David and I spent the greater part of September and part of October looking for a job.  This meant that every morning we would get up and try to ’share” the computer as we did our job search work.  Many resumes and many letters of inquiry liberally mixed with walks in the woods and trips around Fairbanks.

The people here are so nice and have been so helpful.  Everyone we have spoken to has given us job leads and suggestions and they paid off.  David has started his job at Design Alaska, a very community minded long time all purpose engineering firm in Fairbanks.  I was directed to do volunteer work at the Yukon Quest, the 1000 Whitehorse to Fairbanks ( or vice-versa every other year) which has been very satisfying.  The people in the office are wonderful and, of course, the dog sled is so quitessentially Alaskan.  And the vocabulary…mushers, dog drops, check points, handlers, vet checks, pilots to fly dogs here and there.  And the stories.  One woman musher has been on dog sleds since she was a few months old.  Her mother, a musher, lived on a trap line 50 trail miles from the stores.  Once she was strapped to the sled and her mother lsot the dogs and off they went.  The little girl was found a few miles down the trail still in here little box that had jiggled off the sled.  Or the musher who found she was pregnant whilerunning a race in which she had an accident and got a concussion…and, by the way, found she was pregnant. What a world.  But I can bring Fred when I go in and he is quite a hit.

I really want a job at the University.  I met a woman at synagogue whose husband helps chair the Resilience and Adaptation program and she suggested to him that I would be a good coordinator.  Thsi is a wonderful PhD program that takes an interdisciplinary, holistic approach at training scientists, policy makers and advocates and academians to look at problems affecting the circumpolar north.  I went to an all day colloquium during which some of the students presented their papers.  Wow!  Traveling with carabou; working far out in villages; looking at water issues for folks who pump water directly from rivers and on and on.  Right now I am working as a contract employee putting together their website, hoping that I can apply for the coordinator job hen it is offered. 

Lots of fun, but now we have very little play time.

We took a wonderful trip into the White Mountain area outside of Fairbanks before we got our jobs and spent a day in snowy mountain paths.  We also went past a gold dredge.  In the course of a conversation at the Obama headquarters with one of the field staff we told about our little trip and the gold dredge.  She said, “Oh yea.  My mother owns it.”  and then she just kept talking.  ‘Stop!”  We shouted.  Go back and explain.  And sure enough, her mother a historian, bought the thing and 50 tailings acres to save it from being torn down.  We will get a tour.

We also stopped at a campground and saw a spooky, empty tent covered with snow, and then, further down the trail a snow cat. Strange.

The next weekend Fairbanks held an Obama rally.  David and I volunteered to stand on a streetcorner with signs advertising the rally.  Street corner standing is what you do here. Not my favorite activity.  But the rally was fun, especially the pig.What was even stranger is that everyone knew the pig and the woman who owned her.

Having great fun and looking forward to Thanksgiving in Homer.

On September 23 and 24 the sun was shining, the trees were glowing gold and the daytime weather hovered around 40.  It has been so lovely that we decided to make a stab at tent camping this weekend (September 27-28)  Off we went with our final destinationb eing the Chena Hot Springs where we planned to soak in the hot water on Sunday.

We packed up Fred, our back-packing tent, sleeping bags, etc. and drove less than an hour to a series of three lovely small lakes where we pitched our tent and then went for a great hike through the woods.  Except, it was snowing to beat the band.  What a surprise!  But we pushed on and the snow lessened and then stopped. We found out that it actually snowed about 1.5 inches overall.

On  our hike I saw, in the woods, a small tree with a great little spruce burl that I really wanted.  David refused to walk all the way back to the tent and get our saw and then come back while I stood guard to make sure the burl didn’t run off.  So, we clearly marked the spot, continued on our hike and then eventually returned to the camp.  I grabbed the saw, Fred and then boldy stepped off to hunt down that burl.  Got there, found it, sawed it down and returned with not a misshap.  For me, that was quite an accomplishment!Look closely…you can see the snowflakes.

