Next trip - First Leg of Phase Two, Plan B, Stephens 2018 Travels.

OK, I got a little carried away with the title :-).  But we are getting excited for our next adventure which is the start of our cross country trip.  The main reasons for the cross country trip are 1- to see our kids and grandkids plus any extended family and friends we can find; 2- now that I have been to all 50 states we want to complete Debra's 50 too; 3- we want to be in New England during the Fall foliage season; 4- we like to travel and since we are in reasonably good health we want to do this while we can.

The first leg of our trip will start here in Utah on July 3rd.  We will be heading up through Utah and into Wyoming on Interstate 80.  Our plan for the first day is to travel as far as Casper, Wyoming where we plan to dry camp at a yet to be determined site.  Casper is approximately 435 miles from here and that will be a good road test for our truck and trailer.  There are a couple of WalMart Supercenters there that allow overnight parking and we think that is where we will stop.  There are also a few other options in and around Casper if we decide against WalMart.

The second day on the road will take us up through Wyoming into South Dakota where we will pick up Interest 90 and continue East into Minnesota.  Out destination for the second day is the Blue Mounds State Park near Lucerne, MN.  This destination is 623 miles from Casper and will take about 9 hours to get there.   Minnesota is one of Debra's needed states so when we get there she can cross that one off the list.  Since that will be on the 4th of July we have already reserved our campsite there to be certain that we can get in.  This particular park does not yet have potable water so if we need water we will have to fill up at designated sites in the town of Lucerne.  We will have electric at the campground so the generator should not be needed.

The third day out we will be traveling down from Minnesota through Iowa and into Missouri where we will stop for the night around St. Joseph.  This is approximately 325 miles from the park in Minnesota. St. Joseph was the starting point for the Pony Express so we may spend some time in and around that area.  That is still to be decided.

Our fourth and final day of this leg's journey will take us from St. Joseph, MO down to Mountain Home, Arkansas to our son Anthony's home and family.  Mountain home is about 330 miles from St. Joseph and should take about five and a half hours to get there.

We will be based out of Mountain Home for three or four weeks after that before we head out on the second leg of our cross country trip.  More to follow on that.

Happy Trails Everyone,

Tom & Debra Stephens

Drum roll Please

The critter count is in .........  93 wild critters along the drive.
Unfortunately for me I don't have pics of all of them.  When you're traveling down the road at 65 - 80 miles an hour, seeing them is all you get.  The animals do not cooperate and stand around the pull out areas.  It's funny cuz there are signs in Alaska that say if you have more that 5 cars behind you, pull over and let them pass.  People are driving slow watching for critters and a line can form.  We also saw farmed critters and buffalo too numerous to count.  Also crows and ravens (they should be the national birds of both US and Canada).
Here's the breakdown

Owl - 1                                          Mountain Goat - 5
Bull Moose - 3                               Dall or Big Horn sheep - 7
Cow Moose - 10                             Sandhill Crane - 6
Baby Moose - 1                             Stones Sheep - 11
Elk - 2                                           Eagle - 8
Caribou - 6                                    Swan - 8
Brown Bear - 1                               Baby Swan - 3
Grizzly - 3                                     Wild Horse - 3
Baby Grizzly - 3                             Ptarmignan - 1  (type of bird)                Black Bear - 9                                Fox - 1

We also saw (not included in the 93 critter count)
Bison - 2 very large herds
Alpaca - 7 (farm animals)
Reindeer at the North Pole - 8 (Rudolph was not there)
Rabbits - 12
Squirrels - 5
Potguts - 4
Musk Ox - 83 (farm animals)
Crows and Ravens - too many to count
                             

Dall Sheep

Cow Moose

Musk Ox

Brown Bear

Grizzly Bear

Buffalo

Caribou

Black Bear

Willow Ptarmignan - State Bird
All white in the winter
This is the spring time feathering

Yes these are our photos - not snitched from the internet.  Check out the critter photo album if you're interested in seeing more pics.  Not all have been edited so they're pretty rough.  We have some great video of animals also but Blogger and I are struggling to get a video upload working relationship.

