can drive you crazy, so we bring them in. It isn’t a safety thing.

The wind warning went through Wednesday night, so we decided to just stay put in Amarillo for two nights. We went to Palo Duro State Park, just a short distance from Amarillo. Kevin and I had taken Alan and Mark here the first year we owned a pop up camper. Mark was a toddler, and Alan was 5 or 6. We hadn’t been back since, so it was time. It was cold and the wind whipped right through us, so we definitely just drove through the park. Pretty nice scenery though.

From the visitor center looking into the sun and wind.

This is lush compared to the surrounding land

They had “glamping” available for $75/night

We made it to the Seligman, AZ KOA for tonight. Both days were more driving than I like, but there is snow coming in behind us in Flagstaff. This KOA must have gotten drenching rains recently, probably leftovers from the California deluges. There are puddles everywhere. But we are able to finish up laundry, fill up propane, take on fresh water and dump gray water, and generally get ready to dry camp for the next few weeks,

And just a hint of how lovely Arizona sunsets can be. No editing; these really were the colors.

Out of Alabama on the way west

We had a good trip in the Red Bay Area. Ricky McGee at Pro-Finishes touched up a bunch of dings and scratches, a few fairly big. Great paint match, and the guys were super interested at making us happy with the outcome. We also had good work at Precision RV where they found a broken slide slider, a fairly common problem, and one I have been surprised we hadn’t had yet. We are not gentle on this MH! They not only replaced the broken one, but let us buy a spare since it might happen on the other side of the slide in the future. We could find someone to fix it, but getting parts is what always takes a long time. They also discovered and fixed a leaky hydraulic line for the same slide, adjusted all the bay doors so they shut easily and evenly, installed a propane furnace igniter that Kevin had bought but didn’t want to install (the current one was only working intermittently), and re-tensioned the slide toppers. Hopefully the slide toppers won’t hold as much water after rains now. Then we had Rocky Johnson do a complete detail on the motorhome – wash, wax, put 303 on the roof for UV protection, inspect the roof while he was up there (everything is still good), and polished the wheels. The coach just gleamed, but of course it had to rain later that day. Sigh. At least the wax is a good protection.

As usual we stayed in Red Bay RV Park which is like all but one of the Red Bay area spots – a gravel parking lot with full hook ups. This time we had a particularly outgoing group, and we met some nice folks.

We ate at all the standard places – Stark’s for breakfast, Cole’s for the absolute best smoked chicken I have ever had (and fabulous white sauce!), Home Town Pizza for great great pizza, and Big Star Grocery for some of their specialty snacks. I even bought extra of their fruit cake cookies, and I froze them in sets of twos for future consumption. Each cookie is the equivalent of a big slice of fruitcake, so two is plenty for the pair of us.

We left Red Bay this morning a little after 8:00, and we are now in Morrilton, AR a bit west of Little Rock. We are spending the night at the Walmart here. It started out pretty noisy, but it gradually got nice and quiet. Monday is Shawnee, Oklahoma at a casino. I went to college in Shawnee, so it will be interesting to see how it has changed.

Yet another Red Bay visit (with a day trip to Huntsville, AL)

After we left Bowling Green, we drove Hinton RV Park in Sikeston, MO. Nice place. We had a huge pull through site with full hookups at $45/ night. We didn’t have to disconnect the UTV trailer from the MH, and there was still room for the Jeep. We decided to stay 2 nights, knowing New Year’s Eve is noisy a lot of places. This place was nice and quiet, mostly with a mix of long term residents and migrating snowbirds.

The night we arrived, 30 December, we went to Lambert’s Cafe, home of the “throwed rolls”. It was decent cafe food, but you don’t go just for the food; you go for the fun. Yes, they really do throw dinner rolls to you across the dining room! The servers were working hard, and they had other staff come around with additional standards like fried okra (a favorite or mine), apple butter, and fried potatoes and onions (another favorite).

