The Road to Canada

The gang's all here

 

After leaving home, we have traveled through Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and tomorrow Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.  Whew are we there yet?

Our first stop was at the Coastal Georgia Campground in Brunswick, GA.  Very nice campground with great pull-through sites and close to I-95.  Nice seafood restaurant, Marshside Grill, for dinner near the campground.  Next we stayed at the Fort Mill KOA at the South Carolina and North Carolina border.  Both of these stops were just overnight as was the next one in the Cracker Barrel parking lot in Harrisonburg, VA. We did take time the next morning to tour the beautiful Luray Caverns.  Well worth the visit if you are ever in the Shenandoah Valley area of Virginia.  Driving four days straight was a bit much for all of us but especially for Chuck recovering from his back surgery 16 days prior.  Tough guy.

Next we stayed at Shady Grove Campground around Denver, PA.  We stayed here in the Pennsylvania Dutch/Amish area for 4 nights so Mike and Pat could visit with friends and family.  This is a beautiful part of Pennsylvania.  The farmland and rolling hills are great to drive through.  Of course, great food is plentiful in this area.  Too bad we couldn't stock up on the local produce, since we wouldn't get it all eaten before crossing the border into Canada.

We all met Rich and Betty, friends of Mike & Pat, at a lovely restaurant close to our campground.  The restaurant was in an area with great little shops, so Pat (and Phyllis) was able to get some retail therapy.  We ended the afternoon with ice cream.  The shop served the largest Kiddie serving we have ever seen.    The next day after breakfast at one of Pat's favorite restaurants in the area, Shady Maple, and some shopping at a wonderful market, Mike and Pat went to visit Mike's son John and his two daughters.  They spent the night, so Chuck and Phyllis were on puppy duty.  Buster and Gracie sure missed their mommy and daddy.  Mike and Pat then went straight to meet up with her son Mickey and his wife and two children.  They sure have enjoyed getting some "grandparenting" in on this trip.

Upon leaving Pennsylvania, we split up for a few days.  Mike and Pat went to Brookfield, CT in the area where they used to live.  They are visiting more friends and family.  More on this later.  Chuck and Phyllis went to Ross Hill Campground near Mystic, CT which is the campground where we had one of our CHOC rallies 3 years ago.  This campground is a bit rustic, but the view of the Quinebaug River is awesome.  We are enjoying our days here with a visit to the Mohegan Sun casino where we spent time and money :( but had fun.  We also used the time to catch up on laundry, cleaning, and making sure we have all of the internet usage we can cram in such as making sure we have enough books downloaded to our Kindles.  Then we went to Abbott's Lobster in the Rough where we had our lobster lunch during our RV rally.  The lobster was just as good, and the setting was relaxing.    This is the first of many lobster and seafood lunches and dinners on this trip.  Yum.

The next blog will be from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.  Until then......




Luray Caverns

Luray Caverns




Grandpa Mike, Leela, & Abbie



Chuck & the Ice Cream Truck

Grandpa Mike, Julia, Lucas, and Buster & Gracie

                                           


Mike and his 93 year old mother.

Grandma Pat, Mickey, Kaelyn & Liam



View from Abbott's

 










Chuck enjoying the first lobster.








        




Here we go on the road again.

Well tomorrow we start on our next adventure.  Like we did 4 years ago, we are going exploring the Canadian Maritimes with our good friends Mike and Pat. 

We will be stopping in a few places before entering Canada at the end of the month.  We are moving quickly in order to get to The Tattoo in Halifax. 

The great thing about this trip is we only have The Tattoo and the Highland Games in Antigonish scheduled.  The rest of the time we will be "winging it".

We are all so ready to leave hot Florida for a few months.  Even Buster, Gracie, Bella, and Scamp are ready to go too.

Will try to keep the blog updated as we go along.  May even include a few pictures.  On the road again......

Northeast Montana (Scobey, Flaxville, & Whitetail)

September 7-12, 3013

After leaving Grand Coulee, WA, our next destination was the Northeast corner of Montana.  We had two overnight stops before arriving at our friends, Gary and Connie Brenden.  We have known Gary and Connie for many years, having met at our church in Alpharetta, GA when we lived there.  We were both in the new members orientation at church and found out we had many similar interests. 

Chuck and Gary are both of Norwegian descent, so there are always a lot of Norse comments.  In addition to that, we discovered we all like to bowl and ended up bowling on leagues together while in the Atlanta area.  Golf was another passion of us all and we golfed together almost every weekend--Gary and Chuck with the guys, and Connie and Phyllis with other ladies.  Lots of fun memories.  They are also our grandson, Lucas', godparents. 

