Wednesday, May 31, 2006

WHITE KNUCKLES

Coldspring seemed a long way off this morning as we had our breakfast.  We were beginning our second week on the road but it seemed, in ways that we had been gone much longer.  Voluminous through put seems to stretch time and make the near past seem very distant.

After breakfast we set off for more of the same, through put.  Ft Meade was our destination.  It was here that Colonel Reno, one of the men who accompanied Custer in his pursuit of glory at Little Bighorn but was fortunate enough to get left behind, met his ignominious expulsion from the army after being charged and found guilty of being a peeping tom.  Today he would probably be sent for sensitivity training and a little counseling.  Seems times have changed somewhat.  We spent a couple of hours at Ft Meade, Custer himself had selected the site,  reading the history of the fort and its inhabitants, looking at old saddles, firearms, pack saddles, harness, picket irons and other items that made up the every day life of a calvary man in the mid to late eighteen hundreds.  We also saw pictures of the last great calvary ride in the nineteen hundreds.  The horses and mules have gone.  They have been replaced by tanks and trucks.

Back at Rush No More we hooked up the Forester and resumed our northward journey, at thirty minutes past noon.  Before we left Nick promised to look us up when he and Stella get to the Kenai.

When we got to Bowman, N.D. I pulled into a large parking lot where Onie took the wheel.  We had missed a turn but wouldn’t discover it until sometime later when we were on a narrow road that got worse by the mile.  Onie was getting some more experience in how to deal with poor conditions while driving but at least it wasn’t raining.  The sun shone brightly as she negotiated the back roads.  She did fine and we were enjoying the antelope that grazed close to the road as well as the occasional pheasant that ran across the road.  We even saw a few feeding in the freshly cut grain fields.  We were making good progress in getting back to our intended route and Onie probably would have taken us all the way except for a certain North Dakota farmer.  Onie encountered him as he drove his very large tractor towing an even bigger spray rig.  As he approached he seemed oblivious to the fact that we needed our half the road and it appeared he had no intention of ceding any of it to us.  Onie got over as far to the right as she could.  The pavement normally visible in the right rear view mirror disappeared and all that could be seen was grass and the bar ditch since there was no shoulder.  A misjudgment could mean ending up in that self same bar ditch.  At the last minute the farmer woke from his reverie or decided that he couldn’t afford to have his spray rig out of commission this time of year.  He graciously ceded a bare half or the road to Onie.  We passed without a hitch or scratch but I could see her white knuckles on the wheel.  It would have been white knuckle time for anyone and she did great but it ended her driving for the day.  At the next stretch of highway where we could see a long way in each direction she stopped and we changed drivers.  She had driven a couple of hours and done well, again.

With me back behind the wheel and with her manning the navigator’s seat we drove on until we were back on 85, headed north.  At eight thirty we reached Williston.  We swung into the Wal-Mart parking lot and found a spot among the other rigs that had arrived earlier.  As we surveyed our surroundings we saw an Albertsons on the adjoining property.  List in hand we walked up and down the aisles filling our basket with items we knew would be hard to find in Canada or much more expensive.  When we were through at Albertsons we repeated our drill in Wal-Mart.  When we were finished we felt we had done our part to bolster the economy of Willston, North Dakota.

After supper Onie served cobbler, cleaned up and got to bed around midnight.  I tarried, typing and playing crosswords until sometime after one.

Thursday, June 1, 2006

WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAMED

Our shopping last night paid dividends this morning.  We had fresh eggs, biscuits, and sausage and honey dew melon for breakfast.

Thus fortified we started north again, at eight thirty, trying to follow the pictographs that North Dakota laughingly calls road maps.  It seemed obvious to us that once they have tourists within their borders they feel loath to help them leave.  We wandered a bit more through a maze of roads that led us past ducks on ponds, nesting geese and beaver dams until we reached a port of entry into Canada, Estevan.

