North, to Alaska!

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

It was suggested that I set up a space for my upcoming trip to Alaska.

Let me bring you up to date:

My XYL and I are buying a small teardrop trailer [see the CQ thread for photos] and are going to be heading to Alaska for the summer. We are towing this with a Subaru Outback and it will be the two of us. We are both experienced campers and road travelers so this is not breaking new ground, although the camper is utterly new to us.

Our goal is simple: Spend a period of time traveling around, we are going to go to Alaska because we enjoyed last time and would like to stay a bit longer than our last trip permitted. We also have never driven up so we are obviously going to take two of the possible routes. Destinations in Canada are totally up in the air at this time. We have said '3-months' but who knows, it's going to depend on how well we adapt to living in such close quarters for such an extended period.

Radio is MY hobby and she hates it, so equipment is rather minimal - I have no HF mobile capacity apart from 10 meters FM, I also have 6, 2 and 440 thanks to my FT-8900 in the tow car.

Portable operation will be supported by an FT-897D with an LDG Z-11Pro transmatch and a Buddipole with low band coils and long whips, TRSB and longer coax runs. I hope to get in a reasonable amount of evening operation - probably in 1-2 hour sessions will be all I can manage initially.

We are going to have a shakedown trip starting on the 14th of April - we are driving the tow vehicle to WI to pick up the completed trailer, then we are going to camp our way home over a couple of weeks - we are trying to decide where, but Big Bend and Texas Hill country are new to me and it would be warmer than Yellowstone, my other idea...

Then around the end of May we will shove off on the long trip.

I'll try and post regularly, and hopefully I can also post schedules here when I know I'm going to be operating and we can set up something.

Does anyone know anything about propogation from Alaska to CONUS? Best bands/times? I have 80 but with a buddipole, it may not be enough.

Thoughts and comments?

[Radio]

Keep us posted. I could use a QSL card from Alaska.

When I go Island Hopping for USIslands or IOTA I will generally make a custom QSL card for the trip, but then I usually get more than 500 contacts. With todays home printing capabilty that might be easy and fun to make a picture post card with the little RV set up on the front!

[aintgotnun]

OUTSTANDING!!

Keep us posted.

[Richard Stouffer]

Why not make this a travelogue for this group. Set up a web site and provide regular updates via Win Mail and add pictures when you hit broadband connections. Make routine contacts on a set frequency and we can join in. Don’t just cover the trip because we could all learn a lot in following your preparations.

If you ask in just the right way, you might be able to borrow the antennas (maybe even radios and anything else) you need from the manufacturers of your choosing- they seem to respond well to these kinds of adventures and with that neat trailer you’ll have lots of general appeal.

Maybe we could all pitch in and assist with your solicitations. With the diverse networks and experience of this group we could probably grease a lot of skids.

How about it gang?

[N7OQ]

Sounds like fun and making a shakedown trip in a really good idea, something I should have done before field day last year. I decided to set up just before field day started and everything that could go wrong did go wrong( who invited Murphy).

I would think 20 would be your best bet and maybe 40, not sure 80 would reach the states very well. Of course if 15 or 10 meters opens then you will be able to work just about anyone then.

I also have the buddipole and one of the things I want to try is setting it up with the long whips, no coils and use my tuner (AH4) and test it on each band with a field strength meter then check each band using the coils tuned for each band and see that the difference is. Maybe I will do this tomorrow sense I got my taxes done today.

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

Richard: Thanks for the kind thoughts, I'll keep it casual here - I'll post reports and pics when access permits - we will have a computer but I don't do digital modes portable and don't have room for the additional hardware.

Sponsors? Ya gotta be pulling my leg. Again, I'm out of room for more than the very smallest of gadgets.

Bands: I suppose 40 is probably the best overall choice - I'll mostly be operating evenings I expect, except there will be non-travel days where I might get some 'me' time. As I noted before, I'm open to the idea of schedules, but the XYL considers radio to be a vastly distant reason for this trip [she thinks she's going to whip me into shape!] so I don't know about the hours I'll be able to operate.

QSL cards: Well, I'd certainly consider it - I did some for my trip to the Missile Museum near Tucson, but I only needed 25 cards or so for that operation. But yea, that could be fun, and the expense is not that bad - if I got color copies I can get 4 to a page, although printing 'em might be easier.

Shakedown: Well, it's either pick it up in WI and drive it back, or pay to have it shipped - we felt it would be better to take a short trip first - to see how everything fits together and give us a chance to re-do anything when we get home after only two weeks on the road before we commit.

Route: We think we can cover every road in Alaska, Yukon, and the NWT, and SWMBO things that she's interested in trying.

I think the only thing I'm going to regret is not having HF mobile, but I just am not going to get that one to work on a permanent mount basis but you never know. I do have a couple of Hamsticks and a mount on the roof of the car, and the 20 meter stick loads up decently, which would be fine for daylight hours - we will not be driving hard - I expect to average less than 400 miles per day unless we really want to be moving.

Questions, Comments, resources? Cheers? Boos? I'm not an attention whore per-se, but if I do this, I'd like to know people want to read it.

Eric KG6WOU

[Richard Stouffer]

I'm completely serious. The profile of your trip is a niche market for a lot of manufacturers who address the needs of folks who have very little room and not much time, but still want to stay HF capable while mobile and camping. Buddi Pole is a great example. But who knows, and you won't until you ask. It’s just a suggestion.

Regardless, I'm very interested in everything about your trip, including how you balance the divergence of interests on such a long trip and have everyone survive the ordeal. Those are often the sorts of things that make for interesting reading.

[Radio]

if I do this, I'd like to know people want to read it.

Eric KG6WOU

Oh yes, people will want to read all about it. :book:That's what the trip report section is all about. Your own website is an idea, but ORR.net is already here, already paid for and a whole lot easier to do. And you can have as many threads as you think needful.

I wish I could do a trip like that. The tear-drop trailer brings a whole new area of interest to the forum. I think I'd go the 5th wheel route, but still I'd like to go.

:thumb:

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

Oh yes, people will want to read all about it. :book:That's what the trip report section is all about. Your own website is an idea, but ORR.net is already here, already paid for and a whole lot easier to do. And you can have as many threads as you think needful.

I wish I could do a trip like that. The tear-drop trailer brings a whole new area of interest to the forum. I think I'd go the 5th wheel route, but still I'd like to go.

:thumb:

Why a teardrop you ask....

Well, as part of this, no reason not to explain. First off, I come from backpacking - in fact I long considered car camping a waste of time unless it was too late to walk when I arrived at the trailheads. But, Deb and I have been trying to get back outdoors and even though we have been using 3" thermarest pads, frankly, sleeping on the ground did not work all that well for us right now. So when we decided to do this trip, we considered our options. Car camping, which we did for two weeks up there more than 10 years ago was considered and rejected.

I went to a well-know RV rental outfit and priced renting an RV for the summer - 3 months and 20 K miles - sort of what I expect to do on this trip. The cost of rental and the differental in the cost of fuel [I sort of figured an RV would do about 10 and my car about 20 mpg, gas at $3 - what an optimist] was enough to pay for the trailer outright.

What we realized is that while we like being outdoors and all, we wanted a comfy bed and I wanted to spend less time every day making and breaking camp. Just doing and undoing tents and sleeping bags takes about an hour a day.

Pop-up units were considered and discarded due to set up and tear down time plus the fact that it would almost never be dry.

With the integral galley, we can reduce the load in the tow car to a manageable amount, we hope.

Anyway, we will see how it goes in a couple of weeks now.

[w7wv]

I have had a goal to spend a season there for sometime now.
With the price of fuel I may or may not make it someday.
AT 6-8 MPG it could get really expensive but you never know.

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

Well, I just wasted an hour writing a post to have the machine eat it. I'm not going to spend another.

We have had the trailer for a week and have motored from the WI factory to Houston TX. We are next going to turn west back to CA over the course of another week or so.

Trailer is very cool, we are well along in getting used to the Teardrop way, and also to hauling the trailer. I wish the mileage was a bit better [we are getting about 19 mpg with the trailer in tow] but I'm OK with it.

