Friday, 8/31/13 Quesnel, BC

Well, here we are just 84 miles down the road from Prince George in Quesnel, BC. Guess what, the gremlins struck again. This time I had alarms going off on the dash of the coach. First the low water indicator light lit up, then the engine light lit, then the stop engine light lit. Long story short, it appears that our water pump stopped working and shredded the water pump belt. After going to an RV dealership, who only sells trailers, they contacted Inland Kenworth and off we went to go there. Unfortunately, Inland can't get to work on our coach until Tuesday, thanks to Labor Day being a holiday in Canada also. They also had to order the parts, that should be in on Tuesday, from Calgary and other places.We'll let you know how Quesnel is.

Thursday, 8/29/13 Prince George,BC

As they say all good things must come to an end. This is our last day of the caravan portion of our trip. Most all of us have mixed feelings about this ending. We enjoy the friendship, but after 61 days we are ready to go home. We are in Prince George,BC and will have a farewell dinner this evening. A prime rib buffet, yum yum. Tomorrow we will start heading back to Jacksonville. Barring any gremlins, I figure we should be getting in Jacksonville sometime on Saturday September 7th. I'm going to try and publish some pictures of our trip in no particular order.

Rock Slide in Hyder,AK

Bear Glacier

US Canada border from the train.

Another glacier.

Moose & Road sign

Wednesday 8/28/13 Smithers B.C.

Well, here we are in Smithers the next to the last stop on our caravan. Tomorrow we're off to Prince George B.C. This is where the caravan ends. Friday morning we head toward the US. We are planning on spending the night in Vernon B.C. then cross the border on Saturday. Just fyi,this morning the gremlins struck again. We had a stabilizing jack which decided it wasn't going to go up. So two hours later we finally got it to go up and headed to Smithers. Also,our tail gunner, Stu, developed a leak in his coaches radiator. Most likely a rock from the darn road under construction going into Stewart. The excitement was watching his coach go onto a flatbed hauler. What a sight. It had to be towed about five hours away for service. The cost of the tow was $2200.00. Thank goodness for insurance. At last message Stu will be at the Freightliner chassis shop for about 10 to 14 days. We tried our jacks again at the Smithers campground and guess what, the rear one still doesn't work. We will have to force it up in the morning and not use any of the jacks on the trip home. The coach will be moving as we do inside without the stabilizing jacks. We will put that on our list to get fixed when we get back home.

Stu (on left) and his coach on the truck.

8/25/13 Pics

Barbara at the Red Dog Saloon in Juneau, AK

Two eagles in Juneau.

Whale's Fluke

Mendenhall Glacier and Falls

Barbara and a quiltshop in Skagway,AK

Sunday 8/25/13 Dease Lake, B.C.

Well, it's been quite a few days since I've been able to get on line with the internet. Lousy service. Let's see, we've been whale watching on a boat trip from Skagway to Juneau. But prior to that, we crossed the Canada U.S. border and heard a noise. Barbara said that it was the wind going thru one of the uprights for the awning. We were about to get to the campground when a man was waiving frantically. I stopped and discovered that the right front tire on the CR-V had blown and the car was riding on the rim. I pulled into the campground parked the motor home and surveyed the damage. We had a little piece of tire left along with a little bit of the undercover under the wheel well. Also missing was the windshield washer reservoir and mechanism. Sooo, I had to get a tire and wheel from the closest place which is Whitehorse, B.C. and that's over 100 miles away.The other alternative was to get the tires and wheel in Juneau and put them on the boat. The tailgunner, Stu, needed tires for his coach and one of the others on the caravan has a pickup truck.So we headed up the road. While there I decided to get all new tires, cha ching. Nothing in Skagway at all just a business called Liarsville Tire and Lube. However, they don't sell tires, go figure. Anyway, we saw quite a few whales on the boat trip, hopefully the pictures will turn out. Prior to Skagway were were in Valdez. This was an interesting boat trip. We saw where the Exxon Valdez went aground and had the oil spill. The third mate was running the ship while the captain was below deck sleeping off a hangover. He was tested eleven hours after the incident and had a blood alcohol level of twice the legal limit. There are quite a few systems put in place now to stop that from happening again.

Sunday 8/18/13

These pictures were described in yesterday's blog entry.

Saturday 8/17/13

Tomorrow we leave to go to Tok,AK. Yesterday was absolutely great. I only hope that the pictures turn out. We spent 9 hours on a large catamaran cruising the Prince William Sound. We were able to see eagles, puffins, seals, otters and even whales. In addition, we went to both the Columbia and Meares glaciers. What an experience! I don't think that I will to label each photo. Since Jim and I are old firefighters, we stop by almost every firehouse at least to take pictures. Today was special. While Barbara was going to the quilt shop, Jim and I decided to take a tour of Valdez. We only got one block and saw the Valdez Fire Dept. of course we had to stop. We talked with the Lt. and he offered to take our picture next to one of their pumpers. Then we noticed a man washing a Ford Explorer. It turns out that he, George, was the fire chief. We introduced ourselves and proceeded to talk to him. He said that he is probably the only fire chief we know of that has a set of snow shoes in the back of his car. He also noted that the schools never close on account of snow and that they could get 48" of snow overnight. George stated that the city has a mandate the snow must be removed by 7 AM. And it is done.