The funnest encounter with critters were the grizzlies.  We spent around 10 - 15 minutes along the road side with Mama Grizzly and her 3 cubs.  We were no more than 10 feet away from them as they ambled up the road eating little yellow flowers and playing around.  Same with the the large male grizzly and the brown bear (both pictured above).  Being that close was amazing to me.  None of them were skittish or nervous with us being so close.   

We also visited the Musk Ox Farm in Palmer Alaska. Here's some brief info from the farm

The non-profit Musk Ox Farm is dedicated to the domestication of the musk ox, an Ice Age mammal that once roamed the earth alongside saber-tooth tigers and woolly mammoths.  Known to Alaska Natives as “Oomingmak”, which means “The Bearded One”, this once-endangered animal produces an annual harvest of qiviut (kiv'-ee-ute), the finest wool in the world.

Finest and most expensive - a one ounce skein is $95.00.  It is more

expensive than cashmere.  There are 83 ox at this farm. 

Seeing all the Critters was one of my favorite highlights of the trip.

Thanks for visiting our blog.  

Tom and Debra Stephens

Post Alaska Update

 We have been home now for a few days so I guess it is time for a post Alaska trip update.  It is still incredible to think about how great the Alaska trip was and what an amazing memory that will be for the rest of our lives.  All told we put 7,867 miles on our car during the trip and we thoroughly enjoyed every mile.  Hopefully those of you who have followed along on this blog got a little taste of what we did and saw.  We know that our descriptions and the photos we shared don't really paint the whole picture but we were happy to share what we could of this great adventure.

Now that we are home and getting back to reality Debra and I are finalizing the plan for the next adventure to start July 3rd.  In the meantime Debra has been pouring through the hundreds of photos and video clips we took in Canada and Alaska to label them and organize them so that we can share more of them with you and fill in some additional sights and experiences of the trip.  She will be posting some of those in the near future.

I have been focusing on preparing our truck and travel trailer for the cross country adventure that awaits us.  Our truck is a 2005 GMC Sierra 1500 and our trailer is a 2009 North Shore made by Dutchman.  It is a 26 foot trailer with a single slide out.  This will be the first multi- day travel trip in the trailer.  We have made multiple one day trips with it from Utah to Las Vegas and back so we know the truck and trailer can handle it but we haven't yet tested it over multiple consecutive days of travel.  I've also lived in this trailer for several months in both 2015 and 2016 when I worked up at Scofield State Park here in Utah so I am very comfortable with the operation and upkeep of it and looking forward to spending time in it over the next few months.  You never know what the future holds so if the truck and/or the trailer fails on us then we'll have to adapt our plans accordingly.  But, that's why they call it an adventure.

That's about it for my update today.

Happy Trails Everyone .

Tom & Debra Stephens

Coming to you from Fort St. John, British Columbia

If you're following this blog at all you'll notice our lack of contribution for the past 6 days.  The fact is that after driving 500 + miles on some days, or checking out the local attractions, or visiting neighboring towns and hide a ways, visiting local celebrities (The Kilchers from Alaska the Last Frontier on Discovery Channel) by time we get back to our hotel room we are done, just done.   We have traveled over 6000 miles so far.  So this will be a brief post for tonite and I will upload some photos.  We put in 12 and a half hours on the road today.  Bedtime is calling.

Up til now (day 18 of our 21 day trip) we have had a wonderful time.  In fact so much fun and sightseeing that we got laughing this afternoon as we'd drive around the bend and ANOTHER damn scenic view or vista would be there and we'd say enough already, ENOUGH.  Not really but we were laughing about all of the fantastic country we have had the opportunity to travel through.  And the critters, never enough critters.  Just today alone we saw 5 black bears, a herd of buffalo, 11 Stones sheep, crows uncountable, 3 rabbits, 2 potguts and 4 elk.  We got a great video of one of the elks first walking then running along side the road/car.  It was great.  At the end of the trip we'll add up the total critter count and let you all know what it is.

Three more days on the road then we'll be back to T and E's.  If we don't write any more between now and then, we'll catch this all up with the great things we saw and did.

Good night for now.....

