Glacier Highway

Now that we've got the flat tire story resolved, here are the pictures from our trip to Alaska.

North to Alaska!


The 37 goes north to the Yukon which gets you to northern Alaska. We took 37A which gets you to southern Alaska. It's still pretty far north, latitude 55. 37A is called Glacier Highway. There are lots of glaciers visible from the road.


Lots of glaciers.

This is Bear Glacier. It was pretty cold out. This is where we got the jackets out.

There was a cache near Bear Glacier, about a half mile walk. We started down the abandoned road, towards the clouds. Then we heard branches snapping the woods and remembered why Bear Glacier was so named. Then we turned around and went back to the safety of the van. We know how to deal with rattlers, but not bears!


In Alaska, the NFS has put up a boardwalk over a salmon stream. The salmon spawn and the bears and eagles and ravens feed. We're in the USA!


Glacier-fed lakes and streams everywhere.


The salmon were just lazing around in the water. I think they were pretty tired out from all the swimming they had to do to get here. They were pretty territorial and would chase each other out of their sandy burrows. We don't know much about salmon spawning. Maybe they were just resting up here, or maybe they were making baby salmons. Whatever, it was cool. We did not see any bears here (or anywhere). There's a cache nearby, and other people who found it on the day we were there did see both black bears and grizzly bears. We were going to stop back here on the way back from Salmon Glacier, but we had other things to worry about (see previous posts).

An old fireplace on the way back to the van. We wondered what its story was.


Next cache - at an old gold mine. Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads!


Old mine equipment.


Waterfalls


And more waterfalls.

Waterfalls ending in lakes.


Marmots.


Clouds. Behind these clouds are mountains and glaciers. We couldn't see them on the way up.


The mine entrance. On the other side of this tunnel is a turnaround with a cross. That cross made me remember not to worry, even though we had a flat tire and would travel 450 miles on a donut spare. And there's a cache just inside the entrance.


This empty lake bed is either empty or full. There is an ice dam at the foot of the lake which holds in the runoff from the glacier. When the ice dam finally breaks, in June, there is a flood of water way downstream.


Salmon glacier. This one runs for miles and miles, just like a river.


Leaving Alaska. US customs didn't care that we were entering, but Canada customs did.

The rest of the tire-d story

I'm sitting in front of our motel room in McBride, BC. It's cold and rainy, but I can only get wireless outside. That's ok, because Connor just locked us out of the room while Rich is taking a shower. So I might as well post the end of the flat tire story. It worked out just fine!

We drove 750 km = 470 miles on a donut spare. You know, the kind which is supposed to be driven for 50 miles max? Yeah. We had the flat on Saturday and immediately when we got down off the mountain, the next town had an open tire shop. Unfortunately, they didn't have the right size tire. They had the one bigger and the one smaller, but not ours. His wife just bought the same kind of minivan we have, so he'll stock those in the future...

Every town from Alaska to Prince George had a tire shop that was closed on Sunday. We thought we got lucky once, when we saw one with an open bay. Turns out he had only opened up to get one bit of work done and answer the phone. Then a boat pulled up, needing a trailer tire fixed, then we pulled up needing a new tire. He said his wife was going to be angry. He didn't have the right tire in stock either. And he was amazed we had gone so far on the donut. We were only halfway to Prince George.

Prince George had a Wal Mart, which we figured would be the only open tire shop on Sunday. They made some noises about having to match the tread on all the tires, and how they don't have the right brand and anyway, they don't have the right size in stock. But they said the Canadian Tire just down the hill was open. And they filled up the donut, which by now was making a loud hissing sound.

The Canadian Tire was open, and a nice young tattoed man named Dave fixed us right up, with the last tire of our size in his inventory. We got the display tire. The better news was his shop was right next door to a Fatburger. We hadn't stopped for lunch in our hurry to beat the donut from collapsing. We ate a lot.

Richard says the minivan handles a lot better with 4 good tires!

Adventures in Alaska

We took 121 pictures yesterday. Digital photography rocks.

We headed up Rte 37 to 37A, called Glacier Highway. It goes to Hyder, Alaska, stays in Alaska for maybe 20 miles, then goes to a mine in BC. The paved part of the road goes by 34 glaciers, give or take a few. There are at least three times as many waterfalls. Near Hyder is a National Forest Service facility with a walkway on a salmon spawn stream, where the bears come for lunch. The salmon run in late July and early August. When we knew we were coming to Vancouver, we joked about finding an Alaskan cache. The one was only 900 miles out of our way. The others were thousands of miles away, and would require either a cruise or a road trip past Yellowknife. Isn't that where the ice road truckers go? We figured 900 miles would be good, and it was! We found our Alaska cache!

After the NFS facility, the road continues past Salmon Glacier, which is a miles-long river of ice, fed by other rivers of ice. It supposedly ends at the toe of another glacier, but we didn't make it that far. The road was narrow, winding, and slippery. The clouds came right down to the road. Andrew was very excited, because he wanted to touch a cloud. The fog was so thick that we were doing maybe 2 mph. We couldn't see any glaciers or mountains or even the edge of the road. But that's not why we didn't make it to the end of the road. Eventually, the clouds swirled and lifted and we could see the glacier we'd been following all this way. On the safe side of the road were alpine meadows, snow fields, and rocks. Lots of rock slides. These rock slides left sharp rocks all over the road. One of those rocks is why we didn't make it to the end.

We all knew when the tire blew, it was loud. But we drove just a bit more, hoping it was just the rock skittering off the underside of the van. Nope, it was flat as flat can be. (if you are the nervous kind, who can't figure out that we are now safe, let me reassure you that we are fine) After a 5 minute panic of not finding the spare in the back or under the back of the van, we found the spare under the front of the van. The manual was in shrink wrap in the jack compartment. A couple of nice old men in a little blue car with Saskatchewan plates stopped to give moral support. The tire was changed. We really wanted to go to the end of the road and stand at the toe of the glacier, but instead we had to turn around on the side of the mountain.

