Off we go!

We have been having a great time here in Boise with Kris and Sandy and their family.  Also we have been running around doing errands to get ready for our "big" trip to Hawaii.  We even had to buy a suitcase of all things as since I retired I didn't need the old one I dragged around for years and years.  And we needed a bigger one since when we do go away it's never been for so many days.  So anyway we are staging the motorhome for its quiet time, and getting Bert set up to be taken care of by Kris and Sandy.  Thanks again!  Then tomorrow morning at 0445am, Sandy is graciously taking us to the airport so we can wing our way to Hawaii and our 7 day cruise of the islands.  Our friends John and Diane are already there and we will have a good time!  We will!  See you in 11 days and I'll let you know how we made out.  Aloha baby!

Dillon, Arco, then Boise, then....

We wanted to stop in Dillon, MT for a couple nights so we could revisit Bannack, MT, a very well preserved ghost town.  Many years ago we made a quick visit and remembered it was nicely restored.  We went over a little later in the morning as our wake up temps were a balmy 23 degrees!  So by 10am it was up to a respectable 48 and off we went.

Sure enough our memory was correct, it is one of the nicest restored ghost towns that we have seen.  The park service took over the town, restored many of the buildings and now opens it to the public to see what the town used to look like back in its heyday.  It was founded back in 1862 with a gold strike as many of the towns were at that time and some folks continued to live there as recently as 1970.  It was a rough and tumble town, gunfights and brawls were common and you had to be careful even walking down the streets especially at night.  It also has the distinction of having hanged its sheriff who was reputably the leader of a ruthless gang responsible for hundreds of murders who met his end by a group of folks appropriately named the Vigilantes.  Most of the buildings are open so you can walk in and absorb the history.

One of the old hotels

An overview of the town from cemetery hill

These are representative of the miner's cabins

The one and only church

The Methodist Church

There are over 60 building in various states of repair, so it was very interesting to wander around town for awhile.  After a picnic we decided to drive farther west to go north on the Pioneer Mountain Scenic Byway.  At the turnoff we got looking at a sign and it described another ghost town accessible along the way, Coolidge.  So about 5 miles back a gravel road, we found the poorly marked parking area and started walking out the path supposedly to Coolidge, it was supposed to be a short 1/2 mile walk, and nowadays with GPS and the ability to measure everywhere you go, when we had gone 1/2 mile into the woods, nothing was in sight.  We wondered if we were even on the right path.  We decided to go another 1/2 mile, and sure enough we stumbled on what remains of Coolidge.  This was a true falling down deteriorating town that was home to as many as 350 people in its prime, working the nearby silver mine.  It is hard to imagine when you walk around the fallen buildings that this represented dreams and goals for many.  There are hundred of these places that used to be bustling communities that are now nothing more than ruins.

This was the best looking building, the park service
must have put some effort in preserving it

After a quick night in Arco right down the road from Craters of the Moon National Monument, we are heading over to Boise this morning.  We made a quick run down to Craters, walked around a bit, came back, had a delightful evening sitting outside in our shorts!  The first time we have had shorts on in over 2 months!

We will be in the Boise area for several weeks, I should say the motorhome and Bert will be in the Boise area for several weeks being watched over by Kris and Sandy and Abbie.  Thank you guys so much!  We are going to be doing something I swore I would never do, and totally out of character for us.  We are flying to Hawaii and going on a cruise!  Oh wow?!?  

Yellowstone, our favorite park!

As I said we parted ways in Glacier and we headed down to Helena, a leisurely 240 miles, while Karen did a stupendous 530!  She needed to get to Denver where unfortunately she ended up having to do a bunch of work on her engine.  She had a worsening exhaust leak, but ended up having to spend 3 days at Cummins to get it fixed, and had to get a new turbocharger to boot!  We did much better, a pleasant drive into a pleasant campground in Helena to stage us for our early departure to Yellowstone.  Once we moved up to a 45' motorhome we have been unable to stay inside the park at Fishing Bridge, a centrally located full service campground, unfortunately they cannot accommodate anything over 40', so we have been looking at Mammoth Campground, located near the north entrance, and found out they can handle big units to 50', but the deal is no hookups, and first come, first serve for a site.  So we needed to get there just at checkout time, 11am.  We did and lucked out, got a nice site, with a killer view, right in the park, all for $10 bucks a night!

