TRAMPER TRAVELS - JULY 17 - KATMAI NATIONAL FOREST

Today was all about an excursion we decided was an absolute must-do, and we are sure glad we did. It was most definitely an experience of a lifetime. We took off on a float plane (super cool by itself) and headed to Brooks Falls in Katmai National Forest to see the brown bears. Our excursion was run by Bald Mountain Air. Two planes went out, and ours was piloted by the owner, Gary Porter.

I thought I would be nervous about flying in the float plane, but it was awesome. I’d rather land on water any day than on a landing strip. So much fun.

Brooks Falls is the most famous place in Katmai to see bear. It is the place you have probably seen on the Discovery Channel with bears lined up to catch fish as they are jumping up the falls.

The walk to the falls is about a mile and a half. Often, there are bear on the trails, and this can cause delays in the trek. There were numerous reported bear sightings on the trails while we were there, but we didn’t encounter one on the trail. We did see some right next to the trail and on the beach near where the planes land.

It didn’t take long before we began seeing bears. We were on bridges and viewing platforms at the riffles and the falls — the two biggest but not the only areas where the bears fish for salmon.

When you get to the viewing platforms, you put your name in for the falls viewing platform. While you wait, you can go to the platform for the riffles, which is right below the actual falls.

I believe 40 are allowed at a time on the falls viewing platform, and you are given 30 minutes. Trust me, the rangers know when your time is up — but we set an alarm. They apparently had some trouble the day before with crowd timing and control, and it turned out to be a real mess for some people who never got to the falls platform after paying a lot of money for their excursion. So when we were there, they were all over it!

You can sign up for another 30 minutes if you want to, but the day was getting late, and we wanted to get back in time to be prepared to get back on the float plane. Plus, the experience is so incredible that it will last a lifetime. Another 30 minutes and 500 more pictures wouldn’t have make a difference!

One of the rangers told us that people can hear amazingly well when their names are being called to go to the viewing platform, but when their name is called to LEAVE, they can’t hear anymore. We didn’t want to be like those people.

There are bears of all ages fattening up on the salmon run at Brooks Falls this time of year. Some bears fish from the riffles and some fish from the top of the falls. Not every bear is able to fish from the top. There’s a lot going on there, and I’m sure it takes a strong, fit bear to handle it.

This was most definitely without a doubt one of the major highlights of our trip. We almost didn’t take this excursion because it’s definitely on the pricey side. But we are both so very thankful we did. It was truly an utterly amazing experience.

If you are ever in the Homer, Alaska area, I urge you to save the money for an excursion such as this. You won’t regret it. We used Bald Mountain Air, but there are numerous other companies that go out, too. Indeed, when we landed at Katmai National Park (which is only accessible by boat or plane), the beach was lined with float planes. I planned to get a picture when we got back, but most of the planes were gone already except ours (and there was a mama bear and cub not too far away on the beach from our plane).

We consider ourselves to be so fortunate to have been able to experience this amazing adventure, and it only rained a little bit here and there — a huge plus!

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JULY 16 - HOT ECHINACEA TEA AND MEDICINE

No pictures today. Today is a major down day. It’s raining again. We went to town to get some medicine and herbal tea for me. My head cold is laying me down for a little bit. My plan today is to lay low, drink lots of tea, take medicine, and stay warm and dry.

I want to feel as good as I can tomorrow for our bear excursion, and while I definitely feel better than I did yesterday, I don’t feel well, and I had a rough night sleeping.

So there are no exciting pictures today. Somehow, it’s hard to make medicine and herbal tea look exciting. And even if I could, I don’t have the energy for that. I want to save all the energy for the BEARS!

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JULY 15 - EXPLORATION, RAIN, AND REST

I woke up at 3:30 this morning with a lot of pain in my right maxillary sinus. I was able to get back to sleep after about an hour, but when I woke up a couple hours later, it was clear I wasn’t feeling well. I can’t even tell if I have a cold or if I am having trouble with my sinuses — either way, ugh. Not fun

On the way to get some sinus medicine, we stopped to see if the eagles were on the beach. There was a lot of activity, but none of it was from eagles.

There were trailers, charter boats, and tractors all over the place. I have never watched a tractor pull a boat into the water, but that’s apparently how it’s done in these parts. Of course, I hung around for a while and got some pictures. Pretty amazing to watch one charter boat after another get launched.

I believe this dog belongs to one of the employees. He was having the time of his life out there running in and out of the water!

When we came back to camp around lunch time, we ate. Mike cooked some food for later, and I took some medicine and napped for about an hour.

We went back out and mostly drove and explored. We went to a site where a moose and baby were spotted a day or so ago, but didn’t see them.

I used my medium long lens to get some shots of Alaska wildflowers, and photographed a float plane where our bear excursion will take off and land on Wednesday.

At one point, we ended up in a neighborhood, where we found these! They’re either brown cranes or sandhill cranes I’ve definitely got my ID work cut out for me from this trip!

