At home in Glennallen, AK

So here we are, in our new home! We pulled in Wed. May 16th. The road up from the lower 48 was really very good, and we are most grateful. The last 50 miles in the Yukon before the Alaskan border was quite awful, but most all the rest was good. Those frost heaves cause havoc with the roads this time of year.

Our campground is very nice, and we have a wonderful spot, on the end of the first row. We are snuggled in among the spruce trees, right along the highway entering Glennallen.

We are little ahead of the game, coming in earlier than the campground owners expected us. We had agreed to start work on June 1. but we have been busy since we got here, although the park hasn't been full yet, there are a few early birds on the road. We usually have between 4 and 8 campers each night. They tell us after June 1, it is full every night. We only have 26 sites, and we inhabit one of them!

We found coming up that there were a lot of things not open yet. We used the trusty Mileposts book as our bible, as everyone should that is coming up to Alaska, and many of the places advertised in there weren't open yet.

You can see from the photo top right, that Barry is hard at it! He was just hangin' around! Not really, he was putting up the flagging that runs from tree to tree in front of the park. The park as indentions in the ground throughout. The snow is all melted, but water stands in all the dips in the park. We pump the water out of them daily and more just keeps coming up as the permafrost melts. It is amazing. The ground is also very squishy when you walk on it. The sites are solid, where you park, but all of the grassy areas are soft and will remain that way all summer. Has something to do with the frost and the tundra growth.

Tomi and I went to the greenhouse today, about 40 miles from here and ordered the flowers! It was quite fun and a wonderfully large greenhouse. These people take their summer plantings very serious. I got two Sweet 100 tomato plants that I am going to put in pots by the trailer. Will be fun to see how they do with continuous daylight and lots of rain. We won't put the flowers out until after Memorial day as the evenings still get a little chilly.

There are about 500 people in Glennallen. It is an interesting little town. Appears to be a large portion of the inhabitants are Christian fundamentalists and most of the rest are native.

At least this area of Alaska has a lot of people that are here for a reason, i.e. they are felons, coming here to start a new life, or they are running from something. Most everyone it seems has some substantial baggage.

Every citizen of Alaska, (at least the adults, I don't know about the kids) gets an annual check for $2000.00 each. Isn't that amazing? I think AK is the only state that does that. Perhaps they feel it helps offset the high cost of living here. Last year it was only about 1400.00 but they got a raise this year!

Oh, you can't tell from the photo of Barry, but we each have shirts that have our names on them and Northern Nights Campground! Wow, we feel pretty darn special. We feel like we are on a bowling league, or we work in a gas station!

Speaking of gas stations, today we went to Valdez, about 120 miles south of here and there is a convenience store there that has full service gas! When was the last time you saw that? Been a while for us.

Valdez is an interesting little place, about 5,000 people, (I thought it was bigger), and it all centers around the harbor and the Sound. There are ferries coming and going all the time, and I'm sure tankers as well, although we didn't see any tankers today. I stopped at a fish market right on the bay and got some halibut cheeks. We had them for dinner and they were delish. Awfully expensive, but I guess halibut don't have chipmunk cheeks, so they are a little scarce. The drive to Valdez is magnificent. Sooo many mountains it just takes your breath away and there are lots of glaciers near the highway too.

We plan to leave here the 24th and go to Anchorage until the 28th for National DU Convention. They are good enough to pay our registration fees this year, since Barry retired last. That worked out great, with our free year being Anchorage. Convention here is always well attended. We were here for one in 1995. Wow, that is 12 years ago, how time does fly by!!

Well, 'til next time. Nick, I hope you like the pictures! Ya'all take care now, ya hear!

Alaska, Here we are

So, we made it to the 49Th! We spent the first night in Alaska at a park, 3 miles inside Alaska, across the Canadian border. Once again crossed customs without any problems. The size XXL mosquitoes were waiting for us! My, they are healthy devils up here. There were many at the campground we stayed in, but they must have all been males, because they would land on you but not bite. Guess the girls were all preoccupied with kids or girls night out somewhere else or something, but we were grateful. We didn't mind a bit that the guys hung around, but we didn't miss those bitin' girls!

As were we each time we have come to AK we are awe struck by the mountains. Being people from a mountainous region you would think it wouldn't be that different, ah, but Alaskan mountains are very different from WY mountains. In WY you go across a mountain range and then there aren't any more for awhile. In Alaska, there are range, after range after range. They just seem to go on forever. The highways seem to be just ribbons, cut through the dense forests. As you can see in the photo here, the forests run right to to foot of the mountains, and the roads are cut into that dense forestation. Most of the trees are birch, black and white spruce and very thick underbrush. It doesn't appear that there would be much foraging for the wildlife in those dense trees, but they must find groceries somewhere. We saw several caribou and moose in the Yukon, and have seen moose in Alaska. The moose up here are very different from the moose in WY, they are very very large. Much larger than their kin folk down south. They are also very light colored compared to the Shiras moose of WY. They have that same ugly mug as their cousins, but much bigger and lighter. Haven't seen any this year's calves yet, they must be keeping them in hiding yet.

The rivers are raging here in AK so we haven't been fishing yet. The lakes are still holding some ice and run off is in high gear, so it appears fishing will be on hold until the 2ND week of June or so. All the rivers right around Glennallen are very muddy as well as being high. Most of them have that opaque look from glacier melt as well. Guess we will have to live with that. We have the fishing licenses at the ready though, so when the waters clear, we will be ready to go!

