Journey to Alaska: 2014

Friday, July 11, 2014

5th Leg - Canada and Alaska

I know I'm horrible! Here goes Alaska to Canada and back to Alaska...

We landed in Haines, AK on June 2. It was about 2:00pm when we got off the Ferry and we made the decision to stay in Haines for the night and make our way through Canada the following day. We found a hotel that was, not a normal hotel. It was old military housing turned into a hotel. However, this house was huge so it must have been the generals house or something. Let's just say it was interesting. The best part was the claw foot bath.

After checking in we went to a local restaurant and I had fish and chips for the first time ever. I know that's kind of a ridiculous, but those of you who know me, know I'm super picky and trying something new is not easy. However, I was sick of burgers and chicken from fast food restaurants so there you go. They were delicious by the way. After dinner we stopped at the Bald Eagle habitat (Thank Mom for mentioning it). The habitat turned into a museum of wild animals, which we got into for free (Thank you Military). We also got to see a bald eagle. It was in is cage but it was AWESOME! We didn't spend too much time there, just enough to wander around the stuffed wild animals and take a few pictures of the bald eagle and then back to our room. It was early but we were tired, you know from all that ferry riding ;).

Our plan for the 3rd was to get up "early" and drive through Canada and spend the night in Tok, AK. We finally got around and left the hotel around 9:00 (we planned for 8:00). The Canadian border was only about 30 min away so we thought we were making great time even with leaving an hour later than we wanted. However, it took us 2 hours to get across the border. Ugh! It took us 2 hours because they couldn't find the paperwork for Floyd's gun (a 1911) that he had sent to the Canadians probably 2 to 3 weeks before we left Kansas. They called and called and called and it took 2 HOURS to get to the right person to find out if they received the correct paperwork. It took so long I took a nap! Not to mention it was raining all morning and cold.

When we finally got across the border. We didn't have any hang ups. However, the posted speed limit sign on the Alaskan Highway through Canada is 95....kph. Its a good thing our truck can change to the metric system. We found out later there are a lot of people get speeding tickets because they are going 95mph. One thing that must be noted when driving through Canada on the Alaskan Highway be sure you see the orange flags flying because that indicates the road is horrible horrible horrible and you better slow down. The only time we stopped was to get gas but there was a lot of beautiful country to see, including a bear.

We made it through the rough roads of Canada and back into Alaska and spent the night in Tok, AK. We checked into our hotel and went to have a sit down dinner that turned into a to go dinner. We were so tired but just all the traveling that we didn't grab the diaper back, but didn't realize it until we sat down and lil man decided it was time to poop. The food was delicious tho. It was called Fast Eddy's and I would definitely recommend anybody traveling through Tok to try it.

From Tok, we had 3 more hours to drive in the morning to make it to our final destination, Fairbanks/Ft Wainwright. Our trip on Jun 4 to our final destination was very uneventful but awesome to finally get there. It was wonderful to know that we didn't have any more traveling to do. But scary because neither of us really knew what we needed to do or where to go. That first night we stayed in Fairbanks because our room on post was not reserved until the 5th. We did a little exploring of downtown Fairbanks near where we were staying but really just kind of decompressed from our travels in our room. Big Daddy BBQ was our dinner that night and it was AMAZING! Definitely another restaurant I would recommend.

Anyway, enough rambling. Here are a lot of pictures:

Just got off the Ferry driving into Haines, AK

View from our hotel parking lot in Haines

Bald Eagle Habitat

The museum part of the habitat

The real life bald eagle

Lil Man unwinding from the Ferry

My Dessert that was DELICIOUS at the restaurant in our hotel

On the road to Canada

Canada

Beautiful Canada

You guessed it...more Canada (there were a LOT of these pictures)

Kluane Lake in Canada - This lake went on FOREVER

Same Lake

Close up of the same lake

I took about a million pictures of this lake. Can you tell it is the biggest/longest lake I've ever seen?

