CQ Travels

2011-08-12T21:26:00.004-04:00

A collection of videos from Alaska trip are here

2011-08-01T21:06:00.001-04:00

2011-08-01 - Monday - Last Day - David & Brandon and I got to our cabin about 5:00 p.m. this evening after a 500-mile day. We stopped for a last meal on the road near Knoxville, TN and got this photo.

The boys. A great couple of boys. The trip was an adventure and we were lucky not to have any unexpected problems on the road.

Our last state before getting back to North Carolina.

Just before exiting I-81 in southwest Virginia at Abingdon to cross into NC and our cabin, the odometer on the RV reached the magic mileage...

...and recorded 100,000 miles of travel. It seems as fit today as when we bought it but the primary driver probably can't say the same thing. :-)

The 92 is the temperature, not my speed on I-81. It was about 10 degrees cooler when we got to our cabin

This is the last post until...

2011-07-31T15:32:00.003-04:00

2011-07-30 - Sunday - Arkansas - If it's Sunday it must be Arkansas.

David & Brandon with cousin Tommy and his daughter Bailey.

Bailey with Brandon at lunch.

As we crossed the Mississippi River on I-40, we got a good photo of downtown Memphis with the setting sun on the buildings.

Our "campsite" for the night.

One more night and we will be back at the cabin to put the RV away for a little rest.

2011-07-30T22:44:00.001-04:00

2011-07-30 - Saturday - Oklahoma - As we left Shamrock, TX this morning we passed this landmark on the old Route 66 that came through Shamrock. The boys (being hip like they are) said it was in the movie "Cars."

The day was spent crossing a good part of Oklahoma and we got to the home of three more of my grandchildren just after 3:00 p.m. Emily (left) and Dillon (between David & Brandon) live here along with Zack who is still at work. He was here about two minutes when we got here before he left for work. We will see him again either late tonight or in the morning before we leave.

Dillon & Emily at dinner with us.

Zack (home from work) with Brandon. Zack will be 21 in September, Brandon 14 was comparing heights.

Tomorrow we head for Arkansas, visit a grandson near Little Rock and end the day east of Memphis.

2011-07-29T21:48:00.002-04:00

2011-07-29 - Friday - Capulin Volcano - On our trek east we crossed the northeast corner of New Mexico and ended up in the eastern side of theTexas panhandle.

We stopped in New Mexico this morning at the Capulin Volcano National Monument. David and Brandon chose to take the short hike down the Crater Vent Trail to the bottom of the crater.

David & Brandon reading the information plaque at the bottom. I chose to walk the rim trail from where I got this photo.

The crater from the upper side of the rim trail with the parking lot visible in top left. Capulin Volcano is a cinder cone volcano formed as the ash and cinders were expelled from a single central vent. The ash and cinders piled up around the vent to form the crater.

It was a perfect morning for a leisurely walk around the rim trail. There are awesome views of the surrounding country and it was a cool morning (mid 60s) with a nice breeze.

David and Brandon found things to do after getting back from their walk.

Getting closer to home.

Another utilitarian RV park that was perfectly located for us tonight. Right on I-40 with a pool, showers and cows roaming in the pasture behind the park.

2011-07-29T16:36:00.004-04:00

2011-07-28 - Thursday - Mesa Verde & Great Sand Dunes NPs - We began the day at Mesa Verde NP and got to their visitor center 10 minutes before they opened at 8:00 a.m. This gave us the ability to get our tour of choice at 9:00 a.m.

This is part of the park road. The cliff dwelling ruins are 30 miles into the park. Much of the road is mountain road like this with long range views into the surrounding mountains, mesas, and valleys.

The rangers had just scared this group of wild horses off the road by the visitor center with fireworks.

The boys chose a tour of Balcony House mainly because it had several ladders (one with 32 rungs) and a tunnel to craw through that was only 18 inches wide. Here they are looking down on Cliff House that was one of the other tours but on our way to our tour.

Cliff House.

The subject 32 rung ladder we climbed.

Inside Balcony House.

From Mesa Verde we traversed most of southern Colorado to Great Sand Dunes NP.

We got there about 5:00 p.m. which is a good time in the summer as the sand cools down in the evening. The enormity of this dune field is not very well captured in photos. Here are Brandon and David as we climbed up to one of the dune peaks that was 640' from the base. I'm glad this trip is drawing to a close because the boys might do me in with "adventures" like this. The wind was blowing harder than I have seen in previous visits here and we were sandblasted all the way up and down. Plus each step up only counts for 1/2 step in the sand.

Looking back at the peak we climbed after making a much faster descent. Mine was faster anyway. David & Brandon climbed back up some of the dune ridges to roll and tumble down multiple times. The people at the base of dunes do a little to set the scale for the dunes' size.

2011-07-28T00:37:00.002-04:00

2011-07-27 - Wednesday - Grand Canyon to Cortez, CO - We were in Arizona most of today traveling east across the top of the state. This photo looks back west where we had come down the valley on the far side of the mesa in the distance. Our route was "S" shaped looping back right in front of the rock face of the mesa and then back left on this side of the stream canyon before ascending the mesa where this photo was taken. This is typical of the scenery in northern Arizona.

This brought us to Page, AZ on the southern shores of Lake Powell that is formed by the Glen Canyon Dam.

We looped back into Utah on US-163 and traveled through Monument Valley.

These Indian ponies (this is part of Navajo land and has a lot of open range) caught our eye with the monuments in the background.

Looking back at our route.

The mexican hat from which Mexican Hat, Utah gets its name.

Our route east took us within 6 miles of the Moki Dugway on Utah-261. The dugway is a 1000' plus climb onto Cedar Mesa. It is gravel and breath taking. I couldn't resist taking the boys up this road. I had been on it once before when Margaret and I happened onto it on an 80's vacation to the Four Corners area. The road climbs up the mesa within the scope of this photo, but is almost impossible to see.

We drove up and had lunch at the top. Some others looking at the view from our lunch spot.

UT-261 (our route here) extends down the valley on the right. On the left is the gravel road through the Valley of the Gods. This is the road that got Margaret and I here before.

This pretty much captures the nature of the road.

A view from the road looking out at the Valley of the Gods.

We headed to the Four Corners area as David & Brandon wanted to take the 5-mile detour from our route to it. Some of the colors on the mountains here look artificial. This is one example.

The line at the Four Corners marker waiting for a photo op.

David & Brandon both standing in four states at once.

Our campsite tonight in Cortez, CO at the KOA.

Our first destination for tomorrow (photo taken from the RV park), the mountains of southwest Colorado and Mesa Verde National Park. We will end up at the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado.

2011-07-27T00:32:00.003-04:00

2011-07-26 - Tuesday - Grand Canyon - We started the day at Zion National Park early in the morning before the tourist load built up. Zion has impressive red rock formations in its lower section. After passing through a unique tunnel with "windows", the park road emerges into a maze of white rock domes and mesas.

We stopped to do a little rock climbing in Zion's upper portion.

Here we are at the top of our climb. The RV is by the road in center left of the photo.

Next we re-entered Arizona on our way to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

We got to the Grand Canyon about noon in rain and cloudy/foggy conditions. After we ate lunch we walked out to Angel Point to see if we could see anything in the canyon but it was a total fail. Since we had the afternoon to spend here, we took naps, played cards, etc. to try to wait out the day's demonstration of this area's "monsoon" season.

In mid-afternoon there were a few breaks in the clouds.

By about 4:30 our patience was rewarded with full visibility into the canyon.

This photo taken from Angel Point, south rim can be seen in far distance.

Brandon in a high place.

The road into and out from the North Rim is very scenic with meadows along the road in many places. The elevation of the ~50 mile road varies in the 8100' to 8800' range and it was cool today.

We are camped for the night at the Jacob Lake NF campground at the north end of the North Rim entrance road. Very quiet, cool, and secluded.

2011-07-25T23:26:00.000-04:00

2011-07-25 - Monday - Nevada - We left our campsite in Yosemite this morning about 7:00 a.m. It was 38 degrees there, but by the time we climbed to the top of Tioga Pass and the park exit, it was 31 degrees.

Shot beginning the descent down from Tioga Pass on CA-120.

A look at the road ahead as we continued our descent.

We soon entered Nevada as we headed east.

We traveled 465 miles today and most of those miles were in Nevada. Typical road scene in Nevada although it got rockier and with less vegetation as we traveled southeast. We turned east about 50 miles north of Las Vegas and it was 108 degrees at the time.

We turned northeast on I-15 in Nevada and crossed the corner of northwest Arizona.

Here I-15 cuts through the slot in the mountains that you can see in right of photo...

