September 5 Hankinson, ND, to Omaha, NE

September 5  We are up at 6:00 and get the trailer ready to get on down the road.  But, before we leave we go to the casino restaurant one last time for their early bird breakfast.  $2.00 gets you an egg, pancake, and ham.  Oh, and, we qualified for senior citizen's discount.  Where else can you get that kind of a breakfast for under $2?  Probably another casino!

I-29 takes you north to south through eastern South Dakota and directly past Brookings.  Since we were there I had told my brother and sister that we would pick up my dad's possessions from his room at the nursing home.   We stop at Lowe's to drop the trailer in the back of their parking lot, and also to purchase some packing boxes.

At the nursing facility we get to meet some of dad's caregivers.  They reaffirmed that dad was a favorite of theirs as he was always so pleasant and never complained.  And, the facility is brand new, so it was good to see where dad had lived the last 3 1/2 months.  He was still at assisted living when we had last visited him before we left for Alaska.

We get his things packed and carried to the pickup.  We go back to Lowe's, hook up the trailer, and make the 235 mile drive from Brookings to Omaha.

We arrive home around 3:30 in the afternoon.  The lawn has been recently cut by the Mike Nolan Yard Service.  It is only about 78º out, but it is very humid.  I remembered how low the humidity was in Wasilla.  I find it easy to break into a good sweat as we start transitioning the house from being unoccupied since May 9.  Turn on the water.  Refill the water heater.  Get the Internet up and running.  Check to make sure Directv is functioning.  And then there is unpacking the RV and moving stuff back into the house.  We decide carryout is in order for our supper.

We have a great surprise in the early evening when Gabby came to visit her grandma and grandpa (along with her mom and dad)!  It is great fun to listen to this 21 month old talk!  She must take after her mom and grandma!  :o)  Gabby and grandma have fun together using the iPad.

After they leave I watch some NFL football with the Falcons playing at the Broncos.  My mind still drifts back to all that has happened since we left home back in May.  The traveling, the places, the scenes, the new friends, and the experiences have given our Alaska trip such great value.  I know in my heart my dad was happy that we had this opportunity.

Next week we make another journey... to put him to eternal rest.

And with that, this blog is put to rest, also.

Today's Photos Uploaded to Picasa

September 4 Yorkton, SK, to Hankinson, ND, USA!

September 4  We are up and on the road by 7:30.  I know this is a gross subject, but one thing that did impress us at the Yorkton, SK, campground was the way you rid your RV of its black and gray tanks.

If you have any knowledge of modern and mechanized pig raising or having dairy cows, the waste system at the campground is very similar.  You pull your RV onto a grate covered trough.  You turn on water in the trough which carries the waste away and open your RV's tanks to empty them.  Once the waste has been dumped, you use a hose with a nozzle to wash down the grate.  Turn off the water flush system and drive away.  Very easy and convenient to use.

We are following our GPS out of town.  At a red light it catches my eye.  The CEL (check engine light) is on!  Crap (which we just got rid of!!)!!  I pull over into a large, empty parking lot and smugly get out my scan reader.  I plug it into the diagnostic port under the dashboard of the pickup and turn on the reader.  It shows that the pickup is throwing an error code, but does not go any farther with its diagnosis.  I try several times and even resort to my last trick.  I read the manual.  But I am doing everything correctly and in the correct sequence.  By this time poor Peggy on her birthday is sweating bullets!

I start up the pickup and rev the engine.  It sounds fine.  We gingerly pull out of the parking lot and merge with traffic.  No difference in its performance.  We get out of town and are able to cruise at highway speeds without any problem.  I theorize that it must be a bad glow plug which helps diesel engines start when it is cold.  Since the engine is running fine we continue on, and even find that it is getting the same mileage as it typically does.

We make our way out of Saskatchewan and into Manitoba.  We are now back in the CDTZ!  It was on about May 10 since we had our clocks set to this zone.

Highway 16 finally joins with CA Highway #1, the TransCanada Highway.  For what some might consider a highly touted highway, long sections of the TransCanada Highway are in terrible condition for a 4 lane highway spanning the country.  There are sections that are in very good condition.

