Water in every form

Day Seven – Thursday, July 30th

We woke up to crisp blue skies and NO RAIN. (We had to wait to get to a resort for the rain to stop!) Today the agenda was to explore the Banff area. As AAA guide says, “the majestic beauty is inescapable”. And they weren’t kidding. Everywhere you look are glorious mountains, lovely lakes, wildflowers….wow! Banff National Park is the oldest in the Canadian National Park system.

Lake Louise is the real gem here and with its turquoise-colored water from the glacial slit….it is stunning. But, on the average summer day 10,000 tourists come to gaze at the water and get their pictures taken. We knew we didn’t want to just hang out with all of those folks. Our home base of Canmore is a little out of the real bustle of this crowded tourist area. The problem with these really gorgeous places is that other people seem to also want to go there! What to do? One of the tricks we have learned over the years is that you can visit even the busiest of National Parks and soon get away from the throngs just by hiking away from the blacktop parking lots. What a relief. National park parking jams are no fun, but the people who you meet out on the trail are definitely friendly and “our type of travelers.”

So, as soon as possible, we set off to go on a lovely trail, about 7 miles round trip around the Lake and up one of the mountainsides to reach: ta da: a teahouse. Yes, we hiked 3 and a half miles up hill (1500 feet gain in altitude) most of the way in order to have lunch at a Swiss chalet style teahouse built in 1927 for the comfort of the rich folks who came to view the park. (They mostly rode up to the teahouse on horseback…NOT hiking.) The day was a beautiful, not too hot, sunny and the walk was outstanding. Again, the people we have been meeting as so super. We met two rather interesting couples: one a couple in their mid-70’s from Calgary who have been hiking this trail for the past at least 35 years and did it again today. Although not backpackers, they had hiked throughout the Canadian Rockies and much on the American side, too. They talked of their efforts to get their kids as enthused about hiking as they have been, with mixed results. As it turns out, they vacation each summer in Carlsbad CA, the next town over from where we live. What a small world! We also met a couple of retired educators: the husband was a high school science teacher and the wife a school librarian. Their passion, along with hiking, is wildflowers. So we got quite a guided tour of some of the wonderful wildflowers along this hike. They knew many of the common ones off the top of their heads, but had along three different guidebooks for the trickier flowers, and had some spirited discussions about a number of the flowers. People are so generous, and how we did appreciate picking their brains on some we were not familiar with.

So you might be asking, did you really eat at a teahouse on the top of this mountain? Yes we did. And found out that the staff there has to hike in over 3 miles up the mountain for their 5-day shift, and then sleep in cabins near the teahouse. The non-perishables are brought in once a season by helicopter, while staff carries in the perishables on their shift changes. Great food including home-baked bread, homemade soup, and fresh apple pie. A hiker was sad that they had no ice water, but they have no electricity. The food tasted terrific! While we were up top, we had the chance to see several glaciers much closer than from down below and we also saw (and heard) 3 avalanches, or glaciers “calving” and falling hundreds of feet. Very cool and very dramatic. It took 3 and a half hours to hike up and one and a half to get down. Down was a lot easier!

Then as we were driving back to the resort, guess what? Rain again! It continued off and on all evening. Guess it was making sure we got our daily quotient of rain. After dinner, we settled in for a nap, a soak in the hot tub (oh, those achy muscles) and to watch a DVD on Alaska.

The hot tub gave a chance to talk with a young couple who had been rock climbing and the husband goes on regular trips to the Himalayas, as well as a more elderly gentleman who was visiting and bring around friends from Shanghai, offering them a glimpse of the majesty of the Canadian Rockies. Who knows WHO you’ll meet while soaking your achy muscles.


Day eight – Friday, July 31st

Another beautiful day in paradise. Okay, we woke us with clouds totally socked in. It reminded us of the marine layer at home. We couldn’t see the mountains outside our window even though the weather report there just aren’t words for how lovely the scenery is. One more night at our timeshare resort and then we are off to a string of nights camping.