...before crossing into Utah. It was still 108 degrees when we stopped at a Walmart to resupply. It felt much like Raleigh without the humidity I guess. Raleigh had 5 days over 100 degrees last week, a record for Raleigh.

We are in an RV park in Hurricane, UT for the night. Tomorrow we plan to drive through Zion NP and then go down to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in the afternoon.

2011-07-25T22:48:00.002-04:00

2011-07-24 - Sunday - Yosemite - We got into Yosemite NP about 8:30 this morning.

Bridal Veil Falls was our first stop as we headed for Glacier Point in the high country on the south side of the park.

Bridal Veil Falls along with a large part of Yosemite Valley is visible in this photo taken as we climbed the road to Glacier Point.

From Glacier Point looking back at Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls with Yosemite Valley below.

While at Glacier Point, David and Brandon with Half Dome in the background.

This view is just to the right of Half Dome in the previous photo and includes Nevada Fall in upper center (594') at upper center of photo and Vernal Fall (317') in lower center of photo. It's hard to see Vernal Fall (they call it Fall rather than Falls at Yosemite) in this photo...

...so here is a close up. In this photo of Vernal Fall you can clearly see the observation area at the top right of the falls and the island (with trees) where three young people were swept over the falls last week. Two of them were trying to cross the Merced River (after climbing over the safety fence) to the island when one slipped and the 2nd slipped trying to help. Then the 3rd that was photographing them slipped trying to help the first two. All were swept over the falls in front of others that had hiked to the top of the falls.

After lunch, we drove back down to Yosemite Valley and took Tioga Road over the mountains on the north side of the valley. We stopped and hiked up to the top of Pot Hole Dome. This view is looking east at Tuolumne Meadows. Our campground for the night is in the trees at about the center of the photo.

The boys hiking up the dome.

Another view from the top of the dome, this one looking north. Endless (seemingly) granite domes with scattered trees.

Campground entrance.

Boys and fire seem to go together. David and Brandon have been bugging me for a fire several nights but all didn't work out until here. They got a fire going with no help.

Here is David admiring their handiwork.

2011-07-25T22:28:00.000-04:00

2011-07-24 - Saturday - Eastward Bound - We had a leisurely day today with only 144 miles to travel from Gilroy, CA to El Portal, CA just outside the gate of Yosemite National Park. We began the day at a truck/RV wash in Gilroy.

The RV may not have looked grungy in the some of the photos, but up close it was showing the effects of the dusty and muddy gravel roads of the Yukon and Alaska. It stood out in a group of RVs as the ugly duckling.

After the car wash, we stopped at an outlet mall close by and it fit right in with all the shiny other vehicles.

Our journey took us across the Diablo range of mountains east of Gilroy and the lower bay area with the California golden hills dotted with random trees.

We stopped at the San Luis Reservoir visitor center on California 152. It's dam is the 4th largest embankment dam in the US. This route gets the green dotted scenic drive designation in the Rand McNally road atlas.

The San Joaqin Valley in central California was next in our path. All kinds of vegetables were growing here including tomatoes (we saw multiple loads of tomatoes being hauled to processing in large 18-wheel-type double trailer dump trucks. That's a lot of tomatoes. And even corn.

Our RV park (Indian Flat RV Park) is utilitarian but it has location, location, location just outside the park gate. We can barely be seen in this photo tucked in at the lower right of the photo behind the woman.

Brandon was our chef this evening.

2011-07-23T02:09:00.002-04:00

2011-07-22 - Friday - San Francisco - Arriving at the ferry terminal in San Francisco this morning. I am super tired tonight (two short sleep nights) so the text is sort of skimpy.

Tour of San Francisco started out with an hour spent in Muir Woods and the large protected redwood trees.

Our parking spot for the day at the Sausalito marina/ferry parking lot.

An afternoon stop at the Golden Gate bridge.

View of San Francisco from Twin Peaks.

I've seen this photo before, but today we had the opportunity to take a photo from the tour bus from the same point (the Victorian San Francisco houses with a modern city backdrop.

A street in China Town.

San Francisco has some really steep streets. The Oakland bay bridge can be seen in the distance between the buildings.

Catching the ferry back to Sausalito afer our city tour.

We are in Gilroy, CA at an RV park tonight. Tomorrow we will make a brief stop on the coast before heading east and leaving the west coast.

2011-07-22T00:59:00.002-04:00

2011-07-21 - Thursday - San Francisco Bound - An early morning stop at a northern California beach.

Some California eucalyptus trees along US highway 101 that we took today from Crescent City, CA down to Sausalito just across the bay from San Francisco.

Brandon "climbing" one of the large redwoods at a stop at one of the redwood parks along 101.

Highway 101 is called the Redwood Highway for good reason. Many great stands of large redwoods along the highway in the early part of our trip.

About a hundred miles north of San Francisco we began to see lots of vineyards. Also it was an amazing 95 degrees in this area today, When we got on the road, it was in the 50s in Crescent City. When we got to Sausalito, the temperature was down to 60. The ocean has a big effect on the two ends of our trip near it. Inland a little ways it was way different.

We went to Sausalito to check out the parking situation for our RV at the ferry terminal. While there we had a great view of San Francisco across the bay.

We saw a lot of the bay area's signature phenomena, the fog rolling in over the hills from the ocean.

We are all set for a tour of San Francisco tomorrow with a local tour company.

2011-07-21T00:43:00.000-04:00

2011-07-20 - Wednesday - Crater Lake - We stayed at the Walmart in Roseburg, Oregon last night. After a beautiful drive up Oregon-138 this morning we entered Crater Lake National Park just before noon. This photo is on the park road just past the north gate of the park.

There is still a lot of snow on the ground around Crater Lake. The park averages about 6500' elevation and the crater rim is above 7000' so it's not too surprising as this past winter was a big snow winter for much of the northern California/Oregon mountain areas.

A portion of Crater Lake.

The boys were impressed with the lake and its volcanic story...

...but just as impressed with the snow. We watched a short video in the visitor center about their snow plowing challenge. Some of the roads have sheer drops right off the edge of the pavement of hundreds of feet and there are no guard rails. It's enough of a challenge in a motor vehicle with no snow.

Lots of slip sliding around on the snow.

And then back to lake views at pull-outs.

This is a photo of some of the trees on the road southwest out of the Crater Lake area.

From Crater Lake, we headed to the California coast at Crescent City and documented entering "Cali" as David C. calls it.

We have hit many, many flag men or traffic lights controlling one lane construction areas all during our trip. Most only result in a few minutes delay and none have been a problem. Today, we took this photo just over the California border at one such traffic light controlled single-lane tunnel where construction was being done within the tunnel.

We ended up at the KOA RV park in Crescent City, California. We got the last site they had available since we seldom make reservations (they are seldom needed) and it is a great site in a redwood grove. The uprooted trunk of an very large redwood is on the left of the van and its diameter is about equal to the van's height.

2011-07-19T23:55:00.001-04:00

2011-07-19 - Tuesday - Oregon Coast - Our route today was down to Portland, Oregon and then over to the Oregon coast at Lincoln City. We had lunch in the van looking out at the ocean.

Many beautiful views along this section (south of Lincoln City) of the coast.

This photo was taken from the gift shop window on Cape Foulweather, Oregon.

This rocky inlet is called the Devil's Churn and the boys practiced getting out of the way of the waves that were occasionally breaking up on these rocks.

We stopped at the Sea Lion Caves and the boys were fascinated.

Lots of sea lions in the cave that is reached from an elevator. Its entrance can be seen behind the boys in above photo. It descends 200' to the cave.

Also way more sea lions were lounging on a rock ledge outside the cave. Lounging would be the wrong word. The bulls were working to maintain their supremacy.

The beginning of the sandy beach area of the Oregon coast.

We stopped in the Oregon Dunes area so the boys could taste the Pacific beach. It was quite cool according to them.

Gingerly walking out...

But it was about 6:30 when we did this so the sun created a beautiful setting.

Quite a dune to cross over to get to the beach.

2011-07-19T01:31:00.001-04:00

2011-07-18 - Monday - Mount St. Helens - A look back toward our last night's campsite on the Hoh River in Olympic NP.

We stopped to look at one monarch, a Sitka spruce.

David and Brandon checking it out for size.

This morning we had our first real encounter with the Pacific coast of the lower 48 states in Olympic National Park. It was low tide while we were there so we could walk down the gravel bar you can see in this photo all the way to the large rock "island" in the distance.

We spent an hour on the beach early (about 8:30 a.m.) and it was a beautiful morning.

Lots of starfish were on the rocks in the area between low and high tide levels.

The rocks at the base of this large rock island are the location of the starfish in the above photo.