It started raining again in the afternoon, and ordinarily I wouldn’t let that stop me from getting out on a trip such as this. However, I am sure the wisest thing is to avoid the cold rain and work on feeling better for Wednesday.

We did see this moose on the way back from the Homer Spit, and I opened the truck door, stood on the step rail, and got this photograph.

Even though I am not feeling well, it was still a nice day. And I photographed a moose! 🫎

Oh! We also finally stopped on the way out of Homer today to get a selfie at the sign. We keep forgetting to do these. I guess we’re just not selfie people normally!

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JULY 14 - ANCHOR POINT AND HOMER

We spent today checking out the area in Anchor Point and Homer. Homer is about a half hour away from our campsite.

I really enjoy Homer. When you get down into the Homer Spit area, that’s where all the action is. All the restaurants, shops, charters, and tours can be found on the Spit. There’s a really nice beach area as well.

The Homer Spit (Dena'ina: Uzintun) is a geographical landmark located in Homer, Alaska on the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula. The spit is a 4.5-mile (7.2 km) long piece of land jutting out into Kachemak Bay.[1]The spit is also home to the Homer Boat Harbor. The harbor contains both deep and shallow water docks and serves up to 1500 commercial and pleasure boats at its summer peak.

We found the largest and most well appointed hardware store I have ever seen. They even had a fabric section with some very good-quality fabric, which was quite a surprise. I can honestly say I have never bought fabric at a hardware store before.

Mary and I had decided that during this trip, we would stop at some quilt stores along the way. My goal is to get fabric for a National Parks quilt panel I will make for Tramper. I picked up a yard of each of these.

Mike and I decided we would treat ourselves to a super exciting excursion and booked a plane tour where we will be brought to Brooks Falls in the Katmai National Park to spend a few hours seeing and photographing Alaskan brown bears!!! We will do this on Wednesday, and we’re super excited about it. We figured an epic trip deserves at least one super epic excursion.

We also went back to the restaurant where we had the fabulous dinner the night before and bought some salmon at their fish market so Mike could cook it.

It makes sense that Alaskan salmon would be the best ever in Alaska, but I can’t believe how good it really is! We aren’t going to enjoy salmon as much when we get home!

Dinner prep was in full swing (everyone contributed something to the meal). Mary, John, Melissa, Christy and I went right down the road to the Anchor River Recreation Area to photograph the eagles that were on the beach before dinner.

Oh wow! This was a bucket list bird for me, and it was super exciting to be so close to an eagle!

Dinner was ready shortly after we returned from the eagle, and we all ate outside in between the campers. The wind had really picked up, and it was cold, but it was nice to be invited to share a meal with John and Mary and their family. The triplets ate inside John and Mary’s camper.

It was an incredible day. We are so thankful that we have been given the opportunity to make this trip.

TRAMPER TRAVELS -JULY 13 - ON TO ANCHOR POINT/HOMER

Today was a short travel day, but it rained the entire day. The rain in Alaska is no joke. We have hit the rainy season apparently.

When we left the campground in Seward, it was raining, and the mountains were completely fogged in.

I had mentioned to Mike last night that with all the rain we have been experiencing, I was surprised that it didn’t seem that many people use umbrellas. This lady walked right in between two campers as I took the shot when we were pulling out of the campground this morning — with an umbrella! 😁

Our Anchor Point campsite is next to Mary and John’s, which is next to the cabin that Mary’s daughter, Christy, is in with her husband, Leeman, and their triplets, Bazlo, Loen, and Sephina.  The sites overlook a beach known as Whiskey Gulch where people are allowed to camp. It’s pretty cool.  Mary and John hadn’t arrived yet when I got these shots with my phone.

After we unhooked and set up, Mike and I drove down to Cook Inlet, which is part of the Anchor River State Recreation Area.

There were birds on the beach. We’ll go back tomorrow when the weather is supposed to be better, but I did get a few shots out there in the pouring rain!

I’m trying to ID some of the birds I have seen and photographed along the way. When I do, I’ll put that information in the blog posts, too!

The one below I know. While it looks a little weather-worn, it is still a beautiful Eagle with that intense eagle eye! I hope to find it again. I believe I saw a juvenile Eagle walking on the beach, too.

After we finished checking out the recreation site, we drove down to Homer to have the most fabulous seafood meal we have ever had in our lives.

Both Mike and I have had the opportunity to have very good seafood growing up and during our lives. Never has it been this good.

I had grilled Alaska salmon. Mike had a grilled sampler plate that had salmon, halibut, scallops, and shrimp. Both dishes were phenomenal and well worth the money spent.

Homer is a fun place, and I hope to explore it some more tomorrow.

Then it was time to get some laundry done while we had facilities.

