Alaska in Review

Well, I think we got the AC and furnace fixed.  It was a simple matter of a new thermostat.  However, it took the better portion of the day waiting to see if the AC would cycle on and off automatically.  This turned out to be the hottest day we’ve had, maybe even the hottest day of the summer in Edmonton, and it just kept getting warmer and warmer outside.  The AC was struggling to keep it cool and it took forever to finally cycle off.

While we were waiting for the AC to do its thing, we discovered our car battery wasn’t holding a charge.  After we got back to the RV park and set up again, Gene went to get a new battery for the Honda.  Can hardly get one thing fixed before something else needs to be repaired.

As is our custom, while our motor home was being worked on, we toured the RVs on the lot.  We didn’t find anything we liked better than what we have, but we did find a couple that deserve honorable mention.  One was a toy hauler with a beer tap.  I think that rig was built for a different age group from us.  The other was a heavy duty truck equipped with a conference room and a wall for a computer bank.  This rig was not made for travel or for living.  We learned from the service manager that it is destined to be the employment office at one of the First Nation casinos.

Because of the heat today and having to babysit the Peanut, we decided not to go to the Mall.  We’ll do that tomorrow.  So, with nothing else to report, I thought this might be a good time to throw out a few statistics on our Alaska trip.  Of course, this trip isn’t really over yet, so there’ll be more later.  But for now......

Miles traveled since we left Nashville 8,460.
Miles traveled since we crossed the Canadian border in May 5,778.
Miles traveled from Dawson Creek to Dawson Creek 4,183.

These are miles on the motor home.  We’ve put an additional 3817 miles on the Honda for sightseeing, 540 of which were on the Dempster Highway.

Average price for gasoline 4.95.  The lowest price was 3.35 in Joelton, TN and the highest price was 6.93 at Liard River, BC.
Average miles per gallon 7.59.  This number is somewhat skewed because of generator use.
Average miles driven in one day 126.  Lowest 6  Highest 308

Average campground fee $25.80.  Lowest was $7 at Gallitin National Forest, Canyon Campground in Montana. Highest was at Ocean View RV Park in Homer, AK at $47.
Total number of free nights 32.  The free nights are not included in the average campground fee.

Total number of days on this trip 140, beginning March 23rd.
Total number of days from Canadian border to Dawson Creek 10
Total number of days from Dawson Creek to Dawson Creek 74.
Total number of days in Alaska 46.
Remember, we were early and consequently spent a lot of days waiting for ice to melt out before we could go to the Arctic Circle.  We could have avoided those waits if we did that portion at the end of the trip.

This is just the facts.  I’ll offer up some opinions and reflections in a few days.  We’ll continue to keep data on milage, gasoline prices, and campground fees.  When we get back to Nashville, we’ll have a more complete statistical report.

That’s all for today.  Thanks for tagging along.

Alaska in Review

Well, I think we got the AC and furnace fixed.  It was a simple matter of a new thermostat.  However, it took the better portion of the day waiting to see if the AC would cycle on and off automatically.  This turned out to be the hottest day we’ve had, maybe even the hottest day of the summer in Edmonton, and it just kept getting warmer and warmer outside.  The AC was struggling to keep it cool and it took forever to finally cycle off.

While we were waiting for the AC to do its thing, we discovered our car battery wasn’t holding a charge.  After we got back to the RV park and set up again, Gene went to get a new battery for the Honda.  Can hardly get one thing fixed before something else needs to be repaired.

As is our custom, while our motor home was being worked on, we toured the RVs on the lot.  We didn’t find anything we liked better than what we have, but we did find a couple that deserve honorable mention.  One was a toy hauler with a beer tap.  I think that rig was built for a different age group from us.  The other was a heavy duty truck equipped with a conference room and a wall for a computer bank.  This rig was not made for travel or for living.  We learned from the service manager that it is destined to be the employment office at one of the First Nation casinos.

