Through South Dakota, to Iowa and Nebraska

South Dakota has a lot of places to visit, but the most notable are Mount Rushmore, Wall Drug, Devils Tower, and the Mitchell Corn Palace. Mt. Rushmore needs no comment. Not far off the highway and spectacular. Abe Lincoln is still there to talk to and have a photo op if desired. Wall Drug is not as well known unless you know someone who has been there, or if you have. It is an all purpose mall that occupies a full city block including all four corners. It started in 1939 in Wall, SD and almost went under after five years of trying to survive. Then the wife of the owner suggested that since Mt. Rushmore had been finished and folks were still driving past Wall to get there, that they needed something to get them to stop. Her idea was ice water. Air conditioners had not come along yet, and it was hot and dry in the summer. They had ice and lots of water. They placed signs along the highway much like the Burma Shave signs in that day saying that they had free ice water, and ice cream, and cola, etc. The first summer they had all they could handle. The next summer they had to hire 8 girls to help out. Today, Bill the son, has expanded the place even more and they still have free ice water, and 5 cent coffee. It is a tourist trap of the first order which draws up to 2200 visitors a day. All that a mall has, all the souvenirs you could want, and fantastic food, I had a roast beef sandwich which was the best ever, gravy better than on any other I have had. We traveled this road before on a trip out west but Wall Drug is even better than then. On to Devils tower which was the place the space ship landed in the movie, "Close Encounters", and to Mitchell with it's own claim to fame in the Corn Palace. They use real corn cobs to decorate the outside and inside of the place. They grow every variation there is for the palace. Then I drove south on I 29 and past Omaha Nebraska to my present camping spot almost on the line between Iowa and Nebraska. Tomorrow I will try to drive to my oldest daughters house northwest of St. Louis in Wentzville, then to my parents in Cape Girardeau, MO, then home. This will not end this blog though. I have many reflections of problems and ideas for the future trips that are sure to come, and ways to make a living by traveling, etc. I have ignited a desire to see the world in our son David. Julie and Jacki have already traveled a bit , but David was limited the the trip to the Petrified forest, The Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and across South Dakota when he was 16. This was a new experience for both of us and we both know that we can travel and make a living if one has a desire to do so. Maybe I have finally found out what I want to do when I grow up, and maybe David too once he finishes all the school he has planned, maybe culminating with becoming a professor at a university.

Glacier National Park on Independance Day

aka, Waterton Glacier International Peace Park. Seems that since the US and Canada have always had peaceful relations, the UN named the Canadian park north of Glacier and Glacier as a peace park. Due to the Fourth of July weekend, I camped at Flathead Lake about 60 miles from the park as it was as close as I could get into a campground. It was a very scenic area. Once in the park, the trip up "Going to the Sun Road" is narrow and also under construction. It is 52 miles of winding road with cutbacks, and to add to that they are doing construction on it. The trip took 2 and a half hours to reach the other side. They have added buses which I suspect will soon, when the construction is done, replace individual car traffic in the park as has been done in The Grand Canyon and Denali in Alaska. Once I reached the summit of 6600 feet, I continued all the way to the East entrance. The road was so tough, for my truck, the limited length to get onto the road was 20' and the truck is 19.5', that I decided to take the 120 mile trip around the park to get back. It was also raining the entire time at the higher elevations. It took me three hours to make the also rugged trip around. That evening I realized that my phone was missing. I had texted David as I entered, and later saw that I had no service up on the Road. Once I got out of the park, I decided to check for service again, and no phone. I searched the truck as it had fallen out of my pocket before and landed in a compartment in the truck door. Also at times I left it on the console. It was nowhere to be found. As I drove back to the camper, I drove through one small town and there was a bottle rocket war going on across the highway. It sounded like the truck got hit a few times. Then in Hungry Horse, the entire town was out and others too. The kids were shooting fireworks and the adults were mostly at the tavern but some were in lawn chairs along the highway too. I stopped and watched a while and took some photos, then left before it was dark enough for the town fireworks to start. I was wondering what had happened to my phone. I had left messages at the park to email me if they found my phone. I never received an email from the park but when I got to the campground, my computer had messages from David, Melissa and my dad. They had all received calls from the park saying that my phone had been turned in. The next morning I drove back to Glacier and had to travel the Going to the Sun Road again to get to the east entrance where my phone had been turned in. The day was better than the previous day but traffic was heavier on Monday than on the Fourth of July. I got to the east entrance and identified my phone and signed the necessary paper work and then had to decide whether to drive the long way again or just go back on Going to the Sun Road. I decided to go back through the park and was glad I did. I had dinner at a restaurant and enjoyed the evening as another day was gone. The next morning I left Glacier which is a name which needs to be changed to Glacier Lakes National Park as the remaining Jackson Glacier in the park is an 11 mile hike to what is left of it. Canada's park is Waterton Lakes National Park so they are ahead of us in the naming process.

