Monday, June 30, 2008
Skagway and Juneau
[Be sure to click on the photos for larger versions.]
This installment covers Friday (June 27) through Sunday (June 29).
On Friday morning our group took the White Horse & Yukon sightseeing train to the summit of White Pass. This was the second route to the Yukon gold fields, the first being the Chilcoot Pass just to the west. Over 35,000 different men worked on the 2-year, 2-month construction of the railroad. From the train we had good views of snow covered mountains and the Skagway river. Unfortunately, with overcast and low clouds, we did not get any real good photos.
After returning to the campground, I spent much of the afternoon updating my journal and blog.
This evening, Carol and I went to the Red Onion Saloon for dinner then had ice cream at a local parlor. We then with a large group to the Days of 98 show. The evening began with 45 minutes of mock gambling with the actors. The show itself started with the recitation of some Robert Service poetry, followed by a play that told the story of Soapy Smith, the local con man who was shot dead in 1899.
It rained hard on Friday night, and Saturday was windy – the weather forecast says winds of 30 to 40 mph with higher gusts. Today was a free day. Carol and I started late this morning with a little shopping for T-shirts and sweatshirts. We walked the main streets it town and ate lunch at the Red Onion.
After lunch, we went to the National Park Visitor Center where we saw a movie about the stampede of 1898-1900 and watched a short ranger presentation on the two trails to Dawson City – the Chilcoot Pass and the White Pass (also known as Dead Horse Trail because of the large number of horses who perished during the winter of 1898.)
We then returned to the Red Onion for a tour of the upstairs brothel which was in operation for about 2 years during the height of the stampede.
We visited the local cemetery where Soapy Smith and his killer, Frank Reid, are buried. The latter’s headstone says “He gave his life for the honor of Skagway.” One of the women of the evening had a headstone, now gone, which said “She gave her honor for the life of Skagway.”
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We also drove about 10 miles around the fjords to the location of Dyea, the town that served as the jumping off point for the Chilcoot Trail.
On Sunday, our caravan members took the Fjord Express – an enclosed catamaran – on a 3-1/2 hour (each way) trip to Juneau. Along the way we saw a number of eagles (enlarge the first photo to see two eagles side by side in the tree), a colony of sea lions, dolphins (including a pod that swam between the two hulls of the boat), and several distant humpback whales.
The last part of the trip was a 30 minute bus ride from the boat landing to downtown Juneau where we had about 3 hours to explore. Carol and I had lunch on the waterfront and watched float planes landing and docking next to the restaurant. After lunch, we visited the Alaska State Museum. The museum had a nice exhibit containing ravens; a section of Alaska history; and an exhibit on Russians in Alaska.
The bus then took us on a brief city tour followed by a visit to Mendenhall Glacier. Juneau’s main industry is government, followed in order by tourism, commercial fishing, mining, and timber. We got some good photos of the glacier and a large nearby waterfall. Several in our group also saw a black bear near the visitor center at the glacier.
Today was the first day of a two day salmon season in the Lynn Canal between Juneau and Skagway. We saw a fishing boat pulling in its 1200-foot gill net and retrieving salmon. Other sights on the return trip were the lighthouse on Eldred Rock, passing cruise ships leaving Skagway, and more distant humpback whales.
This installment covers Friday (June 27) through Sunday (June 29).
On Friday morning our group took the White Horse & Yukon sightseeing train to the summit of White Pass. This was the second route to the Yukon gold fields, the first being the Chilcoot Pass just to the west. Over 35,000 different men worked on the 2-year, 2-month construction of the railroad. From the train we had good views of snow covered mountains and the Skagway river. Unfortunately, with overcast and low clouds, we did not get any real good photos.
After returning to the campground, I spent much of the afternoon updating my journal and blog.
This evening, Carol and I went to the Red Onion Saloon for dinner then had ice cream at a local parlor. We then with a large group to the Days of 98 show. The evening began with 45 minutes of mock gambling with the actors. The show itself started with the recitation of some Robert Service poetry, followed by a play that told the story of Soapy Smith, the local con man who was shot dead in 1899.
It rained hard on Friday night, and Saturday was windy – the weather forecast says winds of 30 to 40 mph with higher gusts. Today was a free day. Carol and I started late this morning with a little shopping for T-shirts and sweatshirts. We walked the main streets it town and ate lunch at the Red Onion.
After lunch, we went to the National Park Visitor Center where we saw a movie about the stampede of 1898-1900 and watched a short ranger presentation on the two trails to Dawson City – the Chilcoot Pass and the White Pass (also known as Dead Horse Trail because of the large number of horses who perished during the winter of 1898.)
We then returned to the Red Onion for a tour of the upstairs brothel which was in operation for about 2 years during the height of the stampede.
We visited the local cemetery where Soapy Smith and his killer, Frank Reid, are buried. The latter’s headstone says “He gave his life for the honor of Skagway.” One of the women of the evening had a headstone, now gone, which said “She gave her honor for the life of Skagway.”
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We also drove about 10 miles around the fjords to the location of Dyea, the town that served as the jumping off point for the Chilcoot Trail.
On Sunday, our caravan members took the Fjord Express – an enclosed catamaran – on a 3-1/2 hour (each way) trip to Juneau. Along the way we saw a number of eagles (enlarge the first photo to see two eagles side by side in the tree), a colony of sea lions, dolphins (including a pod that swam between the two hulls of the boat), and several distant humpback whales.
The last part of the trip was a 30 minute bus ride from the boat landing to downtown Juneau where we had about 3 hours to explore. Carol and I had lunch on the waterfront and watched float planes landing and docking next to the restaurant. After lunch, we visited the Alaska State Museum. The museum had a nice exhibit containing ravens; a section of Alaska history; and an exhibit on Russians in Alaska.
The bus then took us on a brief city tour followed by a visit to Mendenhall Glacier. Juneau’s main industry is government, followed in order by tourism, commercial fishing, mining, and timber. We got some good photos of the glacier and a large nearby waterfall. Several in our group also saw a black bear near the visitor center at the glacier.
