Haines, Tok, Anchorage and Beyond!

 

We received some very disturbing news from Neighbor Jim who is watching over our property. It was more of a picture than news, but it almost made me turned around and head back to South Dakota post haste. What is this picture you ask? What could possible change all of our plans and rush us back home? No, it was not a picture of him drinking from the bottle of my best bourbon, it was of this…..

 A #@*%ing prairie dog! For those of you who have been reading the blog for years, you know that when we bought this property it was infested with prairie dogs. I know some of you are thinking “Oh, they are so cute!” And perhaps they are if they are on someone else’s property. But if they are on yours or adjoining property, they are not cute at all.     In fact both our county and the neighboring counties will help pay you to get rid of them.

 It took us, and the neighbors on both sides of us over a year to eradicate the little buggers, and another year for the grasses to come back. We have been prairie dog-less for over 3 years only to have Neighbor Jim take a picture of this interloper?!?!

 We immediately set Operation PD in motion, calling all parties involved to take immediate action. Well, actually, it was texts and not a call and by all parties involved I mean Neighbor Jim and I. Having prepared this plan years ago in case such an emergency arose we knew exactly what to do. Picture if you will, Neighbor Jim sneaking up to the prairie dog ala Bill Murray in Caddie Shack. Picture said prairie dog mocking Neighbor Jim as he prepares his assault. What the prairie dog did not know is that Neighbor Jim is a combat veteran with countless sniper kills under his belt which have included rabbits, squirrels and the occasional chipmunk. But was he up for this challenge? Only time would tell.

 The next day I receive a coded message stating that there is no longer a threat to our properties. I am not sure how to take that. Maybe he had a heart to heart with the little feller and he decided to reside elsewhere. At any rate, Barb and I turned the truck around and again headed back up to Alaska since all is well back home.  

By this time, we were somewhere between Haines and Anchorage. Outside of Haines, we stopped for lunch at the 33 Mile Roadhouse Cafe. This was on Barb's bucket list of places to stop, so stop we did. It was good and not horribly priced. 

In order to get from one to another you have to cross back into Canada, drive several hours in both British Columbia and the Yukon before crossing back into Alaska again. That means two more border crossings. Seeing how the Skagway Customs Agent took everything that was already worth taking we had high hopes that these would go well. The crossing back into Canada went well, pretty straight forward. He was the first one to ask if we had paperwork for the dogs. We do, and handed it to him, but he did not want to read them.  One thing he did ask is where we are spending the night. We usually have no idea, but Barb was a quick thinker and said the name of a campground ahead. We were on our way pretty quickly.

The next day we filled up in Haines Junction. The road between Haines Junction and Tok is the worst we have been on so far this trip. Numerous frost heaves, potholes and gravel areas really slowed us down. If you did not slow down for some of these, you were surely to break something.  I mean like slow down to under 10mph for some of these bumps. Most people were going slow, others were passing the just flying down the road.  As we were driving, we noticed a car pulled over to the side, then we noticed the guy had a tent set up in the ditch. I thought; “That is a weird place to camp”. That is when I noticed his right back tire was pointing to the side like it was going to make a right turn. Well, that does not look right. I do not know how you break an axle or all your lug nuts on a back wheel, but he managed to do it. 

We found another roadside pull out on a lake just outside of Beaver Creek. A beautiful spot, quiet, but mosquitoey. We spent most of the evening in the camper.

 

Leaving that camping spot we continued our bumpy journey to Tok. So many frost heaves and potholes. This is worse than it was in ’16. We crossed the border back into Alaska. Our last border crossing for a while. As we approached the station, I noticed a low clearance sign for the canopy of 12’-2”. I know we are well over that, so I went into the high clearance lane only to be flagged down by a Customs Officer and waved into the other lane. They had a swinging bar before the canopy at 12’2” and sure enough I hit it. The original guy waves his arms, and another guy comes out. I am thinking “Great, we are off to a swell start”. The original guy comes out and says, “Sorry man, my bad, can you back up and go into the other lane?” After that it was “Did you buy anything in Canada?” Nope. I had a whole deal prepared in my head about the rest of the questions he was going to ask me but he handed us back our passports, gave each of the dogs a treat and said, “Have a great day.” Just like that we were off! The easiest border crossing we have ever had!

