Category Archives: Retirement

Back in the 48

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We got Roxie’s SCS battery replaced and still ended up waiting another week for her followup appointment. All was good and we headed back on the road. We were a little gun shy about the change in the weather. You could feel it in the air. We decided to head directly back to the lower 48 as we had a date to be somewhere. However, we kept track of the places we passed to visit in the future.

We headed to Tok for a night, entered back into Canada and spent one night at Cottonwood RV Park on the shore of Kluane Lake. This RV park has some wonderful views:

We dry camped here as their power is via a generator. They only allow 15 amps so that really doesn’t help us at all. We can’t do the microwave with it, nor did we need the A/C.

The next one night stop was Hi-Country in Whitehorse YT and then on to Watson Lake and the provincial campground there:

You can barely make out the lake through the trees

At Watson Lake, we changed our route off the AlCan highway to take the Cassiar highway down through British Columbia. This is a much less traveled path, much more beautiful and much more remote! It took us 2 days to traverse the road and we had ZERO cell coverage. I am not sure if that is good or bad.

We stayed at Kinaskan Lake campground for one night. It was a wonderful campground, almost all spots were on the lake and quiet (except during generator times from that big bus a couple of spots away). Here views from the evening and the next morning:

Sitting by the lake
Smooth as glass!
A bit different the next day!

At the end of the Cassiar is the town of Hazelton, BC. This worked out great to be our next stop. We stayed at the ‘Ksan Campground. It is set in a historical village of the local indigenous peoples.

One interesting part of this was the bridge we went over to and from the campground, the Hagwilget Canyon Bridge. It is a single lane suspension bridge and was exciting.

https://youtu.be/TBB-pHVk6_0

Since we were back in civilization we made a quick stop at Walmart in Prince George BC and spent one night south of there at Mama Yeh RV Park (they are Passport America). The road south of Prince George as you start to enter the Frazier River valley is very beautiful as well as the valley itself. Nice rolling hills and green everywhere. Another overnight near Clinton BC at the Willow Springs RV park as we continue our trek back to California to help Roxie’s sister with her total knee replacement surgery.

Once we entered the Frazier River valley, it was a lower altitude and warmer. Our last stop in Canada was at the Chilliwack Walmart. This was our ninth night in a row on the road back with each stop only one night. Time for a rest. Our border crossing back to the US was pretty easy. They asked us about food and we had avocados and apples. They pulled us over and the AG guy came by but we were safe since the items were from the US. Great!

We stopped in Mt Vernon WA for 3 nights. This gave us time to visit Roxie’s nephew who lived in the area. That area, north of Seattle, is very beautiful and the weather was great. We got to decompress a bit before we headed south. As we left the campground, I heard a loud noise from the left rear of the trailer. The ingress/egress to the campground was a bit steep so I thought that I just scraped the tail in the gravel. We stopped down the road a bit further for a bathroom break. While parked I noticed my stabilizer jack, on the left rear, was bent all out of shape! I had forgotten to raise it as we were leaving the RV park. This is not normal for me but it happens. I spent about 30 minutes removing the old jack.

The dead jack. RIP

We stopped for another 3 nights at the Columbia Riverfront RV Park in Woodland WA. While there we had a couple pull in next to us in a brand new Airstream. This was their first Airstream and the first trip in it! We were able to talk with them a bit and help answer some questions they had. I am confident they will have many years ahead of them of fun travels.

On our way through Portland, we stopped at the Airstream dealership. This is where we initially purchased our trailer. I needed some parts for our step as one of the washer assemblies had failed. I got 3 sets of parts.

Our final destination was Redding but we were a bit ahead of schedule so we headed to San Francisco to visit our family there. We stopped at an Escapees park in Sutherlin, OR, a single night in Yreka CA at the Waiiaka RV Park.

Mt Shasta

The next overnight was a freebee in Corning at the Olive Pit restaurant. Another one night stop in Rio Vista by Sacramento delta. The last stop was in South San Francisco to stay at our usual stop (Treasure Island RV).

Treasure Island has changed. It appears they are trying to get out a lot of the older full-time units. They parked us in a spot where there was no possible way for me to park. After calling management, the directed us to a new spot. This spot was very tight also. It took me about 15 minutes to get parked. The guy behind us was not happy that I was so close but what else could I do?

Encroaching on our neighbor!

The park said this was a 35′ site but no way! Our trailer is 31′ and we are past the end of it. Now I was thinking about how I might get out of the spot. There was a pole right next to the trailer at the front:

There really wasn’t enough space to exit to the right especially thinking about the tail swing. The solution I saw was to go directly through the opposing set of spots.

Our escape route!

After our visit, we hadn’t been there for over 10 months, we used our escape route and headed to Redding. We stopped off in Chico (I went to school there for 3 years) for 3 nights. Before we took the trailer to the RV park in Redding, I checked with a local welder.

