Our Alaska Caravan - Week Two

Our last episode covered the first week of our 48 day caravan through Canada and Alaska, and ended with us camping in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. This episode will encompass Week Two of our journey with Fantasy RV Tours.

Wednesday, July 22 - Day Eight. Today was our last day in Whitehorse, YT. We pretty much had a free day with no group activities until dinner. We did the laundry in the morning. They had a really nice laundry in the park. After lunch we had an opportunity to do an “Introduction to Geocaching” session with a member of our group. Joe and Tina are an interesting pair. Joe is a semi-retired businessman who grew up in Brooklyn, New York, but has lived in Texas for the last 23 years. He still sounds like he just walked off the streets of Flatbush. His traveling companion is Tina. Tina is from Uzbekistan, a former Soviet state in Central Asia. Although she grew up in the Soviet Union and Russian is her native tongue, she is of Korean descent. Both sets of Grandparents immigrated from Korea, on set from the North, one from the South. She is well educated and speaks good English, but with a heavy accent. Like many foreign English speakers, she sometimes has trouble with slang and idioms, but she is fun to talk to. Joe met Tina on the Internet and corresponded with her for some time. However, they only met in person about six weeks ago. Nonetheless, she agreed to accompany Joe on this trip and they seem to be doing quite well together.

Joe had expressed an interest in geocaching when we were talking about it at one of our group gatherings. He knew what the sport was, had registered on the official website and even bought a nice Garmin handheld GPSrx. However, he had never actually gone caching because he was unsure of the actual practice of caching. We told Joe that we would be happy to take him out and show him the ropes. Wednesday I selected four caches in the Whitehorse area that we could visit. Two of them were caches we had already found the day before and two were caches we had not yet located. I also selected different types and sizes of caches so we could give him a good overview. He downloaded the information into his GPSrx and off we went. We first did the two we had already found and let Joe find them. He did well. We then went off after the other two and found both of them also. Joe was very excited at his first four finds. I think we have a new geocache fanatic in our midst!

About 5:30 we got together with the group in the recreation hall at the RV park for a dinner. They had a prime rib buffet which was very nice, although the rib was a little dry and didn’t seem to have a lot of flavor. Nonetheless, we enjoyed ourselves and had some nice chat with other members of our group. Everyday we learn a little more about each other. After dinner we had our travel briefing for the next day’s trip from Whitehorse to Stewart Crossing, YT. We had a relatively early start scheduled, about 8:30, but our leader told us that we all needed to be out of the park by about 9:30 because we had three caravans in the park, all leaving in the morning and all heading North. The leaders of the caravans had gotten together and set a cooperative schedule so that all three caravans would not be on the same part of the road at the same time.

Thursday, July 23 - Day Nine. We managed to get up and out of the RV park just before 9:00 a.m. and started North towards our next stop at Stewart Crossing, about 225 miles. The scenery is pretty but the roads are continuing to get more challenging. The road on this part of the trip was narrower than earlier sections, and there were long sections with no shoulders, just a two foot drop-off. We also saw a lot more frost heaves and dips. Canada is pretty good about marking these rough sections with little orange flags or paint on the pavement, but you still have to be on alert because they don’t have them all marked. We also ran into a couple sections of construction where we only had a washboard gravel surface. One section was about 8 miles long and I thought my teeth were going to rattle loose. Another section was actually being worked on, so they had it watered and smoothed - it was actually smoother than some sections of the pavement!

Many of the group stopped about a third of the way to our destination at the Braeburn Lodge for cinnamon rolls. Cinnamon rolls seem to be a big deal up here, we have had stops for buns on several of legs so far. The rolls at this lodge were, by far, the largest I have ever seen. They were $8.50 but were at least 10 inches across and three inches tall. You could feed a family of four for a week with one bun. Well, maybe not, but they were big! We also saw our first coyote on the trip. I saw him trot across the road about a quarter mile in front of us, then he just stopped on the side of the road and watched us drive by. I talked later to Gary, who was a couple miles ahead of us, and he told me that the coyote was on the other side of the road watching them go by too. I guess he was just waiting for traffic to clear so he could cross the road. We also stopped for a photo opportunity at a roadside rest which overlooked the Yukon River at a rapids called Five Fingers. We had heard stories about this section of the river when we were at the SS Klondike museum. There are four large rocks in the middle of the river which splits the channel into five separate flows, or fingers. The riverboat captains had to figure out which of these channels were passable - and they were not very wide, only a few feet wider than the boats. This was apparently the most difficult hazard on the river between Whitehorse and Dawson City.

We arrived at our evening stop, Stewart Crossing mid afternoon and settled in. We were only going to be there one night and there were no sewer hookups, but we were prepared for that with empty waste tanks. The park also only had 15 amp power, which was no big deal to us - we have stayed with 15 amp service many times and as long as its not hot where you need A/C it’s no big deal. We had our travel briefing for the next day’s travel in the restaurant and afterwards Jackie and I stayed for dinner there. The food was quite good considering how far up in the boonies we are. Stewart Crossing isn’t even a town, only the lodge, restaurant and RV park on the banks of the Stewart River where the road crosses over the bridge. After dinner we stayed in the coach because the mosquitoes were pretty bad.

Friday, July 24 - Day Ten. This was to be a fairly short day, only 110 miles from Stewart Crossing to Dawson City. There wasn’t too much to see on the way up, the road was very narrow and in most places there were no shoulders, only a drop off of a couple of feet. The forest is close into the road so you don’t want to go too fast because you might get an animal jumping in front of you. The roads were also not in too good a shape. At one point we again had an eight mile stretch of gravel with the powdery dust. After a while we found that we tasted the grit in our mouths and had to drink water to rinse the dust out. Now I know what the old cowboys meant by trail dust! We didn’t see any animals on this leg of the trip.

We got into the Bonanza Gold RV park in the early afternoon and settled in. We are going to be in Dawson City for two nights. The park has full hookups, including sewer and cable TV. After getting set up we took a drive into town. Dawson City currently has a population of about 1,500 people, but during the gold rush years in the late 1800's and early 1900's the town had ten times that many people. The Klondike gold strike was the richest in history and prospectors flocked to the area. The town today is fairly small, and VERY frontier in nature. The streets are dirt and the sidewalks are wood. Most of the buildings in town date back to the gold rush years. When you drive around town you feel like you have gone back an hundred years. The town is right on the Yukon River and was one end of the riverboat route between Whitehorse and Dawson City back in the first half of the 20th century. Some of the riverboats actually ran all the way up to the early 60's when the road between Whitehorse and Dawson City (the one we just traveled) was finally built well enough for vehicle travel. We spent a couple hours in town, going through some of the shops and just admiring the quaintness of the town. We had a big lunch in one of the cafes with some other members of our group and after shopping headed back to the park to relax.

Saturday, July 25 - Day Eleven. This was a busy, crazy day in Dawson City, YT. Our tour leaders had a full day prepared for us, starting at 10:00 a.m. Our group gathered and carpooled up the Bonanza Creek road for a visit to “Gold Dredge #4". Bonanza Creek was the little creek where the original Klondike gold strike occurred. In the early days of the gold rush the mining was done by individual prospectors working small claims along the creeks and streams. The gold in this area was not hard-rock mining but rather was placer mining, which means the gold was already out of the rock and just lying relatively loose in the soil and streams. Individual prospectors panning in the streams could get fair amounts of gold, but they soon discovered that real money could be made by large scale mining. That is when they developed the gold dredge system. The dredge was a huge machine, mounted on a barge, that had a bucket line in the front which scooped up huge amounts of rock and soil, a huge sifter, shaker and sluice assembly in the middle that sorted out the heavier gold from the rock and soil, and a large chute in the back that spat out the leftovers, called tailings. The interesting thing was that the dredge floated in a large pond, but the pond moved with the dredge. It would dig out in front of it and fill in behind it, so the pond never got any bigger, it just moved up the valley. Dredge 4 was built in the 20's and is about eight stories tall and over 100 feet long. It actually worked the Yukon river valley for gold from the late 20's into the early 60's. It is now under the care of Canada Parks and is being restored. It was a very interesting visit. We learned a lot about gold mining from this tour. On the road driving up to the dredge we saw a gray fox trotting down the side of the road with a rabbit in his mouth! He didn’t slow down or go off the road, he just continued trotting past the whole line of about eight cars, looking at the cars as he went by. He appeared to all of us to be showing off, as in “Look at me, I got me a rabbit!”.