Once in Tok, we fueled up at the Cheveron $3.84, dumped our tanks and filled with water. The road between Tok and Glennallen was a little better, but not much. We spent the night on a scenic overlook that lived up to its name. It is hard to see, but that is a 16,000 mountain in the background.

Once we arrived in Anchorage, we spent the day doing laundry and restocking our stolen vegetables. I was on a mission to restock our DEF since I had just used our last spare jug. We went to Walmart.....

What the heck, is there a DEF shortage that I did not know about?!?! Then I noticed two lonely containers set off to the side. A grabbed them and ran for the door! We got some really good Chinese food at Golden Gate Chinese and spent the night at the Cabela's with a couple dozen other rigs. 

While on our way to Cooper Landing, we received a message from our friends in Ninilchik, a couple hours down the road. “We are going Halibut fishing on Thursday; do you want to come with?” You can probably still smell the rubber as we turned the truck in their direction! 

But, we still had a couple of days before Thursday, so we took our time and stopped by the Virgin Creek Falls in Girdwood as well as stopping by the Girdwood Brewing Company. 

We spent the night on a pull out where we have good luck fishing in '16 on the Kenai River. We are still a little early for the salmon and did not have any luck, but we were entertained watching the wildlife on the river. This beaver was very curious and kept coming up and seeing what we were doing on his shoreline. He would swim up really close to us, stop, stare and then slap his tail and dive.

Then there were the mergansers. This mother merganser came by twice. Not the best pictures as she was really fast and I had to drop by fishing rod, grab my phone and attempt to take pictures all within a few seconds. Notice how the one is riding on its mothers back?

 

The coolest thing was the bears though. As we watched the group of fishermen on the opposite shoreline. There were 10 of them or so lined up in the water on the other side. They were having better luck than us. Barb and I were watching them catch fish when we noticed this black bear come out of the woods behind them. At first they did not notice as all their attention was focused out on the river. Then some guy turned around and yells “Bear!”. They started yelling at it and it ran away.

 A little while later, another bear appears just down the shoreline from them and starts heading their way. Except this time, it was a Griz! Again, they do not notice it, but then it pops back into the woods, Only to pop back out again, just feet from them! I am generally not afraid of bears as they are more afraid of you than you are of them. And black bears are generally not aggressive. Grizzly’s are known to be a little more aggressive, but still afraid of humans. Until they are not! This guy was not afraid of humans at all! This picture below was before they noticed it. See how all their backs are turned to the bear?

 

They were yelling at it and it could have cared less. It walked up the shoreline nosing around. The fisherman stood their ground. The last thing you want to do is run. Mr. Griz made his way within 10’ of one fisherman, nose to the shore, found a fish the guy had caught, grabbed it and walked into the woods to enjoy a tasty little snack! Talk about pucker factor! 

I just realized that there are no dog pictures yet, so I thought I better include a couple. One picture of Zoey just chilling on her bed, one of Dakota looking at me curiously in the mirror.

This post has gone on long enough, so I will save the halibut fishing for next week. Will this be the event where I out-fish Barb? Will I catch the most? The biggest one? Will I catch any at all? Or will I be throwing up over the side of the boat? All are entirely possible. Stay tune next week for more adventures in Alaska!

Fishing Tales from the Alaskan Highway

 

One thing I had totally forgot about since we were up here last time was the amount of daylight up here. Well, I did not forget about it, I just never thought about it. I had an “Oh, that’s right” moment when I woke up in the predawn light. I thought for sure it at least 6:20, then I looked at the clock….3:20am. Same when it was midnight. Although at midnight it is still much brighter. You can pretty much see unaided throughout the night. This has not been an issue for Barb and I, but Zoey is struggling with it a little bit as she thinks daylight means “wake up” time. But we shove her back under the covers and soon she is snoring again. 

Several of you asked if Barb’s fish from the last post was photoshopped at all. I assure you; it was not. First of all, do you really think if I was going to photoshop a photo it would be of Barb holding a huge fish? If anything, I would make the fish smaller! It was really that big! 

That said, I do have some exciting news I did catch a huge fish this week. Way huger than Barb’s! This thing practically covers my entire body. 