We just love Yellowstone, it has such incredible diversity, drop dead scenery, geothermal features, geysers, and tons of animals.  We like to get up really early, before sunrise and get to one of our favorite spots just as the sun rises.  This usually coincides with animals making their way back after their nightly forays for food.  We were very lucky this year, our first day out to Lamar Valley, we saw 5 wolves.  Too far off for pictures, but our spotting scope brings them right in.  We slid down to Hayden Valley, and on the way saw 2 bull moose, the first time we have ever seen moose in the park, and then watched a grizzly for about 20 minutes as he made his way along the forest.  Of course that doesn't count the hundreds of bison, the coyote, the eagles, the elk, the antelope, or the swans.  It was a sensational quick visit.  

Welcome to Yellowstone!

Yellowstone traffic jam

Get off my road, he says.

I was out walking around the campground one afternoon and almost stumbled upon a small herd of elk making their way through.

As you can see they are right in the campground!

Even a guy with a funny looking antler does alright with the ladies,
he had about 30 females with him!

We spent 2 nights in Mammoth then moved to West Yellowstone to one of our favorite campgrounds anywhere, Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park.  We managed to get 2 nights there.  It's funny, it used to be that after Labor Day the park emptied out, years ago, we would swear we were the only ones there, no more!  Now the older folks without kids, and especially the europeans come in droves, it still better than the middle of the summer, but there are a bunch of people around.

2 swans standing in shallow water

A coyote looking for a plump mouse for lunch

It was cold and rainy the last morning we headed in, but it made for an interesting effect.  It was beautiful in its own way, and then as the day progressed it cleared up.

Rain moving off

Much nicer later on Blacktail Plateau

We have now moved over to Dillon, MT.  We left in falling snow, winter is coming in this part of the world which made for a gorgeous trip as it had just dabbed the mountain tops with glistening white frosting. We will move closer to Boise to arrive there on Sunday.  I'll share our Dillon adventures soon, but I will leave you with a few more bison shots in the meantime.

Licking his chops

And antelope too!

Glacier National Park

We made a quick stop in Glacier National Park on our way back.  It was also the parting of ways for Jan and I, and Karen.  We stayed at the KOA in West Glacier, MT.  It is a very nice campground and happened to be where Jan and I were on 9/11.  Jan and I, Jan's parents, Vern and Viv, and good friends Ray and April were all parked in the campground that morning getting ready to leave and head down to Coeur d'Alene when Ray ran over and announced an aircraft had crashed in the World Trade Center.  We raised our satellite dish and we all huddled around the TV to watch the horror unfold.  Our visit this time was on a much happier note.  It was Karens and Jordan's first visit.

We started off with a run to Costco and the grocery store, and a Chinese food fix, and Karen and Jordan went off for a hike, then we ran up to tackle the Going-to-the-Sun Road.  What a engineering marvel it is!  It is a road along the edge of a cliff, running about 50 miles from each border of the park and was built in 1932.  And when you see it, it is hard to conceive it could even be built let alone then with the equipment available.  It is narrow, winding, and terrifying to those of us who have a fear of heights, but absolutely worth it, the views are incredible.

Here we go

Part of the road

A bit narrow

What a marvel of construction!

Some places very narrow

And of course a taste of some of the views.

Superb!

So Karen and Jordan were raving about their hike to Avalanche Lake, so we decided to do that the next morning.  We extended it a bit by going all the way to the other end of the gorgeous lake so Jan could take some pictures.  We needed to as the sun was right in front of us as we arrived, and it was worth it.  But I'll tell you 6 miles was a bit of a hike, especially at 4000'!  We had a great time.

