Dawson City Yukon

We traveled to Dawson City through Chicken, Alaska and over first the Taylor Hwy then, on the Canadian side, the Top of the World Hwy. The Canadian/USA border crossing is in the middle of nowhere at the top of a mountain. The closest habitation to it is 10 miles away at Border Alaska, and that is just a house, airstrip and a "store".

We had to wait 10 minutes or so for someone to come out of the border crossing and talk to us. I guess they were playing chess with their USA counterparts. ;) The thrill for us was that right after the crossing, there was a small herd of caribou. I stopped and rolled down the window while simultaneously calling to the girls to see the caribou. Big mistake. The caribou heard me and started running away. I got some pictures of the rear ends of caribou.

The Taylor Hwy is pretty rough, while the Top of the World Hwy is better. It wasn't raining, thank goodness because I wouldn't have wanted to do that road in the rain. As it was, it took us 6 hours to drive from Delta Junction to Dawson City with a brief stop at Chicken to top of the tank with $5.70/gal gas.

To get to Dawson City and continue on the Klondike Hwy, you have to take a (free) ferry across the Yukon River. We had to wait 20 minutes to get on the ferry.

Dawson City is an historic town built during the gold rush of 1900's. It once was a booming town with all the amenities that San Francisco had at that same time. The houses and buildings have been restored and there is a great walking tour that you can take through town. They have Jack London's cabin (or half of it) here. They also have a wonderful theatre called the Palace. We went to see "Fiddle Rush Too" which was a play/music/dancing performance that gave some of the true stories of the people that made up Dawson at the turn of the century.

We drove 12 miles outside of town to go gold panning at the family run Goldbottom Mine Tours. We didn't take the tour instead opting to just pan. They have 15 year old triplets who help with the tour and teaching people to pan. $21 each buys as many hours as you can stand panning, pay dirt and all the equipment. The girls loved it. Andrea and Justin as two of the triplets and both are sweet as they could be. The third triplet is in Spain with their mom at the world panning competition. Who knew???? Dad runs the tours and digs the paydirt and grandma helps with parts of the tours. They have a mammoth skull and some teeth and a huge tusk on display. They also just discovered another mammoth skull up the creek. During the ice age, this area was never covered with ice.

Surprisingly, the girls liked Dawson well enough that they asked to spend a second night. We spent the first night at Goldrush Camp inside the city ($34 + $2 for a 6 minute shower, I couldn't manage to use the wifi) and the second night at Guggieville RV Park ($19 with Good Sam discount +$1 for a 2.5 minute shower in an individual room, where I am not having any trouble with the wifi). Today we will probably go to Whitehorse if I can ever get the girls up.

Update, the girls wanted to pan for gold again. This took most of the day so we are spending a third night in Dawson City.

RiVa goes off road

Technically I suppose she wasn't really off road because we were on a "highway" the whole time. We took RiVa on Alaska 11 also known as the Dalton Hwy. Maggie (our Magellan roadmate) doesn't even recognize the road. She couldn't/wouldn't find Coldfoot or Arctic Circle or Yukon Crossing or Weisman or any of the many creeks and rivers we passed. Maggie went blank until we told her to be a map, which she sorta was if you don't need any names of anything. She did tell us what direction we were pointing (mostly north).

By the time we got back, RiVa was COVERED in mud. We traveled 190 miles in 7.5 hours. The road from Fairbanks to the Dalton Hwy was good paved road. But the first 25-30 miles of the Dalton hwy was dirt/gravel with pot holes and chatter and very slow going, then a little bit of good paved road then back to tough road. There were a few places where I was afraid that the mud would bog down RiVa and we would be stuck with no way to get help. I white knucled it through those spots and didn't slow down. Other than a little slipping, it was OK. Then there were the STEEP hills that were mud/gravel. RiVa weights quite a bit so I shifted her into low to use the engine to brake. Even in low gear, RiVa would get going faster than I was comfortable with so I will need to have her brakes checked again soon.

There is a visitor's center at Yukon Crossing with a helpful couple. There is a really good visitor's center at Coldfoot.
















