Home Again!

Our First Trip to Alaska in 2003

2015 brought us a spectacular trip from South Carolina to Alaska and return.  We were fortunate to revisit some favorite places from previous trips and do many new things - like flying to Denali and landing on a glacier, watching the grizzlies fish and eat their salmon, and let's not forget getting Hydercized!


Some 2015 trip stats: 

States:  11 from SC to Canada
             16 from Canada to SC
Provinces
& Territories:  3
Miles:  over 14,000
Propane:  3 tankfuls
Diesel:  935 gallons (luckily it was cheaper than regular gasoline in most places)
Good health was enjoyed by the RV and The Pitts throughout the trip - priceless!

Click Map to see our route across the United States, up into Canada and Alaska (green line) and our return (orange line).

We are so fortunate to be able to make these trips and they are much more special when we can share our journey through this blog with family and friends.  Thanks for vicariously taking this trip with us.

Safe Travels Everyone!

August, 2015: Heading to the East Coast

Spent the last few days driving east through South Dakota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and into western New York.

We made a stop at the famous Corn Palace in South Dakota - pretty much the only tourist attraction in central, eastern South Dakota along I80. It is primarily an arena used for basketball games and concerts that is decorated annually with corn cob panels.

We spent some time visiting Jack's brother and his family in Iowa and then headed east on I80.  I saw a sign for Herbert Hoover National Park.  Hah - I started with the Presidential visits (Andrew Johnson Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman) and now we will finish the trip with another tour of a Presidential museum.  Herbert Hoover was known as "The Humanitarian" for his relief work after World War I and II.

Birthplace town of Herbert Hoover

Cottage where Herbert Hoover was born

Herbert Hoover was a Quaker and this was the Friends Meeting House

Herbert Hoover Museum and Library

We spent endless hours on the interstate through Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania, occasionally interspersed with some much needed side roads to break the monotony.  We arrived in Elmira and spent a few days visiting friends and enjoying wonderful warm, but not hot weather.

August 16, 2014: Southeastern Montana to South Dakota

The last couple of days have been over 100 degrees, hitting 106 when we were in Miles City.  We certainly have seen the temperature extremes this summer from the 30s a couple of times in Canada and Alaska and now over 100!

We drove east through Montana with the landscape continuing to change over every hillcrest.  Sometimes flat wheat and oat fields, recently cut with bales of hay spread over the fields making pretty rural scenes. Over the next hill, we would again be in mini badlands with rocky crests and ridges popping out of the undulating hills, changing to dry hilly grazing lands, and then repeating the whole thing over again.  Not particularly pretty scenery, but lots more interesting than we expected.

We saw lots of fields with hay bales, but this was the only one we saw with old fashioned haystacks.

Look out Monet...if I had been here at sunrise or sunset with my new camera, I could have given him some competition!

We turned due south just before the North Dakota state line to check out a small state park called Medicine Rocks. We had a great time exploring the unique rock formations here.  Although they look like their edges have been rounded by running water, it is sandstone that has been carved and hollowed out by the constant wind grating sand particles off the soft rocks and creating wonderful moonscape sculptures.

We continued south out of the park and then took another of Jack's favorite gravel roads into northern South Dakota, again turning due south on route 85 and stopped for the night in Sturgis.  The motorcycle rally had celebrated its 75th anniversary a week before and the place was still disassembling various tents and structures from the "happening" (we read 15 people died during the week).

Downtown Sturgis on a Sunday morning one week after the big rally

We headed southeast to I-90 - NOT our favorite road, but we have visited everything of interest to us in South Dakota and decided to just bite the bullet and get through it.  Wall Drug's advertisements drew us in - again.  Makes for a nice break from the boring driving - they have pretty much one of everything from tacky tourist junk, snacks, meals, to leather western wear and impressive western art.
We found a campground early for the night about mid-way through South Dakota so Jack could watch the end of the golf match.  Some clouds moved in and the temps have dropped into the high 70s, making it very comfortable.

Woke to cloudy skies with temps in the 60's.  Will be continuing to drive the next couple of days across South Dakota and Iowa to visit Jack's brother and his family in Des Moines.