The well fed young lady who was the customs officer asked the usual questions as well as visiting about Texas.  She came on board for a brief look and then bid us bon voyage.

Following the rough road northwest we had reached the upper limit of the original buffalo range on the Great Plains.  We had made the trip from their southern winter grazing grounds in Texas to their summer breeding grounds in just eight days with three days off for sight seeing.  It probably took them a bit longer, particularly if they had to deal with Vore’s Buffalo Leap.  The road took us past oil wells and wheat fields and Onie remarked that it had a resemblance to West Texas.  It did and I was unaware that Saskatchewan had so much oil.  

After driving ninety kilometers per hour for a long time through a lot of small towns we reached Moose Jaw.  Wouldn’t you like to visit with the guy who named this town?

Now we were back on some good divided highway and Onie drove again.  It was nice to lean back and watch geese swinging through the sky or see ducks with cupped wings gliding into land on a small pond.  Wheat fields waved at us as we glided by and I missed a few when my eyes closed for a while.

Near Saskatoon we changed drivers again, Saskatoon is a rather large town, and I drove us on to North Battleford where we pulled into the North Battleford Provincial Park.  We only had electricity for a hookup but that was fine.  We had covered four hundred eighty miles that day and that was a big day in the coach.

We stepped outside for a little stroll but were quickly driven back inside by some vicious mosquitoes.  Onie fixed supper while I made some notes of what we had seen and done and then we ate.

When the dominoes were shuffled we played a couple of games before watching two episodes of Jeff Foxworthy.

At ten o’clock we turned out the lights.  It was still daylight outside.

Friday, June 2, 2006

A FIRST

We had some coffee and tea before sitting down to breakfast at eight.

With the slides pulled in and the jacks retracted we pulled forward enough to get close to a water hydrant so that we could refill our fresh water holding tank.  While I did that Onie surveyed the front of the Marlin and the mass of bugs it had accumulated.  Each time we fuel we try to wash the bugs off as much as possible but it seems they return on the best of days.  With the water hose already hooked up it was just a matter of getting our car wash brush, bucket and mitt from the basement, soap from the kitchen, and we could give the front a good scrubbing.  We did just that.  On the way out of the park we stopped, dumped and flushed our holding tanks.  Now we were ready for several days of dry camping, if need be.

We were on the road again by quarter to eleven with me behind the wheel.  We past lots of small ponds covered with ducks large and small, drab and colorful.

An hour out of North Battleford Onie took the wheel again.  I was really enjoying the ride.  Lloydminister, Alberta, looks small on the map.  Actually it isn’t really big but the highway takes you straight through town.  In some places the road is six lanes, three each way, and it was carrying a lot of traffic.  Onie stayed in the middle lane, a good place to be in a big rig, and negotiated the numerous starts and stops at the many traffic lights.  There were more than a dozen and perhaps as many as thirty.  She seemed a little nervous but again came through in flying colors, creating another first for her, driving through a town with heavy traffic, and towing at that.

Here we picked up the Yellowhead Highway.  We had been here before, in 2003, and the gently rolling hills and unwinding road were familiar.  The good surface, for the most part, made the drive a pleasant one for Onie.  Still relaxed in the navigator’s seat, but not navigating, the time passed quite pleasantly for yours truly.

The fuel tank was getting a little on the empty side plus we were nearing Edmonton, a large town.  Flying J put a station here last year and today we made good use of it.  We filled the tank as well as topping off the tank in the Subaru.  The prices were the lowest we had seen since Oklahoma City.

Onie had located the address of a RV store and wanted to stop to get a few things.  After finding it we saw a sign advising they would open June 15^th, a few days late for us.

We headed on to DeBolt.  Although we both looked hard we never saw DeWasher or Denut but we did see de whitetail deer.  A little further down the road a gray fox crossed in front of us before the rain set in.