There is a place that sells gas at Yukon Crossing right across the "highway" from the little cabin that is the visitor center. That is the last gas until Coldfoot 110 miles beyond. We paid $5.60/gal for gas at Coldfoot and were glad of it. :)

When we got to the arctic circle we got a bunch of pictures of us standing in front of the sign (I'll post them later).

We saw 2 moose. The first one we saw was on the way up. She was beside the road in a pond. She was on the real road, the one before the Dalton Hwy. The other one we saw today. He was about 30 miles below Coldfoot. When he saw us, he crossed the road then disappeared.

The sun never really sets at Coldfoot. It moves around the sky rather than up and over. At 11:30-12:00ish it becomes dusk which lasts for a couple of hours, then the sun raises up a little and it is day again. It is never truly dark at this time of year.

The Dalton Hwy follows the Alaska Pipeline. The Pipeline is awesome.

Happy Birthday

My girls put together a lovely birthday for me. They decorated Riva inside and out and made cards and gift baskets. I got moose themed gifts:) Then we went to Pioneer Village which is living history sort of theme area (free) and then to the El Dorado Gold Mine tour. These has been a lovely day.

North to Fairbanks

Fairbanks is only a couple of hours north of Denali on the Parks hwy. Just past the Denali town there are some beautiful views but no place to pull over to the side of the road and take pictures. We drove past Savage Road in Healy, before Beeray noticed it. I had to make a U-turn which with RiVa on a narrow road is the 3 or 4 point turn. Luckily there was little traffic on the road. We drove up Savage Road until we reached the pavement's end. Beeray took pictures of the sign for Savage Road, the end of the road and various scenery around the road and creek so that she will be able to show it to her classmates when they discuss their summer reading project, Into the Wild.

Now we are in Fairbanks at a pretty campsite. RiVa got an oil change, vacuumed, windows cleaned and all her other fluids checked. The Fairbanks Jiffy Lube does service right.

The girls went to a craft store to get supplies for my birthday (they are taking the whole thing very seriously). Now they are demanding that I go to sleep so they can put together their surprise for me. Their plan is to lock me into the back of RiVa until morning.

Moose, Moose, Moose!

Two moose at mile 10 inside Denali Park. Hurray!

Denali

Denali. Everyone we meet tells us that we must got to Denali. We have arrived. There are two types of buses that go into the park. The green shuttle bus, run by the park and the beige tour bus. The biggest difference between them is the price and the fact that the beige buses serve a box lunch (mystery meat, crackers and chips). The beige bus costs about $90 more than the shuttle and for that I can buy a much nicer lunch that has identifiable meat.

We started at the Wilderness Access Center. The helpful people there told us about the two buses. Since my biggest interest is moose (mooses?) I asked them where I could go to see them. They told me that the best time to view the moose was after 5:00 and the best place was in the first 13 miles of the park road. Cars are allowed to drive the road for the first 13 miles....

At mile 10, we saw two bull moose! Hurray! There are actually real, non domestic moose in Alaska. I took lots of pictures as did the 3 bus loads and 7 car loads of people at the moose-jam.

On the way back out of the park, I saw Mike in The Road Less Traveled van. He is a wealth of information. His advice, which was confirmed by another lady is to not take either of the buses. He said that if we see bears they will be far away and not suitable to photograph and I already had seen bears. I met Mike and Brenda by the side of the road while we were both photographing bears. He also told me that we should see the dog sled demonstration (free) at 10:00am and the 1:00pm ranger walking tour at the Information center. He had seen lots of beautiful rocks and lots of bear, lynx and moose prints in the second of the 3 washes in the first 13 miles of the park road. So that is our itinerary for tomorrow. Wash walk, dog sled, ranger talk and then on to Fairbanks.

I have now had three people tell me that I MUST go north of Fairbanks. Mike went all the way to the Artic Ocean and swam in the sea! It is only 2 hours north of Fairbanks to get to the Arctic Circle but much further to get to the ocean....I will at least get to the Artic Circle tomorrow or maybe the day after.

