Day 8 - Glennallen, Alaska, USA

4,154.7 total miles, 531.9 miles today.

Oh, how lovely to be back in America!! I'll write more later (probably either tomorrow or the next day), but I did want to let you all know we're back in the USA and mere hours from home. Yay! Thanks for the prayers and well-wishes from everyone, and stay tuned for more news soon. For now, though, it's almost 12:30 a.m. and still light out, but we're all tired and about to go to bed. Sleep tight!

Day 7 - Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada

3622.8 total miles, 599.7 miles today

I was not looking forward to today. Today was the day we were going to be driving the part of the Alcan that makes people run out and buy "I Survived The Alcan" t-shirts. The Milepost warned of steep grades up to 10%, unpaved and unlined portions of road, twisting turns through the Rockies with no shoulder and no guardrails... Egads.

So it was with a sense of nervousness that we left Fort Nelson. However, things were not at all what any of us expected.

The road simply wasn't that bad. Sure, some parts were being repaired, and those were unpaved, gravelly and dusty. Other parts were roughly paved and bumpy. The whole thing was twisty. This is one of the under-repair areas, where the gravel is loose and the dust is thick:

James wanted to show you what we saw most of the trip on the GPS - long expanses where it simply says to stay on whatever road you're on for hundreds and hundreds of miles.

But oh my, the Canadian Rockies are giving Montana a run for its money when it comes to my favorite place ever. This has to be one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.

There are things that made us scratch our heads in bewilderment, though. Like this guy:

He's pedaling INTO the Rocky Mountains. He's on his way UP. And there's nothing for miles and miles and miles. It's like these random cyclists drop from the sky into remote areas and have to work their way out again, sort of like Survivorman. Hey, that makes as much sense as anything else, right?

Jim as usual drove in front, and was very good at radioing back to us about where the potholes were, and the fresh asphalt patches, and obstacles in the road such as these:

These are stone sheep. We can't figure out what they're eating on the road, but they were finding something that would keep them munching along no matter how close the cars got to them.

This guy on the right has a radio collar on. They were losing their winter coats.

Down the road a ways, Jim alerted us to the cutest thing we'd see all day:

A black bear sow and two tiny cubs. Before the day was out, we'd see another mother bear with another set of twins, and several lone black bears. We also saw a grizzly, but we didn't get to take his picture.

Moose aren't exactly rare to us anymore, but getting to take a bull's picture this close is something special.

And here's something you don't see very often, even in America - a herd of wild bison, grazing by the side of the road. Look at the calves!! There were 31 bison in this herd that we were able to count.

Our wild animal count for today came to 69. We saw black bears, a grizzly, bison, moose, and stone sheep. It was like going through one of those safari parks but without having to buy a ticket.

You'll probably be relieved to know that Tate has cut out the drama and is back to being the fine traveler she was at the beginning.

You may also be relieved to know Jim isn't having any drama, either.

Our big touristy moment today was a visit to the Signpost Forest in Watson Lake. People from all over the world come here and leave little mementos of their visit. From license plates to road signs to plaques with names on them. I don't know how much land the Signpost Forest occupies, but it's pretty big and must have thousands of pieces of stuff in it. Jim left his license plate from his first car, and I left a license plate from the brief time when the Metropolitan was registered as a driver.

I guess that's about it for today. We're hitting the road again in the morning and will be back in the good old U.S. of A. by the middle of the afternoon. See you then!

Random stuff from the trip so far

Hello again. I'm waiting my turn in the shower after a half night's sleep (thanks, Tate) and thought I'd get a bonus post in before I go clean up.

This was one of our change-of-address cards. I blurred out the address, obviously. Our neighbors on our street, and the friends we got to see before we left got these.

Silliness for the road...

One of the few touristy things we did was try out the local specialty of Idaho Huckleberry Cordials.

They're a lot like Cherry Mash, except they have a smaller amount of filling and it's obviously huckleberry instead of cherry. It tastes pretty much like grape. We also shared a huckleberry soda in Montana. For the record, Montana was my favorite stop so far.

We could see this building from our hotel in Helena. You can't see it here, but maybe if you click on the photo it will enlarge enough for you to see the lizards twining around that spire. Since I've left the sweet little house geckos back in Texas, this was a fun thing to see.

We didn't know this type of thing existed. We see them all the time for the last couple days... Trucks hauling around two ATVs on these things. I'm not sure what I think of them, but I think I think they're a good idea.
Okay, the shower's empty now and it's my turn. I just heard the neighbors in the next room leaving, too. I think they were paying us back for all the noise Tate was making last night, and weren't exactly quiet themselves. Oh well. Time to start another day and drive the worse part of the AlCan. Today's goal - to get to at least Whitehorse, YT.

Onward!

Day 6 - Fort Nelson, British Columbia, Canada

3,023.1 total miles. 635.3 miles today.