The approach to Grand Prairie gives one a sense of why it is so named.  Even in the mist of the rain one can see it stretched out over the vast rolling plain it stands on.  We were ready to stop and Onie had located a couple of parks in our reference books.  Both were full.  It was growing late and the rain continued to fall through the cold air so we finally settled on a Wal-Mart.  We pulled in and found a spot among other rigs, glad we were full of fresh water and our holding tanks were empty.  At nine thirty the Cummins fell silent.  It was time to let it rest as well as us.  It and the Allison had pushed us five hundred twenty three miles, a very long day for us.  Without Onie driving it would have been even longer.

Now she prepared our supper.  We ate and went to bed.  The rain lulled us to sleep.

Saturday, June 3, 2006

A LITTLE WASH JOB

We slept soundly and woke early to a sky that was still delivering rain and cold winds.  Our clocks said twenty minutes to eight as we left the parking lot.  Just down the road we saw a clock with the correct local time on it, six forty.

We headed west and as soon as the Cummins was warm we turned on the dash heater.  It ran all day.

Traveling in the Marlin is a matter of moderate speed and steady driving.  That took us into Dawson City, the beginning of the Al-Can Highway.  We stopped at an IGA to grocery shop and went to the tourist information center looking for a MilePost.  They didn’t have one but directed us down the street a couple of blocks to where we cold get one.  The MilePost is a book that gives detailed information on a mile by mile basis of what is on the Al-Can Highway and the major highways of Alaska.  We had borrowed one before from our friend, Gale Manning, but had returned it.  Onie wanted one of her own so there we were getting it.

As we pulled back into the north bound traffic we felt we were finally getting close to Alaska.  We had driven twenty six hundred and seventy five miles to get to the start of the highway but we were here and on our way, again.  To our right was a big high fenced area, reminiscent of game ranches in Texas.  This one held a large caribou herd.

Heading north the road began to climb steadily growing hills.  I noticed that as we climbed the hills the engine coolant temperature also climbed.  I kept an eye on it and decided we would have to have the radiator fins washed out again.  We did that in ’01 and I had kept a close eye on it since and thought it was clean when we left home.  It is possible with all the wet weather and construction we have been through that the rear wheels kicked up enough dust and water to plug it but whatever the reason it looked as though we were in for a little shop time and a little wash job.

With an eye on the engine temperature we drove on to Ft. St. John.  We pulled into the same place that helped us in ’01, Peace Country Freightliner. After talking to the young lady who scheduled work, she had just turned a trucker away saying they had all the work they could handle for the next two days, we unhooked the Forester so we could put the coach in a wash bay.  They were going to accommodate us as they always try to do with RVers.  Onie took the Forester to get it washed.

In the wash bay I helped the young man, a kid really; determine where the radiator was plugged.  In fact that was just about all over.  He had never done a job like this before in fact I think his job normally was to sweep the floor.  He seemed very proud that he was getting to work on a vehicle.  I shown a flashlight at the radiator, Canadians call them “rads” and he could plainly see no light was getting through.  With a steam loaded pressure spray he began removing the dirt.  I could see it falling onto the concrete floor before it rushed down the drain.  Forty five minutes later, the radiator was clean and his appetite for information about Texas and coach travel was a little quenched.

Inside the young lady charged me for half an hour labor saying that was all the time it should really have taken.  I didn’t tell her it did and the rest was visitation.

Back on the parking lot Onie wasn’t back yet so I set about filling the windshield washer fluid container.  This should be a five minute job but the engineer that designed this portion of the coach must have been an undergraduate with an emphasis on the under part.  To fill the container one has to get in the front of the coach over the generator and use a small, pint bottle, to dribble the fluid in.  You look in and locate the container and then fill it by feel because you can’t fill it and look at it at the same time unless you can stand on your head and have arms that are five feet long.  Thirty or forty five minutes later the container was full enough to get us to Alaska and Onie was back.  I closed up the front access door, put up my tools, bottle, etc and looked over the car, with Onie.  It looked good, nice and clean.

