My roommate bought a Jimmy Hendrix album

Back when I was in school in Auburn I roomed for a few quarters with a friend from high school named Danny Cardwell. We had first met when his class at Hanover finished 8th grade and came to CCHS for the 9th through the 12th grade. Danny was the kind of guy that was impossible not to like. He and I had both attended Alex City State Jr. College after graduating from high school and transferred to Auburn in the fall of 1967.  The first few quarters we had other roommates at different places but by the spring of 1968 we were roommates at Neill House over on Gay Street.

Back then everybody bought records. There were no 8 tracks, no cassettes and certainly no Cds  or mp3. Everything was vinyl. 33 1/3 albums or 45 singles. One day I came in from class and there was Danny getting ready to play his new Jimmy Hendrix album. At the time I had never heard of Jimmy Hendrix and I asked him, Why Jimmy Hendrix? He said that he had been watching a news broadcast and that they had interviewed an older woman and asked her what she thought of Jimmy Hendrix. Evidently she gave a scathing review of not only his music but of him as a person. Danny said as he listened to her he realized that she was the type of person that represented everything he disliked in people. If she was that much against Hendrix, Danny felt that he would probably like him. I am pretty sure that the Hendrix album became one of his favorites.

I though of this story today when I was thinking about the current presidential election. I have never been a big fan of Donald Trump and when the nominations were all settled I went to isidewith.com and took the quiz and found out that Gary Johnson most closely represented my views. For the last few weeks I have been toggling back and forth between voting for Johnson or boycotting the election all together. Recently I have begun to realize that nearly all of the people that I find to be reprehensible are against Trump. McCain, Ryan, Rove, all the Bushes , most of the national democrats and virtually all of the mainstream media are disparaging him constantly. Anybody that has  those people against him is bound to make a better president than any we have had in a long time in this country. It is still 2 weeks until the election and I may change my mind again a few more times before it gets here but if I don't, I'll be marking my ballot for Donald Trump on Nov 8th and who knows, after I do I may just go out and buy myself a Jimmy Hendrix album.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Back on Tuesday, March 13, 2007 I did a post called "This News Report Reminds Me Of A Story." The link in the post is dead but the story in the post seems to fit the current election cycle exactly.

This is that post.

BOGO

Yesterday I was driving down the hill from Vestavia into Hoover and passed a business that had a BOGO sign out front. I am an engineer by training and trade so spelling and grammer are not my strong suits.  I pretty much don't worry  if something is ok or not but; BOGO kinda rubs me the wrong way. I know that it is shorthand for buy one get one free but it looks  to me like it is just saying buy one get one, In other words it is really describing  what all commerce is all about. You go in and buy one loaf of bread and you get that one loaf of bread, BOGO. Why isn't buy one get one free BOGOF?  Buy one get another for 1/2 price would be BOGAHP. Maybe the powers that be feel that the average person can't handle 5 or 6 letters. If that is the case then buy one get one free could be described as buy one get two, BOG2 or BOGT. I realize that this little peeve of mine is useless because BOGO is fairly ubiquitous but I am now at that age where my filters are not as strong as they once were and I pretty much say what I think.

A Quote from Ethel Barrett

We would worry less about what others think of us if we realized how seldom they do.

- Ethel Barrett

A Quote from Wayne Dyer

   “Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.”

― Wayne Dyer 

John Milton - On His Blindess

Do you ever read this and think about what Milton is saying? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_His_Blindness

Another Quote from Mark Twain

“ Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. ”

― Mark Twain 

A Quote from Mark Twain

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

- Mark Twain

A Quote from Pope Paul VI

 “All life demands struggle. Those who have everything given to them become lazy, selfish, and insensitive to the real values of life. The very striving and hard work that we so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the person we are today.”

― Pope Paul VI 

Why Do Banks Fear Bitcoin?

I love this funny but spot on answer.

The above link appears to be down. It was a link to a page with a four panel cartoon. In the cartoon a young man was sitting across the table from another man in a suit. The young man was telling the other man that he was considering investing in bitcoin. The man in the suit began to give him the many reasons that investing in bitcoin would be unwise. It is controlled by shady characters, there is no guarantee that it will not decline in value, crooks can steal your funds. To that the young man replies, how is that different from the stock market or banks. The man in the suit replies, when you invest in bitcoin I can't charge you fees.

A Quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.

“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”

― Martin Luther King, Jr.

A Quote from Robert E. Lee

 “Get correct views of life, and learn to see the world in its true light. It will enable you to live pleasantly, to do good, and, when summoned away, to leave without regret.”