By early afternoon we come to Winnipeg and all of its traffic.  However, they have a bypass which takes us around the west and south of the metro area.  We soon come to Highway 75 which takes us south to the CA/USA border.

At the border we get in the appropriate line for a rig our size.  There are a couple of vehicles ahead of us, but they get waved through in a timely fashion.  Our turn!

So, long story short, we get pulled off to the side to get inspected.  I believe it is because of Peggy's guilty looks when answering questions to authorities.  Anyway, the inspection of our camper was the most lame thing I've ever seen.  The border cop opened the refrigerator door, pulled open the crisper drawer,  then opened a couple of kitchen cabinets and said, "You're fine." Guess they have to justify their pay somehow.

We are now in North Dakota and we make good time.  Of course a person should make good time as the land is as flat as a pancake!  I felt like we were climbing a mountain pass when we went up and over and railroad viaduct!

Peggy keeps asking me if I'm getting tired, and I really wasn't so we kept heading south on I-29.  She is looking ahead in our Woodall's Campground Book seeing what is ahead for a place to stop for the night.  But I am motivated to make it within 1 mile of the ND/SD border, because there is a casino south of the town of Hankinson, ND.

We make it there and for $10 have a cement pad to park the trailer and have full hookups.  We have traveled 578 miles for the day, and I propose to Peggy that since it is her birthday, I take her out to eat...at the casino.  It didn't take much urging on my part to convince her.  She had a large walleye fillet and I had a steak.

By now it is around 9:00.  That plus a full stomach and I am tired.  We go back to the trailer and immediately hit the sack.

Today's Photos Uploaded to Picasa

September 3 North Battleboro, AK, to Yorkton, SK

We have slept in until 7:00 this morning.  I had trouble getting to sleep last evening again, but wake up like I have slept very hard.  Quick, turn on the coffeemaker...I need caffeine!

We are on the road by 7:45 and continue southeasterly on the Yellowhead Hwy, CA 16.  We are still in the heart of what appears to be the wheat land of Canada.  Large grain elevators dot the landscape.

As we get farther to the southeast, Saskatchewan is begining to subtly change.  Every low point in the wheat fields is now filled with water.  We must be in the prairie pothole area of Canada.  We also start seeing the ponds getting larger, and there are now lakes around, some of them large.

By 2:00 I am road weary.  Peggy calls ahead to a campground in Yorkton, SK, and yes, they have an opening for us!  We pull in and are setup by 3:00.  However, the supposed wifi, which the proprietor claims is working as she was just on with her tablet, is not Mac nor iPad nor iPhone friendly.  My Internet diagnoses says restart the wireless hub/router.  I suggest this to the lady, but the reply in a friendly tone is, “In seven years no customer has ever made that request.  And just last week we had an Apple user here who had the same trouble!”  

I walk away glad that at least I have roaming on my iPhone and can check email, etc. with it.  But I’m still bummed!  I send emails to my sister, brother, and another to the funeral home.  

Tomorrow is Peggy’s birthday!!  Not knowing what is ahead of us tomorrow, and since we have the time to spruce up, I’m taking her out to eat!  What a guy!  :o)

We go to Joe Beeverz, a bar and grill on the recommendation of the campground hostess.    I put the address into my GPS, but obviously my GPS and a Canadian address don’t mesh as we drive from end of Yorkton to the other which in a city of 17,000 inhabitants.  Finally we recognize a store that we were told it was near.

We get seated, order drinks, and start perusing the menu.  Hmmm?  Poutines look interesting.  We ask the waitress what they are- breaded french fries smoothed with a wide variety of other things.  We are emphatically told these are a true Canadian food.  They have a poutine called the Giant Pizza Lover - french fries covered with gravy, pepperoni, bacon, and pizza sauce.  I’m in!  Peggy gets a BBQ pulled pork poutine.  All we can say is when it comes to poutines, the Canucks have it!  They taste very good.  I can almost feel my arteries constricting with grease with each mouthful.

We finish eating and then drive around looking for a car wash based on the directions we were given.  No luck, so the pickup will have to stay dirty.