Because of the heat today and having to babysit the Peanut, we decided not to go to the Mall.  We’ll do that tomorrow.  So, with nothing else to report, I thought this might be a good time to throw out a few statistics on our Alaska trip.  Of course, this trip isn’t really over yet, so there’ll be more later.  But for now......

Miles traveled since we left Nashville 8,460.
Miles traveled since we crossed the Canadian border in May 5,778.
Miles traveled from Dawson Creek to Dawson Creek 4,183.

These are miles on the motor home.  We’ve put an additional 3817 miles on the Honda for sightseeing, 540 of which were on the Dempster Highway.

Average price for gasoline 4.95.  The lowest price was 3.35 in Joelton, TN and the highest price was 6.93 at Liard River, BC.
Average miles per gallon 7.59.  This number is somewhat skewed because of generator use.
Average miles driven in one day 126.  Lowest 6  Highest 308

Average campground fee $25.80.  Lowest was $7 at Gallitin National Forest, Canyon Campground in Montana. Highest was at Ocean View RV Park in Homer, AK at $47.
Total number of free nights 32.  The free nights are not included in the average campground fee.

Total number of days on this trip 140, beginning March 23rd.
Total number of days from Canadian border to Dawson Creek 10
Total number of days from Dawson Creek to Dawson Creek 74.
Total number of days in Alaska 46.
Remember, we were early and consequently spent a lot of days waiting for ice to melt out before we could go to the Arctic Circle.  We could have avoided those waits if we did that portion at the end of the trip.

This is just the facts.  I’ll offer up some opinions and reflections in a few days.  We’ll continue to keep data on milage, gasoline prices, and campground fees.  When we get back to Nashville, we’ll have a more complete statistical report.


That’s all for today.  Thanks for tagging along.

Royal Alberta Museum

As you know, since we went to the Legislative building yesterday, Edmonton is the capital of Alberta.  Surprisingly, it isn’t the largest city in Alberta; Calgary holds that distinction.  However, Edmonton has the distinction of being the northernmost city in North America to have a population of over a million.  It’s a big city and, as such, has various performing arts venues, museums, restaurants, and rush hour traffic.  Much of Edmonton’s population lives close to the city center so there are apartments, condos, and single family houses all the way to the downtown business district.

We went back downtown this morning to visit the Royal Alberta Museum.  This is not an art museum although there are several works of art, primarily sculptures, inside and on the grounds of the museum.  The Royal Alberta Museum is a natural history and cultural heritage museum.  It consists of two floors with two exhibit halls on each floor separated by a large lounge area on the second floor and a gift shop, theater, and information desk on the first floor.

We started our tour in the Wild Alberta exhibit hall which has impressive displays of various natural regions with stuffed wildlife found in that environment.  From there we went to the Aboriginal Culture exhibit.  We’ve seen a lot of First Nation and Native American heritage exhibits and this may be the best one we’ve ever seen.  Our last stop was in the Natural History gallery which had a small room dedicated to prehistoric animals, another area featuring quarts, crystals, and gemstones, and the Bug Room with live insects from around the world.  Thanks, but no thanks.  As it is, I’m probably going to have nightmares about those tropical cockroaches I got a glimpse of accidentally.

One exhibit hall is reserved for traveling “feature” exhibits.  The current feature exhibit is creatures of the abyss.  We skipped that, as well.

Nowhere in any of our guidebooks or internet research was there any mention of this being a “children’s” museum.  Many of the exhibits and displays had interactive parts which was very nice for children.  And children definitely use the museum--there must have been 200 of them there today.  Thankfully, their favorite place seemed to be the Bug Room and I didn’t want to go in there.

Edmonton Skyline

Today, we didn’t want to miss out on any of the museum features just because we didn’t walk around outside.  After touring inside we strolled around the grounds.  Directly across the driveway from the museum entrance is the Government House.  This “house” was the residence of the Territorial Governor back in the days before Alberta became a province.  Today, it is used for meetings and special events.  It’s open for tours on Sundays.   Alberta has a sister city in Korea and there is a beautiful Korean Pavilion in one corner of the lawn.  Also at the edge of the lawn is a nice viewpoint of the downtown skyline.