From Olympic NP, we traveled to Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. We could see a good part of the mountain as seen in this photo when we first got there. But during the film about the mountain's eruption in 1980, clouds moved in to totally obscure the upper part of the mountain. The large gaping hole in the mountain's north face can be seen in this photo.

A view of the valley between the mountain and Johnston Ridge where the current observatory is. This valley now has several hundred feet of the mountain's former north face deposited on top of its pre-blast floor. David Johnston, a geologist monitoring the mountain from the ridge this photo was taken from, was killed in the initial few minutes of the blast. His body was never found.

This photo is a telephoto look at an area of the above photo. It shows the extent of erosion of the ash and rock deposits in the valley floor. Thirty+ years of erosion on top of the erosion caused immediately after the initial blast by glacier and snow melt from the heat of the blast has had a dramatic effect. The volcano's eruption has caused long term siltation problems at communities many miles downstream from the volcano.

The area included within the National Volcanic Monument is being left to naturally recover. Because of this, there is not much but wildflowers growing on a lot of the most denuded ridges such as this section of Johnston Ridge just east of the observatory.

Our wildlife sighting of the day was this ground squirrel at the volcanic observatory.

Brandon posing in mid air.

David & Brandon also considered this cluster of worms worthy of a photo. Usually when you see a web covering a tree branch section, the worms are protected inside the web until they mature. It's not clear what is going on here.

Mount St. Helens is an awe inspiring example of the power of nature and yet has much beauty.

2011-07-18T15:01:00.002-04:00

2011-07-17 - Sunday - Olympic National Park - We started the morning by catching the 7:15 a.m. Whidbey Island to Port Townsend ferry. I discovered yesterday afternoon that all departures before 12:45 p.m. except this one were full.

A bird family on one of the ferry piers caught our eye.

The Olympic Mountains can be seen peeking above the clouds.

Scene on the road around the northern boudary of Olympic NP.

Brandon took a self-portrait along with the deer munching along the highway. Deer have become the wildlife of the day the last few days, we have seen 15 or so along the road.

Some of the larger trees as we got to the wetter side of the park.

More lush growth as we were on the access road into the Hoh Rain Forest section of Olympic NP.

This photo catches the only windshield wound on this trip. The windshield star burst can be seen just above lower rock in the photo. This was acquired just before leaving Alaska on a short gravel in-repair section of road south of Tok, Alaska. It was caused as is often the case by a truck coming through the gravel section without slowing down. This one (about quarter size) adds to the four small chips from recent trips in the RV.

Our campsite for the night in the Hoh Rain Forest campground is adjacent to this section of the Hoh River. From my vantage point, David & Brandon are barely visible on the gravel edge just in front of the large tree down across the river.

With zoom, I can see that they are into their usual exploration of the surrounding area.

Our campsite for the night. It's raining now as I write this and has been for several hours. We did have time to check out the visitor center and walk around some before some of the 140" average precipitation this section of the park gets. It's a light but soaking rain.

The phone is history in this phone booth outside the visitor center, but evidence of the high precipitation level is evident.

2011-07-17T01:50:00.010-04:00

2011-07-16 - Saturday - Back in the USA - First photo is of the view from our RV park this morning in Lac La Hache, BC.

We continued our journey down BC-97 toward Vancouver this morning but took the alternate "scenic" route BC-99 for the last section into Vancouver. It was indeed scenic as billed. Early on it was almost desert-like on the eastern side of the mountains farther from the ocean. Some spectacular road building in this mountainous area.

Whistler, BC is on BC-99 and the significance the town name didn't dawn on me until we came into the area and could see ski slopes on the barely visible mountains and all the trappings of a ski resort area at ground area. By the time we got there it was raining and the mountains all had clouds hanging heavily on their tops as Whistler is on the rainy side of these mountains on the Pacific Ocean side. Many of the events of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics were held in Whistler that is about 75 miles north of Vancouver.

This photo was taken on BC-99 just north of Vancouver as the highway hugs the coast. Here you can clearly see the rainy socked in weather many associate with this area.

The Vancouver skyline from our route through North Vancouver.

We had about a 30 minute delay at the border crossing due to the level of traffic.

The process was well managed though and moved smoothly.

We are in the North Whidley RV Park on Whidley Island tonight, the same park Margaret and I used when we came to the Northwest in 2005. The boys sauteed mushrooms and onions (their idea since we had mushrooms left over from an earlier meal) to go with their hot dogs.

Their usual delicate portions. :-)

The following video is left over from one of our nights in the Yukon Territory (morning of July 13th). The night before, we had dry camped at a roadside pullout that appeared to be an access for the power company to service the power line right-of-way adjacent to it. The boys had been asking to drive the van so I decided to allow them to try it that morning since we were out of sight of the highway and isolated. I haven't had time to edit the videos until tonight so here it is. They videoed each other. Their driving was much better than their video skills. But a good time was had by all. After the driving exercise, we headed south for Pelly Crossing (with me driving). In the hour trip down to Pelly Crossing, we passed one vehicle coming our way (an 18-wheeler) and none going our way. It is truly the middle of nowhere. Of course, this was between about 7:30 and 8:30 a.m.

A little larger version can be accessed here. I suspect that only David & Brandon's parents may be interested in this video. On either version, turn on the sound.

2011-07-15T20:49:00.002-04:00

2011-07-15 - Friday - Williams Lake, BC - Today was basically a travel day just to get down closer to Vancouver and back to the US tomorrow evening. David C. took this photo while fighting road trip boredom. I thought it sort of captured the day although most of the day there was little traffic. This photo was taken just outside of Prince George, BC...

...that is a fairly large city. We stopped in Prince George at the ever present Walmart to get a few necessities and eat at McDonalds (in the Walmart).

We are in Canada by the way. :-) Both going up to Alaska and now coming back I just about get used to dealing with metric distances and speeds when it is time to switch back. On the way up, it was a funny feeling to cross the border into Alaska and all of a sudden everything was normal with highway things.

We also saw a lot of completed road projects. The boys wanted to be symmetric and post a sign to balance the one in an earlier blog.

Today's travel was in farming country in central BC. Also many timber operations and large trucks with loads of logs on the road. There were still mountains around but not as large and not as densely located.

We are now at the Williams Lake, BC library to get wi-fi access to post this as we will not have Internet access tonight.

We got here at 4:50 p.m. and found out that they close at 5:00. But, they said the wi-fi still works outside when they are closed. David and Brandon with their i-stuff as I call it, one with an i-phone and one with an i-pod touch I believe.

2011-07-15T00:42:00.001-04:00

2011-07-14 - Thursday - Smithers - We saw this bear within the first hour this morning on BC-37 headed south. It was voraciously eating green stuff along the road.

It appears however to have a serious wound (apparently healed) on one of its back legs.

Signs of a fairly recent large forest fire with sunlit mountains in the background.

One representative photo of the mountains (northern Rockies I believe) that run down the center of British Columbia.

This red fox came ambling down the road in front of us.

It wasn't too busy looking for prey to stop and have a short conversation right at our van window.

BC-37 was at least 75% unpaved along it's northern 400 miles when Zack, Dillon and I did an Alaska trip in 2006. Today it was totally paved except for two small sections that were being repaved. We saw four of these highway section project signs for 2010 & 2011 that are at least partially responsible for this.

This is what a repaving project looks like, bumpy and dusty.

Our lunch spot along the highway.

Brandon & David with their lunch.

More British Columbia scenery.

Another black bear came out for view this afternoon.

And lastly, the view of the mountains from Smithers, BC where we are night camped in a Safeway parking lot with wi-fi from the internal Starbucks.

2011-07-14T09:00:00.001-04:00

2011-07-13 - Wednesday - Watson Lake - This morning our first stop was Pelly Crossing, a wide place in the road at a river crossing in the vast expanse of the Boreal Forest in the Yukon. It is really an isolated spot but they have fuel.

Crossing the Yukon River (again, we crossed it yesterday in Dawson City) a little later in the day.

The Yukon has a lot of varied environment, a lot of marshes like this mixed in.

Descending on the downtown loop into Whitehorse where we went shopping and ate lunch. There are two Subways in town (at least). We left the first one that had the longest line I have ever seen at a Subway. The second one was busy but less so. I do believe that David & Brandon could eat two meals a day at Subway for a month and still be ready to eat at Subway again. ;-) They love it.

Some more Yukon scenery.

A waterfall at a roadside stop.

The boys couldn't resist climbing the rocks.

I think they would have been in the water if I turned my back.

They're always finding creative ways to use things...