Steep hills are a challenge but otherwise we can tow all day at speed limit.

Sorry no more detail, but I'm frustrated to have lost that post - for some reason my log-in did not survive getting to the reply and then it was just...well, gone so screw it.

Better luck next time. I'll post again when I have access, which is harder to find than I initially thought.

No HF radio due to time and weather issues and 146.520 is deader than Canasta. The 11 Meter rig looks like the right road radio now day. How disappointing.

73

[bnmcgraw]

As your travels take you near Edmonton, BC, do not fail to visit the Mall there. That should play well with the YL and to your surprise, you will also enjoy it as well. If you have never visited 800 stores under one roof, you will get a kick out of the beach and amusement park. Nice aviary there too.

Rig parking is on the north side of the mall. No charge. Just walk across the street and enjoy.

We did an Alaska, Northwest territory and Yukon, 10,000 miler in 54 days from Texas back in 2004. Our rig is a 34' class A. Would hate to pay the gas bill this year. Have a great trip and let us hear how you are doing!

Don't forget to check your loonies and twonies, by the time you get back you'll know what I mean. Ha Ha!

73, Mac

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

OK, I've re-done this - it's a bit different than the first one.

Also, to report on radio: None so far, a per above.

Thanks for the mall tip.

Report One 4/27/08 Houston, TX

The Marines define a clusterf**k as any assembly of marines where one grenade would kill more than 3 marines. By that definition,
I'm not sure the trailer hitch issues were that big a deal, but it was a royal pain to have to use 3 suppliers to source and install
the hitch and wiring on the Subaru. Sigh.

After the initial 4-day run from home to Neceda, WI without the Raindrop camper, we arrived to pick up our new home.
It took about two hours to get the tour of the systems, meet the builders and connect the car and check wiring of the system,
we then departed to Appleton, WI to visit family. We did our initial camping nights in their driveway
to shake it down a bit before serious camping started.

Our first days run out of Appleton took us to Governer Dodge State Park, near Dodgeville, WI [Home of Land's End company] and
near Spring Green and FLW's Taliesin, which we managed to tour [note that most of WI does not open until May 1]. We stayed
two nights here then headed out thru the Town of Mineral Point, which we really liked.

Had to stop in to have the car checked here - we had a check engine light come on - turned out to be a minor glitch in the sensor
package, we reset it and it's been fine since then.

We visited the Field of Dreams and then went down the Mississippi to Wildcat Den State park near Davenport, IA. This park, while
very hard to find, was nearly empty and very remote. After a good diner breakfast, we were off again, headed south.

The next day we continued south to Hanniabal, MO and toured the home of Mark Twain. A rather toursitly place, but worth the visit
anyway as a favorite author. We continued south and ended up in the Cuivre River state park. This was a sunny and relatively empty
camp as well - good weather favored us here.

We visited the St. Louis Arch for a drive-by opportunity and headed west to Lake of the Ozarks State park.

We continued west from LOO and crossed the very corner of Kansas and went into Oklahoma! A visit to the visitors burero gave us
directions to Lake Eufaula where we got lakeside camping and lightning bugs in the bargain. Our first time pluggin in the camper, the
A/C was pretty darn nice.

We skirted east of Dallas and then headed towards Houston where another good campsite and Tornado warnings waited us at
Fort Parker state park - another lakeside camp with a nice warning to watch out for Alligators. Also a novelty - prohibited drinking - in
Texas of all places where it used to be required to drive with an open container...

Now in Houston, TX with a plan to go to Austin from here.

Towing is fine with the Subaru - I'm pleased with the handling and tracking of the trailer behind the car, and while I wish for a bit more
power, I think I can live with what we have for now.

Camping with the trailer is great - it's got everything you could ask for built right in and it's been very easy to work with and adapt to,
and we are so pleased with the storage space available - we have almost emptied the car which is good news for the Alaska project.

We have used the A/C a couple of times for comfort when sleeping - very useful indeed.

We have also used the computer to watch movies on - with both the inverter and with AC power connected - I need to do more work
on how much power the AC inverter consumes when powering the laptop.

[Radio]

Pictures! We want pictures!

:cheer:

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

Pictures! We want pictures!

:cheer:


I don't have a card reader for my camera on this trip but when I get home!

[Richard Stouffer]

No doubt about it, I want you to keep pumping the updates to us. Most interesting, not to mention, well written.

Thanks

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

Dateline: Langtree TX - Judge Roy Bean's stomping ground.

We have been noodling around west texas the last two days. I'm at a roadside WIFI so I don't have time for a full update.

We are headed north today towards New Mexico, then maybe to see the VLA outside Soccoro, NM, as well as one of the best steaks in the USA.

Regards.

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

Report No. 2, 5/1/08, Dateline Ruidoso, NM

Alright. From Houston onwards to dateline location.

Vehicle fuel economy: Sucks. No other word for it, I'm getting an average of 18 mpg with the trailer.
This car usually gets 25 unladen. Today it's been nothing but headwinds and the average is below 14 -
seriously, I could drive a Ford F-150 and would probably be getting better mileage at this point.

From Houston, we headed West, towards Austin. We made a fairly fast run there and found a State Park
only 13 miles from downtown. So we unhooked and went into Austin in the evening for sightseeing and
dinner. I had never been to Austin before, so I was impressed by the town and the surroundings.
McKinney state park was pretty open. We took US 290 to stay off the interstates...

Had my first radio night! I managed to get the BP up and on the air, made two contacts, a nice one with
a fellow in S. California, the other a quick q with Columbia. That was cool. The FT-897 does not seem to
want to make 100 watts on 20 meters which I find very upsetting. Maybe I just need to stay off 20?
I used the BP with the TRSB and balanced coils for a true dipole - managed 2:1 easily then used the
tuner to take the edge off.

The next day we took a late start to do laundry and such and headed west on 290 again, visiting the LBJ
birthplace site - which is worth a visit. We also went to Fredricksburg, a very well preservered 'western' town,
lots and lots of old buildings on the main street. North on Hwy 16 and then East on 29 took us to Ink Lake
State Park. This was one of THE best sites we have had - a bit windy but right on the shore of a large lake
and we had a huge section of the camp to ourselves - 180 sites but not a single empty one come summer.

Heading West again we then made west on 29, then US 377 to Del Rio, TX. We noted that the Border Patrol
is a big business in these parts we saw 3 checkpoints and were stopped once ourselves. Odd.
From Del Rio, we went west on US 90 to Seminole Canyon State Park. A very small, and very windy park.
There are petroglyphs for viewing on a guided tour and this was a very breezy place all night, as well
as little or no sun protection.

Today, it was US 90 west to Sanderson, TX, then US 285 north thru Ft. Stockton, with a brief stop in Langtry, TX
the home of Judge Roy Bean. Another interesting stop - his saloon is still standing as is his house and it's
a free self-guided tour. We continued on 285 all the way to Roswell, NM where we turned back West on
US 70 up to Ruidoso, NM. We decided at about 5:30 that we had had enough of the wind for the day and got a nice
Motel room for the night. We are going to let someone else cook dinner and do the dishes too!

At this point, the wife is plotting our next moves, which will include the VLA outside Socorro, NM.

Even with the absurd winds we are getting, the camper is still a dream to pull from a handling standpoint.
Hard to complain about that.

Been too windy the last two nights to rig the antenna. I can't wait to get out of this wind -
I'm going a bit wind-mad at this point.

Well, no pics since I still don't have a card reader, but they will come - actually not taking much....

[Radio]

Great!

My son has a digital camera with a USB port and a memory card. When you plug the camera into a PC USB port it is treated as a USB memory stick. The PC doesn't know the difference. You might try that. You'll need to navagate around a bit to find where the picures are stored.

[w7wv]

Yes you may be surprised what software is available to you to download to your computer that is already installed on the comptuer.

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

Yea, you 'hi-tech' guys probably have wifi for file transfer. Not me, w/out a reader I'm done. I don't carry all the cords possible either, lack of room in the camper plus no interest in it. I 'll bring the card reader next trip - I do have one at home.