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JULY 12 - KENAI FJORDS TOUR

Today, the entire crew of ten did a five-hour cruise of Resurrection Bay with a stop on Fox Island for a soup and salad lunch. The lunch was so good. I tried the Alaskan salmon chowder, and it was absolutely incredible.

It was very hard to get any really good pictures from the boat, as the water was a bit choppy, but I managed to get a few. Some of them are pretty far off, even with my medium long lens. I couldn’t even try to use the biggest lens I have. That lens requires a tripod, as it is a long, prime lens. So, I will post what I did get.

We saw sea lions, harbor seals, puffins, black-legged kittiwakes, a bald eagle, and some other wildlife. There was even a whale out there, but I didn’t see him. Bummer!

It rained a great portion of the day, but that didn’t stop us from getting outside on the boat to really see the wildlife Hey, this is a once-in-a-lifetime trip for us. Ya’ can’t stop because of the rain — because it rains a lot.

It was an amazing day, though.

You have to zoom in a lot, but the picture that has a bunch of birds on the rocks — all those birds are kittywakes, I believe. There is one horned puffin at the very top, but they are so far off, it’s hard to see them. I still have hopes of photographing a puffin up close. But for now, this is what I have! On the bank are harbor seals.

Mike and I went out for an incredible halibut dinner at one of the local restaurants and then went back to Tramper.

I had gotten so chilled I couldn’t get warm, so I piled up on the bed in a sleeping bag, got warm, and with my belly full, promptly went to sleep by 8:30 p.m. I think the cold, rainy sea air and the Dramamine I took were partly responsible, but I slept hard — all night.

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JULY 11 - SEWARD BOUND!

We left this morning heading to Seward via the Seward Highway. There were some great spots to stop for pictures along the way, and we stopped at quite a few. Some were not easily accessible when towing campers, and some we just decided to pass by.

Mary’s daughter, Melissa, flew in and they picked her up at the airport when we were in Fairbanks, so it’s been nice to spend a little bit of time with her.

Signal has been spotty at best, and uploading pictures on the personal hotspot on my phone has been iffy. There are so many pictures I would have loved to have added, but I’m going to have to be happy with what I can get to upload. I’ll probably go back later and add more pictures.

The campground in Seward is right on the water with such an incredible view. The city of Seward runs numerous campgrounds right next to each other. As you can imagine, they are very popular.

This is also the area where the cruise ships dock when they come into Seward. I walked down and photographed the one that was docked when we arrived. I also got some shots of it as it left. From a distance, it looked older, but it was just put into service in 2023. It’s the Silver Nova, a luxury cruise ship operated by Silversea Cruise Lines.

Mary’s other daughter, Christy, and her family came in on the Celebrity X Summit, and will be hanging out with us for a while. That will be nice. We’ll meet up with them tomorrow and go on a cruise around Resurrection Bay.

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JULY 10 - OMG!!! DENALI!

We left Fairbanks with a plan to stop in Trapper Creek for the night on our way to Seward.

We had such a great travel day with numerous fun stops.

First stop was for lunch. It was a beautiful location. It would have been a fun place to camp for the night. I’m pretty sure somebody did because there were the remains of a campfire.

There are many areas in both Canada and Alaska where you can camp on pull-outs and other land as long as it is not privately owned. It’s pretty cool.

We made a quick stop at Igloo City, which was interesting

IGLOO CITY IN CANTWELL, ALASKA, is the strangest kind of tourist attraction. First, it’s in a remote region of one of the most remote states in the United States. But second, and more surprisingly, it’s an attraction that never even opened for business.

Intended to one day serve as a hotel, Igloo City was never completed. It was constructed sometime in the 1970s, but could not meet the building codes of the time; while it might be easier to meet some of those codes today, too much of the hotel has deteriorated over the years to make renovation worthwhile. Not for lack of trying, though; ever since its construction, the building has gone through many owners, none of whom could get it up to par.

The four-story concrete structure can be seen by airplanes at 30,000 feet it is so large. But the interior was never finished. We know this because the igloo is no longer padlocked as it once was—with so many parts starting to fall apart, it’s impossible to keep curious passersby from wandering in to explore—and many have made their way inside.

It’s primary significance today is that it mark the halfway point between Fairbanks and Anchorage, Alaska’s two largest cities on the Parks Highway.

Then it was time to see if Denali would reveal all her beauty to us.

According to AlaskaTravel.com, only about one third of travelers to Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska are able to see the mountain due to frequent cloud cover. This is because Denali is so tall that it can create its own weather, especially in the summer, when clouds and fog can shroud the mountain up to one third of the time. Some say that the mountain is only completely visible around 20% of the time.

We stopped at the North View and the South View, which are just a couple of the recommended stops where one can see great views of Denali if the clouds cooperate. We were at the North View for around an hour, and while it was beautiful, for the most part, the clouds were the feature! The peaks were viewable briefly but were covered up with clouds again very quickly.

Mike took the above photo at the North View.