Soldotna to Wasilla

Last night, on the recommendation of one of the FULL RV parks in Soldotna, We stayed at the Fred Myers. Advantages are FREE, disadvantages are no showers, no internet, no electric (except generator). But we got by. The problem with rolling into Soldotna late is that the fishing town fills up. Every hotel was full, every RV park was full....Fred Myers was pretty full but still places.

Today we took out time getting through Anchorage. My birthday is coming up soon so the girls wanted to shop for me. I am protesting but to no avail.

We went to the zoo to see moose since there are apparently no moose in Alaska. On the way from Soldotna we drove through several moose areas and moose watch areas, but they lie. :( I got pictures of the domestic moose.

We just got to Wasilla before I was worn out. We stayed in an RV park that is 6 miles north of Wasilla.

Tomorrow we head toward Denali but I still don't know how much we will do there. I guess it depends on the weather and whether we hear some good reports about the bus trips.

Homer/Homer

2 nights at Homer. We were slow at getting out this morning due to trying to figure out the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry. After about an hour we decided that we will go from Skagway to Juneau then Juneau to Prince Rupert. I think it will work.

Today we shopped at the numerous tourist shops on the spit and then went to the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center. They have excellent interactive displays, a 14 minute movie, and a gift shop. The price is right too....free. All of us enjoyed our time there. We all give this museum/center a 5 star rating.

Tomorrow we will walk on the beach at 10:04 because there is a minus tide of 1.9 then and then go to the Pratt Museum which has gotten rave reviews from everyone we have talked to.

This morning I saw Melissa who has Vanna and I met at Muncho Lake. She is going out kayaking this morning.

There was a minus tide at 10:05 so Boo and I took a walk on the beach. Beeray went for a run.

Anchorage and then Homer

We got to Anchorage late. I didn't think there would be a problem since it is a big city. I was wrong. There were only hotels available in the moderate range $175+ (Anchorage is an expensive place to get a hotel). DH was searching for me and found a cheap ($129) room in a scary hotel, so we decided that we would stay in an RV park. The nicest one is $49 and they had spaces.

Beeray programed Maggie for that RV park. By now it was pouring rain and really late 10:30ish though because of the midnight sun, it didn't feel late. We got there and the office was closed for the night. What to do? There are 2 Walmarts and 2 Sams Clubs in Anchorage so we decided to sleep there...no luck. All of them had huge signs threatening to tow away anyone who parked a vehicle over night. Then we saw a parking lot of a Fred Meyers that had about 10 RVs parked in it. The slides were out so they were parking overnight. Hurray.

In the morning we went to the Alaska Heritage Center. It was a bit of a disappointment. They had native dances but I was not allowed to photograph the dances even though it said in the brochure that photography is allowed of the dances and dancers. They have a walking tour that shows the different types of dwellings that the first Alaskans used. Inside is a small museum, gift shop, several people making and selling crafts and a cafe where you have to eat outside (In this case it was under an awning but still cold because of the rain. The cost was $50 for 1 adult, 2 children. We spent an hour there and then, having exhausted all possibilities, we got back on the road.

Boo was starving. We stopped by a BBQ place that is a stand in a gas station A(gas prices $4.39 cash price) and had a very tasty lunch.

The 6 hour drive to Homer was pretty. For the first third of the drive we were on the ocean but the tide was out so there were miles and miles and miles of mud flats. Then we went through mountains and back to sea shore. Just north of Homer there are some beautiful views of volcanoes just across the bay....very impressive.

Homer is a fishing town with a harbor that is on the east side of a spit. The tourist area of town is on the spit. My girls really wanted to have wifi so they could communicate with their friends. We drove out on the spit and found that RV campground 1 had no spaces, Homer Spit RV Campground had spaces but spotty wifi and only 2 hours so on the advice of the man at Homer Spit RV Campground, we headed to the Driftwood in town. It wasn't until after I had paid $47 for the space and pulled in, that I found that the wifi didn't work. So we spent the night at the Homer RV Campground $34 plus $3 for showers for all of us. The man in the office gave us two coupons worth of Homer wifi. Each is good for 2 hours of wifi. It worked enough to calm Beeray though she didn't get to talk to her friends.

Across from the camp ground they are building 3 story houses. On the top of one of those houses an eagle was perched. We watched him for a long time.

