Hello! We are back! The last six weeks have been epic, adventure-full. Alaska lived up to what we had heard about it (tho, the mosquitoes were waaaaay worse in Dawson Creek, British Columbia).
Here are some statistics:
National Parks Visited
Badlands NP
Yellowstone NP (1st National Park)
Wind Cave NP (1st cave designated as a National Park)
Mt. Rushmore National Memorial
Craters of the Moon National Monument
Tongass National Forest
Fort Seward National Historical site
Sitka National Historical Park (1st Alaskan NP)
Misty Fjords National Monument
Buffalo Bill Dam
Worthington Glacier National Natural Landmark
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
Total:
International Parks
Jasper National Park (Jasper, Alberta, Canada)
Banff National Park (Banff, Alberta, Canada)
Total: 2
States Traveled Thru
WV
MD
PA
OH
IN
IL
WI
MN
SD
MO
WY
ID
OR
WA
AK
ND
MI
Total: 17
Provinces Traveled Thru
British Columbia
Yukon Territory
Saskatchewan
Alberta
Total: 4
Modes of Transportation
Car
Ferry
Motorboat
Riverboat
Bus
Train
Miles driven: 12,846.7 (The Earth's circumference at the equator is 24,901.55. We drove, essentially, 51.6% of the circumference of the Earth on this trip. WOW.)
Miles by bus: 176
Miles by train: 40
Miles by ferry: (Nautical) 1,180
Hours on riverboat: 2.5 (We didn't go very far.)
Hours on motorboat: 7
Animals seen
Moose
Mule deer
Dall sheep
Buffalo
Seals
Sea lions
Squirrels
Porcupines
Orca
Humpback whale
Dall's porpoise
Prairie dog
Elk
Snowshoe hare
Bighorn sheep
Grizzly bears (aka brown bears)
Black bears
Mosquitoes (the size of Texas in Alaska; the size of Alaska in Dawson Creek. We're not kidding. We have pictures.)
Chipmunks
Total:19
Birds seen
Bald eagles
Canada geese
Great blue heron
Sandhill crane
Stellar's jay
Burrowing owl
Gray jay
Red-winged black bird
Western meadowlark
Violet green sparrow
Mountain blue bird
American robin
Chipping sparrow
Black-billed magpies
Golden eagles
Common ravens
Trumpeter swan
Thrush
Northern flicker
Red-breasted sap sucker
Mallard duck
Puffins
Really big, tank-sized storks that I can't remember the name of
Total: 23
New favorite soda of all time: Squirt (It's this grapefruit-ish soda. Yummy!)
“Whenever we embark on a long journey, there is a sense of death and rebirth. The experiences we go through have a transitional quality. The moment we step outside our house and close the door, we begin to leave our life behind. We say goodbye to family and friends and to the familiar rooms and routines that we inhabit. We might feel regret mixed with excitement as we climb into the taxi that will take us to the airport. As our vision of home recedes, we are both sadly parted and joyfully released from all that defines us. The further from home we go, the more focused we become on our next destination. We think less of home and more about where we are going. We begin to look at a new map; we start to think about where we will land, about the new people, new customs and new environment–the new sets of experiences to come.”
We have missed some things while we were gone. But we're home now.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Day 40: (Old) Home Sweet Home
No, we aren't back to West Virginia yet! OLD home is where we were today, very old home. But not a home for old people. No, when I was 2-ish and a bit before Ashley was born, we moved to Eau Claire, Michigan because Dad was going to seminary at Andrews University. So today we ran around that area a little bit to find a lighthouse, see how the area had changed, and to track down the house we lived in while we were here.
I tried to find that house almost two years ago. I was up at Andrews with some friends visiting some other friends over our mid-term break. We don't always think things through though, so when we went to go try to find my house 2 years ago, it was dark. Like, not twilight dark, but dead-of-winter-night dark. There are hardly any lights out here. We could see hardly anything. Except the "Bunnies for Sale" or "Free Bunnies" sign on one road. It took all of my powers of persuasion to convince my travelmates that no, no we couldn't take a bunny back with us all the way to Washington, DC. But I did convince them. We didn't find my house, but we also didn't bring back any bunnies.
This time though we found the house. But first, we went to find a lighthouse in St. Joseph's. Apparently we went out there some while we lived in the area. I don't remember most of the stuff we saw today because I was 3 and 4? No recollection really. We saw the North Pier Lighthouse, but we couldn't climb it.
We drove through Berrien Springs. Mom and Dad said that the whole area had really grown up a lot. They liked the "new" front entrance to the University. It was like that the last time I was there, but...that was only 2 years ago. I don't know how old it actually is. Then we found the house. It looks good. It looks really good. It is a really old house, but someone has cleaned it up really well over the last 20 years.
We then drove to South Bend, and found a CHIPOTLE! It's been forever, literally, since I have had that delicious-ness. :) Then we drove a wee bit more. We're on the edge of Indiana and Ohio. I got to swim in a pool for the first time this summer. That was nice. It was crisp and cool, which felt really good on my rather sunburnt shoulders. Yesterday's walk on the beach was not very nice to my shoulders.
My hair is getting ridiculously long. I can have about 3 different hairstyles now. At least. Maybe four, actually. I haven't had those options in years. I haven't been able to put it in a ponytail in years. Good thing I'll be home soon and can cut this mop off! It wouldn't be so bad in the winter--it's a nice covering for my ears--but it's over 100 degrees outside. I do not need ear covers right now.
I tried to find that house almost two years ago. I was up at Andrews with some friends visiting some other friends over our mid-term break. We don't always think things through though, so when we went to go try to find my house 2 years ago, it was dark. Like, not twilight dark, but dead-of-winter-night dark. There are hardly any lights out here. We could see hardly anything. Except the "Bunnies for Sale" or "Free Bunnies" sign on one road. It took all of my powers of persuasion to convince my travelmates that no, no we couldn't take a bunny back with us all the way to Washington, DC. But I did convince them. We didn't find my house, but we also didn't bring back any bunnies.
This time though we found the house. But first, we went to find a lighthouse in St. Joseph's. Apparently we went out there some while we lived in the area. I don't remember most of the stuff we saw today because I was 3 and 4? No recollection really. We saw the North Pier Lighthouse, but we couldn't climb it.
We drove through Berrien Springs. Mom and Dad said that the whole area had really grown up a lot. They liked the "new" front entrance to the University. It was like that the last time I was there, but...that was only 2 years ago. I don't know how old it actually is. Then we found the house. It looks good. It looks really good. It is a really old house, but someone has cleaned it up really well over the last 20 years.
We then drove to South Bend, and found a CHIPOTLE! It's been forever, literally, since I have had that delicious-ness. :) Then we drove a wee bit more. We're on the edge of Indiana and Ohio. I got to swim in a pool for the first time this summer. That was nice. It was crisp and cool, which felt really good on my rather sunburnt shoulders. Yesterday's walk on the beach was not very nice to my shoulders.
My hair is getting ridiculously long. I can have about 3 different hairstyles now. At least. Maybe four, actually. I haven't had those options in years. I haven't been able to put it in a ponytail in years. Good thing I'll be home soon and can cut this mop off! It wouldn't be so bad in the winter--it's a nice covering for my ears--but it's over 100 degrees outside. I do not need ear covers right now.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Days 36, 37, 38, 39: Greetings From Michigan!
So... Unfortunately, I don't know what's going on with Blogger and the picture upload, but I can only pick one picture at a time. And there's lots I wanted to put up. Even if there weren't crazy lots, I still wouldn't want to click every single image file, so... Until Blogger snaps out of it...no pictures. Sorry. But, hey, if you come to the vespers thing at Martinsburg Church in a couple weeks, you'll get more pictures than you even think are possible.
Day 36 (Saturday, July 16)
We did indeed see the World's Largest Ball of Twine. It lives in a hut with glass walls. I found a sign that my roommate from college, Sara-May, left when she went to see it last summer. It was very fun.
Then, we kept driiiivvvviiiiinnnngggg. I'm sorry, but that's really all we did for most of the next three days. We drove through the rest of Minnesota and into Wisconsin. We were planning on stopping early, but the area along the Lakes up north is prime vacation area. And it was the weekend. There was nothing all along Lake Superior through Wisconsin. Finally we found a place to stay at the very edge of the Wisconsin-Michigan border.
This was a pretty dull, long day.
Day 37 (Sunday, July 17)
Sunday was more interesting. We got into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I wanted to drive through there just to be able to say I've been there. We all kind of thought we were going back into wilderness, but this area ended up being a really hot vacation spot. Hot as in very popular. Also hot as in temperatures. Man! We were wondering where summer was the whole time we were in Alaska, but I guess it's been hiding in the Lower 48! We didn't see anything more than 70 degrees more than a couple of days while in Alaska. Then we get out of Alaska, and then back to the US, and we are just BAKING. And it's supposed to be 100+ degrees when we get home...are you kidding me?
