Anchorage and home!

Anchorage was a very nice city to spend a couple of days. The first night in we made it to the Captain Cook (a 5 star hotel) and were very underwhelmed. I thought it would be a great place to end our trip, but the pool was not included in the $220 a night room fee. They wanted $10 a piece for pool priveliges. That would be $100 for two days for the family, about the price of a season pass in Tremont! Well, I went down to the desk and pointed that out nicely, and told them we traveled 5,000 miles to get here by car, and they signed me up for the Captains Club for free! I felt like Mark Scott... Well, the toilet shifted when you sat on it, the bathroom fan was broken, and the TV's were consoles - So we had to watch the "Truman Show" on the laptop. Then when the guys went down to swim, we were told that Mitch and Joshua could not swim because they could only swim at certain times, and this ain't it. So we did not swim in Anchorage (although Cory and Chris go in fine. Go figure...)
Well, the next day we did laundry, and then head out to eat lunch with the Yar's (Scott, Elizabeth, Scotty, Tabitha, and the other one). It was a blast to talk with real Alaskan's. That night we watched the "Truman Show" and went to bed at midnight.
The next morning we layed around on our bed and watched Dirty Harry movies. We tried the swimming thing, but that didn't work, so we took a hike to Flattop Mountain. It was an awesome hike, and we got in way over our heads. At the top of the mountain, it was very rocky and Mark got a big gash on his leg during a landslide. There were people there (Alaskan's probably) with little kids on their shoulders hiking up this thing. I thought I was going to loose one of the boys! Chris and Cory waited about half way up, but me and the boys made it to the top. Then, when we started going down, Mitchell cut himself on a rock and it started bleading like crazy. I ripped some strips of my shirt and made a bandage, and we started our descent. It was quite a site! Mitch had a blood soaked rag on his hand, and we were all filthy. We made it down, however, and have a good memory!

That night we tried to nap, but excitement was pretty high for the plane ride home. We drove to the airport, parked the van and we were off! It was a blast on the plane, as everything Mitch and Joshua saw was new to them. I watched a movie on the first flight, and the kids watched a movie on the second. We met Brian, Adam and Matt at Ohare and had a great talk with them, and then took the Farney van home. The drive home was uneventful. It was good to be home.

Our next vacation...

Denali...

The trip from Tok to Denali was our last big drive. We stopped in Delta Junction to celebrate the end of the Alcan. Available for purchase were certificates for $1 that are signed by the local travel guides saying that you completed the Alcan; an option we turned down.

We spent the afternoon in Fairbanks, but it is a city the size of Pekin, so we just ate lunch there (a great Italian meal) and left. The picture of the fountain is in down town Fairbanks on the riverfront. On to Denali!



The first night in Denali was warm. We have really figured out this tent thing. When we awoke, we took our time getting ready, then went White Water Rafting. Since these are glaciar fed rivers, we had to wear lots of clothing and these "Dry Suits" that really did keep us dry. Since we went to alaska without any coats (doh!) we had to borrow some clothing from the rafting place. The first part of the trip was an easy float trip. I sat next to an 81 year old woman (Angelica) and her grand daughter Zoe. Angelica was born in Germany and was a hoot. She had two replacement hips and was scared to death of any whitewater. On the second half of the trip, sans Angelica and Zoe, we got to do class 3 and 4 rapids. It was really awesome! We have concluded that the Juchems family is not going to waste time on class 1 and 2 anymore. We finished the day with a meal in town and hit the sack. This was the night we were afraid of, since the weather report said it was going to get down to 43. However, when we awoke on Saturday, July 1, were were toasty warm. I did turn Mr. Heater on at about 3am, but I am not sure we needed it.

The top of the "Big Mountain"Denali was awesome, but not quite as awesome as we thought. The top of the mountain was unseen by us. It is never visible from the gate of the park, so you have to take these shuttle busses into the park. Well, we took the "Fish Creek" bus which goes about half way into the park. It was an 8 hour trip but you can get out at any time and just take off walking. Our intention was to get out and hike a bit and then get back on a return bus, but we were afraid we could not get a return bus for a while. So we had an 8 hour bus ride! Chris and I really enjoyed it, but the kids slept most of the way. We saw 8 grizzly bears, two moose, some caribou and a ground squirl (at 5:30) along with some beautiful scenery. The grizzly bear pictures were a little dissapointing because of the distance, but trust us, we saw them. Our bus driver's name was Lee and he was an older guy that had done everything. He gave us a commentary during the trip that was great. When we got to Denali, the clouds were covering it. I did get a picture of the base of the mountain.