I left on the road toward home again and the trip was very enjoyable around the Flathead Lake. On the south end was a beautiful town named Polson. If not for the winters, it would be a great place to live. There was a boat pulling kids on a tube in what had to be very cold water, but I suppose they get used to it here. I continued south to Interstate 90, the longest coast to coast highway in the US, probably due to the mountains and cities it connects. Somewhere between Boseman and Billings, I reconnected with bugs. On the windshield first, the when I drove through Billings and stopped at a McDonalds for a late lunch and to use the Internet for a bit , flies. Billings is where Melissa spent a year as an Americorps volunteer while getting away from the empty nest. She chose a good place as it is a lot like a smaller version of Memphis. She made some good friends there and traveled back to visit them once and again for the wedding of the daughter of one of the friends. It was tempting to try to find some of them, but they were her friends, as I was home working then and now she is home working as I travel through her town for a year. Life takes some interesting turn as it passes... Next, on to South Dakota for a day trip.

Return to Washington and on to Montana.

We arrived in Bellingham Friday a week ago in the early morning. We drove from Bellingham 100 miles down to Seattle to visit the Space Needle and David wanted to visit a brewery in the university area. David also wanted to see where Starbucks got it's start, but the streets were so narrow and the pedestrian and vehicle traffic so heavy that we decided to just drive past it and head back to my cousin Janet's house. She has a home on her daughter and son in law's 5 acres that they share with three horses, four dogs, and three cats, if I counted correctly. Oh, also two great children. We had planned to leave there sooner than we did, but I had work to do on the camper, and David wanted to go back to Seattle to visit Washington University with a friend he met on the ferry, so we stayed longer. We went back to a place Janet took us to on the way to Alaska that has fresh mussels from a farm in the bay and visited a fifties "joint" in the mountains which had a jukebox that still works, but the 45s are scratched up, and visited Deception Falls nearby. I took a few videos of the falls, but am having trouble getting them to upload. Then David received information that he needed to get back to Knoxville soon for an interview that would lock up graduate school, so I took him back to Seattle to catch a flight to St. Louis to visit my oldest daughter Jacki, and Melissa drove there today to take him back to Collierville to get his car by way of visiting my parents in Cape Girardeau. Once he gets his car, he will drive to Knoxville for his interview.
So I drove across Washington yesterday, and into Montana. Since David wasn't along I drove till dark which left me in the middle of nowhere in Montana. I spent the night in a rest area on I 90. When I stopped it was empty, when I woke up this morning, it was full of trucks and a few campers. By the time I left at nine, it was empty again. I slept with bear spray and a bit of hardware by my pillow, so I slept soundly.
Somewhere along the way I realized that this is the July 4th holiday weekend, and I could not reach David by phone, so I left a voice mail that I needed campground help. He sent me the number for Glacier National Park and I found that their campgrounds were full, but they had no camper hook ups anyway. Then I used my GPS to locate RV parks and they were all full within 60 miles of the park. So here I sit by myself with nothing to do except to work on uploading photos on a very slow Internet connection and updating this finally. Tomorrow I will drive into Glacier National Park and look around and try to decide whether to drive into Canada to see more glaciers or if it is worth the drive. A camper in DC told us that Canada has some of the most spectacular glaciers north of Glacier, so will likely go there.

