Epilogue

Well, I thought the End is in sight! post was our last one, but I just had to do an epilogue.  This is what we found on our garage door when we pulled in the driveway.  After 15 hours straight of flying/driving to get home (including a 40 minute nap at the Bay City rest area because neither of us could drive another foot at that point), it was so nice to see this!  Soooo nice to get home to our much-loved piece of Lake Margrethe.  It was great to get back to school, to catch up with friends at lunch, and just generally get back to our normal lives.  We loved the trip, and all the stunning scenery, but there's no place like home. . .

The end is in sight!

Here we are on our last day at the airport in Anchorage.  I know it has been long enough given the entertainment I get out of the littlest things.  Lynn had the lap top and was sitting to my left trying to get it hooked up to the internet at the terminal. Unbeknownst to her I had the mouse hidden down by my right leg.  I got such a kick out of watching her try to figure out what was wrong with the little arrow...she said "Randy, look what this is doing!"  Sure enough the little arrow was going round and round much to my amusement.

Last day today, we fly out in a few hours; our flight is at about 8 pm and we got here about 2...is there a message?  Reflections of our trip might be appropriate:
We started out about a month ago and I had grand ideas of fishing a lot and catching a bunch of this and that, all big and many of them.  As it turned out I only dipped a line a couple times and caught a few fish.  I did catch a very large
Dolly Vardan, probably 5 or 6 pounds which is very big for this specie.  I didn't know what it was, and was sure it wasn't a Dolly because of the size but Patsy Wiseman called it and later I discovered it indeed was a Dolly.  Fishing just didn't work on this trip.

We saw so much fantastic scenery comprised of everything from endless fields of hay in Montana and Alberta to snow capped mountains, mountains, mountains, mountains and mountains.  If you can get scenery overload, we got it.  Scary drives on the Cassiar Highway, the  Icefield Highway between Jasper and Banff, the badlands in North Dakota, the Canadian badlands, ferry rides to Haines and Whittier and most importantly Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump.

Our best fun was staying overnight in some RV park in the middle of a field, and sleeping in the van.  We got so we could dissemble the tent and pack the van in 1 hour flat...and just so you know, we could put it up faster than that.

Would I do it again? In a minute.  Would Lynn do it again?  She said it was a week too long, and if it were a week shorter she still would never consider doing it again...I think mostly she didn't like the sleeping in the van part or maybe the bathroom/shower arrangements.  She very much liked several of the places we stayed like the ranch in British Columbia, the cabin on the Tok cutoff, the Hilton in Calgary and the cottage in Homer.  Incidentally, Homer provided the best meal we could find anywhere at the Homestead Restaurant.

So, 6,406 miles in a 1994 rusty old conversion van with a broken exhaust manifold and only 2 issues the entire way; broken break line and one flat tire.  10 nights sleeping in the van...it just doesn't get any better!

And so we say good-bye to Edna:

She's just sitting there waiting now in the Park, Ride & Fly lot for Bert and Carrie Partello to pick her up and take her on their own adventures.

Anybody know what a road trip in Chile would be like?

Wasilla

Lynn: Randy has been on this little kick to collect bumper stickers from everywhere we have been; we're putting them on the back of the van as we go.  Randy; "And when we get the van back we can take the back doors off and hang them up as a souvenir."

 Remind you of anything, Max? So early on we decided that we must go to Wasilla to get a sticker; better yet if it had Sarah's face on it.  Oddly enough, we are actually staying here in Wasilla.  It was a good alternative to Anchorage, which has a poor selection of hotels.

Who Knew?

It's a larger town than I thought it would be; we actually took in a movie last night, which was a nice change of pace. Everything they offered was some kind of crazy violent action flick with lots of CGI, so we chose Red 2, which was silly but funny and entertaining.  I love anything with Mary Louise Parker, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich and Bruce Willis anyway.  Oh; and we found a really cute Mexican place for dinner.

Halibut fajitas!

Randy is off on a fishing quest today, as this is the last chance he will get, and I begged off and am kicking back with a Ken Follett book and Turner Classic Movies at the motel.

Randy: Who would think laundry could be such an issue?  We have a washer & dryer in the motel we are at, coin operated, but believe it or not the maid service uses it to do the motel laundry and motel guests must wait until the motel laundry is done...we do go 1st class!  So no problem, we packed up our sheets and laundry and drove to the laundromat in town.  I, having never used a laundromat, did not realize they have time limits at these places...no starting a wash after 8 pm.  Not to be confusing, the motel doesn't make you wash your own sheets and we didn't cut a deal on the room rate if we washed our own sheets.  We need to wash the sheets from our mobile bed so Bert & Carrie have clean sheets when they pick up the van (they have elected to do the return trip in the van).  We couldn't do this laundry earlier because we could not find the soap in the van and didn't locate it until this evening.  So tomorrow--we do laundry!

Not camping

7/31/2013
We started out in Homer this morning and drove and drove to Hope, stayed a bit, and drove to Anchorage where we have actually found a nice motel for about $140/night.  The motel cost has really been high, a Motel 6 runs about $150/night, so to stay under $200/night you really have to stop and search in the internet.   We have had to do this lately because Lynn seems to be all done with camping.  There was a great little National Park at Hope with fabulous campsites and she would have none of it...right on the shore of the Cook Inlet with mountain views and even level ground; only two sites down from the outhouse and about a block from the pump...pretty rare to find all this at a camp ground and space available.  I tried to explain all this but it made no difference, she had her heart set on a motel, so here we are at the Anchorage airport livin' la vida loca.  Last night we ate at a fantastic place and tonight its pizza in the motel room...life does have its swings.

