Chapter 11
August 19, 2003 - Typed in Tok, AK; Whitehorse, YT; Dease Lake, BC; Prince George, BC; Seattle, WA; Boise, ID; Cheyenne, WY; Colorado Springs, CO; Topeka, KS; Columbus, OH; and Lorton, VA. ;-)
Short Version:
Well ... we're nearing the end!! In fact, by the time that you get this, we will be back in Virginia already!! :-)
Well, in the last chapter, we told you all about our last day as "tourists", which we spent having a wonderful time in Homer. I will continue to say that it was the perfect way to end a fabulous summer trip!! But ... of course, the trip home is as much of an adventure as the destination itself!! :-) I'll give you some of the highlights of our multi-day trip home.
We left Seward on Saturday, August 9 very early in the morning. Again, the sun was shining and there was hardly a wisp of a cloud in the sky. The weather was warm, and absolutely pleasant!! The drive back up through the Kenai Peninsula was just as lovely as the drive down ... and we got to see the sun shining on the mountains on the opposite sides of the Turnagain arm and valleys that we drove through.
When we were in Homer, we found a book at Cathie Ulmer's that we both REALLY liked, and she told us that she had gotten it at an "Alaska" bookstore in Anchorage. She then found the real name of the bookstore for us, and gave us easy to follow directions to get to the store. Since we were driving through Anchorage that day, we stopped into "Cook Inlet Books", which truly was an "Alaska" bookstore. I would have to say that about 75% of the store (twice the size of an average WaldenBooks at a shopping mall) was books with Alaska topics ... wildlife, plantlife, native life, fictional accounts, biographies, history, geography/geology, etc. etc. etc. We both got a copy of the book that we had seen at Cathie's (called Alaska in Maps) ... as well as some other fun things. What a great shop!! They have a website ... and if you're planning a trip to Alaska, and want to do some reading, this might be a good place to find some titles!!
We encountered the same construction about 100 miles outside of Anchorage. We had our books out and ready to read (actually, I think that I wrote some postcards!!) and enjoyed the pretty weather while we waited for the pilot car to get to us. Due to the absolutely clear day, we had AMAZING views of the Wrangell Mountains (Mt. Drum, Mt. Sanford, and Mt. Wrangell) as we drove into Glennallen ... and the views got even better as we left Glennallen for Tok. We stopped at just about every turnout from the highway, because we kept thinking that we'd never get such a fabulous chance to take a better picture. Then the next turn in the highway would present us with one. Can't wait to get this film processed!!!
Another interesting thing to note is that when we were sitting in the construction (which was quite a way before we hit Glennallen), I remembered that a Glennallen AM radio station (KCAM 790) has something called "Caribou Clatters" several times every day. The Caribou Clatters is a message service for people living in rural areas of Alaska. These Alaskans have no regular access to telephones and often receive mail by plane only once a week or less. Often the Clatters, though one-way, are the only regular communication that family and friends have with people in the Bush. It was fun to listen to these personal messages being broadcast across the Great Land to these folks. They said normal things like: "Rob - Happy Birthday!! We're thinking of you!" Or, "Jack, we look forward to seeing you at the end of August. Jimmy is walking already and looks forward to seeing his uncle." It definitely helped pass the time in construction quite nicely.
We stopped in Glennallen at the Caribou Hotel and Restaurant ... the same place that Althea had taken us a few days before. And, finally, we spent the night at the Cleft of the Rock B&B in Tok ... the same B&B that we liked so much when we came through Tok several weeks ago. The owners were back from their trip this time, and we enjoyed them just as much as we had the inn-sitters they had hired while they were away. This time, we took a "room" that was a little cabin ... and it had two bedrooms. I spent an hour or so sitting on the lovely little front porch of our cabin writing in my journal and reading. It was just so nice!!
The next day, August 10, we left Tok after breakfast. As we left Tok, we drove into great amounts of smoke. At first, I was worried that we were driving into a forest fire, but we stopped for gas, and I asked about it. The woman at the station said that it was smoke from a fire farther south, and since we were east-bound, we'd be fine. We drove through rather thick smoke for over an hour. It was kind of eerie!!