Today was the first day of a two day salmon season in the Lynn Canal between Juneau and Skagway. We saw a fishing boat pulling in its 1200-foot gill net and retrieving salmon. Other sights on the return trip were the lighthouse on Eldred Rock, passing cruise ships leaving Skagway, and more distant humpback whales.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Through Whitehorse to Skagway
[Be sure to click on the photos for larger versions.]
This installment covers Tuesday (June 24) through Thursday (June 26).
Tuesday was a group sightseeing day in Whitehorse. We boarded a bus late this morning. After stopping at an overlook of Miles Canyon, we took a two-hour boat trip on the Yukon River. From the boat we saw a couple of brown bears and a golden eagle. The whitewater that Whitehorse was named after was eliminated when the river was dammed to run a hydroelectric plant. During the gold rush of 1898, some 7500 boats traversed the rapids in this area. The first week, about 150 boats were lost. The author Jack London worked for a time as a guide through the rapids, earning the princely sum of $25 per trip.
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After the boat tour, we saw a short film about river traffic on the Yukon River and went on a guided tour of a restored riverboat, the Klondike II. The riverboat carried all types of cargo to Dawson City, including the famout Borden's Reindeer Milk. We learned that the fireman, who worked 4 hours on / 8 hours off feeding one log to the boiler every 30 seconds, earned $85 a month, or about 3-1/2 times the average wage in the Yukon. Because the male to female ratio in Whitehorse was 10-1, women said “The odds are pretty good, but the goods are pretty odd.”
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Next we toured the fish ladder that enables salmon to swim upriver past the hydroelectric dam.
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The bus driver then gave us a tour of a nice residential area across the river, then returned for a tour of downtown. We learned that the Yukon has about 35,000 residents, half of whom live in Whitehorse. The territory’s main industries are government, mining and tourism. Humans are significantly outnumbered by about 175,000 caribou. It gets cold in Whitehorse, but not much snow. Last winter there was about 2 feet of snow, and about two weeks when the temperature got below -50 degrees Centigrade.
We arrived back at the RV park about 5:00 p.m. Carol and I then drove downtown where we ran errands and had a nice dinner at Earl’s restaurant.
Wednesday was a free day for individual sightseeing in Whitehorse. Carol and I started the morning with a visit to the Yukon Transportation Museum (pretty self-explanatory) and the Beringia Interpretive Center. Beringia was the flat, treeless steppe that joined Russia and Alaska during the last ice age, about 40,000 to 15,000 years ago. As a result of the water consumed in forming glaciers, the seas were down over 300 feet, exposing the continental shelf. Because of the position of the mountains, this area did not get much rain, did not glaciate, and was home to many species of large mammals.
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Adjacent to the transportation museum we saw the world’s largest weather vane, an old DC-3 that has been mounted on top of a large pole.
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After the museums, we had lunch at Tim Horton’s, the ubiquitous Canadian pastry and sandwich chain. We then visited the MacBride Museum, which had a display of Yukon wildlife, exhibits on Yukon history, and the cabin in which Sam McGee (immortalized in Robert Service’s poetry) lived.
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Finally we drove to the rim of Miles Canyon and walked across the suspension bridge that we had seen yesterday from our boat trip.
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This evening our caravan had a very good steak dinner in the RV Park recreation hall. We departed later to see the Whitehorse Follies, a two-hour Vaudeville-type show.
Thursday was a sunny driving day from Whitehorse to Skagway, where we are staying at an RV Park located downtown near the cruise ship docks. We stopped en route at the small town of Carcross to visit their visitor center and eat some delicious ice cream. After crossing the border into the U.S., we descended a 3000 foot grade into Skagway – the Gatlinburg of Alaska. The main (only?) industry here is tourism. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the big cruise ship days. Today there were four ships in the harbor. The streets are lined with stores selling everything from jewelry to souvenirs, and nothing much in between.
We get one TV channel here from Anchorage. The prime time programming was all NBC, but they switched to CBS at 10:30, so we saw Letterman instead of Leno.
We do have Internet access, so tomorrow I hope to update the blog.
This installment covers Tuesday (June 24) through Thursday (June 26).
Tuesday was a group sightseeing day in Whitehorse. We boarded a bus late this morning. After stopping at an overlook of Miles Canyon, we took a two-hour boat trip on the Yukon River. From the boat we saw a couple of brown bears and a golden eagle. The whitewater that Whitehorse was named after was eliminated when the river was dammed to run a hydroelectric plant. During the gold rush of 1898, some 7500 boats traversed the rapids in this area. The first week, about 150 boats were lost. The author Jack London worked for a time as a guide through the rapids, earning the princely sum of $25 per trip.
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After the boat tour, we saw a short film about river traffic on the Yukon River and went on a guided tour of a restored riverboat, the Klondike II. The riverboat carried all types of cargo to Dawson City, including the famout Borden's Reindeer Milk. We learned that the fireman, who worked 4 hours on / 8 hours off feeding one log to the boiler every 30 seconds, earned $85 a month, or about 3-1/2 times the average wage in the Yukon. Because the male to female ratio in Whitehorse was 10-1, women said “The odds are pretty good, but the goods are pretty odd.”
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Next we toured the fish ladder that enables salmon to swim upriver past the hydroelectric dam.
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The bus driver then gave us a tour of a nice residential area across the river, then returned for a tour of downtown. We learned that the Yukon has about 35,000 residents, half of whom live in Whitehorse. The territory’s main industries are government, mining and tourism. Humans are significantly outnumbered by about 175,000 caribou. It gets cold in Whitehorse, but not much snow. Last winter there was about 2 feet of snow, and about two weeks when the temperature got below -50 degrees Centigrade.
We arrived back at the RV park about 5:00 p.m. Carol and I then drove downtown where we ran errands and had a nice dinner at Earl’s restaurant.
