Haines AK is a nice place (if you feel well)

Marcia is having a tough time getting over her sore throat, and now I have a so-far milder version of the same thing.  Colds have been marching through our caravan and it looks like we won’t escape.

The day is beautiful, a light jacket being adequate for comfort. 

Barry has been having tire problems and now has a significant water leak near the kitchen faucet.  I loan him some wrenches but we can’t decide what to wrench.  Barry, Larry, and Gary work on it for a while; yes, I said Barry, Larry, and Gary.  Larry applies special Larry techniques and gets it fixed fairly quickly, but Barry will probably need a new faucet when he gets home.  (Barry has probably had the most mechanical problems on the trip, but not the biggest bill.  Gary has been the group's dependable go-to guy on things mechanical and unfortunately, near trip's end, his impeccably maintained truck will need a new engine to complete the journey - the biggest repair expense of the caravan.)

We are at the Haines Hitch-up RV Park, our first good park in quite a while.  We spend most of the day in recovery mode, but do get to the Eagle Foundation exhibits and the local museum, both of which are worthwhile.

Haines is a pleasant small town in a beautiful water and mountain setting, with bears and eagles at hand.  We finish the day with a great Happy Birthday phone call to Kevin.

Looks like the witness room on San Quentin's death row, but we are here to witness the daily feeding of the Foundation's resident rescue eagle (dead rabbit). 

He is real and hungry; the background is a painting.

Burwash YT to Haines AK

We remind ourselves these rigs are made for living a few days without public utilities, but it is really cold for the 2^nd night in a row – in the 20s, 30s, or 40s, depending on how much you suffered.

I turn on the gas furnace on rising figuring we need to thaw out our moods and our bodies, and we are unlikely to run down the batteries in a couple hours of operation.

The skies are clear, the view across the lake spotless.  A few people are out, building their repertoire of how-cold-was-it stories.  Suddenly there is a roar from the lake a few feet away and a bush pilot takes off; I never even knew he was here.  Others say he came in last night looking for people interested in flightseeing.

There was a dusting of snow a couple nights ago.

We hit the road and start our 215 mile plunge south-east to Haines AK, near Skagway.  The trip is moving toward a close.

Each border crossing shifts the time either an hour forward or an hour back, and our leaders have consistently failed to deal with this understandably on our drivers manual schedules.  In last night's meeting we think we've agreed to stay on Yukon time for now, as we dart back-and-forth across the border. 

The scenery is beautiful and endless – lakes on one side and towering mountains on the other.  The road in the Yukon is under repair and speeds slow to 20-45 from 55-60.  Frost heaves from melting permafrost, probably.  The joke is that there are two seasons in the Yukon and Alaska – winter, and highway repair.  (In fairness, we heard the same joke in Newfoundland.)  The other often heard remark is that Americans use this stretch more than Canadians, so the Canadians spend tax money here only reluctantly, and the Americans won’t pay anything since it is Canadian.

The growing monotony of beautiful scenery is broken by wildlife today, as we spot eagles, a grizzly mom and cub, and a couple trumpeter swans. 

In Haines the NorCal Eight take Jane to birthday dinner at the Hotel Halsingland, on the old Fort Seward complex.  The fort was built around 1906 and never housed more than a few hundred troops.  Now an historic site, the complex sits on a slope overlooking the bay, with mountain views in all directions.   Unfortunately not enough is being done to maintain the place.

  

Snow grass.

This may be what is known as dwarf fireweed.

We try not to travel in packs this large, but sometimes it just happens. Fortunately very little civilian traffic on these roads.

A modern-style Indian fishing wheel.

Fort Seward - Haines, Alaska

Burwash Landing YT

Once again we cross from Alaska to the Yukon, stopping at the remote Burwash Landing Resort and RV Park, which for most of us is a dry camp (no hook-up utilities).

By now readers should understand the term "resort" in Alaska and the Yukon has little relationship to the term "resort" as in, say, Palm Springs.