We decided to put on the car shield before we left Ft. St. John.  We got it out along with the foam rubber that goes over the windshield and under the cover.  I also got out an old poncho to lay on the dusty gravel drive along with a couple of tools.  Twenty minutes later the foam and shield were in place and the toad was hooked back up.  We were ready to roll, again, but were hungry.

Just a little more delay let us enjoy our lunch sitting still.  Oft times we eat as we roll down the road.  Wraps are perfect for that.  Today we enjoyed a leisure lunch in a coach that wasn’t moving.

With the dash heater still running we left Ft. St. John.  Outside it felt like the temperature was dropping and the sky looked threatening.  If it were just a little bit colder I would think it was going to snow.

Soon we crossed over the Prophet River.  Just down the road a coyote sat patiently, in the bar ditch, waiting for us to pass before he crossed the road.  In the rear view mirror I saw him trot across.

The clouds broke and the sunshine came through as we neared the end of our travel day.  An RV park came into view on our left side and we pulled in.  One look told us that little if any work had been done to maintain the park but we thought it would do for the night.  A young man, from Prince Edward Island, all the way across Canada, finally appeared and showed me a place we could park.  We could have electric but no water or sewer connections as those were still frozen.   There would be no reduction in rate for lack of service.  I thought about it and told him no thanks.

We headed north again.   The rain had rejoined us.  A few miles down the road we found a large pull out.  We turned in, even though it was only five, very tired.  We had only covered three hundred five miles but it had been a big day.

By the time we had supper and unwound it was nine o’clock.  Now the rain played taps as we fell asleep.  The trip odometer showed 2980 miles.

Sunday, June 4, 2006

ANYONE FOR A GAME OF JACKS?

Something seems to have gone terribly wrong somewhere along the way north.  We are waking up at the most uncivilized times, all on our own.  Our eyes open and no matter how hard we try it is hard to get them to close and stay that way until a respectable time, say, eight thirty.

This morning my eyes flew open at six forty five.  Of course it was daylight.  We are far enough north now that darkness is almost non existent.  Daylight has never been a good excuse to get out of bed unless your bed was a bedroll and you were driving cattle north on the old Chisholm Trail.  Then, in the words of John Wayne you “were burning daylight”.  Well we haven’t seen a cow for days and our bed is not even close to a bedroll so I don’t understand why we have be sabotaged in such an unwholesome manner.

Well, no matter.  We were up at six forty five.  It was cool inside but outside the thermometer was stuck on forty six.  Unable to sleep we had our breakfast and got on the road around eight thirty.

Exciting things happen as one wends his way north, away from civilization, congestion, pollution and good paved roads.  That same dirt, rocks and grime that attach themselves to radiators find their way into jack pads.  These are the neat little devices shaped like a mushroom cap that attach to the ends of the leveling jacks.  The bottom side is convex and the side attached to the jack stanchion is concave.  Their purpose in life is to keep the rod like jack stanchions from sinking into a soft surface.  A rule to remember when traveling north is this “If dust, dirt, grit or rock can find a way to intrude, lodge, damage or otherwise be a nuisance it will be done”.  

Motoring down the road we noticed a tell tale light indicating that the jacks were not fully retracted.  This can be an aggravation or a catastrophe depending on where one is and what happens to come in contact with an extended or partially extended jack.  At worst you hit a big rock in the road or an extra deep pot hole and this relieves the coach of a jack, or jacks, which will cost several hundred dollars to repair plus the down time to get the parts and effect the repairs.  At the very least is a humbling experience as you will see.  At the next good pull out we stopped and extended the jacks then I got down on my hands and knees and with some old gloves protecting my hands began to dig out the rocks, dirt, mud, water, etc accumulated over the past few hundred miles.  Given time to sit and solidify the mixture gets hard enough to make good roadbed.  This was not yet to that point and with a little prying with a pocket knife blade I was able to make a niche to get my old fingers in and start digging our the offending grime.  Each of the four jacks were tended to and then we hit the “retract all jacks” button and voila the jacks jumped into place.  Just one more little adventure for Onie and Pawpaw.

