Stewart BC & Hyder AK

Remember you should be able to click on any picture to enlarge. 

The Cassiar Hwy finally turned into a real nice road

and scenery was always real good.

We arrived at Stewart, British Columbia.  We decided to stay at a campground on the BC side instead of going over to Hyder, AK.  We later drove our car over to Hyder.  Are we ever glad we didn’t take our rig.  Dusty & dirty to the max.

Here is our park - Bear River RV Park.  $23 Canadian for full hook up with cable TV & WIFI.  They can take caravans also.  Maybe a good one for Craig’s group. This photo was taken about 11 PM

 

Earlier that day we went to the famous bear viewing bridge near Hyder, AK.  It’s in the Tongass National Forest.  The white is from the dust from the road

 

These two pictures are taken at each end of the bridge.  We were there about 2 1/2 hours with no bears.  Lots of salmon going through doing their spawning.

 

I don’t know what their process is for spawning but these Salmon were doing a lot of this kind of stuff.

More of this..

then this…

I guess they’re done.  I think I saw one taking a smoke break.

 

I really liked this pond. I took several pictures until I think I captured it.

 

It doesn’t look real.  I like it….

 

This is the General Store in Hyder.

 

Here is a real converted TRAILER like in tractor trailer.  You can see the door then look for the wheels.  This was on the main street of Hyder.  Oh yea, don’t forget the blue tarp.  Hey, it’s working.  They use anything for everything up here.

Here’s the main intersection of Hyder.

Not sure what this was/is.

 

Here is Hyder’s Visitor Center.

 

Downtown Stewart about 10 PM

This Hotel was built in 1908 at a cost of $100,000.  Needless to say it is not used as a hotel anymore.  Not sure what it is used for now but we think someone is living there.

The only gas station in Stewart, BC

The bay at Stewart, BC about 10 PM.

 

Hopefully some bears tomorrow at Hyder.  We will be there at 6 AM.

See Ya…

Cassiar Hwy 1st night

We decided (Carol) we could go a little further.  On the way we ran into some horses or almost did.  Strike one.

 

Then we came upon these two bicyclists' after we toped over a hill.  Strike two.

 

There will be no strike three while driving.  We decided that was enough entertainment for an hour’s drive.  We stopped at this wayside.  This picture is out our front window and

this one is out Carol’s window.  We only opened up the passenger side slide outs.  That’s all the room we need.  There is room for others.  At 9 PM traffic is non existent so it’s very doubtful.  OR maybe because I’m setting outside in a dirty white Walgreen’s $4.99 lawn chair in my tiger stripped speedo thong baiting suit drinking a generic beer.  Hope you can not visualize that for your sake.

Tomorrow is BEAR GETS TO MEET THE “WHALE” lens up close and not personal!  Carol says, “YEA, a campground.”

See Ya….

Alcan to Cassiar Hwys and South

It was pretty clear this morning when we left on overnight stop.  This was part of the Alcan Hwy east of Whitehorse towards the Cassiar Hwy.

 

This was smoke and fog.  It slowed us down to about 20 MPH.

 

OK.  Is this King Dome in Yosemite or Devil’s tower in WY?  Neither, it’s just a rock up here.

A lunch break stop.

Then we turned south on to the Cassiar Hwy and here was our first greeting, CONSTRUCTION.

This is what it looked like off and on for 12 miles.  Yes, the road is narrow even with no construction.

Then it turned into hard packed gravel road.

Then a little more construction.

Then on down the road, a gravel road under construction road for 17 Miles.  They had a pilot vehicle for about 4 miles of it. 

There were fun fun spots.  We pulled over to a small lake.  This man had just caught a Northern Pike.

The water was crystal clear. Almost an underwater picture.  I couldn’t get Carol to go underwater and take a picture looking out.  I offered her my speedo suit too!

More pictures.

Then these two pictures.  I think they are so cool.

It’s one of those Kodak moments…..

Back on the road.  You might see some reflection or even bugs at times in these photos.  There were not many places to pull over.

We did stop at Jade City and saw this neat little European RV.  Look out USA manufactures, they are coming…

 

Carol is trying to figure what this is.  We all know it’s an old bath tub for men.

This place does it own mining & designing of Jade.  We were told that a lot of Jade comes from the Cassiar area.  I suggested that they put some jade in their roads.  I did walk away with a small jade moose and
Carol got a jade kitty. Both were very small ($).

I like eagles and moose.  I don’t have any eagles but I do have a few moose on my computer desk.  I have collected four now over the last couple of years.  Each one has a story.

Just another lake down the road. There is a house in the center.

 

Meanwhile back to the gravel road.

This is our little Honda after most of the dust blew off of it.

