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Another free day for us and I head out early to take Ziggy for a bath. After lots of phone calls I made her a 7:30 appointment and found a manicurist to do my nails at 11:30. After dropping Ziggy off Jeff and I headed downtown to the
Another free day for us and I head out early to take Ziggy for a bath. After lots of phone calls I made her a 7:30 appointment and found a manicurist to do my nails at 11:30. After dropping Ziggy off Jeff and I headed downtown to the
The morning is free time for us and I drive over to the
In the afternoon the group drove to the Miles Canyon Overlook and looked down into the
Today is good for wildlife viewing and we saw a moose family including a papa with antlers, mama and calf. Then we saw two black bears, one was crossing the road just ahead of us and scampered into the woods as we approached. We also saw two different herds of bison and two adult males were roughhousing and butting heads. We could hear their horns clanking against each other. The calves are so cute and run alongside their moms.
Again the scenery is breathtaking with me going ooh and aah around each curve. The highway is easy to drive since it is constantly improved and straightened. Portions of the original highway can sometimes be seen and it is curvy, bumpy and now overgrown with grass.
Today was a shorter drive and we arrived in
Later we visited the town museum and then the rest of the day was spent doing laundry and checking e-mail. We haven’t had internet service for days and now we do. Of course you have to stand near the office/laundry to get access. After dinner we walked Ziggy to a nearby park and now we are off to bed. It is 10:15pm and the sky is still very bright.
At noon our group met to drive to Liard Hot Springs. It is a 40 minute drive to the
The rain finally stopped and the sun came out. We got out of the water and put on dry clothes. Then we walked about 5 minutes uphill to the deeper, cooler beta pool just to see it. Reaching the bottom of the walkway we had a picnic lunch in a small pavilion and then headed back to the campground. We saw more bison along the road and spent the afternoon resting and listening to music.
After dinner our group met for a campfire and more getting to know you talk. It turned out to be a cool, beautiful evening. Now it is time for bed and we leave tomorrow for points further north.
There are lots of trucks. And some of the trucks are carrying HUGE loads. We often see trucks carrying full housing modules for use by construction and logging crews. One truck passed us carrying a wide load – of tires! I cannot even imagine the vehicle they were designed for, but the tires were 9 or 10 feet tall!
Many of the stories about the highway’s surface come from the constant construction going on. There are two seasons up here – winter and construction. (Some people think the seasons are winter and mosquitoes.) So there is always construction going on in warm(?) weather. Many of the construction sites have loose gravel, and that’s where the stories of broken windshields come from.
What many people don’t realize is that gravel rarely hits you. You hit it. A vehicle (usually a truck) comes toward you through a gravel zone. When it kicks up a piece of gravel, the gravel usually goes straight up. When it is the air you can run into it. So the answer is usually to slow down in gravel areas. One member of the trek caught a piece of gravel that put a 2” star in the windshield and a couple of circular cracks about 6” in diameter. Luckily it is not in their line of sight so they can just ignore it. In a way they are lucky. Now they don’t have to worry about a cracked windshield anymore! (One RV video I just watched suggested hitting your windshield with a hammer before you leave home just to get it over with.)
Some of the grades are interesting. We have gone up (and down!) several 10% grades. This is steeper than anything we found in the Rockies last year. Going up is slow, but going down is interesting. You have to be careful not to burn out your brakes. I have gone down a couple of these in first gear and still had to use my brakes!
Gas prices ARE everything you may have heard about. Yesterday we paid $1.279 – per liter! That translates to about $5.00 US per gallon. Tomorrow we may have to pay $1.40.
One thing that is an absolute must to travel this road is a publication called “The Milepost.” This is more of a book than a magazine (It is an inch thick!) and is published annually. It is the bible of the Alaska Highway. There is a blow-by-blow description of EVERYTHING to see and do on the highway. It includes all attractions, all lodging and campgrounds, all construction zones, all wildlife spotting areas, all pullouts (including what trash facilities are at each), all gas stations (and whether they have gas, diesel, propane, etc.) and so on down the road. Of course it also includes lots of advertising. When we are traveling, Judy keeps the book open and follows along, giving me a running commentary on what to expect. After all, you don’t want to miss the World’s Largest Glass Beehive or the Cinnamon Bun Center of the Galactic Cluster. (No, I’m not kidding. We didn’t get a picture of the sign. Ask Judy why.)
And a final thought for today about the name of the road. The official name today is the Alaska Highway. When it was completed in 1942 (which is quite an interesting story) it was known as the Alaska-Canada Military Highway or the AlCan. That name is no longer used and has not been since the late 1940s when the road was opened to the public.
I can’t wait until I have them singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat!”
Again the highway was pleasant with gorgeous scenery and little traffic. We stopped for cinnamon buns and then for lunch at cute lodges along the way. We could see the
Tonight we helped to stage a wine & cheese party for our group. It was fun standing around and meeting new people. Later we walked along the
Green is the color of the day as we drive through lush pine, aspen and spruce forests. There are trees and grasses everywhere as we head north from
The original road has been straightened widened and improved leaving a two lane, paved highway that as a pleasure to travel. It has wide green spaces on either side which provides a perfect place to view wild animals and the
Along the way we stopped at the Honey Place which had the world's largest glass beehive. We also saw the marker for Suicide Hill, a treacherous pass on the original highway. We use a book called The Milepost which has blow by blow descriptions of what is along the road. Unfortunately most of the actual mileposts are not there. They are often taken down during construction and not put back.
Our working day had started at 5am as we woke, dressed and at 6am prepared coffee for our group. Just before 9am we left
In the afternoon we had a speaker from the tourism bureau give a talk about the
There are 15 guest couples in our group, the trekmaster, and us the tailgunners. Our job is to bring up the rear and help any guests who have a mechanical or medical emergency. We also help get everyone out in the morning and offer coffee next to the sign out sheet. In addition we coordinate some activities, dinners and social events. Our group travels independently during the day and meets at the new campground in late afternoon. Some places we stay several days and have some planned events and some free time.
To bed so we can get up early.
For two days in Edmonton we were at a campground that featured free wifi – in fact they even had two access points to make the connection better. I had an excellent wireless signal. But we could almost never get connected because we couldn’t get an IP address. (Most of you who have used wifi will not have had this problem and probably were not even aware that there was such a thing.) It was a large (300 + sites) campground and I believe that they purposely limited the IP addresses available. I wouldn’t be surprised if they reserved the bulk of the addresses for seasonal campers (there were many) and left the rest of us to cope as we could.
So here we were, an excellent wifi signal and almost no connection to the Internet. (I say almost because in the middle of the night my e-mail client would get enough of a connection to have e-mail waiting for me in the morning. Judy doesn’t like to use an e-mail client so she could get no e-mail at all. Neither of us could ever use a web browser.)
Now, on to Jasper National Park. Judy will have regaled you with descriptions of beauty and wildlife, so I won’t do that. Our campground is first-rate – everything a campground in a national park is supposed to be. Of course national parks don’t have Internet connections, so we didn’t expect anything. But you don’t know until you try, so what the heck?
There it was. A wifi connection enticingly named “Free Public WiFi” with an excellent signal. But – you guessed it – we couldn’t get a connection. So here we are suffering from Internet withdrawal (a syndrome soon to be recognized by the AMA). We may try an Internet café in town tonight. We have to do laundry anyway. But maybe not. After all, our campground tomorrow night advertises free Internet.