Wednesday was a free day for individual sightseeing in Whitehorse. Carol and I started the morning with a visit to the Yukon Transportation Museum (pretty self-explanatory) and the Beringia Interpretive Center. Beringia was the flat, treeless steppe that joined Russia and Alaska during the last ice age, about 40,000 to 15,000 years ago. As a result of the water consumed in forming glaciers, the seas were down over 300 feet, exposing the continental shelf. Because of the position of the mountains, this area did not get much rain, did not glaciate, and was home to many species of large mammals.
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Adjacent to the transportation museum we saw the world’s largest weather vane, an old DC-3 that has been mounted on top of a large pole.
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After the museums, we had lunch at Tim Horton’s, the ubiquitous Canadian pastry and sandwich chain. We then visited the MacBride Museum, which had a display of Yukon wildlife, exhibits on Yukon history, and the cabin in which Sam McGee (immortalized in Robert Service’s poetry) lived.
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Finally we drove to the rim of Miles Canyon and walked across the suspension bridge that we had seen yesterday from our boat trip.
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This evening our caravan had a very good steak dinner in the RV Park recreation hall. We departed later to see the Whitehorse Follies, a two-hour Vaudeville-type show.
Thursday was a sunny driving day from Whitehorse to Skagway, where we are staying at an RV Park located downtown near the cruise ship docks. We stopped en route at the small town of Carcross to visit their visitor center and eat some delicious ice cream. After crossing the border into the U.S., we descended a 3000 foot grade into Skagway – the Gatlinburg of Alaska. The main (only?) industry here is tourism. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the big cruise ship days. Today there were four ships in the harbor. The streets are lined with stores selling everything from jewelry to souvenirs, and nothing much in between.
We get one TV channel here from Anchorage. The prime time programming was all NBC, but they switched to CBS at 10:30, so we saw Letterman instead of Leno.
We do have Internet access, so tomorrow I hope to update the blog.
The Alaska Highway Trip Begins
[Be sure to click on the photos for larger versions.]
This installment covers Saturday (June 21) through Monday (June 23).
Saturday was a nice, sunny driving day from Fort Nelson to Muncho Lake. We saw quite a bit of wildlife en route: three small groups of caribou on or beside the road; several small groups of stone sheep on or beside the road; a moose cow entering the woods; and a black bear. We got photos of caribou, stone sheep and the moose; the bear was too fast for us. We also saw two smashed car carcasses; apparently the losing end of previous car vs. wildlife encounters.
We made a stop at a restaurant whose ceiling is covered by thousands of caps that people have donated. We left an I-State Freightliner cap (the dealer gave us two after we spent 4-1/2 days having our coach serviced) and got a card identifying it as hat number 7494. The high point (literally) of today’s trip, indeed of the whole Alaska Highway, was a 4,500 foot pass through the Rocky Mountains.
Our campground tonight overlooked the blue-green Muncho Lake. We had a social hour outside the Lapinski’s coach, and drank some of Joe’s homemade Merlot. Dinner was a buffet in the adjacent lodge. After supper we watched as a couple of float planes took off on flightseeing tours.
Last night was a rainy night and today (Sunday) was a rainy driving day from Muncho Lake to Watson Lake. We started the morning thinking that our water pump had failed, and wondering where we would be able to get it repaired – it turned out that I had just left the water tank fill valve in the wrong position.
One of the first recommended stops was Laird Hot Springs; however, we are not hot spring type people, so we skipped this one. It turns out that over half of the caravan decided not to make the stop. Part of the morning drive followed a river which was really raging as a result of last night’s rain. The wildlife today consisted of two groups of buffalo and a lone fox; we got photos of the former. At one point we traversed a bridge that was built out of steel salvaged from the “galloping Gertie” bridge collapse in New York. Today we also crossed from British Columbia into the Yukon.
We had planned to have pizza at a place in Watson Lake that we remember fondly from our 2002 Alaska trip – unfortunately it was closed for remodeling. We did see the Sign Forest, which now claims over 60,000 signs, including one that our caravan host hung this morning.
This evening our group had a spaghetti dinner at the restaurant operated by the RV park / lodge / gift store owners. After dinner we had guitar and fiddle entertainment by a couple of local musicians. The female half of the park owners also told us a little about life in the Yukon – cold winters (as low as 60 below Centigrade); astronomical electricity prices for diesel generated power; ordering expensive foodstuffs for the restaurant a week in advance and hoping the shipment contains most of what was ordered; moose hunting in the winter; etc.
On Monday, we drove from Watson Lake to Whitehorse, where we will spend three nights. It was in the 40s and rained until about 2:00 p.m., when it turned overcast. Surprisingly we saw only one fox today.
We (and many others) had lunch at a restaurant famed for its rhubarb pie, which indeed was delicious. We then spent a couple of hours sightseeing in Teslin, where we visited the Wildlife Museum and the Tsinglet Heritage Center. The latter was a little disappointing. It has five totem poles outside a fabulous, modern building. Unfortunately, the display area inside is very small.
We are tightly packed in the campground this evening; with the past couple of days of rain, there is a lot of mud and standing water. Actually, it is very reminiscent of our stay at the same park in 2002. The group dinner this evening was another buffet in the RV park’s recreation hall.
We have good cable TV here – the first time we have seen U.S. channels since leaving Montana – so I am watching The Bachelorette this evening. The park supposedly has WIFI, but so far I haven’t been able to connect, so I don’t know when this part of the blog will get posted.
This installment covers Saturday (June 21) through Monday (June 23).
Saturday was a nice, sunny driving day from Fort Nelson to Muncho Lake. We saw quite a bit of wildlife en route: three small groups of caribou on or beside the road; several small groups of stone sheep on or beside the road; a moose cow entering the woods; and a black bear. We got photos of caribou, stone sheep and the moose; the bear was too fast for us. We also saw two smashed car carcasses; apparently the losing end of previous car vs. wildlife encounters.
We made a stop at a restaurant whose ceiling is covered by thousands of caps that people have donated. We left an I-State Freightliner cap (the dealer gave us two after we spent 4-1/2 days having our coach serviced) and got a card identifying it as hat number 7494. The high point (literally) of today’s trip, indeed of the whole Alaska Highway, was a 4,500 foot pass through the Rocky Mountains.
