Well, here we are on Sunday afternoon not doing much. We have had the TV on the USA channel all day watching movies and we have only left the room twice today. I guess you could say we are taking full advantage of this opportunity to relax. We went down for breakfast this morning about 8:30 and went for an early afternoon walk for about 45 minutes. We have been out and about the last few days taking care of things and learning our way around town. We don't have any new and exciting pictures to add today but I am sure we will later this week. I just wanted to check in with everybody and let you all know that we are doing well.
The exciting thing that has been happening this week is the eruption of Volcano Mt. Redoubt. It has erupted several times since last Sunday March 22. One of the worst eruptions was yesterday and it sent an ash cloud soaring over Anchorage and the surrounding areas. We had a significant ash fall, which amounted to something similar to a dusting of snow we get back home. When we went out for our walk we went over to the truck and Kevin blew on the windshield and the ash slid down and gathered on the windshield wipers. All the beautiful white snow on the ground took on a gray shade when the ash fell. The officials were encouraging people to stay indoors and not run their cars for several hours last night, they also advised people to make sure their doors and windows were sealed. They even shut down the whole airport. Although, they have cancelled several flights over the last several days yesterday was the worst so far.
The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) has some interesting info and pictures if you are interested in learning more: www.avo.alaska.edu From the home page, hover over the Current Volcanic Activity tab, when the menu pops down, click on Redoubt. If you click on the images of current activity at Redoubt, you will be able to see several pictures of the recent activity. There are several pages of pictures to see. The really are cool, a little scary, but cool.
Keep an eye on the blog later this week. We hope to be able to post a new update after we arrive at the lodge on Wednesday. We are supposed to have wireless Internet up there, but I am unsure of the status of it when we get there since we will be among the first to arrive at the property. Have a good week!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Day 12!
We have made it to Anchorage.
We left Tok this morning around 8:30 (after waking up to a few more inches of snow on the ground) and started our leisurely drive to Anchorage. Today was by far the most amazing. Around every curve of the road was a new vision, some better than the last. There were several times today that we said WOW! Look at that! We saw five moose today and drove high into the mountains in the tundra area (the area that is so high very small if any trees grow). I will get some pictures posted in a little while. It takes so long to load the pictures and I wanted to get this post on before we go to dinner. Sorry, you will just have to wait a little bit and probably until tomorrow morning for the pictures since we are 4 hours behind most of you. No fun or exciting story's to tell you about today, sorry!
To celebrate our arrival, we are going to dinner at one of our favorite places: TGIFriday's for a good Jack Daniels Steak and potatoes, I can't wait, my mouth is already watering!
We will be here until next Wednesday, April 1. We will leave that morning and head up to Denali National Park to the McKinley Chalets where we will be working. That means we have a week here in this beautiful city. We plan to meet with an agent at State Farm and get our insurance matters settled, find a mechanic to have the truck serviced (just general stuff that you have to have done after putting over 4600 miles on your car in less than 2 weeks), find a bank and get accounts set up, do a little apartment hunting for when we move back here in October and check in with a couple of places we interviewed with back in October 2008 to let them know we are in town and will be looking for work this October.
We miss everyone and want to thank you all for following along on our blog. We will continue to post updates as we go along, probably not everyday at this point but when new and exciting things happen we will let you know. I will of course continue to put on pictures of cool things we see. I hope to get some good pics of the northern lights after we get up to the lodge, they are next to impossible to see here in the city because of all the lights in town. Stay tuned!
We left Tok this morning around 8:30 (after waking up to a few more inches of snow on the ground) and started our leisurely drive to Anchorage. Today was by far the most amazing. Around every curve of the road was a new vision, some better than the last. There were several times today that we said WOW! Look at that! We saw five moose today and drove high into the mountains in the tundra area (the area that is so high very small if any trees grow). I will get some pictures posted in a little while. It takes so long to load the pictures and I wanted to get this post on before we go to dinner. Sorry, you will just have to wait a little bit and probably until tomorrow morning for the pictures since we are 4 hours behind most of you. No fun or exciting story's to tell you about today, sorry!
To celebrate our arrival, we are going to dinner at one of our favorite places: TGIFriday's for a good Jack Daniels Steak and potatoes, I can't wait, my mouth is already watering!
We will be here until next Wednesday, April 1. We will leave that morning and head up to Denali National Park to the McKinley Chalets where we will be working. That means we have a week here in this beautiful city. We plan to meet with an agent at State Farm and get our insurance matters settled, find a mechanic to have the truck serviced (just general stuff that you have to have done after putting over 4600 miles on your car in less than 2 weeks), find a bank and get accounts set up, do a little apartment hunting for when we move back here in October and check in with a couple of places we interviewed with back in October 2008 to let them know we are in town and will be looking for work this October.