Tom and Debra

Day 12 part 2 - Homer Alaska in search of the Kilchers

So the journey down to Homer was familiar territory for most of the drive.  My motivation for including Homer in our itinerary was based on the things I'd seen and heard about Homer as a cruise and Halibut fishing port.  In addition, I should back up a little and tell you that I have been planning a trip to Alaska for over 20 years.  One of my life goals was to visit all 50 states and at one time I was on track to get all 50 done by my 50th birthday.  Well that didn't happen but now at 67 I have finally completed that goal.  Over the years as I prepared myself for this journey I had read tons of information on Alaska and requested all the travel guides and information publications that I ran across.  I had purchased the Milepost book and used its maps and information to help in my planning. I had also enjoyed all the reality TV shows on Alaska that have aired over the last 10 years or so.

One of my all time favorites has been "Alaska, the Last Frontier" that is based upon the Kilcher family living on their homestead about 15 miles outside of Homer.  This show appeals to me because well first of all it is about Alaska, and secondly the Kilchers life on the homestead reminds me a lot of the life I experienced in Pennsylvania.  I feel a connection to their family that resonates with me something like my memories of growing up in rural Pa.  Our house in Nanty-Glo had no indoor plumbing; we used an outhouse.  We had no indoor water and we had to carry our water from a spring up on the hill.  Our home was heated with coal and we spent much of our summer picking coal off the bony dumps and from along the railroad tracks so that we could have enough to survive the winters.  The Kilcher men remind me of people I knew and later worked with growing up so I feel kind of a kinship with them when I watch their show.

Based on information that I had learned on the show I knew approximately where the Kilchers homestead was along Kachemak Bay.  I also knew that a road called the Kilcher Road existed and that it led from the homestead into Homer.  I had thought that the homestead was about 15 miles in on Kilcher Road and although I never expected to be able to drive the road all the way to the homestead I thought it would be really cool if I could at least find the road and have my picture taken there.  So we spent our first couple of hours in Homer driving around and looking at all the tourist stuff.  We drove out on the Homer Spit and at the end of that road we encountered the Lands End resort where we took a photo turned around and started back.
When we got back to the shoreline I decided to go east in search of a photo opportunity at Kilcher Road.  At this point we had no idea if we could find it and we were certain that if we could it would be blocked off and post with no trespassing signs.

It took us only a short while to find a road to take us toward the homestead and a few minutes more on that road to run across Kilcher Road.  We took some pictures of me under the road sign and prepared to leave and start back to town.  I questioned whether or not we should go down the road and Debra convinced me to go ahead.  We thought at the worse case we would soon reach a point where it would be blocked off and we'd be forced to turn around. So we went for it.  We went in the road about a quarter of a mile and came around a curve and the road was blocked by some traffic. There was a flatbed trailer on the left side of the road and I looked at the people gathered alongside it and saw Otto Kilcher sitting on the bed of the trailer.  I stopped the car and got out and headed for the trailer and along came Eivin Kilcher heading for the trailer to get in the picture.  One of the ladies who was trying to organize the photo asked me if I'd take it for them and Otto said to me "Looks like you got here at the wrong time, now you have to take the picture".  Atz Lee Kilcher who had been working in a small  front end loader joined Otto, Eivin and the family over at the trailer and I took a couple shots of that family with the Kilchers.   ( This is Debra posting - My sweet baboo was totally star struck. I so love that guy.)

At that point Debra and I got in the photo and the lady from that family took a couple photos of us. Afterwards I stood there chatting with Otto for a few minutes.  I said I didn't expect to be able to come down their road as I thought it would be a long road and probably blocked off.  He said the TV show producers make it sound a lot further than it is.  But he also pointed out that back in 1952 the road coming out from Homer ended at the entrance to their homestead. So at one time it really was 15 miles out their road to town. I also said they probably got tired of all the fans trying to drop in on them.  He said no, the fans enabled the TV show to happen and the TV show helps makes their family happen and he guessed that their family must make something happen for all of us too so it all works out.  He then invited us to continue down their road and go up to his house. He said Eivin likes to keep his place private so his lane is posted but if we stayed to the left we could go all the way up to his house.  He asked where we were from and we told him about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City and west of I-15. He asked how close that was to Lehi, Utah and we told him it was just west of Lehi.  He said he has an old friend in Lehi and the last time he was down there it was a whole lot of nothing west of Lehi. We laughed at how much it has grown and how many people were out there in Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs.  I said that his area was filling up also and that there were houses all over the place up there.  I shook all their hands when we first got there and I shook them all again as we were leaving and they were wrapping up there along the road.  Eivin apologized for maybe having a little grease on his hands as he had been working on the front end loader when we pulled up.  We left them along the road and continued into the homestead and up towards Otto's house.  We didn't get real close to the house as the road narrowed down to the point where I wasn't comfortable driving my car down there.  We got a few pictures of the area including one of a house that I think was Yule Kilchers original house there and then we headed out.  When we got back to where we had met them the road was clear and they were gone.