This morning we are going to go to the Pratt Museum which is highly recommended by the Lonely Planet guidebook. We also picked up another guidebook at the B&N in Anchorage, Alaska Camping. We have finished several books on cd while on this trip. We just finished "The Girl With No Shadow" by Joanne Harris. All of us enjoyed that book.

We didn't see any animals on the way down from Anchorage except 2 swans with chicks and the eagle on the house here. Today we will search again. I think that the road is just too busy for the animals to feel comfortable walking near it. There was a sign that stated that 150 moose have been killed since June 1 so I guess there is a chance that I will see one....

Whales and glaciers in Valdez

We saw Al Gore's glacier. The name of the glacier is Meares. It is an advancing glacier so it calves. Calving glaciers are advancing glaciers. Meares has been advancing for the last 300 years. Meares is 46 miles long. I got some pictures of Meares calving, but this wifi is a funky connection so I will have to wait to upload them. the thing that is remarkable about a calving glacier is the noise. We could hear loud crashes, cracks and pops before we would see the glacier calve. We were floating at the front of the glacier is dead silence and would hear these loud noises and then wait to see if we could see the glacier break and calve into the ocean.

We also saw Columbia glacier. Columbia is retreating and has been retreating since 1970. We saw icebergs, many many icebergs. And other glaciers that were in the mountains so we couldn't get to them by boat.

We went on a cruise with Stan Stephen on his boat the Valdez Spirit. The boat is 4 years old and very comfortable. The cost of the 9 hour cruise is $126.80 for adults and $67.40 for children 12 and under. Despite my apprehension about getting sea sick, I had no problems. I was even able to have 2 meals on the ship. I did take Bonine before going out.

There were humpback whales!!, stellar sea lions (no idea why they are stellar), harbor seals, lots and lots of sea otters, puffins!, cormorants, and a bald eagle and her nest. We were cruising within Prince William Sound which is a huge area.

Just after seeing Meares glacier, there was a long wistle which alerted our captain that there was something wrong with one of the engines. The water pump had gone out. We proceeded very slowly on one engine while Stan went to fix the water pump. He eventually fixed it.

Stan is very knowledgeable about the area so he tells us about the animals, glaciers and points of interest as we floated by.

Bear

This grizzly was about 7 feet from us. He came to Allison Point to catch salmon at dusk (11:30pm).

Tok, Worthington, and Valdez

We traveled from Tok to Valdez. This should have been a 5 hour drive but the scenery is so beautiful as soon as you get past Copper Valley, the scenery is so beautiful that we stopped quite a bit. We had been told to visit Wothington Glacier (30 minutes from Valdez). It is just off of the hwy. We hiked to the glacier and the girls scared me to death by getting on top of the slippery glacier. Worthington is a rare glacier because it is blue. It has been receding for one hundred years but, because the ice pack above it, it will grow again soon. The lady in the gift shop told us abpout another glacier in Alaska that had the same type of growing ice pack. That glacier grew 4 miles in 2 months much to the horror of the people who had houses below it. That glacier stopped short of taking out any houses. Whew!

Past Worthington, the scenery is breath-taking. HUGE mountains that are green but have patches of snow, then gorgeous water falls. Fortunately there are lots of turn outs so that we could take pictures that I will post later.

Valdez is really lovely. Valdez is about at sea level on a big bay. The Alaska Pipeline ends here at Allison Point. Surrounding the town and bay are steep, young mountains that have caught the clouds on their peaks. They call this town the Switzerland of North America. This area is a mecca for fishing in the summer and extreme skiing in the winter.

We are staying in the Bayview RV Park. They have funky wifi, but fortunately, the RV park just across the way (Eagles Nest) Does have wifi and I can get it here. :) The couple that runs this place are friendly and helpful. Last night they told us to go bear watching at Allison Point and we saw a grizzly catching fish.