We fuel up and get back to the camper.  We watch one of 2 Canadian TV channels which help make us drowsy so we go to bed. 

Today's Photos Uploaded to Picasa

September 2, Dawson Creek, BC, to North Battleford, SK

We were up early and on the road by 6:45 a.m.  Coming east and south from Dawson Creek the land begins to change from heavy forestation to more grazing land.  By the time we got to Grande Prairie, BC, we start seeing farming and croplands.  The roads around this area are in need of help as they suffer from buckling and potholing.  But then, it is the traveler who suffers from the humps and bumps!

We do make good time with speed limits now at 110 KmPH.  We continue, however, with our 62 MPH rate.  We stop periodically to refuel and stretch.  But we are always back on the road heading south and heading east.  For now there is only one best way to get us closer to home- slow and steady wins the race.

We arrive in Whitecourt, BC, and fill up.  I have missed a phone call from my sister so return a call to her.  We work out more details about dad’s funeral.  I am sure glad that I am not an only child as would think it very difficult to go through all the decision-making alone.

We find a route that will circumnavigate Edmonton, AB, which is a time saver as this Monday afternoon finds many, many, vehicles heading into the city after what we are assuming was their three day Labor Day weekend also celebrated in Canada.

We connect with CA Hwy 16, the Yellowhead Highway which will take us from Edmonton all the way to just west of Winnipeg, Manitoba.  We will be staying on this route for many, many, miles.

It isn’t long when we leave the oil fields and forests around Dawson Creek and Edmonton behind and find much of our view filled with wheat fields.  Peggy takes a picture on the go and says, “Boy, we sure aren’t in Alaska anymore!”.  

Mid-afternoon we come into Lloydminster, SK, but we decide it is to early to stop.  We will later know that this was a mistake.  We keep driving as I am still feeling pretty refreshed.  By late afternoon Peggy begins looking at upcoming towns and camping facilities.  We stop at three of them, but they have no vacancy!  

We did stop at a Walmart in one town where there were quite a number of RVs parked.  However, our 45 foot total length did not fit the parking lot setup, and we did not want to interfere with others parking, so we moved on down the road.

As dusk approaches Peggy manages to get a nice snapshot of the sky with the sun just below the horizon.  It’s a keeper!

Peggy finds a campground in North Battleford, SK, and yes, they have room for us.  Peggy asks them to put a reservation on a space for us.  We now have over an hour to drive to get there.  As we arrive in town the sun has already set, I’m pooped, and the campground is not easy to find.

After turning around a couple of times we finally find our way, get set up, and oh, does that first cold beer from the refrigerator ever taste good!  We have our dinner, and try the campgrounds wifi.  It starts out running just fine, but like us, seems to tire the longer we are online.  It finally crashes and burns.  Peggy and I crash in bed, dead tired at having completed a 625 mile day!

Today's Photos Uploaded to Picasa

Sunday, September 1

Sunday, September 1

It is with an extremely heavy heart and deep sorrow that I inform you that my father, Lester Albertsen, passed away today quietly and peacefully at 12:30 p.m., Sunday, September 1.

Although in the depths of grief Peggy and I know that his spirit now resides with the angels, and that he is reunited with the first love of his life- his wife, and our mother, Dehlia.

I don't know the appropriateness of posting his death on a blog, but I know that many of you who are close to Peggy and I have been following us.  His funeral arrangements in Brookings, SD, are pending.

- - - - - - - - - 

Given the circumstances of the day, my dad would want things to carry on.  And, this will be somewhat therapeutic for me to have this small involvement.  So, here are a few brief comments on our day traveling back home.  We will again adjust our route once we get to Edmonton, AB, to provide the quickest way back to Omaha.

We left our campground at Toad River Lodge and RV Park just before 7:00 a.m. PST.  Almost immediately we saw elk in the ditch in the distance.  However, it was too dark and they moved to quickly into the trees for a good photo of them.

Then, a few miles more and we found a moose cow and calf in the ditch.  The calf ran but I got a photo of it and its mom before it sped away. Mom stuck around for a good pose.

About 20 or so miles as we ascended the climb to The Summit on the Alaska Highway we came upon some stone sheep.  Two miles later there was a small herd of caribou lazily grazing along the road's shoulder.  Photo opportunities!

