Steve and Judy's Travels!

Most times black bears don’t seem very big.  This one today however, was different.  On the afternoon walk up a hill, my first impression of this animal was that it was a black angus in the next pasture.

He was big; different from the little females we’ve been seeing; just walking along parallel to my course.

He walked across the field and disappeared into this small swale of brush.

A person could walk right up to a patch of brush like that without even knowing there was a bear in it.

He didn’t take great interest in me, but he did take notice.

Walked yesterday at a park full of cottonwood trees in Prince George.  Saw this interesting, and a little creepy, carving.

And a black fox.

Drove south on the Cariboo Highway to Lac La Hache, halfway to Vancouver.

Tripping south map continued

Our windshield.

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2,703 miles to Sandpipers.

New road.  Now we’re on the Cassiar Highway; headed south.  The scenery is not as dramatic as yesterday.  Less rugged mountain peaks and more rolling round mountains.  More golden.

Mountain Shadow RV Park.  We’ve heard from several people that this is the nicest RV park on the entire Alaska trip.

They could be right.

Tripping south map

3,278 miles to Sandpipers.

Skagway morning light.

3,680 miles to Sandpipers.

Again, ridiculous scenery.

Boondocked for the night at Swift River, Yukon.

Tripping south map

3,460 miles to Sandpipers.

Haines was to be our last stop in Alaska.  We were going to drive off back through Canada this morning.

Plans change.

Instead of driving all the way back out to Haines Junction then on to Whitehorse, we took a one-hour ferry ride twenty miles to Skagway.  Skagway, our first stop in Alaska and now our last.

Haines and Skagway part of trip

Putting the bus on the ferry was a trip.

It was low tide and a steep ramp, so required blocking underneath the rear wheels while I inched along to keep from scraping the rear end.

Then some tight turns on the car deck, tighter than the bus can make, so “Y” turns.  It’s not that difficult really, just do what the people wearing vests tell you to do.

Tonight’s windshield view over the harbor.

Dinner at the Skagway Fish Company.

Alaskan King Crab stuffed Halibut.

Perfection.

Next up, fifteen hundred miles of road between here and Vancouver, B.C.

I mean Tuesday.

There is a thing here called a tidal grid.  I saw one while we were in Whittier, kind of a wood frame underwater.  I observed it but didn’t recognize what it was.  We spotted another one here in Haines, a wood frame underwater, and the light bulb went on.

Looking down on it from above.

At low tide, it’s completely exposed.

The idea is, you float your boat over the rack at high tide and tie it off to the pilings.

Then as the tide goes out, the boat is in a makeshift dry dock.

You’ve got several hours to work on it before the tide comes back in and floats it again.

Pure practical low-tech.  Brilliant!

The concept works pretty well here in Alaska where there is often a 10 to 12 foot tidal swing every day.  It would be a little harder to implement in South Texas where there is a 1 to 2 foot swing.