Later on in the afternoon we all carpooled into Dawson City to the Visitor’s Center for a walking tour of the city. Parks Canada has about a dozen different buildings in Dawson City that are either restored originals, or replicas, of turn of the century buildings. The tour took a couple of hours and was very interesting. We learned a lot about the history of Dawson City and life there in the early 1900's. The guide was very informative, and very funny and interesting too. We visited a restored bank, post office, saloon, store, and also saw a number of other restored and semi-restored structures. Very worthwhile couple of hours. After the tour most of the group went to a Greek (yes Greek) restaurant in town for dinner. The food was very authentic and VERY good. I would highly recommend the Drunken Goat Greek Restaurant to anyone who finds themselves in Dawson City looking for a place to eat. The owner even treated our group to a round of Ouzo after dinner!

After dinner we all went to Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Gambling Hall and Saloon. This was a real casino with slot machines, blackjack tables, poker and roulette. It was really funny because we were just about out of Canadian money after dinner because the Drunken Goat was cash only. This was our last real stop in Canada, so I wasn’t too worried about it, but we were running low. I got on a nickel slot machine and put in $10 and ended up cashing out $100! Jackie only lost $20, so we were up seventy bucks. Yea! We only gambled from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 when the show started. It was another old fashioned western song and dance show with Cancan dancers, similar to what we had seen in Whitehorse. But, it was a pretty good show and we enjoyed it. After the show the most of the group went up onto a bluff overlooking Dawson City. The bluff, called the Midnight Dome, was pretty cool with great views of Dawson City, the Yukon River and the surrounding wilderness.

After the trip up the dome Jackie and I went over to the Downtown Hotel and a bar called the Sourdough. We had heard about a “special” cocktail they had here which had a real mummified human toe in the drink. It was called the Sourtoe Cocktail and was kind of a local legend. We found the bar very busy and very entertaining. There were a couple dozen folks there trying to work up the nerve to do the Sourtoe. We ended up sitting with a couple of Canadian girls from Eastern Canada (Ottawa) who were out visiting. They were a real fun couple, Chantel and Melissa. We sat and drank with them for a couple of hours and all four of us ended up actually doing the Sourtoe. There is a whole ceremony that surrounds it, with a guy who is supposed to be an old riverboat captain letting you know that you are about to enter a special society of those brave enough to drink the sourtoe. He takes an old, ugly black mummified toe and rubs it on your face and then drops into your shot. You have to have something that is at least 80 proof. I had Jack Daniels, Jackie had Vodka. Then you have to chug the shot and the toe has to touch your lips. And he watches! He warns you, no chewing, no biting, no swallowing - just touch the lips! After you do it you get a special certificate welcoming you to the Sourtoe Cocktail Club. We had a blast and didn’t get back to the coach until almost midnight.

Sunday, July 26 - Day Twelve. Our original itinerary stated that we were going to be staying in Dawson City for three nights before moving on to Tok, Alaska. However, several days before our wagonmaster had proposed that we leave Dawson City on Sunday afternoon and travel part of the way to Tok, staying one night on the road at the “Top of the World” before continuing on. Several things need explaining here. There is a road that leads from Dawson City to Tok, that is called the “Top of the World Highway”. However, there is no bridge across the Yukon River at Dawson City. After Dawson City the road doesn’t go anywhere except to the US border, so I guess the Canadian Government doesn’t feel the need to build a bridge. The Canada highway department does operate a free ferry service to take you across the river, however, it is a very small ferry. Since there were a number of caravans in Dawson City, all planning on continuing on the Top of the World Highway on Monday, our wagonmaster thought it made more sense for us to go across the river on Sunday afternoon, when there would be very little traffic, rather than waiting until early Monday morning when there would be dozens of RV’s waiting to get across. Made sense to us and we had pretty much exhausted Dawson City’s fun anyway. So, about 1:00 p.m we packed up and headed into town and took the ferry across the Yukon. It still took over three hours for all twelve of our caravan’s rigs to get across. The plan was to drive about 50 miles towards Tok, Alaska, to an area that the wagonmaster had already scouted as a good one night overnight place big enough for our whole group. This would put us only about 15 miles from the US-Canada border station on the Top of the World Highway. The Top of the World Highway was MAGNIFICENT! There was a lot of dirt and gravel stretches, some of which were pretty rough and dusty, but the scenery was outstanding. The road climbed up out of Dawson City and then went along the tops of the ridges of the mountains with shear drops on either side. The going was slow, and sometimes uncomfortable, but well worth the trip. The spot that Larry had chosen for our night stay was large and flat and we all got in and set up by about 6:30 p.m. Larry then did a great hot dog cookout and we had a wonderful time. We went to bed fairly early because we had an early start the next day. Although the next day’s travel was only about 150 miles, Larry told us it was VERY rough, VERY bad road. He wanted us at the border crossing soon after they opened at 8:00 a.m. Canadian time. Alaska has it’s own time zone, an hour later than Pacific time.

Monday, July 27 - Day Thirteen. Day thirteen, how appropriate. We were up and out at 8:00 in the morning, not because we had a long way to go - Tok, Alaska, our destination, was only about 150 miles. It was because Larry told us it would be the worst 150 miles we had ever driven. After driving about 15 miles Northwest from our night’s encampment, we came to the US-Canada border. This was how I would picture a border station in Manchuria. We drove up to a large green metal building where a Canadian flag flew on one side and the US flag on the other. We were driving on a narrow road on a mountain ridge. There were few trees, mostly just windswept wilderness. Other than the couple of cabins for the border guards and the station itself, there were no other signs of civilization as far as one could see. The border crossing was very easy, the US agent took our passports, asked us about booze, guns and animals, and sent us on our way. The agent was very pleasant. We had drunk most of our Canadian bought liquor, so I told him that we only had a couple liters of leftovers that we had brought with us from the states. He asked about the cat’s rabies certificate, but didn’t want to see it when I offered. We were through the gate and back into the USA within 5 minutes.

Once into the US we had about 100 yards of pavement leading West from the border station and then the road turned to dirt and gravel. The next 85 miles were just as Larry told us - the worst roads I have ever driven the coach on. I would have been reluctant to drive the Jeep on some of the stretches, but we had no choice but to go on. The dust rolled on and into the coach, everything rattled and banged inside the coach, and we were only driving 15 mph. After about two and a half hours we finally arrived in Chicken, Alaska. This was a badly needed - and pretty entertaining - break. Chicken is a town of about 35 or so in the middle of the Eastern Alaska wilderness. There is a store and service station right on the road, and then “Beautiful Downtown Chicken”, as they advertise it, is about a half mile down a side road. Our leaders, Larry and Doug, unhooked their tow cars and ferried people into “downtown” which consisted of three connected wooden buildings containing a souvenir shop, a restaurant and a bar. It was all very quaint and interesting. At least now we can claim to have been in Chicken, Alaska.

A short couple miles after Chicken the road finally became paved again. Although there were a few torn up areas and gravel sections, it was like driving on a superhighway compared to the portion between the border and Chicken. We finally arrived in Tok, Alaska. We were also once again on the Alaska highway. Tok is the first major settlement on the Alaska highway after the border crossing on that road. Tok is not very large, probably 1,500 but we had a pretty nice RV park with full hookups. Everyone stopped at the fuel station across the street from the park because if you filled your tank there you got a free wash at the RV park. Larry told us that the tradition was that everyone filled their tanks, came across the street to the RV wash and got in line. Then everyone from the caravan that was there grabbed a brush or hose and cleaned all the Rv’s as they passed through. The wash was really only a concrete pad with two lanes and two high pressure hoses, a bunch of brushes and some buckets. But it was good to finally get the dust and dirt off of the coach. The amount of dust was unbelievable. It only took an hour or so for all the rigs to get at least a reasonable cleaning. After we parked I had to run down to the auto parts store to buy two new headlights for the Jeep. Both lights had been broken out by rocks on our trip over the Top of the World. The windshield has only had a couple nicks, no chips, cracks or stars yet, but the lights were smashed. Fortunately, our car is old enough to still use sealed beams, so it only cost me $20 and a half hour of time to replace the lights. After fixing the car we went to a local restaurant, Fast Eddie’s, for a quick dinner and then back to the coach. I was completely exhausted, mentally and physically, from the day’s drive and the cleaning and fixing afterwards. I was in bed and asleep by 9:30, which was actually 10:30 Pacific time.