Canadian Reeses. Just as good but the wrapper looked funny

My big boy holding his own bottle.

Bear!! Floyd said "I could have beat that bear up, he was little"

I believe this is Alaska now

Definitely Alaska

Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Leg 4 - The Ferry

On May 30, we boarded our Ferry in Bellingham, WA. We got into Bellingham around 10:30am. We didn't have the stage the vehicle (get in line) until 3:00p and we were set to depart at 6:00pm. We had a lot of time to waste. We reorganized our luggage to include the important stuff we needed to take up to our room and to make it easier to grab when we pulled onto the ship. We went in search of a Target or Walmart to get formula for Lil Man, ended up finding a Walgreens first so we got a few things there with the formula. We then travelled back to the port. I did homework while my men got us lunch and hung out. Around 2:00pm we drove the truck to the staging area.

Once we were in line, we could leave the truck or stay with it but we had to be back with our vehicle at 3:00 to begin boarding. So we decided to stay with the truck. While we waited to board, we saw the police dogs go around sniffing vehicles and groups reuniting. It is crazy that some of those people do this every year and every year they see the same people either that or are bound for the same locations. Turns out we stayed with the truck for a really long time. I don't think we actually pulled into the ferry until 5:00. And yes I do mean into not onto because the vehicles were all under the ship. There were all sorts of vehicles down there, buses, RVs, and motorcycles along with the normal cars and trucks.

Once we got into the ferry we unloaded the necessary luggage and went up to find out our room assignment.

The room was not what I expected. It had 2 sets of bunk beds for the 3 of us, we had a sink, toilet/shower, and closet. Those of you know how we pack know we had a lot of luggage for not a very big room (even though we condensed our stuff). We got our bags in and decided to go walk around the boat for a little while before we left port. The ship had observation decks all around the outside. The top level of the ship was full of people that were camping out. I'm serious! These people had tents, sleeping bags. Apparently, you don't have to purchase a room you can just camp out up top. Let me tell you, I will NEVER do that, it was sooooo stinking cold and windy, I couldn't imagine it. There were even families with little kids up there! Inside, there was a room in the front that had windows at the front that you could just sit and watch as we sailed. At the back of this room, they had 2 big screen tv's that had a map of where we were and where we were headed so we could track our progress. There was a full service bar. It was great, I had a Norm moment. I only went into the bar 2x and the bartender new my name and drink by the second time I came in. It was kinda awesome but then again it kinda made me feel like an alcoholic. She even knew who I was when I walked in. Of course Floyd was in there before me and said that his wife was going to be coming in shortly, so when I sat down she said "Are you Floyd's wife". Then there was the cafeteria. You would think as much as we spent on the dang ferry the food would be free, but it wasn't. They did have some good food though. And Floyd was LOVING the seafood.

We boarded on Friday, May 30 and got off the ship on Monday, Jun 2. During that time we had 4 stops before we got to our destination of Haines, AK. We did have any stops until Sunday so there was a lot of scenery to take it. It was so beautiful. If an Alaskan Cruise has scenery like the what we saw on the ferry I would recommend it to anybody. It was nothing like I have ever seen before. On Sunday, Jun 1, we actually were able to get off the ship at our first stop in Ketchikan. It is a cute town. We had breakfast on land and then reboarded the ship. Then next 3 stops, Wrangell, Petersburg, and Juneau were too short for us to get off the ship.

We got to Haines June 2 early afternoon and decided to spend the evening in Haines and then get a fresh start in the morning to go through Canada. That will be the next leg. Our 3 day ferry ride was a lot of fun and was relaxing with scenery that would be hard to beat. Here are some pictures.

Our Ferry - M/V Malaspina

Driving into the Ferry

Our room

Getting ready to explore the boat

Bellingham, WA

Exploring the ferry

Baby getting a lil tummy time

View from the back of the ship

Very excited about being out in the wind

Sitting in the observation room

Flowers in Ketchikan. This is the actual color.