Nightime provided a bit of discomfort.  First of all it started REALLY snowing again.  We were freezing in our bags, and poor Fred, on the tent floor between us was shivering and shivering.  Even after David gave him a sweatshirt to sleep upon, poor old Fred was miserable.  Until, that is, he smooshed himself into my one person mummy bag, curled up in a ball and started snoring and twitching.  Yikes.  No room for me at all and I ended up almost crippled!  As soon as we got home we went to a pet store and bought that boy a coat.  Notice how the blue matches his one eye.

Oh well.  The next day we drove for about 10 minutes to the Chena Hot Springs, which were hard to miss since the road ends in their gate and the steam plumes coming from the water were reaching to the sky.  Fred waited in the car as we soaked outside amid the icicles.  Yummy!

Fall here seems to leave overnight.  The trees are naked and the thermometer now hovers in the 30’s during the day and the low 20’s at night.  And it was cozy just a few days ago.

However, I go out every morning for my walk through the woods to get the paper at our mailbox for a round trip of about 1.5 miles in just a sweater and sweatshirt and mittens.  You know that in Philly, at 21 degrees I wouldn’t think of sticky my nose any further out the door than I really needed.  Must be like the heat in Arizona..you know..it’s not really the heat, but the humidity.  Here it is so dry that cold doesn’t seem quite cold.

David is off getting snow tires right now.

David and I cannot believe that we have been here almost three weeks.  Our trip across country feels like it happened to two other people.  It is weird.  I still am surprised sometimes when I realize we are actually in Alaska.  The sense of un-reality is strengthened by the normal and abnormal things we have been doing.  For example, as we go down our dirt road to the main road, we usually come upon two groups of spruce hens.  These are quail like birds with an absolute sense of entitlement to the road.  We either stop and wait for them to move or follow them slowly as they waddle down the middle of the road.  Then its on to the main road into Fairbanks where we have actually seen a moose in the road and many trucks loaded with freshly killed moose as well as pick up trucks fitted out in the back with dog boxes to haul the sled dogs.

Then we stop at my favorite place on the way into town:  The TRANSFER center.  This is the local dump where everyone takes their trash…and EVERYONE shops for new-to-them stuff.  Dumpster diving has reached new heights here:  some days it seems that there are more folks taking stuff out of the trash bins than putting stuff in.  And many folks have specially home-made picks for going through the dumpsters.  And there is a whole section that is like a yard sale, where the “good stuff” is dumped. I just got a wonderful oak desk chair today!David is quite willing to throw things in, but has yet to rummage about taking things out.

Then on to Wal-Mart.  That is what makes it all seem so unreal.  The shopping center has Lowe’s, Pet Smart, Barnes and Noble and Wal-Mart.  Hard to compute.

Then, if we continue into Fairbanks proper things get weird again.  There is no real center of town; there are two main streets, and then everything kind of mushes out from there.  The paved roads are only one or two streets deep and then everything turns to gravel.  Log cabins are everywhere.

Since our house is located by so many great trails we have done a lot of walking in the woods, as well as down the road and back for a round trip of a little over 1.5 miles to get the morning paper.  We are starting to see a lot of dog sled activity and the other day we saw a 4 X 4 being pulled by a team while the driver stood hard on the brakes.  Our neighbors and landlords have 6 dogs which they use to attach to themselves and get pulled on skies over the trails.  Not Me!

We decided to go t the Chena River Recreation Area and go for a hike last week.  When we arrived (about 1/2 hour from our house) and got out of the car, we realized that we did the same hike 5 years ago when we travelled in AK.  How strange.  But we had a good time and saw another moose. Please note that I am somewhat overdressed as other folks we saw were without hat, coat or scarf.David keeps warning me that I better slow down with the amount of clothes I put on in this relatiely warm weather or I will be so overstuffed with layers in the real cold that I won’t be able to move.