We saw a bunch of lighthouses while we went through the UP. We saw the Presque Isle Harbor Breakwater Light Station, the Marquette Harbor Light Station, the Marquette Breakwater Outer Light Station, the Munising Rear Range Light Station, and the West Pier Light in Manistique. We also went to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. It was pretty. The land fell away into the lake water, and there the rocks were different colors. We didn't stay too long because we were trying to, well, get more back towards home.
We stopped at this hotel called the Beachcomber. It could have been really cute, but everything was about 50 years old. Including the pillows. Mom and Dad went for a walk, and a storm came along while they were out. Ashley and I were going to go rescue them, but did either of them have their phones? Nope. Eventually it started raining, and Ashley and I were just going to go wander around, but just as we were getting to the car, they ran up to the hotel. Sillies. Wandering around with storms and no phones.
Day 38 (Monday, July 18)
We finished the Upper Peninsula. We drove over the 5-mile-long bridge to get from the Upper Peninsula to mainland Michigan. Before we left we stopped at the Seul Choix Point Light Station. It was rainy and foggy, so the view wasn't that great. This took us into Mackinac City, MI. We saw and climbed a lighthouse, Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse. We went on a lighthouse chase, McGulpin Point Lighthouse, and we found it and also climbed it.
Lighthouse chasing is one of my parents' favorite pastimes. Apparently it's been relatively easy on this trip compared to their adventures trying to find Floridian and other East Coast lighthouses.
We also found Little Traverse Light and Pt. Betsie Lighthouse, but we couldn't climb them.
We also stopped at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. So there's this Indian legend about this place. A momma bear and two baby bears were swimming across Lake Michigan one day. Then a storm came up, and this made it very hard to swim. For some reason, the momma bear kept swimming to the other side, and she left her babies in the water. She kept swimming. She made it. Her babies didn't. So her babies became two islands off the mainland. The momma bear became this huge sand dune among lots and lots of dunes.
We climbed up a dune (but not the Momma Bear Dune). We were trying to get to Lake Michigan through the dunes, but...that didn't happen. We went over four dunes, still didn't see the Lake. I understand now, a very little bit, what people who get lost in the desert must feel like. There's so much hope with every ridge you climb, and then it's crushed when you get to the top and see no water. And my hope was crushed every time, and I knew I could get back to water just by walking a bit back to my car.
We also went on a scenic drive. From there we got views of both the Lake and the dunes. Lake Michigan was carved out by a glacier (duh!), and we got to see how a cliff which was clearly a glacier deposit or something was being carved away by wind and wave erosion.
Then we drove and drove and drove again. We got to Muskegon, MI.
Day 39 (Tuesday, July 19)
Today was devoted to lighthouse chasing for me, Mom, and Dad and chilling with internet and TV for Ashley.
We drove up north of Muskegon to find Big Sable Lighthouse. It was about a 2 mile walk out to the lighthouse. We got to climb up, and the view wasn't too bad even though it was hazy. (Have I mentioned how HOT it is? There's a nice breeze on the beach though, so...that was redemptive.) We walked back along the beach of Lake Michigan because it was quite warm, and we wanted to have the water of the lake to cool us off. It was pretty good. There were a bunch of small, dead fish on the beach though. That was gross.
Then we went and saw (but did not climb) North Pierhead Light and Ludington Harbor Light. We ran down a bit more south and climbed Little Sable Point Lighthouse. This "tour" was nice because there was no tour. You could just climb, see the view, and keep trucking. If you had questions, there were people to ask, but they left you alone otherwise. That's nice sometimes. The last lighthouse we were trying to get to for the day was White River Light Station. We weren't sure we were going to get to climb it because we were a little late from their posted hours. But, when we got there, they were still happily open, so up we climbed.
We picked up Ashley for dinner. Then Ashley and I came back to try to use the pool. There were so many children screaming, we turned right back around. It was very unfortunate, but I can't stand screaming children. Mom and Dad went and found Muskegon S. Pier Lighthouse and South Breakwater Light while we were trying to deal with the pool. We tried again at 10 pm and there were MORE children. It was incredible. Oh well. Pool time later.
Day 36 (Saturday, July 16)
We did indeed see the World's Largest Ball of Twine. It lives in a hut with glass walls. I found a sign that my roommate from college, Sara-May, left when she went to see it last summer. It was very fun.
Then, we kept driiiivvvviiiiinnnngggg. I'm sorry, but that's really all we did for most of the next three days. We drove through the rest of Minnesota and into Wisconsin. We were planning on stopping early, but the area along the Lakes up north is prime vacation area. And it was the weekend. There was nothing all along Lake Superior through Wisconsin. Finally we found a place to stay at the very edge of the Wisconsin-Michigan border.
This was a pretty dull, long day.
Day 37 (Sunday, July 17)
Sunday was more interesting. We got into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I wanted to drive through there just to be able to say I've been there. We all kind of thought we were going back into wilderness, but this area ended up being a really hot vacation spot. Hot as in very popular. Also hot as in temperatures. Man! We were wondering where summer was the whole time we were in Alaska, but I guess it's been hiding in the Lower 48! We didn't see anything more than 70 degrees more than a couple of days while in Alaska. Then we get out of Alaska, and then back to the US, and we are just BAKING. And it's supposed to be 100+ degrees when we get home...are you kidding me?
We saw a bunch of lighthouses while we went through the UP. We saw the Presque Isle Harbor Breakwater Light Station, the Marquette Harbor Light Station, the Marquette Breakwater Outer Light Station, the Munising Rear Range Light Station, and the West Pier Light in Manistique. We also went to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. It was pretty. The land fell away into the lake water, and there the rocks were different colors. We didn't stay too long because we were trying to, well, get more back towards home.
We stopped at this hotel called the Beachcomber. It could have been really cute, but everything was about 50 years old. Including the pillows. Mom and Dad went for a walk, and a storm came along while they were out. Ashley and I were going to go rescue them, but did either of them have their phones? Nope. Eventually it started raining, and Ashley and I were just going to go wander around, but just as we were getting to the car, they ran up to the hotel. Sillies. Wandering around with storms and no phones.
Day 38 (Monday, July 18)
We finished the Upper Peninsula. We drove over the 5-mile-long bridge to get from the Upper Peninsula to mainland Michigan. Before we left we stopped at the Seul Choix Point Light Station. It was rainy and foggy, so the view wasn't that great. This took us into Mackinac City, MI. We saw and climbed a lighthouse, Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse. We went on a lighthouse chase, McGulpin Point Lighthouse, and we found it and also climbed it.
Lighthouse chasing is one of my parents' favorite pastimes. Apparently it's been relatively easy on this trip compared to their adventures trying to find Floridian and other East Coast lighthouses.
We also found Little Traverse Light and Pt. Betsie Lighthouse, but we couldn't climb them.
We also stopped at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. So there's this Indian legend about this place. A momma bear and two baby bears were swimming across Lake Michigan one day. Then a storm came up, and this made it very hard to swim. For some reason, the momma bear kept swimming to the other side, and she left her babies in the water. She kept swimming. She made it. Her babies didn't. So her babies became two islands off the mainland. The momma bear became this huge sand dune among lots and lots of dunes.
We climbed up a dune (but not the Momma Bear Dune). We were trying to get to Lake Michigan through the dunes, but...that didn't happen. We went over four dunes, still didn't see the Lake. I understand now, a very little bit, what people who get lost in the desert must feel like. There's so much hope with every ridge you climb, and then it's crushed when you get to the top and see no water. And my hope was crushed every time, and I knew I could get back to water just by walking a bit back to my car.
We also went on a scenic drive. From there we got views of both the Lake and the dunes. Lake Michigan was carved out by a glacier (duh!), and we got to see how a cliff which was clearly a glacier deposit or something was being carved away by wind and wave erosion.
Then we drove and drove and drove again. We got to Muskegon, MI.
Day 39 (Tuesday, July 19)
Today was devoted to lighthouse chasing for me, Mom, and Dad and chilling with internet and TV for Ashley.
We drove up north of Muskegon to find Big Sable Lighthouse. It was about a 2 mile walk out to the lighthouse. We got to climb up, and the view wasn't too bad even though it was hazy. (Have I mentioned how HOT it is? There's a nice breeze on the beach though, so...that was redemptive.) We walked back along the beach of Lake Michigan because it was quite warm, and we wanted to have the water of the lake to cool us off. It was pretty good. There were a bunch of small, dead fish on the beach though. That was gross.
Then we went and saw (but did not climb) North Pierhead Light and Ludington Harbor Light. We ran down a bit more south and climbed Little Sable Point Lighthouse. This "tour" was nice because there was no tour. You could just climb, see the view, and keep trucking. If you had questions, there were people to ask, but they left you alone otherwise. That's nice sometimes. The last lighthouse we were trying to get to for the day was White River Light Station. We weren't sure we were going to get to climb it because we were a little late from their posted hours. But, when we got there, they were still happily open, so up we climbed.
