Category Archives: Trips

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.

Doh!

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We are in Homer AK for a week.

The last post had us about to get to milepost 0, we did (on June 14):

Milepost 0

We didn’t stop there as the nights continually were getting longer. We made it to the Walmart parking lot in Ft. St. John, BC:

Our next major destination was Liard River Hot Springs. We stopped in Ft. Nelson on the way. I remember bits of the Liard Hot Springs from the 1964 trip. The mosquitos bothered everyone else but didn’t bother me at all. Maybe that is why my dad called me ‘stinky’? I forgot to take a pic of the hot springs but I got one of our site. (PS. This time the mosquitos DID bother me):

We left Liard a day early and gifted our site to the next camper that occupied it. We had a long day ahead. Normally the stops were nicely spaced, 200 miles or so. This stretch was not so. It was beautiful, with lots of wildlife but also very sparse:

On the way we stopped at the Signpost Forest in Watson Lake, YT to leave a ‘sign’ of our own. Let’s know if you ever see it in the future:

We made it to our camp after almost 300 miles. And the rig was so dirty! We also heard a whooshing noise under the trailer when I hooked up shore water. Our winterizing valve was hit by some rocks and it got knocked open. I closed it and all was good, for now.

The dirtiness of the rig reminded me of some pictures of the dirty rig from 1964:

The next sustained stop was Whitehorse YT. Whitehorse is a very decent sized town where you can stock up before you trek into Alaska. We visited the canyon nearby and the paddle boat:

From Whitehorse, we took a day trip down to Skagway without the trailer. Skagway is in Alaska but I don’t feel it was officially Alaska yet. Even though we had to deal with those surly Canadian border patrols when we came back.

Back at Whitehorse, I had a minor repair to do. From the rock roads I noticed that the propane line on the A-frame was no longer gray. The rocks had chipped off the paint to let the copper color show through. I covered them up with pipe insulation:

Next stop was Alaska but a bit too far for one day. We stopped overnight at a nice Provincial Park that was thick with mosquitos:

Then, on June 24, …

We spent two nights in Tok, the furthest north camping we have done, got our guns, and then headed south to Glennallen. We took a day trip from Glennallen to go to Valdez. At least there were no Canadian borders to cross. A glacier on the road to/from Valdez:

Our next stop was Palmer for multiple nights. We were timing it to get to the 4th of July get together on time. While in Palmer, the valve that got knocked with the rocks was now leaking. It probably was happening earlier but this was the first I noticed. I removed the valve and went to an RV repair shop. He told me that it was simple and if I could get the trailer there by 4pm, he can fix it:

Not a problem it was there by 3pm. He crawled under the trailer and 30 minutes later it was fixed. He put a new, tougher valve on it. $30 for all that. Wow!

We made it to our 4th of July celebration and met a lot of new people. One guy told me he lived in a small little town called Mountain Gate in California. I told him that I went to Central Valley High School. He said he did too! He was 5 years after me but it shows how truly small the world has become. Me (’78) and Mike Adams (’83):

After the 4th, we decided to try to avoid the heat and fires in the Anchorage area and we ended up in Homer.

Now you are updated, we have the next 3 weeks planned and after the first week of August we are heading back to the lower 48. We will keep you posted!