One of the interesting things about this area is that the Trans-Canada Highway runs right through the national park, much of it a four-lane expressway. Convenient for travelers, but what about the animals? Well the smart people who run this place have taken care of that by building high fences along the highway, and then putting in underpasses (lots of these) and now also animal overpasses complete with tress and grass right over the highway. They have been monitoring them and found that the deer and elk used them first (being the early adaptors), with the moose and bears following behind later.) A creative way to allow animals access other areas of their home territories while still allowing traffic to go along.

So, what did we do when it was crazy foggy and cloudy? Drove to see what would be possible. It turned out that things cleared up enough late morning that we could go see another fabulously beautiful sight: Lake Moraine and the Valley of the Ten Peaks. This is a famous beautiful lake that at one point was on the back of the Canadian $20 bill. We decided that Lake Louise wasn’t turquoise, Lake MORAINE is truly turquoise, especially at this time of year, and it was almost electric in color. We climbed upon the rocks of the moraine, shot photos, oo-ed and ah-ed at the beauty. We watched a couple, despite all the warnings, feed a golden mantle ground squirrel, even to having it climb onto the guy’s shoulder in order to get fed. Not a good idea for the animal, plus, you sure could get bit! Yipes. Oh well.

We then drove over to Yoho National Park, right next door to Banff if you continue on the Trans Canada Highway. We went on the recommendation of a fellow guest last night to see a waterfall called the Takakkaw Waterfall. Both Takakkaw and Yoho are words from the Indian Cree language, with Yoho being an exclamation of amazement and Takakkaw would mean “It’s magmificient!” Both were great choices. The waterfall is fed by a glacier, so in the hot summer sun, water is roaring along! The closer you got, the louder the roar of the water. At over 800 feet in its primary fall, it is the tallest waterfall in Canada. It is so splendid to look at and the feeling of the spray on our faces on a warm afternoon was refressing.

On the way back to our timeshare, Patti suddenly got a glimpse alongside the road of a bear, she thought. “Stop now!,” she shouted and when we pulled off, there, behind the freeway fence was a yearling grizzly bear. We hopped out of the car, safely, because of the fence, and eventually so did nearly 75 other people. Patti it seems, caused a “bear jam” of some proportions. It was stunning to see a bear up so close, eating, drinking from the river and eventually taking a swim. Very, very cool!

Then back to do some last laundry, get the car ready and pull things together for our journey continues tomorrow. On to Jasper National Park.

So just how are we working out creating these blog entries? Inquiring minds want to know. Generally, Patti takes first stab at a rough draft, passes that along to Dick where he corrects things and fills in his recollections, then back to Patti for final editing and posting to the blog site. Then Dick goes through all of the photos for two days, pulls out the ones that fit with what we are saying, (out of several hundred each day!) He passes these to Patti who reduces the size and does some photo editing, then back to Dick to be uploaded. We pass the flash drive back and forth between laptops. Yes, it is a new century!

For those of you who want to follow our progress, here is the next chunk of traveling for the NEXT block of days:

Day 9: Travel to Jasper National Park
Day 10: Travel to Dawson Creek, BC (beginning of the Alaskan Highway)
Day 11: Travel on the Alaskan Highway to Fort Nelson BC
Day 12: Travel to Watson Lake, Yukon
Day 13: Travel to Whitehorse YT
Day 14: Travel to Haines Junction, YT
Day 15: Explore the edges of Kluane National Park, near Haines Junction, YT
Day 16: Travel to Fairbanks, Alaska
Day 17: Explore Fairbanks Alaska
Day 18: Travel to Healey, AK (outside Denali National Park)
Day 19: Explore Denali National Park
Day 20: Explore Denali National Park

Cultural Explorers

Day 5 – Tuesday, July 28th

Getting to Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta isn’t on the way to ANYWHERE. The guidebook said that anyone who goes there really has to WANT to go there. Waterton Lakes is part of the Waterton Lakes Glacier International Peace Park, and is directly above Glacier.