The South View turned out to have the much better view.

And I photographed a magpie! I had seen one sitting on a fence as we were driving, looked it up and identified it, and I had hoped to get a chance to photograph one.

It was an incredible day filled with so much beauty. We landed at our campground late afternoon and relaxed. Mike cooked some food to keep us fed for a few days, we talked with a local couple for a while, hooked up with Mary, John and Melissa (Mary’s daughter) for a little bit, and called it a day.

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JULY 9 - FAIRBANKS

Mike found the cutest set of cooking appliances that have low wattage use — something we really need in Tramper. I had no idea these were even available. They’re called “My Mini”, and there are numerous products available.

He got a 7” electric skillet, a 5” frying pan, and a little toaster oven. He’s cooking bacon in the skillet here.

If they hold up, they will be helpful in addition to what we already have. Each item we have has its best purpose and will be useful. And they were pretty inexpensive. Winner. Winner. Bacon dinner (or breakfast as the case may be).

Next up — Mary and I took a trip to Northern Threads Quilt Shop in Fairbanks. What a nice shop with beautiful fabric and patterns. I purchased a few patterns and a bit of yardage for my National Parks quilt I will make for Tramper.

We also went to the Fairbanks Ice Museum this afternoon. They had an exhibit by artist An, Zhe from Hardin China. He’s been carving since 1999 and has won numerous awards. He’s quite a character! He did a carving in front of us, and then we looked at the carvings on display. It was fun. C-O-L-D fun.

After that, we went back to Tramper and started organizing for getting on the road tomorrow morning and looking at options for things to do on the 16th, when our travel partners will be doing a dogsledding tour with their family members.

We had dinner with our friends and are now laying low in Tramper

Tomorrow we will head out to Trapper Creek for the night on our way to Seward.

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JULY 8 - ONWARD TO FAIRBANKS

We had a shorter travel day today. We decided to have a leisurely start to our day with an approximate “go” time of 9:00 a.m. So we went to breakfast where, of course, sourdough pancakes were on the menu. You may remember that the name of the campground is Sourdough Campground, and no, we weren’t eating the pancakes that were tossed last night. LOL.

Interesting information behind the meaning of “sourdough” in Alaska.

Sourdough is an Alaskan term that refers to someone who has lived in Alaska for several winters. The term likely originated in the Klondike Gold Rush at the end of the 19th Century. It was used as the opposite of the term Cheechako, which refers to those who were newly arrived at the mining camps.

So we were on the road at a bit after 9:00 a.m.. It was only a little over 200 miles, so that wasn’t bad. We didn’t see much in the way of wildlife (boo), and there were only a few bad frost heave spots (yay).

We stopped at Birch Lakes for a quick lunch on the way into town. I took a few minutes to grab some photos (of course). Mary also got some photos while we were stopped.

Of course, we HAD to make a stop at North Pole. Santa reigns supreme here all year long. We did a little shopping and then headed on to our Boondockers Welcome host site, where we will make camp for the next two nights.

I found my Alaska hoodie at North Pole. Not only is it a cool Alaska hoodie, it also has the year I was born on it, which is also the year that Alaska became the 49th state of the United States. Love that.

We got settled in, ate dinner, and played some Scrabble before calling it a day. I haven’t played Scrabble in years, and it showed! Again, I got the loser chip! LOL.

It amazes me how light it is late at night up here. I was aware of it being that way, but it’s very strange to actually experience it.

The picture of the truck and Tramper was taken at 11:10 p.m. last night. It’s so crazy!

It’s been another great day on this journey of ours. Thanks so much for following along.

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JULY 7 - FROST HEAVES AND PANCAKE TOSSES –--

We got on the road this morning headed for Tok, Alaska. We knew that while it would not be as long of a travel day, it would be a very challenging one. The stretch of road we would be driving on was known to be the absolute worst for frost heaves. After driving it, I can see why.

Not long into the drive, we saw a beautiful caribou on the side of the road. Of course, we pulled over to get some pictures. He was pretty far back there, but I managed to get one fairly decent photograph of him. So beautiful.

Today we made it into Alaska! Whooo! Hooooo! This is the moment we have worked so hard for right here!

If you’ve never heard of a frost heave, the layman’s description is that they are large dips and potholes (that would make Atlanta’s look like child’s play) in the road. They are created because of the harsh winters here and because of the way the roads are constructed over permafrost.

I am putting a link below to an article that talks about driving on frost heaves in an RV that will give you a far better understanding than I ever could.

https://www.aboutrving.com/rving-to-alaska/spotting-and-driving-over-frost-heaves/

We knew about frost heaves. We read about them. We watched Alaska YouTube road tripper videos about them. Nothing prepares you for the actuality of them, though! It’s one of those “if you know, you know” kinda things for sure. They go on for hundreds of miles, and you don’t always see them.