We had so much fun with them.  They are staying on their family farm for the summer.  Until this year, they lived in Southern California, but their house was sold while they were at the farm.  So if you don't count the farm and their fabulous motorhome, they are "homeless".  They left the Atlanta area several years ago moving to the Phoenix area.  After a few years, they moved to Southern California.  Looks like now they are returning to Arizona.  We have visited them in all of their homes now since we finally made it to the farm.

Chuck helped Gary work on some of the farm's outbuildings the first day, and Phyllis and Connie canned tomatoes from the garden.  This really brought back memories for Phyllis, since her family always had a large garden, her mother was always canning and freezing all kinds of vegetables.  We had wonderful sweet corn, tomatoes, and cucumbers from the garden, and Connie's brother shared some tasty steaks from his herd of cows.  Something to be said about farm life and good eating.

We celebrated Chuck's birthday the second day by playing a round of golf on their neat little course in Scoby.  Lots of laughs, some good shots, and many not so good shots.  Later that evening we got to experience the "nightlife" in Flaxville by going to the Bum Steer.  Gary was from Flaxville, and Connie was from Whitetail.  Unfortunately both of these towns have decreased dramatically in population since Gary and Connie grew up here.  There isn't much left of either town, but it was interesting seeing where they went to school, had their first kiss, etc.

Bella and Scamp had a marvelous time on the farm.  They were able to run free, chase cats, play with each other, and just get plain tuckered out.  We may have a hard time getting them to be okay on a leash now.  Of course, since we heard coyotes howling at night along with an owl or two hooting, we didn't let them out at night without being leashed.  They weren't sure what to think about the coyotes howling. 

Now we are on a direct path to Bar Harbor, ME.  No we are not crazy going all the way across country.  Our good friends, Mike and Pat Dizazzo, are in Bar Harbor, and we are going to spend a few days with them before our CHOC rally in Mystic, CT.  It will take us about a week to get there. 

Gary, Connie, Phyllis, and Chuck after golf game

Gary and Chuck working on the farm

The chicken coop will never be the same

Connie supervising the work

Saying goodbye

Crossing the driveway on our way out

North Dakota near Theodore Roosevelt National Park

The "Lower 48" by way of Teslin, Watson Lake, Iskut, Stewart/Hyder, Smithers, and Prince George

August 25 - September 6, 2013

Started in Dawson Creek and ended in Smithers

 

This blog is kind of a catch-up and caravan wrap-up.  We just haven't had much for cell service or internet connections lately.  The map above is our caravan route. 

After riding the White Pass Train in Skagway, we departed the next morning for a series of one-night stops beginning with Teslin, YT.  We had stopped at Teslin on our way to Alaska.  We stopped at both the George Johnston Museum and the Tlinglet (lst Nation) Museum since we didn't take the time to visit them earlier.  Guess we must be about museumed out since we didn't stay long at either.  The George Johnston was interesting, but we didn't have it in us to read everything.

The next morning we headed to a campground near Watson Lake on the Cassiar Highway.  We had been in Watson Lake on the way in, but this was a different campground.  Not much was going on that evening so we gathered for a happy hour.  The overnight stops after a while are tiresome.  After this stop, we headed to Iskut, BC.  The campground was in a pretty setting on a lake in a pristine wilderness forest.  That evening we were served dinner by a bunch of kayakers who had come to kayak the Stikine River.  The Stikine River is the Mt. Everest of the kayak world.  These guys were from all over, Spain, New Zealand, Australia, etc.  They had agreed with the owner to work for him helping to prepare and serve our dinner.  The regular staff had all left for school.  It was interesting to hear their stories.  The meal was just okay.  It seems as if roast beef is the most common dinner that is prepared for groups.  This makes at least 3 or 4 meals of roast beef served by campgrounds during our trip.  We have decided they just don't eat fried chicken, or chicken of any kind in this part of Canada or Alaska.

After Iskut, we headed for Stewart/Hyder for a 3-night stop.  Stewart is in British Columbia and has a population of around 700, and Hyder is in Alaska with a population of around 100.  If you have ever seen videos of people standing on a boardwalk watching bears in a stream catching salmon, Hyder is the place.  The stream and boardwalk are part of the National Park System.  We traveled back and forth over the border every time we wanted to go view the bears. The US doesn't have a border crossing there, but Canada does.  We saw several bears, and one evening as we were watching a big grizzly, a wolf decided to come to the stream as well to have a salmon or two.  They came within about 25 feet of each other when the grizzly did some posturing causing the wolf to go around the bear and take off down the stream.  It was almost dark, and the pictures didn't come out very well.  I have included the picture below of the two of them together, but it is hard to make it out.