We miss everyone and want to thank you all for following along on our blog. We will continue to post updates as we go along, probably not everyday at this point but when new and exciting things happen we will let you know. I will of course continue to put on pictures of cool things we see. I hope to get some good pics of the northern lights after we get up to the lodge, they are next to impossible to see here in the city because of all the lights in town. Stay tuned!
Monday, March 23, 2009
Day 11!
We are finally in Alaska!!! It feels so good to be back on American soil. We are in the town of Tok, Alaska about 319 miles northeast of Anchorage.
We left Whitehorse, YT this morning about 7:30 AM Pacific Time and crossed into Alaska at 12:45 PM Alaska Time (4 hours behind Eastern Time). It was a breeze crossing back into the United States too, we were there less than 5 minutes. The scenery was beautiful yet again today and there should be more of the same tomorrow. We did have some snow showers off and on all morning and lots of cloud cover, but the afternoon was gorgeous with plenty of sun. We also hit a high today of around freezing. Tomorrow should be about the same. We did see another moose today and got a picture of it. Nothing really exciting happened today other than we jarred ourselves silly on the frost heaved road driving north from Beaver Creek to the border. Beaver Creek was just a little town that during the summer would have been a cute town to visit in, but in the off season there was only 1 gas station open that only had premium gas and none of the hotel/motels were open.
We have also seen a ton of people on snow machines the last few days, Kevin has already started is savings fund to get his own. It looks like a bunch of fun! I guess you could say we are trading our boat and camper in for snow machines. I am thinking if Kevin has one then I should too.
Hope you enjoy the pictures from today, they are just an assortment of the scenery (the pics don't do it justice). Tomorrow we will drive into Anchorage where we will set up camp (that means stay in one hotel room) for about a week.
This is the moose!
This is at the border of Alaska and Canada. In the first picture, we are looking south with Canada on the left and Alaska on the right. In the second picture we are looking north with Alaska on the left and Canada on the right. There is a 20 foot wide cut through the trees to mark the border, you can see this cut out goes on as far as you can see.
Day 10!
Today was probably the best day so far. However, we are getting tired of hotel hopping, but we are not getting tired of the beautiful scenery.
This has been an absolute wonderful last couple of days. We got up and moving this morning early in order to make it to our 7:15 reserved pre-paid breakfast. It was actually wonderful. We sat in the corning of the dining room where we could see out both sets of windows hoping to see a moose or wolves, but we didn’t.
After breakfast we had a little trouble with the truck, when Kevin went out to load our stuff he opened the passenger side door and when he tried to close it, it wouldn’t latch shut. Somehow the latch froze open, yes I said FROZE!!!!! It was a little chilly this morning. We found the maintenance person that worked there and he and Kevin were able to fix it in a matter or a few minutes. They actually spent more time chatting than anything else. That was just the beginning of our dealings with really nice people today.
With the door fixed we loaded up and drove on away from our expensive rendezvous to a little place called Liard River Hot Springs. First of all, if you have never had the opportunity to dip into a hot spring, DO IT!!! This is something that should be on everyone’s bucket list. If you have done it, well you know what I am speaking of. The air temperature was somewhere around 10⁰ F with the wind-chill even colder. When we first got there, we were the only tourist there and we met a VERY nice man – Arvin. He was the park maintenance man (what is it with maintenance men being so nice, I hope Kevin is this nice when he is working maintenance at the lodge this summer) and he was more than happy to take a little break from shoveling snow off the path to walk us back to the hot springs and give us some info. He showed us where the dressing rooms were (mind you this is at a park campground type place) and the bathrooms (I mean glorified outhouses) and told us about the temps of the pools. So after a brief discussion (about 10 seconds) we decided that we had to try it. Back to the truck we went for the bathing suits and towels. As we were walking back down the path, Kevin accidentally stepped off the boardwalk into the snow. Before I knew it his whole leg was buried and he was practically sitting on the boardwalk, that is some deep snow! The bathing suits were easy to get to (I packed them in the suitcase we take taking into the hotel rooms every night) but the towels were a different story. Yes, Sissa I remember that we packed them into the coolers and put the coolers on the rack on the back of the truck, howsomever, the pad lock we locked the cable with that we secured our belongings with was frozen. Enter our knight in shining armor – Arvin, he tried to help us get the lock open but then decided it would be easier for him to run to his house and let us borrow a couple of his towels, he was gone and back in a flash – literally. So off we went to the “dressing rooms” to change. Might I remind you that it was in the area of 10⁰ and the dressing rooms were NOT heated, there was even ice on the floor of the “dressing room”. So we strip down, put on the swimsuits and VERY carefully walk down the icy steps barefooted into the 125⁰ (and hotter in the upper section) spring. We both tried to keep our hair dry, but to no avail mine got a little wet anyway and turned to icicles. Even though I am quite embarrassed at how awful I look in a bathing suit, I am posting a picture of me that Kevin took just to prove what idiots we are. I still suggest that everyone try this if ever given the opportunity. Oh yeah, we saw a cow moose as we walked down the path to the springs, check it out:
We rolled into Whitehorse, Yukon (YT) about 6:15 this evening and got a room at the Best Western. We were able to talk the very nice front desk agent down from $139 to $109 for the night, Waahoo! Even though there is not breakfast included, we have a really nice room and wireless Internet.
