Pizza Quiz

Just had to take this Pizza Quiz I got from B Boys Mom.

Veggie Pizza

Upscale and trendy. You're the most likely to go for a gourmet pizza. You have impeccable taste in everything. You truly enjoy the finer things in life.

What's Your Pizza Personality?

Okay, I find this very funny because I'm a pizza junky if anything. I'd eat pizza 3 times a day if I could.

Oregon Coast

Leaving Canada

August 2 ... Don't know where the time has gone. We've been doing a lot of travelling since I last posted. While in the Smithers area we took a day trip over to New Hazelton and Old Town Hazelton. We stopped and watched natives netting and catching salmon. Some of them were over 3 feet. They would just cut off the head and tail and grab the next one. Of course, no one else can do that but natives. It was kind of cool too, to just watch the salmon leap out of the water.

We left that area for Hope the next day and then on the Vancouver area. On Tuesday we did a day trip to Vancouver Island to visit my cousin Jim and his wife Karen. Because Jim had just had open heart surgery their daughter, Nancy, and her two beautiful kids were in town too. Bonus for us, we got to visit all. Nice day on the island.

We left Canada on Wednesday the 30th. Oh yeah, Thanks everyone for my Birthday Wishes. What a nice surprise when I finally got a hook up. Birthday was nice, but just not the same without the whole family around. Anyway, we left Canada and travelled halfway through Washington. Washington is starting to look more like home. More lush green and our kinds of trees and stuff like that. Then yesterday we got into the Portland OR area. This too is beautiful, lots of green and trees and mountains. Back on the highways and rush hour traffic.

We're looking at getting a look at the Redwood Forest in CA before slowly meandering back across the country. We've discovered that about 200 to 250 miles a day is just about right. Then we can stop and check out the area and enjoy this vacation of a lifetime.

Dease River to Smithers BC

Friday July 25, 2008 Big travel day again today. Over the last two days we’ve travelled over 700 miles and some of that at 25-35 mph. When we got back on the Cassiar Hwy this morning we were pleasantly surprised with good roads after about 50 miles. That sure made travel easier and a lot more fun. Saw a few black bears, and the backside of moose as they ran along side the highway. I wouldn’t post any, but this one was just too cute.

Have you ever in your life?

Pulled into a city park and are going to check it out on Saturday. There appears to be a lot of hiking trails and a farmers market in the morning.

Traveling this far south has brought warmer temps – no jackets when we pulled in, people wearing shorts!! And…… they have darkness at night!! The little things in life are such a pleasure.

Whitehorse to Cassiar Hwy

Wed 7/23 While in Whitehorse we did housekeeping stuff ie laundry and groceries. We also checked out Miles Canyon that was just a short distance from our campground.

While waiting for MM to come out of the bank I was entertained by this street performer

He was playing his guitar like there was no tomorrow. Heavy rock stuff. Wild, what’s on the streets in large cities.

Thurs 7/24 today we left Whitehorse and did a lot of travelling. We saw one black bear on the Alaskan Hwy and then when we got on the Cassiar Hwy it was animals everywhere. Got a good picture of this Brown Bear.

He was BIG!!
The Cassiar Highway was just beautiful…. I get tired of saying that lol.

But isn’t it BEAUTIFUL?
We saw a couple more Black Bear, one posed, the other two were playing shy today. And how about this shot of a grey fox

Looks like he has dinner in his mouth. Eew
After lots of tiring hours of driving we pulled into Dease River Camp.

It is positively the most serene, beautiful setting. The proprietors are Dennis and Lana and they moved here from Wisconsin. They were cattle farmers and sold the farm to come out here. They have 5 children and their 15th grandchild will arrive in December. The oldest grandchild is only 7! No wonder they left Wisconsin lol. Charming couple with a beautiful park.

This park too, had every variety of camping available. From renting one of their cabins

To tents and then two unique vehicle tents.



to the pickup camper

And of course the fifth wheel.
Unusual to see all of them in such a small campground. Strange, what I find interesting these days lol.

Valdez Alaska

Took the toad into Valdez today. We travelled the Richardson Highway from Glennallen to the end – Valdez. You won’t find prettier scenery. Snowcapped mountains, glaciers, lush green slopes, river, streams and waterfalls. The two waterfall pictures I had to get were Bridal Veil and Horsetail.


This tunnel was hand cut in the solid rock of Keystone Canyon and is all that is left of the railroad era when nine companies fought to take advantage of the short route from the coast to the copper country. However, a feud erupted progress a gun battle was fought and the tunnel was never finished.

We found lots of facts about Valdez that make it a true success story. The whole town was destroyed by fire before it became a state. It rebuilt better and stronger. Then the earthquake of 1964 again totally destroyed the town. A couple of townsmen that owned property just four miles in that was on more solid ground donated the land for everyone to rebuild. The town was moved 4 miles. Then they had the Valdez oil spill that again was a huge setback. And in 1980 they showed their true colors when a ship sank off shore and they help rescue all the people on board. They increased their population by 10% overnight and donated whatever was needed. This year Alaska is celebrating their 50th year of Statehood!

We toured a couple of museums in Valdez and then drove around seeing which houses had probably been moved after the earthquake and which ones were rebuilt. Very pretty town.

On the way back we decided to stop at the Worthington Glacier. It is one of the few that you can walk on.