Through the woods and over the rocks we go

Quiet in the trees

A view of the stream

Clear, clear water!

The end of the lake was another .75 miles but as I said we needed to go there to accommodate the sun, and I think you'll agree it was worth it.

Awesome!

We had a snack, relaxed by the pristine lake and headed back down.

Just to prove I made it

And everyone already knows Jan made it, but here she is!

The day was gorgeous weather wise, not a cloud in the sky, and although it started at 36 degrees, it was bumping into the 60's when we got back.

On the way back

A beautiful grotto almost all the way back

So we had a celebratory and farewell dinner to reflect on our very successful and enjoyable 3 1/2 month journey together, and to say good bye to Karen and Jordan as they were heading to Denver early the next morning, and we were going to Yellowstone on our eventual path to Boise for an unusual journey for us.  More on that later.  Karen, see you in November!

Internet blues

We are having some serious issues with our internet access.  As I said we got back to the US on 9/3, and reconnected to the world:-)  Actually we turned our MiFi back on, and our phones as we reentered the states.  As a review, we have a MiFi from Millenicom that is a 20GB/month plan through Verizon.  It has the benefit of no contract, and can be turned on and off at will.  We back that up with data through our iPhones that are with AT&T.  Now here is the rub, we turned on the MiFi, did our catching up, email, web browsing, blog post, etc, and splurged by streaming 2 standard definition TV shows, and used 13.2GB in 24 hours!!!!!!!!!  We are at a loss as to how you can use that much data in such a short time.  Millenicom has given some examples of high data use, online gaming-NO, HD streaming videos and movies-NO, audio streaming-NO, large software updates-NO, and Cloud file sharing-MAYBE.  We use iCloud for backup and syncing our devices together, but we have been using it for a long time, and it's only been recently that our usage is skyrocketing.  And I have to admit I don't fully understand the iCloud usage, does it use tons of data when we download 200 pictures to iPhoto on the computer and they also go to the iPad?  These are rhetorical questions, but if some one can answer any of these questions it would be appreciated.

This is one of the challenges of living like we do.  When you have internet in your home, it is unlimited, you can browse, stream movies, play music,  etc to your heart's content, but out here not the case.  We are absolutely dependent on the internet as it is our pathway to correspondence, banking, research, etc.  We need to figure this out going forward as it is chopping a big hole in our budget, as the MiFi service is $89.99/month for 20GB, and if you go over it is another $89.99 for another 20GB, adds up in a hurry!

Just a little venting as we work through this issue, please feel free to comment, explain some of this stuff to me, or even suggest some alternatives going forward.

Back in the USA! (Mega Post)

8/23  Haines, AK to Carcross, YK

One last ferry and not early, line up at 10:45am for a 12:30pm departure, and it’s a beautiful day to say goodbye to Haines.  The ferry arrives right on time, and the same nice folks get us all on board.

Goodbye Haines

Gorgeous day

Quick 1 ½ hour ride over to Skagway.  3 cruise ships in port, people running around everywhere like ants.

Coming into Skagway

Uh oh, the exit ramp off the ship doesn’t look like it adjusts much, thank goodness for high tide, still it looks kind of intimidating, and the people here in Skagway don’t seem as engaged and helpful as everywhere else.  Manage to get off the boat okay, mostly on my own, and onto the intermediate dock, still have to go up what looks like a pretty steep ramp to get to land.  At least there is a guy there who tells me to go real slow, he might have to put some planks under my rear wheels, so I do, he has me stop, then signals all okay, and I drag!   Piss me off!  But I stop and don’t see any damage, thankfully.  Karen has a similar experience, she drags getting off the boat, no damage or help either, so we hook up the trucks and head through Skagway and up the hill over the Chilkoot Pass.

The ramp in question

Both ramps, close one for coming off the boat,
the far one, the one I dragged on

Think they get any snow?