Now, some of you may wonder why I have a dazed look on my face it is because I am exhausted from fighting that monster fish! 

We left Muncho Lake with the intention of fishing several pullout areas on our way to our destination for the day: Watson Lake. All the pull-out areas were a bust except our last one, Smith River Falls. We had been there in ’16 and knew where to fish and what to fish with. 

There is a steep stairway down part of it, then it turns to a dirt path, again steep, but not too long. 

The spot we wanted to fish required us to forge a small section of the river, just above our knees. It was surprisingly not too cold. Not nearly as cold as the waters in Muncho.

 

Once we were on the other side and on a little island we started fishing. I caught fish on my first cast, and my second, and my third… Barb was catching fish as well. These were grayling. A totally different species than we were fishing yesterday. A big grayling will be about 18”. I think the biggest we caught was about 14”. 

You could not find a prettier place to fish, the waterfall in the background, the roar of the waterfall. 

Then Barb looked across the river at these tracks going up a bank and said; “I wonder who walked up there?” I looked over and said; “That would be grizzly tracks”. Kinda puts your senses on edge when you know there is a grizzly in the area! We fished there for 2 hours or so catching a couple dozen grayling. We did not keep any as we had plenty of lake trout left in the freezer.

 Then we carried on to Watson Lake to the infamous Sign Forest. If you have never heard of this before it is an area in Watson Lake where travelers from around the world stop and hang a sign. Usually with their name, year and where they are from. But not neccessarily. There were a lot of street signs, town signs, license plates, hats, you name it, it is probably hanging there. Thousands and thousands of signs. 

This year we brought a sign to hang! The hard part is finding an open space to hang your sign, but we did, and I set up trying to take a selfie of all four of us in front of the sign. With great difficulty. We were then rescued by this woman who, in broken English, offered to take our picture.

 

After taking our picture we learned that she was from Brazil and that she and her husband had motorcycled up here. 14,000km’s! Talk about an epic journey, and a sore butt! 

We spent the night, just outside of town in an abandoned gravel pit about ½ mile off the main road. There was one other vehicle there.

 

Then it was off to the big city of Whitehorse! A five-hour day where we saw 10 bear or so, two porcupines, buffalo, several sheep (with babies) and one coyote.

Arriving in Whitehorse we went directly to the brewery where we had a quick lunch in the parking lot before going into sample their brews. Well, Barb sampled their brews, I sampled their single malt whiskeys. 

After that it was off to the grocery store, Walmart, Canadian Tire and Save-on Foods. We could not find any DEF in town, everyone was out of stock. Luckily, I still have half a tank and an extra jug so we should be good, but I had to use one of my extra jugs that day and wanted to replace it.  There are not a lot of free overnight spots in Whitehorse. Most all the businesses have a three hour parking limit, but we did find a nice quiet pull out near the dam on the edge of town. With cell service, so that was a bonus!

Entering back into the U.S. from Canada was a little more interesting this time. We were over our limit on alcohol having just visited a Canadian liquor store. Did you know that Royal Crown (made in Canada) is cheaper up here than the U.S.? Especially when you figure in the exchange rate! I went to the border prepared to pay duty on the extra alcohol. 

When we approached the customs station, he started asking questions. One of the first was whether we were bringing any fruits and vegetables across with us. Barb had just gone to the grocery store in Whitehorse, so I said we had some vegetables. He skipped all the other questions and told us to pull over and someone would be right with us. Another officer came out and started going through our refrigerator pulling out all the vegetables Barb had just bought. The avocados were from Mexico. Can’t have those. The tomatoes were from Mexico. Can’t have those. Green onions? Does not matter where those are from, can’t have those. Eggs? They were from Toronto, those were okay but if it was last week, he would have taken them because Toronto eggs were no good last week. He then went on to say how many hundreds of thousands of birds are dying from avian flu and now beef are starting to get it and even humans. I wanted to ask him if it is really “avian” flu if people are getting it, but thought better of it.