This is the base of Denali (I think).

After the big bus ride, we drove to Anchorage (about 4pm) and got to the Captain Cook at about 8:30...

Whithorse and Tok

We, as always had a great time in Whitehorse. It is a nice town with everything in it. We awoke and discovered that we had nothing planned for the day, so we found a place that had rafting and gold panning. The raft turned out to be a little odd, two canoes put together with some 2x4's, and I was starting to think it was pretty lame, but then they hauled out the gold panning. What a blast. We had so much fun making fun of each other, and we found some gold! Mitch thought he had struck it rich, but it turns out the gold we found was so small as to be worthless. Mitch still thinks he has something, though.
That evening we went to a Salmon and Ribs place. The $200 meal was pretty good. We got buffalo steaks, elk stew and something else (cory). I had my eye on some rubarb pie, but the last piece got snatched up before I could get it. So we had some apple stuff which was OK.

The next day we took off for Tok, Alaska. The books all say this is the most beautiful part of the Alcan, but it was cloudy and rainy all day. In between the clouds we snapped a few pictures. Getting back to the states was great. No more funny money. Tok, even though small, was refreshingly American, and the Sourdough campground was the best so far. The owner, Ken, is a hoot. He runs a little comedy show at night with a pancake toss. If you can through a pancake into a bucket about 10 feet away, you get free breakfast. Mitch won and is now on the Pancake hall of fame! Check it out: Sourdough
.

Watson Lake and Whitehorse

We left Fort Nelson (after a pretty good and warm nite sleep) and headed to Watson Lake. Outside of Fort Nelson we stopped at a little joint on the side of the road that had awesome cinimon rolls. We sat in a little quaint backcountry eatery and had coffee and cinimon rolls that were great. Quite a memory! When we started out, we were discussing how we still hadn't seen a bear or really anything interesting, then it hit. We saw 5 black bears, a few small heards of buffalo, some stone sheep, and a Moose! It was really a great drive. Chris was not afraid of the bears at all, either, which was a surprise.


We have been using a book (Frommers) that has helped us plan our trip. It said that Watson Lake was a dismal place to be avoided. Well, it was the only place to stop, so we went to the "Campground Services" campground there (even the name is unimpressive). Well, the site was OK, but it is the home of the smallest showers on earth, and there were lots of mosquitos. It rained all night, but we stayed dry and warm! Mr. Heater finally helped us out. We covered up the vents in the top of the tent because we thought they were letting all the hot air out. We think we have this cold stuff figured out. We will see in Denali... The signpost forest is in town and is definately the highlight. There are 52,000 signposts pointing to folks houses on posts in the center of town. We did not bring one, but Adam said he was brining one. We didn't get a picture, but there was also some heavy equipment there, and Mitch wanted his picture in some, so that is all the photos we got.

The trip to Whitehorse was short (about 4 hours) and uneventful, except that we stopped at another diner that was run by one lady who did everything. Cory had chili, me and the boys had hamburgers (great), and Chris had broccoli soup. The food was excellent, but Mitchell forgot his retainer there, and we were in Whitehorse before we figured it out. It was an expensive meal.
Our hotel in Whitehorse is pretty nice, and we all took a quick nap when we got there. Oh yea, I threw my back out a few days ago pulling a tent stake out. Josh said that I pulled a "Tim Barrow". I have been hunched over for a few days, but it is much better. I am hoping our two days in Whitehorse will clear it up.

Grande Prairie and Fort Nelson...

Grande Prairie


Saying goodbye to Banff was tough because we have 3 days of camping, and the Juchems are not campers. Mr. Heater let us down, but after taking a look at the weather report, we discovered that the next two days, at least, are only going to be in the mid 50’s at night. We think we can handle that.

We took off from Banff and drove to Jasper along the Icefields Parkway. It is suppose to be one of the most beautiful drives, and it was! We thought it the best drive we have ever taken (except for maybe Medicine Bow in Wyoming). We stopped first at Lake Moraine, witch is a twin of Lake Louise. It was very nice.

