Dozer’s Take on the Alaska Trip (09-15-14)

Warning- if you aren’t a cat lover or aren’t interested in reading a silly blog post- just move on.

Ok look, people with two legs get to do a lot more fun things on a trip to Alaska in a small camper than people with 4 legs.  Yeah, I guess I had a good time.  I got to go out a lot more often than I usually do, but most of the time, I was left behind.

I would sit and wait for hours for them to come back and feed me.

While they were gone, I searched for the food.  Eventually I found it, not that it did me much good.  It was on a shelf I couldn’t reach, and in a sealed container.  Drat.

I could see the food, and practically taste it, but I couldn't reach out and grab it.

That’s ok.  Little did they know that the minute they were gone, I ran up to the bedroom to snooze on their pillows.  They hate that. 

That’s what they get for bringing me in this tiny little camper.  I mean, really.  Look at the size of this counter!  And there are no food crumbs on it either!

I’m a CAT for crying out loud!  I need my caves!  They had to empty out most of this cabinet just to make room for me to lay down.  Hey, that’s not my fault!

I mean, really….  I don’t ask for much.  When Paul flew to California for a wedding, I wanted to go with him.  Was that too much to ask??? Apparently it was because I sure didn't get to go.













I’ll give them a little credit for trying to keep me entertained. They actually managed to find my favorite toy in a store in Canada.  That was good for about 5 minutes of fun.












Somehow they thought it would be “fun” for me to work for my food so they put it in a little ball that would spew it out one piece at a time.  But only IF I rolled it around.  Boy, did that get old fast.

Of course, occasionally  they would let me outside, and I would supervise whatever activity happened to be taking place. I’m a great supervisor.

I guess the scenery was pretty good in Alaska, when I got the chance to pay attention to it.










A lot of times I was too busy untangling the leash from the rocks and chairs that someone was inconsiderate enough to leave lying around.

When I had the chance, I liked trying to catch the squirrels  that live near the river and I almost got one.

There sure were lots of mountains and tons of lakes with fresh, clear water in Alaska.

I love drinking from the lakes.  I even learned how to stand on the rocks, so I didn't get my paws wet  (ok, someone may have shown me  how to do that).

Sometimes the lakes were really small,-I think someone called them “puddles”, but the water was still good!

I had a really good laugh the day I escaped.  I headed over to a nearby bush and tried to get to a nest of little moles.  I just wanted to play with them, but someone figured out that I got out, and put me back in the camper before I could introduce myself to my new friends.  A little while later, I watched the mommy mole pick up her babies, one at a time, and move them to a different bush! Gee, was it something I said???

One day there was an awesome jungle to explore.  I didn’t find anything to play with, but I heard lots of noises!

Mostly it rained.  I hate the noise of the rain on the roof, but at least it means the three of us can have fun together.  Sometimes I just practice my fishing skills so I can catch a salmon when I get the opportunity.

When I get bored with that, we play cards.  I like Phase 10 but I never win.  They won’t let me play when they get the Rummikub tiles out.  I thought I was supposed to mix them up!  How should I know that they are in a specific order?? Geez.

All the activity tires me out and I have to take a nap.  I take a lot of naps.  They call them “cat naps”.

Truck Camper Travel (09-14-14)

When we decided to “do Alaska”, we did a bunch of research and decided that for us, it made more sense to travel in a truck camper rather than our large 5th wheel.

Originally the reasoning was that the roads in Alaska and Canada are rough and can rattle apart a trailer and I didn't want our home rattling apart.  We actually didn't think the roads were as bad as we were led to believe.

As it turns out, the benefits of a camper were different, but even better than we imagined.  By traveling in a truck camper, we were able to travel down dozens of roads that we would never have attempted in the trailer, allowing us to see things we would have missed and enabling us to camp, usually for free, in the middle of nowhere, with spectacular scenery all around us.

For the first week, I was a little leery about the small space, but we got used to it pretty quickly.  Well, most of us did. One of us still insists that the truck camper is too small, and looks forward to moving back into the 5th wheel.

Dozer was so desperate to get outside sometimes, he learned how to leap through the sliding portion of the screen door, if it was left open.  Not good- we’ve had to be extra careful to slide that shut or keep the main door closed.

We would never have made it to Prudhoe Bay with the trailer.  The mud and grime on that road were amazing…We actually built our own “storm windows” for the back door, so much dirt was getting through.

…. but setting foot in the Arctic Ocean was priceless.

Wrangell St. Elias National Park, our country’s largest, would have been difficult to explore in the 5th wheel. As it was, we spent 4 days exploring this park.