We crossed the border from Alaska into the Yukon Territory about 90 miles east of Tok. This would be our final time in Alaska. <sigh> Another note ... with this border crossing, we had our first time zone change back toward Virginia. Alaska time is four hours behind East Coast time ... The Yukon and British Columbia are on Pacific time, just three hours behind the East Coast. My goal is to force myself to adjust to each of the time zones as we pass through them. I don't want to have trouble getting up early for school next week!! :-)
After we cleared the smoke, we started noticing that some of the trees were changing. YES - IN AUGUST!! Amazing, huh? We had seen one small bush in the Arctic Tundra outside of Deadhorse that had started to change. We had also seen a willow tree in Denali that they say is ALWAYS the first tree in Denali to change every summer. But, I'm talking about LOTS of trees. They were changing to gold. It was really pretty ... and again, kind of strange that it was August. It just reminded us how far north we really were!!!
If you ever drive the Alaska Highway, give yourself time to spend at Kluane Lake. We drove past it on the way up and again on the way back. It's absolutely beautiful. And ... if you hit it on a clear day, the blues in the water are marvelous!!
Our goal for that evening would be Whitehorse. That would prove to be the day (in my estimation) of the worst roads that we've hit in the entire trip. We had driven the very same road in July, and it had gravel patches at that point, but in the last few weeks they must have been very busy!! There were VERY LONG gravel sections most of the way from Tok to Whitehorse, and there were several spots that we KNEW would have been construction if it weren't Sunday. We lost a lot of time to just merely driving more slowly on the gravel, and there were several "detour" sections where they are updating the road. I guess we hit it early enough in July to miss out on all of this lovely stuff. :-) But ... we got to Whitehorse in time to get some miscellaneous things done (laundry, auto appointments, etc.) and stayed at the same hotel that we stayed at the previous time. That hotel has THE BEST towels I've ever seen at a hotel!!!!! ;-)
Before leaving Whitehorse on Monday morning, 8/11, we had the oil changed. The service station that did the oil change also put in some of the best windshield wiper fluid I've seen ... it really helps us with the bug problem (the windshield ALWAYS seems to be a mess!!)
Our first several hours out of Whitehorse going east were on wonderful roads. It certainly was NOT like the Alaska Highway we had read about. :-) We have a couple of notes for those of you who plan to travel the Alaska Highway some day. First of all, there is a stop called Johnson's Crossing. (You can find it in the Milepost.) They have gas and restrooms, etc. AND ... they have baked goods that include the most spectacular sausage rolls that I've ever even imagined. They're out of this world!! We stopped on the way up to Alaska, and stopped again on the way back ... and had fabulous sausage rolls!! :-) Our second recommendation for a stop along the Alaska highway is at the Swift River Lodge. You can buy gas, snacks, and use the cleanest, simplest restroom you'll have seen for several hundred miles. (I wish that the Milepost had a five-star rating system for restrooms along the remote highways!! It would be extremely helpful!!)
Now, when we were planning this trip, we decided to take an alternate route to the lower 48 instead of following the entire Alaska Highway back the way we came. About halfway down the Alaska Highway there is a road that starts just outside of Watson Lake, YT and ends up in Kitwanga, BC (if you've got your map out, it's BC route 37). It's called the Cassiar Highway (or the Stewart-Cassiar Highway), and we had read that it's absolutely beautiful. We had also read that most of its 450 miles are dirt or gravel, but that it is certainly passable. Well, we did about 150 miles of the north end of the Cassiar on Monday, and the rest of it on Tuesday. And ... we were SO glad that we did!!
During the first "half" (ok ... 150 miles ... that makes it the first "third") of the trip down the Cassiar, at least the first 100 miles were paved. It was NARROW and very remote ... but paved. We saw very few other cars. In fact, at one point, I decided to change out of the jeans and T-shirt that I had on into shorts and a tank top. I pulled the car a little off the road, had Dianna play the look out, and changed right there ... standing next to the car which was next to the road. (Is that too much information for you!? :-D)
We also saw lots of Dall Sheep along the road. These are the same kind of sheep that we had such a good time watching along the Dalton Highway (coming back from the Arctic Circle) as well as some in the distance at Denali NP.
Another note about Monday: we had yet ANOTHER day with beautiful weather. Completely clear skies and warm temperatures ... especially considering that we were still doing mountain driving. Wonderful!!
We spent the night at a "Northway Motor Lodge" in Dease Lake, BC. We weren't sure what to expect from a "Motor Lodge", but we had made reservations ... and we were pleasantly surprised. It was a very nice place!! (Not 5-star, mind you ... but clean and neat and very pleasant!!) There was a little restaurant across the parking lot from the hotel, and we had salads for dinner there! It was a very nice evening.