Our campground tonight overlooked the blue-green Muncho Lake. We had a social hour outside the Lapinski’s coach, and drank some of Joe’s homemade Merlot. Dinner was a buffet in the adjacent lodge. After supper we watched as a couple of float planes took off on flightseeing tours.
Last night was a rainy night and today (Sunday) was a rainy driving day from Muncho Lake to Watson Lake. We started the morning thinking that our water pump had failed, and wondering where we would be able to get it repaired – it turned out that I had just left the water tank fill valve in the wrong position.
One of the first recommended stops was Laird Hot Springs; however, we are not hot spring type people, so we skipped this one. It turns out that over half of the caravan decided not to make the stop. Part of the morning drive followed a river which was really raging as a result of last night’s rain. The wildlife today consisted of two groups of buffalo and a lone fox; we got photos of the former. At one point we traversed a bridge that was built out of steel salvaged from the “galloping Gertie” bridge collapse in New York. Today we also crossed from British Columbia into the Yukon.
We had planned to have pizza at a place in Watson Lake that we remember fondly from our 2002 Alaska trip – unfortunately it was closed for remodeling. We did see the Sign Forest, which now claims over 60,000 signs, including one that our caravan host hung this morning.
This evening our group had a spaghetti dinner at the restaurant operated by the RV park / lodge / gift store owners. After dinner we had guitar and fiddle entertainment by a couple of local musicians. The female half of the park owners also told us a little about life in the Yukon – cold winters (as low as 60 below Centigrade); astronomical electricity prices for diesel generated power; ordering expensive foodstuffs for the restaurant a week in advance and hoping the shipment contains most of what was ordered; moose hunting in the winter; etc.
On Monday, we drove from Watson Lake to Whitehorse, where we will spend three nights. It was in the 40s and rained until about 2:00 p.m., when it turned overcast. Surprisingly we saw only one fox today.
We (and many others) had lunch at a restaurant famed for its rhubarb pie, which indeed was delicious. We then spent a couple of hours sightseeing in Teslin, where we visited the Wildlife Museum and the Tsinglet Heritage Center. The latter was a little disappointing. It has five totem poles outside a fabulous, modern building. Unfortunately, the display area inside is very small.
We are tightly packed in the campground this evening; with the past couple of days of rain, there is a lot of mud and standing water. Actually, it is very reminiscent of our stay at the same park in 2002. The group dinner this evening was another buffet in the RV park’s recreation hall.
We have good cable TV here – the first time we have seen U.S. channels since leaving Montana – so I am watching The Bachelorette this evening. The park supposedly has WIFI, but so far I haven’t been able to connect, so I don’t know when this part of the blog will get posted.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Escaping Billings, Visiting Edmonton, and Starting Our Caravan
[Updated on June 27th to include photos.]
[Remember to click on photos for larger versions.]
This installment covers Thursday (June 12) through Friday (June 20).
We slept in again on Thursday morning. The turbocharger was supposed to arrive by 10:30 and there was a 3-hour estimate to get it installed. To kill time, we went downtown and visited the small Western Heritage Museum. Its main claim to fame is an exhibit about the great flood of 1937 and one of Calamity Jane’s original outfits.
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We also visited the Billings Art Museum. We visited three galleries: one of art by high school students, one of modern art, and one of western art. Carol and I both thought the high school student exhibit was the best.
Knowing that Freightliner’s estimates are optimistic, we had a late lunch and arrived at Freightliner about 4:00, where we waited until the turbocharger was installed and tested about 6:00. We noticed that the air suspension in the front end of the coach had not held air overnight, and asked the night foreman to check the system again. He did, and they discovered a bad leveling valve that needs to be replaced. Of course, it is not in stock, will arrive by 10:30 tomorrow morning, and will involve a half-hour installation job. So its back for a third night in a motel.
On Friday morning we watched TV and read until check-out time, then proceeded to Freightliner to check on the status of the motorhome. The new leveling valve had arrived and was being installed. The installation took longer than expected (by them) and it was about 2:15 before we finally got on the road for Great Falls. The 240 mile drive was mostly through high plains, and it was very windy again, which kept our speed down
Saturday was a driving day from Great Falls to Calgary. It was a sunny day and was not as windy as forecast, so it was a pleasant drive. The Montana portion was ranchland and recently planted wheat fields; in Alberta, the farmland was greener. We could see snow-capped mountains to the west all day long. Because of the extended stop in Billings, we will not have time for sight-seeing in Calgary; instead we will drive to Edmonton tomorrow and have a day and a half for sight-seeing there before we head on to Dawson Creek.
On Sunday we drove from Calgary, through rolling farmland, to Edmonton, where we are staying at the same RV park we stayed at during our return from Alaska in 2002. We had some light rain this afternoon, so we went to the Edmonton Mall, the largest mall in North America. We toured the lower level, which includes an amusement park and a skating rink. From our mall experience, it looks like Edmonton has a large oriental population, with sizeable populations of East Indians and Middle Easterners.
On Monday, we went sightseeing in Edmonton. Our first stop was Fort Edmonton. This city park consists of the fort, an street restored to the 1885 time period, a 1905 street, and a 1920s street. There were a number of people in period costumes who answered questions about the time in which they were living. On 1885 street, I took a photo of Carol with the school marm.
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On 1905 street, we saw the contrast between a maid beating a rug at the local doctor’s house and a lady cooking lunch outside the tent she lived in. She and her husband had moved from Victoria and had entered into a contract to build a home. However, due to Edmontons’ growth spurt, there was over a two-year waiting list. During the winter, they stacked hay bales next to the tent and let snow accumulate on the roof, creating an igloo-like structure that was warmed by a single stove.
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Mid-afternoon we went to the Edmonton Science Museum. The main exhibit was Body Works 1, which just opened last Friday. This interesting exhibit displays human organs, human bodies, and slices of human bodies that have been plasticized. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed. The rest of the museum consisted of hands-on galleries.