Denali Highway, one of my favorite places, would have been passable, but not as comfortable to drive in a 5th wheel.








When we first started out, we stayed mostly in campgrounds, but then we reached Alaska and there wasn’t any need for the formality of an RV park most of the time.  The onboard generator performed flawlessly, and with a push button start- it was so easy to use! 



One thing would have made life in the camper easier, less stressful for Paul, and would have allowed us to stay “off the grid” for longer time periods- a solar panel.  Every 4-5 days we stayed in an RV park so we could re-charge the batteries without running the generator for hours.

We took advantage of our small size to stay in smaller, (usually state or federal) more scenic, less expensive, campgrounds.

With a smaller refrigerator we had to do more meal planning and less impulse buying, but each time we loaded up, we had more than two weeks worth of meals available. Sometimes we needed it too- there are many places that don’t have grocery stores around every corner.

We loved always having our “stuff” with us.  I've said before, its a totally different way of traveling but easy to get used to.  We have full access to all our food, drink, and bathroom, all the time. If we “forgot” to bring a map into the truck, it was a simple process to pull over and get it.  Priceless!

We had some issues with the camper along the way.  It is 10 years old.  Both the bathroom vent and the bedroom skylight had parts break that had to be replaced or repaired.  The weather stripping needed to be replaced around the door and windows, but overall we had no major problems.







What we missed the most about the 5th wheel was the double paned windows, the 3 inch walls to keep out the moisture, and the recliners. I also missed the ability to make more complicated meals. With just a few pots and pans, we were somewhat limited in what we could make, and the weather was not conducive to cooking outside.



   Although we had plenty of clothes, I look forward to wearing the rest of my wardrobe! We each bought a T-shirt and a sweatshirt in Alaska.


Sometimes we missed the door that keeps the cat out of our bedroom (we don’t let him sleep with us) but he behaved better than we expected and rarely jumped on our faces at 3 AM.







Had we wanted to, we could have sold the camper in Alaska and made money on it, even after the money we put into it-but buying the biggest camper we could get paid off.  We have spent 4 months in it and are quite comfortable, so we’ll hang on to it and hopefully use it in the summers to make traveling easier.  I look forward to revisiting some of our national parks when we can actually stay IN the park!
We will, however, be picking up a solar panel in Oregon this week.

Scenes from British Columbia (09-02-14)

  After driving major highways for a couple of days, we veered off and headed down scenic rte 99.  It’s not a road for big rigs, but we had no issues handling the hairpin curves and 12% grades.









The road took us through scenic Fraser Canyon and the small town of Lillooet.

It was a quiet few days, just making our way south, stopping to spend the night places where we could have campfires.

We did do some hiking along the way.

The road took us through Whistler, one of the top skiing destinations in the world, and host of many of the 2010 winter Olympic skiing events.

  In the summer its a premiere  mountain biking destination.  We sat outside for lunch on a beautiful afternoon and watched the bikers.  The ski lift brings them up the mountain, and special chairs bring up the bikes. The rider can choose, just like a skier can, what degree of difficulty he wants on his ride down.

We decided the gondola ride to the top of the mountain was worth the investment, and we had a great time!  We started out in a private gondola for part of the ride up.














Once we reached the top of that run, we hiked over to a chair lift, which brought us up to another peak.  Luckily it was a great day because it was still pretty chilly!








The views from up there were pretty amazing:

 


















Once we’d had our fill we took yet another gondola, called the Peak to Peak, from where we were, over to…another peak.














It was a fun day, in part because the weather was outstanding.  The village of Whistler is very walk-able, with  pedestrian streets running through it, and tons of restaurants with outdoor seating.  Plus of course, all the upscale shopping one could ask for.  We wandered in and out of a few stores but mostly just enjoyed the ambiance.

Soon after Whistler, we crossed over the border, back into the United States for the final time this summer.  I think we were both happy to be “home”.

Random Thought:  I sure am lucky to have Paul around.  We came home one day and found no power in part of the rig, including the refrigerator.  After pulling it all apart Paul discovered that the movement of the slide had caused wires to get twisted and pulled apart.  An hour later, it was fixed.

The Bare Bear Facts (08-31-14)

So, Hyder Alaska is all about the bears and yes, we did see two bears. 



This is how it works.  The U.S. Forestry has a boardwalk set up along a creek that is frequented by bears- both brown and black bears.  Everyone is very quiet while they stand around waiting, so the bears won’t get scared away.  







Paul and I donned our full rain gear, since of course it was raining, and stood there on the boardwalk for about an hour or so.