We left very early the following morning (even before 7:00 a.m.!!) because we weren't sure how much "unimproved" road we would hit during our last 300 miles of the Cassiar ... and we knew that we had another 300 miles from the end of the Cassiar to our next evening's hotel. The Cassiar Highway continued to be beautiful ... the scenery continued to be spectacular!! There were still only a very few gravel or dirt portions of it, and it seems that they are paving more and more of it each year. It was a fabulous drive!! Along the way we saw two black bears next to the road. The first one we didn't see until we were practically right next to him, and it wasn't a good place to stop (so we didn't, okay, Sharon!?) The second one peeked his head out of the brush along the side of the road as I was driving toward him, and as he saw the car, he jumped back down. We managed to stop where I had seen him, and we heard a scrambling and realized that he was climbing a tree about 15 feet away. We never did get a very good view of him, as he came back down the tree, did some balancing on logs, and then seemingly disappeared. We waited for more than 15 minutes to see if he would reappear. In my opinion, he probably waited underneath some brush for us to leave and outwaited us. :-) The neat thing about that second bear was that we were hearing him grunt and growl as he climbed the tree. (Okay ... he didn't charge us ... don't worry!!!) It was a very long driving day ... and looked to be one of several long driving days that we will be doing over the next week or so. We spent that evening in Prince George, British Columbia ... our last night in Canada.
On Wednesday, we left Prince George early, as would become our habit for the remainder of the trip. As we drove South, the scenery began to resemble the high desert that reminds me of Nevada or parts of Colorado. There is a section of the route that took us through Fraser Canyon ... which is an absolutely gorgeous drive and I highly recommend it if you're out west, and don't mind venturing a bit north. Just beautiful!!
We got to the US Customs at Washington State at about 3:00 p.m. Again, we had absolutely no problems. I think it might be because at every customs crossing (we've done about six) we've shown our passports. This time, the customs official asked where we had been, and when we said, "Alaska," he told us that we didn't have enough bugs on the front of our car (as if he didn't believe us). Well ... you should see the car. You wouldn't be able to tell from the front of it that it's silver ... because there seems to be about a quarter inch coating of bugs from the grating to above the windshield.
All that talk about the car reminds me of something that I don't think I have mentioned in a previous chapter. Before leaving the DC area back in June, I decided that we needed some gasoline cans to carry extra gas for our driving in the "remote areas". I bought two five-gallon, bright red gas cans (you can picture them!) and bungee-corded them to the top of the truck. Well, they've never had gasoline in them because we were advised at one of the oil change places not to ever carry gas outside of the car. In fact, we would never have needed them, as the remotest of the remote places still had gasoline stops frequently enough that, if you paid attention to your gauges, you would always be fine. But ... the gas cans have come in VERY handy as they are up HIGH enough that we can ALWAYS find the car in any parking lot, no matter what!! Just look for the SUV with the bright red gas cans on the top (the gas cans are plastered with bugs, too!!)
Anyway ... we arrived in Seattle that same day. Dianna's husband had been in the Coast Guard, and in the 60's they were stationed there. So we took a drive around to see her home ... she hasn't seen it since the 60's. We found it easily enough. Then, since "the mountain was out", we drove a little to see it. To clarify ... you may remember me mentioning that Mt. Ranier is one of the mountains that I did not get to see on my last cross country trip, as it was clouded over. Folks in Seattle judge the clarity of the weather by whether the "mountain is out". Well ... it was very clear ... and we saw Mt. Ranier. Yay!! It is beautiful!! We finished our evening with Thai food ... Pad Thai for Dianna and a spicy calamari dish for Lou Ann.
We left on Thursday morning, 8/14, in time for Seattle rush hour. Ugh!! A little too much like I-395 if you ask me!! It was a rude reminder of how long I've been away from the DC area. It took us over a half hour to drive seven miles. Well ... at least it was another clear day ... the mountain was out again, and we got several nice views of it. Although it was cool in Seattle when we left that morning, the weather changed to very hot as we progressed farther East. The Eastern half of Washington State and that of Oregon are very barren ... and very desert-like in vegetation. The sun was scorching, and I am sure that the temps were at least 100 degrees. We stopped in Pendelton, OR, as Dianna had been looking forward to stopping in at the Woolen Mills Outlet store. While she was doing her shopping (I'm not really into shopping), I found another internet cafe, and that's when you got chapters 9 & 10 at the same time.
