After leaving Fairbanks, we began the trip south back to the lower 48. Or first stop was Haines, Alaska, another town like Skagway situated on the inside passage along the Lynn Canal. We stayed in Haines three days. Haines is the home of the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, which is an absolutely amazing place – in the fall over 2000 (!) bald eagles congregate here for a late salmon run. In the Chilkat River there is a place where another river enters it, and here the force of this tributary constantly churns up warm water from the sands on the river bottom. This section of the river never freezes, and the salmon come back to spawn in late October - early November. The eagles follow the salmon. They are literally only feet apart. It’s only about a mile – 2 mile stretch of river. From Haines we took a taxi (a ferry) back to Skagway and road the White Pass – Yukon narrow gauge train up to Chilkoot pass. This is the route most of the gold-rushers into the Yukon Territory took. It was built in 8.5 months with American Engineers, Canadian labor and British money. The route is incredibly scenic and takes you all the way to the Canadian border. Our "guide" or narrator on our trip was a young woman whose grandfather and father had both worked for WPY – her grandfather was there during the gold rush. She had lots of anecdotes to share from their time with the RR. Haines is also the home of an old Fort that is mostly still standing. It never saw any action, and was mostly barracks, but the site is lovely overlooking the bay and we spent a great day walking around and visiting the buildings and the shops that are there now.
From Haines we started the long trip back along the Alaskan Highway. The weather was beautiful the entire time, so we saw many things that we had missed in the mist on the way in. Instead of taking the Alcan back the way we came in, we took a shorter but rougher route – the Cassiar Highway, which runs just east of the Coastal Range in western BC. This was about 200 miles, half of which was gravel. But it was worth it. It was much more scenic than the other route and we saw BEARS! Lots of ‘em. These were black bears (not the grizzlies we had being seeing). At first, we thought they were all really young because they were small, but then we saw a mom with her cubs and realized just how big the grizzlies were! We saw 11 blacks in the space of 2.5 driving days. We even saw (this is sad…) a road kill bear. Not a very common sight in Plano. One of the bears was foraging right next to the road, and when we stopped to get a picture I picked Cassie up and showed her the bear through the window. I have never seen a cat look quite this confused before – she was excited and worried all at the same time. At the end of the Cassiar, we turned to the west to spend a few days in Prince Rupert.
Prince Rupert is a lovely little coastal town in Canada. It is a main stop for the Alaska Marine Ferry as well as a major lumber and fisheries town. We saw several eagles hanging out by the cannery. We also went to the Museum of British Columbia that had wonderful displays and tours concerning the coastal Indian tribes (Canada calls them First Nations as opposed to our Native American). These are the tribes that are famous for their totem poles and we saw some great ones. We took the museum tour and learned a great deal about how their societies work. After Prince Rupert, we continued south, intending to stop in Seattle.
Well, we weren’t ready for the big city, so instead of Seattle, we turned back to the east and drove the North Cascades Scenic Highway, which was well worth the trip. The Cascade volcanoes are quite a site to see. We ended up the next day in Welches, OR, on the flank of Mt. Hood. We stayed here for 10 days, trying to readjust to the lower 48 pace, clean the coach, catch up on mail and correspondence etc. We also got to see my old college roommate Enna Deer (Anne) who is finally focusing her energy on her incredible musical gift. She is a singer-songwriter originally from Atlanta, now in Berkeley. She was playing at this Huckleberry Festival which was being hosted by the campground we were staying at. It was a very small festival, but we did see some great music – finally. The first day was a bust, Sat. was OK, but the best acts came on Sunday. Not only did we get to see Enna, but we also Dave Carter and his partner Tracy perform again (we had seen them at the Wildflower festival before we left). They won the 1998 Kerrville Folk Festival. We also saw a young duet named Vivian’s Keeper that is very promising. It was almost like being back at college hearing Anne and her guitar – we spent many nights with friends listening to her play and sing, and she has only gotten better with time.
After the festival we went over to Hood River and points north in Washington state to have dinner with Chris Carloss – another friend from college . He made homemade sausage and chicken gumbo that was AWESOME. Not an easy thing to get in Washington State. We stayed out way too late and drank too much wine (don’t worry – Doug stayed sober to drive us back) but we had a great time.
We also spent some time while in the area to tour some motor home manufacturers. We will definitely be hitting the road again, and are looking for a new coach with just a little more space. The walls start to close in after 3 months!
After leaving the Mt Hood area, we headed south along the coast road, and had some lovely campsites next to the beach and another next to a beautiful old growth forest state park. We took some lovely walks in the tall trees, and introduced Chaz to crashing surf and saltwater. He’s not a big fan. After several days and a scary trip along the steep winding northern portion of hwy 1 in California we ended up in Novato CA. This little bedroom community of San Francisco is also only minutes away from the wine country. We spent a day touring vineyards and doing tastings.. The Sterling Vineyard has a gondola lift that takes you to the winery. Too posh. I did a long run here and had to reacquaint myself with the signs and symptoms of heat exhaustion, dehydration and sunburn. The 22 miles I ran was very hilly and no shade. No shoulder on the road either but the heat was definitely the problem. I did OK, but it was much longer than I thought it would be. This was the first time I had run in temps greater than 70 degrees the entire summer, and it was higher than 90 by the time I finished.
Sunday Anne and her beau Dave came up to the motor home and we had a lovely brunch on our patio. After a few hours of idle chitchat, we went to Tiburon and had a great dinner over looking the bay. On Tuesday we drove into the city and spent a day on the waterfront visiting the piers, the Golden Gate Bridge, Ghirardelli Square etc. It was great except for all the people. We are out of practice in the crowds and it made me a bit nervous to be around all those strangers. After our day in the city, we drove to the ocean side to meet Anne and Dave for dinner and had another great evening out with friends. I was really amazed at how well Anne and I caught up with each other after being out of touch for so many years.
From San Francisco we headed east across the desert with our next stop in Sedona, AZ. This little town has a reputation as being full of new-age crystal groupies, and there certainly were some, but it really is a beautiful spot nonetheless. The area is about 4200’ elevation and is surrounded by huge red sandstone outcrops. Very dramatic. There is a lot of junk floating around in these touristy towns, but we avoided most of that and had ourselves a merry time wandering through shops, taking drives and hiking around.
Next stop – Santa Fe. We came here to eat. We’ve been plenty of times and really did nothing but plan our trip around food. We ate at Coyote Café – a perennial favorite, and for our anniversary (6 years) we had breakfast at Tia Sophia’s, watched the local Pet Parade, and had dinner at El Farol. It was a perfect day. The Pet Parade was quite the spectacle – about 300 different families and groups decorated themselves and their pets in costume and toured the plaza area. We saw dogs (LOTS of dogs) a few cats in wagons, turtles, goats, ducks, chickens, and even a big tub of fish (I couldn’t tell if they were in costume or not!). It was a riot.
From Santa Fe we went to Albuquerque to visit with my Aunt and Uncle and pick up a few things for my mom. We spent the afternoon with these rabid Denver Bronco fans as their team proceeded to beat the you-know-what out of the Dallas Cowboys. Needless to say they were very excited. After a dinner of chile sauce and enchiladas we headed to bed for the second to last time on the trip.
We spent our last night out in beautiful, scenic HUMID Wichita Falls, TX. The owners of the campground are related to my best friend’s step mom so we had a fun time playing "do you know?…" The trip home was uneventful, except for the rain which must have followed us all the way from Alaska. After unloading some stuff we moved the coach up to a campsite in Mckinney where we will clean and service it and get it ready for the trip to DC in October.
THE END.
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