 He looked at our dog food and said he should take it as it was not in its original packaging. Then he started pulling out all the chicken saying; “This is not good, you guys are not doing well”. He was able to determine that the chicken was from the U.S. and let us keep it but did take the jalapenos. He then gave us a pamphlet and said we could go, never even asking about any alcohol, ammo, tobacco or anything else! One of the weirdest crossings we have ever had. 

We then made our way into Skagway. We had reservations at the Garden City RV Park ($50/night) so we would be guaranteed to have a place to park and leave the girls. Skagway has got to be one of the most touristy towns we have been too. Absolutely beautiful driving in. You will not find a more scenic drive on during your entire trip up here. Both times we have come up, this has been our favorite drive. 

But once you get to town it goes downhill. Way too touristy for our liking. There were 4 cruise ships in town. Which takes this town of 1,200 to over 12,000. Everyone walking the streets. 

We went in and out of a couple of shops, but they are mostly the same with the same product at the same prices. Barb bought a Skagway ornament for the Christmas tree. We did go in one shop that had mammoth tusks for anywhere from $110,000- $238,000. We thought about picking up a couple but just did not know where we would display them. We then went to the fur store where we looked at a couple fo $10,000 fur coats. But they were on sale and a bargain at $7.500! We passed on those as well. Instead we went to Skagway Brewing for lunch. Barb had a flight, I had a beer and we split an appetizer basket of fries. Total $51.00. Typical tourist pricing. We then walked down the street and what do we see? Klondike Brewing! $17 later we walk out having shared a flight of rather nasty tasting beers. 

We decided that we had enough and were walking back to the RV Park when we saw a sign for Skagway Distilling! Well, how can we not go there and talk distilling with the master distiller? By now all the cruise passengers had returned to their ships so we were the only two in there and had a pleasant conversation with the distiller. Ends up they really do not distill here, but have neutral spirits shipped in in barrels that they then convert into vodkas and gins. The guy was really nice though. Barb and I split a $12 drink and headed back to the campground.

The next morning, we were lined up at the ferry terminal for our trip over to Haines. Barb went in to get our tickets, we were measured, and we waited. As we were waiting, I looked at our tickets. One adult, one SRC. What is SRC you ask? Well, that stands for senior citizen! I gave Barb crap out being sooo old! Hey, I have to do it while I can, right?

The fare was $190 or so, $50 more than when we went in '16. The ferry was over an hour late, but eventually we were headed on board and on our way to Haines. 

It is only 20 or so miles across the water, several hours if you drive around and take the long way. 

The girls had to stay in the camper for the hour-long trip, but before we knew it, we were pulling up in Haines. 

Haines is a town that we could certainly see ourselves living in in another life. So beautiful! The town is not nearly as touristy as Skagway and has a more down to earth feel to it. We walked this town as well, visiting both the brewery and distillery. When we were leaving the distillery, we saw this truck parked out front. I am pretty sure Barb wanted to jump in with him and head off to Barbie Land, but I managed to wrangle her back into our truck and head on our way. 

When we were here in '16 we fished for Dolly Varden in the river, Barb out fished me on that outing. Now it was my turn to exact my revenge! Results? 12-1 Barb. To be fair, I was using a flyrod and she was using a spinning rod with a spoon. Much easier to catch fish with her method. 

Here's the thing about Barb, when she out fishes me, everyone knows it. Every time she catches a fish, she shouts out "6 to 0!", "7-0!", you get the idea. Not only that she does a little happy dance out if the middle of the river. I am sure on lookers think she is disturbed and wonder why I just don't push her over and let the current carry her away. I mean seriously, act like you've been there before. Did I dance around Smith River Falls shouting to the grizzly bears that I out fished my wife? No, I acted like an adult, humble, mature, like a civilized human being. Not like some lunatic who is touched in the head. 

At the end of the day, it was 12-0. There is no way I was going to leave that river skunked so I grabbed her spinning reel, handed her my flyrod and started casting. Barb headed for the truck, and I stayed an extra 5 minutes finally catching one. I looked around to show her, but she was nowhere in sight. Getting back to the truck she starts doing the senior citizen shuffle singing "12-0, 12-0". I told her I caught one and she says, "Prove it, I never saw it". Rather than argue with her, I just put the rods in the camper, jumped in the truck and headed back to the campground. Momma always told me, never argue with a crazy woman.