Hooray for radio

Listening to the radio, we learned that the Klondike Highway opened at 5:00 after some avalanches had been cleared. So we will leave here tomorrow morning and hope the snow and rocks stay where they belong. Most of the Alaska Highway we have to drive on has some snow cover and flurries are forecast for some of the area we have to travel through.
Listening to the radio we heard the weather for Yukon. They use Celsius where 0 is freezing, but still, most cities will hit minus temperatures and hover around 0 for highs tomorrow. Here, today, the thawing only lasted for about three hours. By four o'clock freezing had recommenced.

But Tempe had 100! Who wants that!?

Peggie took this picture at 8:53 pm. We're really happy we have blackout curtains in the bedroom and in the overhead skylight!

Things to do in Watson Lake

1. Laundry
2. Read (can be concurrent with 1.)
3. Play cribbage
4. Watch the ice on the truck and trailer melt and reform as icicles
5. Watch the big yellow front loader clear the other half of the RV park
6. Walk, very carefully on the slippery ice, to the grocery store next door
7. Listen to the radio (concurrent with 5 and 3)
8. Take your laptop to the laundry room to get wifi that doesn't quite reach to your site
9. When you have wifi connected, check to see if the road to Skagway is open yet. (Still no)
10. Turn the heat up (again)

Today=scheduled arrival

Schedules are flexible, right?
The Alaska Highway is now passable. Many areas are snow covered but have been plowed, so good to go.
Many of our fellow strandees are firing up their rigs and heading out.
The Klondike Highway is still impassable. We will remain in place until it is open. Under clear road conditions it is a six hour drive from here to Skagway. Add about three hours for the conditions we have.
60% chance of snow flurries tomorrow enroute.

Bell II to Watson Lake

Today was a DAY!
Remember the plan was to wake up early to beat the bridge closure. We woke up at 7:30. The cafe opened at 8 and we are not equipped to make coffee without electricity so we decided to make an omelette and get free coffee at 8.  The workers were already at the bridge and using flagmen to handle one lane traffic. The cafe actually opened at 8-ish and the coffee took a few minutes more. But it was fresh. And it was free. When we pulled out, I circled back over to the cafe to refill coffee and took the camera to get pictures of our snow-covered truck. Oh yeah, it had started snowing again right after we woke up. We pulled up to the flagman at the bridge. He came over to the window to talk, and as we talked, he got a call on his radio to the "flagperson at the bridge" saying that the man who just left Bell II pulling a trailer had left his camera in the cafe. The road was too narrow to turn around, but the flagman said I could leave the truck there and walk back. It was only 200 yards or so. It was snowing, but not windy and the temp was a balmy 32. So I got my morning exercise.
The snow? It kept up most of the day. At times we were in virtual white-out conditions and could barely tell where the driving lanes were and where the edge of the road was. Sometimes 25mph feels pretty fast. Visibility was about like headlights at night. Then, there were stretches with blue sky and clear road. On one of these we saw a pretty little red fox, and later at another clear spot we saw two caribou cross the road.
I was very happy to have 4wd in the snow. We saw very few other vehicles all day. Don't know if they had 4wd or not. Not sure I ever needed it, but since I had it engaged I did not get any slipping or wheel spinning, even on the steeper grates. (up to 8% in many places) The whole day was like living in a Currier and Ives illustration. Mountains would come and go in the clouds and falling snow. We were often surprised to get some clearing and see tall steep mountains all around us. The thermometer in the dash showed a low of 24 and a high of 34 as we traversed in and out of storms and up and down mountains.
Oh, and even with snow several inches deep on the road, there are still rough spots. Sometimes miles of road at a stretch had us crawling because it was so rough, not just snowy. Every time we stopped to go inside the trailer, something else had fallen. One time we discovered that the freezer had moved and there was a bag of frozen broth on the floor beside it. It had popped right out. One drawer in the kitchen came out and broke.
We thought we would get to Teslin today, but our speed was so slow that we decided to detour over to Watson Lake and get an RV park. All of the small places out in the boonies, like Bell II are still closed due to snow. Some of them haven't even opened the gas and store. We figured there would be at least one year-round park in Watson Lake. The first one we found has been open for about a month, but has only plowed half his sites. We had to shovel snow to find the sewer cap, and the water is shut off due to the cold. But we have electricity and wifi, and the holding tanks are empty. Word here is that the Alcan is not recommended as safe to travel, due to snow, and the Klondike Hwy is closed between Carcross and Skagway, probably an avalanche. We will check in the morning to see if we stay here another day.
Peggie has created an album of the scenes today and will try to post it here if we can remember how to do that.
And Xavier Rudd and a mix of blues make for good driving-in-the-snow music, too.