On New Year’s Eve we just relaxed. I did cut a bunch of quilt components with the Accuquilt though. We got to try out the new Starlink system, and it is fabulous. A good 5G signal gives about the same throughout, but it is hard to find 5G where we go. We actually made it to midnight Atlantic time (aka 10:00 pm Central time). We wanted to get up early and drive, but New Year’s Day started out quite foggy so we took our time. We did get to Red Bay at a decent time, and we are settled at Red Bay RV Park. “RV Park” is a strong name for a very nice gravel lot with FHUs, but it is level and roomier than some of the alternative places.

Since we are going to be here a while, I pulled out the sewing machine and got lots of little blocks completed. It is nice to sew while listening to audiobooks, and I did that while Kevin messed around with the water softener and a few visits to hardware stores. We had our first repair appointment today with the paint folks at Pro-Finishes. After 60,000 tough miles, it was time to get some chips filled in plus we had a couple of big scratches on a slide. They got all that done while we went to the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville. Fabulous! Be prepared for incoming pictures.

We started in the main indoor section of general space “stuff” including training facilities for their Space Camp. Interestingly the exhibit started with a collection of space themed toys ranging from the 1930s to present.

After the toys were a combination of models are true artifacts.

Of course there were real artifacts too including these space suits

Please some concept suits for the future.

We then went to the Planetarium where we saw a presentation about the James Webb Space Telescope. Quite interesting! After that we visited the next museum building that was centered on rockets and manned space flights. Again, a combination of models and actual artifacts.

The inside of the second museum building emphasized manned flight. There was a docent who was giving a very interesting guided tour that we lucked out with. There was an actual Saturn 5 rocket inside this building, laid on its side (all 300+’ of it!), and I took lots of pictures. I will spare you those! This specific rocket was built for vibration testing, and obviously the designed passed. I will emphasize more on the manned capsules now.

The silvered thing in back was an actual training module for the Mercury

Damaged heat shield from the capsule – ouch!

There was even the sole remaining component from Sky Lab, the first space station. This was the only piece that didn’t end up burned up or lost in the ocean. You can see the insulating pieces of fiberglass that didn’t burn up.

We came back to check out the coach painting, and found a couple of spots they had to re-do. Looks pretty nice though! Tomorrow is a visit with Precision RV for slide check and maybe hydraulic pump repair, slide topper tightening, and replacing an igniter on one the propane furnaces. Of course they may find other stuff! Saturday is a full exterior detailing, then Sunday we head for Arizona. I can’t wait. It is so humid here that my towels don’t dry overnight, and we have to wash them every 3 days or so. Ugh. I want my nice dry desert again.

And we are off!

We left this morning for more southern climates. The weather has been truly awful for the last two weeks with even the highs below 0 and nasty winds. Kevin and I kept looking at each other saying “This is just too cold!” We always stay until after Christmas though, so we bided our time until we had two decent days. One we needed for packing and the other we needed for driving, and we finally got them. We even scored a FHU winterized site at the local KOA that let us get full de-winterized before taking off. I am towing the cargo trailer with the UTV on it, and Kevin is driving the Jeep separately. So far, so good, though he has to stop for fuel 3 times as often!

We were planning on staying at a campground in Bowling Green, MO, but they have their water turned off. We decided to save $60 and just spend the night in the local Walmart parking lot. With our batteries, solar, and generator, it is an easy thing to do even in cooler weather like we are having. At least it is dry.

We did have a fabulous Christmas though. All four kids, spouses, partners, and grandkids were able to get together for dinner and presents on the 23rd. We needed to work around my daughter’s work schedule as a nurse. And of course I forgot (again!) to take pictures!

I have been frantically trying to keep up with my Mystery Quilt Zoom class. i got the vast majority of it done, and I was pretty pleased with myself. Even though I posted the first two weeks, I am going to show all of them again to keep the pieces together.

Week 4 blocks – 10” I fixed the error on the last block on the left

I actually did week 5 which was a single block plus adding connector blocks, but I forgot to take a picture! I have decided to make this a king sized quilt so I need lots of borders. I saw some people made borders of the connector blocks on the sides of the basic quilt, so that is one of my winter projects. I need to make a few hundred little 4” blocks like those below plus some other ones I didn’t show. I will take all the pieces I have left of the original fabric plus I bought four more fat quarters in coordinating color#, so I should have enough fabric. Then I will add some standard borders too to make it the right size.