Government House

The admission to the Royal Alberta Museum was $11 each; not so bad for a nice museum.  We felt it was worth the price and are glad we went.

Tomorrow, we have a service appointment for the motor home.  I don’t remember if I mentioned a problem with our air conditioner or not.  Anyway, way back last winter when we were still in Florida, we discovered a problem with the control panel for the air conditioner and furnace.  The furnace worked fine and the air conditioner worked also, but just not on auto setting.  Since we didn’t feel like we’d need the AC this summer and, if we did, we could always turn it on and off manually, we didn’t take the time to have is repaired then.

Korean Pavilion

Well, a couple weeks ago, the furnace fan decided it wasn’t going to come on.  It is operated by the same control panel.  So, tomorrow, hopefully, they’ll be able to figure out what the problem is and, hopefully, it won’t take too much time or too much money to get if fixed.

That’s it for today.  Thanks for tagging along.

Legislative Building of Alberta

This morning we were anxious to move from the Walmart parking lot to our campsite at Glowing Embers RV Park.  Check in is at noon, but we were able to get to our site when we came in about 11 AM.

Glowing Embers is a large RV park with nearly 300 sites.  The interior roads are gravel and the sites are gravel with large grassy areas between each site.  We have a full hook-up site with 30 amp electricity and free WiFi for $38/night less the Good Sam discount.  I’ve already been to the laundry and it is adequate for the number of sites.  There are 15 washers and 15 dryers and the price is very reasonable at $3/load ($2 for wash and $1 for dry).

We got ourselves settled in and had a quick lunch.  We took turns babysitting the laundry and taking showers.  With ourselves all clean and our clothes all clean we were ready to head downtown to the “capitol” of Alberta.

We got there in time for the 3 PM guided tour.  I’m not sure they have self-guided tours.  We didn’t see anyone roaming around on their own.  Our guide was very knowledgeable and, since there were several in the group from the US, took the time to explain some of the differences in the elected officials and terms of office between Canada and the US.  The tour was free and lasted about 45 minutes.  Very worthwhile.

Alberta Coat of Arms

We spent a few minutes touring the grounds before we left.  The day was overcast and cool with threatening dark clouds.  We didn’t spend too much time outside.  In fact, when we got home we realized the public entrance may have been the back door and we never even walked around the building to see the other side.  We’re pathetic!

King George V and Queen Mary

We’re planning to be here 4 nights.  Tomorrow is the day to visit the Royal Alberta Museum.  Tuesday morning we have an appointment to have some RV work done and while our rig is in the shop, we’ll be shopping at the West Edmonton Mall.  We don’t have a plan for Wednesday yet.  Thursday we’ll probably move to the East side of town to visit Elk Island National Park.  That will be more convenient if we want to spend a couple days there.  There is also the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village on the East side which sounds interesting.  Lots to do.  Gonna be a busy week.

Legislative Chamber

That’s it for today.  Thanks for tagging along.

Fort Nelson to Edmonton

Four travel days in a row and I’m really ready for a break.  Today wasn’t so bad--just 8.5 miles from Walmart to Glowing Embers RV Park, but it was big city driving.  A little goes a long, long way.

The drive from Fort Nelson to Fort St John was over some very rough road.  We passed through several construction zones.  To make the day just a little mores stressful, the traffic was very heavy.

The second day from Fort St John to Grande Prairie was another stressful day.  The road conditions improved, but we had other issues to deal with.  We had parked for the night at a rest area just before entering Fort St John.  It turned out to be a popular overnight spot for truckers.  When we got up Friday morning, we were blocked in.  We weren’t too concerned about that because we felt like the truckers would want to get back on the road quickly, but just for safety reasons we were uncomfortable being unable to get back on the road ourselves.  As soon as the truck in front of us moved out we pulled up into that front spot.

