Day 6: May 22, 2006

today opened with a discussion of the flaws of bras and the unpleasant uniboob created by sports bras.

Porcupine! I just saw my first porcupine. It was attempting to cross the road. It changed its mind and we did not kill it or a tire. Woot!

Gas is expensive. Very expensive. Just thought I would share that with ya’ll.

We are back to green highways. It is very pretty. And now to the gravel. I hate gravel. I really hate gravel. It is such a pain in the ass.

There is something Tracy and I have been chuckling about for some time and I think I will share it with you. While in Watson Lake. We saw a sign in our hotel’s lobby. It said "Attention: water will be flushed Tuesday, May 23rd. Water will be discolored– do not drink." We have mocked Watson’s icky water for some time.

We also mocked Watson’s hotel lobby bathroom. As far as the "Gah!" factor goes it outdid even the outhouses– with one very notable exception I am desperately trying to forget. The floor was so uneven it is best described as rippling with the occasional divet. The stall door was covered with linoleum. There was a gaping hole in the wall over by the mirrors. We could see one of the pipes– fully exposed. It was green and had some padding. There was a full sized closet door covering the supply cupboard. It wasn’t locked. Tracy checked.

The road here is rather bumpy. It sorta rollercoasters. Tracy called it the bouncy road cause we were bouncin’ a lot. We got air time a couple of times. Air time in a Suburban, a loaded Suburban.

We just crossed into Alaska. It was interesting. The Canadian border crossing was 30Km back. There was a rest stop between the two.

OMG! WE JUST SAW A WOLF! HE CAME UP TO US! A WOLF! OMG!

It was young, judging by its size. And it was black. It had black fur. We saw it, stopped, it got onto the highway and trotted after us. We turned around to get a look, he stayed and watched and came closer. We turned again and he followed and watched and waited beside the car. He looked like he was hoping for food. We didn’t give him any as we both knew enough about wild animals to know that doing that never ends well for the animal. We snapped photos and drove off. Wow. (Sorry for any incoherance I wrote this shortly after the sighting and was still in awe)

The road is now pink/orange. The power lines here are very old school. They are short, they are use insulator caps. The frost heave has caused them to fall in every direction they can. Some have sunk into the swamp. It is cool. Not black wolf cool, but still cool.

And we are here. I am tired and I am going to crash. I will write more at some point. Ta.

Lists we have made:

alternate road-trip titles: ridin’ the pink highway, ask and ye shall receive, why we hate tourists on horses, maybe Alberta’s just wack, riddin’ the rainbow road (the colors of the highway which we saw– pink, orange, green, black, mud, grey, white-ish, mauve, yellow, almost purple)

misread sign: goat-lick park as goat lick"ing" park

cities we’ve had issues with: Calgary– scary traffic, Jasper– disturbingly touristy (quote from Tracy), Kitwanga– invites mispronunciation, we saw it as both kittywanga and kitangwa.

Wild animals spotted: elk– too many to count, insects– plenty on the windshield, bear– 5, otter– 1, birds– lots, ginormous ravens of doom (GRD)– 7 or 8, fox– 2, moose– 9, porcupine– 2, carribou– 1, gopher– 1, wolf– 1, rabbit– 1.

Day 5: May 21, 2006

Nothing special so far. We woke up and left the mildly skeezy hotel. (It had a behavior expectation guide on the board where we went to check in).

We just saw a sign that amused us: "50Km/hr when children on highway." My questions are: why are the children on the highway and do we not need to slow down for adults in the highway or do the adults never go on the highway and if not why do they put the children on the road? Is it some weird right of passage? If it is some weird right of passage– why are we slowing down? Wouldn’t it "test" them better if we were going faster? Or are these folks being kind and slowing us down for our own sakes so we won’t go "GAH! CHILDREN-ON-ROAD!" and drive into a tree? Canada is wack.