Bell II

Saturday,  April 27, 2013

We are parked in the front of a gas station/lodge/café?/rv park called Bell II.  Pronounce it Bell two. We are pleased that the gas station is open because we were down to about 5 gallons of fuel.  We did not pass any open stations. It is just that far. The rv park is NOT open because it is still under 3 feet of snow. The café? has hot split pea soup in a large crock pot, most certainly from a can. There are premade, wrapped sandwiches in the soda cooler,  individually saran wrapped cookies and muffins in a basket on the counter. The coffee is fresh and complimentary. The lone employee is friendly enough to answer questions, but doesn’t volunteer anything.

Did I mention snow? It is snowing right now. Big soft flakes. Visibility is 200 yards, maybe a little more. Can’t wait to see what we wake up to.

We drove to Prince Rupert this morning and think it is a quaint little seaport town.  We treated ourselves to fresh seafood for lunch. The drive in was beautiful, eventhough we had rain off and on all the way.  The snow level was about 3000 feet, except we got hail and snow mixture at sea level in town.  But it was sticking to trees at 3000 feet.  Less rain on the return to Terrace and the sun came out on the snow covered mountains. We gassed up, connected the trailer and headed back to catch the Cassiar/Stewart Hwy, number 37.

We saw three bears on the road between Kitwanga and here.  And Peggie, the new guide of the party, spotted all three of them without any help from me.  All three of them were small black, black bears and all looked healthy.  We spoke with some fellow travelers fueling up here and they said they saw a bear running with one front paw held up like it was injured.

We will go to bed early and get up early because the bridge here is being repaired and closes for a couple of hours several times a day. We need to cross before the first closing.

Zero, Zip, Nada, Zilch

What wildlife did we see today, Alex?
Correct. Select again.
Yesterday was such a good wildlife day that we used them all up. From Prince George to Terrace on Hwy 16, aka Yellowhead Highway, no animals. Although the moose warning signs were numerous.
I did remember a particular spot on the river (I don't know which river) near Telkwa from 1995. The wide, placid water suddenly shoots through a narrow channel between rocks. In '95 we all got out of the cars and went down to look at it. Today, I just pulled over to say "I remember that spot." Today and yesterday a lot of the rivers are muddy brown. There has been some rain so snow is melting and creating muddy runoff. We drove in some light rain off and on today.
Weird thing: we got gas today three times. Paid 125.9/ltr; 121.9; and 129.9; all three came to $97 and some cents.
Found out that Kitwanga, at the junction of Yellowhead and Cassiar, is pronounced kit-wong-ga, not ki-twang-ga.
The lumber industry up here is coming back to life after several years of idleness. Sawmills and pulpmills are working all through the area. Trucks and trains loaded with cut lumber and uncut timber are on the move.
And, of course, highway construction is in season again. We have not had any flagman delays yet, but that is due to the relatively light traffic. Many of the two lane roads we have traveled in the last couple of days are being improved to four lanes.
Today, our first choice RV park was full, and the back up was down to two spots due to construction crews in the area. One big project here (Terrace) is the Northwest pipeline that will bring natural gas down from Yukon to Vancouver.
Tomorrow we will drive to Prince Rupert, named for a guy who never came to Canada.

We Didn't See No Stinking Badgers

Today we drove from Kelowna to Prince George. We went west on 97c to Merritt, then west some more on 8 to Spences Bridge and north to Cache Creek and continued north on 97. The section on 8 and 1 is in the part of BC I never knew existed. It wasn't breath-takingly beautiful. It looked more like it should be in eastern Oregon or Nevada. A lot of sage and bare dirt. It felt hot. Not that it was hot, it looked like it was hot.
But, today was our best day yet for wildlife. We had seen some deer in Utah, then nothing until today. When we turned onto highway 1 at Spences Bridge, which, by the way, spans the Thompson River and has been replaced by a new concrete highway span, we saw a sign to watch for bighorn sheep on the road. Sure, we had seen the watch for deer and elk signs all the way from Cottonwood, so we were cynical.  But we saw about a dozen sheep just a couple of miles further on the hill above the road. So that was cool. Later we saw two bald eagles sitting on snags by the river. (There are a LOT of rivers and the roads tend to follow them.)  And another in a nest in a tree. We saw groups of deer 8 or 9 or 10 times. Margie, remember our surprise at the cougar sign at the Canyon? Today we saw a badger image sign that said "next 4 km". But, see the title of this post. Then about 40 miles south of Prince George, we saw the watch for moose sign. It must be old because it said "next 40 miles" instead of kilometers. See title and substitute moose for badgers.