Tonight we are in Watson Lake, Yukon at the same RV park we stopped at on the way to Alaska. And again used their laundry facility to keep ahead of the dirty clothes bag. But we deviate from the Alaska Highway in the morning and instead of following our route up we will go down British Columbia 37 and end up just over the US border south of Vancouver three days from now.

2011-07-14T01:01:00.000-04:00

2011-07-12 - Tuesday - Dawson City - Today we left Glenallen, Alaska headed for the Yukon Territory. We spotted this moose feeding in a marshy area along the road early and saw two more moose during the day.

From Tok, we deviated from the Alaska Highway and took the alternate route back to Whitehorse, YK via Chicken, Alaska.

Chicken is a colorful very small community looking much like it might have back during the gold rush days except for the visiting RVs and ATV vehicle owners.

The road is pretty much dirt to some gravel from Chicken on to the Canadian border. Here it runs right along a stream bed

This is the Canadian customs area at the Alaskan/Canadian border east of Chicken.

The roads up here on this route at the top of the world are literally at the top of the world. The road in the Yukon from the border with Alaska to Dawson city reminds one of the Blue Ridge Parkway without the trees and guard rails.

We crossed the Yukon river on the ferry at Dawson City.

Dawson also is kept to look a lot like the gold rush days. A lot of RVs take this loop between Tok, Alaska and Whitehorse, YK on either the up or back leg of their trip to Alaska. We even passed two tour buses on this route.

We took a side trip in Dawson City up to the top of a mountain with a view of the city. On the way up we spotted this red fox.

The view looking down to the Yukon River and Dawson City

We ended up driving another 100+ miles south of Dawson City after dinner for a road pull off dry camp.

2011-07-12T03:22:00.002-04:00

2011-07-11 - Monday - Valdez - First photo is of our lifesaver this morning. The model Sprinter our RV is built on has one potential fatal flaw for those with memory that sometimes fails. If you exit by the side door rather than one of the front doors, the alarm that warns you that the headlights are still on does not function. That is what happened last night when we stopped late at a national forest campground north of Seward and did not notice that the headlights were still on. This morning we ate breakfast, made the van ready for travel and then turned the key to start the engine. Zero, zip, nada! Dead as a door nail. Fortunately our savior from Maine was camped in the next campsite and was glad to give us a jump and we were on our way. He even had jumper cables that I will now be adding to our store of handy things to have.

We will be crossing Prince William Sound today on the Alaska Marine Highway ferry. The route from Whittier to Valdez is shown on this photo.

We stopped at the Portage Glacier Visitor Center on our way to Whittier for the ferry.

All loaded up on the ferry and ready for the three hour trip.

The ferry is what they call a "fast ferry" here and is a catamaran that makes 32 knots. It kicks up quite a wake.

David and Brandon were impressed.

Brandon and David ate lunch in the van while in the ferry line, got free breakfast sandwiches in the ferry snack bar since it was 1:00 and they must have looked hungry, and then I find them eating hot dogs and potato chips that they had bought with their own money. Bottomless pits.

More beautiful scenery on Prince William Sound.

Our weather luck continues. I have been on this sound twice before, both times in overcast conditions and rain. Great weather today. Even the ferry staff was commenting on it as we waited for boarding.

Entering the Valdez Harbor, the oil loading terminal for the Alaska Pipeline was visible with a tanker at the terminal. It is a little farther out in the harbor from the town of Valdez.

Valdez straight ahead in this photo.

There were literally dozens of fishing boats coming out of the harbor as we entered.

On the highway north and northeast from Valdez, there was more (wait for it) scenery.

This photo is looking east into the area of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in southeastern Alaska.

One of the cooks for dinner tonight...

...and the other.

Tomorrow we will cross back into the Yukon Territory of Canada and begin our west coast portion of the trip as we go as far south as San Francisco before heading back east.

2011-07-10T23:10:00.002-04:00

2011-07-10 - Sunday - Seward - The Harding Icefield Trail was our objective today and we found it and did it. Click on the link above for more about it. On the way out of Seward, this cruise ship was in port. Cruise ships are a very large part of the Alaska tourist business dumping out thousands of tourists to be shuttled north on motor coach or train to see interior sights. A lot of our Denali bus tour compatriots were cruise ship passengers and many ask us if we were on a cruise ship.

Entering Kenai Fjords National Park.

I really didn't think we would do the entire length of the trail but once I pointed David & Brandon to the trail they just kept going, going, and going like the EverReady bunny.

A bold stream fed by snow melt. The plank bridge beats crossing on rocks.

The boys in one of their "we own the world" poses.

Another couple shot this one of us with the Exit Glacier below us in the background.

A good Samaritan sharing energy bars with us.

He was with these two gracious women from New York City that we had a nice chat with. They were on a outdoor guided trip that included biking, hiking, etc.

We spotted at least three marmots today. They are whitish gray here. Those I have seen in Colorado and Wyoming are more of a brownish color.

As we got into the upper end of our hike there was quite a bit of walking on snow that had not melted completely yet. It makes the walking more difficult.

Once at the top of the trail, the view is magnificent. The Harding Icefield is an enormous icefield. Click the link for more about it. Exit Glacier where we started our hike up to the icefield is one of 40 glaciers that it spawns. That is David C. standing on the rock in lower right of photo.

Brandon took a photo of me resting at the top.

Another macho man pose by the boys.

This photo taken on the way down puts things in some perspective, if you enlarge the photo it will be easier to see some of the hikers heading down ahead of us.

An emergency shelter shack at the top about 10 minutes from the end of the trail for those hiking if the weather turns bad.

As I was passing these two coming up, I heard "Grayson Highlands" mentioned so I stopped them to discuss the small world phenomena. The gentleman on the right was raised near Grayson Highlands that is not far from our mountain cabin. The gentleman on the left was raised near Roanoke, Virginia. They both now live in Charlotte.

A view down the wiggly trail.

A lot of beautiful wildflowers along the way.

These are columbines just like the ones on our mountain property in North Carolina.

It was a great hike and strenuous as it is billed. Again, the photos do not do justice to all the sights we saw today. It took us about 7 hours on the trail to climb the about 3700' to the top and then turn around and descend. The descent was trying as my knees gave up way before I did. The boys took it all in stride.

Tomorrow we take the Alaska Marine Ferry from Whittier to Valdez. Day after tomorrow we will re-enter Canada and leave Alaska behind us if all goes to plan.

2011-07-10T12:33:00.003-04:00

2011-07-09 - Saturday - Seward - We stopped at Potter's Marsh nature preserve south of Anchorage as we drove to Seward today.

An Alaska Railroad passenger train passed by as we drove along Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet.

A lot more snow remains on mountains at lower elevations here due to the heavy snowfall in winter. The prevailing northerly winds here pull moisture from the sea and drop it from here to the south slopes of the Alaska Range of Mt. McKinley fame.

Self-portrait at a lunchtime roadside pull off.

A couple of small glaciers clearly visible on these mountains. According to our Denali guide, a glacier becomes a glacier when snow and ice build up enough for it to start sliding/flowing down a mountain.

At our Seward City RV Park on Resurrection Bay.

We visited the Sea Life Center in Seward.

The view from our RV tonight.

It turns out much to David Carroll's dismay that there is a skate board park adjacent to our RV park. Here I caught David in the air while Brandon was interacting with some younger boys. Being the teddy bear Brandon is, they were playfully attacking him.

Not a bad view from the skate board park.

Lest followers of our blog think we eat mac and cheese and/or hot dogs most of the time, here's the makings for tonight's taco salad...

...and the end result. We actually have had hot dogs for dinner once on the trip and the boys could probably eat them every day. At mac and cheese, I draw the line. :-)

I'm posting this on Sunday morning at The Sea Bean coffee shop and Internet cafe in Seward.

Nice place and nice folks.

Today we are headed for Kenai Fjords National Park just southwest of Seward and will try to hike most if not all of the Harding Icefield Trail.

2011-07-09T01:38:00.005-04:00

2011-07-08 - Friday - Anchorage - Our RV park last night and tonight is near downtown Anchorage. Today was an Anchorage tourist day for us. We walked up to the downtown area before lunch.

A view toward the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet that serves as the Anchorage water front. The overcast look stayed with us all day but it didn't rain. Our high was around 60 degrees.

The boys on 4th Ave in downtown Anchorage. This is the street were a major section dropped about 12-14 feet during the 1964 earthquake. It was the most powerful recorded earthquake in the US and North America (magnitude of 9.2).

David & Brandon doing their thing.

Again on 4th avenue where a street fair of some sort was going on. We didn't check it out as souvenir, t-shirt and skate board stores and Lids (a hat shop) seemed to be the boys' top priorities. This kind of thing makes me more tired than working all day.

