Sorry - no pictures, just a wrap up.
After our great weekend in Loveland, CO and visiting Rocky Mountain National Park, we pulled out Labor Day morning headed east. We spent Monday night at an Army Corps of Engineers park half way across Kansas. Tuesday we made it to one of our favorite stopping spots - Arrow Rock, MO. We had stayed here five nights back in May. This time we stayed only two nights.
The effects of Hurricane Gustav reached all the way up into Missouri and it rained all day long Wednesday. Didn’t matter - we were just taking a day of R&R anyway.
Today (Thursday, September 4th) we left Arrow Rock - still raining. It was a pretty messy drive across the rest of Missouri and for a ways into Illinois. God continued to look out for us - a guy in front of us in a Cadillac lost it on the rain slick highways a few miles east if St. Louis and swapped ends a couple of times before he finally came to rest against the inside concrete barrier. Our brakes worked just fine and we were able to avoid a messy wreck. Thank you, God!
We made it to another of our stopping spots - Kentucky Dam Village State Park at the head of Kentucky Lake near Gilbertsville, KY.
Tomorrow we are headed to probably our most favorite campground - Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains near Townsend, TN. We plan on spending four nights there and finally head on home next Tuesday.
This will be the last post to our Alaska ‘blog’. What a great trip!! We have put over 10,000 miles on the motorhome and it has been fantastic. It always amazes us as to the grandeur of the USA!! What a beautiful country.
For all of you that have been following along on this ‘blog’ - glad to have you along and we really hope you have enjoyed the trip with us. In fact, if you really, really enjoyed it, and want to help a little bit with the gasoline - just send those check or money orders!!!
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Rocky Mountain National Park
On Friday and Saturday we visited Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s about 30 miles west of where we’re staying in Loveland. One of the most scenic areas is Big Thompson Canyon just out of Loveland on US Hwy 34. The highway follows the Big Thompson River which winds its way through the canyon - a narrow curvy road with 1000-1500 feet granite walls on either side. Awesome!!
Pictures can’t do it justice, but here are a few.
We thought this sign in Big Thompson Canyon was interesting. Climb to safety?? Yeah, right!!
We saw Big Horn Sheep right by the road along US 34 as it follows the Big Thompson River.
The scenery in Rocky Mountain National Park is beautiful - at the lower elevations are wide open valleys with the towering mountains all around.
Sprague Lake is very scenic.
This was not a “life” bird, but the Red Crossbill is a treat.
Also, the Gray Jays are abundant. We shared a picnic lunch with this one and a couple of his friends.
The most scenic area of the park is the Trail Ridge Road. It climbs from an elevation of around 7500 feet at Estes Park up to over 12,000 feet. The tree line is around 10,000 feet and from that point on up it is all tundra. We figured this was as high as we’d ever been and still be on the ground.
Here are a couple of pictures showing some of the Trail Ridge Road.
While we were up here we visited the Alpine Visitor Center
The scenery at this elevation is spectacular - John Denver knew what he was talking about when he wrote the song, “Rocky Mountain High”. Here's a few pictures from "Top of the World"!
Pictures can’t do it justice, but here are a few.
We thought this sign in Big Thompson Canyon was interesting. Climb to safety?? Yeah, right!!
We saw Big Horn Sheep right by the road along US 34 as it follows the Big Thompson River.
The scenery in Rocky Mountain National Park is beautiful - at the lower elevations are wide open valleys with the towering mountains all around.
Sprague Lake is very scenic.
This was not a “life” bird, but the Red Crossbill is a treat.
Also, the Gray Jays are abundant. We shared a picnic lunch with this one and a couple of his friends.
The most scenic area of the park is the Trail Ridge Road. It climbs from an elevation of around 7500 feet at Estes Park up to over 12,000 feet. The tree line is around 10,000 feet and from that point on up it is all tundra. We figured this was as high as we’d ever been and still be on the ground.
Here are a couple of pictures showing some of the Trail Ridge Road.
While we were up here we visited the Alpine Visitor Center
The scenery at this elevation is spectacular - John Denver knew what he was talking about when he wrote the song, “Rocky Mountain High”. Here's a few pictures from "Top of the World"!
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Loveland, CO
Monday (August 25th) we left Glacier National Park in Montana and basically drove for four days. Monday night was Helena, MT - Tuesday night Billings, MT - Wednesday night Casper, WY - and today we made it to Loveland, CO. We are spending the weekend here and are going to visit Rocky Mountain National Park.
