Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Another good reason to drive 50 mph: you develop quite a following – all you have to do is look in the rear view mirror on a winding mountain road to see it…
Hip hip hooray! We’re in the USA!
Today we drove the last bit of Canada and we’re now in Alaska. The day started at 5:30 again. (Remember, we’re in the Pacific Time zone now, so we’re really sleeping late…) It had rained softly throughout the night – we couldn’t really hear it hit the roof, but we saw the results in puddles on the ground when we opened the door of the camper. The morning was overcast and dull. As we drove, the weather became wetter and colder. The mist turned to rain; the rain turned to snow mixed with rain; and that turned to just plain snow – big fat fluffy flakes. It was beautiful. But the roadway was piled with mush everyplace except where tires of cars had been. When he noticed that cars coming toward us were blinking their lights at us, Bob stopped and checked our lights, thinking they might not be working. They were covered with a good inch of slush. He cleaned them off, and the cars didn’t blink at us anymore.
The snow finally stopped after about three hours, but the day was still gray. We ate breakfast at a little café in Haines Junction. It was the cook’s first day on the job. And, although our breakfast was OK, words heard from other diners led us to believe it might have been the poor person’s last day on the job, too. Oh, well. You can’t win them all.
The day stayed overcast. Except in Haines Junction, where we had breakfast, we had no cell coverage – nor any internet coverage when we got to the RV park inside of Alaska. And we were exhausted after two overcast days on the road. There is something to be said for sunshine when you’re traveling. – Even when it shines in your eyes, it’s good. Remind me to say that when we’re back in the Texas heat!!!
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Another good reason to drive 50 mph: you can see more flowers on the road side – well you could if the snow wasn’t covering them…
The drive today from the Alaska state line to Glennallen was really good. We slept for 12 hours last night, and when we awakened this morning the sky was clear and the sun was shining. The scenery here is different from Canada, although there is still a background of wonderfully big snow covered mountains. There is more forest area in front of the mountains, it seems, and many more lakes. We saw several pairs of white swans down in the water near the road, swimming and diving for fish. Ruthine can’t imagine living on that cold water and diving in for her food, head first, many times each day – and neither can Bob. Where the water was free of snow, you could tell that the ice pack had been a foot or more thick. And, after seeing all the ice and snow on all of the lakes up here, both in Canada and now in Alaska, Ruthine no longer has the need to see Blue Mesa Lake in Colorado frozen. Good thing, because it is not likely to happen.
We had breakfast in Tok, Alaska, and decided we would stop later at a hotel for the night. After almost three weeks on the road, it was past due. We had gone about as far as we (Ruthine) could go without a good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed after a nice hot shower in our own room… So now we are at the New Caribou Hotel in Glennallen, Alaska. We ate a wonderful lunch here, and have enough left for our supper, if we happen to get hungry again – which is doubtful. The plan is to have breakfast here (the restaurant opens at 7:00 – Bob wonders if we can really sleep that late) and drive on to Anchorage. We’ll do some shopping there and stay the night. Then Saturday we will have only a couple of hundred more miles on our drive to Ninilchek.
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