2nd longest railroad trestle in the world

By the time we were ready to leave, almost all the truckers were gone.  We pulled out on the road and got settled in for the short drive into Fort St John where we were going to get gasoline.  In our minds we were reviewing our checklists and Gene couldn’t remember if he had released the parking break on the car.  We pulled over at the first opportunity, but the breaks were already smoking.

We had rain for the last half of our drive on Friday.  We pulled into the Walmart in Grande Prairie just to get off the road for a few minutes.  While we were trying to relax a little bit, the skies opened up and it absolutely poured rain.

Since Grande Prairie is almost 300 miles from Edmonton, we wanted to get in a few more miles on Friday.  After the rain slacked off, we got underway once again.  We were feeling pretty good about the next 25 miles or so.  We’d had a good break and we were now on 4-lane divided highway.  Smooth sailing--not.  We had only driven about 3 miles when we got to road construction on Highway 43.  It was rush hour and apparently everybody in Grande Prairie uses this road to get home.  We crept along at about 5 mph for almost 30 minutes.  Right at the end we realized it wasn’t just the construction that was holding everybody up, but also a 4-car pile up.  The accident was on the other side of the road, but everyone in our lane had to slow down to get a good look.

We were very happy to get to the rest area Gene had selected for our overnight stay.  We took extra precautions and moved ourselves up close to the exit before settling in for the night.

Saturday’s drive was a delight.  The rain had passed, we had 4-lane divided highway all the way, and traffic was light.  We were cruising through the gently rolling hills and farmland of Alberta.  Quite different from the mountains of British Columbia, but beautiful nonetheless.

We stayed at a Walmart in Spruce Grove Saturday night.  It’s a small store with a small parking lot, but we found a spot.  After the store closed and the parking lot cleared out, it was very quiet.  Well, quiet except for the train that sounded like it was coming inside our rig.

GAS REPORT:  The farther east we’ve come, the less we’ve paid for gas.  In Fort Nelson we paid $5.54, in Fort St John it was $4.95, and in Valleyview, Alberta it was only $4.45.  The price for diesel is the same as regular gasoline except in Fort St. John where it was cheaper at $4.87.

CRITTER COUNT:  The wildlife has all but vanished.  Over these three long travel days, we only saw one moose and it was dead--been hit by a pickup truck and from the looks of things, the pickup was also dead.  Moose can do serious damage to a vehicle.  There was a deer grazing at the rest area on Friday night and a coyote grazing on a deer along the highway Saturday.  That’s it for wildlife.  Probably won’t see anything else until we get well past Edmonton.

We have a reservation at Glowing Embers RV Park for the next four nights.  I’m ready to do some sightseeing for a few days rather than travel.  The first thing on our agenda is the legislative building this afternoon.

That’s it for now.  Thanks for tagging along.

Northwest Territories

We did indeed head up to Northwest Territories this morning.  I’ll say right up front that we were underwhelmed.  This is how it went.

From our campground in Fort Nelson, we drove back along the Alaska Highway about 15 miles to the intersection with Liard Highway.  This is sometimes called the Liard Trail and that’s what is on the road sign at the junction.  It is possible to make this a longer adventure to Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories, and some Alaska travelers do that.  From Grande Prairie, Dawson Creek, or somewhere in that vicinity, the traveler can get on Alberta Highway 35 which leads to Northwest Territories Highway 1 and then Highway 3 to Yellowknife.  Travelers can then reconnect with the Alaska Highway by following a gravel road around to Fort Liard and then down to Fort Nelson.  Although Yellowknife would be a fine destination, we don’t have that anywhere on our list of places to go or things to see.  I might just mention that when we were in Whitehorse the other day, we saw a caravan which had just come from Yellowknife.  Those were some of the dirtiest rigs I have ever seen.  They may never be clean again.

We just wanted to step our foot into Northwest Territories so we could say we’ve been.  Our plan for today was to see what we thought about the road after we got to the border then decide if we wanted to continue on to Fort Liard.

Deasum Creek

Liard Highway is newly paved, at least most of the 86 miles to the border.  What wasn’t paved in the past 2 years was still a fine paved road.  In fact, this may have been the best stretch of road we’ve driven on all summer.  We zipped along at 60 mph except for the 20 minute wait to cross the Fort Nelson River.