We were able to walk right into a cravass. We were standing on ice and had ice all around us.

After hiking back down we were resting and a lady asked us if we had a camera. I was thinking huh? You want us to take a picture of you, then what? She said you look so relaxed that I think I should get a picture of you. Hehe

Don’t know how relaxed we look, but we sure were hot after hiking in and out of there.
Another thing we noticed on the way back is the Alaskan sense of humor showing again.

In case you can’t see, it’s a snowmobile on the rooftop with a blood stain. Anyway, we’re glad we made this daytrip to Valdez and glad we took the toad because this is the road with a lot of frost heaves. Not too bad in a car, but yuck in the rv

Mon & Tues 7/21&7/22
Travelled from Glennallen Alaska to Whitehorse Yukon Territory. The roads were horrendous to say the least. Most of the trip was at 20 to 35 mph and even that was rearranging the cupboards. There were about 5 miles of construction where you had to follow a pilot car through to the other end. Very time consuming. We made it through, enough said.

Whitehorse for Nuremberg Bayern

I'm getting several hits from Nuremberg Bayern for the Whitehorse post. The only thing I can figure is that they know someone on that orange bus/camper or they like the camper. Either way, I thought I put on a couple more pictures in case it's about the people. These shots aren't too good, remember I'm taking most of them through the laundry room window so as not to be nosy lol. I found the whole thing very different and interesting okay?


We saw this bus many more time on the road. While camped in the Denali I saw it go by a couple of times one afternoon. Remember, they can't camp just anywhere, they need public showers. Anyway, I hope whoever is looking from Bayern finds this interesting. Leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you.

McCarthy Adventure

Saturday 7/19/08 Have you ever had a day at a go cart raceway? You know the place, fast cars, curvy roads, obstacles, a few dips in the road maybe. Now make that a whole day, rally roads, washboard roads, single lane bridges, road described as "roller coaster" turns, and my favorite that the locals call "hug a boulder bend". We decided to go through the Wrangell-St Elias National Preserve. So we travelled down the Richardson Highway about 30 miles

Next we got on the Edgerton Highway to Chitina. This was a 30 mile stretch of blacktop that has a lot of "frost heaves". In layman terms that means dippy dips, if you know what I mean. Like "tickle bellies" only shorter and more often so they are just dips. A few we were close to bottoming out. Maybe we should have brought one of the boys "rally" cars.

So, when that ends the next 60 miles is called the McCarthy Road. This is where the fun really starts. The first 10 miles or so we go pretty slow because these roads are BAD! Then MM starts thinking like people that live on dirt roads "maybe if I just hit the tops of the bumps". Besides that we wanted to make it a "day trip" not a full vacation. There were at least 3 or 4 one lane bridges over rivers. I really like the one over Kuskulana River. This bridge is 525 feet long and 238 feet above the river.


that's a long way down.

After a while MM starts enjoying this, I can tell by the way he's holding onto the wheel and leaning into the curves, you girls with car guys know what I mean. He says he was just pretending he was driving his Corvette. We're counting down the miles and finally get to mile marker 60. Can't wait to see what's at the end. It had better be good!

Another visitor center and we learn that we can walk across the footbridge into McCarthy and then take a shuttle to Kennicott. I'm starved by this time so we decide to walk to a little place that the gal at the visitor center told us about in McCarthy. Did I mention that it's raining now and the temp is in the 40's? So, a half mile walk into McCarthy to "Potato". Interesting place. Good food.

Notice in the picture below the "potato heads" on the ledge.


We learned that before there was a footbridge visitors had to haul themselves across the river on the tram. They put their goods on the platform and then pulled the cable to draw themselves over the river. Talk about work. Don't think I'd have done it for a day trip. Here are remnants of the old tram.

There was a note in the "Milepost" book that says "Pet owners note: If you bring your dog, bring a leash. There are many loose local dogs in the McCarthy/Kennicott area." And there were many loose dogs. Just hanging out.

Anyway, some of the facts about this National Park. It is the largest being 13,175,901 acres or 20,587.3 square miles. It has 6 of 10 highest mountains on this continent. Some parts of the mountains receive 60 feet of snow per year, average annual snowfall in 50.4 inches. Twenty five percent of Wrangell-St Elias is covered by glacial ice. It is a huge, beautiful park. We sure did make a good investment when we brought Alaska into the United States.

The McCarthy/Kennicott towns were a copper mining area in the past with the mines being in Kennicott and the town of McCarthy growing into quite a miners' and railroaders' town. They were booming towns providing services to more than 800 people. The falling copper prices closed the mines in 1938. In November of that same year, the last train left Kennicott for Cordova taking most of the remaining people with it.

Just a few more pictures that I want to share with you. This one we can only guess about.


There are several landing strips along the roadway. We found this sign stuck in the back of a truck. It says "Caution yield for approaching aircraft".



This one was way too appropriate. There was one at either end of the 60 mile McCarthy Road.


We saw a lot of this ornamental grass along the highway. Especially the Old Edgerton Highway.

It was only about 12 inches high and the soft pink plumes were blowing softly in the breeze. Just beautiful.

Not what we had originally planned for today, but I'm sure glad we are on the trip that we are and we can just change our plans without much hassle. Tomorrow Valdez...maybe.