We stopped at Gakona Lodge to see our friends from Sheridan, Greg and Val Marshall that now own the lodge. It is on the historic register as a historic road house. They have done a tremendous amount of work to it, and my does it show. It sits right on up against the Gakona River, and comes complete with restaurant and bar, as well as the lodge and cabins. I believe there are 5 rooms in the lodge. Greg goes back to Sheridan ever Jan. through April to work as a CPA and Val and the kids live year-round at the lodge. The lodge is about 30 minutes from Glennallen, so I believe after we get settled in, I will bar tend some for Greg, as he is running on the ragged edge, trying to keep up with everything and tend bar every night as well. That should be interesting. It is smaller than our bar, but the clientele is very interesting. They have many natives around Gakona, as the lodge sits between two native villages. You can't see liquor in a native village, but the Gakona Lodge liquor license is grandfathered in. Only such circumstance in Alaska. The Lodge was really a busy place during the construction of the pipeline, (as I'm sure every bar in AK was.) Two people were killed in that bar during that time. The running joke up here is that the Alaskan Pipe Line was built on speed and cocaine, since the days are so long in summer when they could work, no one really slept much. The bar at the lodge is somewhat quieter now. As state law requires bars in WY to close at 2:00AM, up here it is 5:00AM. Can't imagine how that works in the winter, but it is understandable in the summer. Greg says he tries to get everyone out by 3!

The Marshalls tell us they have more trouble with white people in their bar than with the natives, although the natives throughout AK are known to have a serious alcholism problem. They tell us that the natives always bring a designated driver with them and they all admit that they have a drinking problem! The whites on the other hand, drink and believe they are only social drinkers and completely capable of driving.....thank you very much!

Oh, the human race is amazing isn't it? So different in some respects and so alike in others. So, next time I write we will be settled in our new home. Later

Thru the Yukon

OK, we came through BC just fine and then it is North through the Yukon. My, there really aren't very many inhabitants of the Yukon! We spent the night in Teslin, a little native village of about 100 people. The RV park was quite nice, but the water hadn't thawed out yet, or any of the individual sewer dumps, although we were able to dump at the central sewer dump. We spent 2 nights here as the kids that own the park are really hard workers, and we have been traveling every day for a while. We spent Mother's Day in Teslin. There was a small (village size) grocery store. Shopping there was a real treat. Of course, prices were extremely high, but since we know first hand what it takes to get groceries in here, it was expected. I also found pearl tapioca in that little store, and it is extremely hard to find in the US.

Fuel has been running nearly $5.00 a gal. here in northern Canada, so will be glad to hit Alaska and see if it is any cheaper. Temperatures are pretty nice during the day, and evenings get a little chilly. It was amazing that the further north we came, the trees were budded more than in some of the areas further south. That being because we are getting into the much longer hours of sunlight! In the northern Yukon, it was still light at 11PM. We are very grateful that neither of us require darkness to sleep. So, off we go zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Heading North

Yikes, I didn't realize it had been so long since I brought this up to date. I have been remiss.
We spent a couple of weeks in WY in April. We were in Casper, parked in our friends, Nickie and Steve's yard, (bless 'em) for a couple of weeks. We got Dr. appointments, vet appointments, etc. done while we were there as we won't be back until Sept. or Oct. Also had some time to spoil Jevin and Gavin while we were there.

Then we went to Sundance the end of April. We buried Rod's ashes in the Miller Creek Cemetery next to his Dad on April 28th. It was a beautiful day and an equally beautiful place. Shayne, Rod's daughter came from Minn. for the service. It was a true joy having her. She is all caught up in her Sr. year of high school. What a gal she is.

We left Sundance on May 2 headed toward Alaska. Got as far as Billings the first day. Met with our financial advisor and our trust attorney then went as far as Malta the next day. Crossed the border into Canada on the 4th. It went remarkably easy. We went to the crossing just North of Malta and it is a tiny crossing, only one guy working there. We had cleared out everything we thought might present a problem and he didn't even look. Rats! I could have kept some of those groceries after all!

Anyway, we meandered across Sask. then for the next couple of days. Then we crossed into Alberta at Lloydminster. That town is right on the border between Providences, with main street being the dividing line. Bet that is plenty confusing. We spent 2 nights in Edmonton and that was pretty fun. I know you will think I am really a big fat nerd, but the highlight of our stay there for me was going to a HUGE and I mean HUGE Chinese supermarket. It was larger than most grocery stores in the states. It had the weirdest stuff I had ever seen! How about some nice fresh pork spleen? Oh yum, or if that doesn't strike your fancy perhaps you would prefer some boneless duck feet huh? Maybe your taste runs more to a fresh pork stomach! Their fresh fish market was incredible. Carp, talapia, scallops, prawns, crabs, just about anything you could think of! There was an entire aisle of nothing but soy sauces! Wow. Anyway, I enjoyed that a lot. It was located in the West Edmonton Mall, touted to be the largest mall in the world. It has a water park and a skating rink. It was really something, and we only saw about 1/4th of it. We left there on the 8th and traveled to Grande Prairie, Alberta. Nice little town. It rained on us all the way today. It is very green here and evident that they have had abundant rain. All of the pot holes are full and all of the ducks and geese are smiling!

We plan to get to Dawson Creek tomorrow or further. Dawson Creek is mile 0 of the Alaskan Highway, so we may have to do a little happy dance when we get there, probably will depend on whether it is raining or not! Anyway, I will try to enter more often in this blog. We are now up and running with WiFi, as our Verizon air card won't work up here. Our cell phones work sometimes, but we pay .69 a minute, so have been using a phone card and public land lines. That seems weird since we have used only cell phones since last Aug. We plan to be in Anchorage by May 23 for the National DU Convention. Shouldn't have any problem making that, barring any major problems with the rig.

OK, friends we will talk later.