David is quite pleased now that we have a “tongue” hanging out of our car just  like everyone else. The car has been winterized and now has all the fluids needed to get us through a cold winter as well as the heaters needed to keep things warm under the hood.

Went to Denali on Sunday, the day after the buses stopped running through the park so it was quite empty.  Saw fox and moose. and visited their resident sled dog teams which were way too quiet, not at all like the ones near us that howl and bay with as much vigor as inner city police sirens.  But not at all unpleasant.

Weather is getting cooler.  We had frost this morning, September 22, but the paper says the frost is two weeks later than last year.  Hmm.  What are we in for?

David and I have “full time jobs” looking for real full time jobs and it gets ugly around here as we push and shove to use the computer.  We both have to calm down and behave.

We are doing a lot of volunteer work for the Obama campaign here in Fairbanks.  There was a fully staffed office with about 6 staffers, 4 from out of town.  Then when Sarah as announced as VP candidate, the Obama folks conceded AK and pulled their out of towners.  So, now there are only two young women working night and day.  Its very active and intense.

We will post as frequently as we have good photos to share with you.

On our way to Homer we stopped in Anchorage for a few days to see why it is characterized as so “not-Alaska” and then to go to the Alaska State Fair in Palmer which we had been hearing so much about from Dylan.  This is the fair that showcases the GIANT vegetables; cabbages as big as your head and turnips that take two hands to hold.  We had been hearing all summer how bad the weather was in AK during the summer; rainy and cloudy and apparently this affected the size and amount of vegetables.  But they were pretty big I must say.  This was the greatest fair we have been to. we had purchased tickets to see Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys at the show so we got into the fair for free. 

One of the first places we went to was the fabric art barn.  I have been interested in learning to spin but don’t want to purchase a wheel.  As luck would have it we met a wonderful woman who not only gave me a spinning lesson on a spindle, but gave me the spindle, the fiber and a hand-made bag to put it all in.  She also put us in touch with a woman who had a musk ox farm.  I have been hunting musk ox ever since I saw Quiviat which is a yarn made from their underhair.  We saw it in Banff for $90.00 for 6 oz and I was trying to go to the source and get it cheaper.  However, the price was the same at the farm and her supply of hair had just gone to Peru to be processed.  So I will wait until spring when it will return and buy some fiber that I will try to spin myself.  Wish me luck.

The concert with Ralph Stanley was all we could have asked for.  AND, we were able to go backstage before the concert and get my banjo signed by Dr. Ralph and David took my photo with the 81 year old legend.  Great time.

Then it was on to Homer, Dylan and Fred.  We had not seen Dylan without his beard and were anxious to see his new house, as well.  We had a lovely visit which included meeting Angela who seems to know everyone in Homer.  She owns a beauty shop and gave me a great new color and cut and even convinced David to go under the scissors.  Great lady!  We went Halibut fishing and each caught our limit of two, small but feisty fish.  David and Dylan and Angela also caught huge skate which were impossible to bring up and then were released.  We had a great time and were able to bring lots of fish to our new house.  We also had a great party at Dylan’s and met a lot of his friends.  A very, very nice visit with great food and great people.

Then off to Fairbanks with a stop in Talkeetna so the driving wasn’t too tedious.  Fred the dog is quite an attraction.  He is an ordinary hound with the most amazing eyes that just beg for loving. We went into a bar to listen to some jazz in Talkeetna with Fred and EVERYONE had to pet him.  And he is a great car dog as well.  We love him.

We made a quick stop in Denali National park, about 2 hours outside of Fairbanks so I could get my old lady parks pass.  $10.00 for a lifetime pass and half off camping in all national parks for me and my carload.  So…it pays you all to come and visit.  Also, for anyone who has gotten this far in the blog…we also have asparks pass for Canada’s national parks which anyone of you can use if you wish.  Just let us know and we will mail it to you.  No ID required.  Canada parks are quite expensive; $20.00 per day plus $27 for camping, so use our pass if you wish.