We stopped lots of other places along the way. We saw some great falls and lots of snow. We took the Jasper Tramway up some mountain, and met some folks from Leeds, UK. They were very nice. We spent $115 Canadian for a tram ride, 10 minutes at the top, and a ride down: maybe 30 minutes total. We rolled into one of the nicest campgrounds we have been at - the Tamarack Campground in Grande Prairie. Alas, we were let down once again by Mr. Heater, as we were all cold again.

Fort Nelson...

The drive to Fort Nelson took us through Dawson Creek - Mile marker zero on the Alaskan Highway. The ride was very uneventful. Canada is huge! We have no pictures of our trip because nothing great happened. We knew this would be the booring part of the ride, and it was. We rolled into Fort Nelson at 4pm, ate, and set up camp. For some reason, the campground (Westend) is free. It also has very sad, but clean, bathrooms...

Banff...

Well, Banff is beautiful! We have had a great time here and have stayed in the best accomodations so far. It is a two bedroom condo that is awesome! Cory is sleeping downstairs on the couch and the boys have their own room with a king sized bed (Josh says he is seven feet away from Mitch). We all took long showers when we got here, and had some quiet down time on Thursday Night. We at at a bar in Canmore and I had a Buffalo Burger. It was tasty, but nobody else liked their food. Mitch had a Lamb burger...

In the morning we arose to a beautiful day (a little cloudy) and took off for a horseback ride around Lake Louis. It was VERY beautiful and everyone had pretty good horses. Mine I could not control, and Chris's horse (Dozer) actually, in the past, had fallen asleep on it's feet during a ride. It was quite slow. Our guide was a guy named Steve who loved Cat equipment. We had a great talk and I informed him that Caterpillar had bought this trail ride. It was great. They had Jack Russle terriors running around the barn. We all were speculating what it would be like if they had Shitzu's instead. Quit a hoot.

Then we took a hike in Johnston Canyon. It was a great hike and I recommend Ken and Phyllis taking this hike. It was pretty easy, and the lower falls were great! The upper falls were kind of a dissapointment so I would not recommend them.

Tommorow it is off to Grande Prairie, Alberta. Our trail guide showed us a shortcut, so it should only be a 6 hour drive, instead of the 8 that I planned. (if you click on the pictures, they get bigger...)

Thanks for all the posts! We have a great laugh every day. Especially Robs! Can't wait for the Goofy Ridge photos...

Glacier National Park...

Well, today was our second full day of driving and boy was it rough. We had a little later start than anticipated, surprise, surprise. The drive was nearly as uneventful as it was beautiful. We passed through some of the prettiest river valleys, and the sheer size of the mountains was a frightful display of God’s awesome power.
We passed through Bozeman this afternoon. Dad tried to get a picture of it for Brad, but didn’t stop until we were just out of Bozeman and so that kind of fell a little flat.
We ate lunch in the car again, and our all natural peanut butter was being spread a little thin, so nearly forty-five minutes from Glacier (where we are staying tonight) we stopped at a Walmart. Too bad it wasn’t a real Walmart. They had about two aisles of food and about fifty aisles of anything but food. We did get the peanut butter, but ran out of luck with the fruit and turkey. Looks like we’ll have to stick with all that hydrogenated oil stuff for a couple more days.
Nearing supper time we hit some road troubles. The interstate we were on abruptly turned into a rasty little dirt road which was very close to being a one laner at certain points. It turns out mapquest had failed to mention the construction they were doing on interstate 90. With this slight delay we made it to supper in (starts with a P, right outside glacier) where we stopped at this Mexican joint overlooking Flat Head Lake. It really was a beautiful lake and upon leaving it we noticed a pretty little rainbow.
Tomorrow night we are camping. Hopefully it won’t be too cold!
This is a view outside our room at Glacier National Park. This is lake McDonald and it was the most beautiful view I have ever seen. The inn was great, and we took a run through the woods in morning. Everyone had a good night sleep.

When we awoke, we packed the van up and headed down the road. They had not cleared the Road to the Sun highway all the way through, so we too a hike to Avalanch Lake, which was very long. We got very muddy but had a great time. The deer would come right up to you on the trails, but we saw no bears. Joshua and I were ready with our Bear pepper spray, however. We had a blast.

