Trip to Alaska and West Coast

July 29, 2013 – We are driving up the Alaskan Highway to Fort Nelson, BC. We have had a few rain showers already this morning. We will be moving 300 miles up the Alaska Highway. The truck is full of gas and the trailer needs to be hooked up and holding tanks dumped.   Our drive to Fort Nelson was muddy. The truck and trailer are covered in mud. I guess we need to find a car wash. We arrived about 3:00 pm. The Triple G campground is nice. We only plan to stay tonight. We had to stop along the way for a little gas to help us make the 300 mile trip. The gas was only 5.52 a gallon. It was good we only needed a quarter of a tank. It finally got dark about 11:30 pm and light about 5:00 am. Tomorrow, we go back into the Canadian Rockies.

Up Alaska Highway to Fort Nelson in the rain

Along HWY 97 To Fort Nelson, BC

Trucks put up lots of mud

Trip to Alaska and West Coast

July 28, 2013 – It rained all last night. It is the first time that we have stayed in the trailer for that much rain. The trailer is like sleeping in a tin roofed barn; you hear every drop hit the roof. This morning it is cloudy, windy 23 mph and low of 52 F.  We are still in Dawson Creek (mile 0 of the Alaskan Highway (old ALCAN Highway). It is an interesting place. Dawson Creek was a little 600 person town in the spring of 1942. It mainly grew grain and shipped it out by railroad. In a matter of weeks the town had 11,000 US troops and 16,000 Canadian civilians to work on the ALCAN Highway. The highway was needed to protect the US and Canada from an invasion by the Japanese in Alaska during World War II. War supplies needed to go to Alaska but there was not a road. In 8 months and 12 days (completed Nov. 20, 1942) the road was constructed from Dawson Creek to Fairbanks (1,523 miles).  They used 7000 pieces of equipment and built 133 bridges and 8000+ culverts. The men worked in temperatures as low as -70 F. The equipment ran 24 hours a day so it would not freeze. In the summer there was permafrost, muskeg, mosquitoes, and gnats which cause the men to have to wear netting at all times. We will be driving along the highway to and from Fairbanks. However, much of  the highway has now been rebuilt and shorten by 35 miles. It will still be fun to see history as we go. I can not even think as low as -70 F. I am glad I live in Florida. We did laundry today. It takes about 2 hours to do laundry. It was $2.50 to wash and $.25 for 12mins of drying. I drove around Dawson Creek and took photos. High temperature today was 72 F.

Downtown Dawson Creek, BC

Mile 0 sign in middle of Dawson Creek, BC

Sign on traffic circle as you enter Hwy 97 to go north from Dawson Creek to Fort Nelson

The Surveyor -center of Alaska Highway Traffic Circle

Traffic Circle at start of Alaskan Highway

Trip to Alaska and West Coast

July 27, 2013 – We woke to 50 F outside and it is raining. We need to go to Wal-Mart today and shop for medicine and a little food. Rain, Rain, Rain, this is our first day of rain most of the day. I went to Wal-Mart. It was a little different from the US. It had only frozen and cans goods to sell in the grocery department. We are now stocked up with medicines and simple meals. We had canned chili tonight for dinner with cold slaw. I got Jo Ann some ice cream. She had been out for a few days. She had a big bowl after dinner to celebrate. I got the laser pointer out of truck for Prissy to chase. It gives her some exercise when we do not walk her. Gasoline is now $1.36.9 a liter or $5.03 a gallon US.

Mile 0 RV Park

Church in Dawson Creek

Downtown Dawson Creek-- wide street so you can turn your team of horses

Trip to Alaska and West Coast

July 26, 2013 – Today, we have not left the trailer. The temperature was 54 F this morning and a call for high of 70 F. We did set outside this evening and talked to several Canadians about our trip. Several of them had been to Key West on motorcycles and they were amazed that Prissy walked on her leash so well. They recommended campsites and places we must stop and see. It does not get dark now until around 11:00 pm and light about 5:00 am. As a boy one of the bikers lived here. He talked about -50 F weather. It made me want to get out my long sleeve shirt. Campers, RV’s and motor homes are everywhere. It looks like everybody in Canada owns a RV. They are parked by every house or you are passing them on the road.

Trip to Alaska and West Coast

July 25, 2013 – We depart Hinton to Dawson Creek (Mile 0 of Alaskan Hwy). Dawson Creek has a population of 12,000. We did go through Grand Cache and Grand Prairie (pop 55,000). I could drop anyone off in these towns and you would think you were in the US. They have all the fast food places--

 Wal-Mart, Wendy’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen, A&W Root Beer, and MacDonald’s. They still have ESSO gasoline instead of EXXON for those who remember that far back. The trip from Hinton to Dawson Creek was about 300 miles on mostly two lane mountain roads. If you get behind a ten mph truck, you do not have too many places to past. The Mile “0” Campsite in Dawson Creek is just alright. Most of the sites are not level, have gravel and dirt backins, no dump hookups. They do have power and water plus wifi and two TV stations. We are planning to stay here 2 days maybe 4 to rest and see if we can improve on these colds we have had since Tennessee. 

Trip to Alaska and West Coast

Columbia Glacier

July 24, 2013 – We got up one hour early today because we miss read the clock. Oh well we had things to do. We drove from Canmore to Hinton today. What a beautiful drive. We drove up the Icefields Parkway route 93 from Lake Louise to Jasper, AB. We saw mountain goats, glaciers, deep snow and beautiful mountains. We spent the night in Hinton KOA. We went to bed early. Our colds and long drives are getting us down. Tomorrow is another long driving day about 300 miles to Dawson Creek, BC. Jo Ann has been having a hard time with AB. Every time I use it she wants to read it as Air Base instead of Alberta.