― Robert E. Lee 

Your First Time

They say you always remember your "first time," I am fairly certain they are talking about something other than hearing a good story, but today that is the "first time" I am talking about.  I've heard the following story many times through out my life. Told by different people and set in different places but my first time was in the early '60s. I was a junior or senior at Coosa County High School located in Rockford Alabama. I was sitting in Coach Ashley's American History class. Coach Ashley was a gifted basketball coach. The best way to describe his history teaching is to say that it was adequate for the place and time. Back in the '60s Coosa County had three high schools. The school in Rockford was called Coosa County High, I suppose that was because it was located in the county seat. As I said, Coach Ashley was a gifted basketball coach and in spite of having few talented players to draw from, he accomplished much. During my years as a student in the Coosa County school system I recall at least twice when CCHS made it to the state championship playoff games in Tuscaloosa. I heard this story right after one of those trips to the playoffs.

Coach Ashley came into the classroom and said he wanted to tell us about what happened to him in Tuscaloosa. It was not unusual for Coach Ashley to tell us stories. In fact it was the norm. About the only real American History that we learned was about WWII and that was from his personal experience stories. Anyway, He began to tell us that he was over in Tuscaloosa driving the 51 (he had a 1951 Chevrolet sedan that he always called the 51) down this kind of main street when all of a sudden he heard a terrible bang and the front of the 51 dropped down. He managed to get it stopped and got out an looked and saw that his right front wheel had run off and to make matters worse, the lug nuts were no where to be found. There he was on the side of a busy road in Tuscaloosa, which even then was a city compared to little Rockford, with the right front of his car sitting flat on the shoulder of the road. He didn't know who to call or what to do.

It was about that time that he became aware of someone standing behind him. He looked around and there behind a fence stood a guy grinning like something was very funny. The fence in question surrounded the grounds of the Bryce's mental hospital. The guy looked as if he was just about to break into laughter. Coach Ashley did not see any humor in the situation and asked the guy what was so funny. The guy replied, you don't know what to do, do you? Coach Ashley replied that indeed he was at a loss. This made the guy grin even more. Getting really irritated, Coach said I suppose you know what to do? Of course said the guy.

What you do is go to your trunk, get your bumper jack and jack up the front of your car on the side where the wheel ran off. Then you get your lug wrench, go around to each of the three remaining wheels and take one lug nut off each of them. Put your wheel back on the front of your car and use those three lug nuts to attach it. Then you can drive down to the Western Auto Store and buy you five new lug nuts,  replace the three that you took off your other three wheels and put the remaining two on the wheel that has the three. Coach Ashley stood there a minute, thought about it and said to the guy, you are right, that WILL work. Then he asked, If you know something like that, why are you in there? The guy smiled and replied. I am in here for being crazy, not for being stupid.

When will marijuana become legal in Alabama?

I am now 67 years old. I have lived in Alabama all of my life. We don't have a lottery, probably never will. Lot of folks in this state have an idea that lotteries are bad, you should not gamble and you should do everything in your power to make sure that no one else can either. Some of those same people feel the same way about drinking alcohol. Bad, don't do it, stop others ,etc. Over the years, alcohol has gradually gained a foot hold. Although if you belong to certain cults, y'all know who you are, I won't call you out by name, you still may have to go to the ABC store in an adjacent city to get your libation but you can legally drink.

What about marijuana, where does it fall? Will it be like the lottery and become legal in Alabama when hell freezes over, or will it, like alcohol gradually permeate the heart of Dixie. My prediction is that it will be neither. I predict that marijuana acceptance will come about almost overnight. "When?" you ask. Well that depends on how fast the rest of the country legalizes marijuana. Based on what I see in the news, that will come about at a fairly swift pace. There will be other holdout states, Arkansas, Utah, maybe Oklahoma, but in a handful of years, I suspect that the majority of the states will have legal recreational marijuana and virtually all of the states will have legal medical marijuana. Now don't get me wrong, just because everybody else does it does not mean Alabama will do it. Just like the case with the lottery, Alabama would have no problem being the only state in the US in which marijuana is illegal, but under one scenario legalization can and will happen virtually overnight.

Picture in your mind a date it the not too distant future, marijuana is legal almost everywhere, except for Alabama of course. Things are still going pretty good in the state. We have elected another new Republican governor and legislature. They are attracting the occasional new business from outside the state, our taxes, (property, income and sales) while too high are still below the national average. Our education system is sadly plugging along but thanks to online studies our children are actually getting a better education than ever before. All seems right with the world except over in Tuscaloosa, the UofA has not won a football national championship in 10 years and over in Auburn, AU has finished out the the top 10,  five years in a row. Both schools go into panic mode to determine what is wrong. They hire high paid consultants that leave no stone un-turned to discover the reason for this totally unacceptable state of affair. The consensus opinion of the consultants is  that all of best football players in the country are going to schools in states where marijuana is legal. When this becomes public knowledge, Alabama will legalize marijuana, virtually overnight.