Tuesday, July 28 - Day Fourteen. We left Tok about 8:30 a.m. and headed Northwest on the Alaska Highway again, destination Fairbanks, Alaska. This was a 200 mile trip, but Larry told us that it was pretty decent highway all the way, only a few areas of frost heaves to watch for. We did see a bunny rabbit (this one NOT in a fox’s mouth) and one moose on the side of the road. We found out later that some of the other caravan members saw several moose and a bear, but we only had the one moose. We also had a bird strike - the bird zigged instead of zagging and wacked the top front of the coach. I don’t think that counts as an animal sighting though. About halfway through the trip we reached Delta Junction which marks the official “end” of the Alaska Highway. In 1942 the crews who were working and building the highway Southbound started here, while the Northbound crews started in Dawson Creek, BC. The point where the two crews met is at Beaver Creek, BC on the part of the Alaska Highway we bypassed when we took the Top of the World route. We will see that later on in the trip when we start back out of Alaska.

We stopped at the visitor’s center in Delta Junction and had our picture taken at the marker showing the official end point of the Alaska Highway. We then drove a couple more miles and stopped at the crossing of the Chena River for our first view of the Alaska pipeline. We will learn more about the pipeline later, so I will provide more details in another blog. We had lunch there and continued on towards Fairbanks. Just before we got to our RV park we drove though the community of North Pole. Needless to say, there was a giant santa and a lot of Christmas themed stores. We will probably visit that on one of the days we are in Fairbanks. We arrived at our RV park about 2:30 or so and got settled in. It was a very easy drive this time. We had full hookups, which was good because were scheduled to be there for four days.

We didn’t get to relax too long because at 6:30 p.m. there was bus waiting to take our group to the Fairbanks Alaska Salmon Bake. This is a huge operation located in Pioneer Park, a sort of frontier theme park in Fairbanks. It was an all you can eat buffet with prime rib, salmon, halibut and cod for main dishes, along with a huge salad bar, desert and soft drinks. Although it was included as part of our trip, Jackie did notice the price was $31 per person. All of the food and cooking was outdoors in a very large venue. Most of the seating was also outside, although they did have an indoor section. There weren’t many mosquitoes, so we sat outside at a large table. The food was very good and we both ate way too much. While we were eating a group of five younger people asked if they could sit at our table. We chatted with them and it turns out they were all from the Sacramento, California area and were Air Force reservists. They had been sent up to Eielson AFB for their two week active duty deployment. The base is only about 20 miles South of Fairbanks. We had passed the base on the way to Fairbanks and had seen a B-1 bomber parked on one of the taxiways. There are a lot of military in Fairbanks because there is also a large Army base, Fort Wainwright, which is right next to our RV park.

After dinner our leader walked us all over to another part of Pioneer Park to the Palace Theater where we had another turn of the century type vaudeville show. The material was different from the other two we have seen, but the theme and general tone of the show were the same. After a while they all start to look pretty much the same. After the show we got back on the bus and back to the RV park where we pretty much crashed for the night. We had a big day scheduled for Wednesday - the bus was scheduled to pick us up at 8:00 a.m. and Larry said not to expect to return until after 6:00 p.m. Yikes - we are going to have to rest up after this vacation!

Well folks, that concludes Week Two of our 48 Day Alaska Caravan. We are here in Fairbanks for another three days, then on to Denali National Park and Anchorage. I will try to post Week Three as quickly as I can given the full schedule of events our leaders have planned for us. Until then, “Hush you Muskies - no wait, Mush you Huskies.”

Our Alaska Caravan - Week One

Wednesday, July 15th - Day One. The first “official” day of our caravan. We started with a pancake breakfast hosted by our Wagonmasters, Larry and Evelyn, and our Tailgunners, Doug and Linda. These are the staff for our caravan. The Wagonmaster is in charge of everything and is always the first out in the morning. The Tailgunner is responsible for bringing up the rear of the caravan and normally leaves about 90 minutes after the Wagonmaster. The idea is to travel somewhere in between the two. We learned all this at our first briefing which was held at 2:00. The staff told us that we could leave whenever we wanted, but if we left after the scheduled time for the tailgunner, we wouldn't have anyone behind us in case of problems. We decided that we would try to always be in the middle of the pack.

After our 2:00 briefing we all headed down to the center of Dawson Creek to the official “Mile Zero” milepost to have a group picture taken. There is a stone cairn marking the spot where they started the Alaskan Highway in 1942. After the photo we all headed to the George Dawson Lodge for our welcome dinner. George Dawson was an early surveyor for the highway and both Dawson Creek and Dawson City are named for him. The dinner was a very nice buffet of beef and chicken. After the dinner we had a presentation by one of the docents from the Dawson Creek visitor's center giving us the history of the Alaska Highway. Until WWII, there was no road between Alaska and the U.S, or even most of Canada. There were a series of airports, but no roads. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor the military decided we needed to build a road to Alaska for defense purposes. Within a few months they had sent nearly 10,000 troops and civilian contractors to Dawson Creek, which had a permanent population of about 400 at the time. Within 18 months they had created a 2,500 mile highway from Dawson Creek to Fairbanks. She had a lot of cool old pictures from the early 40's of the road and it's construction. Of course, at that time it was all dirt and gravel.

After the presentation the wagonmaster had everyone in the caravan do basic introductions. We have a total of thirteen rigs traveling with us. This includes the Wagonmaster and Tailgunner, so there are eleven customer rigs. All but two are motorhomes. We have one single traveler, Lindsey, who has a pickup truck with a big camper. Her husband, a Marine aviator, died about a year ago and she has decided to continue to travel. They also own a large bus motorhome, but she hasn't learned to drive it yet, so she took the camper on this trip. We also have one couple, Dave and Connie, who have a 30 ft. fifth wheel. Five of the couples on the trip also went with Larry on the caravan to the Calgary Stampede just before coming up to Dawson Creek. We have one couple in a Newell, Steve and Betty, who are on their sixth trip with Fantasy Tours. The rest of us are in an assortment of Class A motorhomes ranging from 27 ft. to 42 ft. Our Tailgunner has a Monaco Knight, a year newer than ours, but with the same floor plan.

One couple on the tour, Gary and Delena, had actually met some other friends of ours in Indiana at a service center earlier in the year. They met Ken and Bonnie Woepke and Ken realized that Gary and his wife were going on the same trip as us. Bonnie had emailed that information to us so we were really looking forward to meeting them. Turns out that Gary looks a lot like my best friend Barry Cohen, so it will be real easy for me to remember his name. (Barry – Gary) One of the couples in our group are from Canada, the rest are from the States. Only a couple of them are fulltimers like us. Almost all of the group are “baby boomer” generation and everyone seems to be very nice. I think we are going to have a good time. After the dinner we went back to the park for the rest of the night. Our trip tomorrow (Thursday) is going to be long, we are going 284 miles from Dawson Creek to Fort Nelson, B.C.

Thursday, July 16th – Day Two. We managed to be up at 6:00 and on the road by 8:00. We made a quick stop for fuel just North of Dawson Creek and then headed up the Alaska highway. This part of the highway is in very good condition and we traveled through mostly forested land. One of the interesting things about traveling the Alaska Highway is the “animal sightings” as you travel. Everyone keeps track or animals seen and shares the sightings at the end of the day. Our first day of travel we saw one large bull moose, a black bear with two cubs, a large male black bear, and a couple of deer. Fortunately, all were well off the road, or were visible from a far enough distance to be able to slow down. Just about everyone on the road slows or stops when there is wildlife on the side of the road. Makes it pretty easy to avoid them. Although the road was pretty good, we did run into a major thunderstorm while on route. Fortunately there is not a lot of traffic on the road, so you just slow down and keep on traveling when the rain hits. We got into Fort Nelson about 3:00 and settled into the RV park with the help of our Wagonmaster. The RV Park, Westend RV Campground, was kind of a dump, but we were only going to be here one night. The spaces were pretty tight, but we got in without too much difficulty. We at least have 30 amp and sewer, which are the “gold standard” for RV parks up in the North Country. We decided not to bother putting the living room slide (road side front) out for the “one night stands”. We have been having some problems getting this slide in due to a weak motor, so we thought we would just not bother.