Another "nature" photo.

It was the boys' day. Enough said.

We had a great lunch at the Snow City Cafe on 4th street. I had seen it referenced in the visitor center restaurant list and then a young clerk recommended it when I asked her for a recommendation for a good close by restaurant for lunch. It was big, packed and had excellent sandwiches and soup. We had to wait 20 minutes for service.

A skateboarding moose in front of the skateboard shop.

Beautiful flowers in downtown Anchorage that result from long summer days.

Anchorage has a large downtown mall with the usual American retail landscape. In this photo; PAC SUN, Abercrombie & Fitch and Nordstrom stores. I could be in Raleigh. The boys loved it though and wanted to visit several stores and made some purchases. There are benches in malls at least.

This mall is multi-story. I had a smoothie at the food court on the top floor during some of the shopping.

We walked back to our RV park in the late afternoon and did another batch of laundry. A photo of the boys' shopping acquisitions. Some of the shirts were quite good buys. Even though money seems to burn holes in most boy's pockets, I was impressed with David & Brandon's frugality.

Tomorrow we will get back to sightseeing. I guess what we did today was sightseeing of sorts. We will head south to Seward in the morning for two nights there.

2011-07-08T04:43:00.002-04:00

2011-07-07 - Thursday - This morning when we got up, it looked like the weather had turned against us for our glacier landing adventure. But when we got to Talkeetna where we were to board this plane with seven others, the weather was near perfect for a flight into the glaciers south and southeast of Denali.

As we approached the Alaska Range, Denali stood out in the sunlight.

Photos just do not do justice to what we saw today. It was absolutely fabulous and the best views of the mountains and glaciers here in my three times because of the weather.

The landscape is awesome.

Rivers of ice.

And a landing on one of the glaciers.

Ruth Glacier that is southeast of Denali is 35 miles long and just unbelievable. We flew down the length of it on our return flight.

It sounds like I am babbling on about the grandness of it all, but all those on our plane were totally awestruck. Both David and Brandon said it was the best day of the trip so far and I agree. It will be hard to top this day. It was Brandon's first time in a plane and the first time David can remember being on a plane so that added to the moment for them but it was also the mountains and glaciers and the snow. Their priorities are a little different and they threw snow balls at each other most of the time we were on the glacier. To each, his own.

2011-07-08T03:41:00.005-04:00

2011 -07-06 - Wednesday - Today was our "Kantishna Experience" bus tour at Denali NP that took us 90+ miles to the end of the gravel park road into the park wilderness area and back. Here we arrived at 5:45 a.m. for the 6:30 bus departure. It is billed as a 12-hour trip but ours took 13 hours.

At our first opportunity to see the Denali peak, it was visible in the morning sun. The 3rd try is the charm since in my past two times in Denali, it was always hidden by clouds.

With the zoom lens, it is a little more impressive. 20,300 feet approximately and the highest mountain in North America.

Another day with lots of wildlife, here a grizzly bear foraging for food taken through the bus emergency window. We watched it right by the road for 15-20 minutes and it finally found something better than roots. It happened upon an arctic ground squirrel that went into a burrow. The bear tore up the side of the wash this borrow was in until it got it and ate it. Impressive, but see later for an even more unlikely-to-see nature in action sighting.

Much beautiful scenery also and single lane gravel roads cut into the mountain sides to take one's breath away.

The requisite photo with animal adornments.

A female moose sighting.

A photo opportunity at the end of the road before our return trip.

Another photo of the Denali peak peeking out of the clouds and soaring over the surrounding mountains.

At about this point, we encountered this natural drama between a fox, arctic ground squirrel and a golden eagle. Click on the link to see it on Picasa Web Albums. Have patience, depending on your Internet speed the video at the end may keep pausing but you should be able to replay it after it ends without pauses. I can't test it because the wi-fi I am using tonight is super slow.

Too much scenery to even describe.

A caribou appeared on the road in front of us and eventually turned around and walked back the road toward us and right by the bus. The animals here have learned not to fear the buses and the drivers caution everyone to be totally quiet in these encounters.

This last photo was taken from our roadside campsite (Denali State Park - Denali View Site South) at the end of the day. It was taken at about 10:00 at night. It's Denali taken from almost directly south on Alaska Highway 3.

Please excuse any typos or grammar errors above, it is late and I am in a hurry to catch up on the blog.

2011-07-08T02:37:00.008-04:00

2011-07-05 - Tuesday - Today was an off day and we improvised. We parked next to the Nenana River to watch one of the raft companies launch their rafts in preparation for a float trip.

David C. wanted to see some ice up close and personal so we found this chunk under the highway bridge by the raft launch. For ice to be at this altitude here, it has to be in a place out of the sun.

It was a hefty chunk of ice that the boys played on for awhile trying to break something.

Next we checked out the park visitor center. This model of the park helped to orient us for our bus trip tomorrow. Our bus tour of the wilderness area of Denali will take us from the visitor center marked by the yellow dot at the bottom of the photo via the red road to Kantishna at the upper right (90+ miles each way). Denali is a massive park and nature preserve.

We hiked the .8 miles to the park's Horseshoe lake and back. Why is back always up hill?

David & Brandon checking out a large beaver dam on Horseshoe Lake.

We have seen a lot of "summer time snow" in Canada and Alaska that comes from balsom poplar trees. On this hike we found a good specimen of one of the trees in full bloom and letting its "snow" fall all around us.

A view of the beaver dam as we did the return hike back up to the trail head.

The boys were fascinated with this Alaska Railroad maintenance truck that was getting ready to head down the track. They had never seen one of these trucks before that rides the rails.

One can drive 15 miles into the park in a private vehicle before it is blocked for only park tour buses. We did this after our hike and it was interesting. This is the third time I have been to Denali NP and the first two times Denali (Mt. McKinley) was not visible because of clouds. Today it was visible in the distance. It can be seen in almost dead center (behind the two lower dark mountains) of this photo but at this distance it looks just like the clouds.

However at 20x zoom it is clearly visible. Very awe inspiring. Denali is about 70 miles from where these two photos were taken. We're hoping that tomorrow we will also find it visible and prove the saying that the "third time is the charm." However, Denali is noted for creating its own weather and being out of view for much of the time.

We also saw two caribou on our drive into the park.

The Alaska Railroad trestle over the Nenana River can be seen as we returned to the park entrance and our campground.

And this is our campsite in Denali's Riley Creek Campground.

We are making this post two days late due to lack of easy wi-fi access and being too busy to have the time to find access and post.

2011-07-04T22:12:00.002-04:00

2011-07-04 - Monday - This photo was taken just after midnight in the Pioneer Park parking lot where we spent the night. We decided this was more peaceful than Walmart plus Pioneer Park had a strong wi-fi signal in their parking lot.

This is the museum building at University of Alaska - Fairbanks. They had a very good Alaska exhibit but David and Brandon were willing to throw in the towel after about an hour. David said all that learning was giving him a headache.

This is looking back toward Fairbanks from the university campus. The airport is about all that is visible in the center of the photo.

After visiting the museum, we headed south on Alaska highway 3 that goes from Fairbanks to Anchorage. Alaska has so few main highways that they all have single digit numbers. I stopped at a pull-out for a photo and this sight in front of us seemed as good a photo subject as my original target. And the car had an Alaska license plate.

I did get my original photo target which was this view.

As we neared Denali NP we got back into more mountainous territory.

Here we are dropping down to the Nenana River that runs by the eastern boundary of Denali NP.

The Alaska Railroad is on the opposite side of the Nenana River where you can see the railway cuts.

And our destination for the day.

After picking up our tour bus tickets in the park, we spotted another mama moose and calf right at the park entrance. This time we were fast enough to get a photo of the mother as they moved into the brush but the calf can barely be seen to the mother's right. The mother was still munching on the foliage as she urged the calf off the road.

2011-07-04T02:14:00.002-04:00

2011-07-03 - Sunday - We stayed at an RV Park last night in Fairbanks, but the wi-fi was so bad that we did our laundry this morning and canceled our planned 2nd night stay. We scouted the local Walmart to see if we could camp there tonight and judging from the at least 30 RVs in their lot I think the answer is yes.

We drove out to the Alaska Pipeline visitor site about 6 miles north of Fairbanks and checked it out. This couple on one of the tour buses there was interested in our RV and so we gave them a tour.

The pipeline is quite an engineering feat.

Checking out the milepost on display.

We went downtown but it was pretty dead on the Sunday of the July 4th weekend. Most stores were closed.

In the afternoon, we took the Riverboat Discovery tour on the Chena River that runs through Fairbanks. This photo was taken before boarding while all the passengers were in the (extra large) gift shop.