Did You Vote?

I used to work with an old man from Gardendale that never failed to come by my cubicle on election day and ask , did you vote? If it was a primary election I would tell him no. He would  tell me that I needed to go vote and I would explain to him that I did not vote in primary elections because I was neither a democrat nor a republican. He would then ask me, what are you? After the first time he should have known the answer so he was either very forgetful, which I doubt, or was just being an asshole. Anyway, at the time I considered myself to be a libertarian and would tell him so. He would always bristle up and say, we have to have traffic lights. I suppose that was his way of saying that libertarian is just another name for anarchist.

I have been retired a long time and I am fairly certain that the old man has made his way to the beulahland, which I suspect has no traffic lights, but in the intervening time I have learned that we in fact do not have to have traffic lights. Roundabouts work just as well and  have been shown to be safer.

A Suit of Clothes

One of my daddy's favorite stories involved a local merchant in my home town and some surplus clothes.

Back in early nineties, a friend of mine shared with me his tickets to a seminar at the Wynfrey Hotel in Birmingham. The seminar was on a Saturday and I went and spent the day. It was a money making seminar and of course they had lots of books and tapes to sell and I bought some. Of all the things they offered, the information on buying at government auctions and reselling for a profit was what interested me the most.

I brought the books home and studied them and came up with a plan. I got on the mailing list for goverment auctions and attended my first auction at Fort McClellan in Anniston. I bought some ammo cans and a few other items. Along toward the end, they auctioned off and enormous box of army dress green uniforms. When the auctioneer opened the bidding, no one was bidding so I did. I was the only one that did so I got the box of dress greens. I had no idea what I would do with them but that much poly wool blend material just seemed like it was sure to be worth something.

The buttons on the Army dress green coats were gold plated so they had been removed from virtually all of the coats. The pants were intact. When I got home with the lot, I unloaded the dress greens and sorted through them. I found a couple of pairs of pants that fit me and much to the distress of my daughter I started wearing them to work. Those things wore like iron. I tried to dye a pair of them black but that poly wool blend would not take the dye. Eventually the bulk of the dress greens ended up in a storage trailer that my daddy and I had bought on halves several years earlier. There they sat for quite a while.

My daddy was in business for years but by the time I started buying government surplus, he was retired. You could tell that he missed the buying and selling that he had done in the past and he was always coming up with something to satisfy that business itch. One weekend I was down there visiting and he said "what do you think about me taking some of those army clothes up to Bobby's and letting him try to sell them?" Bobby was a guy that I had gone to school with and he ran a store in the town just north of where my parents lived. I told him that was fine with me. I did not think too much more about it but a couple of weeks later I was down there visiting again and my daddy had a story to tell me about Bobby and the clothes.

Before I tell you the story, I have to admit that Bobby loved a joke or funny story as much as, if not more than, my daddy so there could be slight embellishments contained in the story, but here is what my daddy told me.

The Monday after my visit, daddy went down to the trailer and picked out 5 of the dress green coats and 5 pairs of pants and took them up to Bobby who put them in the back of his store. I don't know whether they were hung up or stacked on a table but they were placed back there for sale. Time past, maybe a day or two, and a guy came in and saw them back there. He wanted to know how much they were. Bobby told him it was $2 for a pair of pants, $2 for a coat, or $5 for the suit (the suit in question was of course a pair of pants and a coat). This pricing in itself was funny as hell to my daddy but what was even funnier was that the guy said that he definitely wanted the suit. Bobby told him to go back there and check and see if he could find something that would fit him. The guy sorted through the clothes and indeed did find a coat and a pair of pants that fit him. He paid his 5 dollars and left. After awhile, he returned and told Bobby that the coat didn't have any buttons. Bobby assured him that it had buttons when he bought it and that he must have lost them. I don't know if the guy kept the suit of clothes or if Bobby gave him his money back, or both, but I do know that that story was worth a whole lot more to my daddy than the 5 dollars that guy supposedly paid for his suit of clothes. It was also worth more than I had paid for the whole box of clothes at Anniston.

Alaska Trip 2013 Testa River Campground - Home

Day 25, July 5th we left the Testa River Campground and headed to Fort Nelson. When we got there, I filled the Roadtrek up at the Husky Station on the north end of town. Then I went down to the IGA store. I noticed that they had fresh baked goods so I got a couple of bear claws, one for right then and one for later. Later that day we reached Fort St John and stopped at the Safeway. I got a few groceries and then went to the Starbucks that is inside the Safeway and got a cup of coffee and used their wifi. Being back in Fort St John meant that my cell phones worked again. I called everyone to let them know we were OK and were back in the part of the world with cell phone coverage. We drove on to Grande Prairie AB and spent the night in the Walmart parking lot.