We had a brief travel meeting at 5:00 where we discussed tomorrow's travel. We are leaving Fort Nelson, B.C. for Liard Hot Springs. After the briefing we headed down to the Boston Pizza restaurant in town for dinner. We took Dave and Connie with us because they didn't want to have to disconnect their truck from the trailer. We have seen Boston Pizza stores all over Canada, but this was the first time we have gone to one. The pizza was very good. I took enough home for lunch the next day. After dinner we stopped at the Fort Nelson Elks Lodge, which happened to be only a couple of blocks from the RV Park. This is one of the few Canadian Elks that has a bar. The four of us went in and had a drink and chatted a little with the bartender. We were also able to get a lodge pin, so they will be on our banner. Yea! After this cocktail we headed back to the coach for the night. We had no satellite, I think that is over until we are finished with the Alaska trip. We did have cable, so we were able to at least watch a couple of shows before we went to bed.

Friday, July 17th – Day Three. Today's drive was 191 miles from Fort Nelson, B.C. to the Laird River Hot Springs Provincial Park. We got out about 9:15 in the morning. We think we may be getting used to this early start stuff. Shortly after leaving the park we stopped buy fuel. This is the first time since we have been in Canada where the price of diesel has been over $1.00 per liter. Oh well, we knew fuel would not be cheap. On this part of the trip we were again mostly in rolling forested hills, but there were a couple of times when we had to stop for road construction. We were into some of the conditions I have heard people talk about regarding Alaska trips. We ran into two separate areas where we had to drive through construction on gravel surfaced roads. They had the traffic blocked so you only had one direction at a time going through the area following a pilot car. In both sections the white dust was so bad I couldn't see the road five feet in front of me. The actual road surface was slightly rough, but it didn't matter because we could only drive about 15 miles per hour anyway because of the dust. Because there is only traffic in one direction, you don't have to worry about rocks in the windshield. That was always the big fear about traveling on the Alaska Highway. One portion of the construction area went through a beautiful canyon and we were able to see a couple small herds of Stone Sheep, a small relative of the Bighorn Sheep. Fortunately, this section was packed dirt without much dust so we got some good photos of the sheep. After the construction areas we stopped for lunch at the Toad Creek Lodge, about halfway to Laird Hot Springs. We had lunch in the lodge with a couple of other rigs from our caravan. We were amazed at the amount of dust on - and in - our rigs from driving through the construction areas. The back of our motorhome was completely white with dust, as is the car. The lunch at the lodge was great, Jackie had a buffalo burger! I bought a cool tee shirt and we hit the road again. On the way we did see our first caribou on the side of the road. About the size of an elk, but lighter in color with a different type of antlers.

We arrived at our destination about 3:00 p.m. Tonight we are staying in one of the British Columbia Provincial Parks. Surprisingly, we found the park to be very nice - large sites in a very pretty woodsy area. We had no hookups at all, totally dry camping, but we were only here one night and we had made sure we came with empty waste tanks and plenty of water on board. One of the reasons our leaders decided to stay at this park is that it has some natural hot springs right inside the park boundaries. After we got settled in I put on my bathing suit and headed to the springs. They were very nice - the park had built a wood walkway through the swamp to the springs, and then had wood steps going into the water. They had also put gravel on the bottom of the natural pools so it was very comfortable. At the spring end of the pool the water had to be at least 115 degrees. The further away from the source you went the cooler the water got. I stayed in the part that was probably about 107, what a regular hot tub would be. The water was slightly sulfur smelling, but not so bad that it was uncomfortable. Jackie didn't feel like going to the springs, so I was there with a couple of other folks from the caravan. After the hot springs I went back to the coach and we played a couple of games of cards before heading to bed. We didn't have a full travel meeting tonight because the mosquitoes were so bad in the park. You could hardly go outside without being swarmed, even with repellent on. Larry, or leader came around and just told us that we would be leaving the park tomorrow morning between 8:30 and 10:00 a.m. heading to Watson Lake, Yukon Territory (Y.T.)

After arriving in Laird Hot Springs we learned that one couple from our group, Terry and Janis, had experienced major problems with their coach just before arriving at the park. They have an Tiffin Allegro with a Ford gas engine and they think that they may have broken a rod in the engine. They had just bought the coach new before the trip and it had less than 7,000 miles on it when it quit. We learn that they have been able to make arrangements to get towed from Laird Hot Springs into Whitehorse, Y.T. tomorrow morning. We will be heading to Whitehorse after one other stop. They hope to be able to get the problem fixed and rejoin the caravan later in the trip. We are all keeping our fingers crossed.

Saturday, July 18th - Day Four. We were up and out of the park about 9:00 and found that we were the last people out except for the Tailgunner who was not scheduled to leave until 10:00. We were driving only 135 miles today to Watson Lake, Y.T. Again, the road was pretty good. We didn't run into any major construction today. We have heard tales about the bad roads up in the Yukon and Alaska - so far, except for the construction areas yesterday, we have not experienced anything worse than what you see in California as far as roads. The frost heaves are generally just minor bumps. We have found that because of the bumps, the possibility of animals on the roads, and the hills and so forth, that we are only driving between 50 and 55 most of the time. This actually makes for very leisurely driving. I get a chance to enjoy the scenery for a change. There is very little traffic on the road, despite it being the only road in the area.

On this leg of the trip we ran into several herds of wild buffalo grazing along the road, and sometimes crossing the road. We got some good pictures. We also saw our first grizzly bear on the side of the road. Much bigger than the black bears we have seen and a different color, more of a reddish blond color.

Today we finally crossed from British Columbia into the Yukon Territory. We crossed the border a couple of times as the road zigzagged, but we finally came to the "official" welcome sign. We arrived in Watson Lake about 1:00 in the rain. This was a pretty decent campground with pull through spots and full hookups. Watson Lake is our first town in the Yukon Territory and it is the home of the famous "Sign Post Forest." The Forest is just a block from our campground so several of us walk over to look at it and post our caravan's sign. It is very hard to describe the sign post forest. It is a couple of acres of 8 ft. 4X4 posts with every type of sign you can think of. At last count there were over 64,000 individual signs in the forest. Larry put up a sign that had all the names of the folks on our caravan so we are now a part of the forest. Jackie and I have decided that we will put up our own sign when we come back through Watson Lake near the end of the caravan.

Unfortunately, after arrival at the park we learned that another couple from our group, Dave and Connie, broke the springs on their fifth wheel and were going to be stuck in Watson Lake for at least three days while they wait to get it fixed. They hope to be able to get finished and rejoin the caravan in Whitehorse. We will be there for three days, so hopefully they can get the repairs made and get back on the caravan.

Our dinner tonight was at the RV park and was advertised to us as a "low country boil". It turns out that Steve and Betty, the couple with the Newell, are from Georgia and carry a huge pot and propane cooker with them. This is the couple that have been on a number of caravans. Dinner was held in a large tent near the office. When we get there we found a bunch of tables inside the tent with Georgia newspaper set out as place mats and this huge pot boiling just outside the tent. Inside the pot are shrimp, sausage, white potatoes, sweet potatoes and corn on the cob. There must be 30 pounds of food in the pot. After we all get settled they strain the food, dump it out on a table, and let everyone go through and help themselves. The food was FANTASTIC and there was more than enough for everyone. Jackie and I both ate until we were well fed! One of the best meals we have had. After the meal we had a short travel brief for tomorrow's travel from Watson Lake, Y.T. to Teslin, Y.T. After that Jackie and I headed back to the coach, watched a little bit of TV (we had cable hookups at this park) and then headed off to bed ready to travel our next leg.

