Author: Steve

We’ve lost our visual cues.  Normally, if we wake up in the morning and its light outside, we know it’s time to get up.  Here, we get up in the morning after it has been light for hours.    We go to bed when it’s still light outside.  There is no way to know when to eat dinner, except by the clock.

We’ve also lost one of our television satellites.  It takes three to get all the channels.  As we go north, the satellites appear to be lower in the sky.  One of them is below the horizon our dish can see.

The roads are noticeably rougher today, but it’s still pretty good divided four-lane.  Mostly we maintain about 100kph (65).  We’ve made it to the Boreal Forest, that vast swath of mostly coniferous forest way up north.

This far inland and we’re still seeing gulls.  There are many Franklin’s gulls swarming over the rivers feeding.  On dryer ground, there are ring-billed gulls and California gulls.  These two gulls can be hard to tell apart, but the Ring billed have light irises.

California have dark irises.

That red spot on the bill is not always easily visible.

Done for the day at Valley View, still in Alberta.

The RV Park is new enough that it still shows as farmland on Google Maps.

At Valley View, we’ve just matched the farthest north we’ve ever been, which was the 2017 summer trip, the great figure 8.

The Great 2019 Alaska Trip map

I would describe the 2019 trip map as “single-minded” compared to 2017.

Settled down with an evening fire.

We’re in the land of free firewood.  They stock the woodshed;

… use as much as you want.

We got our first lifer of the trip tonight.  A pair of Boreal owls were calling from the forest edge.  We’re not going to run into those birds in South Texas!

Sunset tonight 10:28.  Last light 11:24.  1,616 miles to Fairbanks.

Travel day.  We waited until after rush hour, then drove north through Calgary.  We drove into Calgary a couple times over the weekend.  It was difficult to navigate.  There is so much construction there are lanes and roads closed everywhere.  Even with our digital navigation system, Lisa, telling me what to do, and Judy telling me what Lisa was telling me to do, I got wrong-laned and wrong-turned over and over.  I was terrible.  But for every wrong turn, the navigator comes up with another set of options to get back on track.  Eventually it works out.  I should say that we really enjoyed Calgary.

Another easy drive on good roads.  The windshield view.

We’re still on the plains surrounded by agricultural fields between the cities.  Speaking of big cities, we’re almost out of them.  Calgary.  Edmonton.  That’s about it.  We’ll drive through smaller towns, but won’t hit another big city until Fairbanks.  Agricultural fields with no pivot sprinklers or flood irrigation, just rainfall.

I remember the good old days; the good old days when I used to get a song stuck in my head.  Today I’ve got phrases of a comedy LP by Spike Jones going round and round:

“Here’s your gun.”

“I don’t need a gun; I’m going to throw that gang out one-by-one.”

“I hope you know what you’re talking about.”

“You just count ‘em as I throw ‘em out.”

@!#$^&^%%$#@#$%^^.  Thud.

“One.”

“Stop counting, it’s me!”

I haven’t heard that since the 1950s and it just showed up in my head for no reason.  Please.  Just shoot me now.

Stopped for the night at a nice little  RV park in Stony Plain, Alberta.

The Great 2019 Alaska Trip map

Hit the Beer Hunter for very good wings and tacos at dinner.

And a walk at Rotary Park.

I never paid any attention to Rotary before.  I think I like them.

The four way test for what to say and do.  “Is it the truth?  Is it fair?  Will it build goodwill and friendships?  Will it be beneficial?  I like those founding words.

Sunset tonight 10:04.  Last light 10:45.  Now we’re going to bed at night before it’s all the way dark.

1,801 miles to Fairbanks.

We explored some trails.

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Met some people from Cuba.  It took a minute to figure out.  From Canada to Cuba is no big deal; people come and go between the two countries, no problem!  That seems odd for we people from the U.S.

Picked up some Canadian money.

It’s got a goofy plastic texture that doesn’t fold and crease, and it has a transparent stripe!

And Judy has a new favorite duck, the common merganser.  Here is momma merganser.  She’s been diving a lot for food.

And here is baby merganser, telling mom to try harder!

Internet is spotty already, we’re liable to experience incidents of radio silence in the days ahead.

Internet.  Before we left the states, we called Verizon and they put all our devices on the International Plan.  For $5 a day per device we can use everything at normal U.S. rates instead of international rates.  The international rates are freaky; about a dollar a minute!  Our first experience with internet in Canada is that there isn’t any Verizon coverage where we are, south of Calgary, but our jetpack will roam and pick up Bell coverage, but that isn’t very good either.  We purchased a week of Tengo Internet which has worked sporadically.

Here is an RV style we haven’t seen before.

A Canadian conversion?

Here is another RV we saw along the way.

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The remarkable thing about this one is that it has a sticker proudly proclaiming it declaring “I survived the Alaska Highway”.  Just barely, I’d say.  Of course, there is the danger that that’s how our rig will look after we’ve done the Alaska Highway too!

Found more trails to walk…

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…and more ducklets to photograph; this time goldeneyes.

We’ve had a nice yard in this campground.

…and the park really cleared out as the weekend ended.

Tomorrow, we’re moving on.

We’re in Okotoks, Alberta, Canada, just south of Calgary.  No hurries; we’re going to layover for a few days and savor full hookups.

The Great 2019 Alaska Trip map

No trouble at the border; only five cars ahead of us, and the border agent only asked us about five questions.  We drove through cold, wind, and rain to get here but no troubles.  It’s still cold and rainy tonight, the temperature will drop into the thirties, but we expect warmer weather tomorrow.

Sunset tonight 9:45.  Last light 10:30.

3,232 kilometers to Fairbanks.  (That translates to 2,006 miles.)

If I sound a little different tonight, it’s because I’m thinking and speaking in kilometers and liters.