I'm contemplating another visit to the Atlas Missle Museum to operate their
Discage antenna again I have time to decide but I may skip it in favor of sleeping late in a nice, big, comfortable bed.

We are considering Death Valley as a last stop on the way home, mid-week it should be easy to find a place to camp. Then home for a few weeks of R+R before heading to the great north.

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

Picking up the Roost, Report Three:

The Fatal Flaw: OK, it's not fatal, but it's wounding indeed to notice that the Subaru
just lacks a few HP for going up steep hills - for example, going over Sonora Pass [CA 108] today,
we were the second car of the season - I have a pic of the guy unlocking the gate for us - we let the
guy with the Forunner go first...well, it's a 26% grade up this little pass. We were forced to resort
to first gear several times, and going down, we were insanely pleased to have trailer brakes.
That being said, we do rather have to flog it hard at altitude but at least it goes.

From Ruidoso, we headed west and ended up camping in Arizona where we had temps down to 20 degrees -
our water system froze and we got up and got the heck out of there, and headed towards Tucson, AZ for
a few days visit with my parents - we got to sleep in a king bed and use a private shower for three nights!

We did get one nice accessory - we got a 1.5" thick TempurPedic pad to go on top of the stock mattress -
although it's warmer and reduces foot clearance somewhat, the added comfort was seems to be worth it.

We decided to take at least two days to get home and headed towards Death Valley, sticking to all back
roads to avoid truck traffic - it's a desolate place, part of it, but we got into DV about 7:30 PM and found
a no power site at Furnace Creek - woof - it went all the way down to 80 and it was NOT very comfortable
without A/C [no power].

We had hoped to camp in Yosemite tonight but Tioga Pass had not been opened, so we ended up coming all
the way home instead. Bay Area traffic sure was a surprise after 3 weeks of relative sanity on the roads.

I'm going to post some pictures in the next day or so, I want to get them onto my photobucket page rather than
putting them on this system, but here's a teaser.....

http://www.openroadsradio.net/attachments/photobucket/img_2529_0_0daceb862f13de6fd66c70981059e682.jpg

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u102/bmwericus/Camp-Inn%20Trailer/

This links you to a bunch of pics on my photobucket site - please be gentle. It's mostly about the unit but some of the pics show the variety of the terrain.

I'll note that we put nearly 7,000 miles on the trailer coming home with nary a glitch apart from a frozen water system in New Mexico [or AZ?] the night before we arrived in Tucson. Not that we beat the heck out of it, but we did take it on dirt roads and we pulled at speeds that are probably not fully intellegent, up to 90 on some locations, it was a real easy tow.

We had virtually no problems with the Subaru except for the one check engine light that was a false alarm [cleared by dealer for free on the road], and the expected sluggish performance on anything approaching a steep hill - mostly we were ok dropping to 4th but some really good grades took 3rd - but that Sonora pass....1st up a 26% grade. Still, what do you expect for 2.5 liters of engine?

Alright, I've got to rest, time to hit the rack.

[Andy N1ORK]

Nice pics and great story! That's a new version of the teardrop isn't it? I don't recall the large windows in the front from the tv special on them about a year ago. Nice unit though. Keep up the great stories and good luck on your Alaska journey!
73

[Richard Stouffer]

Thanks for taking the trouble to get the pictures to us. Fun to look at.

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

This is a new version teardrop type - it's the long-bed model 560 Ultra from Camp-Inn [www.tinycamper.com]. Since we are going for an extended period of time and both of us are 6' tall or more, we decided on the extra comfort.

The set-up and breakdown time can be as little as 10-15 minutes from parking to cooking once you have a bit of practice - that includes leveling it, hooking up any utilities, etc.

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

Yesterday and today were car/trailer days:

Registered and plated the trailer - check
Oil change for Subaru - check
New RV store items:

Level
Level blocks [4" max]
Fresh water hose, 25' [same as the power cord]
Propane tank gauge [do those work?]
New 20 lb propane tank purchased [trailer comes with an 11 lb, but I wanted more for the long trip]
Both 20 and 11 lb tanks filled [only used 1 gallon in 10 days of camping, that's much better than I expected]
Got treatment chemical for the greywater tank to help keep it cleaner

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

Had to wait for the YL to finish a project installation and so we are good to go. Departure is set for June 1st - right on schedule. We have a few things left to do, like shop for food, but that and wash the rig and make the beds is about it.

Finally. I'm really ready to hit the road.

Radio Sked: I belong to our local RACES group so the agreement is that when possible, I'm going to be on Tuesday nights at 0300 on either 3895 or thereabouts or on 7170 up to .178

I'm not sure I'll be there every tuesday but I'll try hard. 40 will probably work better most nights.

I'll post here when I can, I put the camera card reader in the electronics gear bag so I can post pics to my account as well.

[Radio]

Well God bless you on your journey and we all hope you have the time of your life! Looking forward to your picks and posts.

We pick up our 5th wheel in Ohio July 5. Wish us luck!

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

We are in Portland, OR today. We had a bit of an issue with water the other night - that is, our trailer turned our to be a bit less waterproof than we had hoped/planned.

According to the factory, leaks are our problem, not theirs, so we are trying in the absense of a dry garage, to get some sealant into the appropriate areas to stop future leaks, but we need 3 days of bone-dry weather - which I don't really expect to see much of.

So, we bought a HUGE tarp and will go back to the blue tarp method of Alaska camping - you rig a tarp as a rainfly over your entire camp site. Might as well have saved the $$$ and used the tent if we have to do that. Except for the exellent kitchen facility.

Well, tommorrow we are going to drive up the Columbia River for a while. YL has not done that before. Unfortunately, the forecast is for rain, and snow about 4,000 feet. This IS June, right?

Not much radio, I did get to talk to an interesting guy when we were freshly out of town - turns out he's the owner of one of my favorite companies and I've been invited to visit after we return. Should be fun.

More reports will be forthcoming. No interesting photos yet.

[Andy N1ORK]

Too bad about the leak in the unit. "According to the factory, leaks are our problem, not theirs," does not bode well for future sales for that camper. I would find all the sites I could with forums for that camper and post what happened and the response from the manufacturer.
Hope things work out better on your trip north.
73 and good luck!
Andy

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

Well, temporarily arrested anyway. Woke up this AM in Portland with another wet bed and wife and I agreed to head home [see it's DRY here] and work on the problem from the comfort of our own yard.

I do believe I solved about 3/4 of the problem, so I think I can probably finish this, but you are so correct that my recommendations for this camper are now prefaced with "Give it a hose test before you accept delivery".

More later, I have to go get dinner for us, it's late here and we have been in the car for 11 hours.

[Richard Stouffer]

It would sure seem that the manufacturer has a problem comprehending express and implied warranties. I'd write a nice letter to your state attorney general and explain what happened then request their assistance in securing the repair or replacement of the unit. Copy the maufacturer on the letter.

Stay dry.

Richard, WU5K

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

After a wasted day yesterday, I bit the bullet today and removed the rear hatch in order to gain access to the area most in need of sealant.

I used a tube of Lexell sealant, which is just about as sticky as I've ever used. I hope it cures well - I think I might have gotten it.

Hopefully we will be able to get the lid back on - it's an aluminum knuckle type of hinge and it was not too easy to uncouple. Hopefully we don't fatally damage it trying to put it back together.

I'm going to give this stuff a couple of days to cure, then we are going to go back on the road, I estimate Wed. AM, by the time we get all said and done.

What is not clear to me is how this missed QC since it's such an obvious location - you can see it, it's really not hidden IMHO.

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

My Son was over, and he helped me and the YL put the hatch back on - darned hinge nearly defeated us - it was a tight fit and the first time we had it cockeyed. Had to re-do the prop a second time to get the entire hinge in line - hope we did not bend anything in the process.

Couple of more days curing in the warm, dry weather then I guess we will flood test it - I doubt SWMBO will accept anything less. Although I'm going to argue not to do it until the sealant has more time to cure - a week? Two weeks?

Anyway, that's as far as I go trying to fix this. Next step is a repair shop.

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

We have had three good warm days for the sealant to effect it's initial cure, and hopefully it's now enough to keep it from shifting around. We should have a dry day until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest, so I hope for good result.