There are many stories of broken axles, blown tires, and other problems people experience as a result of driving over all the frost heaves. Our RV tech in Georgia said they see RV’s in their shop all the time that have shaken apart from the trips to Alaska

And the dust on these roads is heavy. As the road crews try to fix the frost heaves, there are stretches that go back and forth from gravel to pavement. The gravel is loose and dusty for sure. We had a fine layer of dust pretty much everywhere in Tramper when we ended the travel day. We were warned! They were right!

This dust is nothing. There were times we couldn’t even see Mary and John’s camper ahead of us.

We landed at Sourdough Campground in Tok, Alaska early enough to enjoy some real down time, cook dinner, get some ice cream. We caught all sorts of grief from Tim, the owner, about eating the last of his favorite ice cream for the rest of the trip. He is hilarious.

https://www.sourdoughcampground.com/

And then . . . It was time for the pancake toss. I never knew one could have so much fun tossing pancakes into a bucket. Actually, I never knew that was even a thing. But at Sourdough Campground, it is very much a thing, and it occurs every night at 7:30 p.m. during open season.

It was so much fun. The owner did such a fantastic job engaging everyone, and it turned out to be a highlight of the trip. If you toss two pancakes into the bucket successfully, you got $10 off on a pancake breakfast the next day

Here’s Mary when it was her turn to toss the pancakes. Trust me, there’s an art to this. We are all showing off our loser chips, because none of us won. It’s not easy.

What a great night. If anyone is ever looking for a campground in Tok, Alaska, look no further. This is definitely it!

In the morning, we head to Fairbanks for a couple of days.

TRAMPER TRAVELS -JULY 6 - HEADING TO WHITEHORSE TODAY

We really pushed ourselves for a couple of days to make up for the time we lost with the water leak in Olds, Alberta. Today was going to be a short day traveling to Whitehorse so we could rest a day and re-join our friends — only around 400 miles.

We started the day at the Signpost Forest in Watson Lake, YT. People come from all over the world to put their signs there. Below is info taken from the internet about the Signpost Forest

The Sign Post Forest is Watson Lake’s most famous attraction. Travelers from around the world have been bringing signposts from their hometowns to the Sign Post Forest since 1942 and continue to do so today.

The tradition began during the Alaska Highway Project in 1942, when U.S. soldier Carl K. Lindley spent time in Watson Lake recovering from an injury. A commanding officer asked him to repair and erect the directional signposts, and while completing the job, he added a sign that indicated the direction and mileage to his hometown of Danville, Illinois. Others followed suit, and the trend caught on. In 1990, a couple from Ohio added the 10,000th sign in the Signpost Forest. Today, there are over 77,000 signs in the Forest, and the number grows each year as visitors contribute signs and continue the tradition. The Town of Watson Lake maintains the site, adding more sign posts as they fill up. Bring along a sign to add to the forest, or make one at the Visitor Information Centre.

While you’re there, you’ll also come across pieces of equipment that were used during the construction of the Alaska Highway. A time capsule and cairn was placed at the Sign Post Forest in 1992. It will be opened again in 2042.

We had signs made up at home — one for us and one in honor of Mike’s mom, who passed away in September 2023.

Our signs are on the fence behind us at the top closest to me.

We had a really good travel day, so that was nice — and we arrived at our campground before dark, which was a huge plus!

And . . . the best thing . . . we reunited with John and Mary finally in the evening when we arrived in Whitehorse. We met at an Italian restaurant (G&P) and had a fantastic dinner.

And then, it was time to do laundry and get some sleep so we could get back on the road at 8 a.m.

We are hoping to make it to Tok, Alaska tomorrow, but this portion of the drive has some pretty rough roads, so we may not get that far. It will be a play-it-by-ear kind of day for sure.

TRAMPER TRAVELS -JULY 5 - HEADING SOMEWHERE!

We were up early and ready to get on the road. We were supposed to head to Muncho Lake, but there is no room at the campgrounds. The last I knew, our friends had headed to Liard Hot Springs instead, but at this point, we are not sure where they landed. We’re hoping to hear from them on the GPS communicator as we head that way today

Let the adventure continue!

It turns out that the car that was parked in our campground spot was probably a homeless guy. When we spoke to the campground person this morning, he said the homeless problem was really bad in the area. That’s sad and probably plays a part in the safety issues in Dawson Creek.

We started the day at a truck wash before hitting the road.

The truck has been giving a bit of trouble climbing the hills. Temperature has been getting a bit high. Not too far into our travels today, it hit over 260 and gave an engine overheating warning. We knew we had to stop so Mike could replace the thermostat (which he had already purchased before the trip . . . just in case).

Once that new thermostat was installed, the truck was happy and began climbing the hills like a champ!

We ate some sandwiches and got on the road again.

