We are Home.

After 20,000 miles we are home. Our welcome home is in the upper 80s and upper 80% humidity. The Air in the house was not working and thus we needed to spend another night driveway camping. We got lucky that the only problem was a relay in the furnace.

The other problem was the Honda’s battery was dead. A recharge and a check of the battery and all is fine.

One last minor problem is the ice maker and water in the refrig are not working. Will have to check it our latter.

Really did not know how much work it was to move back in. Sue is really happy to be back home.

Waterton Lakes/Glacier National Park

Waterton Lakes National Park is located north of Glacier National Park and this was our first visit to Waterton Lakes.  We stayed at Waterton Springs Campground which was located 2 km from the park entrance and was conveniently located near the Bison Paddock where you could drive through to see a herd of Bison.  Since we were so close, we drove through the paddock several times in hopes of getting some good photos.  We did not anticipate being completely surrounded by bison.  The real photo op would have been to be able to take a picture of our truck surrounded by these huge beasts.

  
Waterton was a sweet park.  The national park campground was located in the center of town where you could walk or bike to the lake and various shops and restaurants.  Deer roamed freely through the town.  While we were there, several of the native tribes were having a pow wow and we enjoyed watching their ceremonial dances. We took the shuttle to Red Rock Canyon, hiked around the canyon and to the falls.  It was a very pretty area, but definitely on a much smaller scale than the other national parks we had visited.

Since the route home was going right by Glacier National Park we felt compelled to stop one night at St. Mary at the east entrance and make the trip up Logan Pass for the views.  We hiked a little of the Highline trail in hopes of seeing sheep or goats as we had on previous visits.  However, it was afternoon and very warm, so we did not see any wildlife but we still enjoyed the beautiful  views.

Tomorrow we will officially start the hike home!

The pictures are here.

Mount Robson – Jasper – Banff

The campground at Mt. Robson was very wooded with generous spaces and it was beautiful.  After setting up camp we went to see if the salmon were spawning at Rearguard falls.  We spent an hour fascinated with the salmon's determination to make it upstream and up and over the falls. Don't even ask how many pictures we took this time!

   

How could we not stop at Jasper and Lake Louise when we were sooo close!  This is one of the most awesome places we have ever been and so we spent 3 nights at Wapiti Campground in Jasper and visited some of our favorite spots--Maligne Lake, Medicine Lake, Maligne Canyon.  We also explored the road that led to the east entrance of the park and saw a bunch of bighorn sheep and elk.

     

We also spent 3 nights at Lake Louise Campground which brought back so many fun memories of camping here when the kids were little.  Hiking to Mirror Lake (so named because the goats are said to come to the lake to groom their beards) and the Lake Agnes teahouse, strolling through the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise and hiking around Moraine Lake filled our 2 days in the area.  It was also fun to reconnect with our travelling partners, Dave and Susi, at Lake Louise.

   

The rest of the pictures are here.

We headed towards Waterton Lakes National Park, which is an area that we have never been.  One more National Park...

Nest it will be on to Glacier NP. You may have guessed that we are heading home finally. We have had a wonderful trip with outstanding weather. We have been so lucky the whole trip even with our times with the crud. I hope you have enjoyed our exploits at least partially as much as we have.  Will be looking forward to seeing everyone soon.

Valdez to Hyder

After a couple of rainy days for Terry to recoup, we headed to Tok. The day was overcast therefore leading to no interesting pictures. At that point we were just covering miles. We decided to stay at Tok RV park instead of the Sourdough since the Sourdough was not what we remembered from our trip in 2007. The entertainment was not up to speed.

The worst part of the drive is from the US boarder crossing to Beaver Creek. That portion of the road is terrible. We were told it had gotten so bad because of Washington budgets cuts. Since Canada has no residents along this part of the road they have little motive for fixing it alone. In all fairness they were working on parts of it but it is going to take a long time to finish without additional funds. Just take a look at the truck and trailer after this stretch.