Regardless, it's the decision of the executive to get back on the road tomorrow AM. If we continue to encounter leaking issues, we are agreed that we will seek out an RV repair shop for further attempts, and will recover this cost from the manufacturer upon our return.

We did add a few things to the inventory:

A big blue tarp 16' x 20' for pitching over the campsite - a super-dining fly.
Two adjustable 9' tent poles - suitable for pitching tarp or antenna, as needed.
Folding BBQ [the elusive Pyromid]
Small bag of charcoal for above
Two kinds of Caulk/Sealant

So tomorrow, it's back on the road again. We are both ready to go, the interruption has run it's course. I'm ready to be traveling.

Next posting will be from the road again.

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

North To Alaska, report No. 1
Dateline: Whitehorse, Yukon, June 21, 2008

Well, greetings all and welcome to the first report from our trip.

First off, a general note: We are WAY too early for many facilities and camps, particularly in
Alberta in Jasper and Banff parks - many places don't even open until late June this year.

Secondly, I'm not giving daily mileage figures, they are a pita...

6/11 - Home to Valley of the Rogue State Park, near Medford, OR.
Day one of the re-start, we jetted straight up I-5 trying to recover our lost
ground. This park is in the shadow of I-5 so some of the sites are very noisy
but it's a well equipped park with showers and laundry. Sunny weather today.
The car continues to tow well, so that's great. Showers are decent, hot enough
but like many we will see, a bit on the small side.

6/12 - Nehalem Bay State Park, Oregon Coast, north of Tillamook
One must stop to stock up on cheese at the Tillamook factory store, the choices
and prices are quite good and there's plenty of parking for the rigs.
This park is on a coastal dune location and you can walk to the beach from the camp,
they also have accommodation for horses. However, this park is wildly popular in the
summer so reservations are recommended - it's a great place for kids with the ocean
right there. Also worth seeing here is the old NAS Tillamook, which has a blimp
hangar from WWII and a very nice collection of old warbirds. Great showers

6/13 - Memaloose State Park, on the Columbia River, Oregon
We continued up the coast of Oregon to Astoria, then turned inland on the south side of
the Columbia River. This camp is near Mt. Hood, OR. The trip up river takes you from
coastal rainforest to near desert conditions. It's on the river, although we found it a bit
windy and again close to the highway, it's still a nice location. Again, showers are
adequate and the site is good.

6/14 - Sun Lakes State Park, Near Coulee City, WA
This park will not go down as one of our favorites - the tent sites are very closely spaced
and the RV section [power and water] has no trees to speak of, however the views
are pretty darn good. We drove up from The Dalles. It's an interesting trip with both nice
areas and sun blasted places one would never choose to live.

6/15 - CANADA - Gladstone Prov. Park, BC.
Ouch. $21. to camp. No services, showers or flush toilets. We crossed the border
on Wash Hwy 21 and found that we could not take any of our fresh produce or firewood
into Canada. Yepers, all into the incinerator. then another shopping trip to replace all
we lost. Sigh. They were really anal about weapons and that includes Bear Spray, which
they sell in Canada and is legal to carry there [so why can it not cross the border?].

This part of WA was very scenic and relatively remote, roads were great and the weather
continues to please us with reasonably warm and mostly dry weather.

We are also settling into our travelling routine, with shopping stops planned, meal planning
for the shopping, fuel stop routines and most importantly: Visit EVERY information booth
the first time we enter a state/province. They all have guides to camping locations. Handy.

6/16 - Martha Creek Prov. Park, 20 K north of Revelstoke, BC
Well, the Revelstoke park has camping, provided you can walk into the camps some
15K or more [backcountry park] but the area around Revelstoke is very scenic. The
Martha Creek park is small but has some great views and is right on a nice large lake.
No showers, unfortunately. Seems like there are not a lot of people living around here,
but there are plenty of small towns around.

6/17 - Lake Louise NP, Alberta.
When they call the National Parks crown jewels, it must explain why they charge so
much for them. $32/night, but that does include a decent shower, and it's much less
than the Lake Louise Lodge [Fairmont Hotel property], but they also nick you for $20
A DAY for the park pass - yes, that's right, what would get you a weeks stay in Yellowstone
or Yosemite gets you exactly ONE day in Canada. They also have bear issues that they tend
to sort of ignore, except that the tent camp has an electric fence around it.

Many of the smaller campgrounds have not even opened for the season yet.

6/18 - Whistler Campground, Jasper NP, Jasper, Alberta.

The Icefields Parkway drive was most certainly a highlight drive. It's one of the most scenic
drives I have ever seen, and if I had not been trekking in Nepal previously, I'd say they are
some of the most impressive mountains ever, as it is, it was superb. A full day of scenery
beyond photography. They call it an 'all-weather' road, and they are not kidding, we had
Sun, Rain and Snow, all in the same hour at one point. The Columbia Icefield is just
amazing and the visitor center is well worth the hour it takes to walk thru.

Jasper is one of the nicest towns we have seen - it's very tourist oriented, but not in a bad
way, and it's a hub or outdoor activity.

6/19 - Charley Lake Prov. Park, just outside Fort St. John, BC
This is a very nice park, small and no amenities, but one of the nicest managers we have
encountered yet. She strongly suggested we stop at Liard Hot Springs.

We have finally started on the official Alaska Highway, being some miles NW of Dawson
Creek, which is Milepost 0 on the original route.

Once we left Jasper, we went north to Grand Prarie, and the transisiton from mountains to
Prarie is abrupt and it's vastly different. Nice. Plenty of campgrounds on this road, but
the majority of them are primitive camps.

6/20 - Liard Hot Springs, BC

If the 18th was 'The Weather Channel', today was Animal Planet:

Brown and Grizzley Bears, Caribou, Moose, Stone Sheep, Bison and Deer
and we did not even get out of the car....

This is one popular weekend campsite - they let us camp in the overflow parking lot, but
unfortunately the well was dry so there was no water. Glad the trailer carries it's own
supply.

The Hot Springs were well worth the special stop - I would strongly recommend that
you stop for a nice hot soak. Yum.

6/21 - Whitehorse, Yukon

OK, we are cheating tonight, we needed to do laundry and a nice shower, so we splurged
on a room for the night. Unfortunately, everyone else is here in Whitehorse as well, we had
a hard time finding a room - seems that everyone thought that the Solistice would be the
perfect day for their summer event - there are 6 going on, including a fast-pitch softball tourney
with 100 teams in town, a Honda Goldwing gathering, a First Nations event plus the usual
events celebrating the day.

But we got a good Pizza at Tony's [you would never know it was that good from the street]
and we have internet access so here we are.

Saw our first Bald Eagle today and that was very very good. The road is surprisingly good
and traffic is still light but there are plenty of cars heading back south already!

Lots and lots of bikes on the road too.

Pics have been uploaded.

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u102/bmwericus/Alaska/

[Richard Stouffer]

So glad to see your report and I have been looking forward to it. You have done a great job with the writing, editing and photography- is there a book down the road?

I didn't see any mention of any HF time. Have you had a chance to set you rig up?

Thanks,
Richard-WU5K

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

No book.

I have only had one chance to operate HF, from Alberta, VE6, but I made a single check-in and contact on the 3905 CC Net, 40 meters early net. That was last Tuesday, I was trying to keep my Sked.

To be honest, it's not been a priority yet.

Oddly, I did help a fellow ham change a blowout the other day, and ran into another with a huge screwdriver antenna, but he was Off the air due to a loss of all the fingerstock wipers in his antenna - the road vibration broke off every single piece on the antenna. What a bummer.

On what is Tuesday nights [Wed on GMT] at 2000 PDT [that's 0300 GMT] I've been trying for contacts on 7.170 to 7.178 MHz.

Feel free to listen in.

Turns out that the local club is doing field day here in Whitehorse - for some reason my wife things we should be here for that - so maybe you want to listen for a Yukon operator on field day.....

Best. We are checking out this AM so I've got to run.

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

North To Alaska, report No. 2
Dateline: Fairbanks, AK

Greetings from Fairbanks and welcome to report No. 2

Well, been a busy week.