It was an incredibly long travel day full of long mountain pulls, and we landed in Watson Lake around 12:30 a.m. Sadly, we had issues getting into the campground I had spoken to earlier in the day. It was all barricaded and fenced off. I have no idea what was happening. After trying all possible approaches (not easy with a trailer in the dark), we went down to the Signpost Forest lot, where other campers were boondocking and slept there for the night.

The portion of the Alaska Highway we traveled today rewarded us with quite a bit of wildlife. We saw a badger, some sheep, bison, and somewhere around 10 bears!

We only photographed one bear, but it was at one point about 20 feet from the truck and could not have cared less about us at all.  The bear appeared when we were beginning to really feel road weary, and the sighting really perked us up and gave us the energy to go the 120 miles we still had to go.

I was super happy with being able to photograph the bear. No matter where I go, I am usually the one who never even sees a bear when everyone else does.

We drove for 15 hours today. We have been trying to catch up with our friends.

When we arrived at the campground, we drove around for about 45 minutes and couldn’t find a way in. The entrance was barricaded and fenced, and even though there was a road in the back to get in, nobody told us about that.

We ended up boondocking in the parking lot of the Signpost Forrest, which was going to be our first stop in the morning anyway.

It was way past time to sleep!

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JULY 4 - DAWSON CREEK, BC UP NEXT!

The RV technician we called (Cody with King Kong RV Repair) was able to get to us this morning, and he really looked everything over very well. He was very impressed with how our AC/heat and MaxxAir fans were installed in the roof and said everything looked great. That last sentence was put in the post for our Georgia RV tech, Jeffrey.

In the middle unit, he added Dicor sealant around the compression seal. He really felt that the water problem was caused by the corrugated roof on Tramper affecting the sealing capability from flexing. That is an overly-simplified explanation, but it works.

We knew the corrugated roof could potentially create some challenges with rooftop AC units, but many other cargo conversion owners have installed them, so we went with it.

He said he could not guarantee this will be a good fix because of the roof, but we are just going to believe that it will.

So a little over 30 hours later than we had planned, we got on the road headed to Dawson Creek, BC. Our plan was to catch up with Mary and John at Muncho Lake on Friday.

We met the nicest couple at the campground — Carey and Barbi Causey. They live about an hour away and were on their way for a nice break when their truck broke down. They ended up stuck at the campground for somewhere around 7-10 days, I believe.

I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture of them. What kind of blogger am I anyway? Sorry guys.

The picture below of their rig will have to do. Bonus points — at least one of them is in the picture (Carey).

It was a day of putting in lots of road time. We had around 600 miles to go today, and some of it was slow going. Thankfully, the sun goes down late, and we had a bit more light to work with for way later than we are used to.

We gassed up in Dawson Creek and got to the Mile 0 Alaska Highway sign at around 11:45 p.m. We had been warned by a longtime local at the gas station to keep our doors locked even if we only step away briefly. He said Dawson Creek isn’t a safe place anymore like it used to be.

Indeed, we are pretty sure we watched a drug deal go down, and when the dealer left on his bicycle, he disappeared right around the sign. A selfie at that point in front of the sign wasn’t worth the risk so this will have to do We know we were there. It’s okay. And we still had to find the campground and our site in the dark, which is never an easy feat.

Finding the campground and our site was indeed a challenge. I will spare you the details, but just know none of the GPS units were helping with this. The office was closed when we got there, so we just found our site. Not easy at all. When we found it, this is what greeted us.

So we just set up in the site next to it and crashed hard for a little while.

Our friends are a day ahead of us, and they lost signal yesterday, so we fully expect to lose signal at some point today. We will communicate and blog as we can.

We are doing well, and the adventure continues! It was a long travel day — 12 hours on the road.

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JULY 2 AND 3 - WATER KEEPS FALLING ON OUR HEADS

July 2, 2024. Part Two. I wish I could say our night at the campground in Olds, AB was uneventful with the rain, but that was simply not to be.

Mike and I were hanging out in Tramper winding down from the day when I felt water falling on me again — this time from the back of Tramper. At this point, we really aren’t sure exactly what the problem is because we had a lot of rain the day before with no problems, but we think high wind with the rain is playing a part.

At any rate, John and Mary were at Walmart, so they brought us a 12x24 tarp. When they got here, John and Mike worked on what they thought would fix the problem only to realize it in fact did not, and water was pouring in from a few spots.

So, they tarped Tramper as best they could at 10 pm last night, and Mike and I went to a hotel room down the road to shower, lick our wounds, and try to get some rest.

Yep. The above picture was actually taken at 10:00 p.m.

We told Mary and John to continue traveling in the morning as scheduled, and that we would try to figure this out, fix it, and hopefully head out again to meet up with them within a day or two.

It was the hardest thing to say “see ya” to them and head to the hotel knowing that they would leave in the morning, but we would not.

July 3, 2024. Mike made a little headway on the water leak mystery, but it has rained most of the day here, and the wind has been around 30 mph all day. We called an RV repairman, and he is planning to fit us in for an emergency on-site call tomorrow. Much depends on how the weather is, so wish us luck.