Ketichakan, and thoughts on the ferry ride back.

We arrived at Ketchikan in the morning and were there most of the day. One must study the ferry schedule to figure out how long they dock where, as we were there only briefly on the trip up. Ketchikan is the fifth largest "city" in Alaska with a population of around 14,000. Their economy is based on fishing and tourism. We took a bus into town and found a tourist trap area much like we found in Juneau. We walked into a store and were confronted by a woman selling trips on a tour bus. The price was a bit high but she promised we would get the history and view of Ketchikan from a local, not a canned speech from an import bus driver. I fell for it and signed up. David and I were the only passengers on a small bus. The driver was a cute girl around David's age. She was nice, and we had good conversation, but she did not mention much local information at all, and when I asked her how Ketchikan got it's name, she had no idea. (It came from the name of a local creek which was named by the Tlingit natives.) Our destination was Totem Heritage Center,with Tlingit native totem poles, an antique gun collection, and antique autos. It was raining when we got there, and we learned a bit about it, but I found myself listening to the canned talks from other groups as I got more information that way. My thought is that the large groups may be from cruise ships, but the leader learns the information more than the small local tour people.
We saw more sea planes at Ketchikan in one place than anywhere else. There were docks with ramps with sea planes run up on them, and they were pulled up everywhere and in the air.
Remember the Alaskan "Bridge to Nowhere"? Well it was to be built at Ketchikan, from the town to the new International Airport on an island. Look at my photos and you will see it across the water from where we were. It would have been a short bridge, but due to the huge cruise ships that would pass under it, it would have to have been very high up. The flat island that they had to put the airport on also houses several hundred folks most of whom work in Ketchikan, and the ferry across is 12 bucks each way. (According to our bus driver, it seems that Sarah Palin wanted most of the money for it used in Wacilla, so she canceled the project, and folks in Ketchikan don't like her very much.) Ketchikan has the highest number zip code in the US, 99950 if you are interested...


We visited Hawaii in 2002, and one goal I had on this trip was to compare two relatively rare events in an average persons life, a trip to Hawaii or Alaska and decide which was the best as a first choice or if only one can be afforded. Well, no real comparison can be made... In my opinion the type of person which makes each trip is different. Hawaii is for the person who likes comfort first and is willing to pay to get it. Yes, one can climb Diamond Head, hike trails to water falls, etc. However most of Hawaii is about attending luau, beaches, and great hotels. That can not compare with the harsh life of Alaska. That calls for the mountain man (or woman) type individual. However for the comfort loving person, there are the 3 to 4 daily cruise ships that arrive in some of the cities. Those folks have fine rooms, few waves from the open ocean, heated pools and a party atmosphere. They arrive at towns and cities which have tourist trap after gift shop, but little of what makes Alaska. They do see a great view of the shore of Alaska which is impressive, and get some locak tours, but meet few Alaskans, as the shops are full of summer help from the lower 48. So for the above reasons the hearty type and the luxury type can find something for themselves at both destinations, but they are not the same at all. Hawaii is a year round destination, Alaska is 90% summer only. Those who go in the winter are the really mountain man mentality who want to see the Northern Lights, ride snowmobiles, or really rough it in the cold. Even many Alaskans move to Juneau or Anchorage in the winter to escape the extreme weather in the central and northern parts of Alaska. When the seasonal workers go home to the lower 48, many of the central Alaskans go to south or southeast Alaska to work for the winter, as did the owner of the camping cabin we stayed in at Denali.