Today we lounged around and explored the town a bit. Tomorrow we are going out on Stan Stephens Glacier and Wildlife Cruise. The cost of the 9 hour cruise is $126.80 for adults and 67.40 for children. We decided on that cruise because the boat is larger and therefore should be easier for me to keep from getting sea sick...I hope.

several days

Several days have gone by since I was last able to post. I notice that the "misc" post doesn't have writing to explain the mysterious photos. That post was : We use Zote soap to wash our clothes. I got the bar of Zote in the 99 cent store. We wash them at night when we are in a hotel room....so we don't always get a chance to wash them. We have several towels but we prefer the "Packtowel" to the other travel towels and to the regular terry cloth towel that we brought. The hotel in Watson Lake was decorated in an interesting way. Red towels and sheets, 3 kinds of wall[paper on each wall, blue bathroom including blue shower tub combo, red frilly curtains (as advertised in the brochure).

From Watson Lake, we traveled to Whitehorse a lovely town. 30 miles or so outside of Whitehorse, I saw a sign for Carcross and remembered the Carcross desert from my www surfing. The Carcross Desert is the smallest desert in the world. The sign was for Carcross, but not the desert. We were at Jake's Corner a wide spot on the road with a gas station and diner. We stopped and verified that Carcross Desert did exist. We took a 3 hour detour (including stops) to Carcross to see the desert and the charming town that HAS been discovered by tourists. Not to worry, the desert is a couple of miles north of town and we had it pretty much to ourselves. Beeray ran from one end of the desert to the other and up to the top of the highest dune. She is strong and determined.

There are 25k of the 30k people living in the Yukon, that live in Whitehorse. Much of it is old but gleaming old. We arrived late and there were no rooms to be had. I was tired of driving and none of my cell phones had worked for 200 miles so we couldn't call around. I suppose that I could have used the phones at the lovely visitor's center, but I was tired, so we camped at Walmart with 30 or more other RVs. It was a different experience. There were some full timers and some new to RVing. I got help from a nice man (Mac and Bettye McBroom)who had been full time for 11 years. Mac showed me how to work RiVa's heater and refrigerator. He told me where to get propane. We saw our friends Mike and Brenda who are in the Road Less Traveled van.

We still hadn't decided if we were going to go to Tok through the sourthern route or going to head north through Dawson City and the "Top of the World" Highway. we were told that that weekend there was going to be 500 motorcycles in Dawson City. That settled it, there was no way that we would be able to find lodging, so we stayed on the southern route, staying on the Alaskan Highway. The road was misserable pretty much from Whitehorse to 20 miles beyond the USA border. The road between Whitehorse and Tok, our next stop, was rough. There are miles and miles and miles of frost surge which means the going is slow and even when slow is bone and RiVa shaking.

We stayed in Beaver Creek, just shy of the USA/Canada border. We stayed in Buckshot Betty's place. The rooms are clean log cabins. I wouldn't stay there again though. There was no telephone, no wifi (actually there was wifi, but it was secure and Buckshot Betty wouldn't give us the login info. Buckshot Betty is cranky. The rooms are $104. The people in the information center at Beaver Creek were friendly, as was the man in the museum just south of town and the miner who's claim we "jumped". The girls wanted to pan for gold and the man told us how to get to a place that has gold. We stopped at the creek and started to pan when a miner came by. Apparently we were on his claim but he smiled and told us to pan as long as we would like.

Crossing the USA border was pretty quick. The boarder guard asked us if we were carrying more than $10k, if RiVa was mine and looked at our passports.

Then on to Tok. Tok (pronounced Toke). We stayed at the Tundra RV Park because they were supposed to have wifi (a more and more urgent requirement). The truth was that they had spotty and pretty much unusable wifi so I couldn't log on. *sigh*. They also had one RVer at the camp that was playing his music really loud, long into the night. I turned on RiVa's fans to drown out the noise.

Were told by the nice lady at the gold nugget jewelry shop on the edge of Tok, that we should go to Mukluk Land for the girls to play and to pan for gold. Gold is guaranteed. The price of admission was $5 adult, $2 children and $5 for panning. George, the wonderful owner of Mukluk Land helped the girls pan. They got quite a bit of gold for our $5. It was a bargan. The girls played a ball throwing game and got candy for each set of points that they scored. We met a man who has been traveling in his RV since May. He runs a campsite review on the www:
www.rvparkreviews.com
He was a wealth of information. When we left Mukluk land George's wife (I didn't ever learn her name though we talked for an hour) gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She is a lovely lady. She and her husband have run Mukluk Land for 25 years. It is an eccentric collection of kid-friendly activities run by these two retired school teachers. A great place to visit with children!