James is collecting pictures of the budgies in their current surroundings every day, and since Jim was holding them in this pic of us leaving Spruce Grove, I thought I'd include it here. I think the budgies are ready to apply for their own passports and become full-time world travelers.

Tate, however, is not. She's decided that globetrotting is not for her, and she has developed a death wish that I'm going to make come true if she doesn't cut out the drama.

Anyway. Canada has stopped looking quite so much like Kansas, but it's still a great big lot o' nothing out here.

We have been under a time crunch to get back into the US before Tate's medical papers expire on the 9th. We'll make it, barring some unforeseen event, but in order to make sure, we haven't done anything remotely touristy. Except for the photo Jim took of all three of us at the Mile Zero marker for the AlCan Highway. It's still on his camera right now, so you'll have to settle for my non-peopled pic of the marker:

Once we got a few miles beyond Dawson Creek, where the AlCan begins, we were back to having nothing to look at but trees. We'd go for miles and miles without seeing another person, and then, in the middle of nowhere, there'd be a house, or even more bewildering, a jogger. We always wonder where they came from, and where they are trying to go. Here's James, driving across the metal grate Peace River Bridge:

The Peace River on the other side of the car:

We stopped for the night in Fort Nelson, BC. We're in a cute retro-type hotel - with a kitchenette!! Here are the budgies, on top of the kitchenette:

Yes, that's a microwave on top of a dorm fridge. :^)

And here's Tate, finally settling down for a little while. So help me, she'd better sleep through the night. Jim's working while he has the chance.

While driving along the AlCan (which is actually called the Alaska Highway, but that doesn't sound as cool), we saw our first serious Do Not Feed The Bears sign, and down the road a couple hours, saw a black bear standing on the rise near the road, watching cars go by. Awesome.

Day 5 - Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada

2,387.8 total miles. 630.0 miles today.

First, let me give a big shout-out to Montana for being just so gosh-darn pretty. WOOT!

We left Helena and set our GPS to Sunburst, which looked like the closest town to the US/Canada border. I'll just say that I'm really glad we decided to stop for the night in Helena, rather than look for a place to stay nearer the border. Sunburst had a general store and half a gas station, and that's pretty much it. They did try to make up for it with a very attractive welcome sign, though, so a little bit of a Woot! to the citizens of Sunburst, too.

About three hours into the day's drive, we reached the border. Jim parked and went into the building to see what we needed to do, having a dog, two birds, food, and a small apartment's worth of household goods. Turns out the Canadian border agents were not too interested in any of that. They waved Jim through, no problem, and when I pulled up, the agent asked if I was "with that guy," asked what was in the cooler that the collectible violins were in, and was ready for me to get going, too. I was expecting a lot more drama. I think we all were, given the build-up we'd had about what to have ready for the agents and all. Oh well, I'm sure there will be more drama getting back into the US in a few days.

I also expected to see the agent get out a big rubber stamp and stamp our passports like in the movies, but no. He stuck mine in a time-card type thing and then handed it back to me, and he didn't even want to see James'. Hm.

This is our GPS showing us sitting right on the US/Canada border.

Once we were on the other side of the border (which means a lot different things than it does when you say that in Texas), we drove through what looked a lot like Kansas. We drove until we got to a big enough town to have a McDonald's, and got some lunch. I got lost in that town, but Jim didn't. Thank goodness for GPS and family-band radios, that's all I can say. I turned left looking for bathrooms, Jim turned right looking for a windshield-repair place, and long story short, I got to tour downtown.

At first, being in Canada was a bit odd. Sort of like those old Star Trek episodes where the ship's crew finds themselves in an alternate dimension where something is not quite right, but they don't know what to do about it. I mean, the people speak English, but the accents are juuuust slightly different than what we're used to. The measurements are different, and the prices are different, too, so don't pull up to a gas pump that says $1.09 and think you're getting ANY sort of a bargain. Many of the chain stores are the same in Canada as in teh US, but the menus are off a bit. I bought a "grand format" (king size) Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, for instance. And rather than build businesses on the highways to cater to travelers, like we do in America, in Canada you have to go looking for that gas station or eatery way on off down the road several kilometers. I keep waiting for Evil Spock With A Beard to stroll by so I can make sense of my surroundings.

This is Calgary.

We made our goal of Edmonton and finally found a hotel for the night. Traveling with Tate has begun to be a problem. Hotels that are dog-friendly in an area of few hotels to begin with have made stopping for the night a bit of an adventure. Oh well, there's nothing to do about it now. Jim found a Ramada Inn in downtown Edmonton, and we went up to the room, but I got a strange sense of something very bad there. I told the guys but told them in a joking kind of way that I was completely oogied out by that room. The feeling didn't go away, and it got worse, to the point where I was in tears and shaking. The guys packed us all up and out we went. By the time we got to the vehicles, I'd added teeth chattering to the whole meltdown repertoire. Jim found a Holiday Inn further downtown that would take Tate, but we couldn't get the truck and trailer parked in their trial-sized parking lot, so we had to scrap that and drive on into the night until we found a hotel in Spruce Grove that would take the pets and had enough parking space. I'm sorry I put the guys through so much drama with moving to another town for the night, but I'm not at all sorry we left that Ramada Inn. I still can't explain it, and I hope that never happens to me again, but I'm definitely not sorry we got out of there.