Fairbanks:  It is everything we could have wished for.  Our house is exactly as we had imagined and Karen and Butch, our landlords are going to be good friends.  The house looks like new, is just the right size and feels like home.

We have been SO BUSY!  Our first night we slept on the floor, on pads from Celeste because there is no furniture.  Luckily Dylan was able to order a memory foam bed for us from Homer that we were able to pick up in Fairbanks on Tuesday.  We also were lucky to find a bedroom set and dining room table and chairs in Fairbanks at the home of a woman who had just died, but had lived in Fairbanks all her 91 years.  So, we are getting furnished and the boxes and stuff all around and slowly diminishing.  We also had a chance to join a phone bank for Obama on Wednesday night and hope to get active in Alaska politics soon.  We took our written driving tests for our AK licenses and FAILED.  Had to go back the next day after some serious studying.  Do you believe I missed the questions about when to use parking lights.  DUH!  (The correct answer is:  “when parked’)  Then we found out that David could not get his license because that bad boy had TWO outstanding speeding tickets from two different states incurred years ago!  He had to spend the whole day getting that taken care of.  Of course, I could not get my license right away either because, even with a passport the state wanted to SEE my social security card.  David just whipped his right out of his wallet.  I haven’t seen mine in 40 years and had to leave the DMV and go the federal building and apply for a new one.  But all ended well for me and I have my license in hand and now am eligible for next year’s Permanent Dividend Fund, which this year is $2000.00  Quite cool.

No sightings of wild animals yet, but some critter laid an egg next to our car this morning.  Go figure.  We live in the “Two Rivers” area which seems to be the dog sled raising capital of Fairbanks, so we have seen dogs and our neighbor has a cow, so we see that.  But no moose, bear, etc, YET. 

The weather is wonderful and fully fall.  Yellow leaves on the few deciduous trees; nights in the 40’s and days in the 60’s.  Some predict snow by September 19.  All cars have little tongues hanging out the front (really plugs for block heaters) and our parking area has a plug in spot as does the Wal-Mart shopping center and a number of other public parking places.

Well…the traveling part of our adventure is over and the Alaska part has begun.  David has adjusted to the change better than I.  I think I have a rambling soul and could have gone on and on.  But, this new adventure is going to be WONDERFUL based on the folks we have met and the stuff we have seen so far. So stay tuned for the Alaska blogs.

Our new contact information:

Address:  3477 Buffalo Lane, Fairbanks, AK 99712

Home Phone:  907-488-4749

Ellen’s cell:  907-388-4788

David’s cell:  907-388-1559

According to David we have travelled 16,047 miles and averaged a little more than 19 miles of gas per gallon. Of the miles travelled, I drove almost 200 miles!

Tonight we are going to Fairbank’s First Friday to visit galleries and hear music and this weekend, if it gets a little cooler we are going to soak in the Cheena Hot Springs.  If not, we might visit North Pole (which, according to the telephone company, is actually where we live.)  It’s supposed to be where Santa lives and is done up for Christmas all year.

Here is Fred.

Mile 0

Dawson Creek is the official start of the Alaska Highway and the official beginning of our end.  I was lucky enough to find a thrift store in Dawson Creek and was able to buy a bread machine which I have been wanting ever since we stayed at the sheep farm and Dave feed us home made bread every morning.

The man who oversaw the campground outside of Dawson Creek directed us to the next campground on the Liard River.  The enticement there were the hot springs.  And what springs they were…a river actually, accessed by a ten minute walk over a board walk into a river that had several natural pools and man made steps into them where you could soak in very hot mineral water. The weather was slightly rainy and the air quite cool…just the way a hot springs should be.  It was WONDERFUL.  Again, since we had not had showers, and did not see the possibility of one in the near future, the hot springs were even better.