We picked up Ashley for dinner. Then Ashley and I came back to try to use the pool. There were so many children screaming, we turned right back around. It was very unfortunate, but I can't stand screaming children. Mom and Dad went and found Muskegon S. Pier Lighthouse and South Breakwater Light while we were trying to deal with the pool. We tried again at 10 pm and there were MORE children. It was incredible. Oh well. Pool time later.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Days 33, 34, 35: It's All Becoming A Blur of Time and Fields
So...obviously I did not get that internet to work in the McDonald's parking lot of Calgary. Oh well! Here we are now.
Day 33 (Wednesday, July 13)
So we slept in WalMart's parking lot last night. This made for an early morning, but that's okay because we're trying to get across Canada pretty much as fast as we can, minus the two things we had to do today: Jasper and Banff, Alberta.
Jasper and Banff are both two cities and they are two national parks in the Canadian national park system. Jasper is supposed to be Canada's equivalent to the US's Yellowstone. It was beautiful, don't get me wrong, but...I was just at Yellowstone 5 weeks ago or so, and there's just no comparison. Granted, our National Parks System is way more organized and much larger. Also, Yellowstone doesn't have a HIGHWAY running through it. It was weird being in a place with so many people. There was a lot of traffic, and in the few places we stopped and got out to look at things, there were people everywhere. After being in Alaska for that long, darkness and people are taking some getting used to.
First stop in Jasper was a canyon. Not the Grand Canyon, by any means, but it was a pretty impressive canyon considering. We get to the parking lot, and I am not hoping for much. There aren't any mountains super close by, the walk is supposed to be easy...what is this canyon? It was actually really cool. The river has just cut this massive gorge into the ground. There are millions of gallons of water coming through this itty bitty, narrow space. There are little cubbyholes carved out. In one place, there's a rock wedged between the two sides of the gorge and there's a tree growing out of the rock. The water is loud. It was surprisingly cool. The power of water will never cease to amaze me.
It was pretty all throughout the park, but it was cloudy, so where there were lakes that would have had super cool reflections in them, there was just gray clouds. We stopped at a couple of other places. A waterfall was one. It was nice, but nothing crazy. Then we went to see one more glacier off the Columbia Icefield. You could walk right up to this one if the park didn't have it roped off! This means it was extra cold. And there was a brutal, nonstop wind tearing down the glacier hill. We literally almost got blown over. Ashley got some glacial silt from the river that flows out from under the glacier. Then we really hit the road through Jasper. It was pretty, but Alaska and Yellowstone were better.
We got to Banff just a bit before sunset. (SUNSET!) We were hungry. We thought we were going to have to resign ourselves to Chili's when, wonder of wonders, there was an Old Spaghetti Factory. I don't think sourdough bread, salad (or soup), pasta, and vanilla ice cream ever tasted so good. It was fan-freaking-tastic. Mmmmm. I had some weird cheese-topped pasta (Mithzner? That's not right, at all, but...it's rich and salty and very, very yummy.), the other three had spaghetti with marinara and mushrooms. De-lec-ta-ble!
Then we drove to Calgary in the almost completely dark. Lovely. We saw the ski jump from the last winter Olympics, held in Calgary, as we were driving to our hotel. It was cool.
Day 34 (Thursday, July 14)
In the morning, we were in Calgary long enough to grab some more groceries, coffee mugs from Starbucks, and eat breakfast at a Park-n-Bike place. They really love their bikers up here! Then we pushed east. And south. And while I was thinking it was more east than south, it was definitely more south than east. Since we took the ferry up to Alaska, we really had no concept of the actual driving time it took to get there. We were in a nice big boat with someone else driving for 2.5 days. What were we paying attention to? Dolphins and whales. Well...these days, we are in a tiny van. And Dad's doing all the driving. And while there are some nice big lakes or wide rivers occasionally, there have definitely been neither dolphins nor whales. We keep hoping because the landscape is way more boring than it has been: flat.
We had to push straight south again this evening, actually, because we decided that getting back into the good ole USA would be a good idea. Gas is cheaper, there's no silly exchange fees, etc. etc. Plus we could actually use our phones for what they were made for rather than using them as clocks. That is when the storm came. We watched ourselves blast 100 km/hr down the highway towards it--the lightning was fantastic. (100 km/hr really isn't blasting speed. It's around 65 mph.) I posted about the storm already, but I'll say one more time: It was terrifying. Yet with all the rain and all the wind, part of our van, the back right bumper/tire area, is still covered in dirt.
We made it to customs. Had to get the officials' attention because their sensors were all off because of the storm. They made us eat our oranges rather than take them into the country. Then we were back on home soil. Still quite a ways from home, but in the United States. Dad kept driving and Mom stayed up with him. I went to sleep. I had said I was going to take a nap about 2 hours earlier, but then the storm hit. Finally the adrenaline wore off, and I passed out.
Day 35 (Friday, July 15)
And, oh wait, more driving. Dad drove until I have no clue. 4 am? 5 am? And then he and Mom slept until 6 am? The sun was blinding them, they cried. The sun wasn't bothering me... They got up and kept going. We stopped for breakfast at Cracker Barrel--Cracker Barrel!--we haven't seen one of those since...probably 5 weeks ago. We had a wonderful breakfast, then kept what? I'll give you one guess. Good job: We kept driving. I actually drove. Dad was falling asleep at breakfast, so we decided it would be best for the health of all if he wasn't in the driver's seat. I drove through North Dakota today and into Minnesota. We ran up to Bemidji to see a giant Paul Bunyan and his blue Ox statue. It was soooo coool! Paul Bunyan had much too broad shoulders however. Then we headed south. We are in St. Cloud with hardly a cloud--or mosquito--in sight. Maybe this is a saintly city. Tomorrow we see the world's largest ball of twine! (Thanks Sara-May Colon!) Then we head up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We'll lose one more hour--closer to home we be!
Again, I apologize for only more words and no more pictures. Constant driving is actually really hard work, and I am quite tired. I think it's been decided though that there will be a vespers on August 6 at Martinsburg Church. At some time. I don't remember the time. I'll definitely post all the details once I get them. And I promise, there will be many, many pictures at the vespers, and many stories as well. Eventually pictures will be posted, but mark your calendar now if you want a live event. :)
Day 33 (Wednesday, July 13)
So we slept in WalMart's parking lot last night. This made for an early morning, but that's okay because we're trying to get across Canada pretty much as fast as we can, minus the two things we had to do today: Jasper and Banff, Alberta.
Jasper and Banff are both two cities and they are two national parks in the Canadian national park system. Jasper is supposed to be Canada's equivalent to the US's Yellowstone. It was beautiful, don't get me wrong, but...I was just at Yellowstone 5 weeks ago or so, and there's just no comparison. Granted, our National Parks System is way more organized and much larger. Also, Yellowstone doesn't have a HIGHWAY running through it. It was weird being in a place with so many people. There was a lot of traffic, and in the few places we stopped and got out to look at things, there were people everywhere. After being in Alaska for that long, darkness and people are taking some getting used to.
First stop in Jasper was a canyon. Not the Grand Canyon, by any means, but it was a pretty impressive canyon considering. We get to the parking lot, and I am not hoping for much. There aren't any mountains super close by, the walk is supposed to be easy...what is this canyon? It was actually really cool. The river has just cut this massive gorge into the ground. There are millions of gallons of water coming through this itty bitty, narrow space. There are little cubbyholes carved out. In one place, there's a rock wedged between the two sides of the gorge and there's a tree growing out of the rock. The water is loud. It was surprisingly cool. The power of water will never cease to amaze me.
It was pretty all throughout the park, but it was cloudy, so where there were lakes that would have had super cool reflections in them, there was just gray clouds. We stopped at a couple of other places. A waterfall was one. It was nice, but nothing crazy. Then we went to see one more glacier off the Columbia Icefield. You could walk right up to this one if the park didn't have it roped off! This means it was extra cold. And there was a brutal, nonstop wind tearing down the glacier hill. We literally almost got blown over. Ashley got some glacial silt from the river that flows out from under the glacier. Then we really hit the road through Jasper. It was pretty, but Alaska and Yellowstone were better.
We got to Banff just a bit before sunset. (SUNSET!) We were hungry. We thought we were going to have to resign ourselves to Chili's when, wonder of wonders, there was an Old Spaghetti Factory. I don't think sourdough bread, salad (or soup), pasta, and vanilla ice cream ever tasted so good. It was fan-freaking-tastic. Mmmmm. I had some weird cheese-topped pasta (Mithzner? That's not right, at all, but...it's rich and salty and very, very yummy.), the other three had spaghetti with marinara and mushrooms. De-lec-ta-ble!
Then we drove to Calgary in the almost completely dark. Lovely. We saw the ski jump from the last winter Olympics, held in Calgary, as we were driving to our hotel. It was cool.
Day 34 (Thursday, July 14)
In the morning, we were in Calgary long enough to grab some more groceries, coffee mugs from Starbucks, and eat breakfast at a Park-n-Bike place. They really love their bikers up here! Then we pushed east. And south. And while I was thinking it was more east than south, it was definitely more south than east. Since we took the ferry up to Alaska, we really had no concept of the actual driving time it took to get there. We were in a nice big boat with someone else driving for 2.5 days. What were we paying attention to? Dolphins and whales. Well...these days, we are in a tiny van. And Dad's doing all the driving. And while there are some nice big lakes or wide rivers occasionally, there have definitely been neither dolphins nor whales. We keep hoping because the landscape is way more boring than it has been: flat.
