OurTravels

We left pretty early from Florence (7:56a)  and arrived around 9:30a in La Spezia.  Our apartment was very close to the train station and we walked down a small hill toward it.   We found the place and Whatsapp’d the landlord and she told us how to get into the building and which floor to take the elevator.   It was a tiny old elevator, two of us and luggage was all that was possible to squeeze into it.

It was the kind that has a heavy metal door on the outside and two smaller doors into the cab.   The type that if you forget to close any of those doors the elevator will not move again till someone closes them.   So are all three places how that exact same type of elevator.

We lucked out and Vilma let us into our small apartments at 10a instead of the check-in time of 4pm.   That allowed us to unpack and head back to the train station to head over to the Cinque Terre town of Monterosso, the furthest town to the north.  We figured we would work our way back south later.

Stepping out of the train was the best ocean view I can remember seeing.  Hands down.   We walked around on the promenade and even took a stroll on the sandy beach.   We looked for gelatto but could only find the Tourist type so we passed on that.   We headed back to the train station after about about an hour and configured our Eurail passes to board a train to Cornigila.  An IC train arrived on the track at the time our train was to arrive so we figured it was the one.   It wasn’t and it took us all the way back to La Spezia skipping all the other Cinque Terre towns.  Turns out in Italy,  they schedule two trains for the same platform at the same time.  It happened to us again on Saturday, but we knew not to get on the train this time.  That time we did get to Cornigila and found the 383 Stairs to the town.

Saturday morning we headed out for the Cinque Terre early as we learned a cruise ship would be docking early in the morning.   We went to Vernazza first, and had a great breakfast overlooking the small harbor at the bottom of the town.   They places are just so cool.  When we were waiting for the train to head up to Monterosso we had an unexpected thing happen,  we were all standing on the platform and a train was coming thru the tunnel (there are LOTs of train tunnels in Italy, and the Cinque Terre seems to be all tunnels.  While standing there both Scott’s and my hat blew off from the strong wind coming out of the tunnel, apparently pushed by the fast moving train coming thru that wasn’t stopping at Vernazza.   After that we noticed all the train folks and police on the platform were holding onto their hats we trains came thru.  We went to Monterosso for a bit and then took the correct train to Cornigila.  But the stairs looked crazy so I opted out. (383 stairs up)  Glad I did as I heard the town at the top of the hill was a bit of a let down.

Then we headed down to Riomaggio for a drink on the cliff side with Tami and Scott over looking the ocean like Kathy and I had done Friday afternoon.  They had gone to a castle in La Spezia when we headed for the CT after getting into town.

After our drinks on the cliff we headed over to La Spezia to find our new favorite pizza place for lunch again.   Scott got the Fried Calzone this time and I heard a reference to a doughnut…

 

That evening we bought a couple beers and a bottle of wine and the ladies sat our on our balcony and we sat in the hallway chairs and drank lukewarm beer.

In the morning we took that same FreccArgento 8588 to Genoa.  We were the only ones in the first class car on the train.  It was a very nice and quiet ride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arrived after a 3 hr Frecca ride from Naples only to find a long queue for the Taxi’s that turned out to be an hour and a half wait.  The taxi’s came in one at a time at about 5 minute intervals.   Turns out there was a strike, that was supposedly called off… but I don’t think the message got out.

We take two taxis as they are too small for the 4 of us and our luggage.  Then we take 15 minutes to find the apartment.  There are 2 number 10’s on our street.   One is a shoe shop.  The other is in the back of gallery, and that one is ours.  It really fronts on a different street.   The info from the apt folks sucked, and it gets worse.   It was all electronic check in and when we get there NOT one of us has cell service at the doorway.   So we cannot get in.  Luckily for us, someone else comes there and goes inside so we get thru the first door.   Only to realize we do not have an apartment number nor a floor number of the apartment in the email from them.   WTH…  I take the miniature elevator to the first floor, all the lights are off.  another WTH..  and I find a placard with the company name on it.  Now, how the heck do we get in,  Still no cell service here, and it requires us to go to a web page to open the door.   But lower down in the email it mentions WiFi and a code.   Its a long password so it takes a bit to type it in and then I can get the web page up and open the door.  WTF..   We finally got in.  But it was a struggle each day all week long.

