Brown vs Black vs Green

I forgot to mention a few weeks back on our way here, that in B.C. there were hundreds and hundreds of miles of dead pine because of the pine beatle....It was horrible to see. They say it is the greatest natural disaster to hit BC ever...Also further north the spruce were doing the same thing....It looks horrible to see all that brown. But it does look better when the needles fall off and its black....There are still lots of green trees, of the leaf variety.....People say all dead trees and not much green has changed the climate.... I can believe that.

Denali VS McKinley

When I was a kid many moons ago, I had thought the highest peak in North America was Mt McKinley. As time went on I had heard about it being called Denali, also the park and highways by that name....I was thinking some treehugger wanted to give it a fancy name. BUT, it has been documented on paper as being Denali as early as the late 1700's. It is a Indian name meaning "The Great One". In the early 1900's some surveyor, "probably a treehugger" was in the area and named it after some unknown that was running for president at the time...Well in stuck in Washington....The man did go on to become president but never wanted to waste the time to see the tallest peak in North America named after him. So I will now refer to that peak as Denali the rest of my life.......Talkeetna,,, what a great place, just the right kind of place a person could live in this state....Lots of food places, lots of beer places and t shirts and hats and etc for all......Great food and the best pale ale I have ever had...5.3%.....we are going back tonight. We had Halibut Olympia last night.....out of this world...and its in a very old beater log cabin with a beer garden...Perfect....

The Great One

Yesterday we drove 247 miles south of Fairbanks, past Denali Park to Talkeetna. This little town is where people going to climb Denali (aka Mt. McKinley) depart from. They are flown from here to a camp on the mountain to begin their ascent.

Along the way, we spotted a double dam - beaver style. .....

A shot taken along the way....

And here's Tom, getting friendly with a local moose...!

This is a cache - used by Alaskans in the old days to store food - keeps it cold and away from the bears. You still see them around, but not used much any more.

Downtown Main Street Talkeetna.

One of the shops here...

On the drive down there were several Denali viewpoints, but unfortunately it wasn't a clear day so we didn't get to see The Mountain. This morning we walked thru town to the confluence of the Talkeetna River, the Susitna River, and the Chulitna river and were blessed with a partial view of the top of Denali. Maybe tomorrow we'll get to see the whole thing! Talkeetna means

"where three rivers meet". A cool town, and glad we got to visit. Our campground is next to the train tracks and the airport is just on the other side of the tracks. There is almost constant airplane traffic - people flightseeing to Denali.

The annual Moose Dropping Festival is next month and they are going to have a painted moose parade. Here is one of the prospective entrants in the parade. No, they don't drop a moose from a plane - they drop painted and numbered pieces of moose poop onto a target. The one closest to the middle wins. These Alaskans will do anything for entertainment....

Into the Wild and outta there.....

On the way down to the Denali highway we did go past the road where the movie Into the Wild was filmed and where the man died....We did the 135 miles highway both ways and I could still do it each day...So big and something new every time....Its a 20-30 mile a hour road, so a person can really gawk. Scenery that is unexplainable unless you see it in person...Just like June.....This week, Talkeetna....

Denali Highway

We left Fairbanks last Monday morning, heading for the Denali Highway, a 135 mile long gravel road connecting the Parks Highway with the Richardson Highway. We drove this road the last time we were here, and it was Tom's favorite. We didn't have great weather, with the exception of one day, and we didn't we many animals (only moose and porkupines) but it was a great week. We returned to Fairbanks Friday.

Here are views along the way....

We stopped at lodge where an Iditarod dog musher lives. She was out of town, but a friend of hers, another musher named Sue Martin was there. She has completed the Iditarod race. While there she showed us the dog team and a new liter of pups.

This picture was taken at our camp...more pictures to follow on that. The river in the background is the Susitna. A mighty big river, even by Alaska standards.

While driving along the road, Tom spotted this little road off to the north. We managed to drive down it to the furthest point you can barely see in the picture, where we camped for the night.

It was a beautiful spot.

Here's a view of our camper at the spot at the end of the road pictured above. A nice view!!!

A view of Mt. Hess and Mt. Hayes...Mt. Deborah was a bit out of sight in the clouds...The "shortest" of the 3 is only 12,000 feet.

The view from our back door at Brushkana Camp.

here is, I Hope, a video clip from the concert....

Fun in the Midnight Sun....

We arrived in Fairbanks on Thursday, right on schedule. It was good to see Breanne, the baby belly, L.J. and Logan. Friday we ran errands, washed the Canadian dirt off the truck. Here is a shot of Alaska as we drove along the Alaskan Range.

Before getting to Fairbanks, we crossed over the Tanana River, and this is where the Alaskan pipeline also crosses....you can see it thru the raindrops on the window....

