Remembering Mr. Mac

We spent our first night in Ashland, Oregon (Map).  Ashland is home to an annual and according to the sign on the highway world famous Shakespeare festival.  Seeing the sign got me to thinking about my Senior year English teacher Mr. Mac. Mr. Mac stands out in my memories of high school (in Arizona) for two reasons.  First, he made Shakespeare fun and interesting.  If memory serves we were reading MacBeth and Mr. Mac brought in one of those old school tape players and would play the dialog for us.  He would stop the tape after just about every sentence and take the time to explain what old Bill S was saying through his actors.
  

Second, Mr Mac actually let myself and a fellow student cut class to attend the Tucson open golf tournament.  My friend Stuart got free tickets from his dad for the tourney.  English was our last class of the day so we approached Mr. Mac and asked if we could ditch class and head over to Randolph North (where they played the tourney back in 1980).  Mr. Mac told us that today “we would be exploring the exciting world of the gerund phrase” but after the lecture we could head out.  We sat down and hung in for the lecture.  After he finished, roughly 15 minutes of a 75 minute class we got up and headed for the door.  Mr. Mac stopped us with “I can’t let you guys go to the golf tournament.”  We were stunned, started pleading our case to get out of class.  Mr. Mac just smiled and replied - "I can’t let you go to the tourney but I can let you go to the nurse - See you tomorrow." 

I heard that he broke both his legs in a skydiving accident the year after I graduated.  Not sure if that’s true or what happened to him since but sure hope he’s alive and well!

Canada and Alaska here we come!

We are headed back to the great white north starting tomorrow morning.  We plan to take 4 days or so getting up to Canada then we will be heading straight to Inuvik.  The trip will cover mostly the same locations, there just aren't that many roads or places to go when you get up into Northern Canada and Alaska but we hope to visit some new places while on the road.

Tomorrow we plan to make it to Ashland, Oregon.  We will then spend Saturday and Sunday in Portland.  Hopefully, on Monday we will be across the border and into Hope, BC.

Our Second Great Adventure begins

So Kim and I are off traveling again.  We left Flagstaff Tuesday morning and today we are in McGregor, Mn.  Most of the last four days has been spent blasting across country.  The first day, after taking care of a tire issue that occurred out buy the Petrified National Park on I-40, we ended up in Dalhart, Tx (Map).  Weds evening we made it up to the Pony Express Campground near Mayesville, Mo (Map) and then Thursday we made it to the condo my Mom was renting at Breezy Point, MN (Map).  Yesterday we went to the headwaters of the Mississippi river at Itasca State Park.  Today looks to be another long day as we are intending to drive through the upper peninsula of Michigan with the final goal of meeting up with my sister and her husband at Sleeping Bear Dunes in Northern Michigan.  Not sure if we can get another 600 plus miles in but we should be on the road in about 30 minutes.

We plan to be on the road for about 12 weeks this time, see you on the road!

We are home

So I kind of got behind on the posts for this blog.  We got back to California on August 13th and returned to Arizona on Friday the 26th.  We are heading down to Prescott this evening to look at a Pleasure way class B RV.  If it works out we will start our trip to the east coast in about 2 weeks.

Back in Canada

Since our last post we have traveled from Valdez Alaska up to Tok (Map).  Then from Tok we took the top of the world highway over to Dawson City (Map).  From Dawson City we drove up the Dempster Highway to Inuvik and back (Map).  The Dempster trip just missed being a total disaster.  At kilometer 194 (of 722) we had the driver side rim come off of our back tires.  This resulted in 2 flat tires!!  In the middle of nowhere, just us and the Grizzly bears. Fortunately, we were saved by a member of the roads crew.  He jacked up our vehicle, took both tires off then took them to his shop and repaired them for us.  Not only did he save our trip, he refused and sort of compensation for his efforts.  His name was Poncho and you can see a couple photo's of him in the Dempster highway photo collection we posted.

We passed the Arctic Circle on the trip to Inuvik!  We also saw a herd of Caribou, with a bear chasing them!  Two big Grizzly bears and 2 little cubs.  Two Dall sheep and a variety of smaller birds etc.

Matanuska Glacier Videos

Videos from our trip to the Matanuska Glacier can be found here.

A week on the Kenai Pennisula

The weeks go by pretty fast when your traveling around.  We left Palmer last Friday and drove down to Homer. (Map)   We spent 3 nights camped ont the Homer Spit.  We visited a museum and got to see an Eagles next right beside the road.  These pictures are of our time in Homer. (Photos)  From Homer we drove over to Seward where we spent one night. (Map) (Photos) We visited the Kenai Fjords National park and took a short hike out to see the Exit glacier while there.  Next, we drove up to Hope, Ak. (Map)  From Hope we drove up to a campground next to the Matanuska Glacier. (Map) We spent most of a day hiking back to and on this glacier.  (Photos).  This morning we are in Valdez, Ak.  (Map)  We have been here for 3 nights also.  We spent one day wandering around town and visiting a couple museums and then yesterday we visited the old town site, Valdez Glacier and did some wild life viewing out at the Solmon Gulch hatchery.  (Photos)

Quick update

We have been in Homer, Seward and Hope since our last post. Internet service has been flaky at best. Today we are going to hike on a glacier. We camped last night on the Glenallen highway at mile marker 109. The campground is called Grand View. We should be in Valdez at the end of today.

Picture Link

Here's a link to some additional Mt. McKinley photo's. (Link)

We are in Homer Alaska today and tomorrow.  We are getting ready to head out for the day so I'll have to update later.

We saw Mt. McKinley!

Today was beautiful and sunny here in Alaska.  As you can see from the picture above Mount McKinley was out in all it's glory.  We stopped about 10 times to take pictures of this mountain.  This picture was taken outside the town of Talkeenta, Ak.  I learned today that Talkeenta is the start point for all climbers who wish to attempt to summit Mt. McKinley.  This year, 1203 hardy souls attempted it and slightly over 600 made it, a success rate of 53% if I remember the numbers posted at the ranger station correctly.  We are spending the night in a small campground outside of Palmer, AK.  Here's today's map.  We have also posted 31 seconds of video on you tube that you can find here.

The day actually got off to an incredible start as we found these two moose along the roadside right by the visitor center in Denal NP.   Lots more pictures but it's late and I'll probably go to bed before I get them posted.