In Ft Nelson we got some fuel for the Cummins.  She is not as greedy as some engines but still requires a little feeding now and then.

Back on the road we were once again surrounded by the snow capped mountains we had been enjoying the last couple of days.  We made the long climb to the summit of Steamboat Mountain and then began the descent to Summit Lake.  We camped in the provincial park here with the grandkids back in ’01.  The water is a beautiful crystal blue and we looked forward to seeing it once again.   What we saw was ice and snow, not water.  Summit Lake was almost completely frozen over.  Snow lay on the ice in many places and all around the shore.

Even though the air was frosty beautiful dainty white flowers had sprung from the forest floor.

Chilled from our walk to the lake shore and picture taking we were glad to reclaim the warmth of the Marlin and be on our way to the beaver dams that waited down the road in the creeks that gurgled through the little draws.

The temperature had struggled to fifty five in a partly sunny sky and the bison behind the sturdy fence on the ranch that was raising them seemed to be enjoying the last few days of a late spring.

Although I had never seen one before, in the wild, I had no trouble identifying the blue fox that scampered across the road as we rolled toward it.  Mule deer were seen nearby but they never ventured very close to the road. More Stone sheep were seen eating the remnants of last winter’s salt that lay on the roadway. 

Now a large lake, Munchon, hove into view.  Munchon is a natural lake that is several miles long and many hundred feet deep.  Being at a lower altitude than Summit had little ice left in it.

With the crest of each mountain or hill we saw a new creek or river and soon enough we saw the Toad and then the mighty Liard, which parallels the Al-Can Highway, being fed by countless smaller rivers and streams.

We had been looking forward to the Liard Hot Springs, a natural spa that is now a National Park.  We were there having driven two hundred thirty six miles since leaving our pull out and it was only three fifteen.

We registered and found a parking spot, over head the skies threatened more rain.  After a snack and some relaxing Onie went off to bathe in the hot mineral waters.  I went off to bed, for a nap.  Sometime during my slumbers Onie returned and slipped in next to me.  Around ten I woke, put on my swim suit and bath robe and headed off to the hot springs.  The walk to the springs is over a boardwalk spanning a warm swamp fed by hot seeps.  Ducks, geese, loons, bear and moose live and raise their young here or near here.  I saw some as I walked the half mile in a light drizzle.  I stayed too long in the steaming water and got back to the coach at midnight where I promptly went to bed.

Monday, June 5, 2006

The springs are supposed to have a salutary effect on ones body and overall health.  Whether or not they do they certainly caused us to sleep well and we woke again at a very unseemly hour, six.

Our thermometer told us it was forty seven outside and our eyes and ears told us that a steady rain was falling.  I had heard it as I fell to sleep.  From the looks of things it had come down all the night long.

We shared an orange before heading off to the hot springs.  It was a delightful day to be alive and enjoying God’s great handiwork.  We found a few of our peer group already soaking up the warmth of the sulphur smelling waters. We joined them and were soon thankful for the cooling drops falling on our heads.  Two hours later we made the walk back to the Marlin.

Eggs, bacon, coffee and tea served as breakfast and then we were off again.  It was eleven, forty degrees and the rain was still falling.  We basked in the stimulating afterglow of the springs as we let the Marlin, Cummins and Allison carry us on northward.

What a pleasant surprise awaited just down the road, a mother black bear and her cub were feeding across the bar ditch, close to the tree line.

Each time a vehicle passed the youngster would run to the nearest tree and scamper up quicker than it takes to tell about it.

When the noise of the passing vehicle had gone the cub would climb back down and join mama.  We watched for some time before continuing.