Misc

We over packed. There is debris all over RiVa. We like Packtowel better than Absorber and like both of them better than real towels. This is the decorating in the Big Horn Hotel, Watson Creek, Yukon. We wash our clothes every time we get a chance using Zote (bought at the $.99 Store). So far I almost always choose the same three shirts and two pants.

Critter Count

Numerous cows and horses
4 miniature donkeys
a llama farm
30+ bison
8 stone sheep
1 moose
1 caribou
2 black bears
1 grizzly bear

Bison, Sheep and BEARS YUKON

Today we drove from Muncho lake to Watson Lake. Muncho Lake is wilderness, Watson Lake is a city of 1500 people ;). We are staying at the Big Horn Hotel. We were lucky to find a place since it seems everything is booked up. The room is smoky but large and, other than the smell of smoke, clean. The cost is $104/night which seems to be a fortune for this hotel. They have wifi (hurray!) and their brochure advertizes "Frilly curtains and Blinds".

The day was spectacular. We saw 2 black bears:
















Bison (Right after seeing a sign warning about bison):

There were about 30 bison in 3 groups.
















And a grizzly bear!!!:

We are sooooo lucky.
















Yukon is a territory, not a province. There are only 30 thousand people in the entire territory. The big city is Whitehorse with 25 thousand people. This "city", Watson Lake has 1500 people.

The people in the visitor's center are helpful. Pick up a coupon in the visitor's center for $1 off of the Northern Lights show. The Northern Lights Center has a video of the northern lights. It is worth seeing.

Familiar People

As we travel we are seeing the same people and vehicles. Meet Vanna:
Vanna's blog will be http://travelpossin.blogspot.com/









And then there are our friends who like the wild animals as much as we do:

To Muncho Lake, A MOOSE!!!

I have to first confess that though I saw a REAL LIVE MOOSE, I was unable to get a picture. She was there and then gone in the blink of an eye. *sigh*

From Dawson Creek we traveled to Muncho Lake. On our way we stopped in Fort Nelson. I do not recommend Fort Nelson. The lady in the information center is not only NOT helpful but she wasn't friendly (clearly doesn't belong in this job) and she wasn't knowledgeable. The only high point of Fort Nelson was the store 2 doors down from the post office (next to the supermarket) that had cheap prices on camping gear. We were able to stock up on RiVa supplies.

But there were the other high points of the day. Near Stone Mountain at Summit Lake (you can camp there) I saw my first moose ever! I had just seen a sign to watch out for moose and just about 500 yards away, there she was. Then, a few miles later there was a sign about caribou and less than 100 feet from that sign there was a caribou.
We drove for 20 miles more then saw a sign to watch for wild sheep. And there they were, 3 stone sheep.
We spent the night at a campground at Rocky Mountain Lodge.


We paid too much for the camp. We paid $47 and the camp did not include showers, or rather the showers were coin operated. The cost of a shower was one loonie for one minute! Grrrr. Since I only had one loonie (I had toonies, paper and other coins but one loonie) I managed to take a one minute shower. Here is what I did:
I wet my hair in the bathroom sink. Then I poured my shampoo onto my wet hair and worked it into a lather. I was still dressed at this point since this area was the public portion of the ladies room. Then I went into the first shower and closed the curtain, undressed, deposited the Mooney and turned on the shower. Since my hair was already soapy, I was able to quickly wash my body, rinse and cream rinse my hair.

Despite the fact that I should have chosen one of the cheaper camp sites, the lake was lovely. Muncho Lake was a soft powder blue color when we rolled into the camp. The lake is deep, 200 meters in the center of the lake, and surrounded by steep mountains.

Dawson Creek

Edmonton is still prairie as is most of the scenery to Dawson Creek. There were some unbelievably beautiful vistas. Mile after mile of sweet smelling canola flowers that are bright yellow. The yellow of the canola, green of the trees and the grasses and the blue of the sky made all the colors look like they were in a watercolor painting.