Snow on Canadian Rockies

Bow Lake along Icefields Parkway- Lake Louise to Jasper, AB

A nice place for lunch

Mountain Goats

Mountain Goats

Driving along Route 93 - Icefields Parkway to Jasper, AB

Trip to Alaska and West Coast

July 23, 2013 – We woke to 57 F outside this morning. It is time to get out the heater. One of the good things about the trailer is that everyday that we move requires us to cleanup and store items so they will not fly around in the trailer as we drive along. It helps us to stay organized and get rid of trash. We are about to get organized now. It has only taken 21 days for things to find there place and us to be able to find them. Prissy, most of the time, sleeps in her penthouse over the bed in a storage compartment. We just got back from touring Banff National Park WOW!!!  Lake Louise is great with a beautiful hotel ( only $434 a night) and Banff village is very pretty. What a great place to visit. It is a ski resort as well as summer resort. Tomorrow we will be going all the way through the park to Jasper and on out to Hinton, AB on our way to Dawson Creek. Hope we can find a campground.

Lake Louise with glacier on mountain

Hotel on Lake Louise - Chateau Lake Louise only $434 a night

Drive along Banff to Lake Louise Hwy

A tourist at Lake Louise - you can rent canoes in the background

Lake Louise, AB

Downtown Banff Village

Along the road 1A to Lake Louise

Lake Louise with hotel

Trip to Alaska and West Coast

July 22, 2013 – We departed Fort Macleod for The Canadian Rockies. We found a camp site in Canmore, AB ( Wapiti). It is a municipal owned site about 10 miles from Banff and 40 miles from Lake louise. The camp sites only have electric or nothing. There is no internet or phone service. They charge $35 a day for a site with electric. We have a wonderful view of the mountains. We went through the large city of Calgary. It looked like a modern up to date city. The GPSs got lost because of a street that was closed but after a little site seeing they got us back on the road to Canmore. Canada is a very beautiful place. It is clean and kept up much like Germany. They do not have billboards along the highways which helps to make the countryside look a lot better. We are now on the metric system – liters, kilometers, Celsius. We have weather report that it is 18 c and speed limits of 110 k and gasoline sold in liters. We purchased gasoline tonight that was $74.61 for 60.704 liters. The sign out front showed $1.22 for regular. In US money and measure that is $71.95 for 16.03630027 gallons or $4.49 a gallon. It is about like driving the boat for gasoline cost except we get much better gas mileage. The area we are in is like being in Gatlinburg for prices. You can not get to for away to not have a McDonald’s or Wendy's next door to our camp ground. Tomorrow, we plan to go into Banff National Park , visit the town of Banff, and visit Lake Louise. 

View from our trailer site -Wapiti

Canadian Rockies from our trailer site - Wapiti

Driving to Canmore, AB

Driving to Canmore , AB

Driving to Canmore

Canmore city campsite-- Wapiti

Trip to Alaska and West Coast

July 21, 2013 – We have rested all day. If we could get rid of our colds life would be a lot better. We sat outside today at noon. We got a look at the big mesquites that everyone talks about. They are big and black. There were not a lot of them but it does not take many. We will try sitting outside this evening with DEET.. The DEET works where you put it; but no DEET you have mesquites. They even tried to bite through my support socks. The weather is great. This morning it was 62 F and now (6:30 pm) it is 76 F with a little breeze. I talked to Ryan tonight on Tango. Sorry, I woke him and Michelle up. I forgot the time zone change. Gina called to talk on cell phone; but we reminder her that it was .69 a minute. Maybe I can call her or Pierce on Tango at our next wifi site.

Daisy May Campsite

Old building across from trailer site

Honey /-/waste wagon doing its thing

Trip to Alaska and West Coast

July 20, 2013 – We departed Great Falls about 11:00 am and arrived in Fort Macleod, AB about 3:00 pm. We are staying in the Daisy May Campground and RV Resort. It is a nice place with trees and a swimming pool. At the border stop we had to wait about 30 minutes. They had a few questions mostly about guns, weapon, and alcohol. They did not ever ask about pets. Prissy was in her box and was quite the whole time. She is now an international cat. We are now in our first backing site. We made it on the first try. What luck???

Trip to Alaska and West Coast

July 19, 2013 – We decide to stay another day in Great Falls, MT so we could do laundry, trailer cleaning, write greeting cards and buy some more cold medicine. We are resting hoping our colds will go away. We talked to Chris today. He was finally able to finish our deck and boat house painting after all the rain at home. We have had a productive day. Tomorrow we leave for Canada. Our first stop will be at Fort Macleod, Alberta.

 

Winter in the mountains

Some of the supplies

Lewis and Clark On the Trail

Missouri River

Trip to Alaska and West Coast

July 18, 2013 – We got the oil changed in the truck and visited the Lewis and Clark Museum. The museum is run by the National Park Service and is great. I did not know that there are 5 waterfalls on the Missouri River at Great Falls, MT that Lewis and Clark took 3 weeks to portage their equipment around on their trip west. It has been fun following parts of the Lewis and Clark adventure. Our tour guide in St Louis told us their trip was to go see for President Thomas Jefferson what he had purchased from France. In the Missouri River there was a large flock of white pelicans. They were on their way north for the summer. We saw on our boat trip to Nashville thousands of them on their way south. They looked like large white islands in the Cumberland River. We had a Dairy Queen Dinner.

White Pelican

Inside Lewis and Clark museum

Art Museum -Great Falls

Looking along Missouri River Toward Lewis and Clark Museum

Cowboy Downtown Great Falls

Lewis and Clark with Indian guide

One of the 5 falls on Missouri River at Great Falls