Rain, rain, rain. Patti loves rain, but we have had rain! We continue to keep our string alive of having at least some rain every day of the trip. That said, we have also had breaks in the weather that has allowed some amazing things to happen and sights to be seen. We have been glad to not be sleeping in a tent, but using our great mini-van set up. It is getting better every night.

We left Glacier National Park in the early morning and headed north to the sister park that adjoins Glacier. Once we got to Waterton, having crossed the Canadian border, and being told by the Border guard that we had been in Canada for ten seconds and had already broken the law three times by rolling through three stop signs 10 feet apart to stop at the border crossing station…we think this is his deal that he must say all day long! Whoops. Anyway, we showed our passports and were “in”. Waterton Lakes is a charming little town, with one of the old classic lodges, The Prince of Wales Hotel, built by the railroads. This one was built during the US’s prohibition. Canada was a place you could still drink, so the Great Northern Railroad would bring people in to Glacier, and then bus them up into Canada for a party. Who knew!?

We got a campsite, this time in a beautiful valley, set up and then, surprise, it started to rain! We drove into town to look at the hotel and to stop at the Visitor’s Center. But, as we were driving the winding road back to town we saw several cars pulled to the side of the road. We stopped and asked what they were seeing. “Grizzly Bear,” was the answer. We quickly parked, too, and got out the field glasses. It turned out the bear was behind a tree about 150 yards away. We were just beginning to doubt there really was a bear when it came out from behind the tree and rambled along the hillside. We had seen many black bears in the wild, but never a grizzly. We watched it for a while until it disappeared into a growth of bushes.

So, we were back on the plan to go into town. There we explored the grounds and lobby of the Prince of Wales. What a tribute to the engineering and artistic abilities of 80 years ago. Then it was on to the visitor’s center where we met another of our interesting people, a park interpreter named Pam. Pam is from Vancouver Island and has been working at a number of parks throughout the past several years. She was fun and charming, offered us great advice on what to do in the area, and then offered us the chance to take a computerized quiz to find out what type of “explorers” were we. We both dove in taking the quiz and found to our relief, but NOT amazement, that we were both what is termed “Cultural Explorers” The summary is this “In the world of explorers, you are a Cultural Explorer. You seek constant opportunities to embrace, discover, and immerse yourself in the entire experience of the culture, people and settings you visit. Not content to just visit historic sites and watch from the sidelines, you want to participate in the modern-day cultural festivals, or go off the beaten track to discover how people truly live.” As a couple of old history majors, we had to just laugh and smile at the apt description…. and it was fun to have acknowledged that our style was really that of digging in and learning as we travel.

For those of you who are feeling REALLY glad that you are not on this 9,000 mile drive, but are curious about you or other’s vacationing style, here you go: Want to find out your own exploration style? You can take the quiz at: www.canada.travel/eq

Following Pam’s advice, we went exploring on one of the few roads in the park, following it to its end at the lovely Cameron Lake. We discovered the lake straddled the border with the U.S., the far end of the lake was in the States. Dick was ready for a hike and Patti was ready for a break. Under threatening skies and a little drizzle, Dick headed off along the lake shore. The crowd of people at the parking lot soon thinned to only a handful of people really enjoying the peace and beauty of the place. As expected, there were great views and many wild flowers. The trail ended at the edge of a bog that was a protected area for the grizzly bears. Dick returned to the car to find that Patti had found some hot chocolate and a good murder mystery book to read. She was snoozing peacefully when Dick returned. The real rain had held off while Dick walked but now began to fall. The idea of cooking dinner in such conditions did not appeal to either of us (not in our explorer style for the day) so we had a good meal in town. The rain continued for much of the night.