Our next stop was Whitehorse, where we decided to camp for 2 nights since we had driven for three long days and needed a break.  We passed the famous sign post park where visitors are encouraged to place town signs and apparently have been doing so for years.On the way we saw herds of wild buffalo, including one dead one on the side of the road with a roast cut out of his haunch for someone’s dinner, caribou, and goats.  We quickly learned that stopping in the middle of the Alaska highway to take a photo is NOT A GOOD IDEA.  However, stopping in Whitehorse was a good idea.  Cute town, great setting in the mountains and wonderful  activities.  Our first stop the morning after we set up camp was to approach the nearest RV park and beg for a shower which we got for $2.00 each.  Quite a bargain.  Feeling all clean and new, we went to see the a very long fish ladder which was built to help the salmon navigate past the only dam on the Yukon River.These boys and girls have travelled 1800 miles to get to this point so its nice that they get a little helping hand.

Then we went into Whitehorse for a tour with a costumed historian who showed us all the “old” buildings…from about 1903.  My favorite were the log cabin sky scrapers; three story log cabins built in the early 1900’s by a man who realized he could make more money building up than out. And they are still used today by three different tenants!

That evening we took a tour with a naturalist to the Great Salt Lake of Whitehorse.  What was so amusing to us was that, even though the tour had been advertised through posters planted all over town, no one seemed to know what or where the salt lake was.  However, Bruce, our guide did and we rode for about 10 miles outside of town to a funky, salt layered area that came about from salts leeching out of the rocks and being deposited in the lake that was evaporating and being covered with red sea asparagus.  And to make matters even more interesting, the area had been used for horse grazing and was littered with old horse bones, as well as fresh bear paw prints and digs, elk poop, giant ant hills and a toad.  We walked for about 2.5 hours in the area, through “quaking mud” which jiggled when we trod on it; across slumps created as the permafrost stats to melt and the land sinks, and around “boot-sucking mud”…no explanation needed. IT IS FALL HERE!

We also saw the world’s largest weather vane.  The story goes that the propellers used to turn until an unsuspecting visitor was driving by in a wind and saw the propellers turning and thought th plane was about to take off and crash into him, which caused the driver to crash.  So the propellers are now welded shut and do not spin.  But the big plane, a DC-3 does swing in the wind.

  All in all, great diversion from the Alaska Highway.

Another day of driving got us to the western edge of the Yukon. Did you know that this territory is bigger than Montana, Wyoming and part of Colorado and has less than 30,000 people, most of who live in Whitehorse.  Whew. Pottstown, PA has 30,000 people.

And now we are in Alaska, having passed through Tok into the great Wrangell St. Elias National Park which is bigger than Connecticut, Mass. and Rhode Island combined and has only two roads; one 60  miles long and the one we are camping on which is 40 miles long.  The roads are dirty and gravelly and have wrecked havoc on our car. We also got our first stone chip on our front window.  Boo!We finally saw a moose (mother and yearling) on the way today. And our luck has held out…it rained all the way to the park and half way to the spot where we are camped.   Here I am writing this very post. And now, even though it is quite cold (about 41 degrees at 9 pm) the sun is shining brightly in the sky (at 9 pm) and the mountains are glowing pink.  Here is the view from our campsite.   What a place.

Today, August 25 wwe are spending in Anchorage and tomorrow we go to the giant Alaska StateFair in Palmer and will end the evening listening to Ralph Stnley and the Clinch Mountain Boys.  Quite fitting to both begin and end our journey with music.

Looking forward to arriving in Homer on Thursday to see Dylan without his beard in his new house, and to start making friends with Fred who will be our new dog in Alaska.  He’s Dylan’s second dog now and his knapsack is packed and he is ready for the move to Fairbanks. 

We camped at Whistlers Campground in Jasper National Park.  This is a larger and more primitive park than Banff and the town, which is in the park, is smaller than Banff townsite as well.  Thus, the signage isn’t so good.