We decided we wanted a nice meal, but the restaurant we went to was ridiculously expensive, and we just weren’t willing to pay their prices for their “casual steak” restaurant with the five-star restaurant prices.

We went next door to the butcher shop and purchased our own steaks. 🥩 For the first time since beginning this trip, we drug out the Ninja Foodi, and Mike cooked!

How do you like my tote lids converted to eating trays?! Hey, it works.

Many of you know that Mike is a great cook, and he enjoys cooking. Tonight he fed not only our bellies — he fed our spirits as well.

Tomorrow is another day. We will see what we find out about the leaks and make some choices based on what transpires.

Send us all the good juju please.

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JULY 2 - HEADING ON INTO CANADA!

We left the campground in Kalispell at 7:30 a.m. heading to the Roosville border crossing. It was a very foggy start, but it burned off pretty quickly.

We stopped in Browning for gas 42 miles before hitting the border crossing. I looked up and saw what looked like a seagull. When I mentioned how crazy that was to Mike, he said a local at Tractor Supply in Kalispell had told him if we see a bird that looks like a seagull, it probably IS a seagull. They come in by the thousands and hang out for the summer in the area lakes. How crazy is that?!

Crossing the border in Roosville was a piece of cake. We got rid of our dairy at the campground, and we weren’t even asked about the food we had. We will take it!

It was so funny when Mike turned the truck to metric for the speedometer, everything in the truck went metric!

Check out that tire pressure 😳😂

Somewhere around High River, I saw the Smiling Barn. At least that’s what I call it. Sure made me smile!

A huge highlight today was getting to meet and spend time with BevAnne Keefe Moynham and her husband, Gordon.

I “met” BevAnne quite a few years ago in an online photography group. So many of us have been able to meet each other in person over the years, and it’s always a thrill when we do!

Thanks for coming out, BevAnne and Gordon. It was so great to spend some time with you.

Oh! And it was my first ever actual visit to a Tim Hortons. Very cool!

We rolled on until we reached our campground for the night, OR Hedges (Lions) Campground in Olds, AB. This campground is owned by the town of Olds but managed by the Lions International.

No sooner did we get set up for the night, and it started raining. According to the forecast, it’s supposed to rain quite a bit tonight.

The weather hasn’t allowed for much in the way of hanging out with John and Mary, that’s for sure.

Guess we will hunker down for the night until we get on the road again in the morning.

It’s been a good day!

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JULY 1, 2024 - JUST HANGING OUT

Mary and John went back to Glacier today. Mike and I hung out at the campsite and got some things done. He needed to go to the hardware store, and I needed to go to the drugstore, too. I put away the laundry I ran last night, and Mike tweaked the truck and grey water pump system some more. I also spent some time re-organizing some things in Tramper.

There have been numerous rounds of storms that have come throughout the day.

We will have everything secured and ready to go so that getting on the road tomorrow will be easy.

We decided that we will save French pressed coffee for mornings when we are staying more than a day. For travel days (and there will be many coming up), we will rely on instant coffee. It will make life easier on travel days, and the French press coffee will taste that much better!

We were working on better organization, which takes a bit of tweaking here and there with a new build such as Tramper (especially on a first trip of this magnitude). It was slow going due to the on-again, off-again storms which kept rolling through. But we finally got some things changed around.

Tomorrow we roll through the Canadian border, which should be interesting! 🤣

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JUNE 29 AND 30 - KALISPELL IS UP NEXT

June 29, 2024. Even though we traveled 158 miles last night rather than making the entire trip to Kalispell today, it was still a long travel day, as we still had around 350 miles to travel. Thankfully, the weather cooperated very well.

We are really good about stopping regularly and getting out to stretch our legs. Of course, we really have no choice. Fuel economy? Hahahaha! There is no such thing, especially with all the elevation changes.

That’s Mary and John ahead of us at this point.

The bright yellow field on the left is canola. It’s a very popular crop in this area.

After we got set up at our campground in Kalispell, Mike headed out to Tractor Supply. John, Mary, and I headed to Flathead Lake to see what we could find. It was a beautiful lake around 15 miles from the campground.

The dandelion looking things are Western Salsify, also known as goat’s beard. They have large seed heads and look like dandelions. I should have taken a picture with my hand as well to show the size, but these things are huge and are easily every bit as big as my entire hand (with fingers)!

June 30, 2024. Mike and I needed to go to the hardware store. We wanted better handles on the inside Tramper doors in case we have any more bad wind.

We got breakfast at a local restaurant that was recommended to Mike. Let me correct that statement. We got dessert breakfast. I got huckleberry French toast, and Mike got huckleberry waffles. OMG. Enough sugar to float a tank, but it was really good.

I’m going to have to make a better choice at lunch.