Skagway as we go by

The scenery is astounding, Jan and I can’t believe it as we had driven through here when we were here before and have no recollection of it.

A cool one sided suspension bridge on the way up the pass

Karen working her way up the hill

Gorgeous

Fantastic

Awesome

Running out of words:-)

We feel a little better when we look back in our logs and find out the weather was foggy and rainy when we were here before.  We took our time, stopped often, had no issues with customs, they ignored our alcohol, and 70 miles later pull into our campground for the night, the Carcross Grocery.  Very basic, but okay, no phone, no internet, but our satellite dishes lock on for the first time in months!

Home for the night in Carcross, YK

But........nothing, a message says we have to refresh our services, for some reason DirecTV shuts you down if you haven’t been using their service for an extended time, but not the billsJ  Now what?  Turns out the visitor center a mile or so away has internet, so I unhook the truck and Karen and I go over with our computers to see if we can refresh our service, we go through the online steps, come back, she gets it, but we don’t, back over I go, do it again, come back, the bedroom TV works, but not the main one.  Well, I’m not doing it again, good enough.  Done for the night.

8/24  Carcross, YK to Watson Lake, YK

Road is starting to get worse now, we were off early as we have 240 miles today.  Up here, that’s a long day.  You can only average perhaps 35-40 mph, and with the road worsening not even that.  But it is a fairly nice drive, gorgeous scenery.  

I should mention there are tons of caravans up here and in Alaska.  These are groups of motorhomes and fifth wheels that all travel together.  Seems a lot of people don’t feel confident visiting Alaska by themselves, so they sign up and pay for a caravan, that way all their campgrounds are taken care of, and they can partake in prearranged activities, etc.  A wagonmaster goes out ahead, so when you arrive at the next campground, he directs you to your site, you don’t need to check in or pay the campground directly, peace of mind I guess, so these herds are moving around constantly with 10-30 units.  Well, unfortunately, we are in sync with a Winnebago caravan that we were parked with in Haines, so they pass us and we pass them, and since there are so many of them, several campgrounds that we want to stay at are full because of them.  We arrive at our campground for the night, fill with our first dose of Canadian diesel for $5.94/gallon, and have to wend our way through all these Winnebagos to get to our sites.  But fairly nice campground, Baby Nugget, full hookups with 50 amps to boot, and Karen gets TV, but we don’t, too many trees.  Tomorrow we tackle the Cassier Highway.

8/25  Watson Lake, YK to Dease Lake, BC

We go down the Alaska Highway 2 more miles and turn right on the Cassier Highway.  We have never been on this road before and have heard few reports, but it’s the way to Hyder  where the bears supposedly are.  Well in the next few miles we wonder if it’s a good idea, the road is rough, extremely narrow, and we are maybe doing 15 mph, and we have 450 miles to go to get to the next highway, the Yellowhead towards Prince George, BC.  

Oh boy

Pretty, but rough!

Quite a road

We persevere, and unbelievably are being passed by the aforementioned Winnebago caravan, who we are somehow able to keep their rigs on the road at their high rate of speed.  We would hate to look in their cabinets or refrigerators!  The road stays pretty bad, and the scenery isn’t so hot either as we are driving in very heavily forested areas, so the road is like a tunnel.  After a very bumpy day we roll into our campground for the night at Dease Lake, we wanted to stay at another campground farther down the road but it was filled with our Winnebago friends.  It is very basic parking lot style camping, but with full hookups, and we get DirecTV!

8/26  Dease Lake, BC to Meziadin Lake, BC

Off we go early for our 207 miles to Meziadin Lake, BC, this will be our staging point for our sortie into Stewart/Hyder to see the bears.  Now Stewart is in Canada, and Hyder is in Alaska.  It is literally at the end of the road.  There are no customs into Hyder, but there is Canadian customs coming back.  The Cassier Highway makes good today, the road smooths out and the scenery begins again!  

