The Alcan

This is a first!  We are barreling down the highway toward Watson Lake, Yukon and I’m trying to type.  The road is so bumpy…I keep missing the keys.

From the Quesnel VC we are traveling north toward Prince George stopping only to take a few pictures of the fire hydrants in Quesnel.

Getting a really late start due to my slow blogging and even slower internet connection at the visitor center, we find ourselves in an isolated mountain valley as evening approaches. 

At a gravel rest area we are heating leftovers and dining in the trailer, contemplating spending the night on the side of the road.

But the town of Chetwynd is just ahead!  It’s claim to fame is 100+ chainsaw wood carvings.  The public parking lot behind the gas station is our home for the night.  And I was so grateful!

It’s starting to rain,  first rain since leaving Kentucky.  After spending some time checking emails and admiring the carvings, we are heading out toward Dawson Creek and the beginning of the Alcan Highway.

 

 

Dawson Creek is about an hour up the road.  The visitor center provides a photo op.

The center gives us a list of gas stations and distance between fuel.  From now on we are driving off the top half of our tank…at times going less than 100 miles before filling again.

A grocery stop at Fort St John eats up over two hours of travel time.  Seems like we are not making much progress.

After driving all day in the rain, we stop at the Bucking Horse River Lodge which offers free parking for RVs.  They are out of gas, very bad news! But a mining camp across the road provides us with a fill up. 

The River Lodge also has food.  Bacon and pancakes for me and corn beef sandwich for the hubby….$24!

We are learning from our mistakes, hitting the road at 6 AM the next morning.  Fort Nelson is an hour away providing us with breakfast at the A&W and a free dump station.

Our goal today is Liard Springs Provincial Park, 300 miles. This park has a natural hot spring making it a popular stop.

We travel through the Northern Rocky Mountains and Muncho Lake Park, beautiful parts of the Alcan, on our way to Liard Springs.

 

On our way to the park we seen a momma bear and her cub, our first moose and 2 mule deers!

It’s worth the drive!  Lovely place.

Beautiful BC

 

After leaving the peaceful forest campsite in western Montana we find ourselves crossing the some of the largest mountains that we’ve seen.  No cell signal for hours! 

Stopping at the Spokane, WA visitor’s center we encounter helpful workers who plot our route to Omak, WA, taking us through a vast expanse of nothingness.  We are leaving I-90 after a thousand rolling miles. The area between Spokane and Omak is flat and barren but we  cross the Columbia River at the Grand Coulee Dam.

This is some of the art found at the Grand Coulee Visitor Center.  It’s amazing how an idea from the 1800’s became real after WWII and turned a desert into a lush river valley.

Saturday night we are guests at the Omak Wally World rv park, parked right next to the tires and oil change department.

Sunday morning we are preparing to enter Canada and I wonder if it’s going to be a problem with the banks closed on Sunday.  Did not remember to call our bank cards and tell them we are traveling out of the country.  But there is soo much to remember!  We get our oil changed and strike out for the border.

The Escape rally at Osoyoos, BC has just ended this morning; we exchange toots of the horn with numerous eggs as they travel south toward the States.

We are traveling through this awesome valley viewing the Okanagan River.

Stopping for groceries at the next large town, we find that the hubby’s check card will not work.  I was able to use my card and obtain some Canadian money.  Everything’s in metric…we soon figure out the speed limits.  I am missing my phone already…wishing for the calculator…but the data is turned off at the border and the phone is turned off at the suggestion of those who know about roaming charges.

We stop at the Merritt Visitor Center inquiring about the closest provincial park.  Monck is not far and it’s another beautiful lake.

A wind is surfer showing off his talent.  The above Escape is from Vancouver; nice folks on their way home from the rally.

British Columbian’s love their parks!  Found this at an empty campsite.

Quesnel Visitor Center provides the laptop with a jolt of juice  as we wait for the banks to open on Tuesday morning.  Heading for Prince George.

(For those who are following on the map….we are on 97 N and will hit mile 0  of the Alcan at Dawson Creek.)

Quartz Flat cg, Lolo NF

 

We are heading down the road and make a pit stop, but this rest area is unusual.  It has a national forest campground sign at the end of the parking lot.  My hair is dirty and my number one desire is to get it clean….we brought our sun shower for backup.  This may be the place!

So for the $5 camp fee (senior discount) we find ourselves dumping our tanks, refilling the water, washing clothes (by hand), taking showers and cooking dinner.

  Also there’s a little nature trail that leads to the Clark Fork River (named after Lewis and Clark.)

Clark Fork River

 

I am looking for a place to jump in the river.  Not a good decision, wading in and wading out immediately! The surrounding mountains still have snow melting making it icy.

These beautiful yellow flowers are growing everywhere.

Wash Day!

Ponderosa pines dominate the campground.  This stand is 80 years old according to the trail guide.

Thank everyone for their concern over hubby’s condition…glad to report that the medicine appears to be working.

We are 150 miles away from Spokane, still in Montana.  There’s a short piece of Idaho that we must get through before entering Washington.  Not sure of our route after leaving the interstate in Spokane but the destination is Omak, WA, right below Osoyoos, BC.

No internet connection here….hope to post and catch up on the road this AM.

I-90 Skyway

For the past two days we have been on a beautiful section of I-90.  The pictures do not capture the vast rolling hills and the sky dominating every scene.   This special section starts around Rapid City, winds through Wyoming and gets even more spectacular in Montana.  Today we have been following the Yellowstone River from Billings, our last night’s stop.  It’s a wide, clear river full of rocks and rapids with snow capped dark mountains in the distance.  Sorry, our pictures where taken from the car as there was nowhere to stop.