We had to push straight south again this evening, actually, because we decided that getting back into the good ole USA would be a good idea. Gas is cheaper, there's no silly exchange fees, etc. etc. Plus we could actually use our phones for what they were made for rather than using them as clocks. That is when the storm came. We watched ourselves blast 100 km/hr down the highway towards it--the lightning was fantastic. (100 km/hr really isn't blasting speed. It's around 65 mph.) I posted about the storm already, but I'll say one more time: It was terrifying. Yet with all the rain and all the wind, part of our van, the back right bumper/tire area, is still covered in dirt.
We made it to customs. Had to get the officials' attention because their sensors were all off because of the storm. They made us eat our oranges rather than take them into the country. Then we were back on home soil. Still quite a ways from home, but in the United States. Dad kept driving and Mom stayed up with him. I went to sleep. I had said I was going to take a nap about 2 hours earlier, but then the storm hit. Finally the adrenaline wore off, and I passed out.
Day 35 (Friday, July 15)
And, oh wait, more driving. Dad drove until I have no clue. 4 am? 5 am? And then he and Mom slept until 6 am? The sun was blinding them, they cried. The sun wasn't bothering me... They got up and kept going. We stopped for breakfast at Cracker Barrel--Cracker Barrel!--we haven't seen one of those since...probably 5 weeks ago. We had a wonderful breakfast, then kept what? I'll give you one guess. Good job: We kept driving. I actually drove. Dad was falling asleep at breakfast, so we decided it would be best for the health of all if he wasn't in the driver's seat. I drove through North Dakota today and into Minnesota. We ran up to Bemidji to see a giant Paul Bunyan and his blue Ox statue. It was soooo coool! Paul Bunyan had much too broad shoulders however. Then we headed south. We are in St. Cloud with hardly a cloud--or mosquito--in sight. Maybe this is a saintly city. Tomorrow we see the world's largest ball of twine! (Thanks Sara-May Colon!) Then we head up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We'll lose one more hour--closer to home we be!
Again, I apologize for only more words and no more pictures. Constant driving is actually really hard work, and I am quite tired. I think it's been decided though that there will be a vespers on August 6 at Martinsburg Church. At some time. I don't remember the time. I'll definitely post all the details once I get them. And I promise, there will be many, many pictures at the vespers, and many stories as well. Eventually pictures will be posted, but mark your calendar now if you want a live event. :)
Days 31.5 & 32: Oh the Wild Life!
Hahahaha, before you get the wrong idea about the title of today's blog, it should probably be title "Oh the Wildlife" because that is what we have seen today.
So last night (Day 31.5, Monday, July 11, aka Free Slurpies Day at 7-11) we drove and drove and drove. We were going to stop at this place in northeast British Columbia called Watson Lake, but there was no rest area with restrooms. And by restrooms, I mean outhouses. We kept driving. And driving. And driving. We went through an area of about 200 kilometers (since we're in Canada after all) where there were no rest areas with potties. 200 kilometers! Eventually we found one, we all used the outhouse, and we set up the van for sleep time.
Oh, big news story of the trip. It kind of got dark! As in, our headlights were both necessary and useful! As in, the moon was big and bright. It must have been setting, but we kept going up and down in elevation, so it just clung to the mountainous horizon all bright and a week-from-being-full for what seemed like hours. It was beautiful. We saw the morning star. That was the unfortunate bit, I guess. We drove for so long that the morning star was coming up and I think the sun was about to come up too.
But we did eventually make it to the rest area. We tried this new thing the last time we slept in the car. We shuffled things around and laid down the middle seats in the van so we could unroll and blow up one of our air mattresses. Then three people can sleep on the air mattress and one person sleeps up on the two front seats. Dad slept up front the last time but didn't actually get much sleep because we had our cooler up there too. This time we shuffled things a bit more and had the cooler on a floor. No cooler up front. I slept up front and with all the clothes stuffed between the seats and only minimal fighting with the seat belts, I actually had a pretty great night's sleep. (I pride myself on being able to sleep anywhere. I can almost sleep standing up. It's a gift. I enjoy it.)
Anyways, we didn't wake up until almost 10 o'clock this morning. This is crazy because who knew when the sun came up. But we didn't go to sleep until around 3 am local time, which was still 2 am Alaska time, so... But we got up and got moving. We saw so much wildlife on our drive so far today. We saw a herd of bison with a bunch of babies within 15 minutes of being on the road. We saw a black bear soon after that. We saw a moose. We saw some mountain goats with a baby goat. We saw an elk and a porcupine. Dad saw another bear. We were half expecting to see porpoises jump out of the lakes and rivers!
We are now in Dawson Creek, British Columbia about to head into Alberta. Then we'll only be 2 hours off home time. One last bit of wildlife to tell you about here. The mosquitoes are ridiculous here. More ridiculous than anywhere else we've been this entire trip. They are monsters. They are bigger than any other mosquitoes we have seen this entire trip. There has been erratic driving to try to breeze them off so people can get in and out of the car. They just flocked to the car for a while. It was gross. I think we have pictures.
Sorry for another day with no pictures. The internet is not so great in this McDonald's parking lot. In fact, I think I'm going to have to fanagle with it to make it work just to get this up. We'll be in Calgary in a couple days, so hopefully I can do a couple picture posts by then.
So last night (Day 31.5, Monday, July 11, aka Free Slurpies Day at 7-11) we drove and drove and drove. We were going to stop at this place in northeast British Columbia called Watson Lake, but there was no rest area with restrooms. And by restrooms, I mean outhouses. We kept driving. And driving. And driving. We went through an area of about 200 kilometers (since we're in Canada after all) where there were no rest areas with potties. 200 kilometers! Eventually we found one, we all used the outhouse, and we set up the van for sleep time.
Oh, big news story of the trip. It kind of got dark! As in, our headlights were both necessary and useful! As in, the moon was big and bright. It must have been setting, but we kept going up and down in elevation, so it just clung to the mountainous horizon all bright and a week-from-being-full for what seemed like hours. It was beautiful. We saw the morning star. That was the unfortunate bit, I guess. We drove for so long that the morning star was coming up and I think the sun was about to come up too.
But we did eventually make it to the rest area. We tried this new thing the last time we slept in the car. We shuffled things around and laid down the middle seats in the van so we could unroll and blow up one of our air mattresses. Then three people can sleep on the air mattress and one person sleeps up on the two front seats. Dad slept up front the last time but didn't actually get much sleep because we had our cooler up there too. This time we shuffled things a bit more and had the cooler on a floor. No cooler up front. I slept up front and with all the clothes stuffed between the seats and only minimal fighting with the seat belts, I actually had a pretty great night's sleep. (I pride myself on being able to sleep anywhere. I can almost sleep standing up. It's a gift. I enjoy it.)
Anyways, we didn't wake up until almost 10 o'clock this morning. This is crazy because who knew when the sun came up. But we didn't go to sleep until around 3 am local time, which was still 2 am Alaska time, so... But we got up and got moving. We saw so much wildlife on our drive so far today. We saw a herd of bison with a bunch of babies within 15 minutes of being on the road. We saw a black bear soon after that. We saw a moose. We saw some mountain goats with a baby goat. We saw an elk and a porcupine. Dad saw another bear. We were half expecting to see porpoises jump out of the lakes and rivers!
We are now in Dawson Creek, British Columbia about to head into Alberta. Then we'll only be 2 hours off home time. One last bit of wildlife to tell you about here. The mosquitoes are ridiculous here. More ridiculous than anywhere else we've been this entire trip. They are monsters. They are bigger than any other mosquitoes we have seen this entire trip. There has been erratic driving to try to breeze them off so people can get in and out of the car. They just flocked to the car for a while. It was gross. I think we have pictures.
Sorry for another day with no pictures. The internet is not so great in this McDonald's parking lot. In fact, I think I'm going to have to fanagle with it to make it work just to get this up. We'll be in Calgary in a couple days, so hopefully I can do a couple picture posts by then.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Stateside!
We are back in the Lower 48. We just got into Montana, but we're just trucking through. We had to drive through a ridiculously crazy storm. We couldn't see 5 feet in front of us. Literally. There was hail. The grass was flattened by the wind. Lightening shot down all over and lit up the sky. The only thing we didn't see, thankfully, was a tornado. Our adrenaline is pumping pretty good right now, so we are gonna keep heading south. Then east. Word updates of the last few days to come soon. And pictures too, I promise. Internet is...bad. Awful. Horrible. Terrible. No good. Did I say very bad? Anyways, now the internet should be better, and faster, so picture uploading will be better and faster.
Go, go, USA!