August 10 - 13: Glacier National Park

Drove the 20 miles from Whitefish, Montana to the western entrance to Glacier national Park.  We got the last campsite in Avalanche Creek Campground on Going to the Sun Road.  This road crosses the park east-west and is narrow and winding, cut right into the cliffs at higher elevations.  It is not open until July 1 when they have finished clearing the snow, but now in August, there is no snow except a few shade mountainsides.  Our campground is the furthest we can drive on the road as it is limited to vehicles no higher than 10' and no longer than 21'.

A pretty gorge on the Nature Trail

 

After getting our site, having lunch and a nap, we took a walk on the short nature trail adjacent to the campground and while Jack returned to the RV, I continued up a second trail 3 miles to Avalanche Lake.  Gorgeous shallow lake surrounded on three sides by mountains covered in waterfalls.  Unfortunately, the fires in the park are creating a light smokey haze that dulls the photos.

Portion of the Avalanche Lake Trail

How come these trees can grow in plain rock and I can't get my grass to grow?

Avalanche Lake

We enjoyed watching these butterflies land on the burnt logs in our firepit and close their wings and become nearly invisible, occasionally fluttering their wings revealing the hidden bright orange.

Tuesday we caught the shuttle to go up to the summit - Logan Pass where I had planned to do a couple of hikes partway along established trails.  The drive up to the summit was spectacular with steep dropoffs on one side and massive cliffs on the other--glad someone else is doing the driving!

Glacier National Park is part of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park with Waterton in Canada

The air was clear today, but the altitude was bothering me more than I expected, so did not do either one of the hikes that required some fairly minor uphill/downhill trudging.  We sat alongside one of the trails and had a nice lunch, enjoying the mountain views and hillsides covered in wildflowers. Back down to the campground we found it was HOT!  No hookups here, so no air conditioning.  Luckily, the RV is in the shade and we sat outside hiding from the sun and I set up the cookstove and made homemade spaghetti sauce (aka red gravy).  Once the sun set, it cooled off quickly, so we played some cards and it was comfortable temps for sleeping.

The forecast for Wednesday is high temps again, so we decided to move on so we could get hookups for air conditioning.  We made a few stops at viewpoints in Glacier before heading out of the park.

We drove southeast and stopped in north central Montana.  Stopped late and got the last available campsite with electric.  Went to a local pub for dinner and enjoyed some people watching where the cowboys had hats just like in the western movies, but they were not for show since they looked like they had been stomped on and partially chewed by a bear.

Thursday, we headed southeast through Montana.  The road passed through parched wheat fields, most of which had been cut under big skies and flat lands that went forever.  Suddenly, the landscape completely changed and we drove through interesting mini-badlands with odd rock formations and then quickly changing to dry cattle rangelands as far as we could see.  Then it would all repeat again. 

We stopped in Miles City in eastern Montana in a campground that has a pool, electricity and good wifi - a miracle that we could get everything in one place.  It hit 99 degrees and is forecast to be over 100 for the next couple of days.  We decided to stay put here, enjoy the pool and air conditioning and run some errands.

August 5 to 9, 2015: Canada and back to the USA

Our mission is to get back to United States fairly quickly so we can have phone service and reliable internet.  We continued east on the Yellowhead Highway through the Canadian Rockies to Jasper where we turned south on the IceField Parkway.  The drive started with heavy, low clouds and light rain, but as we headed south, the clouds began to break up and we enjoyed some beautiful scenery.

One lane wooden bridge in Golden

We turned off the IceFields parkway just before Lake Louise and headed back west over the Rockies to the resort town of Golden on the western flank of the mountains.  Great little town and we tried to stay at a golf course that looked fabulous, but we couldn't get a tee time that was good for us, so ended up staying in a campground near the highway.

 Leaving Golden, we drove south on 93 with a long day of driving to get through the USA border late afternoon and down to the Whitefish, Montana area where we wanted to stay.

Found a good campground and spent the last couple of days recuperating, doing a lot of shopping, washing the filthy RV and other errands.  On to Glacier National Park tomorrow.