Saturday morning we visited the Academia Gallery to see David.  That place was a nice visit.  Afterward we walked over to a meeting place for a walking tour which turned out to be a superb tour with a great guide named Armando.  He grew up just outside of Florence and made the whole area come alive.   Best 2.5 hours spent so far.   At the end of that our dogs were barking pretty loudly.   We headed over to a great sandwich shop,  $5 for a large sandwich made right as you order it.  ($5 Euros, not dollars)  And brought them back to the apartment and ate lunch there.  The rooster on the wine bottle signified it was from Tuscany.  That is our guide Armondo holding it in front of our new favorite sandwich shop.  (La Nicchietta in Calimaruzza)

The next morning (Sunday) we had Uffizi Gallery Tickets and that place is huge.   We had lots of barking dogs after that mornings sights.

He also told us the story of the Wine Window.  Which was pretty cool.  And the tradition was restarted during Covid a few years back.    Kathy made us Chicken & rice for dinner at home that evening.

Monday turned out to be a bit gray and wet and luckily for all of us Tami had booked us for a Cooking class to learn how to make Pizza and Gelatto.  The pizza we each made was amazing!  And we learned the secrets of making gelatto and how to find places that make real gelatto, not the Tourist kind that is really ice cream

Tuesday,  Church over to Sbrio gelatto joint.  Michaelo Angelo Park, then took city bus on a tour of the city and got off at Porta Romana to head back to the apartment.   Dinner was spectacular at a very small place a short walk from the apartment called Gustapanino.  Pesto Pasta ears and 3 of the best tasting meatballs I have ever tasted.

 

Wednesday.   Huge line for the Duomo entrance, bailed when we walked soo far and couldn’t find the end,  Walked over to the Chocolate Market in front of St Croce church but it was not happening. Maybe its only on weekends, not sure.

Later we found a Panini {sandwich} place right around the corner for dinner then almost next door was a great Gelatto shop with non tourist gelatto.   (gelatto covered by lids is the secret,   the Gelatto piled up in the storefront is Tourist Gelatto.

The walking on Wednesday really did a number on my back so I laid low on Thursday.  Kathy took Tami and Scott back to the dinner place we had gone to on Tuesday night and I was happy to receive a takeout order they picked up from there when they came back.   This time I tried the steak and it was right up there with the meatballs in great tasting food.    Kind  of wish we had found that place earlier in our stay.

Friday, was our FreccaArgento to La Spezia (city 5 minutes south of the southernmost Cinque Terre town)  Those Frecca’s are older and a lot slower than the 1000’s and 500’s.  But it was a quick comfortable ride there.

 

Tuesday.  Apartment was an interesting place, outside it looked like it was falling down but the inside was brand new.  And we were 4 floors above ground, but thankfully there was a rickety old elevator that looked like it was added 100 years ago to straddle the circular staircase.   It took a while to check in as there as there was a booking.com snafu.   So that had us miss the train to Paestum to see the Greek temples.   Once I realized we had missed it I found the next train and it was leaving in 20 minutes, I got a hold of Scott to see if he still wanted to go.  He did, we walked very fast back to Napoli Centrale to catch it before it left us as the next train was leaving over an hour later and would have not been ideal as it was pretty late getting there.

We got to the train with 2 minutes to spare but we didn’t have seat reservations and I asked a young conductor lady if we could buy them on the train.  She was aghast saying it would cost so much more.  She even tried to use my phone to buy them but was unsuccessful.   I said we would pay the fine (15 Euro) and headed for the train,  she told us to get in Car #2.   We did.  This was a IC train, much faster than the regional s, but no where near the Frecca speeds.

She came by and again tried to help us buy the seat reservations but we could not due to some 30 minute rule, she even suggested buying them from a town further down the line for this same train but that 30 minute rule kicked in again.   After she tried to help us for probably 10 minutes she took off to see the tickets for others.  She did help us by not coming back to collect the fines.   After a while another conductor came by to see our tickets and then realized we had tix but no seat reservations and just walked away, never to  come back either.   The Italian folks are really very helpful!   The temples there were all I hoped for and a bit more!   Its well worth the time it takes to get there.