The scenery for the last four days has been amazing. Talk about wide open spaces!! We know why they call Montana “The Big Sky Country”. Of course, Wyoming could also say that if they wanted to. There are miles and miles and miles of prairies, bad lands, wheat fields, and a few ranches from time to time. We saw lots and lots of cattle and horses, and as far as wildlife goes, innumerable antelopes.
Didn’t stop to take pictures, but here are a few just from riding down the interstate.
The scenery for the last four days has been amazing. Talk about wide open spaces!! We know why they call Montana “The Big Sky Country”. Of course, Wyoming could also say that if they wanted to. There are miles and miles and miles of prairies, bad lands, wheat fields, and a few ranches from time to time. We saw lots and lots of cattle and horses, and as far as wildlife goes, innumerable antelopes.
Didn’t stop to take pictures, but here are a few just from riding down the interstate.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Glacier National Park
Monday (August 18th) we left Libby, MT and arrived at Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana. The first 3 nights we stayed on the west side of the park at Apgar Village near West Glacier. On Thursday we moved over to the east side of the park to St. Mary.
One of the main attractions of Glacier National Park is the “Going-to-the-Sun” Highway. It traverses the park from east to west about 50 miles. The peak is at Logan Pass at an elevation of 6646 feet. The road was cut out of the sides of the mountains and as you go up (or down), the views are breathtaking. There are many places along the road where it is very narrow and a little bit scary.
Here are a few pictures along the Going-to-the-Sun Highway.
Here are three more pictures of some of the scenery
Here are some pictures at the Visitor Center at Logan Pass.
Also, at each end of the Going-to-the-Sun Highway are a couple of huge lakes. McDonald Lake on the west side is about 6 miles long and St. Mary Lake on the east side is 9 miles long. The road follows along both of these lakes.
One of the most scenic and probably most photographed spots is Wild Goose Island in St. Mary Lake. Here’s our version.
There’s also lots of wildlife - we saw several bears, lots of ground squirrels, Hoary Marmots, Big Horn Sheep, and Mountain Goats.
Here’s a Hoary Marmot
This Big Horn Sheep was right beside the parking lot at Logan Pass.
This nanny Mountain Goat and her kid were right beside one of the trails.
This National Park is one of the most beautiful we’ve ever seen - nothing we saw in the Canadian Rockies or Alaska can top it. We had been here back in the late 80’s and it is still just as spectacular as we remembered it.
All good things must end - tomorrow we're slowly headed southeast.
One of the main attractions of Glacier National Park is the “Going-to-the-Sun” Highway. It traverses the park from east to west about 50 miles. The peak is at Logan Pass at an elevation of 6646 feet. The road was cut out of the sides of the mountains and as you go up (or down), the views are breathtaking. There are many places along the road where it is very narrow and a little bit scary.
Here are a few pictures along the Going-to-the-Sun Highway.
Here are three more pictures of some of the scenery
Here are some pictures at the Visitor Center at Logan Pass.
Also, at each end of the Going-to-the-Sun Highway are a couple of huge lakes. McDonald Lake on the west side is about 6 miles long and St. Mary Lake on the east side is 9 miles long. The road follows along both of these lakes.
One of the most scenic and probably most photographed spots is Wild Goose Island in St. Mary Lake. Here’s our version.
There’s also lots of wildlife - we saw several bears, lots of ground squirrels, Hoary Marmots, Big Horn Sheep, and Mountain Goats.
Here’s a Hoary Marmot
This Big Horn Sheep was right beside the parking lot at Logan Pass.
This nanny Mountain Goat and her kid were right beside one of the trails.
This National Park is one of the most beautiful we’ve ever seen - nothing we saw in the Canadian Rockies or Alaska can top it. We had been here back in the late 80’s and it is still just as spectacular as we remembered it.
All good things must end - tomorrow we're slowly headed southeast.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Alaska Marine Highway - Libby, MT
Monday (August 11th) was a day we’d been looking forward to. We started our ferry trip on the Alaska Marine Highway down through the Inside Passage. Our ship was the M/V Columbia.
The whole bottom deck is for storing cars and motorhomes and a big door is opened in the side of the ship for loading.
For our four day trip, we had a 4-berth stateroom. Basically that’s two sets of bunk beds with a bath.
A lot of folks (mostly the younger crowd) did not have rooms and they camped out. There was an open (but covered) area on the stern of the ship on the second deck for tents and also there was the Solarium on the top deck. The Solarium was enclosed in glass on the top and three sides and was full of lounge chairs that people slept on.
