Fairbanks to Great Falls in 7 DAYS!!

8 weeks, 7,300 miles on the road and READY TO TURN TOWARD HOME!! Dealing with frost heave road conditions but made it through Canadian border without any crossing issues. Staying in a mix of Canadian Provencial Parks and RV parks and viewing Bison herd (75), black bears, caribou, black tail deer and big horned sheep, we made it to Dawson Creek and the end of the Alaska Highway. We did take time to celebrate Franklin's birthday and hang our sign in the SIGN POST FOREST at Watson Lake, Yukon. Hopefully someday somebody will happen upon it and think about us. (When you look at the picture, please don't ask us to explain "why the names ?") We also saw our first glimpse of Canola growing, which will be the first of many yellow blinding fields as far as you can see. July 13th!! 7 DAYS and surprised at HOW GOOD IT FEELS TO BE IN THE LOWER 48!! Montana is a breathtaking state that we definitely will visit again. Decided to take a side trip to Little Bighorn National Battlefield the location of Custer's Last Stand. Our one and only vehicle trouble occurred on Hwy 3 coming into Billings MT, a blowout on the camper, but Franklin changed quickly, found a tire company that was willing to stay open for us. All considering the problem was short lived, in the space 3 hours we were on the road again and heading to Garryowen, Mt. on the Crow Reservation. A few days R&R was nice at 7th Ranch with 50 to 100 mile views, Big Sky and just minutes from the battlefield. Touring the battlefield by bicycle was enjoyable and we were surprised at some of the history facts either never learned or forgotten. We quickly got a shock with the temperature change. HEAT TO AC IN ONE DAY! Nebraska is our next stop.

DENALI

Denali National Park is like no other park we have ever seen.Cars are allowed in only the first 14 miles and after that visitors must ride buses to different stops along the only r0ad in the park which is 95 miles long. Most people stay on the outside and ride the bus to see wildlife but we unwisely chose to tent camp 85 mile in at Wonder Lake campground and found more mosquitoes than stars in the sky, and head nets are a necessity. It rained every day, we didn't see Mt McKinley(Denali) and it was cold but no fires allowed. Denali has open tundra but we were in the lower elevations in a spruce forest and the only trail we hiked was rocky, muddy and with no views. However Denali is gorgeous in some areas. We cut our visit short after 2 nights and got the bus out which was the best part of the trip. We had our first view of Mt. Denali along with great sitings of caribou, 4 grizzly bears and a red fox. We watched a wolf trot beside a river for over 3 miles as the river paralleled the road as well as watched a grizzly about 500 yds away when a caribou came over a ridge, saw the bear and jumped, approached(not too close) and circled the bear in a seldom seen bear-caribou encounter. Lots of Denali has miles of visibility with no trees, ponds and lakes and is easily walked. Visitors can get off the buses at any time and catch another a few hours later which is what we should have done. Denali (6 million acres)is a true wilderness with few trails and hikers must bushwhack over the tundra. There are only a few campgrounds and those are fairly close to the entrance, where only smaller campers or tents are allowed. A great experience but not one to be repeated. We are now in Fairbanks, taking a couple of days to wash clothes, reprovision and get ready for the trip home. We plan to take the top of the world highway through Dawson City, Chicken, etc and hope to be home in about 3 weeks repeating most of the trip up except that we plan to come back through Great Falls, Montana instead of Seattle. May or may not post much else as we hope to travel fairly fast and not make any stops except to camp.

Journey to Kodiak Island

We have been without internet for 2 or 3 weeks so we will try to catch up. Homer is a true tourist town. The Homer spit is a narrow strip that sticks out onto the bay for several miles lined with shops, restaurants, fishing charters, etc but eagles are sitting on buildings and snow covered mountains are accross the bay. Homer calls itself a quaint drinking village with a fishing problem. Kodiak Island is accross the gulf about 200+ miles and we left the RV in Homer, packed the bikes with camping gear and left on the ferry, Kennicott, at 2:am, getting on the elevator with other vehicles and being lowered into the car deck, looked for a place to put the bikes and had to dodge a semi that almost got too close. The Kennicott is like no ferry that we were expecting and we went up the stairs to carpet, movie theater, gift shop, cafeteria, and observation decks with a cruise ship air to our tiny bunkroom-6by 8- for a little sleep. Departed about 5:30 am and got to Kodiak ablut 1:30 pm. Kodiak has no interest in tourists, with few restaurants or shops, and is primarily a commercial fishing port- largest in US- that supports a fish canning industry but is home to the largest brown bears in the world, a fact not personally verified, because the bears are a long way from town and flights to see them cost over $500 each. The island is the 2nd largest in the US and is mostly a wildlife refuge with lots of mountains and a rugged rocky coast with some black sand beaches, like Homer. We petaled about 5 miles from town and camped at Fort Abercrombie State Park-primitive camping- which used to be a WW II base with old bunkers and it was cold but we had fires to keep us warm. We took a great fishing trip and caught over 500# fish- shipped some home- and saw whales, sea lions and over 100 sea otters in one place hanging out in a kelp bed -cute critters. Came back home after 4 days on the Tustamena which was much smaller, not as nice and slept on a semi enclosed deck on our sleeping bags just like the locals travel and got back to Homer on time about 9am. Kodiak is beautiful-lots of eagles- and a long way from Forsyth. The coast is jagged with cliffs rising over 100 ft above the water and we hiked some scenic trails, enjoying every bit but about ready to start for home. Denali is the next stop.