statistics

We traveled 9479 miles in 49 days.

Animals seen:
caribou, moose, black bears, grizzly bears, bald eagles, 2 types of puffins, humpback whales, stellar sea lions, sea otters, dolphins, bison, porcupines, snowshoe hares, fox.

Best place to see animals: The road between Summit Lake and 70 miles west of Muncho Lake in the Yukon, BC, Yukon on the Alaska Hwy.

Favorite town in Canada: Dawson City, Yukon

Favorite area of Canada: The whole Yukon!!! Beautiful and empty!

Favorite town in USA: Valdez, AK (and Malibu, California!)

Favorite activities: Watching a bear catch salmon and whale and glacier watching on the boat. Both the bear fishing and the boat that took us to see whales and glaciers were out of Valdez.

Most Amazing sight: The Alaska Pipeline along the Dalton Hwy, the sun never sets above the Arctic Circle

Highest sense of accomplishment: Driving to the Arctic Circle and then 80 miles beyond the Arctic Circle.

Regrets: We didn't make it all the way to the Arctic Ocean

It was an amazing trip! Driving was the right way to travel to Alaska.

Smoke

It's been a few days. For a variety of reasons, I don't like southern British Columbia. I have found that BC is too busy and many of the people are rude.

We stayed in Burns Lake then Cash Creek and then crossed the border. The border crossing at Peace Arch Park took about 45 minutes. We chose the wrong lane. :( The border patrol officer was in a cranky mood. He sent 3 of the cars immediately in front of us to be thoroughly checked(strip search the cars ;) ). When we got to the booth, we could see border agents swarming over those cars. But I had no trouble. The agent scowled at me and demanded to know how many were traveling in my vehicle. I told him three and handed him our passports. He asked where we had been and listened as I told him about our journey. He asked the girls to show their faces, smiled and waved us through. Our time with the agent took about a minute.

We spent the night south of Seattle. Sadly, my friend in Seattle had a prior commitment so I wasn't able to see her. I was unable to give her any advance notice of my arrival because I hadn't had cell service for more than a week. Briar is sad that she will not be meeting her August cousins face to face, but I told her that we just might be able to convince them to come visit us in Malibu.

Today we drove down to California from Washington. We spent the night in Rochester, WA. As we were checking out of the hotel I saw brochures on Orca Whale Watching! Unfortunately we were a good 3 hours south of where we would need to catch the boat to see orcas. *sigh* The girls were very resistant to the idea of driving north again. They are tired of traveling. Neither of them could see any value in delaying our arrival back in Malibu just to see a few more whales even if they were killer whales not humpbacks.

Just north of the California border we drove into lots of thick smoke. The smoke continued to be really bad until just north of Redding. I was a little worried because in the past, this would have brought on an asthma attack. I had been on the Marshall Protocol for the asthma and knew I was cured (no attacks in almost 2 years) but I was still a little worried as I was breathing all that smoke. When I had asthma, that amount of smoke would have brought on a dangerous asthma attack and sent me to the emergency room. Today my only symptom was anxiety from remembering those past attacks. :)

I am done with asthma! Thank you Dr Marshall!

Boo also had asthma in the past. She has also been on the MP. She has also asthma free for 1.5 years. Hurray, hurray. Now if we can just get her knee healed in time for her to start the soccer season.

We are in a nice air conditioned room in Redding. DH found a room on the internet. He called the hotel and reserved it. When I got to the hotel I asked for a lower rate. They lowered it the price 10%. I asked for an even lower rate and they lowered it 20%. I am finding that getting a cheaper rate is as simple as just asking for it and then waiting for them to respond. After they quote me a better room rate, I ask if they can go still lower and they do. Fun!

Not From Around Here

Prince Rupert: scenic little town in British Columbia.

We arrived at 2:30PM. Canada Customs took all of 3 minutes. I gave them our passports. They asked if I had weapons, anything I was leaving in Canada or tobacco or liquor. Then they waved us through. The town is perched on the side of a hill with quite a bit of waterfront. It is pretty. Today the sun was shinning.

Our first stop was the information center. The girl was nice enough but couldn't answer any of my questions No there aren't any places to see wildlife within 1000 km. No there aren't any pharmacies. She doesn't know the relative conditions of the roads to Vancouver. I am welcome to look at the kiosk but she will not help with anything.

Next door was a shop. Went in there with Boo who wanted to get a charm for her bracelet. I got the feeling that we were bothering them. I also found that every time that I stopped to look at an item, the shop girl chose that exact time to come and fiddle with the drawers in front of me. I was pushed out of the way 5 times.

Then we went to the market. Again, I was pushed aside, this time by customers. Everyone seemed irritable. The checker was annoyed that the woman in front of me paid cash.