Monday, July 11, 2011
Day 31: Go East, Boggess Family, Go East
Today we said goodbye to Alaska for the last time. There are no bears in Hyder which means we are just heading straight east to Jasper and Banff in Alberta. It's something like 1400 miles. YIKES! We are in Whitehorse, Yukon right now. Our ship needed new sails...okay, our van needed new tires. We tried for a really long time to connect to internet at Starbucks, but it failed miserably. Now we're at the library (bibliotheque in French) where they have quite lovely internet, but you can only have it for an hour. It is not the speedy-est internet however...I was trying to upload pictures, but it took about 6 minutes to load one picture. I won't detail the math for uploading the number of pictures I wanted to get up. It will just have to wait until we get faster internet.
Until we hit internet again, adieu!
Until we hit internet again, adieu!
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Day 30: Railroad and Internet
And now finally, I am almost caught up. The date of this blog post is actually correct.
This morning was a bit of a whirlwind. There's this railroad that goes from Skagway up north. It does a few different tours. That is why we have come to Skagway. We got in too late last night to figure out when the tours would be going today though. Dad got up at 7:15 am to try to figure that out. The workers at the White Pass & Yukon Railroad ticketing office did not answer at 7:15, so Mom and Dad headed down to the actual train depot. They tried calling again on their way, someone picked up, and then Dad immediately got put on hold. He was on hold for quite a while. He walked into the depot on hold. He walked up to the office, and then hung up, and then he told the ticketing people he had been on hold. They were not doing anything. They were just sitting there. Mom and Dad did eventually figure out that there was only one train going out today. (There was only one cruise ship in today, and they hold very tightly to cruise ship scheduling. Nothing and no one else really matters.) That train was going out at 8:15 am. I don't know what time my parents got to the place and were finally talking to people, but I do know that the ticketing people said not to buy tickets unless everyone was there (Ashley and I were still asleep in the hotel), and I do know that Dad ran back to the hotel to get us up. He got back to the hotel at 8, Ashley and I brushed our teeth and put on respectable clothes, Mom grabbed mobile breakfast from our van, and we all ran back down to the depot. We made it. Even if the ticketing people were extra slow giving us our tickets. Ashley and I even got to grab some of their "gourmet" coffee. It was above average coffee. I don't know about "gourmet" though.
The train is definitely a touristy thing with cruise ship people being the ones the tours are catered to. However, it was well worth it, and it was way better than the Riverboat Discovery thing we went on in Fairbanks. They narrated up and back the 3 hour, 20 mile trip. We went up north to just past the US-Canada border, to White Summit, the place no one wanted to build customs/borders stuff. We saw a rather young (but not baby) black bear on the side of the tracks. It wasn't scared of the train at all. Hopefully it stays off the tracks. On the way back, we picked up some employees of the WP & YR. Three girls had been out in the wild the day before, last night, and today. We also picked up two other people who were up on the mountain side. There is a caboose that the National Parks Service has turned into a little lodge thing. People can stay up there and hike around and stuff. Pretty neat. We also saw some cool views of Skagway, the Chilkoot Mountains, Skagway River and it's Class 6, non-navigable rapids, and an old cemetery. It was pretty and relaxing and worth only having 7 minutes to get ready.
When we got back, we walked around the town a bit, trying to track down sourdough pancakes Mom wants to try and some silt for Ashley to take back. We failed at both endeavors and went to the grocery store to get the rest of the stuff we needed for lunch.
We ate lunch and now I am at Skagway Public Library. Connection to the outside world: YAAAAAYYYYY!!!! Hahaha. Anyways, I am trying to get caught up with the blogging. Words are almost done now...pictures...not so much. The library is only open for another hour, so I don't know how much more I'll get done, or how much longer I can sit here.
Here is the basic outline of the rest of our trip. First we are checking out if Hyder, AK has started their salmon run yet. All the salmon up here have been running about 2 weeks late which means we've seen all of one salmon so far. We would really like to see some bears munching on salmon (as disgusting as that would be). So, if they are running, and if there are bears, we are going to head south to Hyder. If there are not salmon or bears, we are going to head east.
East would be Canada. Canada would mean we cannot use our phones or we will have a ridiculously high phone bill when we get home. Hopefully there will be some internet access, so...email us if there is something urgent. Otherwise...we are meandering home. We are planning to stop in Jasper and Banff. They have a National Park there that is the prized Park of their system, much like Yellowstone is the prized Park of our system. Hopefully we won't be camping in 3 feet of snow, but it would be symmetrical... We don't know what else we're doing in Canada. I want to find a couple Starbucks to keep adding to my mug collection. Eventually we will make it to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Then we will be back in touch. Or...we will be able to be in touch, if we so chose. :)
This morning was a bit of a whirlwind. There's this railroad that goes from Skagway up north. It does a few different tours. That is why we have come to Skagway. We got in too late last night to figure out when the tours would be going today though. Dad got up at 7:15 am to try to figure that out. The workers at the White Pass & Yukon Railroad ticketing office did not answer at 7:15, so Mom and Dad headed down to the actual train depot. They tried calling again on their way, someone picked up, and then Dad immediately got put on hold. He was on hold for quite a while. He walked into the depot on hold. He walked up to the office, and then hung up, and then he told the ticketing people he had been on hold. They were not doing anything. They were just sitting there. Mom and Dad did eventually figure out that there was only one train going out today. (There was only one cruise ship in today, and they hold very tightly to cruise ship scheduling. Nothing and no one else really matters.) That train was going out at 8:15 am. I don't know what time my parents got to the place and were finally talking to people, but I do know that the ticketing people said not to buy tickets unless everyone was there (Ashley and I were still asleep in the hotel), and I do know that Dad ran back to the hotel to get us up. He got back to the hotel at 8, Ashley and I brushed our teeth and put on respectable clothes, Mom grabbed mobile breakfast from our van, and we all ran back down to the depot. We made it. Even if the ticketing people were extra slow giving us our tickets. Ashley and I even got to grab some of their "gourmet" coffee. It was above average coffee. I don't know about "gourmet" though.
The train is definitely a touristy thing with cruise ship people being the ones the tours are catered to. However, it was well worth it, and it was way better than the Riverboat Discovery thing we went on in Fairbanks. They narrated up and back the 3 hour, 20 mile trip. We went up north to just past the US-Canada border, to White Summit, the place no one wanted to build customs/borders stuff. We saw a rather young (but not baby) black bear on the side of the tracks. It wasn't scared of the train at all. Hopefully it stays off the tracks. On the way back, we picked up some employees of the WP & YR. Three girls had been out in the wild the day before, last night, and today. We also picked up two other people who were up on the mountain side. There is a caboose that the National Parks Service has turned into a little lodge thing. People can stay up there and hike around and stuff. Pretty neat. We also saw some cool views of Skagway, the Chilkoot Mountains, Skagway River and it's Class 6, non-navigable rapids, and an old cemetery. It was pretty and relaxing and worth only having 7 minutes to get ready.
When we got back, we walked around the town a bit, trying to track down sourdough pancakes Mom wants to try and some silt for Ashley to take back. We failed at both endeavors and went to the grocery store to get the rest of the stuff we needed for lunch.
We ate lunch and now I am at Skagway Public Library. Connection to the outside world: YAAAAAYYYYY!!!! Hahaha. Anyways, I am trying to get caught up with the blogging. Words are almost done now...pictures...not so much. The library is only open for another hour, so I don't know how much more I'll get done, or how much longer I can sit here.
Here is the basic outline of the rest of our trip. First we are checking out if Hyder, AK has started their salmon run yet. All the salmon up here have been running about 2 weeks late which means we've seen all of one salmon so far. We would really like to see some bears munching on salmon (as disgusting as that would be). So, if they are running, and if there are bears, we are going to head south to Hyder. If there are not salmon or bears, we are going to head east.
East would be Canada. Canada would mean we cannot use our phones or we will have a ridiculously high phone bill when we get home. Hopefully there will be some internet access, so...email us if there is something urgent. Otherwise...we are meandering home. We are planning to stop in Jasper and Banff. They have a National Park there that is the prized Park of their system, much like Yellowstone is the prized Park of our system. Hopefully we won't be camping in 3 feet of snow, but it would be symmetrical... We don't know what else we're doing in Canada. I want to find a couple Starbucks to keep adding to my mug collection. Eventually we will make it to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Then we will be back in touch. Or...we will be able to be in touch, if we so chose. :)
Days 27, 28, and 29: A Heck of a Lot of Driving (Because We're Headed EAST!)
AKA Thursday, Friday, and Saturday: July 7-9, 2011
Day 27 (Thursday)
We got up, packed up, showered, and used the internet for the last time in 4 days.
Then we went out to try to see Denali one more time, and guess what?! We saw it again! 3 days in a rooooowwww! Woohoo! There's gotta be some smaller percentage of people that we can be grouped in now that we've seen the mountain 3 days in a row, but I don't know what that statistic would be. It was gorgeous though. No clouds.