Next stop was Whitehorse. This is a great resupply point. They even have a Walmart here. We visited the fish ladder at the dam. The Coho Salmon were just beginning to run here. Great fun to watch them come through the ladder. Next stop was to revisit the SS Klondike Paddle boat. This year it was a free self guided tour. For fist class passengers this was a great way to travel the Yukon River. Last but not least we had to visit Miles Canyon and hike up along it. We could not do the hike last time around.

 

From Whitehorse it was Down the Cassiar Highway to Hyder with a stop in our favorite park Shadow Mountain. By the way the road is in great shape. We understand it has become the favored truck route since it is shorter that the Alaskan Highway. I guess that is why they are continuing to improve it.

 

Because of our fresh water tank problems we stayed in Stuart, BC and drove the 6 miles to Hyder and the Fish Creek Bear viewing platform. As you can see we were successful in seeing Brown bears at the creek. Also saw black bears in Hyder and on our drive to Salmon Glacier. Salmon Glacier is the fifth largest glacier in Canada. It impressed us as much this time as last. We could only spend two day here as all campsites in the area were reserved because of caravans coming to town. This turned out to be ok since Sue came down with the crud. We stop by the clinic to have here looked at but it was going to cost $800 just to have here seen. The suggested that we go to Prince George as they would be more reasonable.

  

In Prince George we get our first hand look at Canadian Medical Care. The clinic is only open from 4pm to 10pm.  We arrived at the location at 3:30pm and there was a line of around a dozen people. We thought we are going to be here forever. The opened promptly at 4 and began seeing patients. Within 45 minutes Sue was out the door with prescriptions in hand. No paper work to fill out and just $65. Now they had already processed the dozen of patients ahead. Sue was bothered because the did not take blood pressure or temperature, just asked what was wrong, listened to here chest. She did not know what to think.

Almost forgot the trip from Stuart to Prince George was interrupted for 8 or 9 hours because of a truck car head-on accident which shutdown the Yellowhead. We had seen the car involved earlier in the morning passing us in a construction zone where we were following a pilot car. The woman was in some sort of hurry as she wove in and out of the line of traffic at a high rate of speed. I commented to Sue at the time that that woman was going to cause an accident. The RCMP indicated that see went left of center into the truck. The truck had no where to go as you can see the concrete barrier. The truck driver was unhurt. The car drive was in critical condition. The transported her to Prince George and the life flighted her to Vancouver. We never found out whether she survived.

  

As usual the rest of the pictures are here.

Valdez

The drive down to Valdez is one of the most beautiful drives with views of mountains, glaciers, rivers and waterfalls. The average annual snowfall on Thompson Pass which is the route into Valdez is over 50 feet of snow.  As a result, you will see snowfields in the mountains in the middle of the summer contrasting with the abundant green vegetation that thrives as a result of all the precipitation.

 

We stayed at Bayside RV Park because it has a view of the bay, is located just a block from the small boat harbor and it is easy to walk to any place in town.  It is fun just to walk the harbor in the evening to see the fish that everyone has caught during the day.

 

We took a boat tour to Columbia Glacier in Prince William Sound and saw icebergs, humpback whale, steller sea lions, sea otter, harbor seals, Dall's Porpoise, Puffins, bald ealges,  Murre and Black-Legged Kittiwakes.  The icebergs at Columbia Glacier were  a beautiful blue color.  The weather gods were with us and we had a gorgeous day to be on the water.
     

We also visited the Solomon Gulch Hatchery where we watched the salmon as they returned to spawn. It is so fascinating to watch thousands of salmon determined to swim up a series of ladders to spawn. I don't even want to try and guess how many pictures we took trying to capture this.  All I can say is thank goodness for digital cameras!  On our way to the Hatchery we were entertained with a Mama Grizzly and her two year old cub catching salmon in a stream.  It was clear that the cub had not perfected the art of catching dinner and it was humorous to watch him. You need to go here to see more pictures and some videos.

