We are still in Talkeetna. It's a cute, small town (less than 1,000 people) to wander around in. Eldon is going fishing tomorrow afternoon with a guy we met who has a cottage at Drummond Island. They are going with a guide and will fish for trout and grayling. We saw several bald eagles yesterday when we went on a boat ride on the Talkeetna and Susitna rivers. Talkeetna is a happy, little town. In this area in the 1970's, homesteaders from the lower 48 came here. If you stayed for 5 years and paid the taxes, the property became yours. I think most of the people living here are descendants of those hippie homesteaders. They are a friendly, laid back bunch with no material worries. They have small houses and beat up cars but are a happy, artistic group. The shops only sell locally made items. (Chad, Carlynn & Missy, you are getting something from here) Little kids even sell things on the street. Tourist buses come through here on the way to Denali and that seems to provide most of their income.

Comments from Eldon: They say that this town and Homer were the basis for the TV show, Northern Exposure. I'm always expecting one of the characters from the show to come around the corner. Talkeetna has everything you need, including one of the best bakeries. The dogs are part of the town and wander where they want, even into the stores. I'm looking forward to fishing tomorrow. We are going on a raft to a creek to fish for grayling and rainbows.

Comments from Larry: I like Talkeetna too. I'm glad I'm not grounded anymore. I can do what I want again. I hear there are a lot of dogs down town, so I'm not going there.

We had a great time at Denali National Park for 3 days. We didn't have Internet access, so have a lot a catching up to do. Yesterday we did the 8 hour bus trip into the park to see Mt. McKinley. We could see most of the mountain (the top was covered by clouds), but we are counting it. They say only 30% of the people that come to see McKinley actually get to see it due to weather conditions. Along the way we saw our first grizzly bears (4), some moose, golden and bald eagles, and so many caribou we got tired of seeing them. Our bus driver was very good at spotting wildlife and always stopped. We also took advantage of other park sponsored events. During the ranger led hike to Horseshoe Lake, I learned the names of the wildflowers and trees and what moose and bear poop looks like. There are 2 things our tax dollars do well - libraries and national parks! I don't think I've mentioned weather. We have been in shorts & t-shirts many days. Friday it was warmer in Denali than it was in Michigan! The people are nice, the life style is laid back, and the scenery is beautiful - I can see why people move here. One guy I chatted with in the grocery told me 20 below is t-shirt weather - they seem proud to live here. In Denali, we met up again with a couple from Colorado Springs we had met in Jasper. It was almost like seeing old friends. Anyway, it was fun to catch up on our travels. Also saw another couple there we had visited with in Fairbanks. We are now in Talkeetna for 2 nights. A cute little town with views of Mt. McKinley.

Comments from Eldon: Denali is an exceptional wild life preserve. We saw everything but wolves. I actually got tired of seeing caribou. The animals act like they own the place - they ignore vehicles and humans. I was glad to see Mt. McKinley - what I could of it and I'm told we were lucky. I met a retired Texas ranger - this was his 2nd trip to Denali and he still hasn't seen McKinley. I think he just wants an excuse to come back again.

Comments from Larry: I got busted in Denali. I was wandering around the campsites, minding my own business, chasing a few red squirrels, when a wild life ranger spotted me. He tried to catch me but I wasn't born yesterday and ran under the truck. I guess the ranger didn't get much training in cat catching. But Cindy and Eldon got threatened with a ticket if I didn't stay in the camper; since I don't have any money of my own, they made me stay in the camper the rest of the time. I hate being grounded.

The plan to drive to the Arctic Circle today failed. We were about 80 miles into the 200 mile (one way) trip when the fog became so thick we could barely see where we were going. We couldn't see the point of going if we couldn't see where we were! So, we came back into Fairbanks and went to the Museum of the North. Interesting museum - we spent most of the afternoon there. Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy too, so we are giving up on the Arctic Circle. We will leave Fairbanks and head for Denali National Park for 2 or 3 days. The ball game was fun, but again it rained. The boat ride was a bit touristy, but also fun. The most interesting part was seeing Susan Butcher's sled dogs. She won the Iditarod 3 times. The dogs were all howling because they wanted to run. They put on a demonstration with an pulling an ATV instead of a sled.

Comments from Eldon: Yesterday was a great day for the river cruise. The fish camp was cool. I enjoyed seeing the salmon traps they use. The ball game was really minor league. The players work for companies in Fairbanks and basically play ball for their jobs. Boy, is Alaska fog dense. Disappointed we didn't go to the Arctic Circle, but if you can't see it, why blow a couple tires?

