Feels wierd to be in So Cal again. First impression is how brown California is. Second, how nice the landscaping is in Irvine. Next, the cars…& people. The numbers will take some time get used to.

I visited with Jake & Darnell in Portland. Dropped by Reed & Sanna just back from China. At noon on Friday I started south on 5 but turned west to the coast looking for lighthouses & the Redwood forest. At the border with Cal I could see the smoke from all the burns. Soon I could smell then taste the smoke. I also found my way blocked to get to 5 by the fires. I got to Willits at around 2am Sat morning. Thanks to an indian casino I had a place to sleep. Woke up at 5am hardly able to breathe. Funny thing was the parking lot was full of cars.

I freshened up & finally made it to I 5. Took my time pulling off at rest stops many times to sleep. By this time my arm was whack, my fingers were going numb. Not to worry, I stopped a lot. Smoke stayed in the air until the Tejon pass by Magic Mountain. Arrived home at 6pm. 1200 miles in two days.

The trip took a little over two months & 13,000 miles. I saw once in a lifetime areas of the continent. Met some wonderful people, saw amazing animals & loved the travel in the rig.

But most important my family enjoys health & my enduring love.

Skeena River, First Nations walk out on these platforms & catch fish in a basket on a pole. Like this:

This was the campground on the Fraser River

What makes this picture of a mountain more spectacular than my other mountain is that the Pacific Ocean is on the other side of this one

On to the ferry to Nanaimo, Vancouver Island

When my brother, David, was alive he worked for Weyerhauser in Oregon. He wanted to show me a “log bronc”. This is it. In the water it can move trees 360 degrees. I miss Dave.

Alice Harbor. Thats the Pacific, only 12k’s from the East side of the island. What a view!

A bald eagle in Alice Harbor

This is what they call a “portable saw” in BC!

I spent the afternoon in Wayne’s famous bar in Zeballos

There must have been hundreds of waterfalls on the side of this mountain

That’s all for now, next time more photos of mountains, rivers, totems, etc. Its getting kind of boring, guess its time to come home, huh?

 

I’m right on the Pacific Ocean, wow, does it smell good. Oh, & its beautiful, too. It looks like Laguna Beach would look with certain minor adjustments.Like, no houses on the hillside, the cliffs covered with tall Seqouia trees, & channels would run to Saddleback Mountain which would be snow covered all year. Just those little changes. I’m at a campground in the middle of a rainforest…amazing.

Yesterday I was in Port Alberni which has access to the Pacific thru Barkley Sound but is only48 k’s from the east coast of bthe island. After taking a shower & dump I looked for the owner who converted his farm to an RV Park. The bathrooms were set up for disabled-tall toilets, room for wheelchairs in the stalls, & showers that also had room for chairs. I thanked him for his kindness which evolved into an afternoon of doing wash & swapping stories. Did he put me to shame! Afterwards he gave me a published book of his shortstories. I laughed so hard I cried. What a great Sunday.

Today I drove to Tofino & Long Beach. In Tofino I went into a surf shop to buy a few shirts. The young man asked where I was from & turned out to be a history of surfing buff. One of his questions was, “why do they call the cliffs in Huntington Beach the pee hole”. Well, I told him. Then I picked out a Dewey Webber log that was hanging from the ceiling. I told him a few stories & he took me to the basement where the owner had a shrine of old boards. Gordon & Smith, Rick, Ole’s…I knew some of them. He couldn’t believe that I started surfing in 1957.

Dinner was possibly the best tasting since I left NY. I started with seafood chowder the was probably swimming just off the island this morning. Followed by grilled salmon over a bed of risotto including prawns & scallops. Now a little mint chocolate chip i-c-e-c-r-e-a-m in the rig will top off the nite.

I almost forgot, I noticed a beefy father with twin sons on the patio. One forgot to bring his toy stuffed animal & the other wasn’t letting his brother forget it. The father got up went to his car & got the stuffed animal. Then I noticed the NAVY t-shirt & the SEAL baseball cap. When my check came I asked to have $20 added to my bill to go towards his bill & after I left to say “thanks for your service.” The server inquired if he might not be in the service? I told her “then say I was impressed by his nuturing of his little boy!”

Lets see if I can upload any pictures from the last week. No luck this time.

 

When last I wrote a rain storm was blowing my doors off, but it passed…I have visited Ports, bays, harbors over the last 3 days.

Childsplay wrote a comment about interesting people & a renewal of faith in mankind. On the road, especially in out of the way places, I find that most people are good, kind, tolerant,etc. We kind of lean on each other. There were the people from West London that shared tea…(I had water). A group from Germany that stopped where I had pulled over to take a picture to see if I needed help. Just last night as I was checking in at a converted farm to RV park, a couple from Holland broke off a piece of mint chocolate chip cookie so that I would be motivated to buy a freshly baked cookie. Then they invited me to join them. They lived inly an hour from where I served my mission.