Nice, huh?

We are cruising at 50mph most of the time and the mountains are towering all around.  We have planned a fuel stop along the way in Bell, so we pull in to the pumps and are greeted with signs saying the pumps are out of order!  Thank goodness we can get to the next fuel, 100 miles down the road.  It turns out to be a delightful day, good road, great scenery, and not too many WinnebagosJ  We do see a black bear along the road!

Having a salad

We get to the Meziadin Lake Provincial Park and it is fabulous.  Jan and I have stayed at hundreds of campgrounds over the years and every so often you stumble upon an absolutely awesome one, well this is one of them.  We are parked right on the lake, pointed towards the lake, with electric hookup, absolutely killer views, we are such that we can’t see any neighbors, it’s quiet, no lights, and this is a huge pristine lake with almost no one on it, occasional kayak or canoe, no boats that we can see.  Fantabulous!

The view out our window

Our site on the lake

Another view

And one more

We get there early so we jump in the truck and head to Hyder, 40 miles away, the road goes through a pass in the mountains towards the ocean, and the accompanying scenery is awesome, I know, a lot of superlatives, but it’s true.  The mountains are teeming with waterfalls, hundreds of feet tall, glaciers reaching down the mountainsides, a roaring river along the road, narrow gorges, with wisps of clouds hanging over and around the peaks.

 

One of the glaciers along the way

Now I wish I could be as taken with Stewart and Hyder.  First Stewart, well, we all decided we didn’t need to do anything there at all, so on to Hyder.  

Welcome to Hyder

It looks a little Northern Exposure as you come into town, but it just doesn’t develop, so on we go to see the bears.  We get to the observation walkway on Fishing Creek, it’s part of the national park system, and we stroll up and down looking at hundreds of salmon, big salmon, spawning and dying, as well as corpses all over the place, and no bears.  We over hear some folks that have been there most of the day saying they haven’t had any luck, even the ranger as we checked in said it was very, very quiet.  So after 30-45 minutes, we are ready to go, bears or no bears, this salmon thing is nature working, but it’s a downer.  So as we start out, Jan spins around and signals, and here comes a grizzly!  It is just ambling along at the edge of the stream, and surprisingly the fish are scattering like mad.  I guess I thought that since the fish are all about to die anyway they would just give up, but they don’t. There are so many in the water you think it will be an easy job catching one, but even at this point in their lives the salmon have another idea.  So she finally catches one and takes it up on the bank to dine.  This bear eats the whole thing, at least a 15 pound salmon, and goes back in the water for dessert.  It was great watching especially as close as we were.  We were so lucky to have it work out this way, what timing!  

The walkway

Lots of salmon

Dinner

Looking for just the right one

I should have some salad with my fish

Got another, that's a big fish!

So back to the campground for the night.  We get settled in, and while getting ready for dinner I look up and there is a black bear right along the shore only a couple hundred feet away!  We watch him for awhile and then he disappears back into the woods.  

Wake up to a beautiful morning looking out over the lake.  The host at the campground mentioned that some bears have been seen eating salmon at a creek less than a mile down the road from us.  We have a leisurely morning with a nice walk, fix Karen’s broken tow bar, thank goodness we had our broken one for parts, then head over to Hannah Creek to see what we might see.  2 young grizzlys, that’s what!  This creek is full of bright red salmon, and these 2 are trying to catch them in water a few feet deep, and having a time of it.  We get to watch them for 40 minutes or so until they get full and move off.  What a bear extravaganza!

Not kidding when I said red

One of the little guys fishing

And his brother

Got one!