This has been an absolute wonderful last couple of days. We got up and moving this morning early in order to make it to our 7:15 reserved pre-paid breakfast. It was actually wonderful. We sat in the corning of the dining room where we could see out both sets of windows hoping to see a moose or wolves, but we didn’t.
After breakfast we had a little trouble with the truck, when Kevin went out to load our stuff he opened the passenger side door and when he tried to close it, it wouldn’t latch shut. Somehow the latch froze open, yes I said FROZE!!!!! It was a little chilly this morning. We found the maintenance person that worked there and he and Kevin were able to fix it in a matter or a few minutes. They actually spent more time chatting than anything else. That was just the beginning of our dealings with really nice people today.
With the door fixed we loaded up and drove on away from our expensive rendezvous to a little place called Liard River Hot Springs. First of all, if you have never had the opportunity to dip into a hot spring, DO IT!!! This is something that should be on everyone’s bucket list. If you have done it, well you know what I am speaking of. The air temperature was somewhere around 10⁰ F with the wind-chill even colder. When we first got there, we were the only tourist there and we met a VERY nice man – Arvin. He was the park maintenance man (what is it with maintenance men being so nice, I hope Kevin is this nice when he is working maintenance at the lodge this summer) and he was more than happy to take a little break from shoveling snow off the path to walk us back to the hot springs and give us some info. He showed us where the dressing rooms were (mind you this is at a park campground type place) and the bathrooms (I mean glorified outhouses) and told us about the temps of the pools. So after a brief discussion (about 10 seconds) we decided that we had to try it. Back to the truck we went for the bathing suits and towels. As we were walking back down the path, Kevin accidentally stepped off the boardwalk into the snow. Before I knew it his whole leg was buried and he was practically sitting on the boardwalk, that is some deep snow! The bathing suits were easy to get to (I packed them in the suitcase we take taking into the hotel rooms every night) but the towels were a different story. Yes, Sissa I remember that we packed them into the coolers and put the coolers on the rack on the back of the truck, howsomever, the pad lock we locked the cable with that we secured our belongings with was frozen. Enter our knight in shining armor – Arvin, he tried to help us get the lock open but then decided it would be easier for him to run to his house and let us borrow a couple of his towels, he was gone and back in a flash – literally. So off we went to the “dressing rooms” to change. Might I remind you that it was in the area of 10⁰ and the dressing rooms were NOT heated, there was even ice on the floor of the “dressing room”. So we strip down, put on the swimsuits and VERY carefully walk down the icy steps barefooted into the 125⁰ (and hotter in the upper section) spring. We both tried to keep our hair dry, but to no avail mine got a little wet anyway and turned to icicles. Even though I am quite embarrassed at how awful I look in a bathing suit, I am posting a picture of me that Kevin took just to prove what idiots we are. I still suggest that everyone try this if ever given the opportunity. Oh yeah, we saw a cow moose as we walked down the path to the springs, check it out:
After leaving the hot springs we motored on down the mountains and passed SEVERAL buffalo/bison on the way – see blog header picture.
Moving on up the highway, we stopped off in the town of Watson Lake to take in the sights of the sign post yard. This was really cool, any traveler that comes through can nail a sign up to a post. There are literally hundreds of posts with signs on them. Each post is at least 10 feet tall. The picture below is just a fraction of the whole thing. Also, here is Kevin standing on the walk way to the door of the visitor’s center (which was closed for the season).
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful until we got to an overlook looking down at the town of Teslin and Teslin Lake, this is where the day got really funny. Here is Kevin to tell the story: “We pulled into the overlook where Teresa wanted to take some pictures. I see her open the door and swing her legs out of the truck and within a matter of seconds she disappeared clean out of sight. I heard and ow, ow, ow, so after I finished reading what I was reading in the Milepost and taking a few pictures, I went around the truck to find her laying on the ground. She was holding her butt in one hand and the camera high in the air in the other hand. I asked her if she was alright, she said ‘I’m hurting but I saved the camera’. So I reached down and took the camera and safely set it in the front seat then started back around the front of the truck only to hear Teresa say ‘what about me?’. So, I told her to get up and take her pictures. It was extremely funny at the time, maybe you had to be there. We both laughed.” Ok, well you all know how Kevin likes to tell stories, but this one is mostly true. I did fall getting out of the truck but in my defense, the parking lot was covered in ice. I hit my right butt on the side of the truck at the bottom of the door and landed on my left hip. But, I did protect the camera! Here is the picture that made it all worth it. BTW, I am bruised but no lasting damage done, I guess being fat has it’s advantages – extra padding when you fall on your butt!