The strangest for me was in Zeballos (a port!) I had gone through town once looking for a place to put the rig for the night. On my second pass through two ladies walked out into the street to ask if I needed help. They told me the guy in the bar owned the hotel, restaurant, fresh vegetable stand, RV park…get it, he owned everything! Name was Wayne, brown as a berry. Remember its 59 & cloudy on a summer day! Turns out he spends 2 weeks out of every 6 in Mazatlan where his wife is a dentist…I couldn’t make this stuff up. I sat there with these two women & Wayne in the bar all afternoon. The RV park was described as a ghetto. It would give a ghetto a bad name. When the husbands got off work they all smoked & it came into my rig. Fabreze saved me that night.

Later today I’ll upload a representative number of pictures to give you a feel about what I’ve been through the last few days.

Yes, I was here before. Today was quite the day…It started in Port Hardy on the Queen Charlotte Strait. I next went to Coal Harbor which is at the end of Quatsino Sound from the Pacific Ocean. At the right time of year Orcas & Humpback whales play?  in the sound. Next was Port Alice where I had the privilege of seeing two bald eagles flying together right over my head.

 

I was on my way to Zaballos on the Esperanza Inlet when my engine cut out. OH YEAH I had just passed a logging truck…he wasn’t too happy to have me lose power. I pulled over & shut off the engine. Checked my gauges, any engine lights & then started it again. The engine limited me to 2000rpm, so I deduced that the on board computer had tripped. I then drove 130 klicks to get to a GM dealer that the GPS identified for me. I got to Campbell River at 5:05 & the service mgr said all the techs were gone, that I would need to come back tomorrow. Just then a guy walked up & asked what the problem was. I explained, he got out the diagnostic computer (he just happened to be the diesel tech) said, “just as I thought!” reprogrammed my computer & the rig was fixed by 5:20. I asked the guy if I could buy him a drink & he just smiled & said “have a safe trip.”

 

I’m now driving back to the turnoff to Zeballos. Really liked this campground & the snapper burger this lady made two nights ago.

 

I’ve really learned to roll with the punches.

 

It is raining soooo hard I’m afraid my skylights will break!

 

Tiff, you’re so right! I should have said …they look like hippies. I really had a fun time with them. Live & learn I always say.

Since no one found Hyter, AK I won’t do the same with Port Hardy. It is at the extreme NE side of the island. Last nite & tonite I have the ocean lapping on the shore right behind the rig.

Something happened today that was really special. As I was leaving Port Kelsey there was a couple with a little boy on the side of the road sitting on pacts. At first I drove by but then turned around & stopped to ask if they needed any water. They looked like they had slept on the ground last nite. They asked if I could give them a ride to the main hwy, maybe 8 miles. I told them I don’t give hitch hickers rides, that I was sorry. But by the time II had to turn back around I reconsidered, stopped & told them to hop in. They loaded everything I had in myback seats into the passenger area. It turned out they were going to Port Hardy to take the ferry to Prince Rupert on the mainland. Since that was my destination I told them I could take them the whole way. While Allen & I talked economics, Angella & her son Lief were soon asleep.

It took about three hours to get to our destination so they told me about a place called Telegraph Bay. I was able to find some greal books on the area & the First Nations. They also told me about an island I should go by ferry to & a few other spots. Even though they were hippies we had a good time. Here they are at the ferry terminal.

Since you don’t get to ever see me…

Not looking too bad for an old man!

Over the past 3-4 days I have seen wonderful sights. I would bore you with a jillion pictures. Here are a few

That was the view last nite & its pretty much the same tonite.

I was eating at a Haibut burger stand when the lady asked, “Didn’t you say you haven’t seen bald headed eagles? Well there are two right up in the top nof the tree. They are very small but I bagged a bald eagle. Then today there was a group og 5-8 bald eagles flying over the hwy & through the trees being pursued by huge ravens.

Well its late & I’m tired. Hope all is well with you.

I was just starting this when the electricity failed. I am going to stay put tomorrow & rest. It was 96 today after a month & a half in the 50’s & 60’s.

 I wrote the following a few days ago:

June 27, 2008 Vanderhoof, BC

 

I’ve seen lots of great stuff!

 

Before I left Hyder, AK (Have you found it?) I drove 20 miles up the Salmon River to view the Salmon Glacier. It wasn’t the biggest but I was very close. I could have driven up to one of its feet but for 8 feet of snow across the road. I saw a grizzly on the tidal basin scrounging for sea stuff. The salmon don’t arrive for another month so its slim pickens.

 

Since I didn’t have enough (20) pictures of Bear Glacier from the day before I took a few more! I’m captivated by the blue of the glacier. Saw another black bear & a startled moose which turned 2 full circles before it decided which way to run.