Our first full day we took a hike to the Valley of the Five Lakes.  Except that it turned out to be a hike to “the missing lakes” because somehow we missed the turnoff on the trail and ended up hiking through fields and up hills all the while hearing a bubbling stream to our right.  Since it was an unseasonably 90 degrees the hike was not going well at all.  I finally stopped and said, “No more”, at which point David headed straight downhill through brush and brambles until he found the stream and called me to follow. We spent a lovely afternoon dipping into the stream, eating lunch and just enjoying the silence and each other.  Then back up the hill and home to Celeste to get ready for the rodeo.  We had met a waitress at a bar the night before and asked her about the rodeo and she said, “Yeh,  Its great.  They even have real cowboys.  I wne t the other night andone of them said “Howdy Ma’am.”  That was enogh for me. This was a real rodeo with grown-up cowboys, bucking broncos, steer wrestling and a dance afterwards.  The rodeo was on the dirt covered ice rink in the Jasper activities center and the dance afterwards was to be in the curling lounge, luckily not covered with ice for the occasion.  We cannot wait to see if Fairbanks has a curling team.  Those little curling stones are so cute.

The following day was another sign fiasco as we tried to find Bubbling Falls and the Pocahontas Mine.   David is the miner in the middle. We found the turn-off but no signage for the mine and then hiked up and up a very dusty path looking for the waterfalls, but finding only a man and his son who said we missed the turn and not to worry because there was no water at this time of year anyway.  So, down and down we went, back into our car and on the road for not more than 2 minutes when we came to a pull-off where we could see the “no-water” falls right by the side of the road.  Pretty strange.

All was forgiven, however, when we saw bunches of cars pulled off on the shoulder (where there was absolutely no signs whatsoever) and found dozens of people wading across a mile wide, fast running glacial river which was no deeper than their knees.  So, in we went to wade with them.  Absolutely sandy bottom, absolutely level, cold and fast running.  What fun (How many of you would be brave enough to show that photo?)

Back to the campground to find the resident elk parading about.

The nest day, August 18 was my birthday which we celebrated at a campground outside of Dawson Creek and Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway. We are on our way to Alaska!

David made a new friend in Banff at the Icefields Center.

The road to Jasper is called the Icefield Parkway and we had no idea what we were getting into.  Glacier National Park is named for Glaciers, right? But we didn’t see any of aby size.  Here all we saw were snow covered peaks, icefields and glacier after glacier.  Again, our rain luck held out, and although there had been rain in thea rea two days before we arrived, we had sunny, blue skies, the better to see the snow, dark green evergreens, glistening waterfalls, blue, green and smokey glacial pools and braided streams.  

We camped for two nights at the southern end of Jasper and were lucky enough to be two campsites over from an Austrian threesome who layed the bass, guitar and dobro all afternoon.  I even joined them with my banjo.  Very brave for me.

Our first hike was to Parker Ridge, which was straight up through a number of switchbacks to the Saskatchewan Glacier and the headwaters of the S. River.  Can you imagine a cliff’s edge full of wildflowers across from which blazed a river of ice leading into a green glacial pool out of which flowed a braided river.  We just had to plop down and enjoy the view.  Of course, we were exhausted at the end of our 6.5 km hike.   However, our congratulations ended very soon after we got back to the camp when we talked to several people who had been, over the course of two days on 17 and 20 km hikes.  Oh well.  All is relative, and I am relatively certain that those hikes were not for us.

The next day we declared a “day off” from our vacation and slept late and hung around to about 11 am.  Then we went on the BEST HIKE ever past a 50-60 foot gorge

through which thundered a series of 7 waterfalls.    The weather was unseasonably hot, about 87 degrees, so of course, nothing stopped me from plunging in to the freezing cold water on several occasions.  (Black bikini undies do look like bathing suit bottoms, right?)  We took lunch and camped out next to the highest falls for a couple of hours, reading and snoozing, until we felt it was time to leave.  How perfect can you get?