We had made an hour stop at the Super Store (The Real Canadian) to buy food, gas ($1.42/gal) and, as it turned out, clothing. The Super Store is huge. Think Costco and then half again as large.
















We rolled into Dawson Creek at 3:30. We stayed at the Mile 0 Campgrounds in a dry campsite.


Dry campsites are $18. The Mile 0 Campground has electric and water campsites too. They also have a bathroom and showers and laundry facilities. They have wifi. Our site was next to a group of 11 school children from New Jersey and their teacher. Each year he drives one group of children to Alaska then he puts them on a plane back to New Jersey while meeting another group that he drives back from Alaska. Nice children!

We rolled into Dawson Creek at 3:30. Dawson Creek is mile zero on the Alaska Hwy. They have a VERY helpful man in the Visitor Information Center who used to work on the roads. He told us that the best price for gas was 20 Km outside of town. The prices there are $10/liter cheaper. We found out that there are 3 places in Dawson Creek that offer free wifi. I know the library was one spot. They have a Walmart so you can camp there if need be.

The people are friendly. I was just south of town and turned into the hills to take some pictures of the beautiful area. We were on our way back down to town when I saw a woman collecting a wheelbarrow of wood. I stopped and told her what a beautiful place she live in. The next thing I knew I was invited to take pictures from her deck (amazing views!) Then we met her miniature donkeys and fed them dried bread.

Heading North Again

We are almost packed and ready to go. It's 7:30 Edmonton time. No idea where we will land tonight. Our adventure continues.Publish Post

Through Calgary to Edmonton

Calgary from the fwy.



Things to LOVE about Canada:
1)Friendly People
2)Beautiful vistas
3)Tons of water (No two flush toilets)
4)Loonie and Toonie
5)Largest Mall in the world (West Edmonton Mall)
6)It seems that every town has a horse tack store
7)Lots of horses grazing by the side of the hwy (cows too)

We loved the West Edmonton Mall. There are 3 amusement parks (one of them an indoor water park) a sea lion show, an amazing IMAX theatre with a dragon that blows flames, a hotel, and 300+ stores. Quite a place!

There is a great Chinese/Asian supermarket where we bought dinner. We like the Comfort Inn that is just 9 blks from the Mall. Because we like the hotel, and things to do in Edmonton we have decided to spend another night in Edmonton.

Things we don't like about Canada:
1) The prices here are about 50% higher for the same goods as in the USA
2) The standard bed in the hotel is a double not a queen
3) Gas prices are significantly higher than they are even in Malibu (The cheap gas is $1.32/liter)
4) No Fox News :(

Walmart Canada

Flower and bumble bee in the Walmart parking lot.



We stayed in a Walmart parking lot in Red Deer. I wanted to have the camping in the parking lot adventure and it worked fine. We kept a low profile. Riva doesn't look like an RV. We parked in an isolated corner of the parking lot, closed the curtains and cooked some food that we bought at Walmart for dinner. In the morning, we didn't leave until after 8:30am because the store didn't open until 8am and we had some shopping to do.

I bought an atlas of North America from Walmart. They have a listing at the front of the book of all the Walmarts in North America.

Beeray and Boo were unhappy about the camp-at-walmart experience. Their complaint was the lack of internet service because they couldn't IM their friends. It will be interesting to see how they do when we are in a real camping experience.

Canadian Cell phone

I already had an unlocked phone that had been unlocked by ATT when I traveled to Asia. I don't think that ATT does that service any more. My main phone was not unlocked but it is legal to have it unlocked. There is an online service that unlocks the phones:
http://www.cell-unlock.com/

I paid $25 for the unlock code for my phone. They send you the unlock code, then you insert the foreign sim card and the phone asks for the unlock code. Type in the code and hit enter or OK and the phone is unlacked and able to be used with another provider.

ATT phones and T-Mobile phones are GSM which is the same network as most of the world but Canada, like the USA has many providers that use another network. In Canada, Roger's Cellular is on the GSM network. I believe that there is one other provider in Canada that also uses GSM.