We returned to the campground in time for the evening educational program done by our own Pam. It was called, “Oh Give me a Home” about ungulates (hoofed animals who chew their cuds like deer, big horned sheet, and elk). Pam was a great storyteller, a highly knowledgeable educator, and it turns out, a pretty darn good rapper ending the program with a highly energetic “rap” about her inner mule deer. You really DID have to be there, but trust us, it was fun.

Day 6 – Wednesday, July 29th

We were awake bright and early, watching the clouds build in the sky. This was the first morning where it was, as Patti termed it, REALLY cold. When she got up shivering, she put on a shirt, another shirt, a polar-tec jacket, a windbreaker, and then a winter parka, hat and gloves. No one else was dressed like this, but she was cold. We decided that a quick pack up, plus a hike along the Red Rock Canyon trail gave us a good start to our day. We had the trail along the canyon to ourselves. It was a little gem, a 30-100 foot canyon carved into red slate. The white glacial melt water rushing through the canyon was in such contrast to the deep red in the rock. The wet night had left the wild flowers covered with moisture, such that they looked like they were covered with ice. Such an interesting effect.

Before we left the national park we stopped at the Buffalo Paddock, a several hundred acre enclosure with a herd of buffalo (Bison). We drove for a while through the rolling hills before we found the herd. It was fun to watch them in such a relaxed setting. Several calves were running around playing until one got hungry. Luckily mom was nearby.

As we left the park we had clearly left the mountains and driven out onto the Great Plains. We could have been in Kansas or Nebraska with the rolling hills and green grass. In Canada the Great Plains spread much further west than they do in the States.

We were headed north toward Canmore, Alberta, just into the Canadian Rockies and just outside of Banff National Park. But, why not get in a culture experience or two on the way? About an hour north of Waterton Lakes, we went to our first site, Fort McLeod, the Museum of the Northwest Mounted Police, the origin of the Mounties of today’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We arrived just in time for the formal presentation of the troops and then “The Musical Ride’ where 7 college students dressed as traditional Mounties of the 1880’s rode horses and did stunt riding in time to music. This was great fun, and Dick had the chance to speak with Tim, the young Sergeant in charge of these “troops.” He gave the commands to direct their formations and while they were riding in the performance. It turns out that the Royal Mounted Police got their start in this very area as they were sent to create law and order in the wild west of Canada, dealing with crime, as well as the out of control whiskey traders who were wrecking havoc on the Indians. They did quite a nice job with the depictions of the Mounties as well as the First Nation people, as Canadians call them. There was a treaty with the Indian people that was kept by the Indian people and the Canadian government to this day. A little different history than we usually see in the US.

Then about 20 km (gotta get used to seeing everything in those kilometers and liters!) we went to another amazing historical site: Head-Smashed-in Buffalo Jump. For over 6,000 years, Indian people used this particular cliff to drive bison over a cliff in order to kill them for food and for survival. It sounds terrible to us today, but remember for all this time, the native people did not have horses and needed the buffalo to survive. This approach was used only when conditions were right, sometimes not for generations, but would provide needed food for their winters. The killing was done in a manner of being in harmony with the land, never really diminishing the numbers of buffalo. There were many of these sites throughout the plains area, because at one point there were over 40 MILLION bison in North America, then at one point only one thousand left. This happened after the Europeans came and decided to slaughter these animals for sport or their skins to use in making belts for machines. Now there are a few hundred thousand, thanks to careful conservation and bringing them back. This site in Alberta has been designated a World Heritage site, and they have done an amazing job of telling the story and honoring the native people in this area. We just happened to be at the site on the one day each week where they also do a demonstration of dancing and drumming and we saw astoundingly good dancing. It was a joy to be able to really soak in this fine experience.
If you want to know more about it, look at their website at www.head-smashed-in.com/. The site is operated by the local Blackfoot tribal council.
THEN we got in the car and drove another 3 hours to the town of Canmore, 15 minutes from Banff. The drive was sooooo flat, especially after spending several days in great mountains. We definitely were still on the Great Plains. Only the last half hour finally started to give us something besides really FLAT landscape, and then a few foothills, and finally we were into the mountains again. The area here is truly gorgeous. We are staying in a unit of the timeshare system in which we have ownership. We look forward to settling in for three nights of sleeping in a real bed, hot showers, getting some laundry done, and seeing some great scenery. AND it looks like the rain may give us a break for a while. There is so much to see and we are really enjoying soaking it all in.