Then we left. Headed south for a bit, then turned east. We took their Highway 8, called Denali Highway. "Highway" is a stretch beyond anyone's imagination. The "speed limit" was 50 mph. But that too was...someone silly just plastering numbers to signs without thinking. I think we went 25 mph, tops, the whole way across. It was something over 100 miles. I have never been so glad to actually go 50 mph before. It took so, so, so very, very long to get through there. But we made it. We saw a beaver, a bald eagle get attacked by gulls, and a couple moose or caribou.
Finally we got to Delta Junction where of friend of mine and Ashley's lives. We got to see Melinda Hamerly! She made us very yummy lasagna, let us sleep on her couches and spare bed, let us shower in her nice shower, and even made us coffee and french toast for breakfast! We felt very loved indeed.
Day 28 (Friday)
Following the non-burnt coffee and french bread french toast, Melinda showed Ashley and me some of her favorite spots near where she lives. She showed us Blue Creek which is nice and clear, but then it runs into the Tanana River which is not clear at all, and you can see the distinct boundary where they meet. That was cool. Then we tried to get to the Delta River several times. The first two times though, the channels had changed so much that we couldn't walk along the river. (Some of the rivers in Alaska have beds the size of...oh we'll just say the Potomac River...but they do not fill up all the way across. In fact, they sometime have 4 or 5 or 10 different channels all across the river bed, and they can change their routes quite drastically.) In fact, one place had swept away the poles and net of a volleyball court Melinda and some her friends had set up. The river bed, when clear of water, can be a pretty good place to play volleyball actually. There's a lot of silt that comes down the Delta because it's a glacier-fed river. So, if there aren't tons of rocks on the silt--which there can be, silt is about like sand. It's more glittery, and it sticks to you worse than sand, but it's still pretty soft. But, the volleyball place was underwater, so we went to try to walk along the Delta somewhere else. Finally we found a spot. It was also a great place to rock hunt. This is exactly like hunting for shells, just rocks instead. We picked up quite a few rocks to bring back. Then we went to have lunch at The Wok. Finally, we had to say good bye to Melinda and continue on our journey. But not before we said hello to two huge mosquitoes outside the Visitor's Center in town. They are (fake) MASSIVE; they are bigger than Ashley and me!
Day 28 continued and Day 29 (Saturday)
We drove and drove and drove and drove some more. In fact, the next two days were just that. We drove on Friday up to the border of Alaska and the Yukon Territory of Canada. The Customs Office wasn't open at 10 pm unfortunately, so we had to stop for the night. There were no hotels or campgrounds, so we tried to do something a little bit different in the car. We shuffled stuff around and blew up the air mattress in the back. It was quite comfortable for Mom, Ashley, and me. Dad stayed up in the front seats...not comfortable...not a lot of sleep. Someone else will be sleeping up there next time because the driver needs sleep.
At 8 the next morning, we went through customs. It was normal except they ASKED us if we wanted our PASSPORTS stamped. We said, Why yes, please, we would like that very much. And so they did! It had the normal Canada place stamp, and then a stamp of a miner panning for gold! So cool!
Then we kept driving. And driving. And driving. We drove south through Yukon. It was very boring. The road was boring. We saw no animals. I slept a lot. Ashley drove some. Eventually we got into British Columbia and the scenery got a little more interesting. There were a couple huge lakes which were very green. There was a desert (a whole bunch of SAND in the middle of nowhere, but no cacti) near Carcross. (I think the name "Carcross" comes from caribou crossing a lot in that area. However, when we say the name, we say the "Car-" part like we would say "car" as in the moving vehicle, not like we would say the beginning of "caribou".) Then there was some weird land getting closer to Alaska again that reminded us a lot of the tidal pools and coasts of Maine. It was weird. But weird is better than boring.
We got back through US customs no problem at 9 pm or so. This border crossing is open all day and all night all summer long. It was a little weird because there was the Canadian customs, then there were 27 kilometers of Canada still, and then there was the US customs. There's this mountain in the middle which doesn't have much room for border protection housing and customs offices, especially not for two countries, so they both do it back into the two countries. So there's kind of this no-man's-land in the middle. We got into Skagway, found a place to stay, and I passed the heck out. Yes, I was working on a 12-hour sleep day. I don't know if I made it, but I was trying. Hahahaha.
Day 27 (Thursday)
We got up, packed up, showered, and used the internet for the last time in 4 days.
Then we went out to try to see Denali one more time, and guess what?! We saw it again! 3 days in a rooooowwww! Woohoo! There's gotta be some smaller percentage of people that we can be grouped in now that we've seen the mountain 3 days in a row, but I don't know what that statistic would be. It was gorgeous though. No clouds.
Then we left. Headed south for a bit, then turned east. We took their Highway 8, called Denali Highway. "Highway" is a stretch beyond anyone's imagination. The "speed limit" was 50 mph. But that too was...someone silly just plastering numbers to signs without thinking. I think we went 25 mph, tops, the whole way across. It was something over 100 miles. I have never been so glad to actually go 50 mph before. It took so, so, so very, very long to get through there. But we made it. We saw a beaver, a bald eagle get attacked by gulls, and a couple moose or caribou.
Finally we got to Delta Junction where of friend of mine and Ashley's lives. We got to see Melinda Hamerly! She made us very yummy lasagna, let us sleep on her couches and spare bed, let us shower in her nice shower, and even made us coffee and french toast for breakfast! We felt very loved indeed.
Day 28 (Friday)
Following the non-burnt coffee and french bread french toast, Melinda showed Ashley and me some of her favorite spots near where she lives. She showed us Blue Creek which is nice and clear, but then it runs into the Tanana River which is not clear at all, and you can see the distinct boundary where they meet. That was cool. Then we tried to get to the Delta River several times. The first two times though, the channels had changed so much that we couldn't walk along the river. (Some of the rivers in Alaska have beds the size of...oh we'll just say the Potomac River...but they do not fill up all the way across. In fact, they sometime have 4 or 5 or 10 different channels all across the river bed, and they can change their routes quite drastically.) In fact, one place had swept away the poles and net of a volleyball court Melinda and some her friends had set up. The river bed, when clear of water, can be a pretty good place to play volleyball actually. There's a lot of silt that comes down the Delta because it's a glacier-fed river. So, if there aren't tons of rocks on the silt--which there can be, silt is about like sand. It's more glittery, and it sticks to you worse than sand, but it's still pretty soft. But, the volleyball place was underwater, so we went to try to walk along the Delta somewhere else. Finally we found a spot. It was also a great place to rock hunt. This is exactly like hunting for shells, just rocks instead. We picked up quite a few rocks to bring back. Then we went to have lunch at The Wok. Finally, we had to say good bye to Melinda and continue on our journey. But not before we said hello to two huge mosquitoes outside the Visitor's Center in town. They are (fake) MASSIVE; they are bigger than Ashley and me!
Day 28 continued and Day 29 (Saturday)
We drove and drove and drove and drove some more. In fact, the next two days were just that. We drove on Friday up to the border of Alaska and the Yukon Territory of Canada. The Customs Office wasn't open at 10 pm unfortunately, so we had to stop for the night. There were no hotels or campgrounds, so we tried to do something a little bit different in the car. We shuffled stuff around and blew up the air mattress in the back. It was quite comfortable for Mom, Ashley, and me. Dad stayed up in the front seats...not comfortable...not a lot of sleep. Someone else will be sleeping up there next time because the driver needs sleep.
At 8 the next morning, we went through customs. It was normal except they ASKED us if we wanted our PASSPORTS stamped. We said, Why yes, please, we would like that very much. And so they did! It had the normal Canada place stamp, and then a stamp of a miner panning for gold! So cool!
Then we kept driving. And driving. And driving. We drove south through Yukon. It was very boring. The road was boring. We saw no animals. I slept a lot. Ashley drove some. Eventually we got into British Columbia and the scenery got a little more interesting. There were a couple huge lakes which were very green. There was a desert (a whole bunch of SAND in the middle of nowhere, but no cacti) near Carcross. (I think the name "Carcross" comes from caribou crossing a lot in that area. However, when we say the name, we say the "Car-" part like we would say "car" as in the moving vehicle, not like we would say the beginning of "caribou".) Then there was some weird land getting closer to Alaska again that reminded us a lot of the tidal pools and coasts of Maine. It was weird. But weird is better than boring.
We got back through US customs no problem at 9 pm or so. This border crossing is open all day and all night all summer long. It was a little weird because there was the Canadian customs, then there were 27 kilometers of Canada still, and then there was the US customs. There's this mountain in the middle which doesn't have much room for border protection housing and customs offices, especially not for two countries, so they both do it back into the two countries. So there's kind of this no-man's-land in the middle. We got into Skagway, found a place to stay, and I passed the heck out. Yes, I was working on a 12-hour sleep day. I don't know if I made it, but I was trying. Hahahaha.
Day 26: Into the Wilderness
AKA Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Today we went into the park. To do this, we had to take a bus. In Denali, there are basically two types of busses: the green busses and the tan busses. The tan busses are some “Nature Wilderness Tour”. They have tour guides on the bus. The green busses just have bus drivers who narrate as much as they feel like narrating. For the green busses, narration is optional. These bus drivers know their stuff though. Many of them have been driving a bus for around 30 seasons. They do this because they like to, because they want to.