Sunday, July 19th - Day Five. We were up and out of the park by about 9:15 again. It would be nice to be able to sleep in, but with these one day stops we don't get the chance. The drive from Watson Lake, Y.T. to Teslin, Y.T. was only 163 miles. The roads were good with few major bumps and no construction except for a couple of bridges where we were held up for only a couple minutes. Most of the trip is through forest, but we also had great views of the rivers and lakes that dot the landscape. About halfway through the drive we did see a large Bald Eagle. He was flying straight down the road in front of us, then landed near the shoulder. We had a really good view of him. Unfortunately, we couldn't get the camera up in time to get a photo. We didn't see any other animals the whole day - very disappointing. We saw a couple of places where there was piles of poop on the shoulder, but no animals. Probably either bison or some of the wild horses that inhabit the area.

Just before we get into Teslin, our stop for the night, we crossed over Teslin Lake on a long bridge. The bridge was built in the 40's and is the longest bridge on the Alaska highway. The park we are staying in tonight is pretty nice with pull-through spots. We had water and electric, but no sewer or TV. We were only going to be there one night, so no big deal. We were in and settled by about 2:00 p.m., so we unhooked the car and drove around the area to do some sightseeing. I checked to see if there were any geocaches in the area and there were none. We went to the George Johnson Museum, which was located right in town. This was a very interesting stop. George Johnson was a Tlinket Indian who lived in Teslin. George happened to be a photographer, so he has photos of the people and activities in the area from about 1902 well into the 1950's. He was a very successful trapper and brought the first automobile into the area in 1928. There were no roads anywhere, he had the car brought in by boat. He used it primarily in the winter when Teslin Lake froze and he was able to drive on the ice and service his traps. The lake is 68 miles long and a couple miles wide, so he had a huge road in the winter. There were no real roads in this area until the Alaska Highway came through in 1942.

After the museum we drove about 6 miles North of town on the highway to visit the site of the infamous Mukluck Annie's Almost anyone I have talked to about travel to Alaska has mentioned Mukluck Annie's They had a restaurant that served a salmon bake - if you ate in the restaurant you could stay in the RV park for free. (without electric, that was extra) You also got a free RV wash. Unfortunately, we found the place closed. The story we heard from our Wagonmaster was that the owner was an older lady who finally had to give the place up. After a little touring of the town we headed back to the coach to rest for tomorrow's trip.

Monday, July 20 - Day Six. Today we left Teslin for Whitehorse, Y.T. The trip was only about 106 miles so we expected to get in early. We got out of the park in Teslin about 9:30 and headed North. This was a very easy drive but again, we didn't see any animals. We did see at least a half dozen hardy souls on bicycles, most headed South. I would imagine that it takes a long time to do the Alaska Highway on a bike, so they probably get an early start. We have also seen a lot of motorcycles on the highway. I guess it would be a great adventure, but we sure feel sorry for the cyclists, both types, when it is raining. Not my cup of tea. We got into Whitehorse about 1:00 p.m. and parked pretty quickly after getting some fuel. The fuel island is right in the middle of the RV park so you can just stop there as you pull into the park. The spots are a little tight, but we were able to get all the slides out and we have full hookups, including TV and Internet. We are going to be here for three days. Yea! This is the first stop on the trip that is not a one night stand. The original plan was for us to have a dinner in the rec room at the park, however, after everyone got in the Wagonmaster told us that the dinner was canceled because someone else had the room. The dinner was rescheduled for Wednesday night, our last night here.

Since we had the rest of the day free, we downloaded some caches and went geocaching for the first time in nearly a week. We were able to find five caches in a couple hours and saw some interesting places in Whitehorse. Whitehorse is the capital of the Yukon Territory and its largest city, with about 25,000 people. The book said that two-thirds of the population of the Yukon lives in Whitehorse. There is a really cute old-timey downtown area along Main Street that looks like it would be fun to explore. One of the caches was by the airport and there was a 737 sitting at the gate, so we know they have major air service. They also have what they claim to be the world's biggest wind vane. They have an old DC-3 mounted on a pole and it swivels with the wind. We also located the Elks Lodge, right in the downtown area, and it appears that they have a bar. We didn't have time to stop there today because we had made arrangements to meet with some members of our group at Klondike Salmon and Ribs, a pretty well known restaurant in Whitehorse. I had the fish and chips which was huge and very good. Jackie was not too hungry and had a bowl of Halibut chowder, which she said was tasty. The menu was interesting in that they had some unusual dishes. They had Caribou stew, Musk Ox stroganoff, and a couple of other items not seen on the average restaurant menu. After dinner we headed back to the coach to relax. Tomorrow we have to be up and ready at 8:30 for a bus tour of Whitehorse. Then for tomorrow night we have tickets to go to a follies-type show in town. They keep you busy on these caravans. We hit the bed about 11:00 p.m., pretty much our normal time - it is still daylight outside! We figure that right now we have about 5 hours a night of darkness. The sun didn't go down below the horizon tonight until about 10:00. p.m.

Tuesday, July 21 - Day Seven. Even though today was not a travel day we still have to roll out of bed early because we had an 8:30 a.m. bus tour of Whitehorse. Our first stop was a bluff overlooking the Yukon River where we took some group photos. The people from our caravan were the only ones on the bus, so the bus driver was pretty open to whatever we wanted to do. Our next stop was the Whitehorse fish ladder. There is a dam on the Yukon River just South of Whitehorse which provides electrical power for the surrounding region. This is the only dam on the Yukon, and it is 3,000 miles from the mouth of the river in the Bering Sea. None the less, there are still some salmon that swim all the way up to rivers and creeks upstream from the where the dam is. In order for these salmon to get past the dam, there has to be a fish ladder. The Canadian government has on-site biologists who count the fish - there are actually very few, less than a thousand per year, that come up this far. We didn't see any salmon in the ladder because they are not due for another couple of weeks. Jackie wanted to ask the biologist how the salmon can climb the ladder without thumbs.

Our next stop on the tour was the SS Klondike, a restored stern wheeler riverboat which is now a museum. The Klondike was built in 1921 and is nearly 300 feet long. It ran aground and partially sunk in 1935, but the upper deck works and machinery were salvaged and the ship was rebuilt and relaunched in 1937. It ran multiple trips up and down the Yukon River, from Whitehorse to Dawson City every summer until 1955 when the new Alaskan Highway put the riverboats out of business. In the 60's the City of Whitehorse brought the boat from the boat yards, where it had languished since '55, to the downtown area where it was restored as a museum. We spent about an hour touring the boat - it was very interesting. There were several riverboats on the Yukon, but the Klondike was the largest. After the Klondike tour we stopped briefly at the Whitehorse visitor center and then took a short driving tour of Whitehorse.

After the the bus dropped us off back at the RV park we decided to go spend the afternoon in Whitehorse just exploring. We were scheduled to attend a show downtown at 8:00 p.m., so we thought we would spend the day in town and just meet the group there. We spent a couple of hours walking around on Main Street looking in the various shops and then did some driving around the town, looking at the various neighborhoods. We also went out and found one more geocache to add to our total. About 4:00 we went by the Whitehorse Elks Lodge and visited the bar - yes, this one had a bar. There were two other people in the bar, besides the bartender. One of them was the Secretary of the Lodge and we got to talking to him about the Lodge. He told us there are 32 members of the Lodge! The only way the Lodge can stay open is their bingo hall - they have bingo six days a week in the summer and have eight sessions per week in the winter. He also told us that Whitehorse has the only Elks Lodge in the Yukon Territory. We did manage to get a nice pin from the lodge. After the Elks we went by the Royal Canadian Legion, also located right in downtown Whitehorse. This was probably the most fun Legion we have been in since coming into Canada. We walked in the door and there were about eight people sitting around a big table drinking. One of the guys at the table told us that it was the bullshit table and to sit down and make ourselves comfortable. We sat down and visited with a bunch of folks. Jackie got to talking to one middle aged lady who it turns out is active duty Canadian military home on leave. She is in the medical corps and due to go back to Afghanistan in October. Jackie said that she reminded her of her friend Julie from Sacramento. We had a couple of drinks and had a great time. Unfortunately, they didn't have a branch pin for our banner.