 

I stopped at two First Nation villages & saw my first real totem poles. The RV park was in another nations village. OH…OH! There was a one lane bridge that crossed a river 200-300 feet down! That was scary.

 

I’m now out of the mountains in rolling farm land. There’s mountains all around but is much more populated. I’m taking a little detour tomorrow to see Ft James, a restored Hudson Bay Company settlement.

 

Hope you’re all doing well.

 

I believe I didn’t have any pictures of Dawson on the blog. After arriving late in the day I had dinner at a restaurant & did the blog on the top of the World Hwy. In the morning I went to the Museum which was great. Its in one of the oldest masonry building built in 1901. I drove around the city then went to Rock Dome above Dawson & got some pictures.

The Yukon is the brown water, “too dirty to drink, too thin to plow!” is what they say up here. The blue band next to the river bank is the Klondike River flowing into the Yukon.

This is the Robert Service cabin. Todd can tell you all about him. He was a banker (like me), he was a great story teller (like me) & when he ran out of stories he made up poems that made him a millionaire (unfortunately I don’t forsee myself running out of stories, but childsplay is sure that I make most of them up anyway!)

Gold mining really ruins the environment. The dredges left tailings of rocks so high that people are now buying view houses on top of the tailings.

I followed the Yukon River south & stayed overnight in Carmacks. I saw two Glaciers today & will be driving up a 20 mile dirt road to see a very large Stewart Glacier. 

Now, here’s the deal. Without using a google type source can you find the town I,m staying in tonight? The towns name in Hyder, Alaska. This should be fun. The first to post the correct comment gets a present from me. Check out my Flickr to see almost 1500 pictures taken so far.

Bye for now…

I decided to come as far as Skagway, & I’m sure glad I did. The geology on the Yukon Hwy is stunning! Skagway itself is a tourist trap like so many towns up here. Without the cruse lines many of these out of the way towns wouldn’t exist. Can’t fault that.

The other night in Dawson I had set my watch back instead of ahead. I finally went to bed at 1am & the SUN WAS SHINNING IN MY EYES!!! 

The Hwy follows the White pass, one east of Chillkoot pass. Thats the one the miners took that became so famous. I can’t believe that each person had to lug one ton of supplies up & over these mountains. They are very steep that most horses died while trying to get their loads up.

 

Last night in Carmacks, YT I had dinner at a basement cafe in the only public house in the town. With me were 2 indians that were a little intoxicated. They were also trying to get a young 20 something to have coffee with them. The server who also turned out to be the cook, who turned out to be the manager finally told the men that the young’un was her daughter & both of the men were old enough to be her father! When they heard that they got louder until she asked them to leave. When the one got up & pulled his coat off the chair it knocked both settings on to the floor. Crash, bang…both cups shattered. They both laughted, she got mad & chased them both out. What a performance! Didn’t mind eating alone after that.

Back to the scenery. At the top of the pass is a valley. But it is covered by huge, rough metamorphic rocks & scrub spruce. It was other worldly:

Most of this area is covered in permafrost. But by Carcross there are sand dunes! On the bottom of the lakes you can see lighter swaths under the water

When I stopped for the night I don’t think I knew that I was next to the active railroad line. All the passengers waved to me as I was setting up the rig!

Tomorrow its back up to the Alaskan Hwy then South on #37 to Prince George, BC

The solstice is actually tomorrow but I doubt that I will be at 65 north latitude to see this again! Its twilight now at 11:30 over the border in Alaska. I have been privileged over the last two days to see the Matanusca Glacier, the Chugach Range, Wrangell-St Elias NP, Chicken, Alaska, Top of the World Hwy,the mighty Yukon River & Dawson City. If the signal is strong enough I will upload some of the pictures.

This has really been a blessing to be on this trip. It has been much harder than earlier trips. I haven’t concluded that it might be that I’m two years older than the last major trek. But I doubt that anywhere in the world could match the diversity that I have been privileged to travel through. Going from California-Nevada-Arizona-Utah-Colorado-Wyoming-South Dakota-North Dakota-Montana-Saskachewan-Alberta-British Columbia-Northern Territory-Yukon Territory-Alaska & up above the Arctic Circle to the Arctic Ocean.

Matanuska Glacier from the Glenn Hwy. The face is 6-10 stories high and continues up the canyon to the right.

A glacier valley in the Chugash Range. A river caused valley has a V-shape, this is the typical U-shapped glacier valley.

Downtown Chicken, Alaska; pop, 8. Guess what its major product is?

Border crossing at 65 North, Top of the World Hwy. This road followed the moutain peaks for 100 miles-stunning!

First view of the mighty Yukon from 12 miles. IT JUST GOT BETTER UNTIL…

Getting on the ferry across the Yukon to Dawson.

Can’t wait for tomorrow!