The Cassiar Mountains loomed to the front and left of the coach.  Clouds shrouded their peaks and down the slopes we could see heavy snow falling.   A few flurries hit the coach as we coasted along and neared the continental divide.

On the downside of the divide we encountered big lakes and big rivers, some flooding out of their banks.  The sun had managed to drive away some of the clouds but it was still cold.

Whitehorse was our destination and even though we had gotten a late start we decided to persevere until we got there.  By eight under an overcast sky and forty eight degrees we were parked in McKenzie’s RV Park where we had full hookups.

Onie put our supper on the table at eight thirty.  At ten we pulled the covers up tight under our chins and took a well earned rest.

Tuesday, June 6, 2006

TOK

We are doing our best to correct these bad habits of getting up early.  This morning we managed to sleep til seven.  A glance at the sky told us it was partly sunny and a look at the thermometer told us it was still cold, forty seven.

We breakfasted and drove out of our pull through on the gravel lot.  A quick trip to the local Husky station to get more fuel and we were ready for the final leg of our trek to the Last Frontier.  While I paid for the fuel the woman helping me advised that we would have good road for the first hundred miles.  After that it would be less and less so and we would have to go slow to avoid losing control of the coach.

We were back in the stream of vehicles headed north, at ten.

The woman had her information correct.  The first hundred miles was great and then deterioration set in, quickly.  We had enjoyed the many lakes and rivers during this respite in the driving but now our full attention was back on the road.  We could still steal a quick look at the snow capped mountains and the trails of white that ran down their sides in the small mountain valleys.  The road was a part that we had traveled in years past.  The first hundred miles had been newly constructed.  The orange triangles appeared again announcing construction ahead along with the attendant flag person and or pilot vehicle.  This greeted us as we got our first glimpse of Lake Kulane and its wonderful blue waters colored by the copper sulfate that leaches out of the surrounding mountains.  While waiting for a pilot car at one such site we took time to record the beauty on our digital camera.

The construction seemed to be around every bend in the road and we almost despaired of making any time at all.  To counteract this sinking feeling we pulled over at a turnout and had lunch.  Thus fortified we soldiered on.

Severe cold plays havoc with roads here about.  Frost heaves plague drivers as they struggle north across this beautiful but rough terrain.  Where frost heaves had missed damaging the road rain, wear and heavy trucks had not.  Most were not significantly large but I did dodge one such small hole that had an iceberg floating in it.  That didn’t bother me but the igloo with the Eskimo family presented a real hazard however I did try to hit the polar bear trying to hide from the Eskimo.  The larger potholes were real problems but we kept going none the less.

How long this went on is hard to tell since I don’t wear a watch, my cell phone had no signal to tell time with and of course the sun never sets so how is one to keep track of something as diaphanous as time.  At last we saw signs that things might be improving, the U.S. Customs and Immigration Building. 

We pulled onto smooth asphalt and gave a sigh of relief.  We had to go back this way to get back to Coldspring but that is something we can think about tomorrow, Scarlet.  The Customs officer took our passports, scanned them into his computer, asked a few questions and wished us a good summer.

We were now in Alaska and only had another hundred seven miles to go to get to our night’s stop, Tok.  Our spirits improved with the road which was significantly better, not wonderful but enough better to make us very thankful.  We hoped this was an omen of better roads to come.  Tok came over the horizon around six.  We had covered three hundred seventy seven miles since leaving the Husky.

Tok RV Village has hosted us before and we pulled in, got our space assignment, got there and hooked up.  Holding tanks were flushed and the fresh water tank filled.  After a quick supper we hurried off to the camp office building where a concert by local artists was underway.  They were quite good.  When it was over Onie managed to hustle me out before I could part with any cash for their CDs.

Back in the coach we indulged in an episode of the Jeff Foxworthy show.  We fell to sleep around ten hoping for better roads on the morrow.