Day 26, July 6th we headed out from Grande Prairie toward Edmonton. When we got to Whitecourt, we filled up with gas and I emptied the black water and gray water tanks at a public dump site.  Later in the day, when we got to Stony Plains AB, which is just before you get to Edmonton, we stopped at a Safeway and used their wifi. By the end of the day we were in North Battleford SK. We stopped at the North Battleford Walmart and spent the night in their parking lot.

Day 27, July 7th we left North Battleford and made our way to Saskatoon. I went to a local Safeway and got some bananas and oatmeal raisin cookies for breakfast. Then we drove down through the middle of town and picked up the Yellowhead Highway and headed southeast. As I was driving along, I got to thinking about a  video that I had seen on Youtube about a town called Cymric SK. I love country stores and that was about all that remained of Cymric. The outside of the store reminded me of several I had known as a boy in rural Alabama. I checked and it would only add about 30 miles to our trip. When you are making a eleven thousand mile trip, 30 miles seems fairly insignificant so I turned off the Yellowhead and went down to Cymric. It was Sunday so I was not sure that the store would be open but I figured that at least I would get to see the outside in real life instead of a video. When I got there and pulled up in front, I noticed that the light bulb hanging down in front of the front door was on. I walked up to the door turned the knob and walked in. I looked around and it was just what I expected. It could have just as easily been 1955 and in Richville, Equality or Pentonville AL. After a minute or two a lady came out of the back. I got a Snickers bar and a Pepsi and went to the counter to pay. I told her where I was from and what had me in Cymric SK on a Sunday Morning. She was very friendly. She explained how the store had once sat in the townsite of Cymric over next to the railroad tracks but that the man that owned it was leasing the land that it sat on. The land the store was sitting on in the town was owned by another gentleman who also owned a store in town. When the lease came up for renewal the property owner declined to renew it so the store owner moved the store building to some land he owned at the intersection of Hwy 20 and the grid road. Over the years the town gradually disappeared until now only the little store remains. The lady said that the original owner had sold the store to a couple who ran it for several years and then sold it to this lady and her husband. I believe she told me that she and her husband had run the store for 26 years. Among the items for sale in the store were tee shirts with pictures of the store on them. I got me a green one. Before I left, I walked across the road and got a picture of the Roadtrek sitting in front of the little store in Cymric.

We left Cymric and made our way down to Lumsden. From there we took SK Hwy 641 down to Rouleau. Hwy 641 is a gravel road.

It had been rainy and messy in Rouleau on my way up, but July 7th was a beautiful day so I decided to stop and go in and check out the Corner Gas set. I found out from the young lady that was running the gift shop that this was the second summer it had been opened. They sell different Corner Gas souvenirs. I bought a complete box set of the episodes on DVD and a souvenir car tag.

We left Rouleau and made our way down to Portal ND. We made the border crossing without problems and continued on to Minot ND were we gassed up and got some things for supper. July days in North Dakota are long so we kept on driving until we got to the Apple Creek Rest Area on I-90 east of Bismarck. We parked there for the night.

The next day was day 28, July 8th. We got up and got everything settled to travel. I checked the oil, water and tires and got back in the Roadtrek and went to start it and nothing happened. Immediately I thought something had failed and had run our vehicle battery down over night. I still had the house battery, the generator and a emergency jumper that I had bought and brought along on the trip for just such a situation, but before I broke out all of that I decided to check under the hood again. Upon close examination, I discovered that the wing nut on the battery cut-out switch had loosened. I tightened it up and got back in and turned the key. The Roadtrek started right up. Emergency averted.

We retraced out route back down through North Dakota and South Dakota. When we got back to the site of Bangor SD we stopped. I took another picture of the memorial. Notice how much the corn in the field had grown since our previous picture.

We drove nearly 600 miles on July 8th and by the end of the day, we had gotten back to Pony Creek Campground near Pacific Junction IA where we again spent the night.

Day 29, July 9th we left Pony Creek and headed toward Kansas City, when we got to Kansas City we departed from our original route and took I-70 toward St. Louis. On the way we past near Columbia MO so I got off I- 70 and drove down through the University of Missouri campus.

The University of Missouri campus reminded me a bit of the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa.

In St. Louis we picked up I-55 south and made our way down to the Hawn State Park where we spent the night.

July 10th, was day 30 and the last of our trip. We followed I-55 down to I-155 and crossed the Mississippi River on the I-155 bridge to Dyersburg TN.

From Dyersburg we went down through Jackson TN to Tupelo MS and picked up I-22 again and followed it home  to Birmingham and  then on to Pelham. We had been gone for 30 days, travelled 11,001 miles and burned 772.995 gallons of gasoline. It was a great trip and as they used to say in the Rockford Chronicle, "A good time was had by all."