Then we went to the BC museum (quite good) and found a clerk who had managed to perfect the art of ignoring the customer. Boo and Beeray bought some trinkets for their friends.

2 more shops with the same sort of results more or less. In the pharmacy, last stop, we found a helpful lady who called and had them hold a pair of crutches for Boo that we will pick up tomorrow.

Then we got to the campground which is privately owned and is 8 miles outside of town. The man who owns the campground was very friendly and nice. I mentioned that I had found the people in the town pretty irritable but that he was nice. He smiled and said, that he was originally from Whitehorse. Of course!

Quality Time in the Emergency Room

We had a day of shopping, taking pictures and visiting the glacier. We were in to the camp ground late. Boo and Beeray decided that they would shower at night rather than in the morning. It was cold (we are in the valley below the glacier) and not quite dark. They decided to run to the showers. Boo took a short cut around a car. She hit a bit of mud, her legs went out from under her and smashed to the ground.

She hit a rock and tore a 5 inch flap off of her right knee. She also picked up half the forest in that huge wound.

She walked/hopped back to RiVa with blood pouring out of her leg. Boo was terrified. There was so much blood. She kept telling me "Mommy, I'm so scared!" over and over. She was white as a ghost and in terrible pain. Through the tear in her jeans, I could see adipose tissue the layers of skin and dirt, rocks and stones. It was clear that this nasty gash was going to need stitches but only after it had been thoroughly cleaned. I unhooked RiVa and started driving without any plan other than find an emergency room. Beeray programed Maggie for "hospital". She then sat on the floor next to Boo to comfort and help her. It took us about a half hour to get the hospital emergency room because the first emergency room we tried was a private urgent care clinic and was closed.

What a change from the emergency rooms in our area of California! The emergency room waiting area was empty. In the back there were true emergencies such as heart attack, gall bladder and a drunk who had been beaten by his friends and the requisite nurses and doctors but the emergency room wasn't filled with the non emergencies that we see in Southern California emergency rooms.

They saw us right away. A nurse numbed the knee and started to clean as much of the stones, pine needles and dirt out of the wound as he was able. The cleaning was done by the physician and a nurse. The cleaning took over an hour. It was really nasty. After the stitches they x-rayed her leg. No broken bones.

Beeray was a saint, taking care of her sister and comforting her. At the very end, when we were waiting for them to discharge us, Beeray went out to RiVa and fell asleep.

I was a mess. I was having trouble dealing with them dissecting stones, sticks and dirt from Boo's leg. Three times they had to put me on a stretcher because I was about to faint. UGH!

All told, our emergency room visit in Juneau lasted about 3 hours of quality time and togetherness. We got back to the camp by 1:30 am. Boo has 4 stitches inside and 8 outside. She has a splint to keep her from bending her leg. She has instructions that she is not to do any strenuous exercise for the next couple of weeks. She is going to have a nasty scar on the right side of her right knee.

RiVa loses her brakes

We made it to Whitehorse, no problem. DH has friends who live in a spectacular area outside of Whitehorse. We spent the night at their house. The girls were enthralled by the chipmunks. They set up a chipmunk trap. They wanted to trap the chipmunks and then import a few to Malibu. :)

But we had things to do. Our plan was to drive spend a few hours in Whitehorse and see the Berringia museum then on to Skagway, spend a night and then get on the ferry to Juneau. We had a lovely evening at Dave and Deb's place, so much so that the girls and I had decided that we would do one more day at their house. It wasn't to be.

Just as we were heading out to the museum and other Whitehorse activities, my foot went all the way to the floorboards when a stepped on the brakes. We were so lucky. Dave was standing right there. He knows a wonderful mechanic who is close, just down the road. Lewis was able to take RiVa right away. We were also lucky that they had the needed part in Whitehorse where Dave and I went to pick it up. The person who had ordered the part, hadn't picked it up so we were lucky, lucky, lucky.

Once I got RiVa fixed (the brake line had bent and was rubbing against the frame, which is how the brake line broke). I was researching ferry rates and times. With a start, I realized that I was operating under the faulty assumption that the ferry goes from Skagway to Juneau every day. I found out that unless I got on the ferry the next morning I would be stuck in Skagway for 5 days. Ugh. It was dinner time so we had a nice dinner with Deb and Dave and then rudely rushed off. Actually Dave and Deb understood.

We arrived in Skagway too late to find lodging so we camped at the ferry station, no problems.

The next morning we and RiVa boarded the ferry to make the 7 hour trip to Juneau. Now we are in Juneau and wil be here for 3 nights, until the next ferry to Prince Rupert.