Wednesday: Amalfi Private Tour.  Wow   Lunch at an elegant place with a stunning view of the coast.    We arrived at the Circumvesuviana train depot,  below Napoli Centrale Station.  Its a commuter line, that runs down to Sorrento where our driver was to pick us up for our 8 hour tour of the coast.   It was similar to the NYC subway.  And almost as crowded.   We booked Francesco for the tour but he sent Attillo to drive us.  We were a bit disappointed but we were very happy as we went along the road.   We were very glad we did NOT try to drive this winding narrow road that was almost two lanes wide.  It was interesting as cars and buses came toward us.   We made a few roadside stops to take pictures and then hit the town of Positano.   Its quite a steep cliff-side village.   With one path/road down to the beaches way below.  Zillions of shops along the walks and stairs as we headed down toward the beach.  Close to the bottom I overheard a young girl tell her mom that they will have to drag their luggage all the way back up when they left..  Wise beyond her years for such a young person.   And of course after getting coffee and cookies and pastries we were going to have to do that same thing.  We were glad we didn’t have our luggage!!

Next we headed toward Almafi and walked around that town, I walked up the main road/walkway and Kathy, Scott and Tami walked up the steps to a big church.  I saw all those steps and decided I wasn’t interested in seeing the insides of another church enough to climb all those.    Then back to the Mercedes Mini van with Attillo and off to Ravenna for lunch and a look around.  We arrived and climbed another 50 stairs up to the piazza.   Then we were off to find an amazing restaurant with an incredible view of the coast.  Ristorante Sigligaida in the Hotel Rofolo.  It was one of the best lunches I’ve ever had.  The view was totally amazing with floor to ceiling glass.  Then it was around 3pm and we were off to head back to Napoli.  A truly amazing day.  We decided to let Atillio drive use back to Naples instead of our planned ride back from Sorrento via the CV train.  It was a much nicer ride.   We used our return tickets to take that train to Pompeii the next morning

Thursday:  Pompeii.   WOW   Took that same train down to Scavi Pompeii station and walked over to the Marina Porto entrance.   Along the way there are a few scammers trying to get you to go inside their shops saying that’s where folks with tickets online must go.  We passed them and walked right thru the entrance with our online tickets.  The first thing you see in Pompeii is at steep grade with what we are calling Ankle Breaker rocks for a road you have to walk on to get up to the town.   I was shocked to see most of the town is still standing.   Unlike the Roman Forum,  which was mostly detritus from what it once was.   A lot of the homes till had fresco’s painted on their walls, which was quite amazing considering it was buried over 2000 years ago in 79AD.  We walked around for over 3 hours and saw maybe 1/2 of what was there.   Kathy wasn’t feeling well so we bailed out close to the farthest place from where we needed to go back to.   We got outside the gates and looked for a bus, but pompei is small, next bus was in over an hour.   We opted for the only cab around.

We told the drive we wanted to go to the Train Station and he told me the trains were all broken and he’d have to drive us back to Naples.  Wow,  Anyway I told him we were meeting folks at the train station and to take us there anyway.  He wasn’t happy I called his bluff.  He begrudgingly took us there.  And then of course wouldn’t take a credit card and then shorted me $5 euro’s saying he didn’t have change.  Everything we were warned about.

The trains were running and we got there just in time for the next train north.  This time the train had padded seats!  And fewer stops too.   But it had a Jamaican bongo guy entertaining us right behind Kathy’s head, not helping her headache.

Went out for dinner after the Pompeii visit but it was 6pm and the restaurants didn’t open till 7pm.  Some nice young lady stopped and asked if we needed help.  She told us to go over to the old town for a nicer experience as we were in a sketchy part of Naples.   I ordered an Uber and we took it to Piazza Santa Maria La Nova for tapas

Walk back to our Apartment (a very long way)  Had 17,250 steps that day…

The next morning we boarded another Freccarossa for a ride to Florence

 

 

 

Taxi to Apartment,  then on the bus over to the Rome walking tour.   Which felt a bit like a forced march after being up since we left San Diego.   We ended our walk at the Trevi and then walked over toward the Pantheon for dinner.   Dinner was sub par.  The pasta tasted like Kraft Mac & Cheese.