Alaska Trip 2013 Tolsona - Anchorage - Lakeview Campground - Testa River Campground

July 1st, day 22, we left Tolsona and headed west on the Glenn Highway toward Anchorage. Along the way we stopped for Regan to get some pictures of the Matanuska Glacier. When we got to Anchorage, we spent the rest of the day checking out various sites. Previously I had read some unfavorable reviews of the RV parks in the city of Anchorage and had avoided them but Regan and Gantt had an early morning flight so it was important that we be near the airport. While we were at Tolsona I used the excellent wifi to do a more comprehensive search and decided that the Gold Nugget RV Park was probably our best bet. We ate supper at the  Qdoba Mexican Grill on North Muldoon and then made our way to the Gold Nugget for the night. I can't speak for those other RVers that had posted low ratings for Gold Nugget but I found it to be fine.

We got up early on July 2nd, day 23 and took Regan and Gantt to the airport for their flight home. Then Dixie and I headed the Roadtrek east. Originally I had intended to stay a bit longer this trip but things had changed at home while we were gone. Linda's doctor had decided that she was going to have to have surgery. At the time we left Anchorage, he had not set a date and she was worried that it would be before we got back. We stopped in Palmer, the home of the Alaska State Fair, and filled up with gas and got breakfast at McDonalds. Then we pushed on to Glennallen and another fuel stop. We were not that low on fuel but it was my intent to top off in each town as we got closer to the Canadian border. I did this topping off  instead of waiting until the last minute before crossing the border and being confronted with a station that was closed. Mid afternoon we made it to Tok. I went in the Three bears and got some things we would need on our trip home and we topped of the gas tank at the Shell station. Later that afternoon we stopped for the night at the Lakeview Campground in the Tetlin National Forest near the Canadian border. I snapped a couple of pictures of our campsite and the nearby lake but apparently there was a camera malfunction and only one of them took.

On my trip in 2008, I had laptop problems. This time I took a laptop and a tablet and did not have any computer problems but my camera malfunctioned. If I had realized it was not working I could have taken pictures with the tablet or with one of my phones, but I did not check the pictures until I got home.

After a peaceful night in Lakeview (Dixie and I were the only ones there) we woke up on July 3rd, day 24 and headed for the border. This is the sign at the foot of the hill after you pass US Customs, as I said before Canadian Customs is 32 km further down the road.

We passed through Canadian Customs with no problems and continued our homeward trip. Mid afternoon found us in Whitehorse. Regan had given me the names of two restaurants that her guide book recommended in Whitehorse. I went to one of them and had a smoked salmon wrap with fries and a coke. It was an excellent late lunch. I had used most of my Canadian cash on the trip up and as there were several banks within walking distance I decided that now would be a good time to get some cash  from an ATM. On my trip in 2008 I had used Canadian ATMs on 2 or 3 occasions without problems. Since my experience with American credit cards and gas stations, I was a bit concerned about this time. In Canada the ATM machines seem to all be in a lobby inside the front doors of the bank but before you enter through another set of doors into the main area of the bank. I suspect it has something to do with the winter weather. I doubt that anyone would want to stand outside at - 40 degrees F or C to get money out of an ATM. Anyway, when I walked through the front doors of the bank there were 3 ATM machines sitting on the left wall. The one in the middle had an out of order sign on it. The other two had lines of people running all the way back to the other wall. I got into one of the lines. I quickly discovered that in addition to people waiting to do ATM transactions, there were bank employees standing there as well. Gradually I figured out that most of these people had received new ATM cards with chips in them and they were going through the process of activating them. The bank employees were there to assist them. A guy in the line next to me walked up to the machine on the right and a bank employee walked up with him. The bank employee turned and faced away from the ATM and told the guy to put his card in the ATM. Then he proceeded to talk the guy through the process that involved several steps which I remember included the guy entering his PIN several times. Finally the process was complete and someone else took their turn. When it came my time I was apprehensive. I knew my card did not have a chip. I put it in the slot as I would anywhere in the US, it asked me my PIN, I entered it, it asked me  what I wanted to do, I entered that, it gave me my $CDN and I was on my way, very relieved. Later that day we made it to Squango Lake Campground and pulled in for the night.

The next day was July 4th, day 25 of our trip. I woke up, cleaned up, did our preflight (checked tires, water and oil on the Roadtrek) and took Dixie for a walk, not necessarily in that order. I had mentioned to someone during a phone conversation about the sign on the water pump at Squango Lake. I decided I would take a picture to prove that I wasn't kidding.