After the Legion we went to a local Mexican restaurant, Sam & Andy's, which is new in town and had been recommended by the gal Jackie had been talking to in the Legion. We got there about 6:00 and there weren't too many people there. We ordered a drink and some calamari, which came pretty quickly. We then ordered dinner, steak and chicken fajitas for two. Time went by, the place started filling up and pretty soon we noticed that some people who had come in long after us were getting food and we didn't have any yet. After about 45 minutes we asked the waitress how long our food was going to be. She said she'd check, and when she came back she was all flustered and told us she had forgotten to put our order in! After another 20 minutes she finally brought the food out, and it was just chicken - no steak fajitas. Although the food was not too bad, it certainly wasn't good enough to offset the incredibly poor service. At least they did take the appetizer and one of Jackie's drinks off of the bill. We wouldn't recommend Sam & Andy's.

We managed to finish dinner just in time to get over to the hotel where we were meeting the rest of our group for the show. The show is called the Frantic Follies and it is an old-time vaudeville show of the type that would have been popular in the late 1800's when the Yukon gold rush was on. Nearly all of the players were locals and a couple of them were still in high school. It turns out they were very entertaining, if a little corney sometimes. They had some Cancan dancers, played and sang some old songs, and had some hysterically funny comedy skits. A couple of them involved bringing audience members up to the stage, and one them picked Jackie, who happened to be sitting in an aisle seat. They put her in a chair on stage while a couple of the performers sang a love song to her. She went along with the gag perfectly and the audience loved the act. The show lasted a couple hours and was very good. I don't know what the cost is, because it was included as part of our tour, but I would recommend it if you find yourself in Whitehorse with an open evening. We got out of the show at 10:15 p.m. and the sun had just gone down. It was still light enough that I drove back to the RV park without having to use my headlights!

Although we have one more day in Whitehorse, this was the end of the first week of our caravan. I will be posting the second week of our adventures in about seven days, providing we have decent Internet. Until then, peace and love!

The North Cariboo of Canada

Hi friends and followers - we hope all is well with you. Our last blogisode left us on June 30th newly arrived in Lac La Hache, BC in a small, rural campground. The next morning, July 1st, was Canada Day, their version of Independence Day. After lunch we headed out to do some caching and exploring so we headed South, towards 100 Mile House, a small town about 10 miles from our park. Before I go too far into story of our day, let me explain the odd name “100 Mile House” since this naming convention will be common over the next week or so. Back in the mid 1800's Canada experienced their own Gold Rush in the Western Territory, what is now central British Columbia. In order to provide services and supplies, a wagon road was established running North from the town of Lillooet in South Central BC to Prince George and North to the Cariboo gold fields. The road was over 400 long and was surveyed and constructed by the Royal Engineers from England. Along this route, known as the Cariboo Trail, were established a series of road-houses and stations for the wagons and stages traveling the route. Many of these way stations were simply named for the distance they were from Lillooet. A number of these towns remain today along Provincial Highway 97, which roughly follows the route of this old wagon road.

As we headed South we passed through a small historic village called 108 Mile House Ranch and noticed that there was a big party going on. We saw a whole bunch of people and vendors wandering around the historical site. 108 Mile Ranch is a Canadian Heritage Site and consists of a number of 19th century buildings which have been restored or rebuilt to resemble one of the old Cariboo Trail way stations. What we saw going on was the local Canada Day celebration. We stopped and wandered around, looking at the merchandise and enjoying the festivities. Jackie actually found a really pretty glass vase with a couple of calla lilies in it which she just had to have. You know her and calla lilies. After spending an hour or so celebrating Canada Day with the locals we continued down to 100 Mile House to do some caching. We explored around this very nice little town and managed to find eight caches. After our caching we went into the 100 Mile House branch of the Royal Canadian Legion for a visit. We had a couple of drinks and got another pin for our banner. We had a nice chat with the bartender about the area. When we got back to the RV park we found that there were still only about four other parties there, despite this being a National holiday.

On Thursday, the 2nd of July, we headed back out after lunch to do some more caching. At first we were afraid that we were going to strike out and not get any finds - all of the caches we set out for turned out to be way out in the sticks requiring long hikes through the bush. We really weren’t up to that. However, later on in the afternoon we started having some luck with some easier finds and we ended up with a total of five for the day. One of them was near a Canadian National railroad freight station and I guess we arose the suspicions of the station-master. He came out and asked us what we were doing and we explained geocaching to him. At that point he acknowledged that he had seen other people from time to time in the area where we pointed out the cache. He thanked us for explaining, indicating that because of terrorism they were on a higher alert to suspicious activity. Why a couple of old white folks from Montana (our car plates are Montana) would come to Canada to blow up a freight station out in the middle of the woods is a mystery to me. Oh well, he was nice about it. After our caching we headed back to the RV park for the night. We found that there were now only two other parties in our park. The roads seem to be jammed with RV traffic - mostly small trailers and motorhomes - and the public dump station in 100 Mile House was backed up three deep when we went through town. I guess a lot of people went camping for Wednesday’s holiday then packed up and headed home today.

Friday morning, July 3rd. Got up and out of Lac La Hache headed North on Hwy 97 to our next stop, McLeese Lake. The trip is only about 70 miles through some very pretty hill country. No long grades on this trip, just some mild up and down and sweeping turns. The highway is basically a two lane road, but there are passing lanes every ten miles or so, so traffic doesn’t get too backed up. On the open stretches the speed limit is 100, but that’s kilometers per hour, about 60 mph. Again we notice that you never seem to be out of sight of a lake in this part of BC. A glance at the map confirms that this seems to be the “Land of a Million Lakes.” We pull into the McLeese Lake Resort around noon and our site is waiting. We have a pull-through with water and sewer, but after I get parked I notice that it only has a 15/20 amp outlet. When I go back to the office the lady tells me that they only have a few 30 amp sites, everything else is 15. She tells me there is one 30 amp site open, but it is kind of small. I go to look at it and, yeah, its pretty short and narrow - we decide to stay where we are. It doesn’t seem like its going to be hot enough to have to worry about AC, so the 20 amp service should work fine for three days. No worse than what we have when we go to rallies. We are only a hundred yards from the lake and have a great view of the lake out the window. AND - we have satellite again! After we parked and I saw the line of trees between us and what I thought was the Southern sky I would have sworn the satellite wouldn’t come in, but it did. The signal strength is down to about 70 percent from the 90 percent or so it is in the States, but it still works. We decided to stay in for the rest of the day, even though we got here early. Although we have internet service here, we were unable to connect to our Geocaching.com website where all the geocaching information is stored. I did a little on line inquiry and learned that the company (Groundspeak) that runs the site had a fire in one of their off-site server locations. The source indicated that their was no damage to the servers or the information, but that they had to do some drying out and rebooting and would be off-line for at least all of today. Hopefully they will be back up by morning so we can get the information on the few caches that we know are in this area. We were hoping to be able to sit outside and enjoy the views, but we are so close to the lake the mosquitoes are a real problem. This is our first real taste of “skeeters” (or their taste of us) since we have been here. We have been told to expect worse as we go North. We did stock up on Off and After-Bite lotion before we started North from the States.

Today is July 4th - Happy Birthday, America! All morning people have been pouring into the campground, lots of small trailers and tents - bunches of kids running around. Lots of folks out on the lake fishing, from the banks and from boats. We have been told that the first weekend after Canada Day (July 1) marks the real start of the Canadian summer season. Based on signs we have seen, the kids don’t get out of school until June 25th. We finally got some geocaches downloaded, although there are very few right close around where we are parked. There are a bunch in Williams Lake, a town of 12,000 about 25 miles South of us. We headed down there after lunch to do some caching. The town of Williams Lake is, of course on the shore of Williams Lake, and is a very nice little town. We were able to find eight caches in about three hours, most of them urban type caches. It has been a while since we looked for caches in town rather than out in the bush. One of the caches took us to the visitor center on the edge of town, a huge beautiful log building. This part of the Cariboo, as this area is known, is big for camping. Not surprising considering the number of lakes in the area. The visitor center had a whole section dedicated to camping. One of the things they had on display inside the visitor center was a small car, a Geo Metro, with all kinds of camping gear stacked on top of it to a height of at least 20 feet. Very comical display. After we concluded our caching we stopped in and visited the local Royal Canadian Legion, Williams Lake Branch 139. Just like in Kamloops, we happened to arrive just as their weekly meat draw was about to begin. Jackie bought some tickets (3 for a dollar) and BINGO - first draw we win! Took a nice three pound pot roast which will go in the crock pot for dinner next week when we have a 200 mile drive. We also got a pin and had a couple of drinks. Williams Lake has an Elks Lodge, but like most up here in Canada, the lodge doesn’t have a bar so you can’t visit.