After finishing at the museum, we toured the upper level of Edmonton West Mall, and had a nice dinner.
On Tuesday, we drove from Edmonton to Dawson Creek where we are staying at Northern Lights RV Park from which we will start our caravan. This morning I washed the RV at a do-it-yourself car wash. Unfortunately, it rained some this afternoon and the coach now looks as dirty as it did last night. On today’s drive we saw a lot of signs warning of moose crossings, but nary a moose in sight. This afternoon we joined the 24 other folks who are already here for the caravan for a social hour outside the host’s coach. We then went as a group to dinner at the White Spot restaurant. We had a chance to visit with some folks we know from our Nova Scotia trip, as well as the chance to begin making some new friends.
We started Wednesday by doing the laundry and washing the car in Dawson Creek. After lunch in the RV, we went downtown, toured the local art museum, saw the monument marking the official start of the Alaska highway, and walked the couple of main streets in town. After a late afternoon social hour at the host’s camp site, Carol and I returned downtown for dinner at Boston Pizza. Back at the coach, we watched the DVD Death at a Funeral.
On Thursday morning, Carol and I got haircuts. At 2:00 we had our caravan orientation meeting. After the meeting, I put a screen across the front of the CRV to try to minimize any damage from travel on gravel roads. At 4:30 our group boarded a school bus for downtown Dawson Creek, where we had a group picture taken at the big sign announcing the start of the Alaska highway. We had a nice dinner at the George Dawson Inn, followed by an interesting slide show presentation on Dawson Creek and the Alaska highway.
Friday our first travel day on the caravan. We left Dawson Creek shortly after 8:00 a.m. heading for the Westend RV Park in Fort Nelson. About 20 miles out of Dawson Creek, several of us took a short detour to cross the only original Alaska Highway bridge still in existence. Shortly after rejoining the “new” Alaska Highway, we passed the remnants of a car vs. moose accident.
We joined many of the other caravaners en route at Shepard’s Inn where we partook of their famous cinnamon buns. It was a nice sunny day, and this part of the Alaska highway is just like any well maintained 2 lane road. Most of the road has very wide cleared areas on both sides of the road so that you can see approaching wildlife. Today we saw one deer and one coyote, the latter just as we were entering Fort Nelson.
Like Montana, we saw some snow-capped mountains to the west on today’s drive; unlike Montana, there were fir tree forests rather than plains between us and the mountains.
After a late afternoon travel meeting to brief us on tomorrow’s drive, Carol and I explored the (small) downtown, but found nothing of particular interest. We then walked a couple of blocks to the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum, which has a collection of memorabilia from the area, a Hudson Bay Company trading cabin, the Hudson Bay Company manager’s residence, and a collection of old vehicles.
[Remember to click on photos for larger versions.]
This installment covers Thursday (June 12) through Friday (June 20).
We slept in again on Thursday morning. The turbocharger was supposed to arrive by 10:30 and there was a 3-hour estimate to get it installed. To kill time, we went downtown and visited the small Western Heritage Museum. Its main claim to fame is an exhibit about the great flood of 1937 and one of Calamity Jane’s original outfits.
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We also visited the Billings Art Museum. We visited three galleries: one of art by high school students, one of modern art, and one of western art. Carol and I both thought the high school student exhibit was the best.
Knowing that Freightliner’s estimates are optimistic, we had a late lunch and arrived at Freightliner about 4:00, where we waited until the turbocharger was installed and tested about 6:00. We noticed that the air suspension in the front end of the coach had not held air overnight, and asked the night foreman to check the system again. He did, and they discovered a bad leveling valve that needs to be replaced. Of course, it is not in stock, will arrive by 10:30 tomorrow morning, and will involve a half-hour installation job. So its back for a third night in a motel.
On Friday morning we watched TV and read until check-out time, then proceeded to Freightliner to check on the status of the motorhome. The new leveling valve had arrived and was being installed. The installation took longer than expected (by them) and it was about 2:15 before we finally got on the road for Great Falls. The 240 mile drive was mostly through high plains, and it was very windy again, which kept our speed down
Saturday was a driving day from Great Falls to Calgary. It was a sunny day and was not as windy as forecast, so it was a pleasant drive. The Montana portion was ranchland and recently planted wheat fields; in Alberta, the farmland was greener. We could see snow-capped mountains to the west all day long. Because of the extended stop in Billings, we will not have time for sight-seeing in Calgary; instead we will drive to Edmonton tomorrow and have a day and a half for sight-seeing there before we head on to Dawson Creek.
On Sunday we drove from Calgary, through rolling farmland, to Edmonton, where we are staying at the same RV park we stayed at during our return from Alaska in 2002. We had some light rain this afternoon, so we went to the Edmonton Mall, the largest mall in North America. We toured the lower level, which includes an amusement park and a skating rink. From our mall experience, it looks like Edmonton has a large oriental population, with sizeable populations of East Indians and Middle Easterners.
On Monday, we went sightseeing in Edmonton. Our first stop was Fort Edmonton. This city park consists of the fort, an street restored to the 1885 time period, a 1905 street, and a 1920s street. There were a number of people in period costumes who answered questions about the time in which they were living. On 1885 street, I took a photo of Carol with the school marm.
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On 1905 street, we saw the contrast between a maid beating a rug at the local doctor’s house and a lady cooking lunch outside the tent she lived in. She and her husband had moved from Victoria and had entered into a contract to build a home. However, due to Edmontons’ growth spurt, there was over a two-year waiting list. During the winter, they stacked hay bales next to the tent and let snow accumulate on the roof, creating an igloo-like structure that was warmed by a single stove.
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Mid-afternoon we went to the Edmonton Science Museum. The main exhibit was Body Works 1, which just opened last Friday. This interesting exhibit displays human organs, human bodies, and slices of human bodies that have been plasticized. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed. The rest of the museum consisted of hands-on galleries.
After finishing at the museum, we toured the upper level of Edmonton West Mall, and had a nice dinner.