 

We happened to be in Valdez during Gold Rush Days and so we went to the parade.  Some things are the same no matter what town you live in and one of those is the community parade.  They all have the local high school band, boys scouts, dogs, fire engines etc.

 

Unfortunately, Terry came down with bronchitis while we were in Valdez and we were forced to stay two extra days to give him a chance to recuperate.  Such a sacrifice to have to stay longer is such a beautiful place! The good part was we had wet rainy weather during this part of our stay. We did have to make the trip back to Salmon Gulch to view the bears and fish.

We are now on our way to Hyder Alasak for more bear viewing. You will not hear from us until sometime after that.

Homer to Valdez

It was an over cast day on our drive out of Homer. Very little views as we drove around the Kenai.  Spent the night in Big Bear RV park in Palmer. On our way up the Turnagain Arm, we spotted two sheep (mama and baby) not too far from the highway. 

  

The weather was better during the drive from Palmer to Valdez. The highlights include the view on the Richardson.

  

We made it to Valdez in one day and feel blessed that it was sunny day and we could enjoy the views on the way.

The rest of the pictures are here.

Homer

We decided to make it a leisurely trip to Homer. The first night we stayed at Cooper Landing at the Kenai Princess RV Park which was just a couple of hours outside of Anchorage.  We needed to do laundry and catch up on pictures and paperwork. This is a beautiful area and the campground residents can use the hot tub at the Princess Hotel.

 
Wednesday we drove a couple more hours down the road and stopped at the Klondike RV Park in Soldotna for the night.  In Soldotna people were dip netting for fish.  We were disappointed to find out that the quilt store we had visited 6 years ago had gone out of business.

 
During our drive down to Homer we had great views of  Mt. Redoubt, Mt. Spur, Mt. Iliamna and Mt. Augustine.  These 4 volcanoes are referred to as the "four sleeping giants."

 
The last time we stayed in Homer we camped at the city park which was inexpensive and right on the water.  However, since we have a leak in our fresh water tank we needed to stay someplace with water hookup.  That is how we ended up at The Heritage RV Park which is comparable to staying at The Hilton.  We had full hook up, cable tv, wifi and the park was located on Kachemak Bay.

 
During our stay at Homer we did a half day fishing charter with Central Charter.  We had to be at the dock at 5:30 am.  It took 2 hours to get out to where we would be fishing.  There were 28  people on the boat.  Our fishing poles were all set up with bait on them and a 3 lb. weight.  Our lines went down about 250 ft. and every time we hit bottom we got a bite and then had to reel in 250 ft.  After several false alarms--the fish ate our bait--we were exhausted reeling in the hook. Finally, both of us snagged a fish and pulled it to the surface and then the boat crew helped us pull in the fish.  Within 2 hours all 28 people on the boat caught 2 fish--which was the limit.    We were lucky to have a calm day for this trip and I must admit it was a lot of fun and a lot of work.

  
The next day we took a guided natural history tour in Peterson Bay through the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies.  In true "Tom Sawyer" fashion our boat docked at a float and we had to use rope and pulley to move the raft to the island.  The naturalist took us on a hike in the morning where we learned about the plants in the area and also viewed some fresh bear scat.  After lunch we took off for the tide pools and discovering crabs, jellyfish, starfish etc.

   
Two Sisters Bakery had been recommended as a great place to eat in Homer and it lived up to its reputation.  Sue had the best crispy  rock fish on coconut rice and slaw while Terry had the beef stroganoff. The rockfish was to die for. It was by far the best meal. The Stroganoff was good but Sue’s rockfish was great.

While we were in Homer we only saw a few eagles which was surprising.  Six years ago the eagles were all over the place.  We are not sure if this is because the "eagle lady" passed away.  Also people did not seem to be catching fish  in the fishing hole,  but we did see several harbor seals swimming in the hole.

All pictures are here.