From that point on we had generally very good road all the way into Dawson Creek, BC, where we stayed for the night.  There was just a couple of mile long stretches of road construction where we waited for the pilot car to escort us.

When we were filling up the pickup in Fort Nelson, BC, a motorhome pulled up in the aisle next to us.  They were from North Carolina and were also heading back home.  Somehow we got on the subject of the Cassiar Highway.  They had taken it on the way up, and his comment was an adament "never again".  He said the route was incredibly rough, and that he had a fuel pump go out on his RV.  According to him it took 6 days to get a replacement shipped in.  I relate the story to Peggy, and we agree that we made a good decision to not take that highway.

Just north of Fort St John, BC, we got a phone message from my brother in Phoenix, AZ.  He had the unfortunate task of telling us of my dad's passing.  We pulled into the Shepard's Inn parking lot as it had cell service to call both Dean, my brother, and Eileen, my sister who lives in Davenport, IA.  I also talked to the funeral home director in Brookings to start the planning process for dad's funeral.  My dad, always wanting to unburden others, has his funeral pretty much planned out.  The funeral director will email me an attachment of those plans.

Today's Photos Uploaded to Picasa

(Picasa will allow only 999 photos in an album, so this link goes to the new album of our Alaskan Trip Photos)

This link takes you to the first Alaska 2013 Album

August 31 Whitehorse, YK, to Toad River, BC

August 31  Bbbbrrrring!  Bbbrrrring!  My cell phone is ringing and it is 12:05 a.m.!  And it is the Brookview nursing care facility where my 96 year old dad is staying!  This will not be good news.

I answer wearily and am probably not very alert to talk to the nurse to begin with.  Diane tells me as dad's POA and also his Medical Power of Attorney she has to inform me that my dad had fallen earlier in the day.  I had received this news from my brother via email earlier.  She proceeds to tell me that dad's BP is now very low, along with his blood oxygen saturation is low.  And, because he is not urinating they have catheterized him.  At this time he seems to be resting comfortably though was somewhat incoherent when awake.

Diane says she has has called the ER at the Brookings, SD, hospital to see if he needs to go in. Their recommendation is that as long as his BP and oxygen levels don't drop further that he is OK resting.  What would I like to have happen?  I ask if she has talked to my sister who is a retired RN.  She had called her but there is no answer.  So, I decide that as long as dad is fairly stable to let him continue to rest in his own bed in his own room.  But I beg her to get in touch with my sister.  Diane says she will continue to try calling her.

Of course after getting this upsetting news neither Peggy nor I slept at all well during the night. We were up before our 6:00 a.m. alarm, packed up and on the road from our campground at 7:00.  The Caribou Campground about 10 miles SE of Whitehorse got quite good reviews, but there wifi sucked!  I was online for about 10 minutes, got kicked off, and never could login again!

As we drove Peggy and I discussed my dad's situation.  Because his condition seemed quite grave, we decided to not take the Cassiar Highway south through British Columbia.  That road is rough, narrow, and more off the beaten path, so to speak.  We instead will stay on the Alaska Highway.  It is relatively good, has a higher speed limit, and will allow us to get back home more quickly.

Peggy and I make good time going across the remaining stretch of the Yukon Territory.  The scenery is nice with some mountains, lakes, and rivers.  We did cross a bridge which is over the headwaters of the Yukon River!  It was downstream from here that the Stampeders took a river flowing out of Lake LaBerge into the Yukon for an all water route to Dawson.

We were about 15 miles west of Teslin, YK, when all of a sudden a black shape darts out of the driver side ditch and runs directly in front of our pickup.  It's a cub bear!  I slam on the brakes and lay on the horn narrowly missing this cub by mere inches.  Boy, that got my attention and heart rate going!  Fortunately as I looked in the rear view mirror to my relief both the cub and its sow mother were walking across the road to the opposite ditch.  Hope that little cub now knows the meaning of looking both ways before crossing!