We then took a trip around the park to the Many Glacier area. It was a beautiful drive, but took a long time. We made it to our campsite and took some time setting up. We ended up about a mile from where Kenny and Phyllis are going to stay next week. They are going to love it! The campsite had the most beautiful mountains surrounding it, and we got some video of it. There was a picnic area down the way that was closed because of frequent bear sightings, but we did not see or hear any. Mitch and Joshua did well, but Chris, Cory and I were very cold. Mr. Heater did not help much. The heat went striaght up and out of our tent...

Spearfish South Dakota...

First day out was a 6:30am to 9:10pm (central) day. Way too long, but we made it. Mitchell was relaxing in the car. It was a nice day to drive. We were going 80 accross South Dakota, but in Iowa the limit is 65. Coryell drove for a bout 3 hours and did a great job. We rewarded her with some ice cream in Wall, South Dakota. I a reading a great book on the book of Judges by my favorite author Micheal Witcock. Also, I have two books by Thomas Sowell on economics. I am looking forward to some more reading, but since we watched a few movies, that cut into my reading time. We watched two Brady Bunches and a Star Trek. We also listened to a cd that my friend Nate Garnder loaned us by a comedian named Bryan Reagan. It is very funny and we laughed for an hour. When we rolled into the hotel, Joshua and I ran for 30 minutes while Cory, Mitch and Chris swam in the pool. It was a great run. I have always wanted to run with Joshua. Now I can.
The final picture is for Vince Imig. Whenever he sees Mitch, he greets him as "Mitchell South Dakota." Well, here is Mitch in Mitchell South Dakota!

Packing...

Hey, we are leaving in 2 days (Sunday) and the packing has started! Excitement is running high at the house. Chris found some luggage at Bergners: American Tourister - any size for $19. We bought three for the kids, and Chris and I will use some duffel bags. Pretty sweet.


Our vehicle of choice is a 2000 Chevy Venture with three dents in the back, a gas smell when idling, and 106,000 miles on the odometer. Since we have traveled to Colorado and Wyoming before, we are pretty good packers. Notice we have stuff on the roof: two tubs that contain Mr. Heater, tools, Christmas lights (for the tent), and lots of other stuff that can be out in the heat. Also, we are going to have 5 bag chairs up there, although we only have 2 now. Behind the back seats will sit the 5 cots, and all of our luggage (you can see our new luggage in this pic).


Our final packing trick is a custom hitch haul (Dan Farney custom welding...). We put 4 tubs on it that will contain our tent, all our shoes, and maybe some of our luggage. It can hold 500 pounds. It use to drag on the ground sometimes in parking lots until Dan welded it to another hitch. It is pretty sweet.

We have almost everything packed. Tomorrow we will finish. Joshua is running the Steamboat 15k tomorrow, so we are pretty excited about that.

The Preperation...

We have taken several long vacations in the past, but this will definitely be the longest. Previously, on our trips to Colorado and Wyoming, we did not take a TV in the van. However, the trip up the Alcan highway is long and boring, so we decided to make an exception and rigged up our laptop to play DVD's. We have an iBook already, so I bought a cig adapter for it and an FM transmitter to play the sound through the van speakers. I got a Belkin Tunecast II from Amazon and it seems to work great so far. We played a DVD on the way to Grandma's house and it all worked fine. I hooked up an extra cig plugin under the front seat for the laptop. It should work fine.
Here is a list of DVD's:

• Star Trek Next Generation - Season 3
  
• Brady Bunch - Season 3
  
• Johnny Quest - Season 1
  

We also got an Agatha Christy Book on CD (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) and a some Lake Wobegon CD's . Finally, we got some Puzzle books, and the game: Mind Trap. All this should keep us busy when things get boring.
We have already briefed the kids on boring. They are expecting it! We are all taking books and I am excited that for the first time on a long trip, I will not have to drive most of the way. Cory and Chris will be driving also, and since there are limited roads in Canada and Alaska, I will not have to make sure we are on the right one!

The idea...

Before Chris and I got married I told her of a dream I had to make a trip to Alaska. Well, I also had an idea to drive the length of South America also, but that has become a little unrealistic. However, after 3 kids and 18 years of marriage, we have decided to take the trip! This blog will chronicle our adventures as we attempt a 4,500 mile trip from Tremont, Illinois to Anchorage, Alaska via Glacier National Park, Banff Alberta, Tok, Alaska, and Denali National Park.