But we did see a bear. First bear of the season. A small black on the edge of a road that connected to ours. It is fair that we both saw it, so we start out even. This is the only animal we stopped for. Partly because we could, but also cause it was a bear. I should get one of those bumper stickers "I Brake for Bears."
And we started the day with a bushy gray fox crossing the road in front of us as we approached Merritt. So this was a good wildlife day. We are hopeful now for the rest of the drive because we are in moose and bear country.
We are at Sintich RV park outside Prince George, and the wifi is working!

Too many winerys

Wednesday, we armed ourselves with literature (aka brochures) and set out to taste some Okanagan wine. We visited only two before lunch and purchased 8 bottles that we liked, four from each place. Then we headed downtown Kelowna to eat at a place that was written up as having all local foods. But they are a dinner-only place. We wandered a bit and found a very busy Indian place. It was very good and cheap, especially for a Canadian restaurant. Then we went to Urban Distillers to sample some gin and whiskey. The single malt was very smooth and woody. It is bottled with a piece of the cask in the bottle so it continues to age. The gin was also very good. Sipping gin, but also good with tonic.
We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get internet to work. Peggie was on the phone with tech support several times. The only way we could get connected was to go outside and around the corner. Not good. We finally got our money back and gave up.

Tuesday

Tuesday,  April 23, 2013

This was originally written in Word because the wifi at this park is not allowing us to connect.

We left Spokane heading north on 395. We were surprised how far the city spreads in that direction.  We stopped in Colville at Safeway for the last gas at U.S. prices. It is a pretty little logging town where the sawmill whistle still blows at noon. Not long after we crossed the Columbia River, which is contained in Roosevelt Lake at that point, on an old iron girder bridge. Then the road follows the Kettle River for many miles.

Those of you familiar with my contentious relationship with Canada Customs won’t be surprised to learn that they asked us to pull over for an inspection. I thought I had answered all the questions just fine. But, you know, it was me, and it was Canada Customs. They asked us to empty our pockets onto a table by the road, pull them inside out, and he decided to hold onto my Leatherman so I wouldn’t have any “weapons” while they went through the truck and trailer. In all, three of them were involved. One in the truck, and two in the trailer. We could hear them talking about how well stocked we were. They didn’t leave much of a mess and one of them even apologized that he had left our fold-down shelf down, because he couldn’t figure out how to hook it back up. They were very polite and friendly the entire time. But, it was only a cursory search. They did not look in any of the outside storage bins, nor in the big tool box in the back of the truck. We spent the time talking to a local woman who was bringing a new car back. She said you can save $10,000 buying in the U.S.  She also said this is a recent change in the law.

Back on the road, we came to a bridge over the Kettle River. To the right was the same gentle river we had been following, but to the left was waterfalls and narrow rock chutes. Being desert rats, we had to get out for a better look. We had been saying what a pretty river it was and that it would be fun to float down it. There was a roadside informational sign at the end of the bridge. There used to be a town called Cascade there. The river was tapped to provide electricity in the 1870’s and the town was built to support the building of a railroad. All that is gone now, but the gorge and cascade remain.  I don’t know if the waterfall is too much for a kayak, but it would take considerable skill to shoot that gorge.

We are staying at Holiday Park, a huge park with 500 sites, including owner/member occupied ones. We will stay all day so we can taste some wines and spirits, and maybe locate some local produce. This is a beautiful valley full of lakes and farms and vineyards.  And people. Lots of people.

A good sign

Sorry, this occurred on the interstate too quickly to get a photo as we sped past.
When we left St. Regis, famous for its huckleberry shakes, a road sign said:
         
