Home again!

Well, we have been home a couple of weeks and I finally have some time to do a final update here. With cleaning all the Canadian and Alaska dirt off and out of the Cruiser, cleaning the house, getting the yard into a basic semblance of shape and two days helping Chris and Kristen out at their new house we have been BUSY!

The trip was incredible! I just can't say enough of the beauty along the route we took. The pictures don't really do it justice. Every turn brought us to a view of jaw dropping scenery.

We hope you have enjoyed following along with us!

Love, Steve, Kathy and Izzy

World's largest Fly rod, Houston, BC

Barkerville, BC A 1890's goldrush town

Some cowpoke tending to his team

100 Mile House, BC
World's Largest Skiis

Back in the U.S.!!!

Seattle Spaceneedle

Yaquina Lighthouse, OR

One of the multitude of beautiful flowers at Shore Acres Botanical Gardens, OR

This rose was named Rainbow Sorbet and smelled so strongly of orange you wanted to eat it!!

Sunset in Pacific City, OR

A cold day at the beach

A Roosevelt Elk at our favorite park, Prarie Creek, CA

One final picture from Alaska - Outside Glenallen

Sept 3

We re-entered the good ol US of A a few days ago and after bidding fairwell to the land of Loonies and Twonies (that says alot!), English/French bipolarism and lots of great scenery we are at Kathy's sister's in Port Orchard, WA for several days. We have finally found some sunshine and it is great after so many overcast skies and rain. Who would have thought the good weather would be in the Pacific Northwest??


Our nephew Asher

August 23

Well Hello if anyone is out there!!
Finally have a reliable wifi again but time is limited so I will just say we continue to have a GREAT trip and have made it to Prince George B.C. on our way back home.
Here are a few pictures


Salmon Glacier out of Hyder, AK

The Three Bears (Griz)
Hoary Marmot

Further adventures in Alaska

We took a trip around the Valdez area and found the Humpback salmon. Tens of thousands of them!

These were in the bay

These were trying to get past the weir into the creek. Amazing! Never seen so many fish in my life!!

We drove up to Mineral Creek and I tried a little gold panning.

Needless to say I didn't strike it rich!

Further up the road we discovered a beautiful waterfall.

We reentered Canada and the Yukon on August 5th after 34 glorious days in Alaska. But we'll be back when we go to Skagway!

We're back in Whitehorse again after traversing the worst section of road on the Alaskan Highway. In last the 260 miles there were 36 'pavement breaks' (rough gravel at 10 -20 mph) many sections of rough road and innumerable frost heaves (big roller coaster bumps in the road). Slow exhausting driving to say the least. But the slow speed gives me more time to view the scenery, as long as we don't go airborne when I don't see one of the hidden frost heaves!

Finally a chance to update!

Well it has been a while (again) since the last update but decent speed wifi connections are still difficult to find. So I'll try and recreate the route.



Soldotna, AK July 10-13



World's largest Ice cream cone







World's largest rocking chair


I went out on a charter fishing for King salmon. I caught one in the morning about 18 lbs, but released him in hopes of a bigger one. Alas it was not to be, but still a great day. The Red salmon run was just starting and the fishing for them wasn't too good either.




Homer, AK July 14-21

The drive here was beautiful, especially around Turnagain Arm just south of Ancourage.

We both fell in Love with Homer. A cool, laidback town, or as they say " A small drinking town with a big fishing problem"



Many eagles out on the spit in Kachamak Bay. Did alot of fishing for silver salmon but the run had just started and the darned fish weren't cooperating.











But the Halibut did cooperate!!

I caught alot of the buggers, reeling them up from 250 feet deep. Most of them were small but even so it is alot of work and my arms were tired by the end of the day.

A drive back in the country brought us a meeting with
this handsome young fellow













Back to Soldotna July 22-24 for some more fishing. The first day I only caught this whopper which was almost as long as the lure! Actually he was snagged by the hook.











Finally a real salmon!!!!!!!!!! 27 inches and a tough fighter and tastes grrrrrrrrrreat!










Seward, AK July 25-28

Another great town on the Kenai Peninsula

Exit Glacier



We took a 3 hour cruise of wildlife and glaciers. Yes that is a '3 hour tour' with Kathy as Mary Ann and Steve as The Professor. Luckily we didn't get morooned as it was COLD! The animals and scenery were awesome!!















Some scenery somewhere along the way.













On our way back to Anchorage to visit Steve's old high school classmates we happened upon these spawning Red salmon.







It seems that each leg of our travels is more beautiful than the last.
These shots are enroute to Valdez traveling over Thonpson Pass.
Valdez July 30 - today Aug 1 famous as the end of the Trans Alaska Pipeline and the Exxon Valdez oil spill



Today we took a 9 hour cruise around Prince William Sound. It was so enjoyable that it seemed like only an hour or two!

Whales, sea otters, Steller Sea Lions, various birds, and innumerable icebergs, incredible!!!! An experience equal to the helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon.