Last Couple Days in Alaska

We will catch the ferry back to Bellingham, Washington tomorrow and arrive there the morning of the 25th. It is about 80 degrees here in Haines today and in Alaska one can sunbathe for about 15 hours as some have been in and out of he sun since about 7 AM this morning. We slept in the truck last night due to not doing enough homework when we planned our dates. It seems that there is an international bike relay race every year about Fathers Day from Haines Junction, Yukon, Canada to Haines, Alaska. It is a 240 kilometer event, which is 150 miles. We followed or passed bicycles for almost the entire way. Then when we got to the border it was a two hour wait as we inched toward the customs checkpoint. We assumed that the race passing the border is what clogged it up, as well as everyone who left from Tok that morning was arriving about the same time, however it was not like that on the way up, so it was probably the bike race alone causing the bottleneck. The participants book rooms and campgrounds a year in advance and all were full including the fairgrounds and a park. We drove 12 miles out to a state park and they had a primitive camp ground that was very scenic and private, however they had strict fines if they found any cooler, food item, or grill left out to invite bears. We could not have put everything inside the truck, and David thought it looked like bears could be everywhere, so we drove back to town and slept in the truck at a picnic area on the bay that had outdoor restrooms. Virtually every rest area in Alaska and Canada had either porta potties or similar permanent facilities.
One difference between the USofA and Canada is that in the US there are signs warning of a fine if one litters the highway, in Canada they have a bear proof container by the road at a pullout about every 20 miles. One provides a way to dispose of trash, the other a fine but not necessarily a place to drop off trash.
I am so glad that we decided to leave the camper in Washington. After talking to folks that had made the trip before, I figured it was the best decision. After watching trailers bounce all over the place at very slow speeds, and having to pass them time and time again, the trailer would have never been the same again, and it would have taken twice as long to see less. David talked me into the ferry, and taking the fifth wheel on it would have cost several thousand dollars round trip, so leaving it was a good decision for us. For others with more time and patience, pulling one through Canada and Alaska may be a great idea.
The roads in Canada and Alaska are an enigma, some stretches are fantastic, as good as ever seen, and then suddenly worse than a nightmare. I drove 80 at times and other times 30 was too fast and bouncing all over the place. The stretches of gravel were some of the smoothest we saw as they keep road graders and rollers to keep those places smooth. The asphalt was either better or much worse. I mentioned this before but I can see several possible reasons for this. Obviously the extreme weather in the 7 month winter is a reason to break up the road. There are no concrete roads at all here, probably due to the weather. Another reason for wavey roads is the lack of clay here, there is a bit of top soil and then mostly volcanic or other rock, so the road beds we saw being established to widen a road is topsoil mixed with cedar chunks. Many cedars have died here in recent years, so that may be why they are chopping them up and using in the road bed. And lastly a contributor may be the super size trucks they run in Canada and Alaska. They haul two full size trailers, both tanker or full size standard trailer with large tractors pulling them. They seem to run at high speed even over the worst roads, so I assume that the cabs have springs and shocks in them too. Their tires have white stripes across them, but I have no idea what the stipe tires means yet. The RVs that are here have mostly Canadian or Alaskan tags on them and many are rentals. The big bus looking rigs seem to make the journey well from the lower 48, and many fifth wheels too, but those folks must have lots of time to pull them over the slow rough roads. I suspect that most visiting here are for the whole summer and have no required time to get back, or foreigners and others who fly here and rent cars or campers. (We taked to A German couple that spoke little English. I let them send their daughter a message with my Email, and David was able to discuss a bit of the trip with them as some of his German came back to him.) Lastly there are those on cruise ships who only visit the coast and go ashore at several places and them reboard for the next stop or back home.
Again, David and I are quite satisfied with what we saw and did. Both of us would like to return and do a bit more but this trip was very satisfying and fun. Our trip to Denali could not be equaled, much less improved on, but there may be other things we missed, glaciers and fishing, etc. Those will be future decisions to be made.