6/22 - Takini Hot Springs, North of Whitehorse

We drove down to Skagway for the day - it's not a huge drive by today's standards,
but since the road more or less follows the Chilkoot route, you can see just how
brutal that trip must have been when you were hauling the required 1,000+ Lbs. of
supplies required by the Mounties to cross into Canada in those days.

Skagway is an interesting town in that much of the center of town is very old-school
and looks much like it did during the gold rush days. However, there are more jewelry
stores than there are on 5th Ave in NYC. Still a good visit as the Park Service has
lots of the buildings restored and with good displays.

6/23 and 24 - Haines AK

Another border crossing. Haines is a more authentic Alaska seacoast town, not as 'scenic'
in the tourist sense but much more interesting as a living community. The drive again was
dramatic. We camped in town - the RV park was decent and with great location but the bugs
are still thick.

There are several good sights to see including a native arts center where they carve totem
poles - they had a good 40'er going when we were there. There's also a Hammer Museum with
no kidding, about 1,500 hammers - for things you never would have thought of - it was worth
the $3 admission.

Mosey's Cantina had excellent mexican food and was just enough off the beaten path that we
were glad for the recommendation. It was a very local place.

6/25 - Kluane Lake, Yukon

This is a huge lake between Haines Junction and the Alaska border - we camped right on the
edge of the lake at the Cottonwood RV park - good location and great views but the wind came
up during the night and was blowing so hard we could not cook breakfast - we hit the road early
and headed west to Alaska.

6/26 - Eagle Trails Campground - 12 miles south of Tok [pronounced TOKE, not Tock]

This state campground was secluded and featured the worst water we have seen - brown out of the
hand pump. But was a good spot to camp away from it all.

Ernie's Roadhouse in Tok is was a good place for lunch but the supermarket in Tok leaves much to
be desired. The best thing I can say is that they had Johnsonville Brats.

We decided to continue on to Valdez and finish off the lower coastal towns. Another nice driving
day but the scenery is not that dramatic compared to the last few days.

6/27 - Valdez, AK

We camped in the city campground out by the airport - we were two camps from the local nesting pair
of Eagles.

Valdez has little to recommend it except as a place to get on the water for either Glacier tours or
sea kayaking. The city itself is all new since the 1964 earthquake which more or less demolished the
old town. They have a decent museum but apart from the physical location - spectacular, there is little
to recommend the town of Valdez as an attraction. And it rained.

They get so much snow here it's amazing - pics of the city in winter show snowbanks 6' tall and more in places.

I did some radio work but it's so far down in the hills that contacts were difficult at best.
I was able to check into the Sniper's net and made my only Field Day contact here.

Drove past the HAARP project [you all remember their moonbounce experiment earlier this year?] but you could
not see anything from the road and the gates were locked. Pity. It's just outside Gakona and they do have
an open house towards the end of summer every year.

6/28 - 50 miles south of Delta Junction - BLM campground

Another remote camp and a nice one indeed - lots of trees and I managed to rig up my 80 meter dipole to try a few
more field-day contacts but no one was listening hard enough for me to make contacts and calling CQ was no help.

Bought myself a nice new knife though - found a local who makes his own damascus steel and bought myself a souviner
my second knife from Alaska - I bought one on my first vacation up here 10 years ago. This one cost more but is
very nice with unique scales on the handle.

Had a Wolf sighting today - a brown coated wolf crossed the road about 100 yard in front of our car

6/29 - Fairbanks, AK

Drove up past Delta Junction today saw Ft. Greely where they are building StarWars missle launchers - nothing visible
from the road but they have re-paved their old runway since I was there last. Wonder if they still have the portable
atomic power plant there?

This road parallels the pipeline and we got lots of views of that plus some nice mountain views.

Our camp tonight is the Chena RV park south of town on the float plane lake - we have small planes coming and going
at all hours now. The service buildings here are all salvaged pipeline construction camp buildings, which I find
amusing.

We are going to stock up here to go north. I don't know if we will go all the way up, depends on the road, but we
are going to try and get to where the sun won't set for at least one night - I have to see that at least once.

Sorry there are no pics posted, this connection is not that good and I'm running out of time, it's almost 2300 local
and the sun is about to set as I sit outside smoking cigars and drinking Mt. Dew.

Hope you enjoy the report and I'll post again next week or so when we are a bit farther along.

The trailer and car are doing fine as are we.

[Richard Stouffer]

Great report. What kind of weather/temperatures are you experiencing?

Richard- WU5K

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

North To Alaska, report No. 3
Dateline: Outside Denali National Park, AK, 7/7/08

Greetings and welcome to report No. 3

First off, Today marks the 50th anniversary of President Eisenhower signing the papers
to admit Alaska as the 49th State, something he did with little fanfare as he expected
Alaska to go Democratic. It did for about two elections.

6/30/08 - Fairbanks, AK

Today we took the day off travel to see the sights of Fairbanks. Actually a nice city
if you are into that sort of thing. We saw two attractions: One was the University of
Alaska museum [well worth the visit] for it's fine collection of native arts and history.

The other was 'Gold Dredge No. 8' outside of town in the Fox mining district. This was an
overpriced attraction although if you are into the equipment of placer mining, it's rather
an interesting one. Lots of cornball in the presentations, mostly by video, although you do
get to walk thru the machine, long abandoned since 1959. Rain continues to trouble us,
but what do you expect.

A lone loon floated in the floatplane pond this evening, giving his cry and wondering where
his buddies are.

7/1/08 - Dalton Haul Road at the Yukon River

Today we crossed the Artic Circle. I'm sorry to report that we did NOT go all the way to
Deadhorse, but the mosquitos were so fierce that we decided that the AC was just going to
be far enough - we took photos and then retreated back to the Yukon River where we camped
in the information station parking lot in the shadow of the pipeline. I was amazed at how
many motorcycles we saw...

For those who wonder, at this time of year it never gets dark, although the sun does go down
about 11 pm, it's twilight and plenty of light - we have not needed either flashlights or our
Coleman Lantern since southern Canada and probably won't need it until we get only a few days
from home on the way back.

We did visit Chena Hot Springs which looked pretty nice for a soak, but they are very commercial
and even charge for tours of the 'ice hotel' for which admission you get the right to buy a $20
Martini in an ice glass [we said no thanks and beat feet out of there], although the springs is
pretty interesting in that they power the place with geothermal energy and do offer tours of the
technology if you are interested in learning about it - the refrigeration for the ice hotel is
an ammonia absorption system powered from the hot springs itself, just like a propane refrigerator
in your RV.

The road to Chena has many good campsites but as early in the summer as we are, the bugs are fierce
yet.

7/2/08 to 7/5 - Mile 275 on the Parks Highway, about 30 miles South of Nenana, AK

Rest days. We found a lovely camp with power and water, on the Nenana river and as the weather
turned dry, we decided to stay for a few days to avoid the 4th of july crowds in the park.

Nenana was once an important city for shipping by barge up the Yukon River and still serves this purpose
today, although the amount of traffic is less than it used to be. There's a historic bridge, and a nice
railway station museum and about the only store between Fairbanks and Anchorage.

Nenana is also famous for the Nenana Ice Classic: it's a contest where they put a tripod on the river
attached to a clock. People predict the time they think the ice will break up, and the winner gets 1/3rd
of the pot, split amongst the winners if more than one person correctly predicts the exact minute of the
breakup. Last year the pot went to one winner, about $360,000. Not a bad prize.

I did some radio while I was here, rigged up the Buddipole and the wire dipole, but am sorry to say that
radio is turning out to be a real bust. I made one contact in spite of making many many calls.
20 meters was open all over the world, I heard a huge number of stations but was utterly unable to bust
the pileups. It is a bit of a disappointment really, given that I've hauled three bags of gear
all the way up here and I could have saved myself the trouble had I known how few people listen for weak
signals....shame on us amateurs.

The 4th was celebrated between 11 pm and 2 am but a bunch of numb-nuts who kept us awake with the sound
of fireworks...althought for the life of me, what fun it can be doing that during what is virtually
daylight fails to excite me.