 

Here is where we are parked and ate dinner.  We have driven 350 miles today.  We might move a little closer to Hyder later on, now that it’s beautiful weather with blue skies . 

See Ya………….

En Route to the Bear’s Feast

We went to Fast Eddy’s for our last breakfast in Tok, Alaska.  We then went to the Post Office at 8:30 AM and our mail was there.  We drove 450 miles in the smoke haze.  We are now stopped at a rest area somewhere in the Yukon on the Alcan Hwy.  Who cares exactly where! We got 600 miles to go tomorrow and the next day.  No pictures today.  I figured no one wanted to see a picture of a gray haze.  If you want to see gray, you can probably look in your hair (grin).

See Ya…….

Tok – One Last Time

I woke this morning to 35 degrees.  But we also woke up to this beautiful sight of four moose.  This was taken with the 500mm lens and a little over 3/10 of a mile away.

This car had stopped when the moose was on the side of the road.  The moose came out towards the car and they moved forward.  They did not realize it but her baby was on the other side and they were in between. I can hear the moose say, “What are you looking at. Get on down the road!”

 

Bet she won’t do this in LA.  Traffic was on the slow side.  Carol got up for some reason when I started the rig up. 

We are now in beautiful downtown Tok, the crossroads of all RVers coming into Alaska whether they want to or not.  This is looking south.

Turned around and this is heading north. It gets to 70 degrees below zero in the winter here.  We can’t even imagine how cold that would be.  It will be in the low 70’s today and 50’s tonight.  That’s in our OK temperature zone for us sun chasers.

While here, we met the military camping club caravan.  It is lead by SKPs and good friends Terilu & Craig Christen.  They have 17 RVs in their group.  We told them of our adventures up here and half of them pulled out to go home.  NOT!  We all shared.

 

Yep, that’s s sod roof.  Yep he forgot where he put the lawnmower. Look real close and even you can find it.

 

This is Fast Eddy’s Restaurant.  It’s the only place to eat in town, I think.  Let me look around.  I turned in a 360 degree circle so I can now say with authority this is it.  The food is actually pretty good.  Of course, my taste buds are just about shot from my chili.
We washed the rig today. The wheels are shiny again.  I was going to take a picture but the glare was too much.

Tomorrow we pick up our mail and we start to move a little faster.  We are trying to get to Hyder before a predicted rain front comes in.  There goes those shiny wheels.

See Ya….

Smoke rolls in this afternoon – same day.

These are the same shots taken earlier today.  It really smells too.  Compare and you can see the difference.

 

What a night

Last night was one of those nights you don’t like to have too often. Last night we woke to howling winds.  It was like the Santa Ana winds and the winds of Yuma combined and came through.  It was still light out but the fire smoke was very dense and it smelled like Smoky The Bear was sleeping with us.  We closed the slides and watched.  We thought we might have been near one of the fires.  The smoke/smell was worse than that of Fairbanks by a lot.  We watched out the windows for fire or hot ambers.  None.  We watched for any traffic on the Alcan Hwy.  None.  That’s good and bad.  Did they close the road or what. It had us going.  We didn’t want to leave because we didn’t know which way to go.  No TV, no radio, no contact with the outside world.  My friends, this is Alaska and you can be on your own up here pretty easy.  Hours later we went to sleep not feeling real comfortable but tiredness took over.  Next morning the winds had died down but still windy. The smoke was still around but you could see better for sure.  We left our little spot for someone else to enjoy.  We drove a big 48 miles and are a nice rest area.  The last hour I counted 4 vehicles go by.  It must be rush hour.

The Alcan Hwy from Fairbanks to Tok is a real good road.  Traffic is very light during the day and scarce if any at night.  It’s a comfortable road to drive.  A lot of people like to make time on this road. and it’s very possible.  Why rush to Tok, there’s nothing there.  Why rush to Fairbanks unless you want to see Santa and just another city.   We like to just drive along and enjoy the scenery even though it’s a little smoky.  I also got a reflection off the windshield as you can see.

 

 

This is our view to our left out of the rig.  A little smoky but still nice.

 

Paved rest area with openings on both ends.  Yes, we know we shouldn’t have our jacks or slides out.  Hey, it’s not Wal-mart and they make pavement a lot thicker up here.

They got trails around which we will adventure on later on.  Maybe even down to the river.  We will spend the night here.  The sun is trying to come out to cook our solar panels a little.  Tomorrow (Sunday) we go about 30 miles into Tok and stay at a campground.  We got several to choose from.  We might stay at Tok RV Park.  Terrilu and Craig with the Military Campers are due in.  They are just coming into Alaska and maybe we can share some adventures.

See Yaaaa.