On Tuesday, we drove from Edmonton to Dawson Creek where we are staying at Northern Lights RV Park from which we will start our caravan. This morning I washed the RV at a do-it-yourself car wash. Unfortunately, it rained some this afternoon and the coach now looks as dirty as it did last night. On today’s drive we saw a lot of signs warning of moose crossings, but nary a moose in sight. This afternoon we joined the 24 other folks who are already here for the caravan for a social hour outside the host’s coach. We then went as a group to dinner at the White Spot restaurant. We had a chance to visit with some folks we know from our Nova Scotia trip, as well as the chance to begin making some new friends.
We started Wednesday by doing the laundry and washing the car in Dawson Creek. After lunch in the RV, we went downtown, toured the local art museum, saw the monument marking the official start of the Alaska highway, and walked the couple of main streets in town. After a late afternoon social hour at the host’s camp site, Carol and I returned downtown for dinner at Boston Pizza. Back at the coach, we watched the DVD Death at a Funeral.
On Thursday morning, Carol and I got haircuts. At 2:00 we had our caravan orientation meeting. After the meeting, I put a screen across the front of the CRV to try to minimize any damage from travel on gravel roads. At 4:30 our group boarded a school bus for downtown Dawson Creek, where we had a group picture taken at the big sign announcing the start of the Alaska highway. We had a nice dinner at the George Dawson Inn, followed by an interesting slide show presentation on Dawson Creek and the Alaska highway.
Friday our first travel day on the caravan. We left Dawson Creek shortly after 8:00 a.m. heading for the Westend RV Park in Fort Nelson. About 20 miles out of Dawson Creek, several of us took a short detour to cross the only original Alaska Highway bridge still in existence. Shortly after rejoining the “new” Alaska Highway, we passed the remnants of a car vs. moose accident.
We joined many of the other caravaners en route at Shepard’s Inn where we partook of their famous cinnamon buns. It was a nice sunny day, and this part of the Alaska highway is just like any well maintained 2 lane road. Most of the road has very wide cleared areas on both sides of the road so that you can see approaching wildlife. Today we saw one deer and one coyote, the latter just as we were entering Fort Nelson.
Like Montana, we saw some snow-capped mountains to the west on today’s drive; unlike Montana, there were fir tree forests rather than plains between us and the mountains.
After a late afternoon travel meeting to brief us on tomorrow’s drive, Carol and I explored the (small) downtown, but found nothing of particular interest. We then walked a couple of blocks to the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum, which has a collection of memorabilia from the area, a Hudson Bay Company trading cabin, the Hudson Bay Company manager’s residence, and a collection of old vehicles.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Unscheduled Maintenance, Scheduled Maintenance, and More Unscheduled Maintenance (Do You See a Theme Here?)
[Be sure to click on the photos for larger versions.]
This installment covers Friday (June 6) through Wednesday (June 11).
Friday was supposed to be a sightseeing day in Cheyenne, but that didn’t happen. Just after I had finished posting to the blog, the 120-volt electricity in the coach went out. The campground owner checked the pedestal, and there was power there. We also had 120-volt power when we turned on the generator. These symptoms mean that there is a problem with the transfer switch, the device that switches the coach between shore power and the generator.
After spending about an hour calling RV service facilities in Cheyenne; Longmont, Colorado; and Casper, Wyoming, we finally found a place in Casper that can look at the system tomorrow – most of the others either could not handle the problem or had no service openings for one to two weeks. To top things off, we had trouble starting the generator and it ran roughly. Apparently there was some dirt or water in the fuel, which we removed by draining about a quart of fluid out of the fuel/water separator.
We got a refund for tonight from the Cheyenne campground, and departed around noon for Casper. This is one of the windiest days we have had, and we had strong cross-winds across the plains for most of the 180 mile trip. En route, we stopped at a steakhouse in Chugwater where we had very good homemade cheeseburgers for lunch.
In Casper, we found an RV park about a mile from tomorrow’s service facility. In the evening we went to the local mall, where we each bought a western shirt, then saw Made to Honor at a second-run movie theater. We read some when we got back to the coach – I’m about halfway through the surprisingly humorous Mark Twain’s Autobiography and Carol is reading a series of science fiction novels.
Saturday was our second “unscheduled maintenance” day. At 9:00 a.m. we drove the coach to Rec-Vee RV Service and Supply. The talkative owner has been in the RV service business for 35 years. He is in the process of trying to sell his service building and land, after which he plans to continue his repair business on a smaller scale. In anticipation of the sale, he has let his service staff go, so he does all the repairs himself. His wife runs the parts and accessories store.
The problem indeed was the transfer switch – some of the wires had melted, apparently from a relay having gone bad. The owner was able to find a replacement switch in town at one of the other RV service centers which had not had time to see us. After about 4 hours (three of which he charged us, which was fair, because he had spent an hour talking) he had it installed and ready to go. While we waited, Carol brought out her craft supplies and did collage with the owners’ 12- or 13-year old granddaughter.
We moved the RV back to the campground then visited Fort Caspar and its associated museum. The fort was named after Lieutenant Caspar, whose only claim to fame was getting himself and a small band of soldiers killed by Indians. We never found out why the spelling changed from “ar” to “er” when the town was named.
Adjacent to the fort was the site of an early ferry crossing for the Platte River. As traffic increased, an entrepreneur built a 800+ foot bridge across the river. He charged what the traffic would bear: $1 a wagon when the river was low and there were other ways to cross, $6 a wagon when the river was high and he had a monopoly.
In the evening, we went downtown to a first-run movie, You Don’t Mess With The Zohan.
Tomorrow we will leave for Billings, Montana, where we have a Monday morning preventative maintenance appointment at the Freightliner dealer who serviced our coach when we passed through Montana last summer. This will be the last service stop of the trip: knock on wood.
Sunday we drove from Casper to Billings, Montana, where we overnighted in the parking lot at the Freightliner dealer. It was a windy driving day again, with a little light rain near the end of the trip. We saw a lot of pronghorn antelope (not a true antelope, because it has branching horns) alongside the road today, with snow-capped mountains in the distance to our west. We also saw a few scattered tumblin’ tumbleweeds.