Sunday, July 5th we decided to try for a couple of caches on Hwy 97 North of the campground. They were kind of spread out, so we only got three today. One of them was in an old (1800's) cemetery overlooking the Fraser River. This is the same river we were camped next to when we were down in Surrey, near Vancouver. We are at lot closer to its headwaters here. After our caching we washed clothes and relaxed, getting ready of our trip to Prince George tomorrow. Tonight a thunderstorm blew through a couple of miles East of us. We didn’t get too much rain, but we had a great view of the lightening over the lake. The wind blew pretty hard for about 20 minutes after the storm went past. Just like in the States, there is a website where you can go to view the weather radar for Canada, so I was able to watch the storms last night just like I did last summer when we were in the Midwest and dodging tornados every other day.

Monday, July 6th - our day of travel from McLeese Lake North to Prince George. Prince George is only about 115 miles, but we got an early start (9:30) because the weather forecasts for both McLeese Lake and Prince George showed rain and thundershowers, mostly in the afternoon and evening. We wanted to be in and set up before any serious rain hit. As we were leaving the campground we saw that last night’s wind had blown down a pretty good size pine tree near the entrance to the park. Glad it wasn’t one of the one’s close to the coach! We hit some light sprinkles on the way to Prince George, but no real rain. We got into the park about 12:30. The park is the Sintich Trailer & RV Park and is not too bad. The roads and sites are gravel, but the place appears to be well taken care of. We have 50 amp, water, sewer, cable AND AGAIN satellite service! Eeeeeeha! Jackie gets so excited each time we park and the dome locks in - she gets a few more days of her shows. We had fully expected to not have TV by now.

One interesting side note about Canada, they seem to LOVE their A&W’s. We have seen an A&W in every town we have been in, usually several. They are all large drive-ins in the old distinctive orange and brown paint scheme. Back in 1965 and 66, my senior year in high school and first year of college, I worked as a cook at an A&W drive-in back in Phoenix, Arizona. We had car hop service and walk-up windows, but no inside seating. At that time we made the root beer in a big 70 gallon stainless cooler, using syrup and sugar, at least 25 pounds of sugar for each batch. It wasn’t carbonated until it went through the dispenser, which was a tap just like a beer tap. I don’t know if they still do it that way or not. I also remember that 1965 was the year that A&W started their “Burger Family” with a Papa Burger, Mama Burger and Junior Burger. Up here they still heavily advertise on the building the Family, and now they have added a Teen Burger to the line up. In the States you have to really search to find an A&W now, up here you can’t swing big stick without hitting one. I intend to stop at one while we are here to see if they still use the big thick glass mugs like they used to. We kept them in a cooler so they would be cold when you poured the root beer in them.

Tuesday, July 7th started with rain - actually it rained most of the night. We hung around the coach in the morning watching the Michael Jackson memorial. Very sad - such a brilliant yet troubled entertainer. After the memorial we went out to do some light sightseeing around Prince George and do some shopping. They have a Costco here, so we went there for some stuff, then off to the Canada Superstore. This chain of stores is very similar to a Super WalMart in that they have both a full department store and a full grocery store. Although there seems to be a WalMart in every town, we have only seen one Super WalMart. The Superstore has a great selection of foods, although they didn’t carry a few things we find in stores in the States. They have a huge section just for Eastern, Indian and Middle Eastern foods and spices. We have found that Canada has a very large Eastern Indian population. We have seen Sikh temples in almost every larger town we have been in. We are hoping the rain will stop tomorrow so we can do some caching.

Wednesday, July 8th we woke up to more light rain, but we decided to still go out and try some caching after lunch. Around one o’clock the skies cleared, the sun came out and we had a great time doing some urban caches in Prince George, or PG as it seems to be referred to around these parts. After finding eight caches with only one DNF, we spotted a mall. Since Jackie was looking for a new pair of black walking shoes, and the mall had a Sears, we quit caching and started shopping. Jackie finally found what she was looking for in Zellers, a Canadian chain which appears to be similar to Target. We stopped at a Save-On grocery to try to get a couple things that the Superstore didn’t have, then headed home for the evening. One interesting issue is our mail. We knew that we had to get our mail delivered at least once before we started on the caravan, despite the fact that UPS delivery to Canada is expensive, twice what it is for a US delivery. We decided to have it delivered to the park in Dawson Creek, where we meet our caravan, since we knew they would hold it for us if it got there before we did. The UPS store in Pahrump told us it would take 10 to 12 days for the package to arrive, so we told them to send it to us on July 1, that way it would get there just as we did, or maybe a day sooner. The store always sends us the tracking number so we can get on line and follow the package. After about 5 days the tracking shows it arriving in Chicago. Keep in mind, we are almost exactly due North of Pahrump, Nevada. A couple days later it shows arriving in Syracuse, New York! On Tuesday it finally showed an “import scan” in some town in Quebec, Canada. At this point, I am guessing that there is a single entry point for UPS packages into Canada. Despite its 3,000 mile detour East, the tracking shows the mail is still scheduled for delivery on July 10th, the Friday before we get to Dawson Creek. However, as you will read later, all is not well with the mail.

Thursday, July 9th it was again foggy and drizzly in the morning, but by noon or so it had pretty much cleared up. After lunch we went out and did a little more caching in South Prince George, adding six more to our total. We are now within 10 finds of the 900 mark! One of the caches we found today was the DNF from yesterday. When I checked the email this morning I had an email from the owner of the cache we couldn’t find giving us a hint. Even with the hint it took us 10 minutes to find the cache. It turned out to be a very small container with a couple of pine cones glued to it hanging in the middle of a pine tree. I know I looked right at it a couple of times before I finally saw it as a cache container. These are the kind that make caching interesting and fun. After caching we made a quick trip to WalMart and then visited the Royal Canadian Legion downtown. The Prince George Elks Lodge shares the building with the Legion, but the bartender told us that there were no Elks in the lounge when we were there. She also couldn’t find a branch pin from the Legion or a pin from the Elks. Oh well, Prince George will not be represented on our travel banner. After a drink at the Legion we made a stop at the casino in town. Another private (non-Indian) casino. Both of us lost our $20 in pretty short order so we cut our losses and headed home. Tomorrow is a travel day with a long trip, just short of 200 miles to the town of Chetwynd in Northeastern British Columbia.

Friday, July 9th - woke up to clouds, but no rain. We packed up and left the RV park about 10:00 a.m., headed North on Hwy 97 towards Chetwynd. We stopped at the Flying J about a mile from the RV park and fueled up. I have been surprised to find Flying J’s here - our first fuel stop in Kamloops was a Flying J, and we found this one close by in Prince George. Diesel fuel is cheaper than gas up here. At 86.9 cents per liter it works out to about $3.30 a gallon Vs. 109.9 cents for gas, $4.18 per gallon. Once we got about 40 Km North of Prince George Hwy 97 wound through forests and river valleys with virtually no development. We passed a couple of spots where there was fuel and a restaurant, but they were far and few between. The Hwy is almost all two lane road, but its in pretty decent condition. They throw in a passing lane every 40 Km or so, so traffic doesn’t get too backed up. There is a lot of construction work on this highway, we have gone through a number of construction zones since leaving Kamloops. About two thirds of the way to Chetwynd we had our first moose sighting, or actually, encounter. We are cruising along about 90 kmph (50 mph) and out of the trees about a quarter mile in front of us comes a big female moose. Fortunately, she was far enough away that I was able to slow easily as she crossed the road and we were never in any danger of hitting her. As I slowed down to about 50 kmph (30mph) she was trotting along with us on the opposite shoulder of the road. There was no place for her to head into the forest for a couple hundred yards so we got to watch her run along with us for a few seconds. Let me tell you, that moose was BIG - I can’t imagine hitting one, and the males are even bigger. Made me much more vigilant for the rest of the trip. As a matter of fact, that scanning of the sides of the road and edge of the forest allowed me to also make my first bear sighting. I spotted a black bear cub walking in the ditch along the road. Wow, a moose and a bear in the wild - both in the same day.