I also have a tradition of making something hand made for each family, something g practical. This year it was oven mitts. I made a total of 8, so each household could take their pick of two. Surprisingly people chose different ones, not coordinating.

I was able to get my binding technique down to a fine science which will be handy on other projects too.

Expect more frequent posts since we are finally on the road again. We are heading to Red Bay, AL for some paint touch ups and some small miscellaneous fixes. Then we head off to Quartzsite, AZ.

Forgotten end to the Canada Alaska caravan trip

I guess I was sicker than I remembered at the end of the trip, because I forgot to post! I was getting together to put a new one up, and I realized I never finished the trip posts. Oops! Here you go, weeks late. And the photo quality isn’t very good. My camera finally gave up completely, so they are all from my iPhone. The zoomed in quality is particularly bad!

We left Prince George after breakfast on Tuesday, 7 September. We decided we wanted to head home the fastest way possible, so we took the TransCanada Highway to just north of Jasper. We had intended on staying at the Icefields, but with the fires we decided on the Hinton KOA instead, the same place we stayed on the outgoing trip. The campground sites are lovely, but make sure you drive very, very slowly coming in. The campground roads are awful! Huge potholes are too numerous to dodge, so just go slowly. We had some caravan friends staying at the same place, and we all sat around our propane fire pit and relaxed after the rigors of the trip.

The next day we drove down through Jasper and Banff National Parks. The town of Jasper was closed completely as were all the campgrounds, and it was obvious why. Here are a bunch of pictures of the fire and it’s residual smoke.

When we got to Banff we saw mountain goats at the same place we saw them on the outgoing trip. There actually are 5 in this picture, but the baby is tough to spot.

Banff is just outside Calgary, so the road quickly becomes a major one, but the smoke still lingered.

Being a populous area with lots of wildlife, we saw a number of these wildlife crossings.

We spent Kevin’s birthday at Cranbrook KOA. Nice enough place. Not a great place for a 70th birthday though! We were both feeling pretty miserable, so we just had eggs and bacon, using them up before the border. No nice dinner for his birthday!

On 9 September we crossed the border with hardly any wait. Quite different when it is a weekday morning than the middle of a Saturday! We spent the night at one of the prettiest campgrounds we have ever been in – Jim and Mary’s RV Park outside Missoula, MT. The place is a gardener’s paradise with flowers everywhere. We always try to stay here when we are in the area. Since we were both feeling so blah, we would have like to stay 2 nights, but they didn’t have any availability, so we headed to Big Timber KOA west of Bozeman, MT. Nice enough place, but I don’t remember any details. Remember I noted the fuzzy head?

On 10 September we came to the Buffalo, WY KOA, and we finally got to rest a bit. We reserved a fancy patio site next to the river in their newer area. We stayed two nights. Much of the time I just relaxed on the patio, soaking up the sun and mild temps. We both needed a rest. After two nights, we were beginning to feel human again! It helps that the Buffalo and Sheridan areas of the Bighorns are some of our favorite places, though we usually stay up in the mountains or at the lake between the two towns. We wanted relaxing pampering though, so we chose the KOA. I don’t usually spring for patio sites, but this one was well worth it for recharging.

Feeling almost human, we continued east to Belevedere, SD KOA, west of the Badlands. We would normally have spent a couple of days boondocking in the Badlands area or at the park campground, but we were on a mission to get home! And yes, you are seeing a theme of KOAs. We find them standardized enough and close to the highway that we particularly like them on traveling days. After Belevedere, we spent the last night on the road at the Sioux Falls, SD KOA.