                         Two Mile Rd.
                             One Mile

Spokane, WA

Last night we pushed past Idaho Falls because we still had daylight and energy. We stopped for the night in Dubois ( the locals pronounce it doo-boys ) at a rest area without hookups or wifi. The wind was howling from our left making driving spooky. We awoke in the morning to 30 degrees and wind howling from the north. Better, we would be driving into it instead of across it.
We were not equipped to make coffee without electricity and decided to have a hot breakfast at the local cafe. There was one other customer and Amber, the waitress, cook, and maybe dishwasher. A larger group came in and Amber called for backup. Soon another woman showed up and took over waitressing. The large group was a bunch of hillbillies (again, yes, I can tell by looking and listening) hauling three trucks of oversize loads and their pilot car drivers. They had spent the night and were waiting to hear that the roads were open. See, it had snowed overnight. We saw a snowplow/dumptruck loaded with sand head out in our direction.
But, hey, we are having adventures so we headed out. Spoiler alert: the road was fine. We got a little blowing snow and some falling snow, but the pavement was neither wet nor icy. The temp was 17 degrees by then. You can't have wet in that, and the snow was too dry to stick to anything. Farther along we passed somebody whose adventure went bad. They had gone off the road into the median and flipped onto the left side. A dually truck pulling a fifth wheel. By the time we got there, the rig was righted and hooked to a tow truck. Damaged, but maybe repairable.
We went up and over three or four divides today. Beautiful country. I-90 follows the Clark Fork, which we must have crossed a dozen or more times. It kept getting bigger. It still had some ice in spots. Leaving Missoula we saw a billboard advertising huckleberry shakes. Sixty miles later we stopped and had one (each). Veeerrryy gooood!!!
Something to remember. Snow turns to slush if it warms up or somebody puts salt on the roads, then semis pass you and you get all dirty. When you stop for gas, there is no water for windshield washing because it will freeze out there. This is another good reason to live where it is warm.
Here is another good question. Why do some drivers pass you, then get back into the right lane so quickly you can read their dashboard, when as far as you can see in any direction, you are the only two cars on the road? Especially in the aforementioned slushy conditions?

Flying J

Picture a place in the middle of nowhere. But add in that it is a Flying J plaza just off the interstate between places that are somewhere. Shouldn't be too busy, eh?
Wrong. Vehicles are at every pump. The islands are so close to the building that a vehicle pulling a trailer must use one of the two islands on either end of the string of eight. So we pull up behind a car. The man standing by the door, turns and saunters, yes saunters in no hurry into the building. Really? He couldn't move the car first? Well, maybe he is going inside to prepay and hasn't pumped yet. We wait long enough for him to have prepaid and return even if there is a long line inside. And there may be, the place is full of cars. A woman comes out to the car. She looks inside for a key in the ignition. Nope. Fishes in her purse. Still fishing. Ah! Keys. She unlocks the drivers door. Perhaps she is going to be courteous and move. She leans into the drivers seat, stands back up, repeats. Then she opens the gas cap door. What? They haven't pumped yet? She fishes in her purse, retrieves a credit card. Stares at the pump as if it is the first she has seen. Inserts the card. Reads the screen. Closes the gas cap door. Returns to the store. We decide to move to the other end. We must go completely around the building to do this. Ahhh! Somebody has beat us to it. Okay, we can wait behind them, but must leave the driveway clear so others can get in and out. The people do not appear to be pumping either. But, hey, the next island in becomes clear, I can just snake into it. We pump our gas, move the truck around back with the rest of the big rigs, go inside to use the restrooms and treat ourselves to a DQ. Unbelievably, the truck we might have waited behind is STILL THERE!!!
Okay, back up. While we were waiting behind the first car, a pickup pulled into the other side of the island. A redneck (yes, I can tell by appearance, not just him, but the truck, too.) Got out, walked around and opened the door for his woman. (Rednecks have women, who may or may not be wives) She got out to go into the store. He took a pit bull, one of three dogs in the cab, from the passenger side, walked it around and put it in the driver's side. The other two dogs seemed free to move back and forth from window to window on the seat.  ????  While he had the door open, he popped the hood. Then he checked fluid levels. Then, he opened the filler cap. Then looked for something in the cab. That's when we decided to go around to the other end.
We observed only those three vehicles. But all three of them behaved as if blocking the gas pumps while they messed with something else was no big deal. This in a place that was literally jumping. Cars in almost every slot and at every pump.

