ab ovo

on the better late than never theory....not the most ordered collection, but all there.

...can i go back now?

how this ends

what we learned:
- diesels get great mileage
- kilometers are faster than miles
- japanese tourists seem to prefer leather pants
- the arctic ocean is cold
- people don't expect suits and ties in RV parks. or rural border crossings. or national parks.
- google maps lies
- black water gauges lie
- while in a foreign country, $1000 in grocery and car rental charges doesn't bother the credit card company, but one usage at a gas station and they'll shut if off
- some canadians do say 'eh'
- if you turn the sauna up to 190F, your jewelry will burn you
- when the sign says "<-- TRAIL", the trail is probably to the left
- don't play with creamer (or ketchup!) in restaurants
- stack beer cautiously
- don't forget to lock the fridge
- chuckholes suck

where did all these people come from

spent the last three days goofing off in a couple of canada's national parks, jasper and banff. there are people here. and other cars. and stoplights, and center lines on the road...it's spooky.



stayed in a campground with 780 sites...that's several times larger than a few of the towns we've stayed in lately! but when we finally found our site it was already occupied.



we trammed/hiked to the top of whistler mountain, and took a boat around maligne lake. it is apparently so named because the french priest who lost his horses and baggage in the nearby river couldn't say what he really thought, so just called it evil - but it's beautiful. all the lakes and rivers here are glacial runoff, so they have that amazing blue green color that i never get tired of staring at.



stopped through the columbia icefields, which apparently drain to all three oceans, and climbed around on the athabasca glacier for a bit. that was fun. it is receding so fast you can't see it from where the end was the year i was born.





ended the day in banff (city of), which is super touristy, and really driving home the fact that we have to get back to reality. or at least back to a reality that involves other people! and, not quite ready to go home yet. oh well.

why are you wearing a suit on holiday

A very easy road day. Short side trips to see totem poles and Twin Falls. We then found our accomodations for the night in Telkwa. A one room log cabin, with a covered porch right on the river. The place is run by a nice british woman who took very good care of us, although she was a little curious about wardrobe choices.



We then made a quick trip back into Smithers, hit Safeway, and picked up food to BBQ. A very nice evening, cooking and eating ourselves silly. An hour in sauna/hot tub, then just enjoying the river.

sidetracks

so we said goodbye to the yukon territory and the alaska highway, and took highway 37 south into british columbia. we also thought we'd said goodbye to alaska, but not quite - more on that later. was nice to be back in canada, we'd gotten quite used to kilometers, washrooms, and loonies :)



the coolest part about RVing it is the total flexibility of it. for example, when presented with a view too nice to take in in passing, we can stop, break out the camp chairs, and have a cup of tea. like here.



so i am not quite as on top of everything as i should be - i have this silly idea that if you spell labor day with a 'u', it should be in may. as canada actually observes it the same way we do, we missed out on some shopping opportunities in whitehorse (most notably the quilt shop and the yukon brewery.)

also, it turns out google maps has a really distorted idea of how long the cassier highway should take to drive. apparently it thinks you'll average about 30kph! the road is in fact not paved, but is mostly a seal-coated gravel that rides about as well. we passed the place google suggested would take us all day to get to, well before lunch. so we took a side trip. went glacier hunting, which took us (briefly) back to alaska.



if you ever come this way you MUST take the road to stewart. it is a short trip (on a good road) down a glacial valley, and the scenery is just spectacular. there is a huge glacier that calves into a lake at the halfway point (the actual set for the cabin in "Insomnia", if you ever saw it), and dozens of waterfalls that put yosemite to shame.



at the end of the valley you reach stewart, a canadian town of reasonable size. hyder is a tiny alaskan town that faces stewart across the canal. the road continues around the end and joins the two. you can tell you've crossed the border in two ways. one is the canadian customs station on the south side of the road. (none on the american side - apparently they just don't care.) the other is that canada actually spends money on road maintenence.



anyway, five miles into AK is a great spot for watching black bears fish for spawning salmon. we saw a lot of salmon, but no bears - ok tho, we saw plenty on the roadside the last two days. and if you have the stamina to follow this road for another 20 miles you can see another huge glacier, in my opinion well worth the bumpity bumpity :)

I'm Broken

It looks like we got one of the only sunny September days Haines typically has, and we put it to good use.



Went out last night, Haines threw its town mardi gras party (yes, in September.) We called it an early night after enjoying some of the local color, cause we were meeting our guide for our sea kayaking trip at 8am. A few quick words, a life vest, and we were out on the water. The guide, neither Jenny or I caught his name, was a really nice guy, a few hours out on the water, a snack, then back in for some smoked sammon.



The guide recomneded a great nearly 6 mile hike, which Jenny had a itch to take. Thus, a short drive to the trail head and 4 hours of hard hiking and I am beat. Wrenching my shoulder climbing into the kayak once, straining a muscle in my thigh sprinting down to shore to save the boats from being washed away, then the hike. Jenny broke me today. But the view from the top was incredible.



About to finish laundry then time for bed.

denali, and to sea level

denali was cool. the scenery would have wowed me a week ago, and it was impressive, but honestly i think the top of the world highway was prettier.



it was a little different tho, the alaska range added mountains to the scenery, and there was lots of wildlife. our first spot was an snowshoe hare in our firepit. have no idea what he was looking for in there. on the bus tour we saw caribou, eagles, and lots of grizzly bears - in fact i got closer to one than i ever thought i needed to be, albeit from inside a vehicle. they are so funny when they walk, it's really hard to believe watching them waddle around that they can outrun you!



anyway, we rode the bus to the end of the line at wonder lake. there we got out and hiked around the tundra for an hour or two, which is very strange to walk through - generally kind of springy, sometimes a quite firm step will be followed by one that will sink you up to your knees, with no apparent change in the surface. unfortunately the mountain itself, which is under cloud cover about 2/3 of the time, did not come out for us :(



i also did an unconcious bear impression, wandering around oblivious to the surroundings, eating berries. the wild blueberries are way yummy, and it's a lot easier to understand how they can be such a huge fraction of a bear's diet when you consider they make up at least 80% of the vegetation out there.



leaving denali we took the slightly longer path back to canada rather than retrace our route. (as big as alaska is, it only has 11 highways, and we've hit 6 of them.) was a long day but defintely the right call - just gorgeous. arrived in haines this evening, going to spend a couple days here hiking and kayaking. we will be leaving earlier than planned tho, apparently they broke our ferry and we will have to replace the 1 hour boat trip with 5 hours of driving. at least it's a pretty road, i won't really mind heading back that way.unlike the AK highway from destruction bay to the canadian border - i have two words for any woman taking that road - sports bra!



got a hotel on the fjord in haines. you would not believe the view from where i am sitting right now.

this morning we decided it was about time for a breakfast of something other than cereal, and found a good diner. mark had to celebrate the occasion by spraying the guy at the next table with creamer - he claims it was an accident. the guy didn't bat an eyelash, said "better milk than a bird"; and the source of my brick red complexion was alternately extreme embarassment and repressed laughter as we mopped up his table.