We rolled into Whitehorse, Yukon (YT) about 6:15 this evening and got a room at the Best Western. We were able to talk the very nice front desk agent down from $139 to $109 for the night, Waahoo! Even though there is not breakfast included, we have a really nice room and wireless Internet.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Day 10! Coming soon.
Day 9! Take two. . . is just the update of what else happened yesterday since I didn't get to put a lot of details on yesterday evening. I am working on Day 10! and will add that as soon as possible. BTW, we are Pacific Time now, thus 3 hours behind Eastern Time.
Oh yeah, we did get a rock in the windshield yesterday, took out a chip of glass but not running (yet) hopefully it won't run.
Oh yeah, we did get a rock in the windshield yesterday, took out a chip of glass but not running (yet) hopefully it won't run.
Day 9! Take Two or Three or whatever!
We started out about 8:30 this morning after breakfast at the hotel we stayed in. We have been lucky so far with the places we have stayed. Almost all have had free breakfast, microwave, fridge and coffee pots in the rooms. We have even stayed in a few with pools and or hot tubs.
When we went out to get in the truck this morning there was a few more inches of snow on the ground. We were blessed though with gorgeous weather for the day. As we were driving out of Fort St. John we were passed by an ambulance and 3 police cars. The third police car was a little behind the others and we saw it turn off onto another road, so we didn’t think much of what we saw, until about 2 hours later. Traffic came to a standstill. We sat for over an hour before we were able to get going again. There was a wreck with a small Toyota and an 18 wheeler. This is where the ambulance and two police cars were going. The wreck happened around 8:30 this morning and the Toyota had to be cut all apart in order to get the driver out. The driver was then air lifted to a hospital, seeing as how we were a good two hour drive from the closest town. As you can see by the pics of the road, they were not in excellent condition. So anyway, on we finally went about 11:30. We arrived in Fort Nelson about 2:30 and decided it was too early to stop since the weather was so nice (super cold but nice).
We kept driving thinking we would stop in the little town of Muncho Lake, which was so small we drove right passed it. It was about 150 miles northwest of Fort Nelson. We ended up at the Northern Rockies Lodge located on Muncho Lake. It was a very nice place to stay and the décor was great, but they knew they had the market so they charged out the wazoo. The price for the room wasn’t too bad at $139 +tax Canadian money which is about $110 American. However, they don’t provide the breakfast or wireless Internet. They do have a restaurant here, but the prices for dinners were outrageous so we pulled out a couple of the MRE’s we packed and ate those for dinner. We did decide to have breakfast here, but we had to order that before 9:00 this evening and pre-pay in order to guarantee that we would have it, it was $13.25 per person. They also had a computer for public use but they charged $5.00 for the first 10 minutes and $.25 each additional minute. The lady put me on the computer and I used it just long enough to upload the other blogspot and check our e-mails and facebook. When I went back to the desk to let her know I was finished, she must have taken pity on me and didn’t charge me. They did offer a $.10 discount for their gas for people staying here; therefore it was only $1.49 per LITER!!! Up until this, the highest we have paid was $1.04 per liter and that was back in Fort Nelson. The going rate elsewhere in B.C. is $.99 per liter.
We kept driving thinking we would stop in the little town of Muncho Lake, which was so small we drove right passed it. It was about 150 miles northwest of Fort Nelson. We ended up at the Northern Rockies Lodge located on Muncho Lake. It was a very nice place to stay and the décor was great, but they knew they had the market so they charged out the wazoo. The price for the room wasn’t too bad at $139 +tax Canadian money which is about $110 American. However, they don’t provide the breakfast or wireless Internet. They do have a restaurant here, but the prices for dinners were outrageous so we pulled out a couple of the MRE’s we packed and ate those for dinner. We did decide to have breakfast here, but we had to order that before 9:00 this evening and pre-pay in order to guarantee that we would have it, it was $13.25 per person. They also had a computer for public use but they charged $5.00 for the first 10 minutes and $.25 each additional minute. The lady put me on the computer and I used it just long enough to upload the other blogspot and check our e-mails and facebook. When I went back to the desk to let her know I was finished, she must have taken pity on me and didn’t charge me. They did offer a $.10 discount for their gas for people staying here; therefore it was only $1.49 per LITER!!! Up until this, the highest we have paid was $1.04 per liter and that was back in Fort Nelson. The going rate elsewhere in B.C. is $.99 per liter.
Now for the good part. Here is a spattering of pictures from the drive here. Enjoy!
This is a lake we drove over on a bridge.
View from highest elevation on Alaskan Highway.
Liard River
Muncho Lake
That is some DEEP snow! 
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