Comments from Larry: I went hunting yesterday while Eldon & Cindy went our their boat trip. I bagged my first Alaskan mouse. It was a buck. I'm so proud! I love Alaska.

In case you are wondering, it is the Alaska pipeline I am standing under.

Sorry to disappoint, but today we did absolutely nothing. We arrived in Fairbanks yesterday. We rode the scooter downtown last night to the Midnight Sun Festival. It is a street fair with live music. It was a fun time and we didn't have to worry about finding our way back to camp in the dark! We stopped at the North Pole yesterday (OK, it's a town outside Fairbanks). It rained all last night and most of today, so it's a good day to catch up on sleep, do laundry, etc. Eldon is grilling steak for supper. Tomorrow we go on a boat tour down the Chena River and 10:30 tomorrow night is the Midnight Sun baseball game. We saw the moose yesterday not far off the road between Delta Junction and Fairbanks. Pretty majestic guy. The sunset (or is it sunrise?) picture was taken at 3:30 a.m. We are adjusting to no dark, but it is weird. The locals are like bears and hibernate in the winter and keep long hours in the summer. The longest day possible (June 21) is 21 1/2 hours of daylight. The shortest day possible is (Dec. 21) and has 3 hours, 45 minutes of daylight. No daylight would be an even harder adjustment.
Comments from Eldon: Today was an Eldon day; didn't do anything but enjoyed reading & napping. The daylight has been wearing on me; I could use some darkness. Looking forward to the ball game tomorrow night.
Comments from Larry: I came in at 3:30 last night; it was still light. I got chewed out for staying out so late, but I am used to my curfew being at dark. Needless to say, I don't have a curfew - ha! When in Alaska, do as the Alaskan cats do.

We are in Delta Junction tonight - drove about 200 miles today on much improved highway from yesterday. It is good to be back in the U.S. - I never do very good converting kilometers in my head and prices are cheaper.

Comments from Eldon: We made it to the end of the Alaska Highway. It wasn't as bad as people had told us except for yesterday's drive. It was a remarkable experience. Two towns I've seen today (Tok & Delta Junction), remind me of U.P. towns. Tomorrow we are heading to Fairbanks for the Midnight Sun Festival that goes on all evening and Tuesday I plan to go to Midnight Sun Baseball Game that starts at 10:30 p.m. without any artificial lighting.

Comments from Larry: It's hot today - 80 degrees or more. The campground has a tabby cat who thinks he owns the place, so I've been hanging out on top of the spare tire. Eldon says watch out for eagles, Cindy says watch out for bears, but I have to watch out for tabby cats.

We are finally in Alaska!

We're here!!!! A long day on the road but once we got close, we wanted to go all the way. It took us over 3 hours to go 100 miles due to the permafrost damage to the road. It makes gigantic dips in the road - you almost have to come a complete stop at times. We are not sure of our exact plan right now, but are headed to Fairbanks.

Comments from Eldon: He is back at the camper, but said his only comment is WOOHOO!!!

Comments from Larry: He is back at the camper too, but I have to tell you the picture of him in the camper is truely at the border sign too!

We arrived in Whitehorse, Yukon this afternoon. The highway was an easy drive today - we drove about 60 mph the whole way from Watson Lake. Once again, beautiful scenery. We can see the St. Elias Mountains in the distance. They have Canada's highest mountains. Whitehorse is the biggest city in the Yukon with 24,000 people; about 70% of the whole Yukon population lives here. We drove almost 300 miles today and only passed one town (Teslin Lake) with 400 people. We are in an all frills campground again tonight. After talking to our neighbors from British Columbia and Oregon who are now heading south from Alaska; we think we are going to change our route in the morning. They say we should to go to Dawson City and Chicken. We will still end up in Tok, Alaska but it's about 100 miles more. Also, they say the Alaska Highway we would be traveling on tomorrow is a torn up mess, so we could miss it if we go to Dawson City. We will have gravel road on the way to Chicken though. We will decide in the morning. The lack of darkness is REALLY bizarre for all of us including Larry. The sun is shining bright at 10:00 p.m., it is almost dark at 2:00 a.m.; by 3:30 it is light again. It is weird and disorienting. Sorry, no pictures today and we didn't see any animals.
Comments from Eldon: Fell asleep; will comment later.
Comments from Larry: Outside roaming around; will comment later.

