End of the Journey

After 133 days and over 12000 miles in the motorhome we finally were on our last leg of this journey.  Our final campground should have been an easy in and out but we decided to try an unfamiliar Mississippi state park. It sounded like a place we would like, with full hookups on a small lake in the woods.  Unfortunately the map to the campground was misleading and it took us quite a while and a bit of backtracking to find the park. It was a pretty and nicely wooded older park and the spaces were not level at all.  We were assigned one spot that was very small and very slanted but with a bit of work Breland was able to get us into the neighboring campsite. We faced a lake and were able to enjoy a beautiful sunset and a great sunrise.  The ride home was uneventful and Breland did his usual great job of backing down our long driveway.


Here's a couple of maps to show the states, provinces and territory we drove through on this very long trip.

The trip was wonderful and we have many amazing memories. Seeing the northern lights, experiencing the floods in Banff,  the majesty of Denali, all of the wildlife, the beauty of Lake Kluane, clamming on Cook Inlet, the ferry trips, each experience was enough to make the trip worthwhile.

There are some things I wish we had done differently.  A flood, fires, a snowstorm, and Bre's unexpected trip home slowed or detoured us but those were unavoidable and we made the best of each.  I would skip Homer on the next trip, spend many more days in Denali and not let something as insignificant as the broken steps interfere with our plans. Valdez deserved even more time than we spent there, I do wish we had not been so determined to spend the Fourth of July in the United States and taken a side trip to visit the town of Atlin, YT.  We still regret not making the trip along the Dalton Highway all of the way to Prudhoe Bay.   We  turned around just past the Arctic Circle because going the whole way would have meant leaving the motorhome behind  and getting another spare for the car but...next time!

And next time we will leave later in the year and stay for fall in Alaska.  I want to enter the road lottery so that we can drive the entire road in Denali in our car and see that beautiful place in its fall colors.  We worried about being snowed in somewhere too far north but next time we will chance it.

Back to the USA Mainland

As we left Banff snow and rain were expected.  We ended our stay early and headed toward the US border.  I do wish there were a way around Calgary.  The roads through that busy town are hard driving in an RV.

The border crossing, our seventh of the trip, was uneventful.  We stopped for the night at the Lewis and Clark RV Park in Shelby, the one nearest the border.  The winds were cold and howling when we stopped .  I struggled against the wind when I went in to arrange a spot to overnight.  We stayed in this park on our way to Alaska years ago and it hasn’t improved. The essentials are there and it was a place to stay.  Seven other couples arrived at the same time as we did, all on their way back from Alaska.  We agreed we would love to share stories, but not in that biting wind.

Our generator ran for over 100 hours on this trip, mainly to power the freezer for a couple of hours a day.   An appointment for maintenance was scheduled in Great Falls, Montana.  We had an early start from Shelby  to make our 9 am appointment.  Bre stayed with the motor home while I shopped for groceries and dog food.

It has become a tradition for us to celebrate our anniversary in Jackson Hole.  With almost two weeks to go until that date we decided to spend some time in Yellowstone.  We set off down Highway 89, a very beautiful road with many possible photo stops.  We delayed filling up on fuel in Canada, knowing that the prices would be much lower in the US.  Unfortunately, US 89 is a wonderful road for sightseeing but most of the route is through the very large Lewis and Clark National Forest, with few services and no diesel for many miles.  The only solution was to detour for a fuel station on another highway.  It would be much too late to get to Yellowstone that night but we did find a campground in White Sulphur Springs.  Great pullthroughs, cable, wifi and a gorgeous western sunset…this campground would be a perfect place to stay for a couple of days of exploring and photography along 89.

The next morning's drive to Yellowstone was uneventful and the campground owners reserved a large space with wonderful views for us.  We both love Yellowstone and immediately set out to see the fall color and look for wildlife.  We heard of an elk carcass near the Slough River and joined several people watching the grizzlies that gathered.  The elk rut was in full swing and the huge bulls were busy defending their harems.  Rut was over for the bighorn rams and they were hanging out in a their happy bachelor groups while the ewes cared for this year’s lambs.  A beautiful fox trotted happily along the road with just an occasional glance our way.  The bison and pronghorns were active throughout the park.

The snows that we’d left behind caught up with us and we had a quiet day or two as we waited for the roads to open again.  A mule deer carcass was near the Petrified Tree lookout and had attracted a black bear with her cubs.  She was chased away by Scarface, a comical 24 year old grizzly.  Scarface ate a bit then laid across the carcass for the next two days to protect it, sometimes not moving for hours, to the frustration  of all of the photographers who gathered.  We were able to get several photos during the brief times he moved around and let many visitors look through our eyepieces at the lazy bear.  One young Chinese man  kept insisting that there could be no bear there, he couldn’t see it.  When I let him look though my long lens the smile on his face was priceless.

Road closures were announced throughout the next days as snow fell and was cleared throughout the park.  The route to Jackson was blocked with either road closings or snow tires required.  Dunraven Pass got enough snow that it seemed it would be closed for the rest of the season.  We extended our stay for an eighth day but gave up our plan to be at Oxbow Bend for our anniversary and headed home though South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri.