Our bus driver was no exception. I brought a book with me, just in case, and Dale saw it as I was boarding the bus. He immediately poked fun at me, asking me why I brought that. Dale is a very interesting character. He is a contract computer programmer who left Wisconsin about 18 years ago because he came to Alaska and saw Denali and wanted to be here. He left Wisconsin with his truck and his golden retriever, and he moved to Alaska. He programs in Anchorage from September to May. From May to September, he drives a bus for Denali National Park. He has a cabin over the ridge from the park, where he doesn’t have curtains or blinds. He says he catches up on his sleep during the winter. He comes up to his cabin one weekend a month while he lives in Anchorage.
Dale at first struck me as kind of a House character. (The main guy from the TV show House.) He makes wise-crack jokes, he can be kind of cynical and rude, but, like House, that’s just his shell and his shell is not as think as House’s. Dale is deeply in love with Denali and the surrounding wilderness. That emanated out of him with every word he spoke.
And Dale talked a lot. He talked a most the entire 6-hour trip out to our last stop, Wonder Lake which was about 25 miles from the base of Denali. He was excited to see the mountain, finally, because he hadn’t seen it in about a month. We timed our trip in perfectly. It had been rainy and 45 degrees the last month. Summer came with us. He knows just about everything there is to know about the road and it’s different sections, the Park and the different sections we went through, the rivers we crossed over, all the animals we saw. There were some loud people in our bus, which made it hard to hear Dale on occasion, and sometimes he would ask them to tone it down. You could hear the irritation in his voice. But really, he just wanted everyone to be able to have a good experience with the land and wildlife he was showing us. And he did an excellent job. Bringing my book was pointless. We saw moose, caribou, some spots which were bears, some other spots which were Dall sheep (the reason why the park was created), a few golden eagles, and a pair of ptarmigan (the state bird) with chicks. While that seems like a lot, we’ve seen more wildlife in closer proximity before, but it was still a good time. Oh, and we saw Denali again and again. Making it two days in a row of seeing it. When we got to Wonder Lake, Denali was hiding behind some clouds, but we did see it closer a few times on the way out.
On the way back, Dale rarely talked. That was kind of his “deal”. He talks on the way out, he shuts up on the way back. He did still point stuff out, but for the most part, he just let us take in the beauty. I kind of wish he had kept talking because I think it would have kept me awake long. I did fall asleep for quite a bit on the way back. It was kind of bumpy, and the sun was shining on me, and then there were the hairpin turns with cliffs four feet to my right that I just really didn’t want to see. I did enjoy the beauty. And despite Dale’s front of a rough exterior, I really appreciate his respect and awe for a wilderness that he’s been in and through for 18 seasons. He drives those busses because he wants to. He doesn’t have to. He could hide behind his computer screen in Anchorage. Or, since he’s capable of taking off 4 months of the year to drive a bus, he could probably not drive a bus, but still stay in his cabin during the summer and be just fine. Instead he chooses to get up early for 9:15 busses, drive these busses full of loud people talking over him, and imparting his wisdom and respect to those loud people. And by the end of the day, they’re full of respect too. Or maybe their just tired and asleep. I know I was full of respect.
Ashley and I caught up internet stuff. I tried to get the blog I wrote off my phone and onto the computer, but that failed, so I didn’t deal with it til today.
Then we went to go look at Denali again. It was only 10:45 at night…the sun was still up. We got out there, and there she was, no clouds. Twice in one day. Spectacular.
It is a bit of a drive, even though it’s technically only 11 miles to where you can see the mountain. But the speed limits are low because there is wildlife and the roads are curvy and stuff, so it took a while. We changed the words to some Christmas carols on the way back. You’ll hear one someday probably. There were lots of giggles from that. They carried to the tent. Eventually we all got all of our hyperactivity out and fell asleep.
Day 25: Christmas?
AKA Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Okay, so...I don't know what happened with this. I typed this all up on my phone five nights ago. It feels like forever ago, and it felt like it took forever to type up. Then the stupid email wouldn't send. Not enough service somehow for the app, even though it DID send--BLANK--from my email account online. Whatever. What follows is what I wrote two nights ago.
I must start here, hiding in my tent from mosquitoes the size of Texas, by saying that these mosquitoes FLOCK to smoke and fire. NOT a Christmas-while-on-vacation-in-Alaska present AT ALL.
Secondly, I must tell you about last night. We stayed in a hotel last night. We have stayed in several hotels on this trip, mostly to help our bodies forgive ourselves from forcing them to sleep in our van. They've been all sorts of hotels--from nice ones who have breakfast ready to ones you can make coffee in your room to the ones with noisy air conditioners to ones where there are people screaming murder in the parking lot. As different as they all have been, they all have, at the very least, made some stab at getting the room dark in this land of the midnight sun.
Not so with The Golden Nugget Hotel. Not even close.
Everything else was great: two beds, running water, cable that showed NCIS and DC fireworks, fast internet. I mean, they'd really thought of everything...except that one whole side of rooms faced directly WEST. Where is the sun at 10 and 11 pm, 12, 1, and maybe 2 am in Fairbanks, AK? Setting in the WEST with all the glories of a 6 pm, rush-hour sunset. In other words, blinding.
Didn't the room have shades or curtains? you ask. Why yes, yes they did. I believe they were a pale yellow. Fail.
But do we, the Boggess family of smart people, just lie there and do nothing? No! We use our brains instead of letting them get fried by the light. We have these aluminum emergency blankets we got in Wyoming to survive the winter that was Yellowstone, and we put them over the drapes. We had to use some ingenuity to keep them up and from floating out from the window because then the daylight flooded back in. This was a problem because we had to use a box fan because it was too warm in the room and there was no air conditioning and we couldn't open the windows because the screens were too holey. (Yes, I had to catch my breath after that sentence too.)
So we used some of this little rope we use to keep the tarp over our tent us and tight and what not. Then we clip it to the drapes with one of the...like...rope-synching things. I don't know what they're called. I'm a bad camper. We didn't have enough free clippy thingies, so Mom tied a stake to the end of the last rope and just let it hang. It was a ridiculous scene. It was a hilarious scene. Yes, I have pictures.
I did work, mostly. While you'd think these blankets were totally solid, capable of totally blocking all light from passing through them when looking at them under normal circumstances, when hung up on drapes with Arctic "sunset" light streaming in, they are neither of these things. Alright, fine. True, they are solid in their physicality (vs. being liquid or gas or plasma). But they did not completely reflect all light that hit them. I could still make out the pattern of the drapes through them. And while I've been imagining myself to be sleeping on top of thin tin foil every time we have camped since getting them--it crinkles and folds weird, okay?--this has clearly not been the case. Nevertheless, it did make things much more gloomy but not dark by the stretch of anyone's imagination. And after watching "A Capitol Fourth" on PBS and seeing that it does get DARK in other places, and it doesn't take all night to get that way...well...let's just say there are things to be thankful for about home that I didn't even know I needed to be thankful for.
I'm pretty sure I've just taken a bunch of naps this entire trip. It's tiring to say the least. But all of that last night. And despite this crazy attempt at "dark" and a dreadful longing for true dark, we did sleep, and it became today, and overall, it's been a relatively good day. There have been worse, and it started off sunny: Alaska, Day 25, Christmas-on-vaca present #1.
We got up, packed everything up--including our handy-dandy aluminum blankets--took a picture of the bottle-opener screwed into the wall and so labeled, and went to find us some musk ox.
Now, I've gotta admit. I hadn't seen any flattering pictures of these creatures. With a name like "musk ox", how cute can they really be? But Ashley has been all hyper about them, wanting to see puffins and musk ox to fulfill her Alaskan vacation dream. Puffins I understood; not so much understanding with the musk ox. Until we got to the "Large Animal Research Station" of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
*Voice two octaves higher* Oh my goodness! Look at them! They're so CUTE. And the BABIES, just LOOK at them. *ahem*
Needless to say, I was won over. The males are aggressive with very small brains to allow for a very, very solid skull, aka a helmet, because they try to bash each others' brains even smaller about every 5 minutes. We had a very nice tour guide named Emma who showed us around the station some and told us many great things about the musk ox and caribou they have at the station. The first thing Emma pointed out was the fact that there were 3 fences between us and the male musk ox. There was a cable fence on the very inside. Then there was a diamond-shaped mesh fence--a normal fence basically. Then there was a flimsy little rope fence we all stayed on the right side of. This was for our best interest, Emma politely told us, because the ox were known to charge, and when they charged the fence, they could bend the cable and push so far through to bow out the mesh normal fence. We stayed on the right side of the rope fence.
There was Bob, the dominant male. Then there were a few others. Then, at the bottom of the totem pole, was Clyde. Clyde was at the bottom because part of one of his horns was broken. They never grow back. Sad for Clyde.