We had FOUR SUNNY DAYS IN A ROW HERE, our first dry days in a long time.

7/6/08 - 7/7 Carlo Creek Campground, 10 miles south of the Denali Park road.

Long drive on the 6th, almost 90 minutes, not counting our stop for Breakfast in Healy, at Rose's Cafe
[recommended].

Oddly, this is the same camp that we stayed in our last trip to Alaska - it is unique in that each campsite
has it's own hard-roof under which you pitch a tent if you have one - this is very nice for staying dry
when the weather turns.

We drove up into the park to the end of the road [16 miles is all private cars are permitted] and bought
tickets for the bus today, but Deb has come down with something and did not feel like the long 8 hour
bus ride today so we cancelled [refund was available, thankfully].

Rain has returned, so the weather is back to Alaska normal.

We are headed next to Talkeetna, a town that was the model for the TV show "Northern Exposure", which was
actually filmed in Cicily, Washington. We will likely spend several days there as it's a nice town.

The rig is running fine, we have had virtually no major problems so far, so we like that.

We did have a few cold nights, but re-discovered the hot water bottle, and three 1 liter nalgene bottles
with boiling water do wonders for keeping our feet toasty warm on cool nights. The only real challange
we have is keeping the vents open to avoid excess condensation, a problem when the outside RH is nearly 95%
to be sure, particularly when it is actually raining. A minor issue really.

We have not even consumed a full bottle of propane yet, although it looks like we are about 2/3rd's of the
way thru this fill. I will have it refilled in Anchorage to be sure to have enough for the rest of the trip.

Pictures will be uploaded if possible.

Waugh!

Temps range from highs in the 80's to lows in the high 40's, with days averaging for the most part around 70, nights around 50 degrees.

Rain many days, but not usually ALL day long.

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

I hate these cheap-***, unreliable, donkey ball sucking......computers and their unreliable wireless internet connections.

Photos aborted due to issues. Later maybe if I don't smash my laptop.

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

Got the problems sorted, enjoy.

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

North To Alaska, report No. 4
Dateline: 7/27/08 - Cache Creek, BC

Greetings and welcome to report No. 4 Sorry this is long delayed, but that is life on the road!

7/8/08 and 7/9 - Talkeetna Alaska

Some of you may remember a TV show a while back called "Northern Exposure". According to the show's lore,
Talkeetna was the town that inspired Cicily, although the show was actually filmed in Rosyln, WA.

Wow, have things changed since we were last here. For one thing, it's now a main stop on the Tour Bus route
to and from Denali NP, plus the trains now drop people off for a day stop so it's crowded to a level hard to
believe. However, the food at the main roadhouse is still pretty good even if it's packed to the rafters.

The drive down from Denali is reasonably short, and apart from a couple of commercial RV parking lots, just
past the airport is the local campground - it's right on the river and only about an 8 minute walk to town
thru the woods and across the railroad tracks. The campground has no hookups but does offer hot showers and
has fresh water fill.

We did have a bear visit camp the first night, we did not see it, but heard our neighbors shagging it away
late in the night.

There's a local crafts market on the weekends that was pretty nice - we caught the tail-end, plus a few dozen
small shops and three or four places that offer flights to Denali. I wish the weather had cooperated, the
cost of the trips is pretty reasonable and if you want you can actually have a ski-landing on a glacier on
the big one itself. Note that if you weigh over about 250 lbs, they will charge you 1-1/2 times the fare.

Weather continues to be cloudy, although little rain, lows in the 50's, highs about 62 degrees.

7/10-11/08 - Anchorage, AK

Deb's been feeling lousy so we decided to splurge on a motel room for a couple of days so she can be dry
and comfortable, and we can get some things done, like an oil change for the car, a propane refill for the
trailer [our first one - 3.6 gallons used since June 1], and re-stocking the larder for going down south.

The Drive down from Talkeetna is pretty nice, although after a couple of hours you start to get into Wasilla
and then you are 'in town'. Anchorage, for a city, is pretty nice, and if you want to RV it, there are parks
right in town. We ended up in the south end of town.

Deb and I were mistaken for locals on the old downtown tourist drag, which was very nice - we fit right in with
our Carhartt jacket and vest, jeans and ratty shoes.

One recommendation I do have is to make sure that you get lunch or dinner from Avi at "Flafel King" - it's on
Gambrell near 5th ave. Avi is from Israel and makes the entire meal from scratch - house made Pita bread
included. For $7.99 it's one of the best I've ever had anywhere, and he's a nice guy to boot. There are 4 seats
inside and a few outside and it's the equal to a hot-dog stand but the Flafaels are just the best I've ever had.
He also makes Schwarma but Deb and I agreed that Flafael is King here. WORTH A SPECIAL STOP. We ate there 3 times.

Weather continues cloudy but not rainy so much, temps about the same, highs around 65 degrees.

7/12-13 - Homer, Alaska - Hillside Campground [city owned]

Well, Tom Bodette now leaves his light on down in the Lower 48, but Homer is one of the nicest of the coast towns you
can drive to. It's a fairly long drive from Anchorage but doable in one day.

Soldotna [on the way down] has a Safeway and Fred Meyer [better than Safeway!]. Homer has a Safeway, and a good one.

We also stopped to visit Walt Campbell, the knife maker - I bought one of his knives on our last trip down here and was
pleased to see that he's still kicking around. However, he's gotten so popular that he has a 2-year wait for a knife
so I guess I was lucky to get mine way back when he actually had some to sell. He carries some commercial knives
but his custom knives are very nice work.

The campground in Homer is up on the hill above town, athough most people camp on the Homer Spit, which is fine if you
are OK with the gravel-lot form of campground - we were in the trees and had a nice protected location. Rain resumed
while we are here.

Homer has some great scenery - the mountains come right down to the water, there are Eagles around, and the town is
reasonably authentic if you stay off the Spit.

If you come to Alaska to fish, Homer is a good spot to visit, there is plenty of sportfishing here and on the rest of
the Kenai Peninsula.

Deb and I agreed that this would be a town we could live in.

7/14/08 Real Alaksa RV Park, Mile 80 of the Sterling Highway.

After leaving Homer we drove out to the town of Kenai but did not like the camping offerings in Kenai so headed back
to Soldotona, visited Fred Meyer again for food and headed up back towards Anchorage, stopping here.

Again the drive is really pretty down here, the Kenai Peninsula is really some of the pretty stuff - gorges and rivers
abound, the ocean is nearby and yet the mountains still have snow on them. The roads down here are also in good shape.

This campground is one of the nicer commercial parks we have seen with real trees between the spaces, nice firepits and
tables, and full hookups available - while we can easily dry camp, it's nice to be able to watch a movie and not worry
about draining the battery with the AC inverter. This camp has flush toilets and decent showers as well.

Today we had a couple come up to us at the gas station and they had been following us because they wanted to know about
our trailer. It continues to draw a crowd.

7/15/08 Miller's Landing RV park, Seward, AK

The drive down to Seward is another scenic road with glaciers and more rivers, etc. Nothing shabby, but Seward itself is
just not that nice - the town looks and feels sort of exhausted. There is fishing available there if you are into that, and
some hiking as well but the town just feels worn down.

They do have a nice new Safeway store though.

Now, Miller's Landing is something else - it's aboug 2.5 miles out of town at the end of a gravel/mud road. We accidentally
ended up in a dead-end campsite where we almost had to unhitch and manually turn around the trailer, but we made it and it
turned out to be a nice quiet campsite for the night.

The toilet and shower facilities: Well, if the oil-field buildings in the Fairbanks park were unusual, frankly this place
looks like their shower room came from the Gulag Archepelego. The shower heads were hand held dish sprayers from your
first house kitchen and an all-fiberglass building with one lightbulb, no dressing room, etc. We got clean but it was the first
time I wore my flip-flops IN the shower.

Weather continues to be poor - we had some rain again today. Temps in the 60's again, lows around 50.