Walked toward a bus stop and hopped on one to get back to home.   The busses are the bomb..`

Monday:   64 bus a moments walk from the apartment and dropped us off just a few minutes walk from the Pantheon,  I had bought tickets online that morning so there was no line!!  The place still awes me!  Later that evening we went back to the Trevi & Colloseum to get some pics at night!  Best time to go there!

Tuesday morning local train to Termini and take the Freccarossa to Naples.   Termini is huge, and it must have been close to a mile from the train we came in on to the platform for our Frecca.    And Wow,  VERY fast and smooth ride and very comfy seats on that Frecca.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were able to dump at Meziadin Junction (an awful experience)  and then drove the couple miles to the campground.  We had a great campsite facing the lake with an island right in front.  Next morning we drove to Hyder (Fish Creek) and to our surprise got to see “Runner” a Grizzly that was hungry for fresh Salmon and he put on a show for us.  It was raining and very cold, so after about an hour watching his antics,  I went back to the car and turned the heater on high.  Kathy and Sue and Larry stayed out watching him.  So incredible to see him so up close!!

On the drive back to Meziadin (more than an hour) we stopped by The Bus for lunch and were heartbroken to see a sign in the window next door at The Shack, that they were closed for the season.

We then drove across the border back into Canada and looked for a place to eat.  The only place open in Stewart, Canada, was a small trailer next to the grocery store that only served pulled pork sandwiches.  The owner told us that the Mexican restaurant closed when they all got deported.  The hotel could get no staff to open its restaurant, and the pizza place is hit or miss because they can also not get any staff.   And the bakery was just closed that day.  So pulled pork was for lunch.

To our surprise we got a text from friends of ours that were traveling in Alaska too, we had met up with them in Quartz Creek (Coopers Landing) and weren’t thinking we would see them again till probably Christmas back in San Diego, but now they were joining us the next day.   That was really nice to see more folks we knew while on this very long journey.

They arrived the next day and coincidentally around the same time, new acquaintances arrived that day too.  We had not met Devin and Cheryl before.  We all had a few happy hours together while staying at Meziadin Lake.   Scott, Tami, Kathy and I drove back down to Hyder that following morning, but we didn’t get to see any bears in the creek.  The rangers mentioned that Runner hadn’t been back in a couple days.

After hanging out, we drove back over to Stewart (from Hyder, Ak) and the only place open this time was the bakery.   Scott and I had the dipped beef (aka french dip)  Apparently the French speaking folks from Quebec aren’t on their friends list.   The sandwich was really good.  Personally it was much better than the pulled pork sandwich from the other day.

On the long drive back to Meziadin, we took a few pictures of the Bear Glacier.   It was a lot smaller than it was back in 2019.

 

One afternoon we drove over to the Fishway to take some photos.  Got to watch the salmon trying to jump up the small dams waterfall instead of going up the fish ladder. Hopefully they figured that out and got upstream, which I surmised was Meziadin Lake.

Our last day there Greg and Cheryl drove up and got a lake front site next to Larry and Sue.  The rest of their group camped down at Big Bear in Stewart.   That evening there (a VERY windy evening)  someone spotted a Grizzly just across from us on the island.  Within minutes we had quite a throng of people in front of our coaches taking pictures with all sorts of cameras, large and small.

The following morning we said our goodbyes, assuming we wouldn’t see any of them for a while.  But again, we were pleasantly surprised to see Scott and Tami in Prince George a few days after we left them.  Devin and Cheryl also stopped by in PG to say hi.

 

 

 

 

We picked a waterfront site at Kinaskan Lake Provincial Park.  It’s a First Come, First Served Campground (FCFS)  It was Site 11 and had a nice small rocky beach out front.  These are no hookup sites, not even a dump station close by.  We were here for 5 nights.  It was supposed to be 7, but I realized we would need a dump between Boya and here; so I chose to stop at a small campground in Dease Lake, (not close to the lake at all)  so we could dump and do a few loads of laundry and add some supplies after 7 nights at Boya dry camping with nothing at all around there.

Turns out we picked up a lot of mice in Dease, and I was deploying mouse traps,   I was able to get 2 of them while there and drove back to Iskut to see if I could buy more Tom Cat Sticky Traps.  Nope, so we ended up moving on to Meziadin Lake carrying 5 more mice.

