August 31.....Dease Lake, B.C., Canada

We are at a RV Park at Dease Lake in B.C. and we do have Wi-Fi, but no phone service.  Oh well, guess we can't have everything.   We are driving on the Cassiar Highway, which is on the western side of B.C.   We did stop at Jade City today, there are several jade mines in the Cassiar region.  They said they produce about a million pounds of jade a year and over half of that is exported.

they had a nice gift shop with some beautiful carvings from the jade.

We plan on staying here for a couple of days.  Tomorrow we want to go for a drive on the Telegraph Creek Road.   It is a 70 mile, narrow gravel road, with several sets of steep switchbacks and the info said to drive carefully and have a spare tire.  Makes you a little nervous, but the scenery is suppose to be remarkable.  I will tell you about it tomorrow night......

here are some pics from the Skagway area

 

 

 

 

this was taken outside of Skagway on a narrow dirt road that followed the Talya Inlet

 

 



 

this is the Dyea road

the water looks so green

Skagway

 
Skagway

 

 Along the Klondike highway out of Skagway

along the Klondike Hwy

I think these are toadstools or mushrooms
they were in the campground by the RV and I
thought they were so cool

 

August 29th. Still in Skagway

We are still in Skagway, moved into a RV park so that we would have wi-fi and phone service.  Guess what, wi-fi doesn't work and the phones worked this morning, but not now and not last night.  It's crazy,  we went to the library yesterday and got one of my blogs published, went again today hoping to connect and get the other to go, but it is so slow that it would time out.  Very frustrating!!!

We are leaving here in the morning, have enjoyed it here, but really, too many people for us.  I think there are three cruise ships here and that is a lot of people!!  But today the sun has shone and its very warm so we are happy.   

We went to see a play this afternoon.   "The Days of 1898 Show with Soapy Smith" it is the longest running show of the North, since 1923.  That year Princess steamships started bringing tourists to Skagway and the local residents  decided to put on a show for them to raise money for the local hockey team and has been running ever since.  It was fun to see it.

We get back into Canada about 15 miles from here and will start heading southeast and then south through BC. Kind of sad to leave Alaska, knowing that will probably never be back.  But we have had a fantastic time up here and feel really blessed to have been able to make this trip. 

We have traveled 9,000 miles so far and have enjoyed almost every mile.

August 30th

We are stopped for the night at a little campground, that has a cafe with wi-fi.  So we are having dinner and I am getting these sent.  We are about a 100 miles from Watson Lake, Yukon in Canada.

I don't have the pics on here but am going to sent this anyway while I have the chance

Hopefully we will have better luck getting wi-fi from now on....

August 27th...Skagway

We got into Skagway late Sunday afternoon.  It was another beautiful drive.  A little nervous coming down a 11.5 mile hill at a 11% grade.  Before we got to the bottom we had to pull over and stop to let the brakes cool down, they were smoking.  We have to go back over that hill to get out of here, but don't think it will be as bad going up, at least that is what Buck told me.

Skagway is a neat little town, only about a thousand year around residents.  But it has tons of touristy shops and is super busy.  They were 4 cruise ships in the harbor today. 

We walked around the shops yesterday and had lunch at the Red Onion Saloon.  It was a old brothel back during the gold rush, and the waitress were dressed up like "ladies of the evening"

When we got into Skagway on Sunday all the RV parks were filled up.  There were at least 2 RV caravans in the parks.  They are city RV parks, so they said we could park just outside of town in a pull off from the road.  We love it.  It's private, just us, and it's free. Although we have no phone service so no wi-fi.  We plan on going into the park tomorrow.  Lots of people have left so there is room for us.

This lake is rainbow lake or emerald lake.  It did have all the rainbow colors, but didn't pick up on camera

You can see a few more colors on this pic

This is the long steep hill going into skagway

The poles on the sides of the road are snow poles so the plow driver can see the edges when he plows

This is part of a area of Tormented Valley, it is a rocky valley with stunted trees and lakes

Same valley

This suspension bridge spans a 110 ft wide gorge

I'm still finding flowers, I think it might be a flower gone to seed, but I think it is so pretty

I really liked this one too

This is our free parking spot...nice isn't it

August 23rd

We left Valdez this morning and got to Tok late this afternoon.  It was still raining when we left and we had rain the whole way here, which  was about 250 miles.  You really can't see much of the scenery, so it's kind of disappointing.  We did have a moose and her calf cross the road in front of us, we saw it in time to get slowed down.  Also saw a few swans, but couldn't get stopped to get a pic.