Eventually we crossed back into British Columbia.  My navigator/photographer took pictures along the way.  There have been electric signs warning about Bison on the road near the Muncho Lake area.  However as we approach we see another bear, a grizzly this time we think, but it disappears before pictures can be taken.  Farther we see another black bear, but it ducks back into the woods before any shutters click.

But then we see another adult black bear in the ditch on Peggy's side of the pickup.  I break and am able to come to a stop in time for her to get several pictures taken.  We're anxious to see how they come out.

We do see large numbers of bison along and on the road.  Good thing we had been forwarned about their presence as it would hurt to run into them even in a pickup.  Of course they are good at posing for pictures!

The water of Muncho Lake is an aquamarine blue due to its mineral content.  When the sun shines on it, it has an attractive coloration.  We are now in the midst of the Canadian Rockies, and Peggy does her best to get some "on the move shots" through our bug gut splattered windshield.

We have now been on the road for 9 hours, and we are beat.  We came to the Toad River Lodge and RV Park.  You might remember the Lodge with hundreds of baseball caps hung from the ceiling.  We got the second to last RV site available.  Oh, yeah, Canada also celebrates Labor Day so many campers are out!

We do have wifi, though it is slow.  On the flip side we have cable TV so there is some entertainment!  I'll have to see if I can get any photos uploaded.  Ahhh...TR6Rt does not protect his/her wifi and I'm in!!!  :o)

Today's Photos Uploaded to Picasa

August 30 Dawson City to Whitehorse, YK

August 30  Gasp...it’s 6:15 a.m. and our camper’s batteries are dead.  At this time it wasn’t important to know why, but rather OK, now what do we do?  We get out our generator and plug the trailer into it.  The generator supplies the electricity to run the slides in and power the landing legs so that we can get hooked up to the pickup.  Whew!

We were in line for the ferry 6:55 a.m.  And to our surprise, the boat maintenance that was scheduled to last from 5-7:00 a.m. was already completed.  The ferry was offloading on the opposite shore, but came to get us at 7:05.  The ferry crew put a pickup in front of us and then we followed it with our pickup and 5th wheel trailer.  In all we are about 45 feet in total length. But we fit on the boat just fine.

The drive through Dawson put us on the Klondike Highway which parallels the Klondike River for quite a ways.  The drive itself was rather uneventful.  The scenery was of spruce and aspen trees, scrub brush, muskeg, lakes, and rivers.  Historically this road was responsible for putting the paddlewheel steamships out of business on the Yukon River.  Teamsters could use the road to get goods and people to and from Dawson with less expense than the boats.

We crossed the Stewart and Pelly Rivers which are quite wide.  We also crossed the Yukon into which those 2 rivers and many others flow.  We made stops at various locations:  The Five Finger Rapids on the Yukon where paddlewheelers had to use a cable to winch themselves through the rapids safely and the Montague Roadhouse which catered to those who traveled on the early road leading from Whitehorse to Dawson.

We did suffer a second casualty:  in a construction area we met a pickup pulling a utility trailer at a high rate of speed.  It throw a stone which put a bullseye nick in our windshield.  Fortunately, the chip is in the low center of view so it doesn’t bother either Peggy’s or my vision out the window.

Of course many things happen in groups of three.  Sure enough we pull into our campground, The Caribou, just south of Whitehorse, and number three happens- only one of the front landing legs is working.

So I bust out my tool box and proceed to dissemble the inoperable landing gear.  To my dismay, the machine pin which holds one of the 90º gears has fallen out so that the shaft driving that gear simply spins without cranking the leg up or down.  And, there is no way to get the landing leg out to reassemble it without having to remove things like the battery box, etc.!!  We are glad that the warranty on our trailer is still in force so at least when we do get it fixed it will not cost us anything.  And like most campers, the folks camped next to us came over to see if I could use their help or needed to borrow any tools.

Since we will not have a large metropolitan area to see about repairs for quite some time down the road, my fix was to get out my bottle jack and use it to hold up the broken landing gear when we are camped.  It seems to be an adequate fix for now.  Time will tell!

Tomorrow we continue our journey traveling farther south and east on the Alaska Highway.  We are planning on taking the Cassiar Highway south through British Columbia barring any more unforeseen complications or breakdowns.

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