We ran into a couple there that the prior afternoon someone tried to steal their small boat engine.  Turned out it was too heavy and they dropped it into the lake.   The owner fished it out.  Our friends were walking around over there and saw a couple guys come in, drive right to where it was dropped and searched for it, probably to put it in their black truck and drive away.    Our friends walked away without getting a picture of the truck’s plates, darn it.

The last night at Kinaskan Lake, two groups of horses trotted by our site.  We had not seen anything like that before.  There was no one with them, but it looked like they knew where they were heading.

 

 

 

 

 

We read that the road was still closed in the morning we were to leave, but we decided to go there and wait till it opened again as it was opening and closing quite often the prior few days.

On the way to the turnoff for the Cassiar, a couple of dogs were in the road; so we stopped and waited for them to get off the road, but instead of that they ran over to our bus and started running around in front and back of us.  I kept creeping forward, but that didn’t deter them and they continued to stay way too close.  Finally the one that was running in front of us went and joined the one behind us and we quickly took off.  Larry & Sue got around them fairly soon afterward.  Little did we know it was going to get a bit nuttier in just a little while.

We drove about 30 miles south on the Cassiar thru dense smoke and finally came upon the road closure gate and a flagman.  He came over and said the road was open again and a pilot car would be back for us in about an hour or so.

Then it only took about 60 seconds and we were told to move!  A yellow truck backed up in front of us and then took off.  I jumped back into the driver’s seat and let the air brakes off and shifted into gear and took off after him.  Mr. Toad soon came out on this 35 mph road and the pilot truck was doing close to 60 mph and was pulling away fast.  Not wanting to be left for dead, we started going a lot faster, first to catch back up to him so we could keep him in sight, then to match his 55-60 mph speed.  Now, this is a very narrow winding and bumpy road first in the Yukon, then crossing the border into British Columbia.  It definitely reminded us of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland!!!

For some reason the smoke we were driving in was now gone, but we could see it all around in the distance, which was nice.  We did keep getting closer and closer to the billowing clouds of smoke.  Then it seemed we passed the fires, but within 5 minutes we could see what looked like fog in the distance, but it was smoke.  As we got closer, we could see it was right on both sides of the road we were driving on.

The pilot car kept jamming down the road and within a few minutes we were driving between the fires on both sides of the road.  Luckily the flames there were small and posed no real risk to us.  Seems most of the fuel along the roadway was burned up.  There were just a few things still burning.   That stretch was about a mile long and then we were out of it and the pilot car pulled over and let us all by.

The next twenty miles were clear blue skies and no smoke at all.  The wind was blowing the smoke north and east toward Watson Lake, not south toward Boya Lake!

We got to the campground around 11 in the morning and pulled into our sites.   They are nice, long crescent-shaped pull-thru’s right on the lake front.  We just love this lake and the incredible color.

Kathy went Kayaking on the lake for a couple of hours with Larry and Sue.

Kathy visited Jade City with Larry and Sue while I stayed behind with Dusty and I started looking into fixing the slide problem we were having.  I had to move the coach over a bit to allow the cargo bay doors to open fully.  This campground places very large rocks to delineate the edge of the campsites to the roadway.

While looking at the slide motor and gears that it drives to move the slide in and out, I noticed the shear pin holes were very elongated, leaving a lot of play. I figured that my problem was associated with that and started to remove the square tubes that drove the gears.  First the right one.  I took it off and cut off about an inch from the end of each side (it’s actually 2 square tubes, one fits inside the other) and then re-drilled the holes for the shear pins.   That right side was easy.   The left side was not easy at all.

The first issues was the shear pins were bent, preventing them from coming out after removing the nuts holding them on.  I had to cut the heads off them with my Hackzall.  My guess is they used cheap Chinese shear pins, as they shouldn’t bend.  They are hardened and should just snap like they are intended to do.

Once both those pins were out, I became aware of a special grommet that the tube passed thru on the bulkhead between the cargo bay and slide gear that is above the propane tank. (not in the cargo bay but open to the outside)  The tube passed thru it and allowed it to spin but blocked water and dirt from getting into the cargo bay.  (aka the basement)  It was a bear to get that tube to slide thru that grommet so I could remove it completely to cut the ends and re-drill its shear pin holes.   Larry came by and saw me struggling to get that out and offered to help.   It still took another hour to get it out of the coach.   Clearly a bigger hammer was needed!

