July 27th to July 29th
On July 27th
we drove from Glenallen, AK to Valdez where we spent 3 nights. Very
nice RV park right on the bay and within walking distance of downtown
Valdez and the boat dock where Ray got the boat to go deep sea
fishing. RV park has good WiFi, utilities,
and 42 channels of cable TV. Not a common thing up here in Alaska, plus a fine view of the marsh.
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| Worthington Glacier on the road to Valdez |
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| Thompson Pass |
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| So high the clouds came down to the road |
Ray left at 5:30AM for his
fishing trip. He was gone all day. Lalia worked on the blog and
organized pictures. In the afternoon there was a 6.4 earthquake just
south of Mt. Redoubt which we drove by the week before on our trip to Soldotna. The RV shook for
about 20 seconds.
Ray got back to the RV about 10:00PM, which was a very long day even. It seems the sun never sets in July. The fishing trip took 3 hours to get to the fishing location and 3 hours to get back. Weather was good and fishing was OK. Ray caught Halibut, Yellow-Eyed Rockfish, and Black Rockfish. The other 4 fishermen on the boat were from Greensboro, NC. Imagine going all the way to Valdez, Alaska and meeting 4 guys from a city 1 hour from Sanford. Ray did declare that he enjoyed river fishing much more than deep sea fishing.
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Ready for the day
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The next day started rainy
but cleared up nicely. We drove to Horsetail Falls, Bridal Veil
Falls, the Solomon Gulch Salmon Hatchery, and the Old Valdez town site. Valdez was moved to its current location after the Earthquake of 1967 generated a Tsunami that wiped out downtown Valdez killing many citizens. The
salmon hatchery was amazing, seeing the enormous number of salmon searching for their 'home river' which really was a hatchery pen. (I hope you can load the video.)
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| Solomon Gulch Salmon Hatchery |
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Bridal Veil Falls
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July 30th to August 2nd
Dawson City is an old
mining town with a down town area where many of the buildings have
been maintained as they were 150 years ago and all the roads are
unpaved. One day we drove to an area locals call The Dome which is a
scenic view of the Dawson City area and a place where they celebrate
the summer solstice every year with a town party. One of the things
we’ve mentioned in previous blogs is how long the sun is up in
Alaska. We have daylight 20-21 hours a day and on the solstice from
the Dome you can watch the sun set to the west and rise to the east
in a time frame of only a few minutes.
We spent three nights in
Dawson City and did some touristy stuff including a visit to Dredge
#4 which is the largest wooden mining dredge used in the Yukon
Territory, the Keno Sternwheeler, their version of a river walk, and
the local farmer’s market where we got some wonderful fresh
veggies.
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| Only the Main Street in Dawson City is paved |
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| Dredge #4 operated for 46 years delivering 8 metric tons of gold |
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| The sternwheeler Keno |
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| Amazingly fresh veggies |
August 3rd to August 5th
On the 3rd we had an uneventful and boring drive south to Carmacks, which is
about 100 miles north of Whitehorse. On the 4th we stopped in Whitehorse for
fuel and wine. We were in Whitehorse on our way north so we knew
where to go and did not spend any more time on this visit before
continuing our trip to Carcross. We spent a couple of days in Carcross, because we wanted to drive the car to Skagway, Alaska, which we missed earlier when we went to Haines, AK.
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| Some beautiful spots along the road to Carcross |
Our RV site in Carcross
was a nice spot with a good view of the lake across the street. We
also washed the RV and got some of the dirt off. Still needs more
work. We drove into Carcross which is very well set up for tourists.
They also have a small desert area with dunes and all.
The drive to Skagway on
the 5th was as beautiful as we were told. Great scenery! We
arrived in Skagway along with 4 cruise ships and we estimate about
10,000 people, so it was a little crowded. Skagway is a real tourist
“trap” area with a million (I exaggerate a little!) places to buy
jewelry as well as other touristy stuff. For lunch we had a wonderful
cheese and sausage biscuit and coffee at a place called Bites of
Broadway. One of the best biscuits we’ve had and something we’ll
try to convince Lalia’s sister Lynne to try making next time we’re
in Massachusetts.
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| The scenery on the way to Skagway is so beautiful it seems unreal-like a painting |
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| One of many tours cruise passengers can take while in port |
August 6th to August 8th
August 6th was a day where we actually drove on a rode we had been on during
our trip north. In Whitehorse we drove a few miles on part of the
Alaskan Highway we'd been on before and today we drove about
another hundred miles of the Alaskan Highway that we were on before
as we head back toward Watson Lake. Near Watson Lake we turn south
onto the Stewart Cassier Highway and explore roads we've not
driven before.
Our next RV park was in
Iskut, BC at the recommendation of our friends Barbara and Fred Brown
who took their RV to Alaska last year and gave us lots of tips and
places to see. This RV park was one of their recommendations and it was beautiful. We
originally planned to stay only one night but it was so pretty we
decided to stay two nights. Wonderful mountain views from our RV.
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| Early morning was so beautiful |
From Iskut we drove to
Stewart, BC where we were hoping to see some bears. We saw 5 bears
right on the side of the road during our drive to Stewart including a
mother bear and one cub. Wonderful site!!
August 9th to August 15th
Stewart itself is not much
to see. It’s a small town that is right next to Hyder, Alaska which
is an even smaller town and certainly the most depressed area we have
seen on our trip. Hyder does have a bear viewing stand so we drove
back into Alaska again hoping to see some bears. This is the time of
year that the salmon are running upstream and bear watching is
suppose to be good. The National Park Service has set up a viewing
stand just for tourists to watch bears. We also were hoping to see
the Toe of Salmon Glacier on this stop but due to fog/clouds in the
glacier area we were only able drive about 17 miles of the 23 mile
drive before the fog got to thick for us to proceed.
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| They have a sense of humor about the town |
Our first visit to the
bear viewing stand was unsuccessful. We arrived late and it was getting dark so we planned to come back the next day. The bear arrived after we left. The next day we went back to the bear viewing stand and after waiting
an hour or so a big grizzly bear went into the stream and put on a
great show for us. This bear was eating salmon and berries for about
an hour before we left. Not a great experience for the salmon but
something we’ll never forget.
The next few days
were just short drives, first to Prince George, BC which is a good size
city with all the shopping spots like Walmart, Costco, Best Buy, and
some less expensive fuel. We restocked at Walmart and Costco plus we
got some diesel fuel for what we think will be the last time in
Canada on this trip. Diesel fuel in Canada has been about $1.25 per
liter which amounts to about $4.75 per US gallon before we factor in
the exchange. In Prince George fuel was “only” a $1.06 per liter
or about $4.00 per gallon, again before we factor in the exchange
rate. With the exchange rate this year between 25 & 35% we’re
doing pretty good.
From Prince George we
drove to Clinton, BC for one night and the next day we crossed back
into the USA near Oroville, WA. On this trip we’ve crossed the
US/Canadian border a total of 10 times and at this last crossing the
customs agent confiscated 2 tomatoes and one lime from our
refrigerator. This was the only time
an agent from either country came into the RV to look at what we had.
Not bad considering how many times we went back and forth.
On Saturday, August 15th
we drove from Oroville to Spokane where we’ll spend the next week.
If you want to look at more pictures from this part of our trip, go to the link below:
https://goo.gl/photos/tMXMTLXEVHmFMr6F9
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