The afternoon drive was LONG and HOT. But ... our attention was on the radio that we have been rather deprived of over the past several weeks (the variety of stations & quality of signals up north is rather limited). We were radio surfing, and found ourselves glued to the news of the power outages in the Northeast. I called my Mom and my best friend, Carolyn, both in Buffalo and talked with both of them while they were sitting in the dark. A lot of Mom's neighbors were calling her, as it seemed that she was one of the only ones with a working transistor radio in the house, and really knew what was on the news. I would guess that we spent the rest of the drive radio surfing for news of the blackout.
We got into Boise, Idaho (after another time change ... we were at that point in Mountain Time ... only 2 hours behind the East Coast), had Subway for dinner, and took a quick dip in the hotel pool after a hot day of driving. Whew!!
Our Friday was rather boring ... it was driving, driving, and more driving. We drove from Boise, Idaho to Cheyenne, Wyoming. (Sorry I didn't call, Julie ... we got in very late ... and left very early the next morning!!) Some of you may not know this, but I have a small problem with very big nose bleeds. They usually happen at home during the winter when the heat is on and the air is dry. I also occasionally have a problem when I'm at high altitudes. Well ... Cheyenne is at over 6,000 feet ... and I had a big nose bleed that evening. Ugh!! Frustrating!!
On Saturday, we had a much shorter drive. It was a pretty drive, though. If you've never been to that part of the country, it's interesting. The plains (i.e. Kansas, East Colorado, etc.) meet the Rocky Mountains in a rather clear line. It's as if there are no foothills. The interstate, I-25, that runs north/south through Cheyenne, Denver, and Colorado Springs seemingly has 10,000 foot (+) mountains on the west side and completely flat lands on the east. Just look west!! :-) Can you tell that Colorado calls to me? :-D
Dianna and I have mutual friends who used to attend our church in Virginia and who have moved to Monument, Colorado (their house is just off of I-25 north of Colorado Springs). They were in Kansas City to meet their newest grandbaby (a boy ... Jacob William), so we knew that we wouldn't be able to see them. But, as I had been to their new home this past Fall, I decided that I could find it again, and we decided to drive by. While Dianna was picking their newspaper up out of their driveway, their neighbor who was charged with watching the house came over to see if everything was okay. (What a house sitter!!) She ended up having Ed & Judy's phone number at their son's home in Kansas City, called them for us, and we got to chat with Judy. We only missed them by one day!! :-(
We continued on to Colorado Springs where we stopped at the Focus on the Family gift shop and then for an oil change. We then split up again. I have cousins who live there, and Dianna spent the afternoon with a friend. My cousin, Jane, lost her mother in June, and I was anxious to catch up with her ... and to talk about our common recent losses. Jane, her husband Jim, and their two kids and I went for a barbecue at the local pool with a friend of Jim's and some neighbors. After the pool closed, we came home and played Cranium for a few hours. I've never played before ... it was fun!!
Unfortunately, while at Jane's house, I had two MORE nosebleeds (OK, OK ... too much information!! I know!!) One was very severe. I ended up having several more over the next couple of days. VERY frustrating!! Maybe Colorado's call isn't so loud after all.
It really was wonderful to catch up with Jane and Jim ... and the kids, Ryan and Brendan are always fun. :-) We had a very nice time together. They sent me off on Sunday morning with "Silver Dollar Pancakes" that Brendan (aged 3) helped his mom make!! MMMM....
Dianna picked me up at Jane's house on Sunday morning at 7:30, and we left for a church in Denver. Ed & Judy told me about this church previously, and I knew that they like it a lot. Even though they were out of town (as was their daughter!), we decided to attend Grace Chapel anyway. The church was having a "ministry fair" Sunday ... sort of a preliminary day to their beginning-of-year events that I assume will follow in September.
After church, we were in the parking lot, and ran into a couple who just happen to have moved to Colorado from Northern Virginia ... and who we knew from our church at home. We all sort of stared at each other, dumbfounded, for several moments before we all laughed and smiled and greeted each other. Tim & Alyssa Pinkard worked for several years with the youth ministry at Immanuel. They were recently married, and have moved to Denver where Tim will begin attending seminary this Fall. This was to be their second time attending this church. It was SOO weird to run into someone we knew in a parking lot!! They say "hello!!" to everyone in VA!!
After church, we met up with Dianna's sister, Hannah, and her friend, Frank, at Hannah's home for brunch. It was a lovely brunch ... healthy quiche made in tortilla shells. MMMM.... It was also very nice to spend some time with Dianna's sister and to see her home in Denver. Hannah has been following our trip very closely ... and I'm so glad that I finally had the chance to meet her. :-)
Well, after spending such good time with family and at church, we had to get into the car and do some of the worst driving we've done all summer. Sorry, to those of you from Kansas, but Eastern Colorado and Kansas are horrible to drive in the summer. I-70 from Denver to Topeka (where we stayed on Sunday night) was straight and flat for HOURS!! And it was hot in addition, and the wind was so strong that it was difficult to drive. We were just happy to get to the hotel!!