I remembered Hope the minute I saw it.  I think that nothing has changed in the 10 years or so since we were there the first time.  Randy remembered that we had stayed in some little cabins right by Hope; when I saw them I remembered that we had stayed two nights there just to relax.  The cabins were nothing much.  Those same cabins today are going for $250.00/night!  Unreal.  I can't tell you how happy I am to be NOT camping.

Homer

7/31/2013
Lynn: Yesterday was kind of a foodie day.  This trip has been a mixed bag as far as food goes; everything from fresh fish and fried potatoes cooked out of doors to cheese sandwiches for dinner, but no really good meals.  Yesterday we wanted to go into town and just get a good burger for lunch, so we asked our landlady's son for a suggestion.  He said the Fresh Catch, out on the spit.  So we went there and had a most delicious regular burger and halibut burger and some kind of fries that were out of this world.

Then for dinner we went to a restaurant that we had found on Trip Advisor called The Homestead.  It is a log building about 8 miles east of Homer, with a view of the glaciers.  Very unprepossessing; you wouldn't think it was anything special, yet the dinner we had was one of the most memorable ever.  I had a dish of grilled wild shrimp and Kodiak scallops pan basted in a smoked orange reduction over herbed cranberry orzo, with broccoli. Randy had their Halibut special which was pan seared and served over basmati rice with a pesto sauce, and we tried some German wine we had never tired that was just perfect.  I found out later that this restaurant was mentioned in National Geographic Traveler Magazine as  "Worth Walking To If Necessary."

Homer is a cute little town.  It's the kind of place my brother, Don, would refer to as "artsy-fartsy".  Here are some pics:

Exhaustion

7/29/2013
Lynn:  Today was an exercise in endurance.  After 22 days on the road, 10 of those spent in campgrounds, we have just about hit our limit.  In order to get on the ferry from Valdez to Whittier this morning (you have to be there in line by 6:00 a.m.) we had to get up at 4:45 and take down the camp, pack everything back up and get ourselves cleaned up and ready to go.  We actually did it.  We took this same ferry trip many years ago when we came to Alaska and it was a lovely trip, with the captain doing tour-guide-type commentary along the way, pointing out wildlife and such.  This year, though, the weather was foggy almost all the way to Whittier and there was no commentary at all.  We tried to sleep on board, but to no avail.

Port of Valdez

They do grow lush, beautiful flowers in Alaska

In case you ever wanted to know, this is what Valdez looks like at 6:00 a.m.

This is the view when you come out of the tunnel at Whittier

Anyway, once we got to Whittier we then had to drive to Homer, where we have rented a cabin for two nights.  It was really hard to find, but it was worth it, and we are going to see if we can rent it for a third night.  When we got here, we immediately took naps; we were too tired to do anything else.

Part of the cabin.  If the pillows don't match the coverlet it's because we brought our own.  This place looks like it was built yesterday.

You can't see it here, but we have a mountain view

Primitive Camping, I think they call it.

7/27/2013

Lynn: Last night we had nowhere to stay but a tiny state campground called Liberty Falls Recreation Area.  It was in a pretty spot, adjacent to a waterfall, but cold and damp.  The ground was wet even though the day was sunny, and it was very difficult to camp there. 

 This is a state campground.  Its only amenity is an outhouse.  I must say, and I know I don't know anything about Alaska political history, but it seems to me that Alaska made a lot of money from the oil here.  I would think that the state government would have been awash in tax dollars.  However, they have done nothing to make this a place that is comfortable for tourists.  Michigan has clean, modern rest areas about every 40 miles.  Alaska has outhouses that they euphemistically call rest areas, even at their state areas such as the one at Thompson Pass where they have an interpretive center regarding the glaciers.

 Randy: I hate to say this because Alaska is so beautiful but I really am getting tired of the rip-off that Alaska is.  I understand price goes up when the tourist is in town, and I understand that I am one of those tourist animals to prey on.  It is not just a bit high priced or a lot high price, it is outrageously expensive!  Bottle of Pepsi is $2.50; ice pretty much is about $4.00 for a small bag; gas in Valdez is $4.50 (probably the best buy we have seen).  We were going to go to Seward to take a boat through the fjords but rooms are just ridiculous…Holiday Inn Express is $270.00/night and the Best Western is $325.00 and they are all in that range…so I think the fjords are not going to be for us.  The room prices everywhere are very high and it does not reflect a nice place to stay..these motels, for the most part are just adequate lodging, often some old somewhat renovated building.  Well, enough of that stuff…

We are in Valdez and the Pink Salmon are in!  My God are they in!  We went to a weir today on Prince William Sound; you know, the place where Exxon dumps its oil. At the mouth of the river there are millions of salmon trying to get into a closed river.  Fishing for them…they don’t feed at this point so force feeding.  The lady at the RV park we are staying in said you just kind of pull a spoon with a big treble hook through the salmon and you get one…she told me red spoons work the best…when I think about this it seems that spoon color probably is not as critical as the rod twitch you develop.  It seems like we use to do this in the dark and referred to it as snagging.

There are lots of people