Happy Fall

Shipshewana Crafter's Fair

We are exhibiting at the Shipshewana Craft Fair, Tomorrow, Friday and Saturday, October 3, 4, and 5th. Please come by and say "hi".

Announcement of Picture Sold - Link

Amish Buggy and Flowering Tree

This is a picture of an Amish Buggy at the Middlebury IN park. 

Sunk on wildlife camera.

He realizes something us up.

Pam in Hope AK

Here is a picture of Pam in Hope, AK, about a month ago. She has on her coat and I remember it was a pretty cool and damp day.

Pam is the perfect RV'er. She always has something figured out to eat. She is always flexible. But at one point she said she was home-sick so we started our way home. Then she got sick and we accelerated our trip home. And then she got well so we went by the manufacturing plant where the RV was made and had them take care of various and sundry things... like a fresh water tank that had come loose and was banging against the drive shaft. I had done a really good "duct tape" job on it that I was sure to get the attention and comments from the RV techs.... but no one commented on my wonderful work which held the tank in place (or at least I think it did).

Hope is a really small town and WAY off the beaten path. It seemed to me we drove UP a long way to get there and when we arrived there was a big lake. The day after we arrived I realized it was not a lake because the tied had gong out... so it was really an ocean inlet.

Hope came into being during the gold rush. I don't know what has kept it alive since then.

Happy Birthday Pam

Today (July 10) is Pam's Birthday.

Happy birthday Pam.

She has on her Alaska shirt, but we are in Canada as you can see from the calendar.

(Lassi, no a bear did not eat her.)

Earth is Full

Alaskans are a bit "different"... but aren't we all.

We saw a bumper sticker on a pick-up that said "Earth is Full. Go Home!", but it was not on the bumper. It was displayed on the front hood of the truck.

Another bumper sticker said "Homer a small drinking village with a fishing problem".

... more on Alaskans later.

Matanuska Glacier, Alaska

Pam and I went and visited this glacier. It is off the road a long way and the road is rough. We had decided to stay in their "RV Park"... this is in quotes because there really is no RV park. We looked and looked for a place to park and had about given up when we found parking site "16"... this was our view.

We had mechanical problems with the RV and had to stay a night more than we had wanted. We were the only RV at the "RV Park". There were some nice tent campers one night. Because we were there a while we have lot of pictures of this glacier.

Better quality pictures without the "watermark" are at the "Fine Arts America" web site.

Pam in a Glacier

Pam in or on top of the Matanuska Glacier in Alaska. This was a huge thing. More pictures to follow of this glacier.

Yukon Truck Driver

Pam struck up a conversation in a restaurant in "The Yukon". He said the had a new diesel and was hauling freight to the US. He started getting letters from the State of California because his truck did not meet their emissions requirements. He said it was a brand new truck and it was welcome everywhere else in North America.

So he was simply not going to haul freight to California. He said once all the trucks stop going there maybe they will change their minds on what is acceptable.

Interesting.

Pam in Yukon

Vanna White's job may be in jeopardy. Pam has already purchased her Holiwood sunglasses as you can see.

On our trip Pam said to me one day that we would be in Alaska "tomorrow". I said, "I don't think so". So she got out the map to show me. The line she pointed to was the one that separates BC from Yukon. She thought that the line was Alaska. You should have seen her face "fall" when she relazied we had another Canadian province to drive through.

... and the drive the last many miles to Alaska through Yukon are something else. The roads are horrible. There are no people there so there is no reason to spend money on roads.

At one point they were working on the road with a disk. A big disk was disking up the road and then a big roller was rolling it back down. There was a water truck putting water on the road. I don't know if that was all there was to it, but I'd never seen them disk up a road.

There were many dips and bumps and areas where the paved road disappeared into gravel and dirt. There is no rhythm that you can get into as you can with some bumpy roads. And the length of bad road is so long that it wears you out. But we made it, and Pam was in Alaska.

Pam in front of BC Sign

Here is Pam in front of the BC sign. Normally she gets awakened and she gets out of the vehicle and gets propped up against a sign while I take her picture. I think this time she was awake.

As you can see there was not a crowd at this point of the trip. Not a lot of people on the "Alcan" in May.

Pam at The Start...

From Shipshewana, IN it takes a long time to get to the start of the Alaska Highway.

The Alaska Highway was built during WWII to protect Alaska from any potential invasion. At the time there was no way to get troops and supplies there. So Canada allowed US troops to build this road. Along the road today you see pictures in restaurants of the road being built. In some towns there are old trucks from this effort. We will post some pictures of these trucks as time allows.

The Taco Bar

There is a new restaurant in Waterton, Canada. Pam and I ate lunch there. The next morning the goats were there also eating. You know you have found a good place when the locals eat there.

Comments

You can leave comments here. Click on the pencil and type away!

I enjoy getting your email and Facebook messages, but you can make your comments here also and I think others would like to see what you post.

Thanks,

Postings

Our internet connections have been very difficult so the postings have been few and fat between. Tonight wont be any different as the campground tonight advertises internet, but you have to sit outside the lobby of the office and let the mosquitoes feast on you in order to use the connection. No postings tonight.

Sorry and thanks for your understandingl

Road Sign, Alaska Trip

Most of the time these road side signs are informative. They tell you about local history. This one was more entertaining than informative.

Alaska, Day 4, The RV

Parked for the night.

Ray Yoder asked to see a picture of the RV, so this post is for Ray.

We got a nice spot in this park because it had been windy all day long and we had fought the wind driving. This spot was right next to a mountain and back in the woods so we didn't have any wind. We were (are) early enough in the season that we have not had to worry about camping spots.

This is Glacier National Park. Because we are 24.5 feet long we could not go over the pass in the park. You have to be under 21 feet. And the bus carrying folks didn't start until later in the year, so we missed a big part of Glacier National Park... at least going North.

Also, as you can see we use plastic leveling blocks when needed to get us level. And you can see the slide out is "out".

Alaska Day 2, Continued

Here is a picture of Pam at Mt Rushmore. She is a great travel companion. She is patient, forgiving, kind, drives an hour here and there... we should put her face up there next to Lincoln after they get the current President's face up there.

Unfortunately she seems to be out of focus in this picture.

Alasak Trip

Dear Friends,

We are having a difficult time with our electronics on our trip. Finding an internet connection that will support uploading of significantly sized image files is very difficult.

And our wonderful Verizon cell phones do not work at all. After a visit to Verizon before the trip to be sure we understood the costs, etc the darn things don't work at all. We can't even get voice mail messages. We used Skype last night to call into the Verizon voice mail box!

Today we have a good internet connection so we will try to upload some pictures and bring you up to date on where we are and where we have been.

If you want to contact us, email is best.

Thanks,

Alaska, Day 1

May 22nd was our first day "on the road". Here is a picture of Pam driving the RV. She did a good job with my excellent supervision (ha, ha).

Our objective was to do a lot of driving on the first day as we did not think there would be a lot of things to see in Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, because all those states start with the letter "I"... and the sights are very similar to what we have around our portion of Indiana.

We drove about 650 miles yesterday.

If you get a chance to look at a map of the world notice how far it is from North Central Indiana to Fairbanks Alaska compared to other major continents, countries etc. It is a looong drive.

See you later...

Berry Fine

Star and Flowers