Once out, I cut off the ends and re-drilled the holes and put it back in.  It went in thru the grommet a bit easier than it came out, but still wasn’t easy.  Lots and lots of spray lube eventually helped get it out and to get it back in.

After we were all done and the tools were put away, I tested it.  It wasn’t fixed.  Now the real work begins.

Boya Lake is in a forest, so Starlink had a real hard time connecting to the satellites.  It was blocked more than 95% of the time, saying “obstructions” every 1 minute.  We were still able to get on the internet, but it was painfully annoying to have it start and stop constantly.  Although downloads worked fine as they just restart where they were when it gets connectivity again.  Thank god for Pop Mail!    If I had to use a web browser to get our email, life would have been pretty bad.

I’m writing this blog post as we sit at Meziadin Lake Provincial Park and were talking to a couple that pulled in a few day after us and they had just come from Boya and he has his Starlink Dishy mounted on a 20′ Harbor Freight Flag Pole  that he uses wood clamps to hold against the lip on the side of his deployed slide.  (ingenious!)

A couple of days prior to our check-out we woke up and it was 29 degrees and there was a dusting of snow on the mountains surrounding Boya Lake.   That was a wake-up call that we may have overstayed our welcome…

After 7 nights there, we headed out to Dease Lake and Kinaskan lake for the next 7 nights.

 

 

 

We drove from Skagway to Teslin Lake and stayed at the Yukon Motel and RV Park for a night.  It’s a good halfway point when heading to Watson Lake.  It provides 30 amp power and water, but no sewer.

The next morning we drove to Watson Lake to put our signs up in the Sign Forest.  It was a beautiful, sunny day and quite warm, an experience this trip has been lacking.

We stayed at Downtown RV, a place we really didn’t appreciate the first time coming up to Alaska, but at that time we didn’t have a washer/dryer in the bus.  We had it put in just after we got home that fall, and we still cannot believe we waited so long.

So here in Watson Lake Kathy could easily do a bunch of loads in the convenience of the coach.  I think I carried a load or two over to the campground laundry too. The internal W/D can only do small loads, so going to a campground laundry can be helpful with a bunch of towels and sheets or blue jeans.

The day after getting there, we all headed over to the Sign Forest to find spots to hang our signs.  We chose a spot very close to our sign from 2019, and I stood pretty high up on the ladder to bolt it  onto the provided 4×4.  Larry & Sue went a ways over, far from their prior 2 signs, and attached theirs.  It was nice and warm, maybe 80 degrees, much nicer than the last sign hanging that was probably 33 degrees and raining, intermittently snowing, back on August 17th, 2019.

We also headed to the small well- stocked grocery store and filled up on foodstuffs for the 3-week trek down the Cassiar Highway.   It got a bit smokey from the fire just a bit down that highway, so we were going to be glad to leave, but we had to go down the highway with the forest burning on both sides.  But that is for another post.  Look for Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride…

Some very interesting clouds were out that day.  Chris told us they were lenticular clouds and then sent us a satellite view showing them right in the area of Canada that we were in!!!

The drive over to Skagway was extremely beautiful all the way to the grade down to Skagway, then it turned into an 11% grade for 14 miles into town.   But the views out our huge windshield were probably the best we had ever seen in the 60,000 miles of travel in our motorhome.  I really had to concentrate and only peek at the views, not wanting to drive off the cliff, and to keep these 40,000 pounds of bananas from wanting to go 100 mph down that steep windy narrow road.

About halfway down the mountain we encountered the US border checkpoint (Skagway is back in Alaska).  There was another long line; but after a little bit and not moving ahead very much, we could see a guard waved us up to the front of the line in a lane to the right that had been blocked off.  Little did we know they were pulling over motorhomes for food searches this time.