Into the Mountains

Day Three

We woke up at 6 am to a torrential rain. Perfect! Here we are at Glacier National Park and it’s raining. We went back to sleep. A couple hours later, blue sky (well with some clouds), and sunshine. Time to check out of the inn and see about getting a campsite. We hoped that our plan of getting to the campground mid-morning on a Sunday would prove to be a good time to get us a nice campsite without a reservation. We were relieved when that proved to be true. We had our pick of a number of sites in a campground that later in the day was completely full.

We decided to drive over the continental divide on a road known as the “Going to the Sun Highway.” As we started up, we found the highway was lined with these amazing meadows filled with blooming wildflowers. We stopped a number of times to look more closely at the many different types of flowers and drink in the sights of these magnificent mountains. Of course, we did take some photos. (Don’t worry, we won’t ask to show you all the vacation photos we are taking!)

What we didn’t appreciate was the many cars, filled parking lots, and the lines of traffic as we came back east after driving to the west entrance of the park. The western side of the Going to the Sun Highway seems to hang on the cliffs as it works its way down, sheer cliff on one side and a little stone wall before the cliff continues down for a thousand feet. It was safe enough, but no room to pass the cars with drivers terrified of the confined space. A winter avalanche had taken out a stretch of the little wall and we could see the construction set to resume on Monday to fix it. All the visitor center parking lots were full as were the parking for a couple of shorter hikes we considered. We decided to just drive and enjoy the amazing scenery. Overall, we were glad we chose to make the drive on Sunday.

The evening took us to one of the beautiful old lodges in the park, Many Glaciers Lodge which was built in the 1920’s. This was built by the Northern Pacific Railroad to attract American’s to come visit “The American Alps”. We saw a wonderful evening show by Jack Gladstone, a Blackfeet Indian, doing stories and music from his life, the history of the Indian People here, as well as other commentaries on life. He was a fine performer and has been performing in this area for the past 25 years and was part of a group of Blackfeet people to start a long-lived series in the park of Native American Voices.

We spent our first night actually sleeping in the minivan in Dick’s design of a sleeping area under the platform. We were both surprised at how warm we stayed and we were highly relieved to be warm and dry when we got another couple of big storms in the night.

Day Four

Sunshine in the morning. Yay! After the night’s rain, the morning dawned beautifully and after a little fog bank passed through the campground, there was lots of sunshine. We were discovering how close to the weather we would be staying throughout this trip. This was a great day to get out and finally do some hiking.

As we were packing up for the day, we met a really great couple, the Smiths, who are our campground volunteer hosts. They have been instrumental in working through the bureaucratic system and getting bear boxes (food storage containers) installed in our campground and elsewhere in the park. These are great for storing our food and keeping it safe from the increasingly smart bears who would LOVE to eat the contents of our cooler or any random food we might have around. This includes food that is in sealed cans. We are used to bear safety from camping in several California national parks. The Smiths had many fine stories to tell us of what it took to get these boxes installed, especially when they found that many of the boxes were sitting in storage rather than being used. God bless wonderful people who know how to make things happen. The Smiths, he was retired from GM, lived in Indiana for most of the year but were spending their fourth summer in a trailer in a campground in Glacier being of service to the campers. It seemed that just to accent their love of animals, a mule deer doe walked through our campsite before our conversation ended.

