North to Alaska (again) – Part 1

We went to Alaska in 2019. It was a kind of ‘spur of the moment’ thing. We saw the RV’ing to Alaska group was having a 4th of July get-together near Anchorage. We signed up and made that a target for our initial travels.

Our friends, the Chen’s wanted to go to Alaska so we decided to go with them this year. We made a decision on a specific date to be at Denali National Park and used that as our target for this trip.

We left our place in Arizona on May 26 and had scheduled to leave Great Falls, MT with the Chen’s on June 19. This gave us time to head to California to visit family. The first stop was to see our youngest grandchild and her family (we also got to see our oldest grandchild here also). Here is Roxie taking Charlee out for a walk in her trike.

The next stop was the middle grandchild, Atlas, and his family. When Hannah and Roxie were doing something, we boys (me, Lukas, and Atlas) went to a park to wait and could overlook San Francisco.

As our whirlwind tour continued, we saw Roxie’s sister (Desiree) and her daughter (Tiarah). We were there for Tiarah’s high school graduation. She graduated from Central Valley High School which, ironically, is the same high school I graduated from 45 years previously. It was still held in the same venue.

After all this California ‘love’ we headed north. The first stop was Collier State Park in Oregon. It was by a beautiful creek.

We headed to Washington and stayed at Charbonneau Park, an Army Corp of Engineers campground. We spent a couple of nights there and did the ubiquitous laundry loads. Here is Roxie telling me something.

We turned east to get into Montana and eventually to Great Falls. We also stopped a few nights to see a family friend and his family, Jared.

Unfortunately, Jared’s family had to leave before we got there to attend to an ill relative. We are sorry we missed them but are glad they were able to go. Jared lives next to Post Falls, so we went to see the falls.

One more travel night and we made it to Great Falls and met up with the Chen’s. They had an extra passenger, their daughter Maya. We knew she was coming along on the trip for half of it. She would fly back home midway through the trip. Great Falls also has many waterfalls around the area.

George is king of the selfies.

We were off the try to get into Canada. I took a shotgun with me the last time and decided to do so again this time. You should declare, on the US side, that you are the owner of the shotgun and use a form that states such. This took a bit of time as the border agent came out to our trailer and verified it, but the longest time was waiting until an agent asked us what we needed.

Now the Canadian side. The initial questioning went easy. The agent did ask about guns and I had already said I needed to get a permit for the shotgun so she never asked about any other guns, which I did not have. Pull over to the side and come into the office.

I got a great agent for my shotgun permitting. All went smoothly and it took some time also. But we were in Alberta.

There was a caribou farm of some type on the side of the road and Roxie had an interest in them as they had a curiosity with her.

We headed north to get to Dawson Creek, stayed in small campgrounds (municipal ones if we could) and avoided large towns as we could. We did make a stop in a Calgary Costco and saw something very Canadian.

We stayed for a few nights in Morinville, AB, just north of Edmonton.

We went to Edmonton for a few days to see the sights. At the University we were able to do some solar observations (sunspots, corona, etc.).

A large replica Stanley Cup.

The city skyline.

And, of course, the largest mall in North America.

Back on the road and after a few more nights we made it where all Alaska travellers want to take a photo. Mile 0.

As mentioned previously, Roxie and I were in Alaska in 2019. However, I went to Alaska with my family in 1964. It was my dad, mom, sister and me. We drove from Southern California and had a total of 9 flat tires. Some of that 1964 story is here. I tried to recreate many of the 1964 photos that I have found. Here is the Mile 0 photo from 1964 (I am the short one).

2020 Year in Review

The year is finally over, at least according to the calendar. New Year’s never really is the dividing line that it seems to be. That means that many things from 2020 will, unfortunately, carry over into 2021. Although it is tempting, I will refrain from political commentary regarding events past, present and future about this year.

2020 started out pretty normally. The start of our 4th year of full-timing. In the 1st year, we focused on establishing ourselves as Texas residents. After that was accomplished we went to the east coast for a wedding and completed the loop to get back to CA for an important birthday:

In 2018 we had plans to meet our friends for a trip to Banff and Jasper in Canada so our path was a bit different:

2019 saw us returning to Texas to get a new tow vehicle and some medical procedures. We spent a large time amount of time in Texas but decided to take a trip to Alaska during the summer:

2020 was when we decided to start looking for a location to find a more permanent address. It was time to get a home base again. We started the year hanging around California, spending time in the desert area, visiting friends, seeing our grandson, and then getting hit by the pandemic lockdowns. We ended up coming back to our son’s house in the middle of March and being stuck there for 3 months! We were able to get some things done on the trailer and around the house. As it was getting hotter, it was time to leave!

We heading to Southern Oregon but the heat was still there! Off to the coast of Oregon and Washington for almost 3 months. We like those states but are not sure if they are right for us to ‘settle’ down. Next, we headed to Idaho to check it out there and we really liked southern-central and eastern Idaho so that is an option, although there is a tax issue we have to overcome. The weather drove us south through Utah to Nevada, Arizona, and back to Nevada. We feel that Nevada or Arizona might be the best choice.

We reluctantly headed back to California for the holidays and an even stricter lockdown. Here is our 2020 map of camping:

Our stats for the year are:
Truck miles: 14272
Truck fuel gallons: 1103
Truck fuel cost: $2838
Truck min gallon cost: $1.773
Truck max gallon cost: $3.869 (California)
Truck MPG: 13.05

Trailer miles: 5455
Trailer nights: 366
Average nightly camping cost: $33.24

We are looking forward to a new year, a lifting of restrictions, fewer infections, and trying to find our perfect spot.