We are still making good time in our mission to cross the country.  If all goes well, we should be in Spokane, WA tomorrow night and just below the Canadian border by Saturday.

We have had some hiccups.  The hubby has not been at his best after having problems with acid stomach.  Several nights ago I contemplated taking him to the emergency room as the attack went on for hours.  But he got through it and is now taking some generic meds.  I truly thought that it was the end of our trip.

And the cursed refrigerator is acting up.  I did not even try to start it before we left cause the pilot keeps blowing out as we travel.  But Tuesday we started smelling gas around the propane tanks, even when they were turned off.  This morning was spent in a Billings RV shop where they replaced the gas regulator.  As soon as we started traveling the pilot light went off again.  I started the pilot a few hours ago and now the fridge will not cool!  That’s the last money we are spending on this refrigerator!

Closing with pictures from the little Canon camera….just downloaded them….thought they did a good job of showing the trip so far!

Overcast skies in Kentucky

The storm passes

First night Pilot Travel Center—Illinois

St Louis, MO

Corp of Engineers Park Lake Sharpe

the famous drug store

Devil’s Tower

Montana

Marching Forward

 

It’s the end of day 4 and we are 1500 miles from home.  And all we have done is drive!  We did stop at Wall Drug today…just because we missed it on the last trip through South Dakota. For those of you unfamiliar with this iconic tourist trap, this establishment was founded back in 1931.  The famous part comes from the placement of signs for hundreds of miles along I-90 advertising free ice water and 5 cent coffee.   We did three eggs in the parking lot, a Casita, Scamp and Escape, which is more than we’ve seen the whole trip.

Tonight finds us at Devil’s Tower National Monument, B-Loop as A is closed due to flooding over the weekend.  It’s cold, highs were in the 50’s with gale force winds rocking us all day.  A beautiful morning with sun and lovely clouds turned ugly by mid afternoon.  Dark, menacing clouds stole the light and dampened my mood.

We did not really mean to camp here at the Tower but the welcome center hostess warned us that Gillette, Wyoming was a busy, noisy town 24 hours a day and we would not get good rest at either the Wal-Mart or the Flying J, our two objectives.  And we were too tired to make a rational choice so we drove about 30 extra miles to pay the $6 nightly camp fee. (With senior discount.)

I’m glad we are here.  I may never see this rock again and it just exudes energy….even from my first sighting of it 15 miles away, I thought that the native Americans would consider it a very spiritual place.  The campground and the black tail prairie dog town lie in it’s shadow.

This sculpture is called the Circle of Smoke.

Devils Tower and Casita awning

Last night we were in need of a shower and I wanted to get off of the road after one night at a truck stop and one night at wally world.  We found a Corp of Engineers park on the Missouri River,  Big Bend Dam at Lake Sharpe. (North of I-90 in the middle of South Dakota.) For $9 we were able to shower, cook up some of our food, and get the battery charged. 

Missouri River in South Dakota

First night out at a Pilot Travel Center

Printed this sign onto the Reflectix and it has started conversations everywhere we go.  Most begin with “Are you coming or going?”  A few are people who have actually taken the trip and they usually pass on some much appreciated tip.

Signing off for the night.  Don’t know if the meager signal here will handle the data, if not…there’s tomorrow.

  Please forgive all the mistakes….at least there were mistakes, still uncorrected, in the last post.  My brain just won’t work when it’s tired.

D minus zero

 

Today is the day……. departure day.  My internal clock wakes me around 5 AM…..

After making the coffee I spend an hour surfing the Weather Channel and getting forecasts for the cities on our path.  Due to promising the family that we will be careful, I assess today’s risk of traveling northwest. Tornadoes are vicious creatures, landing on our intended route last evening.  After getting the forecast for our area, it appears that today is the best travel day; we just need to get past the approaching front shown on the radar with scary looking yellows and reds.

Feeling a little numb, no excitement nor dread.  Just left brain, this chore, next chore and we are pulling out of the driveway at 9:30 AM.  The excitement is beginning to sink in!  Are we really going to Alaska?

It’s beautiful, the sun is shining in an almost cloudless sky.  I look at our city from the perspective of a tourist.  Beautiful mountains, gorgeous river, and lovely shades of green everywhere.  No hint of the impending bad weather that’s rolling southeast.

It’s hot!  We decide against the air conditioning, too early in the day.  Clouds started pouring in and it’s no longer too warm.  I am wishing that we are on the other side of the storms.  The Nashville skyline greets us, the batwings so familiar from the TV show.  It’s terribly muggy and my clothes are damp.  We must be getting closer to the front.

The rain pelts us as we cross the Kentucky line.  David is driving, orange construction cones everywhere.  Immediately a truck stop sign appears and we gratefully exit. 

Nestled between a line of 18-wheelers, we decide to nap.  The wind is not fierce, there’s no hail nor circulating clouds.  Just buckets of rain.  David opts for sleeping in the front seat; I brave the rain and run back to the Casita.  While listening to the pounding rain, I doze off.

The temperature drops, the sun returns and beautiful clouds appear to the east.

We decide that Mexican sounds good for dinner and a sign for Tequilas Restaurant shows on the road.  Fajitas and Mexican coffee make me smile. 

Time for gas and bed, and my new android app, Big Truck Stops, indicate a Pilot just ahead.  We are about 50 miles east of St Louis on I-64. 

Skipping the pictures…..everyone has seen truck stops anyway. Good night!