Oops.  Today was the MOST PEARFECT HIE EVER!  We took a 3.5 hour hike on the Athabasca Glacier which came right down from the Colombia Glacier.  A bit of hisotyr here.  A number of hears ago David and I were in McCarthy, AK and decided to forgo to guided hike on that glacier and took off on our own in sneakers and hiking boots.  Well, we got stuck and had to be talk down after hakcing out steps in the glacier with rocks and become bloodied and torn in the process.  So, when we saw the sign-up sheet for guided hikes on this glacier, we jumped at the chance.

Even though the temperature was about 75 degrees in the parking lot, we loaded up with long underwear, hats, gloves, scraves and hiking boots to which we afixed crampons when we got on the glacier. With our guide Peter and his dog George, we were off.  What a wonderful trip and since words fail,here are the photo.

And you wonder why David is not in more photos?

Tomorrow its off to the rodeo in Jasper!  This should be a more professional rodeo than the others we have been to.  Hopefully there won’t be any mutton busting at this one.

Every few minutes as we drove to Banff National park David and I said, “Wow!  This is really stupendous.  Look over there.  That is even more stupendous.”  Of course, we were talking about the Canadian Rockies.  Even the cows that crossed in front of us on the road had horns that seemed stupendous.  Sometimes we have read about tectonic plates moving and continents crashing into one another, thrusting up mountains.  Well, it made sense when we saw the Canadian Rockies; giant stone fingers pointing into the sky, covered with snow caps and glacier, colored with evergreens and dotted with glacial pools. 

However, I must editorialize here. Even though we knew that gas would be very expensive, I had not counted on the rest of the expenses.  $6.00 for a tub of cream cheese; $20 per DAY in Banff (compared to $25 per week in the US) and $27.40 for a non-electric site at the park; $2.00 per 20 minutes for internet.  I am a little taken aback, but David has taken all this in his stride.

However, the park is surely beautiful, if a little scary since our campground, the only one of the many here, is protected by a fully electrified fence surrounding the whole site, with entry roads electrified as well and gateways for pedestrians and bicyclists to go around.  There are big signs that warn that food and coolers, etc. will be confiscated and the owner thrown out of the park if everything is not put away when we leave the campsite. And there are some trails where you can only hike in groups of four or more.  Maybe they have smart bears here who know that three tourists are tasty but four are dangerous.   The showers are great!!!

As soon as we got to Banff we set up and then took a long and lovely hike around Lake Louise, the centerpiece of the park.  Not without reason is it the most photographed site in Alberta.  Glacial lake, huge Rockies’ peaks, rushing river and glaciers.  In addition, as we were hiking the fog rolled in covering the peaks and adding to the drama.  At night the temperature got down into the low 40’s and we slept under 2 quilts. That’s 9 degrees centigrade here in Canada.

Up the next day for a long hike to Consolation Lake, one of the places where foursome hikers are mandatory.  Since we are only 2 we met up with a family from Belgium who were caterers and very nice to talk to. Then we ran into them several more times during the day, as we did with an English mother and grown daughter who, we found out later, were camping in the campsite directly across from us!

After lunch we took a hike straight up into the mountains above Lake Louise to Mirror Lake and then on to the teahouse way up in the mountains.  I pooped out at Mirror Lake and David went all the way to the tea house.  However, I had my cake and ate it too since he did bring me down an oatmeal cookie.

It was freezing coming down the mountain and we scurried back to camp for hot chocolate (me) and beer (David).

Today we are spending the day in the town of Banff, hiking and soaking in a hot springs.  Then tomorrow it is on to the Icefield parkway and Jasper

Our first day we went into Cochrane Alberta, Canada, a lovely little tourist town, where we tried and tried to use the internet without much luck.  We were successful, however, in renting our new house in Alaska, 3477 Buffalo Lane, Fairbanks, AK  99710.  Don’t send any mail and don’t make plans to visit yet.  We sent a deposit and a letter of intent and will sign the lease when we get there. Do you believe we did this over the internet on Craig’s List?  We hope it will be perfect.  It is about the same size as the Schwenksville house with a full bath and a downstairs toilet on 2 acres in a neighborhood about 20 minutes outside of Fairbanks on a dirt road sort of near the Chena Hot Springs. Hiking trails nearby.  Lots of folks in the neighborhood, including our landlords who live next door have DOG SLED TEAMS.  How cool will that be?   And amazingly enough, we did it all through email, and a few phone calls.  We hope the house is as good as the photos.