We are now almost home, and we booked it out of there on Thursday, 15 September. However a minor disaster struck not far out of Sioux Falls. We used the Blue Beacon Truck Wash there, and discovered the rock guard at the back of the MH had come unattached and we were leaking fluid of some type. We called our local shop in Decorah, IA and they said bring it in though it would get looked at for a few days. I drove the MH there while Kevin drove behind in the Jeep making sure nothing disastrous happened. He did enough debug to discover it was a small oil leak from near the oil filter. We just stopped at every rest area and checked the oil on the way. It was a slow way to travel! When we got to Decorah, we unloaded only the bare necessities (cats, meds, night clothes) and headed home. The cats were thrilled to have all the space, and they spent a lot of times doing zoomies and looking out the windows. The next day we drove back to Decorah and picked up clothes and a few more necessities. The forecast was for sunny weather, so we just left the refrigerator running knowing the batteries and solar would keep it happy. It took a week to get the diagnosis and a part (oil filter loose and a turbo hose leaking, so needed a new one of those), but we finally got the rig to Cedar Falls a week later on Thursday, 23 September.

We parked the rig at a nice local campground, Big Woods County Park. It is only 7 miles from the house and has roomy FHU sites. It makes a handy place to stash the rig while we unpacked and clean up. I admit we weren’t very quick at the cleaning business. We got the important things like like haircuts, grocery runs, and laundry though. We finally got the MH winterized. Kevin also emptied out every storage bay and repacked! I bet we are hundreds of pounds lighter LOL! It is amazing how unneeded junk hides in the back of the bays.

I will summarize our views of caravans in general and the specifics of this caravan in the next post. This one is long enough!

On the way to the end of the caravan trip (with some forgotten Teslin shots too)

On Saturday we left the boondock runway to head to Stewart and Hyder. We exited the Cassiar (Highway 37) and took dead end Highway 37A to Stewart. Lovely views even though it rained the entire time. One of the big sights is the Salmon Glacier, and it was fabulous.

People go to Stewart, YT in order to go to Hyder, AK to see bears feasting on salmon. We stayed at the Kitawanga River RV Park, a pretty nice place. I was still feeling poorly, so we laid around more than we normally would. We did cross in AK to see the salmon spawn, hoping to catch a view of bears at the Fish Creek Wildlife Viewing Station. It is a NPS official spot that requires a ticket to get to. Easy and inexpensive to get one online, and we got three days of viewings through our caravan. We went on Sunday, crossing an amazingly simple border crossing into the US. It was totally unstaffed without any notice required. A nice ranger checked out tickets at the viewing site, and we went in. It was a lovely place.

And since it was raining (still!) we just enjoyed the day for a couple of hours without seeing any more bears than the one we saw crossing the road on the way in. If anyone else wants to do this, I highly recommend getting a chair and a water proof poncho or something to cover the chair while you wait. I was still not feeling well (darned sinusitis again), and Kevin’s knee couldn’t take much more just standing g around, so that was our one attempt. Others in the group went back a few times and stayed longer. Their effort was rewarded with some good bear photos. Oh well, we have seen lots of bears in other places. I tried for an artsy-fartsy shot of some dangling Old Man’s Bear glistening with raindrops, but the focus on my iPhone just wasn’t up to the task. I am going to order a new camera as soon as I get home!

The only border control between Stewart and Hyder is a Canadian border patrol spot that actually serves both countries. We had filled out our ArriveCan app ahead of time, showed our passports to the nice agent, and she checked everything. The information is then transmitted to the US, or so a sign at the office said. One of the rangers in Hyder said the two communities actually act as one and did so through the entire pandemic.

On Monday we went to Smothers, BC for a simple overnight spot. We stayed at Fort Telkwa Riverfront RV Park, a very nice place. All the sites are directly above the river for some great views. And guess what? NO RAIN! In fact, there was so weird blue color to the sky! I was starting to feel a bit better since I started the steroids for my sinusitis, though I still cough an awful lot.

I actually forgot the pictures from Teslin I took on Wednesday on the way to Watson Lake. We first stopped by the Teslin Tlingit Cultural Center, but they were unexpectedly closed. They had some great totem poles and a fabulous boat though. I was disappointed they were closed.