The first picture was taken so both the pump and sign were in the picture, the second was taken in case the sign in the first one was not readable. As it turns out, neither of them were readable. It was early in the morning and I believe that the low light caused the flash to go off. The sign apparently is reflecting the flash. Anyway, if you could read it, the sign would tell you that the water from the pump is not to be used for cooking or drinking without being first boiled for 10 minutes.

I also took a picture of the Roadtrek sitting in our camping space. It turned out better than the pump/sign pictures.

Around noon, we got to Watson Lake YT. Watson Lake is on the north edge of that stretch of wilderness that the Alaska Highway runs through north of Fort Nelson, BC. Making a fuel stop is a must on the way up and on the way back. On the way up I had stopped at the Watson Lake Motors, the pumps were convenient to get to, the price was not bad (for YT anyway) at $1.449 per liter and the guy inside was friendly. I decided it would be an appropriate place to stop on the way back. I had to wait in line for a few minutes because there were a couple of vehicles in front of me. Finally it was my turn, I pulled up to the pump and put in 70.12 liters, $101.60 CDN. When I finished pumping my fuel I pulled the Roadtrek up to clear the pumps and went inside to pay. There were 2 other people standing there and the guy who ran the place was on the phone. The lady standing nearest the counter said, I burned up his machine. Turns out that when he swiped her card, sparks flew out of his card reader. It was toast. After a few minutes the owner got off the phone and said that the company that he rented the reader from was sending him out a replacement. It would arrive by bus in 2 or 3 days. We had two options: (1) give him our card numbers and he would run our transaction when the new card reader came in or (2) if we preferred, pay with cash. Since I had been to the ATM the day before in Whitehorse, I had about $120 CDN so I opted to just pay him with cash. I think that he would have taken US currency as well, but to make it simple I just paid with my CDN $. There was a third guy standing over in the corner, a local not a customer. He said that there was a bank next door with an ATM machine so when I finished paying for my gas I drove over there and replaced the money I had just spent.

Just down the street from the Watson Lake Motors and the bank, there is a grocery store. I have stopped there before because it is handy and it has a payphone out in the front. Remember this is between Tok, AK and Fort St John BC so no cell phone coverage. I drove down to the grocery store and parked out on the side of the service road. Just inside the first set of doors is the payphone. I made the calls to everyone and let them know that we were OK. When I was talking to Regan she mentioned that they were about to eat. She said she supposed that I would not be getting a traditional July 4th meal up there in Canada. I acknowledged that I suspected that was the case but that every time the second set of doors behind me opened into the store, I was catching the aroma of something that smelled good. I told her that when I got off the phone I was going in and get some lunch. Just inside of the second set of doors on the left was the deli section. When I walked over to the counter the first thing I saw was several racks of BBQ spare ribs. In the cooler just around the corner they had homemade potato salad. I already had bread and potato chips in the truck. Needless to say, I got a rack of the ribs and a container of the potato salad and Dixie and I had a very traditional July 4th lunch sitting right there on the side of a service road in Watson Lake YT.

In Alaska and Canada, moose, bison, and sheep don't pay a road or vehicles any attention. They will walk right out in front of you, or if you come upon them standing in the road you may have to wait awhile for them to move out of the way. This is not the case with bears. When you see them out in the  open, they are usually on the move. Because of this, bear pictures are hard to come by. I was a few miles south of Watson Lake when I say one crossing the road in front of me.

Don't see him? Click on the pictures to blow it up and then look for a little black speck in the middle of the road up where it curves around that little hill. By the time I got up to where he had crossed the road, he was down in the ditch. All you could see was his back and behind.

About 2 hours south of Watson Lake just south of Fireside, we came upon another herd of bison. I say another herd because I am under the impression that there are multiple herds and this one was about 50 miles north of where we had seen the previous herd on our way up. Also this one seemed to be a lot bigger.

There were sheep in the road near km 740

And some more down around km 600 near Summit Lake

At the end of the day we found ourselves near the Testa River Campground. I had not stayed there before but decided to give it a try. It was very nice, located  right beside the Testa River. The camp hosts were exceptionally friendly. So were the mosquitoes. I really enjoyed talking to the camp hosts and avoided the mosquitoes as much as possible.

Alaska Trip 2013 Tolsona - Kenai Peninsula - Fairbanks - Tolsona

On day 12, June 21th, we left Tolsona Wilderness Campground and drove the 165  miles to Anchorage. When I originally planned this trip I estimated that it would take us about 15 days to drive the 4500 miles from Pelham to Anchorage. That schedule would have put us in Anchorage on June 24th. Regan and Gantt were scheduled to fly into Anchorage late in the day on the 25th. However we had made much better time than I had originally figured so here we were in Anchorage four days early. We spent a few hours in Anchorage and then headed down the Seward Highway to the Bertha Creek Campground. Linda and I had stayed there in 2008. It is small, only about a dozen spaces but it is a wonderful campground. When we got there I checked to see if space 6 was available and it was. We parked the Roadtrek and Dixie and I walked up to the entrance and registered. I like space 6 because it comes with its own waterfall.