The first two days of the trip was cloudy and raining, so most of the time was spent in the Front Observation Room. This was an area that spanned the width of the ship across the front with windows all around and theater-style seating. The front row seats were at a premium, but with a little patience we were usually able to get a couple.
The scenery all the way down the Inside Passage was fantastic - even in the rain the first two days. The third day (Thursday) was a beautiful sunny day.
We were disappointed in the amount of wildlife and birds that we saw. There were very few birds - mostly gulls. As far as wildlife, we saw Humpback Whales several times, and on Thursday we finally saw some Orcas (Killer Whales).
The ferry made stops in Juneau, Sitka, Petersburg, Wrangell, and Ketchikan. The stops in Juneau, Petersburg, and Wrangell were short ones in the middle of the night. We had a couple of hours in Sitka so we walked around some and saw a stream coming into the inlet where the salmon were running. There was an 8-hour stop in Ketchikan on Wednesday, but there was a hard steady rain all day so we didn’t get off the ship.
After four nights and three days we got into Bellingham, WA at 8:00 AM on Friday. After getting the motorhome and Jeep unloaded off the ferry and hitched up, we headed east across the state of Washington on US Hwy 2.
We stopped Friday night at a US Forest Service campground in the Wenatchee National Forest, and then yesterday (Saturday the 16th) we made it across the rest of Washington, across the “skinny” portion of northern Idaho, and got to Libby, MT. After a couple of nights here, we’ll be headed to Glacier National Park tomorrow.
Even though we're back in the Lower 48, the sighseeing is still interesting. Today after church we went about 10 miles west of Libby to see the falls on the Kootenai River. Here's a picture.
The whole bottom deck is for storing cars and motorhomes and a big door is opened in the side of the ship for loading.
For our four day trip, we had a 4-berth stateroom. Basically that’s two sets of bunk beds with a bath.
A lot of folks (mostly the younger crowd) did not have rooms and they camped out. There was an open (but covered) area on the stern of the ship on the second deck for tents and also there was the Solarium on the top deck. The Solarium was enclosed in glass on the top and three sides and was full of lounge chairs that people slept on.
The first two days of the trip was cloudy and raining, so most of the time was spent in the Front Observation Room. This was an area that spanned the width of the ship across the front with windows all around and theater-style seating. The front row seats were at a premium, but with a little patience we were usually able to get a couple.
The scenery all the way down the Inside Passage was fantastic - even in the rain the first two days. The third day (Thursday) was a beautiful sunny day.
We were disappointed in the amount of wildlife and birds that we saw. There were very few birds - mostly gulls. As far as wildlife, we saw Humpback Whales several times, and on Thursday we finally saw some Orcas (Killer Whales).
The ferry made stops in Juneau, Sitka, Petersburg, Wrangell, and Ketchikan. The stops in Juneau, Petersburg, and Wrangell were short ones in the middle of the night. We had a couple of hours in Sitka so we walked around some and saw a stream coming into the inlet where the salmon were running. There was an 8-hour stop in Ketchikan on Wednesday, but there was a hard steady rain all day so we didn’t get off the ship.
After four nights and three days we got into Bellingham, WA at 8:00 AM on Friday. After getting the motorhome and Jeep unloaded off the ferry and hitched up, we headed east across the state of Washington on US Hwy 2.
We stopped Friday night at a US Forest Service campground in the Wenatchee National Forest, and then yesterday (Saturday the 16th) we made it across the rest of Washington, across the “skinny” portion of northern Idaho, and got to Libby, MT. After a couple of nights here, we’ll be headed to Glacier National Park tomorrow.
Even though we're back in the Lower 48, the sighseeing is still interesting. Today after church we went about 10 miles west of Libby to see the falls on the Kootenai River. Here's a picture.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Haines, AK
After staying one night in Tok (August 4th) we left and drove about 240 miles south on the Alaska Highway to Kluane Lake in the Yukon Territory. We stayed at the Cottonwood RV Park 16 miles south of Destruction Bay for three nights. Kluane Lake is about 45 miles long and the Alaska Highway follows right by the shore for a long way.
Here’s a picture of the lake taken from our campsite - what a view!
