Still on the move

Over the last few days we have been on the road, driving about 200 miles per day. The road conditions range from excellent to teeth rattling, and often change with little or no advance warning. Frost heaves are a major problem, think of them as speed bumps with holes added for more effect.

The road department tries to mark them, but many have no warning flags. Add to that the highway rebuilding that takes place and it makes slow going, especially for RVs Max speed we can drive is 45 mpg, and often slower than that. Most local drivers are tolerant, but every so often a driver passes us and "flips us the bird" or cuts us off.

If you have ever driven the loop around Atlanta at rush hour, you have an idea of what it is like driving in the cities. Everyone is in a hurry and likes to drive about 2 feet from your bumper. Courtesy is so rare that when we left an opening for a local driver to pull out from a fuel station he did not understand what we were doing and got annoyed with us.  By law only 4 RV’s can travel together, so we are spread out over a few miles as we travel.

That being said we are having a great time. The caravan hosts do a great job in organizing the trip. It's no small feat to manage movement of 18 large rigs in and out of campgrounds, deal with mechanical issues as well as events such as dinners, tours and shows. Our traveling companions are fun to be with, we watch out for each other on the road, keep in touch by CB.

We are in Whitehorse Yukon for two days, will tour area and go to vaudeville show tonight. Tomorrow we leave for Tok Ak, will take two days of driving to reach it.

Northern BC and Yukon are suffering a major drought, we have driven near several fires being fought smoke was a problem on the roads.

We visited the famous Watson AK "sign forest" Nearly 50,000 signs have been added since the soldiers started this in 1952. It is amazing, signs from all over the world, some elaborate, others made up of toilet seats, tin pans, or whatever they had on hand. We made our own contribution and recorded the exact GPS coordinates of our sign so it can be found by friends and family in the future.



See you down the road

The infamous Alcan

Today was our first day on the Alcan.

Before this trip I was not aware that during WW2 the Japanese had invaded and occupied two of the Aleutian islands in June of 1942. The Alcan had been started in March of 1942, the invasion accelerated its completion. All 1642 miles were completed by Nov of 1942. In May of 1943 the US attacked Attu. In a bloody campaign, there was 3,900 killed or injured American troops.

As many as 1,200 suffered severe frostbite. The Japanese refused to surrender and after final battle involving hand to hand combat only 28 Japanese were captured, the remaining 2,400 had been killed or committed suicide.

The second island was taken with no resistance. The U.S. put together an overwhelming force of ships and soldiers only to find the island abandoned.

Today most of the road is paved, but includes lots of curves and 10% grades. As we drove yesterday I noticed new road construction taking place.

When I glanced over I saw the top of a bulldozer next to us, digging the foundation for a new lane. The road bed was nearly 6 foot down, to be filled with stone, dirt, and asphalt to bring it up level to the existing roads. Even with this the roads still succumb to frost heaves.

Lots of wildlife along the road, including a llama?. There had been a major forest fire a few days before we arrived driving bears and moose to graze along the highway.

We are headed out to Liard Hot Springs today.



Bob and Barb

On our way

Today we made final preparations to leave on the first leg, 270 miles to Fort Nelson, BC.

 

There was some concern because of forest fires along the route, but that has been cleared.

One of the benefits of traveling with the tour group is getting “intel” on traveling conditions.

We took a group picture under the mile 0 sign, will post  and had group dinner with a presentation on the Alcan highway.

Our Traveling Companions

These are the folks who were with the Creative Travel tour group. The two couples in the Blue coats were our guides. Couple with the Dog are Wagon master and other couple are tail gunner. Role of the Wagon masters are to plan and coordinate tour, they leave first each morning to make sure next destination is ready. Tail gunner is responsible for rig safety and support. They leave last to make sure everyone is accounted for. More than once on the trip we had rig breakdowns. Creative was great in finding service locations and arranging accommodations for the stranded tour members.

Getting ready to go

Yesterday we had RV and vehicle inspections done by caravan leaders. Also received instructions on trip procedures.

The inspection disclosed I needed, yet more, mesh to protect my radiator, and I had forgotten about protecting my A/C condenser. Found support to tail pipe broken, spent most of the day under the RV taking care of issues.

Last night we had group campfire, 30 of the 32 folks were there. Two will be arriving tonight. Introduced ourselves and group leaders told stories of previous trips.

Today looks like rain, will have another group get together tonight. Friday is final preparations, a group picture in front of the mile 0 sign in Dawson Creek and a dinner.

Saturday we pull out. To call this a caravan is a bit of a misnomer. Law prevents more than 4 RV's together, so we have to stage ourselves out. We keep in contact by CB and cell phone, meet up at the next destination. Notice our RV has sign on front, one on back as well, identifying us as part of the group. We are #7.

More later.

Dawson Creek

   



We made it to mile zero of the Alcan, and on the way saw the worlds biggest beaver in of course, Beaver lodge, AB

Here is Barbara's friend the black bear, so cute.

We will lay over here till Friday. The tour leaders just arrived and other RV's will be meeting us over the next couple of days.

Bob and Barb

Barbara finally spots a bear.

It finally happened! On our way to Grand Prairie Barb spotted a black bear sunning itself next to route 43. I only got a quick glance.

The entire trip, 255 miles, was accompanied by 50mph cross winds that tried to blow us off the road. It took all my concentration to keep rig on road. Just to keep things interesting the road had S curves and 9% grades.

By the time we pulled into the campground we were both exhausted.

On Monday we get to Dawson Creek, the end of the first leg of or trip.

Grand Prairie is a boom town, has some of the largest natural gas reserves in North America. Add the huge logging, pulp and OSB plants and you have an exploding population.

Will do some last minute stocking up before we enter British Columba. We are told that prices for all the basics are much higher there.