Even now days later I am amazed that we found Kilcher Road and actually got to meet three of the Kilcher men.  It was an incredible part of this adventure that I will remember fondly for years to come.  Homer represented the end of the road for us and the rest of our travels on this trip was heading in the direction of home.

Happy Trails Everyone,

Tom & Debra Stephens

Day 12 - Down the Kenai Penninsula and on to Homer

June 13, 2018  Kenai Penninsula and Homer

Greetings fellow travelers.  I am finally getting around to writing about our trip to Homer although it happened last Thursday June 14th.  We checked out of our hotel in Anchorage and started back down the Kenai Penninsula toward Homer.  The road to Homer is AK1 which also takes you most of the way to Seward.  We had traveled that road earlier in the week (Monday) when we made our trip to Seward.  So a large part of the Homer route was a repeat. Debra showed me a line graph from the SpotWalla app and we laughed at how much we retraced our routes during this trip.

This drive, although half repeat is beautiful.  No surprise there.  All the drives have been, beautiful, fantastic, spectacular, scenic, awesome, breathtaking and some a bit boring.

The town of Homer was a fun visit.  Our first stop was the visitor center 

We drove around town snapping some pics and enjoying the town

Homer is also where we reached the end of our northward bound trip, the Land's End.  Everything from here on was basically the homeward trip. 

But not the end of our exploration of Homer.  From here we headed out to what is called the Homer Spit.  A small strip of land that has been developed as a fun cruise ship shopping center.  We did no shopping or stopping, just snapped a few pics.  I have video but again blogger and I aren't speaking to each other re video.  I liked the boat boneyard.  An interesting story is about a small salmon fishing pond on the spit.  Several years ago some entrepreneuring gentlemen stocked the pond with salmon eggs.  This pond is NOT on the normal spawning route of salmon.  But nature will prevail - the eggs hatched, the baby salmon headed out to the open waters and return each year to their hatching place to spawn - therefore keeping the pond 'stocked' for local fishing. (no pic - sorry)

Boat Bone Yard

After leaving the spit we headed out to find the Kilchers.  Check out the next post for that adventure.

Tom and Debra

Day 11 - Anchorage Tuesday June 12th.

June 12, 2018  Out and about in Anchorage

Continuing with our Anchorage update after our run down to Seward yesterday we were pretty beat last night and decided to spend today just in and around Anchorage doing little driving and visiting a few select locations.

We started out with breakfast here in the hotel.  Breakfast has been very interesting here in that it has been so packed both mornings that it is hard to even get in to get food and extremely difficult to find anyplace to sit and eat.  Apparently many tourist buses use this hotel and their clientele are generally in the lobby and at breakfast in that 7: 00 am to 9:00 am window when we try to get breakfast.  Since we went a little later in the morning today we were able to get food and a table to sit and have breakfast at the hotel before we left for our first stop.

Our first stop was actually in walking distance of our hotel although we didn't know that when we left,.  We went to Lake Spenard which is just a little ways across the street from our hotel.  That lake connects with Lake Hood to form a float plane airport.  We found a great bench right along the lake from which to watch planes take off and land.  With some beautiful morning sunshine it made for a nice relaxing hour of activity.  We got a number of videos of planes landing and taking off but Blogger seems to have a problem with my videos and won't play them once they are uploaded.  I'll keep working on that.