On Monday morning, after entrusting the RV to the Freightliner dealer at 7:00 a.m. for its 72,000 mile preventative maintenance, we proceeded to downtown Billings to do a load of laundry and get the Honda serviced and washed. The combination lube/carwash/glass replacement center had free ice cream while you wait and did a nice hand wash for $17. Maybe I’ll open one in Tallahassee when I return and compete with SuperLube.
After taking care of these chores, we shopped at a downtown antique store where I bought about eight to ten late-1930s vintage newspapers (mostly from Boston) for a grand total of $6.
During the day the Freightliner dealer called to say that their inspection turned up two maintenance issues – there is a leak in the exhaust manifold which will require a new gasket, and the rear transmission seal is leaking and needs to be replaced. This extended the estimated completion time from late afternoon to late evening. To kill some time, Carol and I visited Riverside Park, where we walked about a 2.4 mile loop trail for our first real exercise of the trip. We then spent some time reading at a picnic table in the park.
After dinner we returned to the dealer’s customer lounge. About 9:00 p.m., the night foreman brought the news that the gasket replacement had not been started, and that it would be an all-day job tomorrow. We then moved the coach to the parking lot for a second night of dry camping.
Normally we would be upset about losing an extra day on a maintenance stop, but it turns out that there has been snow in Glacier National Park and the Going to the Sun Highway – which was about 2/3 plowed and open a couple of days ago – is now almost completely closed. Since there is really nothing else to see there, we will sidestep Glacier and proceed directly to Grand Falls, Calgary and Edmonton.
At 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday we again entrusted the RV to Freightliner and set out in the Honda for a day of sightseeing in Cody, Wyoming, which is about 90 miles to the southwest. We arrived in Cody shortly after 9:00 and spent several hours visiting the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. This complex, which we had visited last summer, includes a Plains Indian Museum, a gallery of western art, a natural history museum, the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum, and a firearms museum.
Since we are near Meeteetsee, Wyoming, I called Nina Cornell, an economist who testified on behalf of MCI a number of times in the 80s and 90s. I learned that she retired in 2000 and spends her time cooking and watching wildlife from her home in the Wyoming wilderness. They see bear, moose, antelope, deer, wolves, and coyotes. This spring, a moose gave birth to two calves who lived for four days under their deck. Nina says that since the wolf population had rebounded, the moose are moving closer to human populations to give birth. Nina declined our invitation to buy her lunch at the fanciest place in Cody and we declined her invitation to join Nina and her husband at their home, which would have involved driving over an hour each way to Meeteetsee, about half of the trip on dirt roads.
After finishing at the museum, we walked downtown for lunch and to window-shop in the local souvenir stores and specialty shops. We returned to Billings in the late afternoon, where they were still in the process of reassembling the engine and turbocharger. About 9:30 p.m., we learned at that in reattaching the turbocharger to the exhaust manifold, they discovered a broken part on the turbocharger. The only solution is to replace the entire turbocharger unit. Freightliner does not have one in stock in Billings, but they expect to be able to get one in the morning from the local Caterpillar dealer.
Since the coach is inside the shop, and the engine is still partly disassembled, we spent the night at a Hilton Garden Inn. We got their last room about 10:30. After appearing piteous, the night clerk gave us the drug company representative rate which saved us 30% on the room. From the late night news, we learned that it snowing in Great Falls and is expected to continue tomorrow morning. This means we would not have left Billings tomorrow (Wednesday) even if the repairs to the coach were complete.
We slept in on Wednesday morning then had a leisurely breakfast at IHOP. We checked with the Freightliner dealer about 10:30 a.m. and discovered that a new turbocharger is not available locally, but will arrive tomorrow morning by express from Denver. It supposedly will take about 3 hours to install, so we can be on our way by tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon. Given the dealer’s optimistic estimates of work times, and the bad weather in Great Falls, we have reserved a campsite in Billings for tomorrow night and now plan to depart for Great Falls on Friday. This will cut a day out of our planned stop in Calgary, but still gets us to the caravan rendezvous on time.
We found a room for tonight at Kelly Inn, which is somewhat less expensive than the Hilton Garden Inn’s drug representative rate. I am using the down time this afternoon to update our journal and blog. Late this afternoon, we went to see What Happens in Vegas, another cute romantic comedy.
This installment covers Friday (June 6) through Wednesday (June 11).
Friday was supposed to be a sightseeing day in Cheyenne, but that didn’t happen. Just after I had finished posting to the blog, the 120-volt electricity in the coach went out. The campground owner checked the pedestal, and there was power there. We also had 120-volt power when we turned on the generator. These symptoms mean that there is a problem with the transfer switch, the device that switches the coach between shore power and the generator.
After spending about an hour calling RV service facilities in Cheyenne; Longmont, Colorado; and Casper, Wyoming, we finally found a place in Casper that can look at the system tomorrow – most of the others either could not handle the problem or had no service openings for one to two weeks. To top things off, we had trouble starting the generator and it ran roughly. Apparently there was some dirt or water in the fuel, which we removed by draining about a quart of fluid out of the fuel/water separator.
We got a refund for tonight from the Cheyenne campground, and departed around noon for Casper. This is one of the windiest days we have had, and we had strong cross-winds across the plains for most of the 180 mile trip. En route, we stopped at a steakhouse in Chugwater where we had very good homemade cheeseburgers for lunch.
In Casper, we found an RV park about a mile from tomorrow’s service facility. In the evening we went to the local mall, where we each bought a western shirt, then saw Made to Honor at a second-run movie theater. We read some when we got back to the coach – I’m about halfway through the surprisingly humorous Mark Twain’s Autobiography and Carol is reading a series of science fiction novels.
Saturday was our second “unscheduled maintenance” day. At 9:00 a.m. we drove the coach to Rec-Vee RV Service and Supply. The talkative owner has been in the RV service business for 35 years. He is in the process of trying to sell his service building and land, after which he plans to continue his repair business on a smaller scale. In anticipation of the sale, he has let his service staff go, so he does all the repairs himself. His wife runs the parts and accessories store.