Then we went and saw the female musk ox and the babies! They were so, so, so cute! We learned that most of the babies were name after fruit. Oh, and my favorite part, Emma said that we may wonder why there are no other large animals there besides the musk ox and caribou and reindeer (which were in the back of the land, so we never saw them). Like bears or moose or wolves. Well, they had moose once, but--even with fences doubled in height (we later guessed about 15 or 16 feet tall)00the moose would jump and some student worker would have to track it down. What? A moose--you know, this HUGE, gangly, awkward-looking things--the ones with big antlers during the summer--moose can jump over 16 feet high? Nope, apparently not because they don't have moose any more. And, as for the bears and other things that eat things like musk ox and caribou, Emma said, with them being predators of musk ox and all, well...that "just wouldn't be polite".
We learned a bunch of other stuff about musk ox and caribou. Musk ox had gone completely extinct in Alaska, sometime in the early 1800s. To re-establish a population, 34 baby musk ox were shipped all the way to Fairbanks from Greenland. They all made it to Fairbanks. Unfortunately, 2 got eaten by a black bear shortly after their arrival...oops. But, on the bright side, Alaska's entire musk ox population came into being from only those 32 babies. Their numbers are up over 100,000 today.
Like I said, there were caribou at the station too. One was a calf, called Rosie, whose mommy was called Hermione. Rosie was about 5 1/2 weeks old (the musk ox babies were about 6 1/2 weeks). Now, I'm still kind of confused about the whole reindeer vs. caribou thing. If I correctly understood what Emma said this morning, then caribou are the North American species, and reindeer are the European species. There are both caribou and reindeer in Alaska (so it's not confusing at all). In Europe, there are some compltely wild reindeer, but they are very few. Most are domesticated. All reindeer in Alaska are domesticated. Reindeer are shorter, fatter, and have more elaborate antlers than caribou.
There was a bunch more we learned, but my thumbs are getting tired (I'm on my phone tonight), and this was only the morning. The station was definitely present #2, way better and way less touristy than the riverboat thing we did yesterday.
We drove down to Denali National Park. We sorted our our bus tour for tomorrow and our camping arrangements. Neither turned out remarkably. Our first campsite would have required us to offload everything from our van, walk our stuff to the site, park our van somewhere else, and take a shuttle or walk back to the site. We tried for something else much more simple, especially since the bear box on our site was almost full and we couldn't leave any food in the car...even though...where is our food right now, at this drive-up site? In our car...whatever. The change of campsite, and full refund for the first one, was Christmas present #3.
As for the bus, we thought we wanted to take it all the way to the end of the road. The lady "helping" us didn't think we wanted to go there. It's "only" a place to drop off backpacks. Yeah well...actually...it is a) the end of the road (and you can't drive past mile 13 or 14 with your own car) and b) there is a stamp at the end of the road.
I don't think I've mentioned anything about stamps...well maybe I did back at Yellowstone because there were eleventy billion of them. Anyways, brief version, the National Parks Service has these "passports" which you get "cancelled" with stamps at every park or forest or monument or landmark within their system that you stop at. It can get a little obsessive. We will probably all wish we coulda gotten that stamp at the end of the road, but...to balance everything, on Thursday we're gonna go over 100 miles out of our "way" to get another Denali-related stamp. Tho, 100 miles, in the grand scheme of things, is not an issue. And we get to go wherever we feel like it.
We got set for tomorrow. We finally at lunch, supper, something. We ate. We tried to get a couple of the stamps that are at the various centers around here (there are four, I think, and one to get along the way tomorrow). Then we drove out as far as we could legally drive on the Park's one road.
Along the way, we stopped at a pull out because we could actually see Denali. We saw it, first day in. It is the tallest peak in North America. Only 30% of people who come to see this mountain actually do. So I've heard anyways...you never can be too sure about those statistics you hear. It isn't all that surprising if it is true though. The weather can be rotten, even in the summer. Then there's winter itself to deal with...and even if it's one of those perfect sunny days, like today, low 70s and cute puffy white clouds, those cute clouds aren't so cute anymore when their puff is obscuring the view. They were trying to be obstructionists today, but Denali managed to tower over them for us. It is still snow-covered. I think it stays like that. This does not help anyone see it because then the mountain is white, there are white clouds puffing around, and the sky is shading from blue to very, very, very light blue (aka white), and with the shadows dancing everywhere...well...you kind of have to play that trick with your eyes when you're trying to find those 3D images inside those weird pictures. Kinda go cross-eyed. but we saw it. From far away, and we are really hoping to see it up close and personal in all its awesomeness tomorrow, but... Christmas present #4: we saw Denali. (We will not be attempting to climb it tomorrow or any other day.)
That was pretty much our day. We came back to camp to build a fire, roast marshmellows, and pop popcorn. we discovered that mosquitoes are attracted to smoke, or they have evolved and now know that fire=blood. There will be no fire tomorrow.
Mom and Dad saw a mommy moose and a baby moose trying to cross the street on their walk. Then they saw a mommy moose and a baby moose laying down. Brave and stupid souls that they are walked right by them, well under the 75-foot recommended steer-clear distance. Christmas present #5.
And now I'm going to be done because my battery is dying and my hand is falling asleep.
Oh, oh, oh! I forgot! We will call this Christmas present #6. Casey Anthony's trial came to a close today which means we might actually get real news on TV now, and Orlando can maybe recover from what has been a 3-year-long circus. I'm not interested in a debate of the verdict, just for the record. I know nothing really about the case or the evidence. I am merely glad that, from now on, whenever I go into a restaurant or a hotel breakfast room playing CNN on the TV, I won't have to hear an hour-long recap of the day's trial events or how there are "lucky" people being allowed into the courtroom to gawk at Ms. Anthony as her verdict is handed down.
Adios y buenos noches.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Picture Update: Only 91 More This Time
 |
| Heading out of Valdez. It looks like Mordor being re-created... |
 |
| We're getting closer to Wasilla! We're actually on our way to Anchorage first. |
 |
| A loooong, inland glacier. |
 |
| A four-lane highway?! Are you kidding me? Yes, after the hill, it went back to 2 lanes. |
 |
| Excellent museum. |
 |
| Ashley fake kissing a fake mammoth thing. |
 |
| Ashley said this looked like a naked mole rat. I don't think they're related... |
 |
| How did this museum manage to keep this specimen? |
 |
| I would not want to run into you... |
 |
| Eeep! |
 |
| Would not want to be nose-to-nose to you in real life either. |
 |
| Smithsonian? Hey, I know that name! |
 |
| Interesting art/mask thing. |
 |
| Only musk ox we've seen so far. |
 |
| Smiling stuffed bear...that's better. |
 |
| Someone actually wore these boots made of...bronze? I think. |
 |
| A piece of the Trans-Alaskan pipeline. |
 |
| Heat-sensor in the hands-on part of the museum. |
 |
| Bubbles! |
 |
| More bubbles! |
 |
| And more! |
 |
| And more! |
 |
| Ha. |
 |
| Mismatched socks! |
 |
| Anchorage from the base of Flattop. |
 |
| That's a pretty steep grade, no? |
 |
| Aaaaahhhh!!! I looked down! |
 |
| That's all we had left. It woulda been rough though. |
 |
| He looks like an unhappy ape. |
 |
| We climbed up most of that. It's a lot more scary in person. |
 |
| They have some really weird trees up here. |
 |
| Being silly and playing on the kids' toys as always--at the Alaska SeaLife Center. |
 |
| Mr. Grumpy Gills. |
 |
| More sea cucumbers to touch! |
 |
| If you stick your fingers between sea urchin quills, they give you a hug! :) |
 |
| We were...a foot away from this bird. We could have touched it. |
 |
| Weirdo... |
 |
| Tufted puffin. |
 |
| Incoming puffin alert! |
 |
| Awwwwwww. |
 |
| Sea lions have weird shoulder blades. |
 |
| Eating time! |
 |
| I'll make a splash, you give me a fish. |
 |
| No! No more clapping. I just want a fish! |
 |
| Oh, I missed. |
 |
| You cannot take pictures of jellyfish moving around in low light. So I played with the light of the jellies. |
 |
| Seward, AK is known for its murals. |
 |
| There were more than those murals. We just couldn't find them all. |
 |
| Oh look! Another glacier we get to walk to! |
 |
| Another heart...how adorable! |
 |
| On the way back to Anchorage from Seward. This was Beluga Point. There were no beluga whales to be seen unfortunately. |
 |
| Coming up to the ONLY (and I mean only) interchange in Alaska. |
 |
| Here we come! |
 |
| On top of the interchange bridge. |
 |
| Going to go under that bridge. |
 |
| And then two seconds (literally) later, it's back to a two-lane road. |
 |
| Peking Garden (restaurant), The Peak Inn (we stayed there), and Peak-A-Brew (a shed coffee place). Weird. |
 |
| Sketch. We know. |
 |
| We are in Wasilla! Is that the Russians? Where is Russia? |
 |
| Not over there either? Nope! |
 |
| Where is it? |
 |
| I don't know! |
 |
| Looking...looking... |
 |
| Still looking... |
 |
| Still looking... |
 |
| No. Russia cannot be seen from Wasilla. |
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)