Day One and a Half

The hours of last minute details took a little longer than expected, so we didn't leave Tucson until about 2pm. Had a brief visit with Casey at her work, then spent about three days in Phoenix' rush hour traffic, with one accident related lane blockage to prolong the fun. We didn't get to Cottonwood until almost seven. But Don and Karin had saved us some dinner, so we did fine. Then we stayed up late to visit with Dave and Margie after they went to a play.
We slept well in our new Relax-the-Back (like temperapedic) bed. Our new down comforter was perfect.
We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with Greg and Amy at Camp Verde's Roadkill Cafe (not the actual name, just an inside joke) and actually started north at 11:00. Not a good early start. But the truck pulls the trailer up the grades just like it was meant to, so we made good time. As mentioned a couple of years ago, we love driving across the reservation on US 89. The colors were spectacular today. The grassy areas seemed to glow from an internal light source. And the dirt and rocks areas hold more colors than we have names for. When Flagstaff radio got too staticky (I made that word up) we found that Xavier Rudd makes perfect reservation-crossing music.  Due to the earlier earth slide that closed 89 south of Page, we had to take 89A across Marble Canyon, along the Vermillion Cliffs, and up over the Kaibab Plateau. In order to see some new road, we turned at Fredonia to see Colorado City, and join I-15 at Hurricane, UT. I wanted to stop at Hurricane so we could flush the rust out of our water lines (a legacy from Mountain View RV park in Skagway) but we missed the RV park, so continued on to Cedar City, which was our Plan A destination for tonight. We got here at 6:30, not too bad, then remembered that we had crossed into daylight savings time, and it was 7:30.
So the first adventure of the trip (rusty pipes don't qualify) was discovering that the RV gremlins had tied the power cord in knots inside that little hole it hides in, so it wouldn't come out. Never had that before. So I went ahead with the water and sewer hook -ups so Peggie could run the rust out. Then, I took the molding off the power cord's hidey hole, stuck my hand in there and unknotted the cord. Now it is coiled nicely like it is supposed to be. You just gotta love an easy fix. And, even without Don, I had the right tool.
Tomorrow we will drive the length of Utah.

The glass half full.

Okay, so all the things getting in the way of our departure have been dealt with.
The new floor in the master bedroom has been halted until fall. The subfloor is warped way out of level. The plywood will have to be removed and the beams either planed or shimmed (some of both) so our new laminate can be put in place. So everything is out of the bedroom, which looks just like a construction site, and in stacks in the office and living room. It will stay that way all summer. Whew.
But, we think as long as all that has to be done, maybe it is a good time to go ahead and remodel the bathroom and repaint the whole area. OMG $$$$
The new carpet on the stairs has been installed. It looks and feels great. $$
We had planned to leave today for a short drive to Cottonwood. Instead we now plan to leave tomorrow. So we would have been a day late, except that the original plan was to leave on Saturday. So, in that regard, we are still a day early. (See title of this post)
We still have time to include a day in Kelowna, BC for winery tours, and a day to make a detour for a look at Prince Rupert. Too early for accurate weather forecasts, but what we can see looks good.
Anyway, as long as we arrive in Skagway by the 30th, we are golden. We are traveling north on the Stewart-Cassiar Highway, which he haven't done since 1995. That was in June, this is April, so there will be more snow.
Today we will complete the hours of last-minute details: laundry, dishes, return library books, hit the drug store, get gas, etc.

I couldn't pick a title

The show at the Drawing Studio downtown is open. We had the reception Saturday, and I did a fine job of manning the wine table. I learned from watching Dave.  Peggie already sold another piece. Wow!
We are hard at it getting ready for Skagway. But there are interruptions. My annual physical resulted in several (seven) additional medical stops. You don't want or need the gory details, but suffice it to say I have been thoroughly examined from head to toe and those regions in between. I've had two ultra sounds and I am not pregnant. I have it on good authority (including color photos) that my bowels are in fine shape. I can stay on a treadmill that somehow keeps going higher and faster. I am going to have to reduce my cholesteral. This is a genetic condition, so family, beware.
Getting running boards on the truck seems to be more of a problem than it ought to be. Finding time to get tires on the trailer, also. But we think we can finally do both this weekend.
Remember Peggie's little computer mishap? Happy ending. We went to cousin Bruce's house for Easter and while telling the woeful tale, got an offer of a laptop to borrow from the son of another cousin. This cousin-once-removed lives in Tucson and we were able to arrange a pick-up without much trouble. Thank you, Alex.
We found a guy who seems knowledgeable and reliable to take care of the landscaping all summer.
We think we can get the new flooring installed this weekend, and the stairs carpeted right after.  Oh, but we have to move everything out of the bedroom for three days. We aren't really crazy. Our thinking is that there is that stinky out-gassing from these products, and we want that to happen while we are gone. No stink!
I got a call from Heath (new owner of Southeast Tours, for whom we will be working) today. He is driving my (that is my) new ( only 40,000 miles) bus to Skagway. He says I am going to love it. Everything works. It has AIR CONDITIONING. We (I mean, I) will have the only air conditioned bus in town. He is caravanning with other company employees who are taking another new bus, maybe Peggie's, a bunkhouse trailer, and two new four-door jeeps. Our garden this year will not be five planters on the boardwalk, he his bringing equipment and other interested parties so we can plant an actual in-the-ground garden.
Surprising fact-o-the-day: We have been retired for SIX YEARS! ........So, remind me again. Why are we going so far to work?
Answer: For the fun of it!