We celebrated our 45th anniversary in Stewart.  We found a restaurant in town that served King Crab legs, so that is what we had for our anniversary lunch.  Dinner that night was a chili cook off with the caravan.  Phyllis did make some chili and actually came in 3rd place.  This was a surprise since her chili is just plain old chili and nothing exotic or unusual.

Last stop on the caravan was in Smithers, BC.  We had the farewell dinner in a hotel, and you guessed it roast beef again.  They also had salmon and some vegetables which was nice.  The meal was much better than some of the others.  It was hard to say goodbye to everyone after having spent the past 48 days with them.  We have plans to have a reunion next year.  Several of us will stay in touch with each other.  Having survived a blown engine, hydraulic pump malfunction, gas filter issue, cracked and pitted windshields, no hot water (Aqua Hot leak), slides that wouldn't work right, and several other smaller issues, many of the folks were just ready to head back to the states as soon as possible.  Some just couldn't take the wilderness any longer.  Luckily we didn't have such issues and stayed an additional night in Smithers, then went to Prince George for a couple more nights.

At Price George, we met up with Pat and Bernadette and Jack and Linda, and we all had dinner together--it wasn't roast beef.  We grilled and had "regular" food.  Jack and Linda had to get two new tires the next morning before heading out--they are also the ones that had the blown engine.  Once they get home, the motorhome is going to be sold.  They were real troupers through all of their ordeals.  We had Pat and Bernadette over for breakfast the next morning.  It was so nice to have a day where we didn't have to do anything or go anywhere unless we wanted to do so.  We all went to a nice restaurant for a great dinner that evening.  Saying goodbye the next morning, we knew this was the last we would see any of the caravan folks.  Truly on our own now.

We decided to push a bit the next day and got to about 60 miles from the border staying overnight in a Canadian Tire parking lot.  The Canadian Tire stores are wonderful, so we walked around the store and parking lot before settling in to watch a movie. 

Today (Sept.6th) we crossed back into the lower 48.  It does feel good to be back.  We drove to Grand Coulee, Washington.  Once we got settled into the campground, we toured Coulee Dam, went to the casino, and then went to the laser light show at the dam.  Guess we think we have to do every thing there is to do in an area still. 

The picture taking has slowed a bit, but here are a few to hopefully enjoy.

PJ feeding year old Muskox

Biggest bull Muskox at farm

Black Bear fishing for salmon

Grizzly(R) and Wolf(L) in salmon creek at almost dark

45th anniversary in the fog at a glacier

 

Grizzly in the salmon creek

Black Bear at the Hyder dump (there were 4 bears there)

Grand Coulee Dam-largest concrete structure in the world

Pumps inside the dam

Osprey showing off at the dam

Topography sure has changed, warmer, and where are the glaciers

Chuck and Phyllis at Grand Coulee Dam

Salmon, Bears, Northern Lights, Skagway, Juneau, and WHALES!!

As good as it gets!

August 19-24, 2013

Our free day in Valdez was good.  We did clean the inside of the coach.  "Clean" is a relative term up here.  I can't begin to tell you how many times Chuck has washed the outside of the coach and our car.  Every time he does, he swears he isn't going to do it again until we get home. Of course the dirt gets so caked on he has to clean them.  The rain isn't helping anything.  Alaska seems to be having its normal weather now--overcast, rain, cool to cold--mostly in the 50's maybe a 60 and a few minutes of sun.  I need sun, so don't think I will be moving to Alaska soon.  Loving the visit however.  Today in Juneau they told us they normally have about 6 days of sunshine during the summer.  This has been a very unusual year for them.  Well, I wish the weather would go back to being unusual at least for a few more days. 

Part of the reason our vehicles get so dirty is there is so much rock and gravel here--roads, RV parks, etc.  The reason there is so much dirt is as the glaciers recede rock is left behind.  The first things that grow on this rock are lichens and moss.  After them comes the fireweed (I mentioned fireweed before being the first thing that grows after a wildfire), then willows--not weeping willows and alders.  All of these things are breaking down the rock to some degree and adding nutrients to the new soil.  Next will come Black Spruce and maybe Hemlock and Cottonwood trees.  It is great to see the progression of the soil and plant life.  You can just look up a mountain and see what stage it is in. 

After we cleaned the coach, we visited the fish hatchery and watched the salmon work their way up the fish ladder.  As the strongest make their way through, they are taken out of the ladder and the roe and sperm are "harvested" to use in the hatchery to produce the next generation of salmon.  These salmon are raised until they are ready to be released into the ocean.  They make their way out into the ocean for 1 1/2 to 6 years depending on the species of salmon.  The reason they come back to the hatchery when they are ready to spawn is because this is where they were born.  The whole salmon cycle is amazing.  How salmon make it back to where they were hatched is miraculous.  The whole hatchery system supports the commercial fishing industry since many of these millions of salmon are caught by the commercial fishermen and sent to you in restaurants, groceries, cans, etc.  Big industry here in Alaska.