We were married in Arkansas 21 years ago and decided it would be a good place to stop for our anniversary dinner.  National parks and Corp of Engineer campgrounds were closed because of the feuding at the Fed level but, fortunately, Arkansas has wonderful state parks.  We stayed in Russellville in a waterfront site with all of the amenities except wifi.  Venezia, an Italian restaurant in Russellville has great reviews and we went there for dinner.  If you are ever in this town you really need to stop there.  The food was some of the best Italian I have ever eaten and the prices are ridiculously inexpensive.

One more stop near Jackson, Mississippi and our 18 week journey will be at its end.

Prince Rupert to Banff

The ferry from Wrangell to Prince Rupert was our longest ferry ride.  The crew was not as skilled at parking nor as accommodating as our earlier trips.  Breland had to move the RV for them at Ketchikan between midnight and 3 a.m. because a tractor trailer had been parked in the wrong spot and several vehicles (including my car) had to be moved out to make room for it to disembark.  They also did not let us go down to walk Clark between Ketchikan and our noon docking in Prince Rupert.  The other ferries were worth it, this one not so much.

We stopped in Prince Rupert to catch up on laundry and groceries.  Prince Rupert seemed to be a very nice town but we wanted to push on.  Our next stop was Glacier View campground near Smithers.  The area was beautiful with glaciers, falls and a beautiful trail toward a fossil area.

Mount Robson campground, a very beautiful provincial campground., was our next stop.  We spent three nights there.  Our campsite was high, level, and larger than most large suburban lots.  The campground was filled with rental Class Cs.   There were many foreign tourists in this area.  We visited falls and rivers in the area.  One of the falls was the farthest inland in British Columbia that salmon traveled.  It is amazing to think of them traveling 800 miles in from the ocean to return to the stream where they were born.   On our hike up after visiting a very beautiful falls and salmon stream a man ran past us totally nude except for a pair of flipflops.  Breland was not amused.

A night in Jasper and two nights in Banff ended our time in Canada.  Today we cross a border for the seventh time this trip.  We will stop in Great Falls, Montana to get our hardworking generator serviced.  It is sleeting in Banff today with snow on the higher moutains.  It is the first hint of winter.  Yesterday tourists were in town wearing tank tops and shorts.  By Saturday they will be able to wear  those clothes again but fall color is everywhere and winter is not far.

Wrangell from the Ferry

Entrance to Mount Robson

Mount Robson from Visitors' Center

Breland Photographing Falls

Hoodoos Before Sunrise

On Bow Parkway near Baff

Wrangell 9.8.2013

The ferry ride from Sitka to Wrangell lasted 16 hours.  We boarded in the afternoon and traveled until early the next morning.  Breland and I sat on the deck for hours, fascinated with how close we passed to the shore on each side.  We passed black bears, including one with cubs, whales and seals along the way.  We were close enough to see the salmon leaping as they neared the streams and the gulls and eagles feasting.  The  boat threaded though small islands and past waterfalls and rocky beaches.  The Malaspina was not as luxurious as the Columbia.  The cafeteria served nice meals, with choices of baked chicken, poached salmon, and roast beef as well as halibut fish and chips, hamburgers and other sandwiches and soups.  No white tablecloths this time, just comfortable tables and views of the passing shoreline.

Our berths were comfortable and we both slept well, barely waking when the boat reached Petersburg.  Our alarms were set for 5 am and someone knocked on the door at 5:15am to let us know we were within half an hour of Wrangell.  We drove off the ferry and headed straight to the Wrangell city campground.  It has 30 amp power but no water or sewer.  We will dump next door at one of the city’s five harbors before we leave.

The city owned RV park is on the water and surrounded with trees.  There are only a few spaces able to hold large motor homes .  We were the only occupants there for three of our five nights there.

Wrangell does have a lot to offer.  There are over 150 miles of smooth, well tended  forest road through the mountains.   Twenty miles of this road follow high above the shoreline and give incredible views. We picked lots of wild blueberries along the roadway.   There are miles of trails to view lakes, waterfalls and overlooks.  Petroglyph Beach contains massive rocks covered with petroglyphs that are between 1000 and 6000 years old.  The Wrangell museum is a small masterpiece, telling the history of the area with photos, stories, and artifacts.

I expected Wrangell, Sitka and Haines to be very similar.  They are very different.  Haines has the feel of a friendly small town from the 1950’s with essential services but a peaceful, laid-back atmosphere.  Sitka was much busier with an emphasis on commerce, driven by the number of cruise ships that stop there each week.   Wrangell has the same types of services you find in Haines, but it has a rawer, edgier feel.  Logging was a big industry here at one time and you can see many clear-cut areas of mountainside still.  Fishing seems to drive the economy now.
Today we will board another ferry for an 18 hour trip to Prince Rupert, Canada.  It will be our last day in Alaska, the end of two wonderful months here.

Petroglyph, one of many.

Searching for Petroglyphs

Playing Make-Believe