7/16/08 Eklutna Lake, Mile 26 on the Glenn Highway, north of Anchorage

We left Seward and did not want to stay in Anchorage so went to this campground just outside of town - it was a very nice place
with paved roads and parking, firepits and water supply, but no hookups. The camp is about 10 miles up a fairly steep road but
the remote location means you don't hear the highway, although it is probably popular during the summer weekends - there's some
hiking trails and the lake is suitable for canoes - it's a power and water supply for Anchorage.

Continued rain/clouds and temps as above [what we are coming to conclude is summer in Alaska].

7/17/08 - Village RV park, Tok Alaska

Since we both wanted showers, we stopped at this large and popular RV park in downtown Tok. It's actually not too bad for a place
that mostly caters to the monster RV crowd - we had a site with power and not far from some of the nicest shower house
facilities we have seen, plus we were able to do more laundry [something I've not mentiond all that often]. Laundry prices
were high though.

The Tok cutoff is an OK piece of road, but it's not that scenic when it's cloudy and raining anyway.

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

7/18/08 Dawson City, Yukon.

Today was a real highlight: Outside Tok is a USCG Loran-C master station - this a a navigation system that pre-dates the
GPS era, and is still in use since it's nearly impossible to jam - unlike GPS. While they have signs stating no trespassing,
I found that they were delighted to have a visitor, and quite as much to Have one who actually understood what the station
did - I received a personal tour by the duty watch officer that lasted almost an hour, including getting to walk inside
one of their 543 KW transmitters [they have two used in rotation]. They have a tank coil as big as an old metal 45 gallon
trash bin and the plate transformer is bigger than the average pad transformer outside an office building. One of the last
of the Tube type transmitters in service, it's a push-pull configuration with water-cooled finals and some Eimacs that may
be 4-1000 as exciters for the main event. Obviously, for reasons of security I did not ask to take any photos but it was
WAY cool and is worth a stop if you are on the way by.

The drive then to Dawson City was...interesting. First off, it's quite a scenic drive, at least up to Chicken, which is
the end of the pavement. From that point on, hope it's been dry or else suffer the worst mud you can imagine - we had rain
and wet and well, it was pretty bad - particularly when two jackeye [plural for that animal] hit us at high speed right in
the middle of the mudpuddle - the photos will show the damage done.

We crossed over the border then [boy, have they upgraded the border crossing since our last trip] and dropped down into DC.

There was a hour's wait for the ferry and by the time we got across, we ended up stopping to hose off the mud and decided to
stay at the RV park cluster just south of downtown. A decent place but of the gravel-lot variety - it was so late we did not
care - made dinner and went to bed early, it continued to rain that night although we had hopes for good weather in the AM.

By this point, Deb and I are both pretty tired of the unceasing rain and cloudy weather - it just does not want to stop.
The trailer is starting to smell musty due to all the moisture we are unable to get rid of without heat and dry air - even
with the fan running some nights it's a real battle.

Dawson City is like a museum with a pulse, although it is interesting enough, and the Yukon river runs right thru town. There
was a music festival on this weekend but we were too tired and sick of the weather to take advantage of it.

7/19/08 - Johnson's Crossing, Yukon

Heading back to the lower 48, this river crossing roadhouse is famous for their Cinammon Rolls - they were OK - again, we
just decided to stop and it was handy. Actually fairly cheap for a site with power and water - $15. Bath house was adequate
for our needs and we had an interesting neighbor - they had a Pinghauser RV - 6 wheel drive [yea, 3 axles] with an air-cooled
diesl motor - it looked and sounded like a Microbus on steroids. Richard and his wife were on a 6 month trip and had shipped
their vehicle over from europe for the trip.

We actually had some sunshine and were able to dry out just a bit as a result. The drive down from Dawson was marred by the
fog in the AM that obscured any possible views we might have had.

7/20 - Boya Lake Campground, BC, on Hwy 37 [Cassier-Stewart Highway]

This is the 'new' road south to Vancouver, which goes past Stewart and Hyder and Price Rupert BC.

A very new road and not all that well traveled, the scenery is magnificant - much better than the older route we came up on.

Boya Lake is a small campground right on the lake, no hookups, well water and pretty popular - not good for very large rigs
yet there were some here.

Rain was bad in the evening with wind as well - we had a minor flood in the kitchen due to a clogged drain channel - once that
was fixed, it was fine the rest of the night.

We stopped for supplies in Watson Lake - again admiring the Signpost Forest, the Super A supermarket is about the only one
on the route except for one about 250 miles down the road.

The surface of this road varies from really new pavement to decent gravel to acceptable pavement, but it often lacks a centerline
and there is just not much to stop and see - few small settlements and some less popular resorts seems to be most of it.

7/21/08 Bell II Lodge and campground on the Cassier Highway

Deb wanted a room tonight so we splurged on a very pricy room $200 [!!] here in this remote lodge north of Stewart BC. It's main
claim to fame seems to be heli-skiing as evidenced by a huge map of the surrounding area with skiing runs marked on it. It's
a nice place but seems overpriced by at least $60...but we have a roof and since it's been raining again most of the day
after a sunny AM, I agreed with her that it would be nice to have a room again.

Last night was COLD - we again resorted to the Nalgene bottles full of boiling water for foot warmers and they performed more
than adequately - with a "Full Punjabi Breakfast" [This is our joke based on the movie 'bend it like Beckham' and means bacon,
potatos and eggs with coffee.] under us in the morning, we packed in the sun and headed back out.

Again, the scenery and views on this road are really good, there's still an amazing amount of snow on the hills given we are
at only 3,000' ASL or less, but temps today were between 42 and 55 degrees, and again, it's raining hard in some places.

This lodge also has some nice RV sites with services and you can use the hotel restaurant and hot tub, but the sites are
fairly plain.

7/22/08 - Stewart BC - City campground

Stewart is a nice town, although it has the sort of feeling of a town barely hanging on - but what a dramatic drive into town,
with avalance debris on the sides of the road.

This was one of the few dry days in camp, we got a chance to actually air out the trailer, and their bath house was a good one,
albiet with coin operated showers - at least the hot water was hot.

We drove to Hyder to the bear viewing area and then up the salmon glacier in the evening. Hyder is a dump.

We did see one grizzly bear at the viewing area, and your park pass saves you the $5 entrance to the viewing area. The
Salmon Glacier is really very cool, although the road would be a bad one with the trailer - we had uncoupled so it was
merely tedious, and somewhat hair-raising due to the lack of guardrails and the very generous exposure.

7/23/08 - Tyhee Lake Camp, outside Telkna, BC

Well, we stopped in Smithers to see about getting the car's front end aligned - there is a great deal of wear on the pax
side front tire. We have to wait a day for an appointment, but decided it would be worth it. This campground is
nice, with generous spacing and good free showers - the water is almost too hot! We will stay two days so that we can
get the car repaired.

The drive down this way sort of changes from the high-country mountains to more farm-oriented land - lots of hay fields.
It is still very scenic, and the roads continue to be decent two-lane highways. We are clearing moving back into the
populated part of BC however.

7/24 - Tyhee Lake

Yep, the car was way out of alignment, but the good news is that only one tire was bad, so I got to use the un-mounted spare
in it's place, and we got the entire job done for just over $100. A pretty good deal compared to back home.

Ate at Tim Horton's for the first time. Will not make that mistake again.

Also had dinner at Boston Pizza - now I'm pretty picky about Pizza, and was pleasantly surprised by the overall good quality
of the food at this chain.

7/25/08 - 10 Mile Lake, BC

Sunny and warm today, in fact we got to air out again, the camp is a new one and not very scenic, but we are only here for
the night. I'm coming down with something. Sore throat and sneezing. Sigh.

Drive was again good, nothing of real note.

7/26/08 - Barkerville, BC end of Hwy 26 east of Quesnel

A restored mining town, this campground is one of the better - the showers are small and not very well laid out, but the
sites are very nicely isolated, and you are well off the beaten path. The road up here is about 82 KM, and it is really
a hilly trip up.

7/27/08 - Cache Creek, BC

Our chosen campground was full at 6 pm, so we decided to have a motel room tonight. That is where I am writing now.