The highlight of this day was spending over five hours hiking on the Highline trail, starting from Logan’s Pass at the top of the Going to the Sun Highway. We soon saw both Pikas and Columbian Ground Squirrels. Most of the trail is on a steep slope, while about two hundred yards are on a ledge cut into a sheer cliff. Part of this trail is called the garden wall and it lived up to its name, a continuous carpet of a wide variety of wild flowers. We didn’t photograph every one of them but we tried. We kept discovering new ones we had not seen earlier or ever before. There were more than 20 different varieties. After slow progress, because of all the stops, on the way out we were about to turn around at the 3 1/2 mile point when Dick caught sight of a mountain goat coming down the trail in the opposite direction. It passed several people as they stepped aside before leaving the trail just before he got to us. He was hungry and had particular types of flowers in mind, Indian Paintbrush and Columbine. He walked past all the other flowers to get to clumps of his favorites. For the next 20 minutes, he munched his way along just below the path while a growing group of hikers watched. Then he climbed back onto the path and headed in the direction we wanted to go. With the goat in the lead, the parade began. Patti was next and then Dick, followed by hikers whose numbers continued to grow, eventually about ten in all. We were walking at a “goat’s pace.” We would see hikers coming our way and waved them to the side. They sat down next to the path or stepped aside and the goat walked right by them. Everyone was thrilled. After over a half mile of this, the goat again left the path and started digging in the soil and eating what he found. We guess it was a mineral lick. We took that moment to slide on by him so we could continue our hike.

Dick had another really fun chance encounter, when we passed a family, the young boy in the lead was singing, including a little yodeling. When Dick commented to one of the adults that this was the type of place that would cause one to sing, the man replied, “Well, it’s in their blood. These guys are Van Traps [as in from the Sound of Music].” The grandfather of this family was Kurt Von Trap, the youngest of the Van Trap children. The uncle had two of the girls yodel, too, and quite a discussion ensued about the family’s lodge in Stowe, VT. Dick had visited there several years ago and this was a great hit to the girls. The girl’s father was quick to smile as he passed but much less interested in the conversation than the others. Dick wished them an enjoyable hike and moved on.

With the close encounter with the mountain goat, we thought our time with the big animals was over but suddenly, we were waved to the side of the path. Looking further ahead we could see a large Mountain Sheep ram headed our way, again using the path. He rushed by us and soon was followed by another. Our cameras were clicking as fast as we could shoot them. When we continued into a sheer cliff area of the trail, we found that two other sheep had been frightened and had climbed up on a higher ledge. We stopped to take more photos and then could see the rams were getting quite agitated. We moved on to let them get down, stopping a good distance away so we could watch. But, of course, others kept coming down the trail and stopped to look at the sheep. Finally, there was a break and the two animals quickly descended and scampered away.

That evening we returned to our campsite, fixed a good meal and then Dick set up a big storage battery to provide extra power to the computer. By the light of a lantern, he downloaded photos from our digital cameras and worked on the blog. It is a different world for camping in 2009!

It had been a beautiful day in paradise!

North to Alaska!

We are off! Singing “North To Alaska” our grand adventure has begun. We are now within sight of Glacier National Park, staying in a funky old inn. Over the past two days we have driven over 1400 miles and now are ready to launch the really desirable part of the trip. Tomorrow morning we will enter Glacier and find a camping site to be our base for exploring the park.

Our first big day of driving was delayed several hours while Dick completed his application for reappointment as a professor to National University. The due date for the application is August 24th but, of course, we will not be in San Diego at that time. That meant what turned out to be a 136 page document had to be prepared early and turned in prior to our departure. It is a strange quirk about National that it takes more documentation to gain a reappointment than it does for the initial appointment. Dick had worked on it for over a week but still had to burn the midnight oil to finish it Thursday night.