The setting here is beautiful, but there is hardly anyone around and unless you fish or hunt or use it as a base for exploring, there is really nothing to do.  No matter.  We arrive like locust and in minutes are settled, crammed nearly bumper-to-bumper everywhere imaginable.

There is a small ramshackle cabin about 10 feet from my rig door labeled in light-hearted script "Honey Moon Suite".  Soon two twenty-something girls from Vancouver show up in horror at all the aluminum surrounding their cabin.  They have spent the last several nights camping on glaciers in a tent, and paid the lodge owner $100 for the use of the "suite" for one night so they could get cleaned up.  Their "suite" looks not worth $40 to us, and that's without aluminum neighbors.  They eventually calm down and are persuaded to go threaten the owner with out backing, and eventually the price is somewhat lowered and they join our group for a pleasant happy hour around a campfire.

Welcome to Canada

...now about this road.

They got the good spots.

Presumptive NorCal president Claudia tackles the blocks while fending off mosquitos. 

The Honeymoon Suite (rear). 

No, you can't use the boat for firewood.

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, AK

Valdez was a favorite when we were expecting little, and had become a bit exhausted.

But we're off again, backtracking our way north on the Richardson Highway and the Tok Cutoff, bordering the magnificent Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Monument.

This is the largest national park in the US, at over 13 million acres.

At the visitor center, we hike the old Valdez Trail, built by the Army around 1900 to cut down on the large number of gold seekers killed cossing glaciers to reach the gold fields.

A caravan couple drops out

A free day in Valdez.  We spend it fueling for tomorrow’s long drive, buying smoked salmon as gifts, exploring the empty area of pre-earthquake Valdez, eating Mexican food for lunch, visiting the excellent town museum, and looking at salmon. 

At a drivers meeting we learn that that Nick and Alicia decided in JJ’s words that caravaning is not for them and have left the caravan.  We are sorry to see them give it up.

That evening Jane invites the NorCal Eight for stew and conversation, and we wonder if we are one of the "cliques" that reportedly made Nick & Alicia feel unwelcome. As we understand it, they had never been to a WBCCI event, knew nobody, and had no experiencing caravanning.  They bit off a lot for a WBCCI introduction, as this caravan is one of the most grueling.  We wish them well and hope to see them again.

Neil Armstrong died just two days ago.  We think we are a long way from home, but he walked on that bright spot in the sky.  Amazing.

Columbia Glacier cruise from Valdez AK

Today is our third boat tour of glaciers, and we are afraid it will be one too many.

The boat has benches along the sides so people on the benches can only see by looking over their shoulders, or by staring straight ahead through the boat and out the windows on the other side.  Marcia and I are in the center, theater style, with seats facing forward.

Tommy, Kathy, Fred and Bev snack-down.

Look!!!

Capt'n Jones.

The real captain is quite busy piloting in fog, spotting wildlife, and narrating.  The cruise is from sometime around noon to maybe 6:30 PM and I’m not aware of him ever taking a break.  I guess it is too expensive to have a second person available with the proper ratings.  He must have quite a bladder.

Oil spill boats, new since the Exxon Valdez mess.

A piece of an iceberg.

Some thought this the best boat trip; I thought it a lot of miles for relatively little, but a clear day would have made all the difference in the world.  We did see orcas to add to our list.  The Columbia Glacier is featured but it was never anything more than a vague silhouette in the fog.

The captain did provide an excellent explanation of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.  By his account the ship ran on to some rocks because of poor shipboard communications during a shift change.  For three days the oil stayed close to the ship in unusually calm winds but little was done to contain it.  More typical weather returned and the spill traveled in some cases over 400 miles causing incredible damage.  Even today the oil can be found just inches beneath the surface, and Exxon continues to fight settlement suits.  The single-hulled Exxon Valdez was recently sold for scrap after hiding for many years under various new names.  Valdez is now much better prepared for spills, but still it is a messy business.