At the turnoff from highway 16 W to 37 N to Alaska is a big wooden sign that says "North to Alaska." I hope the picture turns out. It is 724 Km until the end of the Cassiar, which we are on. Tracy’s family wants us off the Cassiar today. Tracy drives sanely. It is not likely we will make it that distance.

We just saw two blackbears. They were young from what we could tell by their small sizes.
Woot! There goes a third, this one is older. It is likely a mama bear and her cubs. The bears are awake and they are hungry.

An otter! Yay! First otter sighting! Woohoo! I love the Cassiar.

Another bit of information you might find interesting. As we have traveled North the seasons have been changing. In Bozeman it is clearly summer. In West Glacier it was spring. In Jasper it was the end of winter, very beginning of spring. Somewhere near Stewart it was just break-up. I knew this would happen but I didn’t really get it until I saw it. I also didn’t realize it would be so blatant.

Bear 4 just popped up. Did you catch that– bear 4. Wow. Am I privileged.

We just got a solid bug wacking the windshield. It was about an inch in diameter and made (after long discussion we decided upon) a light but dull thud or thwup instead of the normal splook. It didn’t even leave the traditional splook mark. It was either one solid little bug or we wacked a hummingbird.

Woot! A holy bridge. It sang for us. How sweet of it.

And there goes a fox. At first I thought, is that a cat? No, a dog? No– a fox. Pale and scraggily and trotting on the side of the highway, but a fox all the same.

We just had fun with an outhouse. It was a cement structure with a metal door. Tracy shut the door and then it wouldn’t open. The door knob did not work. After fiddling with it a bit Tracy realized it was a "totally defunct" doorknob. It wasn’t attached to the door at all thus was not what was keeping the door shut. She put a shoulder to it and smashed it open. I was looking at the doorknob at the time and Tracy did not think to call out a warning. She nearly got me but a combination of my spider-sense and lightning quick reflexes managed to get my head out of the way in time.

I think my arch nemesis Tracy has discovered my secret identity and is trying to take me out so that I cannot thwart her plan for world domination. What do you think? Hmm? Has the vile villain Tracy of the Deviant Stick People got it in for me? You decide next week on "The Adventures of a Silly Girl in Alaska."

Sorry about that I got a little goofy and couldn’t resist.

Now we have arrived in winter. We are almost at Dease Lake. The land here looks like it has yet to wake up and looks like it won’t for a while. It is rather desolate her. Tracy describes it as "Swamp-on-a-mountain." There are Black Spruce everywhere and a little bit of underbrush which has yet to show any sign of life. It is grey and overcast. It is ugly. It creeps me out. I will be glad to be through it.

The highway is now a dirty orange shade. Now we have pretty trees again and I am glad for them.

We just passed a sign for Chucky’s towing. What is it with this place. It seems to be groaning "B-horror flick." I just wanna be gone.

We are in pretty country now. The highway is now green, the asphalt is green. Friccin’ awesome. This place may be weird but some of it is cool.

Day 4: May 20, 2006

Jasper national park is gorgeous (I would italisize gorgeous if I could). We saw a lot of glaciers, mostly small ones which were clutching the side of the mountains. We also saw a lot of glacial runoff. I did not know water could come in that shade of green. It is amazing. Tracy also mocked bottled "glacier" water. Real glacial water is opaque and full of minerals. It might not be bad for you but mud is not known for its tasty-ness even if it is pretty.

Oh– we also saw an ice field– or what was left of an ice field. It was enormous. And the mountains it had carved and terrain made it clear just how massive it once had been. Some of the "glacial gravel" were these rocks that were the size of VW beetles...

Last night we stayed in a hostel. We realized Jasper was out of our price range when we saw the hotel prices as ranging from "one of your limbs," to "an internal organ," to "your soul– immortal or otherwise."

The hostel was a "rustic" hostel in bear country (as the signs kept telling us). This meant that the only electricity was in the main cabin where you had to store all of your food and brushed your teeth. There was no running water, but there were outhouses available and fortunately did not smell too bad.