We decided not to rush to Glacier to get a campsite.  So we stayed one night in Lolo National Forest, near Glacier, in a site right off the access road.  Not really great, but a nice hike to a lake at the end of the road.

However, the next day we went to Glacier National Park, and that is really great.  Got an OK campsite and immediately hopped the shuttle for the Going ToThe Sun Road, a 50 mile road carved out of the mountains.  We saw mountain goat, big horned sheep (in a parking lot) and a grizzly bear, as well as an entire family hit by one motorcycle from the Netherlands.

Since this park is as far north as you can go in the US (it borders Canada) we are certainly getting prepared for Alaska.  First of all, it is 9:30 pm and I am sitting in light dusk typing this.  Plus I have on long pants, two shirts, a sweatshirt and socks.  We are sleeping under our summer and winter quilts.  The days warm up nicely, however.

Lots and lots of lakes and waterfalls.  Lots of deer and chipmunks, but almost no glaciers.  They seem to have melted (global warming?)

The next day we went into Whitehorse to take care of some emails and then took a wonderful hike through great, green mountains and gushing icy streams to Avalanche Lake.  David wanted a real odilesque (which would have meant getting naked, but I objected)  The hiking trail was right by our campgrounds.

The next day, to get away from all of the people we drove to Bowman Lake which was quite aways away on a dirt road.  Since Glacier is only open from the end of May until the middle of September, the whole season is so short that the visitors swarm into the park.  As a matter of fact, the ranger ho checked our pass mentioned that all of PA must be in Glacier because she kept checking in PA residents.  And, wouldn’t you know, the car following us through the gate honked us over to the side and told us they were from Paoli.  On the way to Bowman Lake we passed through Poleridge, a town of one store and about three houses all on generators.  The store, however, was the most marvelous bakery ever and we certainly stocked up on goodies.

Our hike around Bowman Lake was peaceful and relatively people-free.  For those of you who think that David is not on this trip…here he is.

Our final day in Glacier was spent canoeing on lake Macdonald, one of the largest glacier lakes in Glacier.  It was cold, calm, clear and beautiful. 

That evening, after many failed attempts, we managed to meet up with our friends the Davids and their three children who just happened to be in Glacier (more of those pesky Pennsylvanians) the same time we were.  We had a wonderful dinner and it was great to see folks from home. (David’s the one behind the camera)

Lucky for them, we decided that dinner went on so long that we did not impose upon them for use of their shower in their hotel room.  However, things were getting rather desperate, having not seen a shower since we left Bozeman 5 days before.  Washing my hair in a pot and resting my tush in the lake is certainly not enough.

Life is beginning to be reduced to basics and David and I began plotting our next shower.  We knew that the campgrounds we were going to in Canada were pretty basic, or very expensive so we were getting desperate.  Once we got into Canada I called one of the RV parks, not to stay but to see if they would sell us a shower.  “Oh, no, the manager told me.  No one will do that.”

Riding through a little town on the way to Calagary (the hometown of Faye Ray) I saw a sign that gave me hope and shouted “Stop!” to David, who obligingly pulled over, did a “u-ey” with Celeste and tracked down the campground that advertised SHOWERS.  Needless to say, I went to speak to the manager while David hid.

“Hello.  I don’t want a campsite, but do need a shower.  Can you sell me one, or two?”

“What?”

“Shower.  I haven’t had one in 6 days.  Please can we buy some?

And, believe it or not, for $3.00 each, David and I GOT CLEAN.  What is our life coming to?