 

After the clouds came along on and covered up our sunshine it got a bit chilly so we decided to move on and find another activity.  There is a park area north and east of here that is called McKinley View park.  We had heard that Mt. Denali(McKinley) was visible from Anchorage at certain times so with the name of the park we thought maybe this was the place from which we could see it down here if the weather permitted.  Since it was also by the harbor we thought maybe we could see more seaplanes and boats as well.  The map we were using was a map of the bus routes in town and they were less than forthcoming with street names and navigational details but we thought that once we got close to the area we would find street signs or something that would lead us to the park.  Didn't happen.  We made some guesses as to how to get there but that only ended up taking us to the actual port downtown where the lady at the entrance gate said she didn't even know of McKinley View park so we ventured off into downtown Anchorage.

We stopped off at the visitors center downtown and got some free postcards to mail out and snapped a few photos in the area.  We have Debra in front of the old city hall, me by a big blue bear and Debra trying to crawl up on the sod roof of the visitors center.

Check out the photo album for more downtown Anchorage pics. We also have some photos of cool flowers we came across and some of the various bears hanging around outside some of the souvenir shops.  We did a little shopping at the Polar Bear Gifts shop.  As a side note the hardware on the door said it was once a Woolworth Store. We managed to find some new earrings for Debra and a one pound package of smoked salmon to take home and a refrigerator magnet to hang in our trailer as a reminder of this great trip.  Debra also had a nice long chat with a lady on the street outside the store who wanted her to take her picture and then print her a copy.   Debra got her mailing information and will try to send one to her when we get back.

We got a few photos wandering up and down the streets and finally stop for coffee at the Downtown Grind.  It was a nice little coffee shop with a very likable young man who was the co-owner of the shop and most importantly great coffee.  I even did a check in on Facebook and added my recommendations for the place.  After the coffee shop we made one last stop at a street vendors cart to get a reindeer sausage.  It also was excellent.  It was spicy and I had added some spicy brown mustard to it to spice it up even more and it was very tasty.

After that we found our way back to the hotel and are deciding on a dinner location.  More to come.

Happy Trails,

Tom & Debra Stephens

Day 9 - 10 Anchorage, Denali, Seward

It is now Tuesday early afternoon and I'm just getting around to providing a new update to the blog.  We arrived here in Anchorage late Sunday afternoon and have been having a great time.  But first let's backup to leaving Fairbanks.

We left our hotel in Fairbanks early Sunday morning in an attempt to beat the weather to Denali National Park.  We had a nice drive down and for most of the way we avoided the rain however by the time we got near Denali the overcast gray skies became intermittent rain clouds.  Just south of Nenana we spotted another cow moose off the left side of the road.  We had to make a U-turn and go back to get some shots of it but she was in no hurry to go anywhere so it worked out well.  Most of the shots were from a distance so it was hard to get a good clear one of her so I got out of the car and approached through the bushes to get a better shot of her.  She was standing in the river facing toward the highway but when I started through the bushes she obviously had gotten spooked and turner around.  When I came out of the bushes by the river she had climbed the opposite back and was heading away.  Although the photos were not great it was still a fun experience and I'm glad we spotted her.

We had decided to take our car into Denali and drive the 15 miles inside the park that you are allowed in privately owned vehicles.  Part way into the part I noticed a large bird alongside the road.  As we got closer the bird stayed along the roadway and we got right up alongside it.  Signs posted at the 15 mile point later on identified the bird as a Willow Ptarmigan.  This one had the red neck and head but still had the white feathers from its winter coloring.  It was about the size of a chicken and I would imagine it would make a fairly nice meal if you were hunting it for dinner.

As we got close to the 15 mile marker we came across a couple of Caribou along side road.   We spent a few minutes taking video and still photos of the Caribou as these were the first we had seen along the way.  Debra kept trying to get a still shot with the head up to show the full antlers but they were only up for a second or so and her camera operated so slow that I don't know if  she got them.  We did capture the head and antlers on video so hopefully we can add that to the photo album.  Another fun shot.

When we arrived at the turnaround spot there was a little parking area where we stopped for some more videos and photos.  Plus we got to see some local squirrels playing around near the trail.  I took a small hike up one of the trails that climbed up over the rocks but I only made it maybe a quarter of a mile up before the rain and the wind convinced me I wasn't dressed for it.  I did have my sweatshirt on but I was also wearing shorts so I wasn't really dressed for hiking in bad weather up a mountain trail. I took a few more photos along the way up to add to the blog.

Looking down the Savage River

Mile 15 turnaround Denali

Starting up on my hike,

Looking down on the river

The car in the parking lot

Veins in the rocks.

