We made it to Seward

Today we drove from Palmer to Seward and are all settled in for our 1 month stay at Stoney Creek RV.

And More Pictures

More Pictures

Where have we been?????

Since we last posted we have been driving through Canada and without internet reception.  We crossed into Alaska yesterday morning 11:15 a.m.   The last few days presented us with very rough roads and long stretches of gravel, which made for slow driving and heightened anxiety  (35-45 mph).  We continue to have good luck with no mechanical problems and everything is working as we expect.  We are proud of the fact that we made it to Alaska in eight days, but probably should have taken more time to relax.

When we stopped at Teslin, YT for fuel the proprietor asked if we were headed to Alaska and when found out we were asked if we wanted to take a forgotten cell phone and try to get it to the owner that was now in North Pole, we agreed.  We made arrangements to meet up in Delta Junction, AK and did so around 3:15 p.m. yesterday.  After dropping the phone off we tried to meet up with our friend Bruce Grossmann in Delta Junction, but he was working, so we decided to drive the Richardson Hwy. back south to Glennallen.  Although a scenic drive it took us much longer and more rough roads to get to Glennallen.   We had planned to stay 40 miles west of Glennallen, only to discover because of the Memorial Day weekend ALL of Alaska was ATV/UTVing in the area and every and I mean every available RV spot or parking lot was FULL.  So on to Palmer where we pulled in for the night at 10:30 p.m, 15 hours and 560 miles. Whew! we were beat.  Rosie told me we averaged 37 mph :)

Today (Monday) we have spent resting up and doing odds/ends around the trailer and catching up with emails and phone calls.  Tomorrow I am taking the truck in for service before we head south to Seward.

Here are some pictures from our travels the past few days.

Day Five

Another 450+ mile day finds us at the Triple G Hideaway in Fort Nelson, BC.  We finally got to see some wildlife, A cow & calf moose and 2 black bears.  None of the wildlife felt photogenic, but Rosalie got this bear butt.

 The truck and trailer are performing as expected, with no mechanical problems.   Temps are in the 50's and mostly cloudy tonight with a few rain drops.

We got to drive some big hills today and have mountains tomorrow, one hill was a 9% grade.

Day Four

Got on the road this morning by 9:45, it was heavy overcast and 55 degrees, wasn't long before the sun was out and we had a beautiful day.  We ran through some rain showers west of Edmonton, nothing significant.  No signs of the on-going fire north of Edmonton.

We are staying the night at Sherks RV Park at Valley View, AB, a favorite we found in 2012.  They had 12" of heavy wet snow a week ago, with lots of tree damage, but no white remnants.

Sorry no pictures again today, it was a pretty boring scenery, nothing significant to take pictures of.

We hope to stay at Fort Nelson tomorrow night if all goes well.  We are putting on 450+ miles the last two days.

Day 3

It was an interesting day, after refueling in Lignite we forgot to get the shotgun out of storage in preparation for the border crossing, so we stopped and did that and then forgot to put the slides back in, but didn't drive off because I noticed it right away in the mirror.

Next stop was the border crossing, all went well during the initial interview and then I had to go inside to pay, well I took Rosalie's Passport in instead of mine, so back to the truck to get mine and bring Rosalie in.  I don't think it was related but after a 15 minute wait, they took care of us and then told us they were going to search the truck and trailer, but it would be a few minutes because they had to process a commercial bus.  Well, 45 minutes later we were cleared to pass through Canada.  Before leaving I asked if there was anything we did that caused "the problem", the agent assured me there wasn't a "problem" and that we were most likely randomly selected for a search.

As we continued on we stopped for fuel only to have inoperative pumps and then were going to try a less traveled road only to discover it was in very bad shape so we turned around after about 10 miles and went back to hwy. 11 and continued on.

Well after all of that we made it to Battleford, Saskatchewan where we will stay in the City Park.  It is a very nice campground that we have stayed at before.

During our travels we saw lots of ducks as hoped and some Antelope.

Sorry, no pictures today.

Tomorrow we hope to make it to Sherks RV Park at Valley View, Alberta.

:)

Day Two

We had another good day on the road, mostly sunny, but we bucked a strong wind all day that dropped our mileage down to 8-9 mpg.  We thinned the bug population when we drove past Devils Lake.

We reached our spot for the night (Lignite, ND) at 6:00 pm and had a salad & Chicken Broccoli Curry for supper.  Now we are watching "We Bought A Zoo" and catching up on e-mails, phone calls and relaxing.

We are only 10 miles from the Canadian border at Portal, ND which will will cross tomorrow morning so blog posts will be as internet access allows.  We are looking forward to driving past all of the pot-holes in Saskatchewan  and seeing the multitude of waterfowl.

Day One

We were able to get on the road much earlier this year, 9:45 a.m.  We left The Cabin In The Woods in good hands with Sister Sue and neighbors.

Pulling out of the driveway

We had clear skies and temps in the 70's.  By the time we got to Superior temps had dropped into the 60's.  We met Tom & Diane Lewandowski at the Superior Perkins for a cup of coffee and afternoon snack and then it was back on the road (hwy. 2) west to our final stop for the Day in Fosston, MN where we pulled in to the City Park at 9:15 p.m.  There was only one other rig in the small park.

At 3:30 a.m. we had a nice thunderstorm and rain, it is dry here also.  We got up to mostly cloudy skies, but no rain.  The sun is out now and we are doing chores before getting back on the road.  We plan to drive to Lignite, ND today and cross into Canada tomorrow.

The view out the picture window at Fosston, MN

Rain, rain come today, wash all the dirt and crud away

Took advantage of the rainy day to wash and treat the rubber trailer roof and then washed the rig.  I've learned doing this in the rain makes the job easier and does a better job, as it is wet when you start and stays wet to rinse the crud away.

Also happy to get the rain to water in my woods trail seeds.

Preparations For Trip 2016

Over the past month we had some work done on the trailer to replace the awning fabric, replace a rusted through piece of underbelly, adjust the slide out stops and an alignment.  I then discovered the roof vent above the bed had blown off sometime during transport and rain soaked the bed, so now we have a new roof vent and bed.

Yesterday (05/06/2016) we started loading and packing for our anticipated departure on 05/22/2016, for our fourth driving trip to Alaska.  Every fall we empty all the cupboards and closets, storing things in totes to keep them clean and mouse and insect proof over winter.