Alaska

We woke up and ate breakfast in the Toyhouse today.  Departed Pine Mountain about 8am. It was a high overcast and cool.

Since entering Canada, we’ve seen a lot of oil and gas drilling activity, it seems like every town we’ve went through, that’s been their main industry.

Even on the Alaska Highway, its been oil and gas, up to about Ft Nelson, and then it seems to quit.

We’re definitely getting into the wilderness. We’ve seen a lot of wildlife out near the road, Several medium sided Black Bears, Elk, a small herd of mountain goats, and a large herd of bison. I thought we were going to have a collision with several bison when they started running down the road and doing improper lane changes lane changes beside the Toyhouse (we were doing about 2 MPH as we passed through a herd of bison).

If you like Mountains, streams, and nothing, you’d love the Highway. Summit Lake still has ice on it, a very bright blue ice and crystal clear water  (It doesn’t show up on the photos very well)

During one stretch of drive, we hadn’t seen or passed another vehicle in almost 30 minutes.

We stopped at Laird Hot springs for the night, we walked back to the wading area, about 1 kilometer, but decided not to go for a swim.  The water was definitely hot and had an odor of Sulfur.

It started raining lightly after we set up camp.  So, I took some time to make sun shades for the roof vents and door window. These let in a lot of light. the farther north we get, the later the sunset and earlier the sunrise.

Rather than cook dinner in the Toyhouse, we walked across the street to the Laird River Restaurant, They just opened for the season and had a limited menu, but we were able to sit back and enjoy a good meal.

So far, with the exception of last night (we had electricity last night) we’ve dry camped every night, no water , electric, or other connections. Good heat from the furnace, plenty of light from the LED lighting, the 1500 watt inverter, for running the microwave and coffee percolator, has been running OK with no need to start the truck engine.

Mileage  >>  346  Averaged 14.6 mpg today.

John & Jodie

Started out sun shinny and warm.

I got the Blog updated while we sat and ate at the Creations Diner – They’re open 24 hours a day and offer good food and service.

We left White Court about 9am.

Continued up CA-43 to Dawson Creek. 

Dawson Creek is where the Alaska Highway starts.  A stop at the visitor center yielded some very helpful info, Ask for the Gas and Campground sheet, this is a very extensive list on one sheet of paper.

Jodie noticed the frig wasn’t cold, so we stopped at Fort St John and topped off the propane, it had 5 lbs in it and the Service Tech added 15 lbs to bring it up to full, cost was $12. I relight the frig and its OK,  The winds were very gusty, I think the winds may have blown out the frig. I had the frig running on propane for a week now, we also ran the heater two nights so far. We didn’t start this trip with a full bottle, so I think the propane use is going very good.

Seen a couple unique road signs, this is one of them.  The only wildlife we’ve seen so far are a lot of deer on the side of the road.

We decided to stop early rather than run to late, Its cold and light rain.  We seen several patches of snow on the north facing hills.

We’re ahead of schedule so a stop at Pink Mountain  for the night,  $24 for a spot with electric, (run my small heater, and frig off elect for the night)

Jodie warmed up some potatoes (left over from breakfast) beans, and hot dogs.  Fine dining and a movie in the Toyhouse, in beautiful downtown Pink Mountain RV Park.

Mileage for today > 410 miles – 12.9 mpg – Strong headwinds

John & Jodie

Woke up to quite – good nights sleep.  We have two large sleeping bags, so we use one on the bottom and one on the top.  The cab over is plenty of room for the two of us, just don’t bang your head when getting into bed.

Followed CA11 to Saskatoon and picked up CA-Rt-16.

CA-Rt-16 to Edmonton and Rt 43 .

Most of the travel was flat with a little tail wind, The place looks like Texas – I-40 between Amarillo and OK city .  Flat and agriculture. the area is mostly agriculture, looks like grain form all the you can see silos. Watch the price of grain this year, looks like every farmer has installed new storage silos.

The 110 Vac inverter worked great for making morning coffee. so far, all the systems are working great.  The furnace turned on a couple times during the night, we have it set to 55 and it got down to 40 outside.

Had to turn up the heat up in the frig, things were just on the edge of freezing.

As I said yesterday, mostly flat, i.e. Texas.  However, in the afternoon, we started picking up mild hilly and trees.