After answering all the questions, we were asked to pull out and over to the right out of the traffic lanes so a border guard could come inside to inspect our food.   When I saw a new guard approaching with a 5 gallon bucket, I knew we were in for something…

He ended up taking two dozen eggs, 2 lbs. of deli lunch meat, a tomato, and a bell pepper, saying you couldn’t bring them into the US due to bird flu in Canada.   I was really wondering how cooked turkey lunch meat could spread bird flu, not to mention eggs, but they were already gone.  I bet those guards have a great “free” breakfast of Denver Omelets each day, and turkey sandwiches galore.

After driving downhill for a few more steep miles, we got down to sea level and into the town of Skagway.    We had a reservation for 5 nights at Pullen Creek Campground, which was located just a few hundred feet from the harbor with all the big ships that are docked on the southern berths and with a close view of the ships.

 

The railroad was just on the other side of the small park between us and the town, so we got a rude awaking the next morning at 6 am from a train horn at a road crossing about 100 feet from us.  The train horns went off numerous times a day.  This campground turned out to be the noisiest place we had ever camped, but it was fun nevertheless, and the best people watching since everyone from the cruise ship walked by our campsite.   We could even hear the loud speakers from the ships’ PA systems some mornings.  You couldn’t really make out what they were saying, but it wasn’t quiet.

The town is a Hoot!  Lots of shops, bars and restaurants to experience.  And more jewelry stores than seemed warranted, but I guess the throngs of cruise ship folks need to part with their money as quickly as possible.  We wandered around for a long time and then started looking for  a restaurant with a patio where we could eat dinner that would allow dusty.  We tried Skagway Brewery as they had a large patio, but pets could only be out there when the kitchen was closed for that area.. (odd)  But they said we could go upstairs and order take-out and bring it back down there and eat in there.  I believe they were still selling beer on the patio, just not food during doggie access hours.   We ended up finding the Skagway Fish Company  (SFC), but it had just closed for the evening, so we headed back to our wheeled homes for dinner “in”.

The next evening we walked over to the SFC for dinner and sat outside watching the throngs of people heading back to their cruise ships before they shoved off and left them there.   The restaurant had pretty good food, but our waiter was an ass.  His tip suffered as he continued to have a bad attitude for the whole dinner.  Never experienced that before, especially at a pretty high priced meal with several alcoholic drinks.

At noon on Tuesday we had a reservation for the Skagway & White Pass railway to ride it to the top of White Pass.   Some of the rail was on very narrow ledges with drop-off cliffs.   The railway tracks were narrow gauge, which means the tracks look way too close together.   Narrow gauge is 36″ wide and regular tracks are 54″ wide.  It almost seems like the cars should topple over sideways with a slight breeze.  But, fortunately for us, they only looked like that might happen, but they don’t.

During the summer the trains run constantly from 6 am till about 5 pm, lots and lots of trains coming and going.  They only do tours, it doesn’t seem like they are used for freight, but I am not sure of that.  We did hear whistles a few times late at night, but I figured they may be moving trains over to the maintenance yard.   They had lots of new engines. They looked brand new to me.  I imagine that was a huge capitol investment.  I guess they only have a finite window to make money while the cruise ships are in port and they didn’t want a broken locomotive to potentially stop the revenue “machine”.

 

The train ride was fun and the views were breathtaking.   I don’t know how many trains are on the tracks at the same time, but there were at least 6 trains that passed us going the other way during our trip.   There were at least 4 areas where they could pass you and seemed to be timed well so very little time was spent stopped while another train went past.   All the passenger cars looked in very good shape, meant to look old, but well kept.

Tuesday evening  during happy hour we started talking about the drive out of Skagway on that steep grade, but this time uphill.   Lightening the load seemed to be a good idea.   We eventually decided the gals would drive the cars up instead of us pulling them (they are an extra 4,000 lbs. each)  We also used up most of the 100 gallons of fresh water, lowering that weight from 1,000 lbs. to about 150 lbs.   Dumping the other tanks was a no-brainier as they were probably weighing in around 1,100 lbs. of unneeded weight.  So all in we jettisoned around 6,000 lbs. of weight for the trip up the mountain.