The problem indeed was the transfer switch – some of the wires had melted, apparently from a relay having gone bad. The owner was able to find a replacement switch in town at one of the other RV service centers which had not had time to see us. After about 4 hours (three of which he charged us, which was fair, because he had spent an hour talking) he had it installed and ready to go. While we waited, Carol brought out her craft supplies and did collage with the owners’ 12- or 13-year old granddaughter.
We moved the RV back to the campground then visited Fort Caspar and its associated museum. The fort was named after Lieutenant Caspar, whose only claim to fame was getting himself and a small band of soldiers killed by Indians. We never found out why the spelling changed from “ar” to “er” when the town was named.
Adjacent to the fort was the site of an early ferry crossing for the Platte River. As traffic increased, an entrepreneur built a 800+ foot bridge across the river. He charged what the traffic would bear: $1 a wagon when the river was low and there were other ways to cross, $6 a wagon when the river was high and he had a monopoly.
In the evening, we went downtown to a first-run movie, You Don’t Mess With The Zohan.
Tomorrow we will leave for Billings, Montana, where we have a Monday morning preventative maintenance appointment at the Freightliner dealer who serviced our coach when we passed through Montana last summer. This will be the last service stop of the trip: knock on wood.
Sunday we drove from Casper to Billings, Montana, where we overnighted in the parking lot at the Freightliner dealer. It was a windy driving day again, with a little light rain near the end of the trip. We saw a lot of pronghorn antelope (not a true antelope, because it has branching horns) alongside the road today, with snow-capped mountains in the distance to our west. We also saw a few scattered tumblin’ tumbleweeds.
On Monday morning, after entrusting the RV to the Freightliner dealer at 7:00 a.m. for its 72,000 mile preventative maintenance, we proceeded to downtown Billings to do a load of laundry and get the Honda serviced and washed. The combination lube/carwash/glass replacement center had free ice cream while you wait and did a nice hand wash for $17. Maybe I’ll open one in Tallahassee when I return and compete with SuperLube.
After taking care of these chores, we shopped at a downtown antique store where I bought about eight to ten late-1930s vintage newspapers (mostly from Boston) for a grand total of $6.
During the day the Freightliner dealer called to say that their inspection turned up two maintenance issues – there is a leak in the exhaust manifold which will require a new gasket, and the rear transmission seal is leaking and needs to be replaced. This extended the estimated completion time from late afternoon to late evening. To kill some time, Carol and I visited Riverside Park, where we walked about a 2.4 mile loop trail for our first real exercise of the trip. We then spent some time reading at a picnic table in the park.
After dinner we returned to the dealer’s customer lounge. About 9:00 p.m., the night foreman brought the news that the gasket replacement had not been started, and that it would be an all-day job tomorrow. We then moved the coach to the parking lot for a second night of dry camping.
Normally we would be upset about losing an extra day on a maintenance stop, but it turns out that there has been snow in Glacier National Park and the Going to the Sun Highway – which was about 2/3 plowed and open a couple of days ago – is now almost completely closed. Since there is really nothing else to see there, we will sidestep Glacier and proceed directly to Grand Falls, Calgary and Edmonton.
At 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday we again entrusted the RV to Freightliner and set out in the Honda for a day of sightseeing in Cody, Wyoming, which is about 90 miles to the southwest. We arrived in Cody shortly after 9:00 and spent several hours visiting the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. This complex, which we had visited last summer, includes a Plains Indian Museum, a gallery of western art, a natural history museum, the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum, and a firearms museum.
Since we are near Meeteetsee, Wyoming, I called Nina Cornell, an economist who testified on behalf of MCI a number of times in the 80s and 90s. I learned that she retired in 2000 and spends her time cooking and watching wildlife from her home in the Wyoming wilderness. They see bear, moose, antelope, deer, wolves, and coyotes. This spring, a moose gave birth to two calves who lived for four days under their deck. Nina says that since the wolf population had rebounded, the moose are moving closer to human populations to give birth. Nina declined our invitation to buy her lunch at the fanciest place in Cody and we declined her invitation to join Nina and her husband at their home, which would have involved driving over an hour each way to Meeteetsee, about half of the trip on dirt roads.
After finishing at the museum, we walked downtown for lunch and to window-shop in the local souvenir stores and specialty shops. We returned to Billings in the late afternoon, where they were still in the process of reassembling the engine and turbocharger. About 9:30 p.m., we learned at that in reattaching the turbocharger to the exhaust manifold, they discovered a broken part on the turbocharger. The only solution is to replace the entire turbocharger unit. Freightliner does not have one in stock in Billings, but they expect to be able to get one in the morning from the local Caterpillar dealer.
Since the coach is inside the shop, and the engine is still partly disassembled, we spent the night at a Hilton Garden Inn. We got their last room about 10:30. After appearing piteous, the night clerk gave us the drug company representative rate which saved us 30% on the room. From the late night news, we learned that it snowing in Great Falls and is expected to continue tomorrow morning. This means we would not have left Billings tomorrow (Wednesday) even if the repairs to the coach were complete.
We slept in on Wednesday morning then had a leisurely breakfast at IHOP. We checked with the Freightliner dealer about 10:30 a.m. and discovered that a new turbocharger is not available locally, but will arrive tomorrow morning by express from Denver. It supposedly will take about 3 hours to install, so we can be on our way by tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon. Given the dealer’s optimistic estimates of work times, and the bad weather in Great Falls, we have reserved a campsite in Billings for tomorrow night and now plan to depart for Great Falls on Friday. This will cut a day out of our planned stop in Calgary, but still gets us to the caravan rendezvous on time.
We found a room for tonight at Kelly Inn, which is somewhat less expensive than the Hilton Garden Inn’s drug representative rate. I am using the down time this afternoon to update our journal and blog. Late this afternoon, we went to see What Happens in Vegas, another cute romantic comedy.