Friday morning, the car was packed and we each had a send-off chiropractic adjustment, Knowing we were going to be sitting many hours in the car over the next month, we wanted our backs to be properly aligned. Then, off to National where the application was submitted in the proper way. We had lunch at the National cafeteria, which often has gourmet quality food. We had salmon in anticipation of the many salmon dinners we would have on the trip. Finally, at 1:00 pm we began what will be the longest driving day of the trip.

Our destination for day one was Salt Lake City, over 750 miles away. The directions are easy, get on Interstate 15 and drive north. It runs from San Diego to the Canadian border, just east of Glacier. We drove north through the eastern LA metro area where we began to follow the route of the old Route 66 up through the mountains onto the high desert. Then we crossed the Mojave Desert to Las Vegas then on to St. Georges, Utah. By now it was after dark. We finally arrived in Salt Lake City 12 ½ hours after we began, 2:30 in the morning local time while experiencing the first rain of the trip. We were exhausted but satisfied that we had made our first schedule destination.

One of the questions we had before we started was how well Dick’s platform would work in the realities of a moving car. We were very pleased. In spite of our carrying gear and supplies for over a five week trip, all packed on top of the platform, there was a comfortable bed below it. Each of us took time stretching out on a real bed (okay ALMOST a real bed…at least a double sized foam rubber piece covered with a specially sewed fitted sheet)catching some needed sleep. Several times we had to brake hard and everything stayed in place. That was a relief to both of us. There is going to be a need for some tinkering with where items are placed but, overall, this looks good.

This morning we slept in a bit, six hours was all we could spare, and were on the road again. We appreciated that it was Saturday so we zipped through the rest of Salt Lake City and the many suburbs to the north. When we reached the Idaho border only a couple hours later we were glad again we had driven so far the previous day. We felt far from home already. Traffic was light and we were making good time. It only took several additional hours to cross Idaho. It was a sense of real progress when we saw the “Welcome to Montana” sign along the side of the road. Even though we crossed the Continental Divide at the border, we found ourselves deep in the mountains once we were on the Montana side. For a few hours we had been watching the storms building along the mountain crests, then the storms flowed into the valleys and passes and we drove in and out of thunderstorms. As we got closer to Glacier, we were traveling on rolling plains to the east of the mountain range where Glacier was located. The clouds, sunlight, and mountains seemed to be in a delicious dance. We had to stop numerous times to take photos. We had John Denver CDs playing and we were just thoroughly enjoying the moments. We found our lodging for the night and then a little restaurant for dinner. Sitting on a patio, we ate and watched a major storm approach. Thunder and lightning filled the air as we finished dinner and then went out to watch the show in the sky. Finally, when the first drops splashed on our faces, we jumped into our car for the short trip back to the inn. There we sat out on the porch and watched the deluge from the sky, glad that at that moment we were not in a tent.

As we pulled up chairs to watch the storm two women arrived back at their room next door. The older woman, who said she and her daughter had just been at an outdoor wedding, stayed outside to watch the storm with us. Our conversation about the weather was definitely not mundane as the sky lit up, thunder crashed, and sheets of water fell. She still lives on the farm (about 90 miles away from where we are staying) that she and her husband had operated for years. She raised her family on that farm. She talked about farm life in Montana and then began to talk about the travels she and her husband had been on after he had retired from running the farm. She was fascinated by the plans for our trip to Alaska and talked of her cruise to Alaska. She told us of her tradition to drive the Going-to-the-Sun Highway in Glacier each year, seeing something new each time she crossed over to the west side. Then she talked of trips to New Zealand and Australia, to China and Japan, Europe, and Africa (from Egypt to South Africa). She just missed out on a trip to Russia when her husband became ill. She lost him 11 years ago but holds onto these travel memories as some of the most precious to her. She probably is in her late 80s but is still so full of life. She is definitely the type of individuals that we are looking forward to continuing to meeting while on this trip. She gave us a kind of blessing saying that it was such a wonderful thing to share travels as a couple and that we were exactly the right ages to be doing such a trip.