We did stop by the George Johnson Museum, a fabulous curated museum that was not the standard small town historical spot. Mr. Jonnson was born in a completely isolated village, and had no schooling until he went to Juneau at 16 to stay with an uncle. He taught himself English and mathematics, and was a born visionary. He came back to the area, opened a store, brought the first car to an isolated area without roads except in the winter when he used the frozen lake, and was an absolute local legend. They had some fabulous Tlingit history and costumes that the docent, a longtime white resident, was excited to share with us.

Today we are in Prince George at the Sintich Campground. Sites are decent sized, but they have small trees too close. We had to do some maneuvering to get so our door would open without running into the tree. We have a dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow as a caravan, and then we are done. We have decided to go through the big Canadian National Parks again on the way home, but just a drive-by. The town of Jasper still doesn’t have electricity after a fire wok out the lines, so it will be interesting. I probably won’t post again until we are in the US. Buying enough cellular data to post in Canada has been expensive!

Skagway, Watson Lake, and Burrage abandoned airfield

We arrived in Skagway on Sunday, 28 August. It was only partly cloudy at first, but of course it started to rain. I seemed to have picked up a miserable sinus infection again, so we basically didn’t do much on Monday. And yes, I did take a COVID test, but it was negative. Guess my March infection antibodies are still in good form since so many caravaners have gotten it this trip! We did wonder around town some, and I got the mandatory picture of one of the cruise ships.

The town itself is (obviously) full of cruise ship passengers. Three of the big ones can come into port at once. It was four at once until earlier this summer when a landslide took out one of the berths. That means “only” 12,000 passengers of so!

Busy downtown with scenic railway right through the middle

Two of the cruise ships along with a part of the small boat harbor

Another view of the Skagway small boat harbor showing a third cruise ship

The town is part of the Klondike Gold Rush Historical Park, and we visited some of the sites of course. The Moores were a leading family. You can see how they moved from a log building to a lovely framed house.

Kevin took in a vaudeville show in the evening called “Soapy Smith,” about a local legendary bad guy. I wasn’t feeling well, so I stayed in the rig. He said I didn’t miss anything!

The next day we were up early for a long day trip to Juneau by water taxi. It was a charter through Fjordlands, and the captain looked for wildlife and good scenery in addition to just getting us to Juneau. Be prepared for lots of pictures!

Three orcas (two with spouts and one without)

We also saw at least three groups of humpback whales migrating south, a real rarity. However my little camera couldn’t catch anything you could tell was a whale, so you will have to take my word for it! Kevin got a video of the humpback, so at least I can show a snip of the tail. We saw the standard puffins and sea otters too.

The tour included a bus ride into Juneau from the water taxi port. It gave us a couple of hours, long enough to have lunch and a quick tour of the nearby shopping area. Juneau was a so-so city in a gorgeous area. There were five massive cruise lines in port and way too many people. Along the tourist streets it seemed that every other shop was for jewelry.

Due to the rain, waterfalls were everywhere

Life sized statue of a 3/4 grown female humpback.

I did end up with some cute earrings, but it wasn’t a place I ever want to come back to. Oh, and I like this picture of the co-captain steering for a few minutes.

The ride back was even more rain, and everyone was tired. The entire trip was over 12 hours. Highly recommend, but hopefully on a day with better weather.

On Wednesday we visited the historic Dyea townsite. This was the alternate way to the Klondike gold fields. After a tragic avalanche, this route lost it glory and was quickly superseded by the railroad. There is an old cemetery with graves of avalanche victims plus other residents. As gold fever died down, the town went back to its roots as a small native community.

Grave marker for one of the 70+ avalanche victims

The area was obviously heavy temperate rainforest, and it was filled with all types of mushrooms frantically fruiting before the winter comes.

No grass, just moss and lichens on the ground

We also took a trip on the White Pass and Yukon Railroad. A fun two hour scenic trip with mostly empty cars for some reason.

