We Are Home!

We have arrived home. About 8200 miles or so over 7 weeks. What a ride! I would like to take a moment to thank you for following along with us. It has truly been a great experience. The Alaskan Highway was all it was said to be and more. We will be settling down for a month and take an Inside Passage Cruise in September. This retirement business is not so bad.
This will be the ending post for this blogspot. Once again, thanks for coming along. We will see you later.
Love, Sam & LaRee

From Jasper to Montana

We have made it to Lolo Montana for a two day rest stop at Jerri's. 517 miles from home!

1500 Miles From Home

Laree is busy on one of her nightly walks. We are now 1800 miles from Fairbanks heading home. It was very hard saying goodbye to our Family and starting the long road home.

The Yellowhead Highway

The Yellowhead Highway begins in the area of Prince George BC and ends in Jasper Alberta.

Stuff Happens

As any trucker can tell you, if you have been on the road long enough you see weird things. In this picture the airplane had made a crash landing on the road not long before we drove by.

On the Dalton Highway we drove by a trailer that had broken down 200 miles from help.They just pushed it down an embankment, smashing it to bits before leaving it.

On the Klondike Highway we passed through a forest fire that was smoldering in the under brush for many miles. Lots of smoke but very little flame.

The Cassiar Highway

This highway winds through western Canada about 300 miles west of the Alaskan Highway. It has both dirt and oiled surface and is very romote. It is about 400 miles long and up to 70 miles between fuel stations. We have arrived in Burns Lake BC and will be spending the night here. We will be in Jasper Alberta on Sunday night.

Along the Road

A totally awesome view from last nights stay at a bed-and-breakfast near Haines Junction Yk.

Long Road Home

After spending almost a month with Charisse, Tiffany, and their Families we are enroute home. 5000 miles behind us and 3000 miles to go. We left Fairbanks on Thursday and we are currently at the Deer River Crossing Campground in Dease Lake B.C. Canada. We have left the Alaskan Highway and we are now on the Cassiar Highway. We will be in Prince George, Jasper or somewhere in between tomarrow night. No cell phone reception in this neighborhood. See you soon.

Alaskan Wolf ???

We have been looking for the elusive Alaskan Wolf for a month now and my Daughter's dog "Anyana" is as close as we have come.

The North Pole

Well it's not the real North Pole, but close! North Pole Alaska is a small town deep within the interior. They have an awesome Santa House which comes with protection from the North Pole Police Department. A great place to visit.

The Arctic Circle

On our way to the Arctic Circle we crossed over the Yukon River again. Tiffay and Kyle came with us on this trip and we ended up about 200 miles north of Fairbanks. This road is extremely remote. It is a dirt road for the most part and very little traffic.

The Dalton Highway

The Dalton Highway winds its way through the north country for about 400 miles and ends at the Arctic Ocean. It crosses many rivers, vast prairies of purple flowers, forests, and every mile it runs north along with the Alaskan Pipe Line. At about mile marker 200 is the arctic circle.

We finally found some reindeer!

Along the river you not only have to watch for other boats you have to watch for aircraft.

Chena River Boat

A totally awesome day on the Chena River. We hopped on an old Alaskan river boat and spent the day heading up the river from Fairbanks. This is a boat similar to ours passing us. After visiting old Alaskan villages and dog sled teams we had some Pike Samon.

Eielson AFB

Eielson Air Force Base is located deep in the interior of Alaska. Charisse & Tiffany call it home along with their families. This has been our base station for several weeks now.

My Grand Daughter Airra has the whole world in her hands for this one. This beautiful painting was in a native arts building somewhere in our travels.

Alaskan Dirt Roads

Dirt roads are a way of life here. Pavement seems to be a luxury. These roads go on for hundreds of miles as attested by the four tires on the van which are set to be replace on Monday. Hopefully they will last the remainder of the trip.