Whenever I set up our satellite I like to secure the dish to the trailer. It is easy in the front as I just use the A-frame. In the back of the trailer I have always had to use the stabilizer jack for the security cable. I believe doing this the last time, north of Seattle, messed with my sequence. I left the jack down because I had to remove the cable. This is it looks under the trailer:

I had the welder do this to give me a security anchor:

We are in Redding for about a month now and will then go back and visit our son in Visalia after that.

My next post will be an Alaska recap.

Delayed in Alaska

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When we headed to Homer there was a wildfire burning on the Kenai Peninsula and we came through some of the smoke on the way. But after a week, we had very minimal smoke on the way to our next stop, Seward.

We stayed there for 4 nights at the KOA. I know there are spots downtown, near the water, but they were only $20 or so cheaper but only electric and water. Plus you had some more ‘permanent campers there. Right by our spot was an eagle that made a nest in the only tree at the KOA:

We scheduled a boat trip to visit Kenai Fjords NP and some wildlife on the way. Naturally the day we went out was rainy and with rough seas. This meant Roxie got seasick in the 6′ swells. She didn’t have a very good time. She was able to be alert enough to see some of the wildlife and glaciers:

We took a day trip from there to Whittier. We were able to go through the tunnel shortly after the train came through:

Unlike Skagway, Whittier only had 1 cruise ship but it dominated the skyline:

Whittier was built by the US military as a base and they built the tunnel for trains. Here is one of the buildings they left behind. They decided not to tear down this one due to costs since it was built to withstand earthquakes and is filled with asbestos:

Leaving Seward, we headed back to Palmer. We had a medical issue to take care of. One of the primary reasons to head to Austin this year was to get a Spinal Cord Stimulator (SCS) for Roxie. This will block her nerve pain electronically. However, shortly after we left Austin she had a problem charging it. Her SCS has a rechargeable battery that connects inductively through her skin. She take a flat paddle and lines it up parallel to her internal battery. The problem is that she has to really jam her hand into her side at an odd angle to get any type of charge to the battery and it takes a very long time.

She has been struggling with this for almost 2 months. We got in contact with the representative of the device’s manufacturer (Abbott) and scheduled a time to meet with her in Anchorage. We were able to also meet with an MD that does the SCS procedure. They discovered that her battery had shifted location and was no longer in a vertical orientation but was in such a way that she could not get the paddle parallel with any consistency. Hence the difficulty.

We started the procedure to get the battery replaced with a non-rechargeable one. We needed to get insurance approval but we had some time. We had reservations for Denali NP and then on to Fairbanks.

We headed on to Denali. We stayed at a very nice spot at Riley Creek campground. We had booked a bus tour (the Kantishna Experience) which was 11 hours long for the round trip. It was a cloudy day with a bit of rain. We were only able to see small bits of the mountain for moments at a time. We did see a fair amount of animals: Caribou, Dall sheep, black bears, moose and various other small ones.

On another day at Denali NP, we went to see the sled dogs. Denali still uses sled dogs in the winter for NPS transportation as the majority of the park is a wilderness area. Here is Roxie and I with new friends:

On the 1964 trip, I remember visiting a bunch of sled dogs and all the barking. I was able to find a picture of my encounter back then:

In the background of this picture you can see a name on a doghouse. The name is Niski. On the walls of the building on the grounds, they have all the doghouse names. They take them off when they find a home for a retired sled dog and normally give the new family the sign. However they do put up replicas in the building.

I took this photo to the rangers there and asked them about it. According to their records, there was a Niski that was in a litter from 1961. This would have made the age correct. Looking for the sign:

My memory was pretty accurate. It was a lot of fun to track this down. I asked my sister about all of this and all she remembered is that she wanted to take a dog home back in 1964.

Next was Fairbanks for a week. We should know about the SCS status soon and we had our anniversary coming up (39 years).

I also remember, vaguely, from 1964 that we rode a paddlewheel boat. I remember looking down from the top deck and seeing a salmon wheel. In keeping with the re-creation of 1964, we also took a paddlewheel trip.

Roxie was a bit fearful that she might get seasick, I assured her she would not. She didn’t. The tour is a very enjoyable journey. They have a demo of a floatplane taking off and landing. They show a sled dog team take a lap around a track. They also take you to a remake of a Chena Indian village where local native americans show you the life and techniques of times ago. Here are some fox pelts:

I talked to the trip narrator and let him know about the 1964 trip. I wondered what paddlewheel was used then. He told me this one:

Still floating.

Before we left Fairbanks we still did not know that status of the SCS replacement but decided to head back to the Anchorage area in anticipation of good news. He stopped for 2 nights in Talkeetna and rode the Hurricane Turn train.

We also saw some salmon heading up the river to spawn

We got back to Palmer (for the 3rd time) and found out Roxie got the go ahead for the procedure. Alas, we can’t get the procedure scheduled for 2 weeks after we got here, which means being here for 3 weeks total. But this is part of life on the road. You have to become a local at times.

However, we can see this from our campsite:

Next entry hopefully talks about being on the road again (Go Willie!).