Buck fished again yesterday and caught several more salmon.  Our freezer is full!! He sure had fun catching them, he said they really fought. 

We are leaving here in the morning heading to Skagway.  It's 500 miles and we have to drive thru Canada for a lot of the way and then cross back into Alaska.  

August 24

We left Tok this morning and found a campsite in a provincial park for tonight.  It's right on a a big lake.

The campground is closed to tents because of Grizzlies in the park.  So hoping we see some.

We crossed into the Yukon, Canada this morning and will drive in Canada until we get almost to Skagway back in Alaska.  No other way to get there without going through Canada .  The highway was terrible today.  There were lots of frost heaves and big pot holes, it has been raining and I think that it made it worse. Lots of places with just gravel.  I don't remember it being so bad on the the way up.

But when we got into the RV after stopping, we had a mess.  Things had tipped over, the drawer under the couch was broken.   The clothes in the closet were laying on the floor.  We never have had anything like happen before.  

I was just reading that much of the soil along the north Alaska highway is of glacial origin and unsuitable for road embankments. "Anything that causes the permafrost to melt will cause the ice-rich soil to liquefy, and liquid soil has little strength and will settle or subside.  Then when this soil refreezes, it will expend or heave". This process wreaks havoc on the drivability of the road surface by creating undulations and cracking.  And that's the road we were driving on.  And that is your lesson for today!!

 

August 20th

I guess I don't want to live in Valdez.  It rains to much!!!  The avg. rainfall per year is 64 inches and snowfall is 325 inches.  I'm ready to hit the road again....wouldn't you know it, now he's starting to catch salmon.

So we may be here another day or so.  He bought a raincoat and pants this morning so he is prepared, and I think he's going to need them.  No salmon today tho.  

Aug 21

Still cloudy and rainy, but everyone is catching salmon.....Buck got 3 today, but he says he lost at least 10.  One broke the line and one broke the swivel snap on the line.  They must have been really BIG!!!

Darn, the big ones always get away.  Looks like will be staying tomorrow too.   He is having so much fun fishing

August 19...still in Valdez

Still in the same spot on the Prince William Sound.   It rained all day yesterday, so we spent the afternoon at the Museum, which was interesting.  It hasn't rained yet today, but is cloudy and cool.

We were in town, running a few errands and did see a black bear on the way back.  Haven't seen any grizzlies yet tho.  Other people have seen them, I guess we haven't been in the right place at the right time.  I think we will just go and park for a while this evening and hope we see them.

Buck is going to fish this afternoon.  I am going to make some raspberry bars, Kathy, I wish you were here to have some with me, with a good cup of coffee.   Sounds good, huh?

Buck did catch a couple of silver salmon, he was happy about that.  

Taken behind our RV.. The clouds on the mts 

That darn bear is in there hiding

There he is

I caught this one ...just needed my camera

Oops.....

I guess I didn't want July to end.....I just noticed that I have July on the last 5 posts instead of August 

Sorry about that....

Our boat trip to the Columbia glaciers. Aug 15th

This was a fun day, on a tour boat to the glacier.  We got to see some whales, sea otters, and sea lions.  They served a lunch on board of, clam chowder and bagel.  It was kind of cold so that hot soup tasted so good!!  

This is the harbor and the boat the we were on is the second one from from the right. Glacier Spirit

Boats unloading their fish at the  canneries  

Sea otters 

Humpback whale

A mother with her baby...the mother is spouting the water 

The icebergs

Columbia glacier

It was so Cold!!

I am holding a piece of glacier ice

Sea lions enjoying the sun on a buoy

Not a very good pic..but that is the end of the pipeline, with all the oil storage tanks

A oil tanker on his way out..all the oil is shipped to lower 48 ports

That small yellow ship has to follow all of the tankers out of the Sound as a preventive measure.  One of the several safety measures that have been put in place following the Exon Oil Spill.  

Some fishing boats