Higher elevation views with a mandatory glacier

Luckily we traveled a more modern trestle

Blow it up and you can see the Skagway harbor and cruise ships

Long day, but I really liked Skagway! We left on Thursday morning for Watson Lake, same campground as before. Friday we boondocked at the abandoned Burrage air strip along the Cassiar Highway. It was our anniversary, and while the rest of the caravan got hot dogs, we made steaks, potatoes and onions, watermelon, and cheesecake for desert! I will talk about our next destinations in the next post.

Valdez, back to Destruction Bay, and on to Skagway

We didn’t have good data service in Valdez so I didn’t post anything there. Therefore a lot to catch up on!

Oh, and it rained again. Pretty much continuously. Have I mentioned that I am so, so tired of rain? We had a big glacier and wildlife tour booked with Stan Steven’s company, and it pretty much rained the entire time. There were a few limited periods of just fog/haze, but it mostly rained. We also went on a day when a major gale was headed our way, so the captain had to get a bit creative with our routing. We did get to see some lovely things though.

Turns out sea lions will perch just about anywhere

In the lee of a bigger island, this one had clear glass for a reflection

This guy must not have wanted his whiskers or tail to get cold

The glacier is still growing as evidenced by the trees being swallowed on the left

Yes, it is hard to see some of the things through the fog. It was harder to get pictures of other things we saw – sea otters in small and large groups, puffins all over the place, and we even saw a small group of orcas. There were three of them, but Kevin only got this one picture by accident. They were a long way away and pretty fast.

Notice I said “Kevin got only this one picture.” Turns out my camera really has given up the ghost! Too many times it fell off the cabinet I guess. The majority of my pictures from now on will be from my phone or Kevin’s camera. I can’t find the camera I want anywhere in Alaska outside of Fairbanks, and I am definitely not driving back that far! I will order one when we get home. The trip really was enjoyable, but it would have been much better in nicer weather.

We had a free day in Valdez, and we used it doing some sightseeing. We drove up Thompson Pass, the snowiest in Alaska. It was too foggy for good pictures. We stopped by this historic site in the canyon below Thompson Pass. In 1906 multiple railroad companies were fighting for railroad rights from Valdez to the massive Kennicott mine.one group dug this partially completed tunnel, but the effort was abandoned when a gunfight broke out between the groups. Interesting story about very wild times.

We also spent a few hours at the Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery in Valdez, hoping to see bears catching salmon as they came through the fish ladder there. The hatchery itself was interesting. There are so, so, so many fish! I had never seen a salmon run before. At the bottom of the weir that exists to funnel the fish to the fish ladder, the fish are almost a solid mass.

Just one small part of the thousands of salmon

There were other hunters besides bears pigging out on the salmon though. We saw numerous sea lions eating their fill. They would go under water, looking almost like a lot, then come up with a fish in their mouths. They tossed the fish in the air to get it positioned for their mouth, then the swallowed it.

And another one of the videos that are annoying in this blog, but worth the click. Keep the sound on to hear the thousands of gulls too. They were feasting too.

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We did finally see one bear, but he wasn’t right by the hatchery. There were still lots of fish for him though until people spooked him. He is on shore in this picture, but he wandered out into the water to do some catching a bit after this was taken. Oh, and it was raining again.

After Valdez we headed back to Tok, staying in the same place as before. We then had to drive the road from HELL that is the Alaska highway between Tok and Destruction Bay. It was actually worse than our first trip through due to more frost heaves. I have never been so glad to see an uneven gravel parking lot in all my days! The views were pretty spectacular.

The weather had cleared up as soon as we headed away from the coast. The drive to Tok was nice, and the views of the drive to Destruction Bay were nice too, but I was concentrating too much on not shaking my motorhome apart to take pictures. The one above is from our “campground” – a gravel lot. Note the colors in the hills. Autumn has arrived in the Alaska and Canadian hill country. We did have to cross the Canadian border again, and this time it took almost an hour. That’s what we get for crossing on a Saturday! A nice border agent, just a lot of vehicles.

I will leave the description of the drive we took today to arrive in Skagway, AK along with those adventures for another post after we have completed some of our planned activities here. I will say that it only sprinkled on us some this first night in Skagway!

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