We talked to the rangers and to other “watchers”. Some people had elaborate plastic bag set ups to keep their cameras dry.  We had an umbrella. Finally, we saw a black bear, across the street, eating berries in the bushes.  Nice, but not what we came for.

We were thinking of leaving but the ranger told us it was just getting to be the time of night when the bears will show, so we waited.  Soon enough an enormous brown bear came waddling down the creek.

Just look at the size of the belly on this guy.  He is an older bear, so not as skittish with the large audience he had while he ate his dinner. The ranger says older bears are not as much fun to watch because they are so experienced at fishing that they just stomp on a fish and eat it, whereas the younger bears haven’t figured that out, and they chase the fish. 

This guy just ambled down through the middle of the creek, picking up salmon as he went.  You can see all the dead and dying salmon all over the stream.  It’s late in the season and many salmon have spawned and died so the bears have been feasting and are pretty full,  allowing them to be fussier about what they eat.

It was extremely difficult to get decent pictures because it was getting dark, and still raining pretty heavily.  You can see that this guy’s fur is soaked.

So that was our bear experience at Hyder.  We felt lucky because many people hang around all day and never get to see a bear.

Our luck got even better the next day- after we left Hyder.  We were continuing our trip down the Cassier Highway when Paul said that the guy we had just passed had made a motion towards the nearby bridge, as if to say there was something to look at.

It’s pretty common for people to share information that way, so we stopped to look. 

There were two brown bears fishing in the creek!  They were both pretty young, not huge.

 


 

This guy climbed up some debris in the middle of the stream, to take a break from fishing.  There weren’t as many dead fish in this area, so these bears were working a little bit to get their lunch.

  

We watched them for about 10 minutes before they went around a corner and out of sight.













This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip- to have the chance to watch  the bears just going about their business.

One of the things we noticed in Alaska, is that sometimes the bears would be called Brown Bears and sometimes they would be called Grizzly Bears.  Of course we asked about the difference between Grizzly and Brown and we found out that although they are technically the same species- there are differences.

A Grizzly bear lives inland and lives on berries, plant roots, and small animals such as ground squirrels.  A Brown Bear is a Grizzly Bear that lives on the coast and feasts on mostly salmon and berries. Brown Bears grow bigger because they have a more plentiful food source. 

  The shoulder hump is actually a muscle, and it’s usually bigger on a Grizzly- they use the muscle more to dig out their food than Brown Bears do.

Black Bears don’t have a hump on their shoulder at  all. That’s one of the differences between black bears and grizzlies. Which brings up the question- what are the other differences between a Black Bear and a Grizzly Bear?  When you’re hiking in bear country, it’s really good to know which bear you encounter because how  you should react depends on the type of bear it is.







The color of their fur means nothing.  A Black Bear can be anywhere from black to cinnamon in color. 










A Black Bear’s ears are wider apart and actually bigger than a Grizzly’s. Grizzly ears are also more rounded and not as pointy.

The shape of their snout is different.  A grizzly snout is curved and a black bear snout is straight, from ears to nose.

Their paws are shaped differently, and a Grizzly's claws are bigger (not that I plan on getting close enough to distinguish the difference!).

It would come in handy on the trail to know who has been on the trail before you. This was in Yellowstone, obviously an old print, but fun to find.

  Black Bears and Grizzly Bears also have somewhat different habitats.  Black Bears are found more in the woods and trees and Grizzlies prefer the open fields.

When we’re  hiking in bear country, we’re always alert for signs of bears on the trail.  One of the ways to avoid a bear encounter is to make noise while you are hiking.  I tend to sing, or call out “ here, kitty kitty” just to be goofy.  It doesn’t matter what you say, just that you make noise.  Some people wear bells on their backpack, so their noise is made without them having to talk.  One of the signs of bears that we might come across is bear scat (poop), and the scat is another difference between the two types of bears- Grizzly Bear scat has bells in it. 

I’ve heard that joke about a hundred times, but it does point out one of the major differences between blacks and grizzlies-  attitude.

Black Bears tend to be more afraid of people and will be less likely to attack (unless there are cubs involved!)  Grizzlies are more aggressive.

These Black Bears were on the hiking trail in Yosemite.  The mama bear was well aware of the many hikers and was fine with sharing the trail as long as no one got too close.

That’s probably more than anyone wanted to know about bears, but I really enjoy seeing the animals in their own habitat so I got carried away- plus, it’s raining again and I am bored.
We have been moving pretty quickly through British Columbia, headed towards the border.