Friday night we went with Breanne and L.J. to an outdoor concert - 3 bands including Puddle of Mudd. We were not familiar with them, but they are well known and the concert was sold out. All kinds/ages of people were there. After this blog we will attempt to add a brief video clip from the concert. It was great fun...this picture was taken at about 10:30 p.m.

Here is a picture of part of the crowd....

Saturday night at 10:00 p.m. was the start of the Midnight Sun Run, a 10k run thru town.

Unfortunately just before time to head to the race start, it began to rain, so Tom and I decided to skip it this time. This freed us up to participate in the ritual L.J. has of spraying people going by in the race. This is a fun run, and there are always people spraying the participants, however on a nice warm night the spray is more welcomed than it was on a cool, rainy night!

He had a 500 gallon water tank hooked up to a generator and water pump with nozzles....strong enough spray to knock your shorts off....and almost did a time or two.... Some welcomed the spray, and others indicated No Spray. It was great fun to be bystanders watching the runners, walkers and costumes. Over 3500 people participated this year.

L.J.'s friend "Knuckles" came with his harley blender, making margaritas...Tom got good video of this, so you can really appreciate the sound. You'll have to wait to see our video for that.

This picture was taken at 11:55 p.m. just before we closed up shop. Breanne and L.J. had a party with about 100 people there, prior to race time.

Another picture - can't see the watch, but was taken at the same time, so you can see how light it was out at that hour. We haven't seen dark for about a week now.

We're taking off tomorrow to go on the Denali Highway, south of Fairbanks. We won't return until Friday. There will not be any computer service available, and possibly no phone service....so we'll be out of touch. Will let you know when we're back in civilization next weekend.

FINALLY - SOME FOTOS!

Here are some of our photos as far as going thru Canada. Haven't downloaded the Alaskan ones yet. The first 2 are out of order...descriptions shall follow the pictures.....


Here's June at the Mile 0 Signpost in Dawson Creek, British Columbia...

One of the many raging rivers in BC....

Ah - finally - back to the beginning....here we are crossing the border into Canada.

along the route....

This is the sign at a gas station in Chetwyn BC....the chain-saw-carving capital of Canada. Note that the floats are fish and the plane is an eagle...

So, here's Tom at the beginning of the highway. We really were together at this point, just the pictures got mixed up. Really.

A long and winding road.....

some scenery....

Four stone sheep....had to hunt high and low for these guys...sherpa guide and all.... ;-)

From motor home down the road, you can get an idea of the immenseness of these "hills"...

a moose....a Little moose!

Muncho Lake BC

WHAT??????!!!!!!

The lodge at Muncho Lake where we stayed in a cabin and had weiner schnitzel for dinner.

A close-up of a buffalo!!!

At Liard Hot Springs, the boardwalk

a bear walk....

another bear walk.....

The Sign Forest at Watson Lake Yukon Territory

we saw the signs.....

Rainy, but still beautiful....upper Yukon Territory

Kluane Lake

This shows a stretch of perma-frost trees with a 'normal' non-perma-frost patch in the middle

A welcome sign as we enter Alaska! Stay tuned...more pictures to follow, following the midnight sun events this weekend.

End of first phase

We arrived in Fairbanks yesterday afternoon...We put 2682 miles on from Bend. As soon as we hit Alaska, the mountains known as the Alaska Range were in view. This range contain Mt McKinley. It was great seeing the taller peaks and the glacier streams that come off these Mt's. They are very wide, white, rocky and different. Today we are going to work on pics to put on this blog. Tomorrow we will be in the Midnight Sun Run. Its 6 miles. We will see what happens, will we get stopped by margaritas and beer or will we finish. Then a big party will begin and last till the wee hrs., but it will be daylight, so we wont know the diff. I haven't see any dark for the last few days and nights. There is a baseball game that begins at midnight with no lights. Going to a big multi band concert and party tonight. We will be hitting the road on Monday for the Denali Highway, which is good gravel, 130 miles long and scenery beyond anything you have ever seen. We will spend 4-5 days on it, 25-30 miles a hour, stay in spots for a few days each, no emails, but will have reports when we get back.

The Last Great Road Trip

Yesterday we left Whitehorse in the rain. The trip from there to the Alaskan border was the slowest part as the road, while mostly paved, is wavy from perma frost and frost heaves. So a person just has to go slow, but thats great because the scenery is spectacular. It quit raining and brought out some great mountains...cant wait to get the pics on. By the way, gas is $1.09 a liter in most of the stations, which is a bit high. There are some great organic graffiti on the road. They use cuts in the roads and put river rocks on them and spell out names or words...Its quite cool. We saw one great bull moose, in the water eating his stuff...He put on a good show, got him on camera and movie. We crossed the border and it was nice getting back to the USA and listening to good tunes and news again...We stopped at Tok and spent the night and will look at the wares while we are here. Mountains are still around us. Even had some fresh snow on the tops last night. There was a road rally yesterday and piles of old road racers with tops down, people in googles and leather hats. and scarves flying.It looked like Rolls, Bentley, etc type cars. Seems like I read about this at one time...Looks like the were coming from Fairbanks to who knows where. Today we will be in Fairbanks, the end of the Highway, but way more to travel to and see in the weeks and days to come..We will be doing the midnight sun run there. We will see if the tequila or beer is more powerful than the finish line. We had no dark last night and we wont for many weeks now. So much for sleep.lol

