May 15 – On to Fairbanks

Before going further Marsha informs me that I vacillate in and out of first person narrative. I’m taking ownership and responsibility of this blog. I’ll try to speak in first person and state if I am writing differently.

Briefly, let me cover the past several days. Leaving Sunday, May 5, we headed westward with the destination of Faribanks to retrieve our trailer. It was at the service repair place since July 16 last year.

Just before leaving home we discover our friend in Fairbanks is heading out of town on May 17. Thus our decision is to push on our way to Fairbanks to see her before she leaves. So no sightseeing and lollygagging on our way west. We will do that once reunited with our trailer.

Our first planned destination along the way was a stop outside of Madison, WI for a visit with our friends Scott and Dawn. Our first camping stop was in northeastern Indiana at a beautiful state park, Pokagon State Park.

We arrived at Scott and Dawn’s mid Afternoon.  Next day we headed west along smaller roads across Wisconsin, Iowa, and camping at a Lions Club campground in Amour, South Dakota. After breaking camp we headed first west then north reaching Lewistown, Montana. Twenty miles before Lewistown driving though rain showers and temperatures in the mid and upper thirties Marsha started saying, “At least it’s not snowing,” but before she got out the last word we drove around the corner to see everything covered with snow. The road was clear but in places there was 8 to 10 inches of snow. It was at that point we decided that we were not camping, but needed to find a motel. Our motel parking lot was filled with 4 inches of heavy slush. The next morning there was more snow, but after 20 miles we left it behind. 30 miles south of us they had 29” and people were stranded in their cars for up to 10 hours. We dodged a bullet.

Continuing with our push we continued northwestward crossing in to Alberta at Sweetgrass. We camped at a Bow Valley Provincial Park outside of Canmore, Alberta. This is where the Canadian Rockies start. Our next destination, Houston, British Columbia where our friends, Dee Jay and Kerry live. That day we traveled the Ice Fields Parkway from Banff to Jasper then westwards along the Yellowhead Highway arriving late in the day after 700 miles. We made enough progress in our trip that the decision was made to spend a rest day with them. We arrived on Friday and left on Sunday. As always it was a great time catching up with good friends.

While in Houston we heard the Alaskan Highway was closed due to forest fires in the Fort Nelson, BC area. Nelson was under a mandatory evacuation order. As of this writing the highway is still closed. Fortunately with seeing our friends in Houston we had planned on taking the one other way to Alaska, the Cassiar Highway, a smaller, more remote route with fewer services.

Just to get to Houston from where the Alaska Highway starts is a two day drive. With people changing routes to get to Alaska we were ahead of the rush by at least a day maybe longer. We push from Houston and made it just beyond where the Cassier joins the Alaska Highway near Watson Lake, home of the Signpost Forest. Again we stayed at a public campground which was pretty empty since there were so few travelers ,Yet another long day and arrived at Tok, Alaska. There we eat supper at Fast Eddies, a favorite place of ours to eat. Thank you Kathe O’Mally for telling us about it 6 years ago.

From Tok we drove on to Fairbanks arriving on Tuesday two days before our friend was leaving. Later we discovered I was wrong and she  doesn’t leave until Sunday, the 19^th.

We spent a couple of days in Fairbanks getting our trailer road ready once more. Plans are to head out with our trailer on Thursday.