Alaska At Last

Our plan was to make it to Alaska so we had to go to Alaska. From where we were Skagway was a short hop, or a several hour trip, depending on your distance management. A short hop for us then. 

It was raining very steadily when we left and pouring when we got to Carcross so we decided to keep going in hope we got back in time to see it later. 

As we approached The Yukon Swinging Bridge I looked at Rob and said," you want to?", and he said, "we can do it the next time we come through, (wink)".  So we pulled over into the parking lot. YIKES, we were committed and they gave us the group discount (quite a good discount) and started in. The rain had mostly stopped but it was still gloomy. 

Gloom is no reason to not do things. 

What are we doing? Crazy people. 

It is an interesting walk telling about the Klondike and building the road and the gold hunt and such. And bears. 

We did cross the river on the bridge. I did not take pictures. Rob did but I did not. We survived our adventure and resisted the gift shop, $2.25 for ketchup chips, and continued on.

Did I mention that I was freezing? The cold rain and my footwear makes it hard to warm up. 

I am however thankful for split heat. 

The highway to Skagway goes from 3250 feet (I can't remember exactly) to sea level in about 120km. Quite an angle. It was also very cloudy, foggy and there were bike tours on the narrow road. I'm sure dad was having the time of his life. It didn't make for good pictures though. 

We managed to make it over the border without incident. The border guard did look for "Javier," and asked if we spoke English in Spanish, no French. The kids remembered to keep their smart remarks to themselves so they let us through. The interesting thing about the border crossing is that the American and Canadian sides (crossing checks) are about 35 kilometres apart. You keep waiting and waiting for the next one. 

Once in Skagway we had lunch at a playground. 

Advantages of a tourist town. New playgrounds and bathrooms. Disadvantages, tourist prices. You win some and you loose some. 

When we came 20 years ago I remember going and seeing things in Skagway. This time I remember the people. The day we came so did three cruise ships. Talk about crowded. I did manage to see some things. 

This is a giant snow plow for the railroad. It would really move the snow. I thought the town in Little House on the Prairie needed that the year the railway was snowed in. 

Sorry about the glare. 

This reminded me of the on of John Lake and Chief Whitecap. "Go that way". 

Much of what was covered in Skagway had been previously taught in other places on the way so not too much new. It was crowded and ice cream was $4.50 a scoop, American. We did make it to Alaska and that was the point. 

Mom wouldn't come closer to take the picture but we have proof that we made it. 

Look for the train

It is a narrow track made just for the gold rush because it could be laid quickly. It runs between Skagway and Carcross. The station is at the Canadian border crossing. 

On the way back we stopped to look at things. 

We were too late for Carcross but we did stop at the tiny desert. 

We walked across it. 

Evander really liked the desert. 

We saw a bear on the way back to camp. 

It took a moment to pose for me and I missed it. But nice profile shot. 

It was late when we got back so we make supper fast and then had sugar pies for dessert. Good reason to have a fire. 

Atlin the Epic Journey

We started our day with breakfast on the houseboat. Rob was in a hurry to get going so we cleaned up while he drove. When we got back to shore we split up vehicles, Mom, me and the kids into my van for a day of exploring while Dad and Rob went for a day of plumbing. 

We had a handy map because there is no cell service, and no internet there. Fortunately there are not a lot of roads. Up we went up warm spring road to warm spring beach. It is a good beach for throwing rocks. There are a lot of rocks there. We started collecting ones that have jade flecks in them to tumble in Roy's rock tumbler. So many rocks. 

We hadn't found the warm spring yet so after about an hour of rock throwing we moved on. The road is very twisty but not a lot of signs. We found The Grotto. By then it was time for lunch so we had our picnic and went for a tiny hike.

 The path ended at the stream edge so we didn't keep going, especially since right across the stream from us was a bear den. (Mom has pictures). Back to the van to keep exploring. 

After I passed an unlabelled road turnoff for a second time I wondered what it was so with a bit of maneuvering we went back and found the warm springs. The kids hopped in for a wade. 

They didn't want to do more because it was slimy. 

It is a different ecosystem there. The flowers are different along the stream than the rest of the area.

After the warm springs we went to the hiking trail we had seen. Monarch trail. 

At the beginning before we were all tired. 

Evander hung out in his backpack. 

About half way up. We had been going about 30 minutes so far. 

We reached the highest point and we're starting down. 

I also made it. 

After we got down we took the beach trail down. We had seen stretches of real beach when we were hiking and wanted to see them and we were hot. It was super windy down at the beach but no one was bothered by it. We really enjoyed the dollar store buckets we brought for digging and water moving. 

See the funny twisted trees. I kept looking at them while driving which made mom nervous so I took a picture when we were stopped. 

With digging accomplished we set off for our final destination, the water falls. 

We went back to the trailers and watched a movie while we waited for the guys and supper. We were able to share supper with the Smallwoods. They are  friends of the family Rob was doing plumbing for. Then we drove back to Snafu Lake to have a place to sleep somewhere in the middle. Mom and I were done with Atlin, they are gearing up for a big music festival and there was a lot of people showing up and we needed groceries. Tomorrow is shopping day. 

 

Our Alaska Adventure

WIWe started thinking about this trip one year ago when Rob reminded me that our fifteen anniversary was coming up and we try to do something big one the five years. After a discussion with Rob we thought that a big family vacation was in order because Xavier is getting older and who knows when we would have another chance to do this. Some plans were made. I took a part time position at work so I could be ensured a long stretch of time off and we started acquiring campers. We finally decided on a Boler. Early on we invited my parents to come too because when travelling with a number of children more grownups are helpful. This also meant we would be travelling in a Boler convoy (all two of us). We didn't make many plans beyond that because we didn't know how well the toddler would travel. So this is the account of our Alaska adventure. 

Day 1 

We began with a bang, quickly packing up everything that was left and heading out to Drumheller. Following Google maps we headed out. It was a lovely drive, quiet, with little traffic. Great, except where were the gas stations? No gas stations.... Nope.  None at all. We started looking when we were on a third of a tank. Kept looking at a quarter tank and as we were pulling into the valley near Drumheller mom texts me, "our low fuel light just came on".  At that moment I was looking at our low fuel light so I knew how they were feeling. But there were  no gas stations so we just kept going, and going. Somewhere in there we turned off the air conditioner to increase fuel mileage. It was 35C by our thermometer but we just needed to get somewhere that had gas. Finally we drove into a town called Rosedale  Pretty sounding and at that time the van was starting to audible alarms about low fuel so when we saw an open store I hopped out and stopped to ask if there was any place nearby. 

Nope. We had to get to Drumheller, only seven kilometres away. (Side note, if we wanted there to be a gas station in Rosedale we would have to travel there more than in the summer. I made polite noises to that comment). As a bonus I bought ice cream cones because it was almost 7:00 and everything is better with ice cream. 

In the end we made it to Drumheller and found the Co-op. Boy were we excited. So excited that each van bought a large jerrycan and filled it. When we worked it out each vehicle had just over a litre of fuel remaining. Small excitement for the day. Then we went back to Rosedale to the campground we were going to, Pinters Campground. A small, rustic campground with lots of running around room for Evander and hills for Xavier,Niles and Patience. 

The kids started asking to climb the hill before supper but we made them eat first, and clean up. 

We made it to the top but Nancy waited on the trail. She thought it was too high. I just tried not to look down. 

The view of our campers before going up to the top. See the tiny Boler blobs. 

Then we went down and tried to put the small children to bed. That is the first day, in a nutshell.