Spent the night in White Court Alberta. Nice campground run by the Lions Club.  Clean, quite, clean showers. That’s why we found a campground tonight, Jodie said I was starting to get ripe 🙂

Nice place to make a stop for the night, get cleaned up, have a good meal at the “Creations Diner”, They’re open 24 hours a day (I’ll post a photo at the next WiFi stop), right next to the Royal Oak motel

Monday Travel – 574 miles – 15.5 mpg – no winds

John &  Jodie

Much better travel conditions today.  Sun shinny, a little wind.

(Delayed entry –  we need to find WiFi hot spots to make entries and check email while in Canada)

Continue up I-94 through Minnesota. Hilly country into North Dakota.

Just west of Fargo (Jamestown) pick up US-52 west (north) and follow it all the way to the boarder.

Lot of water – ND was hit by heavy rains and most of the low lying fields are under water.  We went by a KOA in Minot, ND that the office was out in the middle of a lake. They sandbagged the office, but everything else was under water.

Crossed the Canadian-US border at Portal

WOW – Night and Day – immediately when crossing you see Oil drilling rigs, mining operations.  Maybe someday we’ll actually drill for oil in the United States.

ALSO –  The Roads in Canada SUCK –  With $5.50 /gallon gas, they should take some of that road tax money and fix the roads (felt like we are in some areas of Mexico)

Followed CA-39 north.  took a couple detours to Ragina, then back to Moose Jaw.

Spent the night in a very quite Roadside rest just off CA-11 and CA-2 (Arm River) .

We haven’t looked for any campgrounds yet, no need to.

SUNDAY – 808 miles traveled, average 13.5 mpg,

First day travel, Toledo to ST Cloud MN

Nothing exciting for the first day, rain, wind, cold. Kind of sounds like Ohio 🙂

We hit the road about 8am EST. Traveled west on US-20 to South Bend, IN, then picked up I-94.  Traffic is always heavy around Chicag0.  Finally stopped at St Cloud Minnesota for the night.

We were going to stop at a Walmart, but missed the turnoff so we spent the first night out at a rest area.. Generally, rest stops are OK, but noisy (trucks run motors all night)

We only had one minor problem – a fuse blew for the running lights. I noticed this about 9am.  At the next stop, I  replaced the fuse and had  no problems the rest of the day.  We’ll keep an eye on this.

Totals for the First day – 768 miles traveled – 60.4 gallons – 12.8 mpg (strong winds ,55-60  mph)

Starting weight 6,700 lbs. (Everything, including the kitchen sink)

JOhn & Jodie

WOW, This thing holds a lot of stuff. 🙂

Got all the tools,  spare parts, extra engine oil and trans fluid, jumper cables, a small folding step stool, and the extra BBQ LP tank under the 2 table bench seats.

Under the couch the storage space is weird shaped and is good for small long things. small Axe and shovel, sludge hammer, crow bar, extension cords, trouble light, a couple gallons of RV Antifreeze/ windshield washer fluid, and some spare parts are stored under the couch.

Plenty of clothes storage space – I added two removable clothes hanging bars in the shower, so when we don’t use the shower, we drop the bars in the little clips and the shower now becomes a “Walk in Closet”.

How many RVs do you know of that have a “Walk in Closet” 🙂 Problem is, there’s not enough room for you and the clothes at the same time 🙂 .

Jodie found a plastic 4 drawer “Chest of Drawers” that fits perfectly in the regular closet. With the chest of drawers in the closet, there’s still enough space above the drawers for hanging some clothes, and there’s room on the side of the drawers for long items like folding lawn chairs, fishing poles, etc.

The small Mr Coffee goes inside the microwave while traveling.

The counter tops are free and no clutter.

Cabinets and drawers have pots, pans, silverware and other household items, All the overhead cabinets are available for food stuffs. In fact, I think we’re going to be hitting the road with some of the cabinets empty.

In the outside generator compartment, I have two 5 gallon gas cans, and a small 2 1/2 gallon gas can.  The city water hose, tire jack, wrenches, and some wood blocks are also stored in there.

We have two spare tires, a brand new tire is bolted on the back of the Toyhouse on the spare tire mount.  I bought an extra wheel and mounted one of my old original tires on it. That spare tire is tied down on top of the Toyhouse.

I filled and flushed all the water lines and holding tanks with a bleach / water solution last week. I still need to drain this and refill the tank with fresh water.

The Refrigerator is plugged in to shore power and makes ice cubes. I’ll switch it over to LP gas Thursday night. Friday morning we’ll fill the frig with food.

Maps, cameras, books, and other stuff fits neatly in the driver and passenger seat back pockets we got at Walmart.

We should be able to connect to the internet every couple days, so I’ll try and post something here as often as I can. We’re getting excited 🙂

John & Jodie