Tomorrow we leave the lynx, moose, and bears and move back to where the whales, porpoises, and more eagles are seen. Back to where things are less harsh, and more familiar...

Wow, what a day! (4 glaciers seen in one day...)

Today started out pretty slow. We had Pop Tarts for breakfast indicating what was expected to be a day with few plans. David has bought some hip boots for the purpose of fording an Exit Glacier stream to try and actually touch a glacier. The day before, a ranger said that they could not recommend such an attempt as the glacier and snow was melting faster as the weather warmed up. (High 50s during the day, and high 40s at night.) We thought that with hip boots he could make it across, and if so he was going to throw the boots back to me and I would try it too. As it turned out, he got across the first fork, but the next he could almost get across in several places but the fast moving water had carved out a channel in the bed that was just too deep for the boots. Pushing it may have caused the current to take him off his feet or fill the boots. It was good that he is cautious and the one trying this, as had I been the first I would have forced the issue and got wet and very cold, as I have other times in my life. Caution is not a common Heise trait but one David has acquired by listening to stories of near misses.
Two rangers were present in the latter stages of the attempt and one interviewed David as to the possibility of crossing the streams, and when he heard of the attempts and failure, he asked us if we thought it was doable by the general public, and of course we said no. Since others were watching from above, David assumed that others were asking to try. Anyway, he radioed back to strongly advise others not to try it, however they do not have the right to stop anyone. They can stop you from entering areas where they are trying to reintroduce plant growth, or to protect animal life or dens, but not from trying to kill yourself! David was quite satisfied that he had walked a couple of miles trying to make it happen, and with his best shot, was satisfied to leave without touching a glacier.
We started up the highway back to Anchorage, with no other plans other than to spend the night at Elmendorf AFB again on the way back and to begin the journey to Washington and the rest of the trip home, by way of Glacier National Park and a trip into Canada where more great glaciers are. I called base billeting and they informed me that all rooms were booked, so we decided that since we were carrying camping equipment, we would tent camp there as they have a very nice family camp on base, with hookups as we have an electric heater with us.
David fell asleep as we traveled and I saw a sign for Portage Glacier. We had heard that it was only accessible from water. Earlier when we saw it on the way down, David had said that they probably rented kayaks to get to it and it was a bit cold for that. Regardless, we had some time to kill, so I turned off the road toward Portage Glacier. When we got there, David was awake, and the boat to get to the glacier was a large closed in heated boat with the top open for outdoor viewing from above. We bought tickets just as it was preparing to leave. They gave us more information on glaciers, most of which we had already heard, but it was a fun trip and we saw small icebergs out in the water with 10% if it sticking above water, and 90% below and they had an aquarium tank with glacier ice in it to demonstrate the rule. David took a photo of it as my memory card had just maxed out. Today was very drizzly and overcast so we couldn't see the glacier to the top, but got a good look at it near the waters edge. A large chunk of it broke off during an earlier trip out today which produced the bergs. Nearby was another glacier which no longer reached the waters edge, but we took photos of it too. We were also told of a glacier nearby that you could walk out on, however the trail was closed due to avalanche risks near it. Once we got back to land and had bought some post cards, the girl at the counter said that they did not tell her that the other glacier was closed today, so we decided to check it out. The trail had no indication of being closed so we started up it. This walk fulfilled David's day and trip. We got to the glacier and were able to walk out onto it. It was still covered with snow in the area we walked out on, however David walked a long way up it. One could see indications that we were on the glacier, but the snow was several feet deep. This alone would more than make our day, but more was waiting for us at the Emendorf AFB campground.
We arrived at the campground around 6 PM, and checked out the showers then started looking for a suitable site. David said, "there's a moose". I answered OK and kept going, since we had seen moose before. He said he wasn't kidding there were two moose. So I stopped and across the road were a he and she moose, he was young with only the start of antlers. We took photos as I had my other memory card in the camera now, and again started looking at sites for the tent. We passed an RV and there was a black bear. We are on a military installation which is totally fenced in. How did moose get in here, and now a bear? Seems that the base is so big that when they built it, there was no way to remove all the game, so some remained inside the fence and has its own habitat. They are more human friendly than most, however as I took a picture of the bear as it was moving away from us, a military police lady pulled up and was watching the bear move away. She told us that a child in the housing area had been bitten by a bear and they were watching them. That totally ended the tent camping for David, which ended it for me to. I suggested that he could sleep in the shower stall, but no way were we staying on the base with the friendly animals... Therefore we are eating a pizza in a motel about 30 miles from the base, in a safe upstairs room. Caution in deep streams is a good thing but fearing a nice cute bear is another. I got a photo of it, the huge moose was OK, but not a little bear. Tomorrow we journey back to Tok, then the next day through Canada on to Haines again. Reporting that may be sporadic, but today was a good day in every way, except for staying in a motel tonight. We hiked several miles today and a good bear free night may be in order...