In the Yukon

We arrived in the Yukon today! 679 more miles to Tok, Alaska - the first Alaskan community we arrive at. We may just make it! We are spending the night in Watson Lake, Yukon. A very busy little town after a very long stretch of lonesome highway. It has 3 big RV parks for a town of 1,400. Watson Lake is known for its signpost forest. It is 57,000 signs that people has put up on their trip to & from Alaska. It was started by a lonesome soldier from Illinois in 1942 when the Army Corp of Engineers was building the Alaskan Highway. A black bear was so near our truck on the highway today - you can see by the excellent picture. He didn't care that we were there; he just kept eating and ambling along. We also saw a huge buffalo herd. Yesterday's animal highlight was a baby moose. Last night we boondocked. That's lingo for camping along the highway. We picked a turn out on Muncho Lake. A lake as beautiful as Lake Louise and it was all ours. To give you an idea of how remote this area is, this morning when getting gas, the lady told us her place had the best breakfast along the Alaskan Highway. Since I'd only had instant coffee, you know I was up for that! Any way the man that made breakfast also runs the post office. He has 6 residential boxes year round and 30 in the summer and that covers about a 100 mile area. The Canadian postal workers are on strike. He said he had to go on strike but since he's management too, he'd have to work anyway! And yes, the breakfast was excellent (I watched him shred the potato for the hash browns). Almost forgot, we stopped at Liard River Hot Springs today and lounged in the hot mineral water. It felt great.


Comments from Eldon: Today was a good day for a drive. Started off the morning with a herd of buffalo, with calves, cows and bulls. The hot springs were hot - I feel like I'm 21 even though I'm always immature any way. Later we stopped by a bear and I got good pictures. He had no concern of my picture taking. Cindy refused to pose with the bear and Larry was under a pillow. Tonight we found a place to camp with cable. My day is complete and I can watch the last game in the Stanley Cup. Go Bruins; I haven't been in Canada long enough to go for the Canucks. I almost forgot....the sunset picture you see was taken at 11:30 last night on Lake Muncho. It didn't get dark til about 2:00 a.m. And we will be seeing longer days than that!


Comments from Larry: Bears are not cute. I never saw one until today. They are not cuddly. They stink and they eat cats. It's not that funny that I hid under a pillow.

We are about 250 miles up the Alaska Highway at the Pink Mountain Campground near Fort Nelson, BC. We took pictures at Mile Post 0 but for some unknown reason the pictures aren't on Eldon's camera. Oh well, at least we made it! It is fairly desolate driving (but so is North Dakota and Montana) but the road is good. Tomorrow is supposed to be mountainous, windy roads so we may not get far. The campground we are at doesn't have power lines - they have a generator - but go figure, we have the Internet.
Comments from Eldon: Believe it or not, in the middle of nowhere British Columbia, I found a gourmet food - a hotdog wrapped in bacon, deep fried with chili sauce and onion on top. It was delicious. And the scenery was great too. I'd show you pictures of Milepost 0 but the camera messed up.
Comments from Larry: Tonight they picked a place with a loud generator. We are "off the grid". We saw a mule deer in the road today - not that exciting.

Can't get the pictures to load - will try in the morning.

Almost to British Columbia

We are at a campground with all the frills tonight in Grande Prairie, Alberta. We just had a nice shower, did laundry, and have the Internet and cable TV (haven't had TV for 4 days-Eldon is excited). We slowed our pace in the Rockies and enjoyed the scenery. We spent one night in Banff, one at Lake Louise and one at Jasper. All beautiful. The campground in Lake Louise has electric fencing around the tent camping area due to the bears. Don't worry Carlynn - we're OK!We are glad to be surrounded by metal in a hard shell camper! Yesterday we stopped at the Columbia Icefields and took the tour to the Athabasca Glacier. We are are about 2 hours from Dawson Creek, British Columbia. It is the official start of the Alaska Highway. Pretty much any vehicle we see now from the States is headed for Alaska. Guess we won't be alone! The campgrounds have had a lot of Europeans in rental RV's. We have a lot of great pictures, it will be hard to pick which ones to post.
Comments from Eldon: Since the last posting, the views have become dramatic. Banff was very European, as was Lake Louise. Jasper was a regular, less touristy town. The acronym for Banff is Bring Assets Nothings For Free and it lives up to it's acronym. Lake Louise is the most photographed lake in the world and I can see why. The water has a high mineral content which gives it an emerald glow. It was awe inspiring. The animal count so far is one flock of Dall sheep, one black bear, 2 coyotes, 2 moose (one live, one roadkill-that's a heap of roadkill), 7 deer and one antelope. Can't wait to get to Dawson Creek.
Comments from Larry: An animal Eldon never mentioned is a marmot. I met my first one in Banff while I was resting under the camper. We saw each other at the same time and wow, what a race. It looks looks a chipmunk on steroids. They remind me of prairie dogs but they don't have holes, The marmots just chatter and make fun of me. I would like to see a prairie dog again.