Day 4 - Helena, Montana

I forgot to check the mileage before getting out of the truck here in Helena, but we drove for about 11 hours and the mileage is somewhere around 1800. We're more than a third of the way home!

We finished the drive through Utah (which got pretty again after being desolate and depressing for part of the time), through the corner of Idaho, and now are in Montana. We expect to be in Canada tomorrow. There's either irony or symbolism in the twist that we'll be leaving America on its birthday, but I'm too tired to figure that out right now...

For those who've been wondering how we packed the three pets, here you go. Tate shares about 2/3 of the bed of the CR-V with Sprite and Buttercream, and our clothes are in the hardcases next to them.

Aaaaaand this is my view - the back of the U-Haul. Only the scenery around it changes. James took a shift driving this morning so now he knows what it's like to have the U-Haul logo burned into your eyeballs. Just for grins, when I got the wheel later in the day, I got in front of Jim so I could see open road, but after so long behind him, it felt weird so I got back behind him fairly quickly.
Speaking of scenery, we passed through some really lovely terrain. Green mountains and valleys, flocks of sheep and llamas, Our Lady of the Rockies, and the Great Salt Lake. We tried to take pictures of what we could see of the Great Salt Lake, but they didn't really turn out.

So, here we are, in another Holiday Inn. But this time in Montana, about three hours from the Canada border. We're on the 7th floor, but there was an elevator for Tate so I don't think it's quite sunk in for her how far up she is. This was her first time on an elevator. And speaking of first times, at twelve years of age she's finally discovered that there is a big porcelain dog bowl in the bathroom. [sigh]

Another fun option Tate's discovered about our room is the tiny dog-sized balcony overlooking part of the arts festival going on in Helena today. I sent Tate out there to take her picture with the mountains behind her, but she plopped herself down and didn't want to move. James and I tried to get her to sit up, or even look back at the camera, but there were too many things to see on the street outside and too many good smells coming from the restaurant below.
So, I guess that's about it for today. I'm tired, and there is another long day of driving ahead of us tomorrow, as well as going through Customs at the border. Wish us luck and I hope they don't want us to unpack everything we've got crammed into that trailer.....

Day 3 - Green River, Utah

1,079.8 total miles. 229.6 miles today.

As you can see, we didn't get a whole heck of a lot of driving done today. Jim's work had a crisis, and he needed to spend quite a chunk of the day seeing if he could get it straightened out.

But first, there was breakfast! After spending the night at the B&B, we went back to Mom's and Stan's house for an al fresco meal of bacon and pancakes, cooked right outside by the Host With The Most.

Here's Jim, Stan and Mom, sitting in their back yard by the rushing creek right in their back yard. It was so pretty out there, listening to the water and watching the chipmunks running all around.

Stan's cooking breakfast on the electric griddle right on the picnic table. Once he got the bacon and a round of pancakes done, we sat down at the table to eat it while he spooned up more batter onto the griddle and ate while he continued to cook. Awesome. I'm stealing that idea when we get settled in the new house!

Jim, doing what he did for most of the day, while Stan fried bacon.

The budgies are having quite a nice time traveling, I think. Tate seemed to really like Granny's house, and she spent the night there while we were in the B&B. I did take pics of her, but I took them with a disposable camera so I can't upload them.

While Jim worked on the computer getting the crisis somewhat under control, Stan, Mom, James, Tate and I went on a drive through their part of the valley to look around at the pretty houses and cute cabins and the scenery near where they live. No wonder they like it there so much. We had a lovely time visiting them, but we did have to leave, so around 3:15, we headed out.

We left Colorado behind and got into Utah. Our goal was Salt Lake City, but we didn't get that far. A lot of the first part of Utah was really pretty.

A lot of the rock formations are really interesting. For example, this thing:

We don't know what it was, but it just sort of appeared in the desert, like a misplaced space ship or a fat lost chicken. And this had some really pretty arches to it:

But all too soon, the interesting rock formations gave way to desolate areas as far as the eye could see, and we decided it might be best to find a hotel while we could, and get some extra rest. On the bright side, we're a quarter of the way to our new house.

The Best Western in Green River doesn't allow pets, but the Holiday Inn Express across the street does, so that's where we are right now. Unfortunately for Tate, our room is on the second floor, and her old hips don't appreciate the adventure of staircases like they did back in the day. But she's fine. In fact, she's fast asleep, much like she's been for the last several days. At least we haven't needed to pull out the sedatives!

Tate, Sprite and Buttercream say hello!