South to Seward

We are at an equal distance from home by road miles as were were at Denali. Tomorrow we head back toward Anchorage, after David fords a fast glacier stream to "touch a glacier". We tried at Mendenhall Glacier and hiked a long way to fail due to a wrong turn, late in the day, and mosquitoes that tried to carry us home for dinner. We visited the Exit Glacier today and we talked to park rangers about the best way for us to touch a glacier or walk on one, and of all the options, it seems that buying hip boots and crossing the melting ice stream to get to the bottom of Exit Glacier is the fastest, easiest, way to touch a glacier of all the many glaciers which are hard to get to. Mendenhall was dangerous at the bottom due to breaking off into a lake. Exit Glacier is no longer calving and is easy to walk up to once one crosses the ice cold stream. David bought hip boots today to try it in the morning. I am not obsessed with touching a glacier like he is, but he wants to toss me the boots once across for me to freeze like him. Then he wants photos so we will risk my camera to get across, as his is too good for such a risk.
Why the name Exit Glacier ? Harding Ice Field is over 300 sq miles in total, but if you count its 40 glaciers that it supports, then it is over 1000 square miles. When scientists were studying the Harding Ice Field, most of the glaciers it provides for are too dangerous to climb or leave from, but one glacier was short and compact which made it a safe exit. Therefore the name of Exit Glacier is still on it.

As time runs down on the Alaska portion of this adventure, I realize just how much priorities have changed for both of us, and in some ways merged. David's goal was to go to Alaska and see as much on the way there as he could. My goal was to see Mt McKinley and to go salmon fishing. Now salmon fishing is off the list for several reasons. One, fresh salmon tastes about like the frozen salmon we get at home. Two, if we caught a salmon, what would we do with it? We couldn't carry it all the way home frozen, nor did we really want to clean one even if it is similar to cleaning a trout. We wouldn't want to eat it all at once, and most of all, the most popular way to catch them is to snag them. When they "run" they don't chase bait, they just keep going. When the "fishermen" see salmon they throw a line with a large triple hook over them and when they snag one, they pull until it is in, as to let any slack will let it get away. To us this is a way to get food or fish to eat, but not a sporting way to do it. Therefore we will not snag salmon on this trip, but again try to fish for trout when we get home again. That will keep us from having to clean and eat a fish in a very short period of time. We could hire a guide to maybe do it differently for about 250 each, but we would still have to deal with any fish caught. Maybe on a future trip here or in the lower 48, but no salmon on this trip other than what we had for dinner tonight! The king crab was good also, but not worth the price it brings even here. Snow crab is just as good if harder to get to.

Overall this country is wild and fresh, but harsh to live in year round. Summers are exciting and full of adventure. Winters are hard, long, and dark. The northern lights (aurora borealis) is better seen in the states in the summer time as it gets dark there, here the only time to see it is in the winter when it is almost always dark.