More flowers in Ketchikan

Ketchikan

Chewing on some celery, thanks Dad!

Me and baby hanging out in the room

Dad and baby hanging out in the room

Dry land again, heading to find a hotel in Haines.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

3rd Leg - California to Washington

Hello again! I know I know, I'm really not doing a very good job of doing my posts. We have been in Alaska for a week now and I still haven't posted on all of our travels. So these next two will be a lot of pictures not so many words.

As a kid our vacations were (as my brother, Cole, calls them) Drive and See Stuff vacations! They were great! We saw a lot of the country in a short amount of time. I would have loved to take a trip to Disney Land or Disney World or other family destinations, but if it would have been that way we wouldn't have seen as much of the country as we did. So for our Drive and See Stuff vacations, Thank you Mom and Dad they were great!

In the spirit of Drive and See Stuff vacationing....

The three of us, headed North out of Stockton on May 28th heading for Bellingham, WA where we would catch our Ferry which would take us to Alaska. I drove first while my men slept. While I was driving I was thinking about how awesome it would be to take the Redwood Highway which would also take us along the coast of California. Redding gave the perfect opportunity for us to head West to hit the 101 (Redwood Highway). We stopped for gas and I casually mentioned to Floyd that we could go West to the coast and get on the 101 to see the Redwoods. I might have mentioned several months ago I would like to take the Redwood Highway but it would add several hours to our trip. I believe this time I said it would take us about 2 hours to get to the coast. Floyd said "Sure we have the time."

So West we traveled. On a two lane road, going maybe 55mph at the fastest through the curviest road of all time (ok maybe not but Floyd felt that way since he was driving). I would say a good 3 to 4 hours we saw the ocean! I was so excited! All I wanted to do was drive through a tree! I heard you could do that. Well I googled it and there are 3 Redwoods you can drive through I California and they are all private property so you have to PAY to go through them! Ugh. Well it seemed like we had been driving down the Redwood Hwy for HOURS and the trees were big but they weren't HUGE! And I was sooo disappointed. I kept telling Floyd they must be baby Redwoods because they weren't at all what I was expecting...

Then there was the sign Daylight Headlight Driving....."Babe, I'm UNdisappointed! THESE TREES ARE HUGE!?!??!". I kept saying that to Floyd, I kept telling him the trees were ENORMOUS!! It was amazing! I kept hoping for a spot we could pull off and take a picture next to one, but there really wasn't ever a place to stop. We did pull over at one time but it wasn't in a spot we could really get a good comparison and Lil man was asleep, so I took a picture of the trunk right outside the truck window.

After our journey through the Redwoods our trip was fairly uneventful. We did make it out of California and into Oregon (barely). We stayed in Grants Pass, OR. In the morning we got the oil changed in the truck and headed North some more. The people in Oregon are nice, you can't pump your own gas which is weird, but kinda nice. Northern California, Oregon and Washington are beautiful and their trees are HUGE! I couldn't get over it. They are just big! The trip between Grants Pass, OR and Olympia, WA was fairly uneventful. But we got a hotel him Olympia, grabbed some dinner and then I went and saw my good friend Samantha and her beautiful family and Floyd got to see his cousin Steve, who is stationed at Fort Lewis. It was so much fun seeing Samantha again! I miss her face! Samantha Jane I can't believe how big your boys have gotten and I love that Peyton still remembers me and I'm really glad Adrian got to see me! I know Floyd had a great time with Steve, after not seeing each other for 2 years and 2 years ago it was a fun but quick two days (maybe). Needless to say Olympia was fantastic!!!

We left May 30th early in the morning heading to our final lower 48 destination, Bellingham, WA to board our Ferry. However, that is for another blog. So here are some pictures from our Drive and See Stuff vacation through Northern California, Oregon and Washington.