But not to fear, all these cruise line tour buses had brought plenty of passengers in addition to the non-tour group like us.

The riverboat tour is well done. Here we are awaiting another boat and two kayaks to clear the way for the float plane (contracted by the riverboat company) to do a demonstration take off right by the boat which it did twice. David & Brandon were impressed.

The riverboat also stops at the Susan_Butcher kennels and training facility for sled dogs. Susan Butcher died in 2006 of cancer at 51 but the facility is still run by her husband and daughters.

They give a demonstration of the eagerness of the dogs to get on the trail and their power by having them pull the engine-less four wheeler around their training course. If you enlarge the photo by clicking on it, you can see them going to the left behind the kennel fence with Susan's husband standing up on the four wheeler. They really move along at about 20 MPH on training runs like this.

I added a riverboat-related video.

The riverboat also stops at the "Chena Village" run by the riverboat company that has native Alaskans show how their ancestors lived before civilization overtook them.

After the riverboat tour, I went with the boys to see the movie "Transformers 3 - The Dark Side of the Moon." What a waste for me but the boys loved it. I would say that you must have to be a teenager, but there was a large crowd at the movie of mixed ages and they actually clapped at the end of the movie. More evidence I am getting old.

Tomorrow morning we are going to visit the museum at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and then drive down to Denali National Park for the night.

2011-07-03T00:23:00.000-04:00

2011-07-02 - Saturday - Couldn't resist putting up another photo from last night's camping spot. This one was taken at 6:00 in the morning with the sun on the snow capped peaks.

More scenery driving up the Alaska Highway in the Yukon heading toward the Alaska border.

Alaska at last, after 10 days on the road.

The boys playing with the U.S./Canadian border marker.

A stop at the Tetlin Nature Preserve just inside the Alaska border. The boys were looking for moose. We did see a mama and baby moose right by the roadside this morning in Alaska but the mama moose nudged the baby moose into the woods before we could get a camera out to get a photo of them. That makes four moose we have seen on this trip and only got a photo of one of them.

The Alaska Highway is newly paved and with guard rails no less just inside the Alaska border.

Another scenic view as we headed for Fairbanks from Tok, AK

Still some ice on the Richardson River where we crossed it.

Speaking of ice, we had real "iced" tea at lunch today. Our refrigerator gets carried away when we have cold nights (which we had last night). We usually keep some ice in the refrigerator portion as a "helper" in warm weather but the refrigerator with a boost from mother nature refroze the remnants from the ice last night.

2011-07-01T16:23:00.004-04:00

2011-07-01 - Friday - More spectacular scenery as we headed west toward Whitehorse, YK from Watson Lake.

First and only wildlife sighting so far today was a brown bear along the road not far west from Watson Lake.

Then more long range views...

...that just keep on keeping on.

Large lake and bridge to cross at Teslin, YK.

At noon straight up we arrived at Whitehorse, YK and had lunch at an A&W where they had wi-fi. We plan to go farther up the Alaska Highway after lunch and probably stop somewhere northwest of Haines Junction, YK.. We are posting on the blog for today now as we will be stopping for the night at a roadside pull off and will not have any communication services.

David & Brandon keeping their ipod/iphone buzzing while they had wi-fi.

Some fellow Alaska travelers from British Columbia that we met at a roadside stop. They were on their return from Alaska and had taken some of the same roads we will so we compared notes on road conditions.

A rare Yukon bird.

Our campsite for the night. We had Alaska travelers from Florida camped next to us.

The mountain view from our campsite...

...a close up of one of those mountains.

Tomorrow night we will be in Fairbanks, ALASKA!

2011-07-01T01:41:00.002-04:00

2011-06-30 - Thursday - This was the morning view from our rest area campsite..

...and the road stretched out before us for our day's crossing of the northern Rocky Mountains.

We saw our first wildlife within the first hour, a black bear having breakfast along the road. We saw 8 black bears and one brown black bear today. Up close and personal we could tell that they were eating wild strawberries along the roadside.

We took a break on the banks of a crystal clear lake and Brandon took to a tree. He is several feet off the ground though the photo doesn't show it.

Then the boys just had to get into the frigid water so decided to do it by dunking their heads. I guess you have to be a teenager.

The next wildlife sightings were several groups of big horn sheep. They apparently go for salt left on the road over the winter. David & Brandon's wildlife census for the day indicated they saw 25 big horn sheep.

There were a number of babies in the groups of sheep.

We came upon this youngster on the edge of the road and it took us until we got right up on it to decide that it was a moose calf. No bad mama moose was in site to charge us.

We saw several lone bison but mostly small herds of bison right on the highway right-of-way. The census count indicated 75 bison were seen.

And there were also babies in the bison herds.

Another break for lunch found the boys exploring the river side where we stopped.

There were also examples of the rock stacking phenomena here in British Columbia like we saw in Ontario. Not many rocks between Ontario and British Columbia for those who do this to practice their art.

This is the one brown bear sighting that we had and we could see the strawberries it was eating right under our noses. It was totally focused on food instead of us trying to get its attention. We had the window down (with my finger on the window button) talking to it right outside the window hoping it would look up. Not much luck though. Brandon said that the day was just like being at a zoo only better.

We ended up just over into the Yukon Territory at Watson Lake, YK for the night where we did laundry and had showers. David & Brandon did most of the dinner preparation (grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup) that they have decided is their new favorite meal. We have had it twice already. They both ate 3 grilled cheese sandwiches plus a large bowl of tomato soup. They said that the next time we have it they want to do every bit of the preparation. I can live with that.

2011-06-30T20:11:00.001-04:00

2011-06-29 - Wednesday - Early today we crossed into British Columbia and the Pacific time zone.

Not far into BC is Dawson Creek and the actual beginning of the Alaska Highway.

We decided to take a 10 kilometer alternate route on the old Alaska Highway. The purple route on the GPS is the alternate, the staighter orange line is the current Alaska Highway.

The main attraction is this curved bridge built in 1942 during the World War II construction of the Alaska Highway.

The bridge has a wooden floor. The Alaska Highway was gravel when it was built and for a long time after. It was a real adventure back in the day.

There was a lot of this kind of scenery as we moved further north in British Columbia.

The white birch trees that are everywhere catch the eye.

There are a number of steep descents to river crossings on this section of the road.

The scenery is more mountainous as the road heads north.

We stopped for the night at this rest area and view point at about 3,000' elevation as we began the turn west to cross the northern Rocky Mountains. David & Brandon are doing what boys do.

It's not apparent in this photo, but the views are spectacular from this point.

One of the vistas from this view point. Snow capped mountains are visible in the Rockies in another direction.

We are behind a day with the blog due to us camping "off the grid" last night. I will try to get today's blog post done this evening. It was a really big wildlife day. The boys were taking a wildlife census. Got to do laundry now. Well actually David & Brandon are retrieving two dried loads and putting one 3rd load in the dryer. I have to salvage my part in a few minutes when they return.

2011-06-28T22:48:00.002-04:00

2011-06-28 - Tuesday - We got to Edmonton, Alberta fairly early this morning and got a good tour of the city looking for hockey stuff. This a view of the skyline as we came in from the northeast...

...and another view as we headed downtown from the southeast.

David was particularly proud of this photo he took as we drove by the downtown area. It looks like it might be a hotel but could be anything.

We did find a shopping mall that satisfied David's desire to survey the hockey souvenir options in Edmonton. He didn't end up buying anything. This was an Oilers focused store. The Oilers are the team that the Carolina Hurricanes beat in 2006 for the championship/Stanley Cup.

David took a self portrait while wasting my film. :-) It's almost hard to remember the old days of buying film, being judicious in what one took a photo of, taking it to be developed, picking up the photos, etc. Note to Grammar, David bought two more pairs of these black Nike socks today.

Another day of impressive cloud formations. No rain except a few sprinkles but a sky show most of the day.

We are in Grand Prairie, Alberta tonight at a RV park. Tomorrow, we will actually get to the beginning of the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek, BC on our way to Fort Nelson, BC. We also enter the Pacific Time Zone tomorrow.

2011-06-27T20:32:00.005-04:00

2011-06-27 - Monday - We had some interesting clouds this morning made more dramatic by the "big sky" effect that the relatively flat country and sparse trees create.

Saskatchewon that we crossed today is practically all farm land. This wheat field is typical. The farm supply stores have large inventories of large farm equipment and they are everywhere. Farming is big here.

This massive mine operation reminds me of the potash mine in eastern NC across the river from the Bath area. We saw three this size within a 50 mile stretch of road.

