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).

Fall Colors – Part 1

One trip we always mentioned that we wanted to do was a trip to the eastern seaboard for the fall colors. We thought we would get to the Northeast in the fall and let the weather drive us south. We mentioned this to our friends George and Marcia, they were on board. We left on September 10th and would meet them on the way as they usually travel faster than we do.

As with any trip from your home base, the first day or two is always familiar. The same route, same towns, and oftentimes the same campgrounds. Our first nite was one of our favorites, Homolovi State Park. We got there and it was pouring rain with high winds (normal for Homolovi). I just hooked up the electricity and no other amenities. Didn’t even disconnect.

More I-40 travel the next day. Our stop was the Native American casino at Sky City. You can get spots there for around $20/night IF you ask for the discount. It is a decent RV park except for the terrible road into the RV park, it is abysmal. The park is on a slight incline so if you head into a spot you need to disconnect to get your trailer level. However, if you come in from the other direction, you can lift the tongue, stay connected and be level! We also set up Starlink here for the internet, worked great!

Yet another I-40 day. When heading east, you don’t have too many options in the western states. That changes when you get to Texas. We made our way through Albuquerque and ate at a local place off the road, Vicks Vittles. It was pretty good and it is always fun to eat locally. We stopped at Ute Lake State Park for the night. We stayed here with George and Marcia the last time we headed east with them. It is a good campground, with loads of space between the sites but it usually has a lot of bugs. It had a great sunset:

Our 4th day on the road started with finally detouring from I-40 and heading NE a bit to the Oklahoma panhandle. We passed through Dalhart TX and I read something interesting in their Wiki entry.

One more night before a bit of a break. We ended up at an Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) campground at Fort Supply Lake near Fort Supply OK. We had a site that backed up onto the lake that was very nice, a bit windy. The next day was eastbound entirely in Oklahoma. We had been on the road for 4 full days and nights without disconnecting the trailer at all. It was time to take a short timeout.

We got to another ACOE campground at Brush Creek Park. It was right on the Arkansas River, just below the dam at Keystone Lake. We were just west of Tulsa OK. The next day was a ‘down’ day, not that we didn’t do anything, we just didn’t travel with the Airstream. It was interesting camping by the dam, many people were fishing the river and a horn would sound repeatedly whenever there was a change in the water discharge amount.

We skirted around Tulsa as we left and headed NE to our rendezvous with George and Marcia at Twin Bridges State Park. We had lunch in Claremore OK, the hometown of Will Rogers. It was very obvious that he was from that area and a huge amount of everything had his name on it. They are even in Rogers County! We got to drive along Route 66 for a long stretch primarily because I am too cheap to pay for a turnpike and back roads are better. We met the Chens at the campground and got to visit a bit with them.

George and Marcia had some friends/relatives to visit before our next connection so we parted ways in the AM. We headed into Missouri for our next stop. We took a selfie at lunch:

The evening found us at a private campground called Ruby’s Landing. My parents owned a campground for 10 years so it is always fun to stop at a rustic campground. But, this one might have been a bit TOO rustic. We were there on a Saturday night that happened to coincide with some Halloween camping event. Many scouts were camping in tents. Many others running around making noise, some being chased by a guy with a chainsaw and mask. It wasn’t too noisy in the late hours, luckily. I am glad we weren’t there for 2 nights.

Our next stop was just north of St Louis MO at a county park. Very nice location, good sites, and lots of trails around a man-made lake/river overflow. An uneventful drive through some very beautiful areas. But we keep pushing on to our next meetup location in PA. Our satellite setup is working great, with the TV on the left and Internet on the right (one looks to the south, the other to the north). The top of the truck is a great location when we don’t disconnect.

Following our theme of skirting around towns, we did the same with St Louis and continued ENE to the next state. Staying on a US highway instead of an Interstate highway we ended up south of Terra Haute IN at a county park. It was a beautiful park, a bit tight for the trailer but we made it. There were numerous restored historical buildings around a nice lake.

Another day, another state. This is much different than traveling in western states. Go around Indianapolis and end up at the Buck Creek State Park near Springfield IN. This is a beautiful campground, with lots of grass and trees. We saw a couple of deer wandering around. The camp hosts were very friendly.

Ohio was next, I couldn’t find a better route so we went right through the gut of Columbus OH. It was not a real issue but as we got to Zanesville I saw there was a Texas Roadhouse so that is where we ate. Downtown Zanesville was much more difficult with the trailer as it seemed much older and narrower. The reward was better than the risk. We spent the night at Barkcamp State Park. It had a large camp area for horses and a large infestation of flying stink bugs. The terrain was beginning to remind me of what I thought West Virginia would look like.

The next day confirmed my suspicions, we drove through Wheeling WV on our way to Pittsburgh PA. Our final stop was Penn Wood Airstream Park. We stopped here in 2017, enjoyed our stay, and decided to come back. We were here for 4 nights, and George and Marcia were meeting us here in a couple of days.

We really needed to do some laundry so that was first on our list, along with a Chinese buffet. The next day we had our main meal at a local farm-to-table restaurant. Took a little walk to the Climax tunnel. This is an old railroad bed that was repurposed into a 28-mile walk/bike trail, we only did a small portion of it.

George and Marcia showed up right on schedule. We did a little drive on the back roads of this area of Pennsylvania and took them also to the tunnel to see the area.

The fall colors had not changed all that much in this area yet, not to the degree we were looking at. We continued moving NE, but that is in the next installation.