We were too late on Thursday to get to the Rogers store. I needed to buy a sim card and then minutes for that card. As it turned out, though I didn't find out until Friday, Walmart sells sim cards and minutes. The cost for the sim card was $39 and I bought $20 worth of air time. I had to call Rogers using the Walmart phone department phone in order to activate the sim card and minutes. There were several prepay plans, none of them were particularly good deals. I opted for the 25 cents for the first 5 minutes, 15 cents thereafter + 60 cents per minute to call the USA. I am using the phone for just text massages and toll free numbers (though I think I still have to pay local air time). I do have to pay air time when DH calls me. :(

My intention is to use the phone for emergency calls, text messages and toll free numbers. It took me 3 phone calls and a total of 35 minutes on the phone to get the text feature and the phone to work. But it is working now and unlocked and the sim card works in both my unlocked phones. If the price of the sim card were less, I would have bought another sim card, but one will have to do.

Oh Canada

We are in Canada, Lethbridge to be exact. We stayed at a small room, shabby but clean motel called the Pepper Tree Inn. I chose it because they have wifi in all the rooms and the other hotels seem to only have either wired access or wifi in public areas. Apparently it is going to be harder to get on line now that I am in Alberta, Canada.

Crossing the boarder was pretty easy. There was a queue of aboot 30 cars. It took us 30 minutes to get through. At the crossing I presented the lady with our passports, the notarized letter from DH stating that he knows about us going out of the USA and a copy of proof of car insurance that is Canadian approved. The customs lady asked me if I had firearms or any weapons or pepper spray(no) or if I had any items for sale (no). Then she waved us through.

We didn't get a chance to buy sim cards for my unlocked phone and the one that is about to be unlocked. More later on how to do this if I manage. I need to buy a sim card for a gsm phone. Like the USA, Canada has two types of phones. TMsomething and Rogers are both gsm networks which is the kind of phones that I have. I need a Canadia sim card for that type of phone.

Tha Calgary Stampede starts today. For those of you who, like me, don't know what a stampede is, it is Canadian for rodeo. We will be driving through Calgary so we may stop for some portion of the stampede.

We're Off......Again

6:45 am and we are mostly ready to leave. Nana needs to be somewhere at 8:30am so the plan is that we will all go to breakfast and then we are off. Maggie gets her first real trial today. We are going south on I-75 to I-20 east then back to I-15 north. I have no idea where we will land tonight.

We made it to Dillon Montana. We made a two hour stop at Craters of the Moon National Park. While there, we hiked through Indian Tunnel. Way Cool!

We also stopped in the little town where they mine opals, Spencer Idaho. We saw the most beautiful opal I have ever seen. It was deep red with flashes of blue.

Meet Maggie

My father is worried about my directional and navigational skills. His first clue that I might not know what I was doing was when I decided that the shortest route to Fairbanks, Alaska from Malibu, California involved a trip through Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana, and three Canadian provinces. When viewed from a satellite, the route traces a soft backwards approximation of a "C". Then, when I was making my detour to Sun Valley to visit my parents, I passed a sign that read "Twin Falls", Sun Valley" with an arrow pointing south. YIKES! Somehow I had passed the turnoff and had gone who-knows-how-many-miles in the wrong direction. So I pulled off the road and called my father.

BIG mistake! Grandpa the MIT Wiz, was alarmed that I was taking Beloved Granddaughter 1 and Beloved Granddaughter 2 into a black hole where no light, let alone Beloved Granddaughters 1 and 2 would ever emerge again. Clearly I could not be trusted with something as important as navigating all the way to Alaska and, here is the critical part, BACK to Malibu SAFELY. In my mind's eye I could see him shaking his head as he gave me directions. Grandpa was utterly baffled at how ANYONE could get lost when driving on the Interstate!

Grandpa solved the problem. He presented Beeray with a navigational device and instructions that she was now to be the navigator. The navigational device is a Magellan Roadmate and has been dubbed, Maggie. Tomorrow will be Maggie's first test. Beeray and Maggie will help us find out way to Interstate 15 which will take us to Canada.