We had hoped to see a Black Bear or two at the hatchery fishing for salmon, but we didn't.  However we stopped at an information kiosk at the side of the road to watch some salmon spawning in a stream.  We started to leave, but Chuck wanted to read one more sign.  As we were reading the sign a Black Bear came out of the tall grass, looked over a few salmon, made his choice and disappeared back into the grass.  Right place at right time. 

Leaving Valdez we had some one night stops.  We know the Northern Lights are starting to show in some areas on clear nights.  Phyllis stayed up very late one night hoping for clear skies and a chance to see the Northern Lights.  It was clear (and cold) saw the almost full moon (haven't seen the moon in quite a while) and the big dipper, but no lights.  The next night we had moved back to Whitehorse, YT, and didn't expect to see the lights, so went to bed.  Luckily Phil and Karon's dog needed to go out in the middle of the night, so Karon saw the lights and woke us up to see them as well.  They were pretty cool.  It is early in the season, so they weren't really spectacular but we did see them.  Has rained every night since.  Maybe we will get another chance.

Making our way to Skagway, we went on another boat cruise.  This time we were headed to Juneau which is the capital of Alaska.  We had to take the boat to get there since Juneau is the only state capital you can't get to by roadway--need to either go by boat or by air.  Both Skagway and Juneau are big cruise ship destinations.  We really don't enjoy all of the shops that are owned by the cruise ship companies.  We did see the Mendenhall Glacier while in Juneau.

The BEST thing though is on the way back to Skagway on the boat, we saw a pod of Humpback Whales.  We were able to watch them for quite a while (not long enough for Phyllis).  Saw many flukes as they dove, some spy hops, and some feeding activity.  Yes, we are happy campers now.

Tomorrow we take the White Pass Train.  Wonder what we will see.

Salmon that have come back to hatchery area to spawn

Fish Ladder

Black Bear with lunch



Eagle pair waiting for us at boat dock in Juneau

Finally some King Crab that didn't have a ridiculous price

Young Black Bear in a tree at Mendenhall Glacier NP

Mendenhall Glacier and high volume waterfall from ice fields

Humpback Whales (4) and a fluke

 

Seward, Glaciers, Valdez

August 13-19, 2013

We have been out on the water several times lately from Halibut fishing in Homer, then a three hour dinner cruise in Seward, to a nine hour boat tour of the Prince William Sound to see wildlife and glaciers.  You would have thought we would have seen a whale or two by now--no such luck.  We have seen Stellar Sea Lions, Harbor Seals, Dall Porpoise, sea otters, salmon, sea birds like Puffins, and Eagles.  Guess we shouldn't complain.

Can't complain about not seeing much of a glacier in Glacier National Park now that we have seen glaciers on foot, from the air, and from the sea.  Saw icebergs a plenty today.  We have no clue how many glaciers we have seen.  They seem to be everywhere in this area.

In Seward, we had signed up for an optional activity of visiting an Iditarod Champion's Kennel (Mitch Seavey and son Dallas Seavey) .  Chuck has come down with the cold that has been traveling through the caravan and didn't feel like going.  PJ went with the wagonmaster's wife and enjoyed the tour.  These dogs love to run and get so excited when they are getting connected to a sled or in this case a cart.  We were able to go on a two mile ride with 16 dogs pulling 9 people effortlessly in the cart.  Being in the low 50's, it was a little warm for these dogs who like to run in the below freezing temperatures.  They were stopped and rested during the run because of the "heat".  We were able to hold some 3-day old puppies since they begin socializing the puppies almost immediately.  Alaskan Huskies have been bred from several breeds of dogs and are mostly bred for endurance.  While some of them do have blue eyes, most of them do not look anything like a Siberian Husky. 

After I returned from seeing the dogs, Chuck was feeling good enough to take a flight over the glaciers and the Harding Ice Fields.  The planes are getting smaller; this plane was a 4-seater Cessna.  Like so many people we have met up here, the pilot came up on vacation one year and never left. Will let the pictures tell the glacier story.

Exit Glacier by foot--yes we went all the way to it



Stellar Sea Lions seen during dinner cruise

Dog Team -- PJ in cart

Harding Ice Field--glaciers flow out of ice fields

Exit Glacier by air--we were at the bottom when hiking

Chuck, Phil, and the pilot

Horsetail Falls

Sea Otters playing

Iceberg from Columbia Glacier--saw it turn over

Us at Meares Glacier

Meares Glacier

Harbor Seals on iceberg from Meares Glacier



Oil pipeline terminus in Valdez


Happy tomorrow is a free day!