We're ready to leave Fort MacLeod, Alberta where we spent last night. We are heading to Banff about 2 hours away. We'll stay the night there; then head into the Rockies on our way to Jasper. We are still seeing a lot of water in the fields and had more rain yesterday. We had an easy border crossing - they didn't ask about Larry so is safe!

Comments from Eldon: I am looking forward to a day without rain after 4 days of it. Customs was fun - I got the border patrol guy confused by talking too much and he forgot what he was supposed to ask me. So he just said, go ahead. It might be my new method for crossing borders. I washed the mud off the truck yesterday, but it didn't stay clean long. Oh well. Looking forward to the Rockies.

Comments from Larry: Eldon thinks he's really funny. He power washed the camper while I was in it. THAT is more scary than thunder storms. It would be nice if thought of others more than himself. I like Canada but the mountain roads might be scary - I'll let you know.

We traveled big sky country in Montana today. We have about 100 miles to go until we enter Canada. We had rain & wind all day. Even some hail which was pretty startling, but it didn't last long. We saw more flooding today. There are lakes in Montana where there shouldn't be any. The flooding is a major problem for the farmers & ranchers. You know you are out West when you see buffalo - which we did today, so we are out West (yea!) Just before stopping for the night in Havre, MT we encountered major road construction. Had to drive 2-3 miles of dirt road. As you can guess, with all the rain it was a total mess. Eldon's nicely waxed truck, camper, and scooter are totally covered in mud. I have a picture but left my camera back at the campground (I am at the nearby hotel/casino for the Wifi.) We plan to drive through the Canadian Rockies including Banff & Jasper on the way north. We decided to skip Glacier National Park for now. Sorry to disappoint, but no comments from Eldon & Larry today, they are back at the camper.

Almost to Montana

Tonight we are in Williston, ND - only about 25 miles to Montana. Last night we stayed in East Grand Forks, MN just across the Red River from North Dakota. The traveling has gone great. Uneventful and not a lot to look sometimes, but that's OK. Yesterday we saw the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Not much to it, but it is clear and blue. What a change by the time it gets to New Orleans. Today the most interesting part of the trip was the flooding around Minot, ND from the Mouse River. We didn't have any problem on US-2, but several side roads were closed and we saw buildings and railroad tracks underwater. We took our first picture in Rugby ND - it is the geographical center of North America. It was nice to get out the truck anyway! We will be staying in Montana tomorrow night before heading into Alberta (unless we decide to go to Glacier National Park first.) We are glad we chose US-2 for the trip - it's been good traveling. Today was all 4 lane divided highway with 70 mph speed limit (even though we only drive 62 most of the time). We've seen wood lands to prairie and are just getting into rolling foothills.
Comments from Eldon: Yesterday was a long day of traveling - the highway had more road kill than I've ever seen. There were deer, possum, raccoons and squirrel - it was a Yooper buffet! We are in Halliburton country now - lots of oil fields and Halliburton trucks. The campground is full of Halliburton workers in all kinds of housing; from tents to RV's to 1960's RV's to shells of 1960's RV's.
Comments from Larry: I can't believe animals are so dumb. How could you not see a car and get hit in the middle of the road. Cats are the smartest.

Alaska or bust

We are on the road again. This time, the ultimate roadtrip -------Alaska. We traveled the U.P. today on US-2. We stopped for the night about 20 miles into Wisconsin. It was sunny and not much traffic. What more can we ask for on our first day. We plan to take US-2 all the way to Montana and turn right! Larry was happy to get in the camper this morning - he picked his favorite sunny spot between the mattress and the front window.
Comments from Eldon: The drive today was beautful. We are in a nice quiet, shady campground tonight. Life is good.
Comments from Larry: Yes, the campground is great except for the black devil dog that keeps going by our site - dogs suck.