The next day, June 22th day 13 we left Bertha Creek and went down the Seward Highway to Seward. They say that Seward is where the cruise ships dock, but I have never seen one there. It is the southern terminus of the Alaska Railroad. There was a train going south at the same time we were and we got to Seward at about the same time. We wandered around Seward for a while, ate lunch at a food truck (actually I think it was a trailer instead of a truck) and found another car wash and made another try at cleaning up the Roadtrek. White trucks and dirt roads don't do too well together. After I finished washing the truck, we went back up the Seward Highway north of town and turned and went out to see the Exit Glacier.

I had intended to spend another night at Bertha Creek but when we got back up there that afternoon, it was full so we went back down the Seward Highway to the Sterling Highway and went over to Kenai. We spent the night in Kenai and spent the next two days June 23rd and 24th, day 14 and day 15 exploring the western part of the Kenai peninsula. We drove down to Homer, Up to the Captain Cook Recreation Area and out Funny River Road south of the Kenai River in Soldotna. At the end of the day on the 24th we found ourselves back at our favorite campground, Bertha Creek.

Next day, June 25th, day 16, we left Bertha Creek and went up the Seward Highway to Anchorage. Remember I said that I left my bed roll at home. I had been using the spare linens that I originally intended for  Regan and Gantt. They  were due in later that day so I went shopping for additional sheets, pillow cases, etc. After that we went to a Lowes and got a longer handle for the squeege that I had bought in Lloydminster. For lunch we located a deli down close to 100th ave and Old Seward Highway and had a great tuna salad sandwich.

Later that afternoon we went over to the Ted Stevens International Airport and waited in the cell phone parking lot for Regan and Gantt's flight to arrive. The cell phone parking lot is right next to Lake Hood. Lake Hood is where the float planes land and take off and it seems like about every minute there is either one taking off or landing. If you look behind the light pole in this picture you will see one of the float planes just lifting off.

Later on when Regan and Gantt's flight arrived, I picked them up and we went to get supper and then headed back down to Bertha Creek. When we got there, space 6 was occupied but we were able to find a space, just not one with its own waterfall.

Next morning June 26th, day 17 we headed down the Seward Highway to the Sterling Highway and took it over to Cooper Landing. One of the things that Regan and Gantt had hoped to see was a salmon run. A guy that was camping at Bertha Creek had told me earlier in the week that they were beginning to run at Cooper Landing. We saw a few fishermen but no true combat fishing. I think we were a bit early. Mid July would have probably been a better time.

We left Cooper Landing and made our way back out the Sterling Highway to the Seward Highway. We spent the rest of the day in Seward and camped that night at Miller's Landing south of Seward. I did not take many pictures while Gantt and Regan were there because Regan was able to do a much better job and I was driving, but I did get this one while we were camped at Miller's Landing of Gantt and Dixie watching TV in the back of the Roadtrek.

Next morning June 27th, day 18 we went up to Seward and ate breakfast and then went to the Alaska Sealife Center. It was a great place, full of lots of interesting aquatic exhibits. The highlight was when they fed one of the sea lions.

We left the Sealife Center and made our way to the local Safeway to buy some groceries and use their wifi. After we left Safeway we went up the highway and drove out to the Exit Glacier. The three of us walked out to an observation point that was much closer than I had been when I went earlier. When we left the Exit Glacier, we went back out to the Seward Highway, then up it to the Sterling Highway and turned and went over to Soldotna. We spent the rest of the day in Soldotna and Kenai seeing the sites. We went out Funny River Road and Regan and Gantt had their first moose sighting.

Next day June 28th, day 19, I took Gantt and Regan over to Whittier so they could take the 26 glacier cruise. I think they enjoyed it, but before they came up, I had told Regan that it was unseasonably warm in Alaska and she had packed accordingly. Consequently she did not have any really warm clothes with her and  I think she nearly froze on the cruise which lasts about half a day. I stayed in the Roadtrek and rested while they were out on the glacier cruise but I did snap a couple of pictures from where we were parked.

Whittier is down on the water with mountains surrounding it. They say that there is a period of time in the winter that direct sunlight does not hit it, the light reflected off the mountains is all they get. Judging from the two times that I have been there, they don't get a heck of lot of sun the rest of the year either. After we left Whittier we made our way back up through Anchorage and spent the night at the Big Lake Recreation Area located near Houston.