On our way to Topeka, we stopped in a Kansas town called WaKeeney for a gas fill-up. I put the nozzle in the tank, set it to fill, and went to write some things in my car-notebook. Next thing I knew, the gasoline was SPRAYING out of where the nozzle met the tank. I've never had that happen to me before. I couldn't get to it without getting myself drenched in gas, and there was a woman standing on the other side of my car who was able to reach over and knock the trigger to "off" in the nozzle. It went quite a bit over what should have gone in my tank, and the side of my car (and my legs) were covered with gasoline. UCK!! I made sure that the attendant knew that there was something wrong with the auto-shutoff on that pump. It was a rather scary situation!!
On Monday, 8/18, we had another boring driving day ... again, entirely on I-70 heading East. Coming out of Topeka, we could tell that we were heading back into "The East" because we hit our first "Toll Road" (I can always tell the difference between the roads in the East and in the West. The Toll Roads in the East are always the ones that have the most pot holes. UGH!!) Well, Kansas City is about an hour east of Topeka, and as I approached it, watching the taller buildings in the downtown area, I went back to my junior high school play, Oklahoma, and sang, "Everything's up to date in Kansas City. They've gone about as 'fer as they could go. They went and built a skyscraper seven stories high. That's about as high as a building ought to grow!!" (Can you tell that I was a bit car-silly!!)
That afternoon, we stopped at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO. (The official name is the "Jefferson National Expansion Memorial".) I was there two years ago, and thought it was a very appropriate way to end a trip to explore the west. Dianna has flown over the Arch before, but has not been to visit the grounds. Unfortunately, there were LOTS of people there, and the line for the tram to the top was over two hours long, and the movies were a bit long ... so we walked through the museum area (which had a LOT of neat information about the Lewis & Clark explorations of the west) and the two gift shops. We also walked down by the River (the Mississippi) to take some pictures of the Arch. It was a nice stop ... and a great chance to get off of I-70.
We made it to Columbus, OH that evening. We figured that from Columbus to the DC area shouldn't take more than about six or seven hours. We decided that we wanted to make our last driving day a half day so that we could have half of a day to work on unpacking. The morning person in me was grateful for that because it meant that I wouldn't have to stay up late dropping Dianna off, unloading her stuff, and then getting to my house even later and unloading my stuff.
Well, we left Columbus on Tuesday (8/19) earlier than we had left just about any town this summer. We were in the car and on the interstate (still I-70) before 6:30 a.m. We took I-70 into Pennsylvania, picked up I-79 south to Morgantown, West Virginia where we picked up I-68 east which took us back to I-70 and into Fredrick, Maryland where we picked up I-270 South to the Capitol Beltway. WOO HOO!! We were on the beltway by about noon. We actually made a quick stop at the school where I teach (I know, I know ... priorities!!) so that I could pick up my classroom keys. I plan to spend three LONG days in my classroom this week so that I can make up for time that in previous years would already have been put into getting set up. (That usually takes about two weeks. This year, I've only given myself a week and a half.)
From school, we went to Dianna's house ... extracted her things from the back of the truck ... made sure that we had the things that we each needed ... and then it was on to my own house. WOO HOO again!! :-) No matter how wonderful a time you might have on a vacation, it's always good to get to your own space!!
So ... that's it ... our adventurous "folly". :-D We've had a fabulous time and are glad that so many of you have followed along with us. Now, you know me ... I will process and process and process a LOT over the next few weeks and will be very happy to share the results of my long-thinking with you. :-D (Again, as with all of these "chapters", please feel free to IGNORE my musings!!) I would expect that you can expect an "Epilogue" within the next two or three weeks or so. I doubt that I will have the pictures online before then (I'll be really concentrating on school for the next couple of weeks), but you may get another (very short!) e-mail when I do have them online. Another thing to note is that by the time I send out the "Epilogue" e-mail, I will most likely have a new e-mail address, as within the first three hours of arriving at my condo I have put in a call to Cox Communications and have set up an appointment to have cable internet installed this coming Saturday. I'm looking forward to the high speeds!!
Take care ... God bless ...
and, thank you again for keeping up with us.
Love,
Lou Ann & Dianna