When we turned around and came out of the park we passed by the Caribou again.  They were still there but by this time they were laying down instead of grazing.   As we continued along the park road we finally saw our first bull moose.  He was coming up an open river bed towards the road so we got some pretty good video and hopefully some good still photos as well of him before he turned to his left and ran out of the river bed.  That was our first bull moose encounter and we were excited to see him and get the photo.

We arrived at our hotel in Anchorage around 5:15 pm and got checked in.  The Alex Hotel in Anchorage has been our most expensive hotel of the trip and we can't remember why we decided on it.  It is one of the least attracted places we've stayed in on the trip and certainly not worth what we paid for it.  However, at this point in the tourist year I don't think we could get anything better for less money so we decided to stick it out.  I have sent a review off to the Expedia folks detailing our disappointment with the place but we aren't here to sit in the hotel anyway so we are over it.

Our first two days in Anchorage were to be spent Salmon fishing up in Wasilla and do daytime stuff here in Anchorage.  The fishing trip fell through as the Little Susinta River where our contacts live is still closed to salmon fishing during the week and apparently no one has been catching salmon anyway.  Our third day here was designated for a trip down to Seward which is one of the ports where the cruise ships come in to Alaska.  So with the fishing trip canceled we decided to juggle the schedule around and head to Seward on Monday.

The drive to Seward was again very scenic with quite a few photo ops available. We travel around Turnagain Arm and down into the Kenai Pennisula which is a very mountainous and very green route. It was sunny but cool when we started out but by the time we arrived in Seward the rain had set in and it made for a chilly afternoon. On the way down we took quite a few photos of the scenery and Debra got a few of the bald eagles.  We saw 8 of those along the way.  I didn't get any on my camera as I was driving but we will try to upload hers later and add them to the blog.

Along Turnagain Arm

Road to Seward

Road to Seward

Road to Seward

Road to Seward

As it was a Monday when we visited Seward there were no cruise ships in the harbor so we drove a round a little and spent a bit of time down by the harbor.  We went it a local restaurant to get lunch called Zudy's, yes that is spelled with a Z but after looking over the menu for a bit we decided it was too much California hippie/vegan style food for us to spend money on so we continued on looking for something else.  We finally settled on a small place called the Highliner.  It appeared to be a fairly new place and even the signs out front said now open.  We had a nice lunch there and thoroughly enjoyed the food.  I had halibut and chips and Debra had clam chowder for lunch and then a Creme Brulee covered chocolate mousse for dessert.

Debra want a photo of that church.

     

Where's that Halibut?

Dessert.

We left Seward and headed for home after lunch as there wasn't really anything in Seward that we wanted to do or see and the cold rain was a deterrent to any random exploring.  On the way home we made a short side trip to the Portage Glacier to see that but again it was cold and rainy and visibility was reduced significantly.  We got a few photos and will add them to the photo album if any turn out well.

Happy Trails Everyone,

Tom & Debra Stephens

Day 8 - Last full day in Fairbanks

June 9, 2018 - Fairbanks Alaska

This was a day for regrouping and recouping.  Our drive to and from the Arctic Circle was around 200 miles round trip but all day driving and site seeing.

So we went and had the car washed, did our laundry and napped. (learning to sleep with the sun up day and night  😉)

The fun thing for the day was dinner.  As stated in an earlier post we never made it to the All you can eat Alaskan Buffet.  We did go to what is called The Alaska Salmon Bake at Pioneer Park.  It too is an all you can eat featuring (on the night we went) Salmon, cooked on an open grill, prime rib and what I called cod fritters. They were beer battered pieces of cod and they were delicious, as was the salmon.  Tom ate 4 pieces of salmon to my one, a nice slice of prime and I don't know how many pieces of cod. I filled up on salmon and cod.  The buffet also had your normal salad bar and it's own little dessert barn.  But who needs that stuff when there is salmon.  Good Stuff and one of my favorite dinner stops on the trip.  There was indoor and outdoor seating, we did both.  Tom indulged me with sitting outside til the 'squites were bugging him too much.

Tomorrow we head to Anchorage with a stopover in Denali.

Til then sweet dreams

Tom and Debra