We stopped by a roadside viewpoint of the Saskatchewan River Valley west of Saskatoon.

We were planning an overnight camp at the Walmart in Lloydminster, SK tonight but the area has really mushroomed with big box retailers and everything associated with them since I stayed hear 5 years ago. We plan to drive on a little more this evening after dinner where there is another Walmart that maybe isn't in so developed an area. And it will cut our travel time tomorrow to give us more time in Edmonton. This area is clearly in an oil-related construction boom.

David & Brandon are a little overwhelmed with the miles the last two days but they are coping OK. They were fine with moving on tonight, especially David who wants to look for hockey souvenirs in Edmonton.

We are two hours ahead of Raleigh in time now (Mountain Standard Time) and Wednesday we will move to Pacific Standard time. Those following us daily will probably not see our posts until the next day. Just wanted to make sure no one worries if they don't see a blog post. Today we are posting earlier than we normally would due to an early arrival at our intended night area.

2011-06-26T20:06:00.002-04:00

2011-06-26 - Sunday - We have been seeing this kind of "rock art" all along Ontario Highway 17. There is no lack of raw material as granite seems to be what had to be cut through to build the road.

Here's another example and here's the story about this I found on Wikipedia:

"Up here in Canada we call them inukshuks and people build them as a Inuit tradition. When driving canadian highways here in Ontario you see hundreds of them dotting the sides of the highway on the rocky northern Ontario landscape."

And rock like this and hundreds of lakes are typical of much of ON-17 in western Ontario that we traversed today. Western Ontario is north of Minnesota and it appears to have lakes in similar numbers to Minnesota's "10,000 lakes."

We crossed the border into the province of Manitoba in mid-morning.

Winnipeg was our lunch stop and we also found a few groceries and souvenirs. I meant to take a photo of David and Brandon in front of the Super Dollar store (a dollar store on steriods) but didn't. They thought it was near heaven and they found some Canada souvenirs and some dice to play a game cousin Gil taught them.

We've been seeing signs with the kilometers to the town of Brandon that is on Manitoba highway. I finally took a photo of a Brandon sign. We turned northwest on Manitoba 16 before actually going through Brandon the town.

We ended up in early evening at our destination of Neepawa, Manitoba and this city Lions Club RV park. Much of this area west of Winnipeg shows signs of heavy rain fall and flooding. Some fields we passed looked like lakes and they put us on this campsite with a concrete pad at the RV Park as the grounds are all soggy.

Our RV park has no wi-fi so we are in the local Dairy Queen parking lot using their wi-fi. The boys are tied up as you can see in the photo. Guess what we are going to do next!

2011-06-25T22:46:00.003-04:00

2011-06-25 - Saturday - Today started out much nicer than our previous two days. Clear blue skies and bright sunshine. And the temperature ended up in the low 80s after a start in the 50s in the morning.

Way too many scenery photos to include of our trip west on Ontario-17 crossing Ontario just above Lake Superior but here are a couple.

They have some seriously rocky shores on Lake Superior.

We took a turn on one side road to try to get up close to this interesting rocky cliff. The road was apparently put in to recycle some of the many rocks that had fallen off the cliff over a period of probably millions of years.

As the boys were walking to the rock pile they spied this interesting bird seemingly trying to scare us away or divert us from a probable nearby nest judging from its posture. We also saw a bull moose right beside the highway early this morning but were not fast enough to capture him with the camera. We saw him just as we came over a small rise in the road and were by him very quickly. He didn't bolt, but did amble off into the woods before we got turned around and back to him.

Brandon checking out what comes out of a cannon in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

This is what two teenagers do for loosening up after a long stretch of a road trip. Yes, David is licking the rail.

Our RV park tonight is in Ignace, Ontario on a small lake with a dock for swimming. The boys said the water was cold but couldn't resist jumping in.

Of course, the fact that there were two girls already in the water had nothing to do with it.

2011-06-24T22:48:00.001-04:00

2011-06-24 - Friday - An uneventful day north across Michigan except for a day in the 50s with drizzle or rain all day. We crossed the Mackinac Bridge across the boundary waters of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron...

...and then crossed the bridge into Canada at Sault Ste. Marie.

There was the usual queue at the border crossing but not too bad. No problems were encountered with the boy's papers at Canadian customs, we went right through.

Even though it was a gloomy day, there were many great views of Lake Superior as we drove up the eastern coast.

We stopped at one of the several streams running into the lake where there was a particularly impressive mix of rocks and gushing water.

There were signs all up the eastern shore of Lake Superior warning of Moose encounters, but no sightings.

Since we are in Canada with limited and or expensive cell phone access, we are trying to avoid their use. For those wanting to communicate, email or comments on this blog are the best course as we can get Internet access several times a day usually.

2011-06-23T18:45:00.000-04:00

2011-06-23 - Thursday - We had lunch today with cousin Gil on the lakefront in Michigan City, IN.

If you click on this photo to enlarge it and look on both sides of the small light on the point above the beach trash can, you can just make out the Chicago skyline across Lake Michigan from Michigan City.

David and Brandon on the Lake Michigan shore. It was 67 degrees and cloudy at the time of the photo.

David skateboarding on Gil's driveway.

Cousin Gil with the boys.

The pool is heated but air temp was still in the 60s for a swim in Gil's pool.

Tomorrow night we should be in Ontario, Canada if we succeed in reaching our planned destination and I convince the border people that I am not kidnapping the boys.

2011-06-22T21:34:00.001-04:00

2011-06-22 - Wednesday - A full day today with about 500 miles to Muncie, IN from the NC mountains. We had a wet night last night at the cabin and there were some lingering wisps of fog as we drove up I-77 in Virginia.

We had dinner with Vicki & JB. Margaret got the boys t-shirts for their birthdays with their home city so others can see where they are from. David C. initiated the idea for them to wear them today.

We visited David's Mom after dinner. We found her walking around her nursing home loop as she does untold times per day. When she saw us she wasn't sure who we were but she said "she knew I was a Vayhinger" (her maiden name). This is the first time I have visited her without Vicki who prompts her before a visit. Vicki said she prompted her today, but it was lost. But she quickly recovered though and carried on a conversation and asked the boys questions, commented on how good her great grandsons looked, etc. She's seems quite happy. Mom will be 95 in October.

The main thing that caught the boys' eyes today was the golden dome on the West Virginia state capitol building in Charleston. They figured out that Charleston was the state capitol and that the building must be the capitol building without prompting. I was impressed. It's amazing that they woke up just at the right moment to see it.

We have just 155 miles to go tomorrow. We will spend the afternoon and night at David's cousin Gil's place near Michigan City, IN (a Vayhinger in name as well as looks). :-)

2011-06-21T19:19:00.000-04:00

2011-06-21 - Tuesday - Today is loading up day for David's Alaska trip with grandsons Brandon & David. I couldn't resist including one of the native rhododendron blooms in the photo.

Brandon & David are psyched up for the trip. I'm sure they haven't quite grasped the size of the North American continent yet.

Our planned route includes six Canadian provinces/territories and eighteen US states other than NC (a little over 12,000 miles in six weeks).

We head north early tomorrow morning. Muncie, IN is our evening's destination.

2011-05-12T00:22:00.000-04:00

2011-05-11 - Wednesday - David making pancakes this morning before we left Tommy & Amanda's.

Water everywhere along the road as we approached Memphis on I-40 but none on the road and I-40 was open in both directions.

We ended up deciding to drive straight through to our NC mountain cabin (695 miles) rather than make an overnight stop. We got to the cabin about 10:45 pm so the trip took about 12:45 including a stop for lunch and two stops for fuel.

This blog will come to life again on June, 22nd when David begins a 6-week trip with 14-year old grandsons (cousins) David & Brandon to Alaska from North Carolina in the RV. See you then.

2011-05-10T23:52:00.000-04:00

2011-05-10 - Tuesday - We drove to grandson Tommy & Amanda's new home near Cabot, AR today and parked our RV in their back yard for the night. Here are Tommy, Margaret and Amanda in front of their home.

And Tommy with the RV in the back yard. Their house is on a corner with a gate into the backyard which makes this convenient (and relatively flat).

Great granddaughter Bailey who is 6 years old.

Amanda

Tommy

The flood reports indicate that the east bound lanes of I-40 are open in Arkansas to the Mississippi River bridge at Memphis, so we will attempt to get across the Mississippi tomorrow.

2011-05-10T00:57:00.001-04:00

2011-05-09 - Monday - Today we drove from Amarillo to Oklahoma to visit with our three grandchildren (David's son Ken's children) Emily, Dillon & Zack.