Well that's a brief update. The weather has been pretty lousy, this is the coldest summer ever recorded in Alaska. I don't think we have had more than 2 days without some rain in the last month! We have seen the sun at least 10 times though!!!!

We are having a great trip despite the weather and will be moving on for parts unknown in a couple days.

Soldotna, AK

Sorry we haven't been able to update this more often but the decent wifi's have been few and far between.

We are currently in Soldotna, AK on the Kenai peninsula. South out of Anchourage to here was probably the most beautiful scenery we have ever seen! Just incredible.

I am heading out tomorrow on a float trip in search of the elusive King Salmon. Wish me luck, I'll need it as the run hasn't been too good this year.

From here we are heading further south to Homer, then probably back up and around to Seward for some glacier viewing.

Yesterday I spent an hour watching the Dall Sheep cavort on the sheer side of the mountain overlooking our campsite. The best wildlife viewing we have had yet.


Can you see them????

Dawson Creek

Greetings from Dawson Creek, BC!!
After 1500 miles we have reached Mile 0 of the Alaskan Highway and halfway to Anchorage.

We are having a great time though trying to covert all these metric measurements is taxing my weak mind.

The weather and roads have been great so far and we are having fun.
This wifi is really touchy but I'll try and throw in a few pictures.

Part of a beautiful waterfall in Hope, BC

This is a view from our campsite

Black Arabian

Thompson River

Minter Gardens

Beautiful place with flowers everywhere!

We made it to Washington!

We're off and running! Or I guess I should say driving!!
Our first stop was to visit our friends Charlie and Denise in the beautiful foothills out side Marysville. Besides visit them the highlights were a nice ride around the area in their 1970 Mustang convertible and a trip to the Malakoff Diggins. That's a State Park where in the late 1800's miners devastated the landscape and everything downriver by hydraulic mining for gold.
Very interesting history!

Next we drove a whole 50 miles to visit friends Bill and Mary. Bill is a retired state Division Chief who I worked with before I retired.




We then followed the Sacramento River up to the cute little town of Dunsmuir and spent the night at Railroad RV Resort. Just a way down the road was an amazing motel where all the rooms were remodeled train cars. Very cool!






In Grant's Pass, OR we visited Cheryl, who's sons played soccer with our boys many moons ago. We made a side trip to Wildlife Images, a rehabilitation organization for wild animals. They return most of their patients back to the wild but some are too injured or imprinted and are on permanent display. Grizzly and black bears, mountain lion, wolves and a variety of raptors are a few of the residents tahat we got a very up close look at. Great place, and free!

Port Orchard, Washington was our final destination for this leg of the trip. We'll be here about a week visiting Sharon, Nick, Julie, Ryan and our newest great nephew Asher. Asher is 9 weeks old and 11 pounds of love.

North to Alaska!

We are heading out in two days on our next adventure. Alaska or bust! With gas so high we may not make it but we are heading that way. I'll try and update this blog but it will be infrequent since I am sure internet access will be limited. Wish me luck with fishing!!!!

January

Last January we made our annual (since retirement anyway) trip south. This time it was to Southern California and the Blythe Bluegrass Festival and then Arizona and Las Vegas.



Our first stop was at Morro Bay to visit Steve's Uncle Dean.

Morro Rock





Refugio Beach, just north of Santa Barbara was the next destination and we had a great time there and enjoyed seeing the porpoises swim by everyday.






We spent five days at the festival listening to GREAT music by a wide range of fantastic musicians. Then we headed to Lake Havasau to have some repairs done on the Cruiser. That turned into 5 days but we headed north completely operational.

Finally we made it to Las Vegas to visit with family. We parked at Carl and Amy's house and took up residence in our bedroom at their house. We had a great visit with all of Kathy's family and had fun babysitting our nephews Alex and Nicholas.




In February we made our first trip to Hawaii for our 30th anniversary. The first three days we spent in Waikiki. It was crazy with Japanese tourists and to busy for our tastes though we did enjoy our excursion to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial. Very emotional.








Then it was a short flight to Maui for the next six days. We spent a lot of time sitting on the beach or at the pool just relaxing but did take the Road to Hana and watched the whales cavorting off the beaches. Awesome!

Whale tail

Whales were everywhere!









Beautiful flowers

Incredible sunsets!
This one is for Tiff!

April 19th we headed south for Chris's birthday (26!) and the annual Loop Ranch roundup and branding. The ranch is about 400 square miles and managed by Kristen's Uncle. It's a trip into the old wild west and really alot of fun.

Some of the herd Birthday boy and Kristen

Cleanup crew

Presently we are just hanging around home, doing some advocacy for MADD, volunteering at the VA Hospital and getting Steve's parents prepared to move to Livermore. We hope to head north the first of June. We may not make it to Alaska as we were hoping since gas is about $5/gal in Canada now but we'll play it by ear.