Monday, August 12,2013

Well, today is Monday it was a relaxing day after on and off rain for the last two days. Jim went salmon fishing, Barbara did laundry and I washed the coach and car. We've been in Seward for the past four days. On Saturday we visited the Alaska Sealife Center where we saw seabirds, sea mammals and took a behinds the scenes tour. After the Sealife Center the skies cleared so we went to the "Exit Glacier". This glacier is located in the Kenai National Forrest. We took a walking tour with a park ranger, then Jim and I along with the ranger and some others went as far as we could to the glacier. The sight was magnificent. Sunday we had a 5 1/2 hour glacier & wildlife cruise. The cruise also included an all you can eat salmon and prime rib buffet. It was one of those rainy misty days but, we did get to see some seals, bald eagles, puffins, otters and a lake locked iceberg. Tomorrow we head to Palmer, AK for two nights. Here's hoping that the pictures upload.

Thursday 8/15/13

Son of a gun. I've been adding to my blog at least every few days and now I find out they never made it to my blog. AAAGGGHHHH!!! Wifi my butt. Well anyway, we're here in Valdez,AK now and will be here for three days. Tomorrow we will go on a 9 hour cruise. Hopefully we'll see some wildlife. like whales and eagles. On our trip today, which started out three hours late thanks to our turn signals not working on the motor home, we had a brief encounter with a young black bear. He was getting ready to cross the road but he took one look at me driving and ran the other direction and up a tree. I saw him far enough back so I slowed down quite a bit. No danger to either the bear or the coach. Also on our travels today we saw beautiful glaciers. You can't imagine the beauty of the state of Alaska. One of the blog readers asked me if it was mid summer yet. Heck no, fall started August 1st. Today we actually saw some trees turning yellow. I'm going to try and upload some pictures.I think it worked. Barbara and me with Exit glacier in the background. Barbara at the Palmer sign

Thursday August 8,2013

Today was a chilling day. We could do whatever we wanted. We went to Homer Spit where the boats leave from to go to the fishing grounds. Wandered around the stores, ate lunch and then picked up my frozen filets. There was going be a fish fry tonight for everyone on the caravan. However, due to the on and off rain this afternoon the fry was postponed. So we're having spaghetti with meat sauce in our motor home this evening. I hope the pictures appear. One is of the Homer sign and others are of the beach. The tide rises and falls 27 feet each day.The pictures did not work. Tomorrow we travel to Seward.

Wednesday August 7, 2013

Welp, today Jim and I got up at 4:30 AM to go fishing along with 18 other caravaners. We got on the boat at 6:30 then traveled 1 1/2 hours to the halibut fishing grounds. This was bottom fishing so we were playing bob and weave. I put my line in the water and tugged a little while. Then all of a sudden an urge came over me, I asked one of the deck hands to take over my line. I then decided that this wasn't for me (read between the lines) and sat out the rest of the trip. Everyone caught their limit of two fish and we headed back the 1 1/2 hours to shore. I guess the crew felt sorry for me and gave me their catch. I ended up with 13 lbs of halibut filets which I am having cut into one pound sections and frozen. I go to pick them up tomorrow. Hopefully the pictures I took of the beach at the campground appear.

We are in Homer, AK. Tomorrow Jim and I go halibut fishing along with 18 others from the caravan. We only have to leave at 5:30 AM to catch the boat at 6AM. Here's hoping that we can our limit of 2 fish per person. Being optimistic, we scheduled a fish fry for Thursday evening.Everyone will contribute to the cause. I hope that I will be able to bring some back home with me. We can have the fillets cut,wrapped,flash frozen and even fedexed if we wish. I'll let you know more soon.No pictures today. On a sad note, I was texted today by Ronnie Jewell, one of my coworkers, that Bob Grubbs the other civilian bailiff in my courtroom passed away this afternoon. I hope he didn't suffer too much and my God bless him and his family.

Saturday 8/3/13

Here it is Saturday. Tomorrow we leave to go to Anchorage, it's supposed to take us six hours to get there. The following pictures(if they show up)is Barbara in front of a quilt shop in Healy, AK. That's ten miles north of here (Denali). Barbara on a bear statue at the Denali visitors center. Jim on a four wheeler this morning getting muddy (children must play) and a rainbow over the mountain near the campground (it's raining slightly now).

Friday August 2,2013

Well, yesterday (Thursday) was an extremely busy and rewarding day. Leaving the campground at 6:15 AM,we had a tour of Denali Park which got us within 28 miles of Mt. McKinley and 90 miles into the park. On the way in and out of the park we saw 11 grizzly bears, 2 porcupines, a red fox, a couple of moose, many Caribou, Dahl sheep, big horn sheep and a ha

wk. We finally returned to the campground at 7:15 PM. It was an unusually clear day and that only 1%of the park's attendees get to go that far into the park.Hopefully I can include some pictures, after all I did take 135 of them at the park.