We toured Barkerville this morning before we left - it's worth the 3-4 hours you will spend walking around, if you
have the time/inclination, you could easily spend the full day, doing the theatre show, the horse drawn carriage rides
and the other attractions in this old mining town. Many of the buildings have restoration work that you can walk-thru
and there are employees in period costume as well. Kids would probably love this, particular the carriage ride and the
gold panning options.

As we condinued south, we continue to get closer to the population center, gas stations are much closer together and
there are plenty of small towns.

Tomorrow we will be heading towards Whistler.

Photos are minimal and will have to wait until later

[Richard Stouffer]

I've been looking forward to your report and my wait was worth it. Hope all goes well for the rest of your journey.

73's
Richard- WU5K

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

We ran for it - we got caught in the traffic north of Whistler, BC - The Pemberton Music Festival attraced 40,000 hairbags [no offence] who left a mountain of garbage and clogged the two lane roads in and out of town for a full day.

We ended up with our last camp, about 40 KM outside of Vancouver, BC - Alice Lake was the name of the place and we had power but had to share a double campsite - we were lucky to get one frankly. They had a nice swimming lake and it was full of kids.

It's finally getting dark at night, something to get used to - been going to bed at 10 pm or so.

Add to that insult was construction traffic between Whistler and Vancouver, which they have to finish in time for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, means that they are enlarging 93 or so KM of two lane to four lane. Kiewt and Sons is making a billion bucks or something on this job, but it's a total mess to have to drive.

The last border crossing was a long wait in line but otherwise uneventful - but they sure pulled a lot of Canadians aside. Our agent was businesslike but not very friendly - I suppose if I had to process 60 cars an hour, I might be cranky too.

We went to ground about 20 miles north of Portland, got a Motel room and had a restaurant meal - some of the best Pie at the Big Oak restaurant down the street from the Best Western.

Today we hammered out 600 miles in about 12 hours. Ugh. Lots and lots of traffic on I-5, but did have a nice Q with a trucker and another with a guy cruising up north of Paradise in his truck.

Glad to be home. Unhooked the rig, and just left it except for the cooler, it can wait for tomorrow.

I'm ready to sleep in my big bed - the house seems so ROOMY though!

Selah!

[Richard Stouffer]

Welcome back and thanks for going through so much trouble to share the adventure. I can't wait for the book.... ;-)

[Manual Garcia O'Kely]

Richard:

I'm glad someone read it, I suspect you are the only one, unless lots were lurking.

I learned a lot about long distance travel by vehicle this time. It was a pretty good experience overall - I could use more practice, I'm sure.

Other than having way too much Amateur radio gear [a total of three bags worth of misc stuff], and a few items we just never used - film camera, tent, oven [once, but it folds really small] BBQ [do not buy the "pyromid" BBQ for any reason except cool factor, it's a real PITA to use] that only got used once, a Tarp we never even unrapped.

Things I'm glad we brought:

Two spare tires for the car. Having two usable tires saved us $ when the front end went bad and we wasted a front tire before we could get it fixed. Since a tire shop did the work we did put the unmounted spare on so that we would still have a good mounted full sized spare for the car - but we did not have any punctures or ruptured tires, thankfully. Yesterday, we saw quite a few trailers with blown tires, but the oversized tires on our rig, plus the low load on them was not a problem even at 98 degrees F. outside like it was in the area around Redding.

Ez-up shelter with side walls: Worth it's weight in gold - as shown in some of the pics, with the side walls it was both drier and the mosquito coils worked better. With sandbags, we were able to hold it down even when on pavement, and with staked side walls it was pretty good for almost all nights. some nights we did stow it before going to bed due to possible wind but it worked so well during the usual heavy drizzles we got almost every day.

Chairs: Our folding chairs were so handy that I don't think there was a campsite where they did not get unfolded. We got the GCI chairs from REI - they are like a director's chair, but fold pretty small for a full height chair and are made of sturdy tubing - but the sewing again leaves something to be desired - one of the seats is separating after only a few months use so back to REI it will go. Some day, quality will come back into fashion, I hope.

Mosquito coils: Chemical Warefare, these burn for quite a while and if we used two and the side-walls the infestation was usually tolerable. Much to my suprise, I only put on Deet a couple of times, but I did wear a jacket with a hood that reduced my exposure to hands and face only. It was cool enough weather to get away with this most of the time.

Carhartts jacket: Bought this on impulse in Fairbanks - it's canvas shell insulated with an integral insulated hood - it's short cut but the hood makes you water resistant for a time and helps keep the bugs off, plus the sitting temperature range gave it a workable 50 degree rating and if you were walking, cooler was better - the insulation keeps you toasty. I wore this most every day after I bought it.

Hat: I bought a Filson hat, pricy and you can get others, but I wear glasses - a nice brimmed hat keeps your glasses dry in anything but a downpour, plus it give you a natty look. And on a sunny day, it's shade. I wish I had needed that function more this trip.

E-Book: I received a Kindle book reader as a gift and it was so handy - I downloaded a huge number of books before we left the lower 48 and had books for almost all of the trip - I did read 3 of the paper books we brought as well, but man, how nice to have 40 books on tap in one small package.

DC-AC Inverter: I bought before we left a small [120 watt] inverter, sized to power my wife's laptop, and used it also to charge the e-book, the I-pod, the cell phone, and run the laptop as a DVD player. This one draws little enough power that you don't drain the batteries to charge up low amp items like wall warts. I also had a 12 volt to USB adaptor for the I-pod.

Least used important equipment: Coleman Lantern. You might as well not bother, you won't need it once you get north of Vancouver BC, unless you really like to stay up late - we actually used it every night in the lower 48 I think just a couple of times once we got into Southern BC/Alberta - once we got to Whitehorse, it was more a matter of wishing it would get dark enough to sleep. Real blackout shades would have been nice.

Inside the trailer, the three interior lights will let the blind find a contact lens in a dustbin.

Wants: Heater. I hate to say it, but trying to keep the interior dry during high humidity cold nights....sigh. You stay warm enough, but if you have to close up the windows you will nearly drown. We had puddles on window sills and wet curtains - but only on the cold, wet nights when we could not open the vents. If we could open the vents, and better, run the fan, we were OK.

I have thought about just using the coleman lantern inside with the windows cracked a bit to dry it out when we are not sleeping inside. That thing throws off much heat.

BTW, ordinary Nalgene bottles [the white plastic HDPE ones] make super hot water bottles - they can tolerate boiling water and seal leak-free for keeping the feet warm.

Also came to appreciate the oversized propane bottle - with a 20# bottle, we were good for 40 days of camping with fuel in reserve - less than a gallon a week I guess - although we did not cook hugely, we did have bacon, pototoes and eggs for breakfast at least a couple times a week plus many pots of water for coffee/tea, cleaning and cooking dinner most nights.

Lunch was usually cold.

Overall a good experience, we look forward to our next trip soon - probably just a few weeks in the west US.

[bnmcgraw]

Manuel:

Don't think your report wasn't read, it was. Many, I'm sure, like myself, rode along with you as you repeated the wonderful trip that many have made.

Your reporting was great. We went in 2004. I remembered many of both the campgrounds and places you saw. Had much better luck at the bear viewing than you had, got to see six full sized and one cub. The mother was teaching the cub to fish for salmon. And you're right, Hyder wasn't much!

Keep up the reports and we will ride along with you.

73, Mac AE5FH

[Richard Stouffer]

An unscientific observation that Radio may want to address: it seems to me that the activity on this baord increased each time Manuel made a post. There would be several new postings on open forums after each update- or so it seemed.

I think we need more of that type of reporting. The quality of Manuel's writing skills should be the gold standard for the rest of us.

[Radio]

An unscientific observation that Radio may want to address: it seems to me that the activity on this baord increased each time Manuel made a post. There would be several new postings on open forums after each update- or so it seemed.

I think we need more of that type of reporting. The quality of Manuel's writing skills should be the gold standard for the rest of us.

The fact that the view count of this thread is just under the 1000 mark is impressive. Manuel's captured the idea of the trip report...this is what we want to see more of. Not everything on this forum was meant to be the exchange of technical ideas...some of it was designed to inspire and motivate us to go out there and just do it.

:hello: welcome home Manuel!

[k3mp]

Thanks for the trip....great photos....