8/28  Meziadin Lake, BC to Houston, BC

Our morning started off strange.  Normally they begin with our cat Bert waiting and watching us for the smallest sign of being awake, then he comes purring and rubbing away on us until we get up and feed him cause he’s obviously starving to death from the night.  This morning, no Bert, hmmmm, I get up and he is sitting in the hallway looking at the refrigerator, I call him and get totally ignored.  Now as we all know cats will do this, but not Bert in the morning, what is up?!?  Now he starts to meow, Jan talks to him with no response either, uh oh, what is up?!?  Well, back near the back of the frig with a flashlight we see little beady eyes staring out at us, another stinking mouse!  Haven’t had this problem in a long time, but I guess with winter coming they are looking for a warm place.  Can’t get him out so we set the one trap we have, and head for Smithers, BC where we have a reservation.  After 100 miles we come to the end of the Cassier Highway, get fuel, only $5.30/gal this time, and head east on the Yellowhead Highway, and it is a nice road, smooth and wide so we are able to cruise at 55 or so, I guess I should say 90km/h insteadJ   We are making great time and we pull into the Smithers campground, but it is only 2 in the afternoon, no one around so we leave a note telling them we cancel, and head to Houston, and a very nice campground called Shady Rest.  A bonus as we buy some freshly picked tomatoes from the owner.  Get parked and off to buy some mouse traps and do some grocery shopping. 

8/29  Houston, BC to Prince George, BC

Another nice ride of about 200 miles, nice scenery and some traffic!  Haven’t seen much of that for a long time.  Then we have an experience and a half, we pull into Southpark RV Park where we have reservations, and happen to be arriving at the same time as our Winnebago friends, yeah, they somehow have caught us.  We pull up and can’t find anyone in the office, Jan and Karen are walking around looking so I go out and join them and this flakey lady comes up and after being asked if there is anyone around announces that she is the owner, oh good, well we have 2 reservations.  She says she is full, no that can’t be we called a few weeks ago and reserved 2 sites, so she asked if we had confirmed them?  What does that mean?  Well did you give a credit card number, Karen says if you asked for a CC number then we gave you one.  She says she’s full, hasn’t even asked our names or checked her book or anything, so I ask her why would she have reserved us 2 sites and then tell us she is full?  She responds that she doesn’t like my negativity and “Get Lost!”  We are speechless.  Never in 20 years of doing this have we ever experienced anything like this.  Unfreakingbelievable!  So after a couple calls we find another nearby campground, Bee Lazee, that welcomes us for the night.  Off to Walmart for a few things.

8/30  Prince George to Valemount, BC

We woke to a snap and our mouse was caught.  Our other traps were empty so maybe there was only one, we hope so.  Another uneventful 185 mile ride on smooth roads with intermittent showers to Irvin’s RV Park, where we get parked with full hookups and DirecTV. 

8/31  Valemount, BC to Banff, AB

We get some fuel first thing in the morning and hopefully this will get us back into the good old USA before we have to buy more, only $5.26/gal.  Now we were looking forward to this drive as it is down the Icefield Parkway with incredible scenery down through the Canadian Rockies.  The scenery was awesome, but the road was terrible!  Rougher than a cob, the whole way, almost 250 miles of awful road.  We tried to keep our eyes on the sights but it was difficult doing that and avoiding the potholes and frost heaves on the road.  Now this is August 31, and while we were eating our lunch we were getting snowed on, just flurries, but you know what’s right around the corner.  So now we get to Banff at a nice Provincial Campground with full hook ups, but no TV, lots of trees.  Jan and I have been wandering around enjoying the sights, and Karen went to Calgary to pick up her son, Jordan, who is going to join her for awhile.  We’ll be here for a few days, then on Wednesday we are making tracks for Glacier National Park back in the lower 48.  300 miles and a little fuel, through customs for the last time and we should be back in cell phone contact and have the internet again.  So off early in the morning for the US of A!

9/3  Banff, BC to West Glacier, MT

1790 miles from Haines, a long way, but we made it all the way today, mostly in pouring rain.  Man, was it nice coming back through customs into Montana!  And filling up with diesel at $3.85/gal.  We are now trying to catch up on our correspondence and all the other things you miss without the internet.  Yeah, we are spoiled!

I want to try to add a video, let me know if it works.