The rooms were "dorm" style, which equates to six bunks per room. The rooms were also co-ed. Tracy and I got to share ours with a random Frenchman. We slept in our clothes despite the fact that our scuzz tolerance levels had just taken a drastic hike. He snored but other than that we were good.

It is really weird thinking of gas in cents per litre rather than dollars per gallon.

Today hasn’t been all that exciting. It has rained a lot. Not that interesting but it is informative.
Gas is prohibitively expensive here. One of the stations we stopped at did amuse us though. It had the tank above ground– looked like it had come right of the train or truck. This station had one antiquated pump. Came directly off the tank.

It amused us.

Tracy and I just had an argument. We were both emphatic that we were right. We have not reached an agreement. We were passed by a car of an interesting color. Tracy insists that it is "bronze tomato," I say that it is "celebrity tan." (That weird spray paint kind)

I am right of course. I am always right. Tracy is obviously wrong. *scoff* It was silly of her to argue with me really. Silly Tracy.

Day 3: May 19, 2006

Got up, left motel 8 or super 8 or whatever the hell it is called here. Went to the Royal Tyrell Museum. Mocked it being "royal" for a little while. The signs to the museum were poorly marked. Fortunately we only got lost once and figured it out and how to get there pretty fast.
The museum itself is fairly nice. Not as impressive as I was expecting but nothing to sniff at either. They had live animals, a tarantula, some cockroaches, and an impressive living garden, with huge koi, set up to look like what the cretaceous would have looked like. A lot of their displays had old or inaccurate data, and many of their statues had horrible posture– tails were dragging and heads were up, *sigh* If you have been unfortunate enough to hear it I have quite a rant about poor dinosaur posture in "scientific" settings where they are supposed to bring you the "correct" information. Although I must give them some room for error as five years at the Museum of the Rockies gave me a good idea what a pain in the ass fixing and/or changing displays can be.

Then we left and took highway 1 back through Calgary– this time through the downtown. Having experienced the edge of Calgary during rush hour we had planned in advance for this misfortune. We got there at about 2– before rush hour. It was still hectic but not as bad as it could have been.

We made it through Calgary and lived. We did dub Calgary "Crazy Town" and highway 1 as "Pschizo Road," as they were. So we survived Pschizo Road in Crazy Town.

Oh the beauty of mountains. The beauty of the Rocky Mountains. After the plains they almost make me weep in relief and gratitude. I am a mountain girl.

Woohoo! We just saw an undercover cop shoot after a joy rider on a bike. I am glad Tracy likes the speed limits. Here it is about 110Km. Most people are going at 120+. We were curious what it would take for someone to get pulled over for here as speeding is apparently isn’t enough. From what we just saw, joyridding, is what’ll getcha.

Mountains make me happy. Have I mentioned that.

Day 2

may 18, 2006.

Possible trip titles– part two: why we hate tourists on horses, maybe Alberta’s just wack....

My camping skills are a bit rusty. There was a heater in the cabin we were in. Did I remember it– not until I woke myself up at 5:30 from the cold. *sigh*

We got to the Park just before 9am. Turns out they don’t open their booths until 9. But there were no road blocks and people were driving through before hand. So we did too. Got into the park for free. Woohoo!

Turns out the roads aren’t fully cleared until at least July. The man monitoring the road block muttered something about there being 35 feet of snow somewhere up ahead they were working to remove. We got 14 miles in before we had to stop. It was a beautiful ride. I hope Tracy’s pictures come out. I definitely wanna come back someday when the roads are fully open.
I would like to mention that tourists who rush about in the parks irritate me. There are few times you will have the opportunity to see things this stunning. Take time to appreciate them.
Parts of the highway are still pink. It is really cool.

In other news: we took a slight detour meant to keep us out of Browning but to abut the Park and keep us going in the right direction. Very quickly we came upon a herd of tourists on horses blocking the road and about 12 cars behind them. They took, at least, half an hour to get off the road and by the end had about 45 cars behind them. We were hating them, cursing them, and I think I saw Tracy give them the evil eye at least once.