We drove off in the morning and of course we got stuck behind a double tanker truck struggling with a full load of fuel to get up the grade.  It never really got above 20 mph till it hit the top, where it disappeared quickly leaving us in its dust while we hooked up our cars for the rest of the trip to Teslin Lake.   We stopped for the Canadian border station not far from the top of the mountain, which was a bit different than the norm, as the guard was up in a window much higher than the normal border stop windows.  He was actually a bit higher than us, so we were looking up at him,  We had not seen that before.  No issues at the Canadian border again.  Apparently only US border guards are problematic and very picky about the food.

We drove on for a while and stopped at a pull-out overlook of Nares Lake and Bove Island just about 1/4 mile from shore for lunch.  This is probably one of the best parts of traveling, being able to pull over anywhere we want to stop for lunch and walk around a bit before traveling on down the highway.

Not but a few miles after we got back on the highway, we came around a downhill curve at speed and there was a car stopped in the middle of the road.   Assuming there must be some large animal in front of him, I slammed on the brakes, and at that moment wondered what might be hurtling toward our heads from behind due to that.   Larry was a bit closer than normal and I worried that he could plow into us, but he was paying attention and was able to stop too.   Turns out the Clown had stopped in the middle of the road there on this  downhill blind corner to watch a bear over near the tree line.   I cannot imagine if he had done that in front of that fast moving double fuel tanker we had followed up the hill.  I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have been able to stop fast enough and this bozo was smack dab in the middle of the highway.

The rest of the drive to Teslin Lake was thankfully uneventful.  We camped overnight at the Yukon Motel and Campground right on the lake and next to the long bridge they are replacing.  Lots of noise (pile driving)  in the morning.

 

We arrived at a KOA on the Chena River in the afternoon after a drive from Denali NP.   It turned out to be a fairly nice KOA. We normally avoid them as they aren’t usually very nice, but this was the exception to that rule.  We spent a few days there and re-stocked up on everything we were low on or out of,  mostly groceries and I even got a badly needed haircut.  One afternoon, Kathy and Dusty were down by the river and saw a moose mom and baby in the river!

 

The second day there it started getting smokey, and by the day we left it was very smokey.  We did the normal tourist traps, like the North Pole gift store and the Museum at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks also.

Kathy and I drove out to the Turtle Club, a restaurant out in the middle of nowhere along the Dalton Highway north of Fairbanks.  It was an odd place, with nothing near it.   As we were getting close, according to the navigation, I was thinking it was taking us to something that wasn’t there.  But we came around a corner and there was a large, very full parking lot and a low building behind it.   The food was good, but nothing to write home to mom about.

That last morning we filled up the fresh water tank and emptied the others for a few days dry camping at Clearwater State Recreation Area Campground, a FCFS place.  We left early so we would have a better chance of finding a spot we could fit into.   It was a nice campground and the town of Delta Junction was a few miles away.

Delta Junction is the northern end of the Alaska Highway.  We did the usual checking out the place prior to heading out to Tok, Alaska, our last stop on the Alcan inside Alaska.  While camping in Tok for a couple nights, we walked over to Fast Eddies for Halibut.  It was very good!

 

 

 

 

 

We then headed for the long, slow drive to Discovery Yukon, about 20 miles past Beaver Creek.

On the way we had to stop at the Canadian Border check point.   That was quite the bottle neck as only one lane was open and it took at least an hour for us to get to the window.   Nothing special, all the usual questions we had gotten before.

We stopped at the Discovery Yukon Lodge for one night and then pressed on in the morning for 4 more dry camping nights in Congdon Creek.   We again took site 9, and Larry and Sue took #2-3 this time.  And that site lived up to what I had been told by a local the last time we camped in CC,  it was like a wind tunnel three of the four days there.   I was pretty happy I hadn’t tried it.

After 4 nights there, we headed off to Whitehorse where we had reservations at Sanchez’s Mexican Restaurant.  Last time we had to sit outside as all the tables inside had been reserved prior to us arriving.  Live and learn, who knew you would need reservations there.  I guess it was because our favorite spot had closed earlier in the year.  That was very sad news for all of us, and probably many others.   I suspect the pandemic drained their bank accounts and then the labor shortage did the rest once the tourists came back.

We stayed two nights in Whitehorse instead of 5, and added those nights to Congdon Creek’s 1 night stay, making it 4 nights there.

The last morning there we packed up and headed for the relatively short drive to Skagway.  What a spectacular drive that turned out to be, quite an adventure.