We headed to Whitefish, MT to have lunch with Mary’s sister and niece, who have been vacationing out here for about a week. We are at this cute little outside area known as Food Truck Park.

And then, it was time to head to Glacier National Park. If you ever get the chance to go to Glacier, you must. There simply are no words to describe the absolute magnificence of this place. It literally brought tears to our eyes. Here are a few of my attempts at capturing some of the glory of Glacier. It will remain one of my all-time favorite places to have visited.

It was an absolutely amazing day that will go down as being one of our favorites ever.

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JUNE 28 - McCULLOUGH PEAKS

We woke up to a brisk 48 degrees on this day (Friday). As brutally hot as it has been the past few weeks, even this normally cold-natured girl wasn’t about to complain. This was our view of McCullough Peaks while we drank our coffee.

We spent a great majority of the day looking for and photographing the wild horses in the area. Also found some pronghorns as well. Beautiful animals. We found a group of close to 50 horses pretty quickly in the day, which was awesome, but that isn’t all of them.

This pronghorn was out there all alone and was only interested in a side profile portrait But I was happy he was willing to pose at all!

At one point, Mary and I got to doing what Mary and I do (other than photography and quilting) — yacking. The guys were up at the trucks. Apparently, they started yelling to us that a few of the horses were running and coming at us. We didn’t hear the guys because we were talking, of course

When one is behind the viewfinder of a camera, sometimes the view of what is going on all around you outside of the viewfinder isn’t that great. It was so windy that I didn’t hear John and Mike yelling at us. I didn’t realize when I took the shot below of the three horses that two of them were heading directly at us! Thankfully, it didn’t take long to get the shot.

However, I turned around to tell Mary that we needed to move, and . . . Mary was gone. She was already high tailing it through the cactus while I was standing there “getting the shot.” I ask you, who is the REAL photographer here, and what kind of person leaves their friend in harms’s way with a camera while they run away?! LOL. Just kidding. I have to poke some fun at Mary, though. The horses were still a little bit away from us, and we were safe. But it was funny as all get out.

In Mary’s defense, she said she told me the horses were running at us before she fled. She probably did. Like I said, it was hard to hear with the wind! 😉

I guess the real photographer would have also gotten the shot of Mary running through the cactus!

It had been very windy all day, and when we got back to camp, it was really bad. We literally had to hold doors to the campers with our bodies to get in and out.

We decided that since we had over 500 miles to go the following day to get to Kalispell, Montana, and it was so windy we really couldn’t do anything but sit in the campers, we would load it all up and get a couple of hours of drive time in.

We left McCullough Peaks around 8:30 p.m. and drove around 160 miles that night before stopping at a rest area in Greycliff, Montana.

It had been an awesome day for sure, and we were so happy to be given the gift of seeing the wild horses of McCullough Peaks.

It is June 30 as I post this. I am obviously behind on the blog, but know this. We are doing well and having an awesome time.

TRAMPER TRAVELS - JUNE 27, 2024 - McCULLOUGH PEAKS, HERE WE COME!

We propped up Tramper’s roof on one side of the air conditioner with a load bearing bar. It’s not in the way at all, and it will actually keep the refrigerator from moving too far in the event it tries to slide. We’ll get another one for the other side, too.

We stayed dry with no signs of water last night. Yay!!!

The campground we stayed at last night was old and run down. Oddly, there was not even a bathroom/shower house. The owner said something about it getting destroyed during Covid. No telling. It was somewhere to pull in to sleep for the night with water and electric, and that is exactly what we needed.

We had to get a battery for the truck and another load bearing bar for the roof. We also found a Chevy dealership in Scottsbluff that was able to replace a starter on the truck right away for us even though they were buried with work. Mike thought we might have a problem with the starter on the trip and had the forethought to purchase a replacement before we left just in case

I gotta tell you, everybody we have run into along the way so far has been super nice and accommodating. The guy above is Zach. He’s the mechanic who worked on the truck for us. What a super guy. I’m really jealous of his rat rod, too! Thanks so much Zach and Anna! You are both class acts, and we appreciate you both!

And then, we were finally on the road at 12:00 p.m. heading to meet our traveling companions at McCullough Peaks in Wyoming.

Hope we get to see the wild horses on Friday.

The day was spent rolling down the road, stopping for gas (a very regular occurence), and a lunch stop where we ate outside again and enjoyed the views. We saw some interesting “art” along the way. There were more, but you get the idea!

After putting in around 400 miles, we finally landed at McCullough Peaks at our campsite where Mary and John were waiting for us. This is the first time either of us have camped on BLM land, and it was really cool. You’re boondocking on BLM land (no water or power hookups), and you just pretty much find a place to pull over and camp.

First order of business was to have a toast with Mary and John to toast our upcoming adventure to Alaska and Canada together! Mary and John had these awesome toasting cups made for all of us, and we toasted with some non-alcoholic bubbly in their camper.

And then it was time to crawl in and call it a day.