Liard Highway

Fort Nelson River is spanned by a one-lane bridge, which is being repaired.  Everybody gets a turn on the bridge--southbound traffic, northbound traffic, and the construction crew. The bridge has a wooden surface and the rotting lumber was being replaced.

We were disappointed in the scenery.  The mowed area along the side of the roadway is much more narrow than what we’ve been seeing along the Alaska Highway.  We felt almost like we were in a tunnel and we couldn’t see out.  The terrain is rolling hills, but the road didn’t cut through any of the hills or follow along side, but rather up, over, and down the other side.  We couldn’t see anything hardly of the expanse of land.

Fort Nelson Bridge

We were disappointed by the traffic.  Oil, gas, and lumber companies use this land.  There are numerous dirt roads which intersect Liard Highway and consequently, a lot of heavy trucks traveling the highway.  We saw a few private vehicles and one travel trailer.  I don’t want to leave the impression that there was a lot of traffic.  Certainly not.  We drove for miles without seeing anyone.  We stopped for lunch and only one truck passed.  Of course, it was lunch time for everyone, I suppose.  Still, this is a road which goes from nowhere to nowhere through howling wilderness.  We didn’t expect to see any traffic.

We were really disappointed in the wildlife.  Being howling wilderness, we did expect to see something.  The only thing we saw were ravens.

Being disappointed in the scenery and the wildlife, it was easy to turn around as soon as we got to the Welcome sign for Northwest Territories instead of continuing on 25 more miles to Fort Liard.  That was also where we ran out of pavement which made the decision all the more easy.  But we’ve been to Northwest Territories and we have the picture to prove it.

Petitot River

So that was our adventure today.  Not so adventuresome, but exciting nevertheless to actually be in the Northwest Territories, even just a little bit.

That’s all folks.  We’ll be boondocking for the next few days so we don’t expect to have internet again until we get to Edmonton on Saturday or Sunday.

Thanks for tagging along.

Back at Fort Nelson

Tuesday, we continued on down the road from Liard River Hot Springs to Fort Nelson.  The farther we get from Whitehorse, the better the road surface becomes.  There are rough spots, of course, but generally the road is in very good condition.

Today’s drive was slow and time consuming, however.  Not because of rough road, but because it was narrow and VERY curvy through the Northern Rockies.  We had one opportunity to wait.  It wasn’t for construction this time, but for mowing along the shoulder.  Only waited about 10 minutes.

We had some beautiful scenery today.  The Northern Rockies are awesome and nestled among the high peaks is Muncho Lake.  At the top of Stone Mountain is Summit Lake.  This lake was still frozen in late May when we passed going the other direction.

Toad River

Our plan had been to drive past Fort Nelson 20 or 30 miles to a pullout somewhere, but a strange thing happened on the way.  About 15 miles north of Fort Nelson, we passed the junction of Liard Trail which leads to Fort Liard, Northwest Territory.  That caught my eye and I started flipping pages in the Milepost to see what kind of road we were talking about and how far it was.  It turned out to be a some paved/some gravel road and only about 130 miles.  Very uncharacteristic of us, we immediately decided we could do that as a day trip.

Muncho Lake

With a new plan formulating in our minds, we stopped for the night at Triple “G” Hideout Campground in Fort Nelson.  We were here in May.  It’s a nice campground and for $33 we have full hook-ups including cable TV and free WiFi.  We signed up for two nights.  We went on our adventure to Northwest Territories today.  That story tomorrow.

Summit Lake

GAS REPORT:  We filled up the motor home at Toad River Lodge.  We expected the fuel to be more expensive in British Columbia and it was.  $5.98 for gas and $6.13 for diesel.  By the way, these prices are what we actually have to pay in US dollars; I include the latest conversion rate I have.

CRITTER COUNT:  Not so many bear today--we only saw 2.  The caribou were out, however.  We saw 5.

That’s all for now.  Thanks for tagging along.