The adventure of the day, however, turned out to be the "other through highway" #49– a mountain pass with truly stunning vistas, deep gorges, steep cliffs, a narrow super-twisty road, and— NO GUARD RAILS!!! None. I grabbed the "oh-shit bar" about half way through.
We lived courtesy of Tracy’s amazing driving skills. Thank you Tracy.

I saw a glacier! A real glacier. It was at the rear-end of the Park and we weren’t even in the Park when we saw it. Amusing. Very amusing.

Calgary... deserves cursing. Nothing suffices. Nothing yet invented.

We hit the blasted city at rush hour. This alone accounts for the animosity. The city itself may be quite lovely– we skipped it altogether.

Tracy hates the fact that Alberta doesn’t seem to understand the concept of four leaf clover ways of getting onto the highway and instead use "OH MY SOUL!" normal intersections for the *grumble* HIGHWAY.

Alberta has messed up road systems.

Day 1

possible titles for this trip-- part 1: ridin' the pink highway, ask and ye shall receive

misread signs: goat-lick park as goat-licking park

the entry:

The day started off well. Tracy picked me up from at 7 like we agreed so that we could go and have the axle boot repaired. Then we went to the Capt’s house to load the spare tires and rearrange the load to Tracy’s likin’ (she’s better at it than I). We quickly stopped at Aspen’s where I got my shiny graduation present. It was a very pretty Inara pillow. Thank you Aspen.
We left Bozeman at about 11:45. My map came in handy after Great Falls where Tracy’s memory got a little fuzzy due to the fact that we went a different route. I was able to navigate and I didn’t get us lost!

As we drove it became clear that taking highways was a good idea. It was a smart choice as we avoided the interstate ails. High speeds, no cops, few (if any) other cars, and enough farms, homes, and small towns to make us feel comfortable. The highways were in good condition. We only hit two construction sites and they were small.

We noticed some cool things on the way. The first was that much of the highway was pink. It varied from light pink, to grey pink, to a blackish pink– not read, pink.

Then we noticed that a lot of the area is, or was, volcanic. The area around the highway had these lovely conical hills and rimrocks. There were also these bodies of water which were suspiciously clear, ponds, and rivers lined with limestone. There were also patched of limestone which had clearly bubbled up from underneath. It was really cool.

On one of the rimrocks there were the three crosses of the crucifixion. I suspect an allusion to Calvary Hill.

Tracy also decided she liked the way we commemorate car accident deaths on the highways. The small, subtle, and unostentatious crosses are nice but don’t distract the driver. I believe I once saw one that was a Star of David. Hmm... time for thought.

I wish I could say Browning was not as bad as its rep. It leaves a lot to be desired. There were wrecked cars dumped off to the side of main street. Paranoid and rather angry looking Native Americans were glaring at us. Not horrible, but not comfy. We didn’t stop.

East Glacier was... unimpressive. Some cabins, a micro-grocery, and some sort of diner.

We drove past W. Glacier (ye gods the cost) and stayed at the KOA. We also mocked the KOA name spelling, K for Camp, and went onto a tangent involving pronouncing it with a German accent– "Kampfground!" I suggested changing ground to grund which I don’t think means ground in German but it certainly sounds it.

I then informed her that "kampf" means struggle in German and thus the word meant struggle ground or battle ground. This is rather accurate as the word camp has changed in meaning from "war camp" to "leave it all behind and roast smores" (Tracy quote).

Then we laughed at ourselves for our lit-erliness and creating a mock etymology and history of linguistic shift for a faux word.

That’s all for the day.

Oh and we happily squashed skeeters and wore eau-de-bugspray (another Tracy quote).

And we're off!

well, tomorrow we are off. this is my first post and i know not when i shall get back to the internet. i will try as much as possible.

i am creating this blog so that those of you who like me, and hopefully i like in return will be able to keep up on my many nefarious and odd adventures on my way to, and in, alaska.

i will hopefully post pictures too depending on my technological skills. i will likely have good help with that though so yay for me.

bye for now. love you all,
nancy.