More Highway

Just thought on a few things, the highway is fully paved except where there is construction and not much of that, just a few short waits. The highway also has been rerouted and curves taken out so much better than in the early years. The tourist traffic has been less this year,[economy] sometimes we can drive for 2 hrs and not see a rv...Most are from BC. It has been getting thicker the further north though. The music.......how strange it is. Most are stuff that are on a album you buy but never play. The women sound like a stressed out Madonna and the men are Nickelback sounding. Also a lot of old 40's stuff that are not orginal...It will be good to be back in the states [Alaska] again for those reasons...

The Alaska Highway

Day 1. The Alaska Highway starts at Dawson Creek BC.... This would be the 3rd night camping since we left Bend. A person would think the start of the Alaskan Highway would start in the mountains, but not so. Dawson Creek is a prairie area with lush farmlands and poplar, birch, cottonwood and some pine...Its a cool place, very interesting. It was in the 80's when we got there and stayed fairly warm all night. It was dark for about 4 hours, 11-3. We got up at 5 and down the highway at 6 or so...The miles are fairly mild with a few rivers and a few animals. The first moose we saw we named Rigo, as it had a set of very stiff legs... it had been laying in the same spot for over a day.. the next we saw was a small cow and then we saw Mortis who had been laying there for quite some time....But we did see a big girl who showed off for us. The road is fairly easy all the way through Fort St John and things dont pick up till after Fort Nelson except for the Peace River which is huge. After that things get exciting. The Rockys reappear and lakes and rivers are all over the place. Major water.... The thing I think about while driving down that highway is how it was made and how long it took...It is a marvel. Its 1528 miles long, it was built in a little over 8 months with 7 regiments of American engineers, 11,000 men from the services, 16,000 civilians, 7000 pieces of equipment, against some of the most unforgiving wilderness areas in the world. The road included 133 major bridges and more than 3000 culverts. The cost,,,,$140 million dollars...Finished Nov 20, 1942, one month and 2 days before I was born...Think of the equipment then compared to today... Anyway we drove to Muncho Lake that day, stayed in a cabin for the hell of it and had wienerschnizel. On the way we saw trophy stone sheep about the road the melted in to the rocks, but keen eyed June spotted them and we turned around and got pics while they posed....Pictures you wait a lifetime for.. FYI......Pics will follow later when June gets on this in Fairbanks so she can download them. Next day we went a hour to Liard Hot springs and camped and kicked back there. On the way we did see some huge buffalo along the road, who did migrate into the area a long time ago. Also one black bear. The springs are huge and big pools...A large campground is alway full of rvs that stay for the night. There is a boardwalk about a quarter mile long that goes through the warm marsh the hot springs empty too. At the end is a big pool and 5 minutes up another. A few years ago a woman was attacked by a black bear on the boardwalk. A man saw her in trouble and went to help her....Both were killed, her child wounded. It was on the Discovery channel . Last week they tranquilized a sow grizzly that was there bothering the people and took her across the river where she will bother no more. Then after a nice rest we took off today to Watson Lake, home of the famous sign forest which we have pics of...There are 2000 town, road etc signs that people have stolen that are put up every year... We saw today many more buffalo, more sheep, and many black bear, some of cinnamon color.... no grizz yet, but there will be. We are camping tonite in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. We are right on the Yukon River. Rained a lot of the day, but no biggie...Stopped at a place that had rhubarb pie that was out of this world... This is the first place we have had WiFi, so that what took so long.....We did go through a large forest fire today, burned on both sides of the road, there were flames next to the road on one side....Must have went 15 miles with the fire and where it had been, but it rained most of the day and it really helped ....Tomorrow Haines Jct and beyond. The mountains are still here and high and snow capped and everything is green and lush..

Balloons Over Bend

I woke up early this morning, and with Tom gone on a river trip with son, Chris, and son-in-law, Wylie, I decided to do my usual Pilot Butte trek early in hopes of catching the balloons. I got there right at 6:30 as they were starting to go up. The best of all was the Energizer Bunny!

As I watched them, I recalled that it was just 3 years ago this weekend that I arrived in Bend...on my way to the store to buy a newspaper, the skies were full of balloons. I had no

idea what was going on, but felt I had landed in a special place for sure! The weather today was good for the balloons, but not so good for mountain visibility. Here are some shots I took...