Here is a DC-? that they decided to use as a wind sock in a little airport. They seem to have no shortage of junk airplanes up here since most of the airports are dirt strips.

The Salmon do get big here. Especially the one at the Pioneer Park in Fairbanks that you can ride!

The Forth of July in Alaska

No, after 25 years working the Murray Fun Days I didn't miss it at all this year. We saw the Forth of July Alaskan style. No fireworks to speak of since it doesn't get dark here. However we had a big forest fire somewhere to the north of us that filled the sky with smoke and almost blotted out the noon day sun!

Yes Bob, It Has Been A Blast!

Land of the Midnight Sun

Here we are somewhere in central Alaska driving down the highway at midnight. The sun is just going down. We were out until 3 am that night and it didn't get dark. This time of year twilight comes about 2:30 am but it stays light enough to drive without headlights 24 hours a day.

Anchorage Alaska

We didn't see any bears on the road to Anchorage so we stopped in to a Build-A-Bear store and created our own. Sun dress and all!

Mount McKinley Denali National Park

The Parks Highway connects Fairbanks and Anchorage. It is 300 miles of low lands and the highest mountains in North America all in one huge picture. Charisse, Tiffany, Airra, Sierra, and us spent the whole day just loving this place. We have logged over 4500 miles and have about 3500 to go before home. Thanks for following along.

ARRIVED!!!

After more than two weeks on the road we arrived in Fairbanks, (Eielson AFB) the day before yesterday. We have been so busy this is my first blog from here. Most of our time over the next three weeks will involve just being with family. We will spend some time in the local national parks and I will add some supplements from there later on. Thanks for following along with us.

Remember: Just click on an image to super size it!

Remember: Click "older posts" at the bottom to get back to the earlier alcan 2009 postings. The blog page is about 3 pages deep now.

Poker Creek Alaska

Here is my dirty van is parked out in front of the Chicken Creek Outpost. The center of town. About three buildings in all. Look it up in your atlas. It is about 200 miles from no where. We are 2700 miles from home and 200 miles from Fairbanks.

Poker Creek is the border crossing between Yukon and Ak. Two border agents live there. They call it a town.

The Road to Chicken Alaska

The Husky in the back of a dirty pickup is a common sight here in AK. Everyone has at least one or the other.

Okay this is not the real road to town but after 100 miles on another dirt road it sure seemed like it.

Well we made it to beautiful towntown Chicken Alaska. Not much more than a cafe and a gas station. The internet uplink here is limited to words only so I'll post pictures later. We left Dawson City This morning and caught the ferry over the Yukon river. We proceded up over the mountains to Chiken and we will be landing in Tok Alaska for a nights stay. What a ride! The last 100 or so miles have been a dirt road. The van is so dirty brown appears to be its natural color.

The Klondike Highway

The road to Dawson City was long and tiring. Not much to see on this one. The forest consisted of mostly aspen trees and shrubs since it has been scorched by 6 major fires in the last 40 years. We are 2640 miles from home now and 460 miles from Fairbanks. We are starting to become weary travelers and are looking forward to seeing our grandchildren.

Dawson City is a town of gift shops, bars, gambling, hotels, and more bars. With all that fun we decided to spend the night here! We will go across the highest mountains yet tomorrow morning. The Top of the World Drive is the Taylor Highway to Chicken Alaska. See you then.

Into the Interior

Skagway Alaska

After spending the last two weeks climbing one mountain after another we have finally come down to sea level. Skagway Alaska is a sea port for cruise ships. As we were coming in we saw 4 in the harbor. It was a little crowded but still fun. We will rest here at a bed and breakfast and hit the road for Whitehorse Canada in the morning. No hurray though, We are ahead of schedule.

Watson Lake Yukon Territory

After leaving Fort Nelson and traveling over the Canadian Rockes we found ourselves in the little town of Watson Lake in the North West Territories. We spent the night and moved on to Skagway the next day. We are covering on average 350 Miles a day which seems to work out rather well.