During the two days we were there we went “birding” several miles up and down the lake from our campground. We added two more birds to our “life list” - a Bohemian Waxwing and a Rough-legged Hawk. We checked out one of the Provincial Parks about 5 miles north of where we were staying. The soapberries are ripe and the bear warning signs were plentiful. We saw a big Grizzly off the side of the road, but he was too far in the underbrush to get any good pictures.
Click on picture to get full size
Friday (August 8th) we moved on another 200 miles to Haines, AK - yep, out of Canada and back into the USA again. Alaska is on Alaska Daylight Time and the Yukon Territory is on Pacific Daylight Time - we’ve changed our watches and clocks forward and backward so much that we’re not sure what time it is anymore.
The drive from Haines Junction, YT to Haines, AK goes through a section of British Columbia and the scenery is about the most spectacular we’ve seen. We thought Canadian Rockies were about tops, but we believe today was right up there. The highway climbed up into the tundra and then followed wide alpine valleys for miles with the tall snow-capped mountains on both sides with a few glaciers thrown in for good measure.
Haines is another one of these small Alaskan towns on an inlet from the Gulf of Alaska - in this case it is the Chilkoot Inlet. The inlet forks near the ferry terminal and Skagway is up the right-hand fork several miles and is reached by ferry in less than an hour - or you could take the highway back to Haines Junction, YT, go to Whitehorse, and then back down to Skagway - at least 300 miles.
Here’s a picture of Haines from down the road toward the ferry terminal.
Today we rode up past the ferry terminal about five miles along the left-hand fork of the inlet to Chilkoot Lake. The outflow from the lake is the Chilkoot River which feeds the Lutak Inlet, which in turn feeds the Chilkoot Inlet. We saw lots of birds - Pigeon Guillimots, Surf Scoters, Marbled Murrelets, several Bald Eagles, and lots of gulls.
At one point on the Chilkoot River they had a salmon fence set up with a small hole in the middle. A guy was sitting out on the fence with a clicker and was counting the Sockeye Salmon as they found the hole in the fence and made their way on up stream.
The area below the fence obviously had lots of salmon that hadn’t found the hole in the fence yet and there were lots of fishermen trying their luck. We didn’t see any fish being caught - maybe that’s why they call it “fishing” instead of “catching”.
Here’s a picture of the lake taken from our campsite - what a view!
During the two days we were there we went “birding” several miles up and down the lake from our campground. We added two more birds to our “life list” - a Bohemian Waxwing and a Rough-legged Hawk. We checked out one of the Provincial Parks about 5 miles north of where we were staying. The soapberries are ripe and the bear warning signs were plentiful. We saw a big Grizzly off the side of the road, but he was too far in the underbrush to get any good pictures.
Click on picture to get full size
Friday (August 8th) we moved on another 200 miles to Haines, AK - yep, out of Canada and back into the USA again. Alaska is on Alaska Daylight Time and the Yukon Territory is on Pacific Daylight Time - we’ve changed our watches and clocks forward and backward so much that we’re not sure what time it is anymore.
The drive from Haines Junction, YT to Haines, AK goes through a section of British Columbia and the scenery is about the most spectacular we’ve seen. We thought Canadian Rockies were about tops, but we believe today was right up there. The highway climbed up into the tundra and then followed wide alpine valleys for miles with the tall snow-capped mountains on both sides with a few glaciers thrown in for good measure.
Haines is another one of these small Alaskan towns on an inlet from the Gulf of Alaska - in this case it is the Chilkoot Inlet. The inlet forks near the ferry terminal and Skagway is up the right-hand fork several miles and is reached by ferry in less than an hour - or you could take the highway back to Haines Junction, YT, go to Whitehorse, and then back down to Skagway - at least 300 miles.
Here’s a picture of Haines from down the road toward the ferry terminal.
Today we rode up past the ferry terminal about five miles along the left-hand fork of the inlet to Chilkoot Lake. The outflow from the lake is the Chilkoot River which feeds the Lutak Inlet, which in turn feeds the Chilkoot Inlet. We saw lots of birds - Pigeon Guillimots, Surf Scoters, Marbled Murrelets, several Bald Eagles, and lots of gulls.
At one point on the Chilkoot River they had a salmon fence set up with a small hole in the middle. A guy was sitting out on the fence with a clicker and was counting the Sockeye Salmon as they found the hole in the fence and made their way on up stream.
The area below the fence obviously had lots of salmon that hadn’t found the hole in the fence yet and there were lots of fishermen trying their luck. We didn’t see any fish being caught - maybe that’s why they call it “fishing” instead of “catching”.
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