We finally pulled into the Westwind RV park in Chetwynd, BC, about 3:00 p.m., just as it started raining. The rain was light, so we were able to get parked and set up without getting too wet. For the first time we were unable to get a usable satellite signal, even though our South exposure was clear. The antenna locked in once with a very weak signal, but most of the channels would not come in. Then the clouds moved in and all the signal went away. Oh well, we have recorded about 30 hours of movies on our DVR and also have a whole cabinet full of DVD’s, so we have stuff to watch. We do have pretty decent antenna reception for a couple of channels, so we can get news. Oddly enough, the TV channels up here have not changed to digital like they have in the States. I had to disconnect our digital receive in order to get the off-air TV. We also have very good internet service here. About an hour after we parked a really strong thunderstorm blew through. The wind got so bad I had to go out and put up the window and door awnings. The wind was blowing straight at the drivers side of the coach and it was blowing so hard for a while that I could see the back slide on the road side of the coach moving in an inch or so as the gusts hit it. It rained cats and dogs for about 15 minutes, then cleared up. We hope to be able to explore the local area and do some caching while we are here. The weather report for the rest of the week is cloudy, cool and off and on rain, so we may be spending a lot of time in the coach.

It sprinkled on and off all night, and we woke up Saturday morning to fog and drizzle, however, by noon it had burned off and become a very nice day. We headed into “town”, Chetwynd is only about 3,000 population, to look around and then do some geocaching. Chetwynd advertises itself as “The Chainsaw Sculpture Capital of the World” and there are over 80 wooden sculptures scattered around the town. After driving down the two block center of town we stopped at the visitor center where there are a dozen or so chainsaw sculptures on display. It is amazing how detailed and intricate the carvings are. The town hosted the first International Chainsaw Sculpture Championship in 2005 and got seven carvers from the U.S. and Canada. By 2007 the number was up to 12 and the contest is held every year. It is primarily these contests that have produced the carvings on display around town. After the visitor’s center we started our caching. There are not a lot of caches in this area so we only had five caches on our list that were within our desired difficulty list. For those who don’t cache, geocaches are rated on difficulty (how hard it is to locate) from 1 to 5, and on terrain (how hard it is to get to the cache) from 1 - 5. We restrict our searches generally to a max of 2 on each of those scales. Anything over a 2 terrain usually involves long hikes or big hill climbs. One of the caches was North of town about 25 miles and it was a beautiful drive past a couple of very pretty lakes. We were able to add four caches to our find list. After caching we dropped by the Chetwynd Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. The bartender was very nice and we had a cocktail and played the BC Lottery’s Texas Hold’em game. We only played two games and won $21. Yea us! Unfortunately, the Branch did not have any pins, so they won’t be on our banner either. There is an Elks Lodge in town, but it doesn’t have a bar and we haven’t located the building. Sunday morning we decided we didn’t have anywhere to go, so we didn’t. We stayed with the coach all day, taking care of chores and playing on the computers. Tomorrow we head for Dawson Creek. This afternoon another major (though short lived) thunderstorm blew through the area. The wind was not quite as bad as it was in McLeese Lake, but this one did bring some hail. It was pretty small hail and didn’t last long enough to accumulate, but it sure made a racket on the top of the motorhome.

We also found out today that our mail’s trip to the east coast was NOT supposed to happen. It seems UPS put the mail on the wrong truck in Las Vegas and the package ended up in Nova Scotia, about as far from British Columbia as you can get. The UPS store in Pahrump said they had talked to UPS and they were going to try to get the package to us by Monday or Tuesday in Dawson Creek. We will see. I am not hopeful.

Monday morning, July 13th, we awoke to gray skies and drizzle yet again. The 60 miles from Chetwynd to Dawson Creek was pretty uneventful and it sprinkled most of the way. We arrived at the Mile Zero RV Camp about 11:30 and checked in. We found that the site we had been assigned did not have any sewer connection. Fortunately, I had dumped both tanks before we left Chetwynd, so we will be OK for the three days we are here. As we were setting up our caravan leader, Larry Stark, walked over and introduced himself. We had talked to him on the phone and exchanged emails, but never met. He welcomed us to Dawson Creek and said that he and his wife Evelyn would be over later in the afternoon with our “book”, the trip log for our journey, and to give us our initial briefing on the caravan. After we got set up and had some lunch, we went into town to mail a letter and stop by the bank to get some money. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but ScotiaBank in Canada is a partner with Bank of America, our bank in the States. We can use our ATM card at ScotiaBank to get cash and there are no fees or charges. Also, because of the exchange rate, when we get $200 in Canadian money from the ATM, our BofA checking account is charged less. Today the $200 Canadian cost us $172.03 U.S. The exchange rate is 86 cents for a U.S. dollar. This takes a little of the bite out of the higher cost of things up here. Like the $1.03 it cost to mail a birthday card for my granddaughter Crystal from here to Phoenix.

We also did some last minute grocery shopping and then headed back to the park. When Jackie went in to just check out the laundry facility she ran into a lady there doing her laundry who told her that all four washers were available and now would be a good time to wash clothes because the park was going to fill up today and tomorrow. She also told Jackie that the Laundromat in town appeared to double as a homeless shelter. With that, Jackie decided we would do laundry today too! After we got all our chores done Larry and Evelyn came over to the coach and talked for a while about the caravan. They have a house in Las Vegas and have been with Fantasy Tours for a while. Larry said this was their sixth Alaska trip as leaders. He also talked about some of the side trips and some of the neat things we can look forward to seeing and doing. We are getting so excited. We got our Trip Log, a three ring binder with a detailed itinerary of the trip and some maps and other useful things. We found that there are going to be a total of 13 rigs on the trip. We will meet all the other folks on Wednesday when the caravan officially starts. We have a briefing that day with everyone, then dinner and a social to let everyone meet. We leave Dawson Creek on our first leg Thursday morning.

Speaking of morning - one issue have not yet mentioned is the looooooooooooong days! We have found that the further North we have come, the longer the daylight lasts. Even though the Summer solstice, and therefore the longest day of the year, was June 21st, it is still getting light at about 3:30 in the morning, and it stays very light outside until well after 11:00 p.m. Here in Dawson Creek the sun has been setting, actually going below the horizon, about 9:30. They tell us it will only get worse as we go North. It doesn’t bother us too much, but it is driving the cat nuts. Smokey is hopping up into our bed at 4:00 a.m. wanting breakfast! We need to buy him a sleep mask!

This morning, Tuesday, July 14th, dawned with SUN! The clouds cleared, the satellite came in and all was well with the world. We started caching early, about 10:00, and ended up finding a total of 12 caches around town. One of our caches was find number 900! While we were driving around the area we saw huge farm fields full of plants with small yellow flowers. We had learned from some literature on the area that these are Canola plants. The seeds of these plants are used to make Canola oil. The fields are very pretty. We also found time to have lunch, do a little shopping at WalMart and visit the Dawson Creek Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. This Legion had a branch pin, so Dawson Creek will be represented on our banner. We got back to the park just in time for the 4:00 social with the group we are caravanning with. This was an informal get-together, but just looking at the folks, and talking a little with some of them, we think that we are going to have a really good time. They seem like a great bunch of folks, mostly outgoing and friendly, and the majority of them seem to be baby boomer generation like us.

We finally found out today that our mail package is officially lost! UPS has a tracer out on it. It was last scanned somewhere in Nova Scotia, but right now they have no idea where it is. We are not going to become too worried about it. Mostly our mail is magazines and junk mail. All our important bills are done on line. There may be an odd doctor’s bill left over from my surgery earlier this year, but if that is the case they will bill me again next month - no big deal. Hopefully the package will turn up, they can send it back to Pahrump and we will get the stuff later on.

Tomorrow starts the actual caravan, so I am going to close this blog for now and publish again after a week or so on the road. Remember to laugh, love and live life to its fullest! I will write to you again soon.