Next morning, June 29th, day 20, we went up the Parks Highway to Talkeetna and had breakfast at the Talkeetna Road House and then walked around the little town of Talkeetna. Some folks claim that the fictitious town of Cicely AK in the TV program Northern Exposure was based on Talkeetna. After we left Talkeetna we got back on the Parks Hwy and made our way up toward Fairbanks. The Parks Highway has several places where on a clear day you can see Mt McKinley in Denali. This time the mountain was obscured by clouds just like it was in 2008. It took us quite awhile to get to Fairbanks. Part of that is due to the fact that it is 330 miles from Anchorage but we also had construction delays to deal with and when we got close in, they had pilot cars leading us through an area that was having problems with smoke from the forest fires to the north limiting visibility. When we got to Fairbanks we went to the Rivers Edge RV Park and hooked up the electricity and turned on the air conditioner. It was hot.

June 30th, day 21 we left Fairbanks and drove down to North Pole to the Santa Claus house. Did not see Saint Nick this time but we did see some reindeer and got some presents for the peeps who had to stay home and did not get to make the trip. Gantt and I flattened some pennies in the elongated penny machines. We left North Pole and made our way down the Richardson Highway stopping at Rika's Roadhouse for lunch and stopping at several sites to view the Alyeska pipeline. Late in the day we found ourselves near Glennallen so we made our way over to the  Tolsona Wilderness Campground and spent the night.

Alaska Trip 2013 Squango Lake YT - Tolsona Wilderness Campground AK

We left Squango Lake campground on day 10, June 19th and headed toward Whitehorse YT. Whitehorse is a fairly good sized city with lots of gas stations, restaurants, fast food places, grocery stores, etc. We bought gas and went to Walmart and picked up some 4 liter jugs of drinking water and a few other items. Since we had no cell phone coverage, I began to look around for a pay phone so I could use my keepcalling.com calling card to check in and let everyone know we were ok. I finally located one in a small park down on the south side of town near the river. After I finished making my calls I was walking back to the Roadtrek and there were three or four ladies with a couple of little children in tow walking in the same direction. I heard one of them say, I haven't ridden the trolley since I was a kid. When I got to the Roadtrek I noticed they were walking on up the hill next to the parking lot. As I drove off, I looked and sure enough, there was a trolley.

When I got home I looked the Whitehorse trolley up on the internet. It is real interesting. Next time I am in Whitehorse I may try and take time and ride it. When we finished up in Whitehorse, we went up Two Mile Hill Road and rejoined the Alaska Highway.

A little ways above Whitehorse you can turn left and follow the route of the original Alaska Highway from mm 929 to mm 934. In 2008 I had driven a few hundred yards out on to the northern end of the old highway but this time I decided to drive the entire 5 miles.

Further north the Alaska Highway runs along the side of Kulane Lake for several miles. The water in Kulane Lake is a beautiful shade of turquoise.

We ended the day at Lake Creek Campground which is about 111 km southeast of the Alaska Border.

We got up on day 11, June 20th and continued our journey north. We had only driven about 10 km and were getting close to Pickhandle Lake rest area when I noticed a bull moose on the side of the road. It is not completely evident from the pictures, but the moose was eating the leaves out of the top of that tree that he was walking around.

We left our second close encounter with a moose and drove on to Beaver Creek YT. Canadian customs is located just north of Beaver Creek but the actual border and US Customs is located about 32 km north of there. That has got to be about the worst 32 km of road I've seen. This time nearly the whole length of it was under repair. At times the traffic was routed off to the side since the entire roadbed was being dug up and regraded. The construction zone was so long that the pilot car we were following from the south end handed us off midway to another pilot car that took us on to the end of the reconstruction near the border.

We crossed the border over into Alaska with no problems and continued on north. As I mentioned previously, when you get near Tok, cell coverage kicks back in. When we got to Tok, I went into the Three Bears and got some things for lunch and something to cook for supper. Then we hung around town for awhile so I could call our peeps and let them know we were OK. Finally, we headed down the Tok Cutoff toward Anchorage. The Tok Cutoff runs from Tok to the Richardson Highway a bit north of GlennAllen. You follow the Richardson down to GlennAllen and then pickup the Glenn Highway to Anchorage. When we got to GlennAllen we had already driven about 300 miles. Although most days we drove more than that, 300 was kind of our unofficial daily target. On my last trip, I had stayed at the Tolsona Wilderness Campground which is not to far west of GlennAllen. It is a nice place so we decided to stop there for the night. I had picked us up some ground beef at the Three Bears in Tok, so I fixed Dixie and myself hamburgers for supper. Then I took advantage of Tolsona's excellent washers and dryers to do a load of clothes. Tolsona may be out in the middle of nowhere but have great wifi so I was able to check up on my emails. We went to bed that night relaxed and content.