And a photo of all five kids in the family; Emily, Zack, Dillon, step-brother Jacob and in front half-brother Memphis. They are all growing like weeds so to speak. What happened to...

...these three from just a few years ago (2000).

Emily, Dillon & Zack

Tomorrow we move on to Arkansas for visit with grandson Tommy's family.

2011-05-08T21:42:00.005-04:00

2011-05-08 - Sunday (Mother's Day) - We took one last photo looking north from our Taos RV park as we left this morning. The Taos ski valley is in the mountains in background.

NM-518 southeast out of Taos was our direction this morning. This photo is looking back in the Taos direction and you can see a little snow on the mountains of the Taos ski valley.

Another overlook as we topped the mountain ridge crest. NM-518 can be seen in distance as it winds down into the mountain valley.

NMZ-518 stays in mountain valleys for a while before it begins another descent down out of the mountains. Here you can see out to the more desert-like plateau southeast of the mountains. Very pretty drive with lots of large pine trees to this point from Taos.

A little closer look at the cliff-hanging route of NM-518.

From here we followed NM-518 to Las Vegas, NM, then took NM-104 east from Las Vegas to Tucumcari, NM and then I-40 east to Amarillo. No trucks and not many autos on the NM-518 and NM-104 part of the route before we got to I-40.

We ended the day at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo since they offered a free limo shuttle from our RV park and it had been recommended to us. It's been here apparently since the days of Route 66 fame.

Big place, good steaks and a few roaming musicians to round it out.

Tomorrow evening we expect to be in Oklahoma visiting our grandchildren. We are looking apprehensively at the situation with the Mississippi River. Our planned route on I-40 through Memphis on Wednesday at about flood crest time is in doubt.

2011-05-07T21:49:00.002-04:00

2011-05-07 - Saturday - Just a lazy day in Taos. We drove into the historic district this morning and wandered around a little. Margaret caught this street musician making a few coins.

Then lunch at the deli in this photo.

In the afternoon we walked to the street fair just a couple of blocks from our city parking lot and the deli. Margaret found some jewelry, David watched a guy demonstrating how to string an 85 lb. wooden bow. Might come in useful next time he decides to go bow hunting for elk.

The weather has been delightful in Taos; highs in 70s, the low last night was in 30s, humidity around 10%, and a breeze.

Tomorrow night we expect to be overnighting in Amarillo, Texas.

2011-05-07T00:56:00.000-04:00

2011-05-06 - Friday - The snow capped mountains of southern Colorado were visible at several points today as we drove east on US-64 in northern New Mexico.

US-64 goes over one 10500' pass and we stopped to take a photo of the snow still there.

And Margaret got a photo of David out taking a photo.

As we approached Taos, NM the peaks of the ski area north of Taos also had some snow.

The Rio Grand River gorge from the US-64 bridge just west of Taos.

And a little closer look at the Rio Grand at the bottom of the gorge.

Out Taos RV Park.

We went into the Taos Plaza downtown in the evening to do a little browsing before the stores closed and then ate a pizza dinner at a local pizza shop.

We are spending the day in Taos tomorrow. There's a craft fair on the plaza plus we need a little down time.

2011-05-06T01:05:00.006-04:00

2011-05-05 - Thursday - We finished our exploration of Monument Valley this morning before heading southeast to Canyon de Chelly (pronounced de shay).

Margaret chatting with our afternoon's Jeep tour guide (Patrick Tso) in Canyon de Chelly while at the first stop to look at petroglyphs.

One of the several home sites in the canyon used by the Anasazi or early Navajo people.

Way too many beautiful scenes to post here.

The ladder barely visible is part of one of the many foot trails in and out of the canyon used by the Navajos over the years.

The contrast of the many cottonwood trees with the red rocks catches one's eye.

A short collection of some videos made on the Jeep tour in the canyon. It may take a while to load, be patient. It is just over a minute in duration.

We took AZ-13 up over the mountains to the northeast from Canyon de Chelly to get to Shiprock, NM. Here we are entering the mountain pass. The height of the mountains is shielded from view.

Looking back down the highway as we climbed the west side of the mountains.

The aspens at the higher elevations were beautiful even without their leaves.

Spectacular views of Shiprock (this one with considerable zoom) as we descended on the east side of the mountain range. The road's summit was just over 8500'.

Tomorrow we head for Taos, NM.

2011-05-05T01:32:00.000-04:00

2011.05.04 - Wednesday - We stopped at most view points on AZ-64 as we drove east within Grand Canyon NP this morning. Margaret struck another yoga pose (Liz, are you there?).

At this viewpoint, there was a good view of the Colorado River...

...but not really visible in the photo without a little help from the camera's zoom lens.

We met this couple from Switzerland at one of the viewpoints. They are cycling from California to New York. We immediately thought of our friend Kathy as maybe being interested in such an endeavor.

We ended up in Utah (just barely). We are camped in an RV park just over the border from Arizona in Monument Valley before dropping back down to Arizona to continue east tomorrow.

We are surrounded by red rocks.

View from the RV park.

John Ford make several westerns in Monument Valley including "Stagecoach" with John Wayne. Hence the stagecoach on the RV park's property.

Tomorrow we head to Canyon De Chelly in Arizona.

2011-05-04T00:37:00.000-04:00

2011.05.03 - Tuesday - The low at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon was in the low 30s last night but by the time we got going it was a beautiful clear day with a high in the 60s for viewing the canyon. This photo was taken at Mather Point.

Margaret wanted this photo posted on the blog for Liz, her yoga instructor. "I could not do a balance pose, so I opted for a meditative pose here above the Grand Canyon. Namaste."

A telephoto shot of the Bright Angel Trail winding down to the Colorado River and a small glimpse of the river.

Margaret living dangerously with her feet dangling over the wall.

We used the free park shuttle buses to get around to the various observation points on the South Rim.

We took way too many photos of the canyon for posting but here is a last one with the Colorado River barely visible in two places. The Grand Canyon is arguably one of the most spectacular features on this planet on which we are all hurtling through space. David was here in 1960 (it hasn't changed much except for the number of people that visit) and this is Margaret's first visit.

We will be in Monument Valley tomorrow night on our way back toward North Carolina.

2011-05-03T01:26:00.001-04:00

2011.05.02 - Monday - First a photo of our campsite last night tucked into the trees with a mountain view in Payson, AZ.

This morning Margaret decided to capture one of the less adventuresome activities of our RV travel; dumping the holding tanks.

Our route today was AZ-260 and AZ-89A to Sedona, AZ and then on to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. This photo is of the red rock country as we approached Sedona.

We had lunch in Sedona and hit a few of the shops. Sedona is the quintessential tourist town with a unique location and plenty of shopping and restaurants. Sedona's location is near the top of the scale being in a canyon with towering red rock mountains in all directions.

Margaret checking out some wares.

We found the "ultimate" patio or porch lights made to resemble shotgun shells. We wanted to buy they for our friends Kathy & Ray's porch but we were too cheap.

Even the parking lots in Sedona have great views.

This photo was taken coming out of the canyon that AZ-89A follows as it winds north from Sedona toward Flagstaff, AZ.

And this photo was taken looking down in the canyon from a view point just past the location of the above photo. 89A can just be seen on the canyon floor in the bottom right of the photo.

We ended the day at Trailer Village RV park in Grand Canyon National Park. In the morning we will catch the park shuttle buses to hit some of the view points on the south rim of the canyon.

2011-05-02T01:33:00.000-04:00

2011.05.01 - Sunday - Today we bid adieu to our friends at the Tombstone Bee Social RV Rally and moved on down the road. Here David chats with the Judy half of the Jack & Judy rally organizing team.

Margaret with Sally and Nancy.

Tim waiting for a streetcar. :)

And a final photo of us before our departure.

We stopped in Tuscon for a visit with an online friend of David's. This is Rodger & his wife Donna's place in Tuscon.

It's always nice to put an actual person with a name from online conversations. Rodger gave us a tour of their beautiful home before we all went out to lunch. Rodger and Donna used to own a class B RV like ours but they have sold it and plan to buy an Airstream travel trailer.

Their home is in northeast Tuscon close to the mountains in a spectacular desert setting.

From Tuscon, we took Arizona highways 77/188/87 north to Payson, AZ to avoid Phoenix plus this route is much more scenic. This photo is looking north from El Capitan Pass south of Globe, AZ on highway 77.

Roosevelt Lake (in the distance) is northeast of Phoenix on highway 188.

Arizona highway 188 bridge over Roosevelt Lake.

Tomorrow we will lunch in Sedona, AZ on our way to two nights at the RV park on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. It is supposed to get down in the 30s tonight in 5000' elevation Payson, AZ where we are camped for the night.