Several times we today, as we drove, we commented to each other how different the land was from Southern California. The dry brown mountains gave way to dry tan desert mountains to green covered mountains to mountains with snow still near their summits. The valleys and flat areas went from sandy/gravel and desert plants to green grass and sage plants. We experienced our first rain in over three months, knowing San Diego would not see rain again until November. We know that we will experience a lot more rain over these next few weeks. It is part of our adventure to notice and appreciate changes such as these.

We have now said goodbye to freeways. We will only have brief encounters with them until we return via Interstate 5 starting in the State of Washington. We have two lane highways in our future, including several hundred miles on gravel roads. We took advantage of the speed when we had the chance, now we focus on the scenery.

We have received requests to post our intended schedule. I’ll put the first ten days of the trip on this post and will add more soon.
Day 1 Travel from San Diego to Salt Lake City
Day 2 Travel from Salt Lake City to Browning, MT
Day 3 Enter Glacier National Park, find camping and do some hiking
Day 4 Continue to explore Glacier NP
Day 5 Travel from Glacier NP to Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada, adjoins Glacier
Day 6 Travel from Waterton Lakes NP to Canmore, Alberta
Day 7 Explore Banff National Park from our base in Canmore
Day 8 Continue to explore Banff
Day 9 Travel the Ice Fields Highway from Banff NP to Jasper National Park
Day 10 Travel to Dawson Creek, British Columbia, Milepost 0 of the Alaskan Highway

We realize that we are now going into some “internet-free” zones, so we will keep writing our thoughts and add them in as we are able. Think of us, and send us some really nice weather for these next night that we are camping.

Alaska or Bust!!!

Today marks exactly one week from when we leave for "the great road trip"...38 days, over 9,000 miles, from San Diego to Alaska and back by car. This trip will fulfill a lifelong ambition of Dick’s to drive the Alaskan Highway and explore the Land of the Midnight Sun.

The prep for the trip has been intense over a long period of time: the idea, getting the time (and time "off") on the calendar, putting the intention out, telling people that we REALLY are going to do this, and then starting with the concretes....that included ordering all kinds of promotional materials, DVDs, guidebooks, and novels about Alaska, the Canadian Rockies, the Yukon and British Columbia. Finally, it was time to start putting together the route and they schedule. This was Dick's area, and he put together an AMAZING day-by- day guide as to where we will be in the morning, at night; would we sleep in a hotel, resort, friends' home, or camping. Next, it was time for reservations for many of the places. Patti also found that there is an amazing AlaskaTour Savers book with lots of cool buy one-get one free offers (great for a boat trip, museums, a couple of overnight stays.)

Of course, there was also a need for shopping. We are Truly going on an expedition and need a lot equipment. Some new camping gear, clothes, and prep for the car. The car is spent a day at Firestone for an oil change and really good check-up. We don't want to blow a hose in the serious middle of nowhere. Upon recommendation, we are also getting a full-sized spare tire. AAA may not be able to rescue us with a flat tire on a gravel road 150 miles from anything. We also ordered covers for our headlights and a 'mask' (or "bra") for the front of the mini-van to protect the paint.

We have a map on the hallway wall with push pins outlining the route and helping to keep us clear as to where some of these places are. (Where the heck IS Dawson Creek?)

THEN there is the special platform Dick built to fit into the back of the mini-van. This is about 5'x4', 18 inches high, made out of plywood that will allow us to both pack all of our gear, but also have, with foam rubber and sleeping bags underneath, a place to sleep. Patti sewed cool cloth coverups for the foam rubber, so they are now ready to go, too. We will be able to do this even when the other of us is driving without having to snooze in the car seat or unload everything. Patti is amazed as it comes together. This will also give us some extra flexibility to spend the night at a roadside rest stop or sleep in the van if the mosquitoes or the rain are too much.

So, many, many more things are on the list of things "to get done" before we leave. But the time is getting closer. Stay tuned for the adventures!