Turning around on the side of the mountain is not as easy as it sounds, and I know it sounds difficult. I was worried about the tire, about getting back without blowing another one, about turning around on the side of the mountain, about the grizzlies on the road, about the clouds, ok, I was worried. All that worry was wiped away in just a few minutes when we drove forward, looking for a wide spot in the road, and found a complete cul-de-sac turnaround spot. That wasn't what reassured me. In the middle of the turnaround was a giant cross made of some sort of pipe. That was what reassured me. It was a sign!

Sure enough, we made it off the mountain and back to the USA and back again to Canada, and to a town with a tire shop. I'd love to tell you that we have 4 good tires now, but the tire shop was out of our size tire. We're off to Smithers, where the cook at the restaurant last night tells me that their tire shop is open on Sundays.

And you'll have to wait on the pictures because the truck is loaded and I've got to log off.

Oh! We saw a bald eagle flying up close, too! Very cool.

Houston means I'm one step closer to you

We stopped at a rest stop to "rest" and find a cache. While Connor and I were finding the cache, Richard and Andrew found a beaver-chewed log. Almost like it had been turned on a lathe.


I think Andrew has a future as a wildlife photographer. His flower shots are pretty good.




Houston!


Houston is home to the world's largest fly rod.


Bringing it in.


Naturally, there's a cache at the world's largest fly rod.

Is it in here? (no)


The cache!


The thinker on a millstone from Mexico, in Houston, BC.


Now we are 120km from Alaska. The road is closed north of our turnoff due to wildfires, but we will be just fine. We've booked 2 nights here in New Hazelton and will go to Alaska this morning and come back tonight.

The view from our hotel window.


And there's a playground just across the quiet street!

Vancouver to Quesnel

Long drive today, but so pretty. We took the Sea to Sky Highway north of Vancouver. It follows an inlet and then goes through the mountains to Squamish and Whistler. They had what I think were the Indian names of Squamish and Whistler on road signs. They were very strange and had numbers in the middle of the names.

The road through the mountains was steep and twisty. There were sheer cliffs.


Mountains


More mountains. The temperature changed from 70 to 85 in the valley to 62 in the mountains.


We are in a minivan with three rows of seating. The middle row was in the floor, until Connor wanted to move up. So we stopped at a nice spot with a short walk to the river, and Rich and Connor moved the stuff and changed the seats. Andrew and I walked to the river, which was very shallow. Didn't take the camera, though. Here he is at the same spot I took the previous picture.


The smoke from the wildfires was getting bad when we left the mountains. It got a lot worse, which is why I don't have pictures after the mountains. Well, the scenery wasn't all that spectacular, too. You can sort of see the smoke here.


We followed this stream for miles and miles.


The stream we had been crossing and recrossing finally met the Fraser River. The big river was muddy, and you could really see how the faster, clearer river fed into it. And you can really see the smoke now.


Now we're at a nice motel, Rich is out for a beer in the bar, Andrew is making a latch hook tie dye peace sign, Connor is watching cartoons, and I'm fixing to plan our route tomorrow. We made such good time today, we might end up getting closer than we thought to Alaska tomorrow. Oh! And we're north of 50 degrees! And we found an earthcache!

Leaving Vancouver

We're leaving this morning, the conference is over, I bought way more than our allowed 5 pounds of books, might need to buy a new suitcase to haul them home! The boys bought a new camera because we left ours at home. My phone takes pretty good pictures, but not on the run or in the dark. So anyway, here are some more pictures of Vancouver.

One day, we had lunch at the Teahouse in Stanley Park. It was really good. Here is dessert. Richard had pistachio creme brulee, with peach ice cream. I had a vanilla bean pavlova.


The convention center is on the water. There were seaplanes taking off and landing all day long. There is the Chevron station that you probably remember from the Olympics.


The boys went to the aquarium in Stanley Park. There was a 4D movie about the ocean. They missed the 10:30 SpongeBob movie but this one was good. What makes it 4D? It's an ordinary 3D movie with special effects from the seats, like puffs of air and spray when the whales come on, and things that poke you (gently) when the snakes come on. Reminded me of the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids attraction at Disney World. They also had a cool tank that the kids could go into via a bubble.


Aren't these gorgeous?


I could not live here.


The kids found a water park.


And an iguana.


The boys went for a final walk down the waterfront. Here's the Vancouver Convention Center in the distance. They grow grass on the roof.


The giant Lego orca by day. It's not really made of Legos.


A cool picture of the orca reflected in the window. They didn't know it, but I was at a talk (on the Statistics Without Borders recent efforts in Haiti) just on the other side of those windows.


The boys keep trying to take the art home. This one was called The Drop.


We went for one last drive around Stanley Park. Here are the totem poles.


Lots of statues, plaques, and monuments (and a virtual cache named that as well). You can also once again see how amazingly urban Vancouver is. That's a lot of people, all living in those highrises.


We are looking forward to getting out into the countryside. North to Alaska!

Baseball

How come every time we go on vacation, the Astros get on a streak? Ok, not every time, but in 2005 I missed the last 10 weeks of the season, watching the division clinching game on Australian TV the morning we left to come back to the States. I didn't buy a data plan in Canada, so I can't see this 7 game win streak they are on. And tonight's guaranteed win on Astros Wins-day.

Vancouver

Vancouver is urban. Extremely urban. There are very tall apartment buildings every which way you look. The streets are filled with pedestrians, bike riders, cars, and taxis. The people are tourists and locals, young and old, strange and stranger.

Our hotel is on the east side of downtown Vancouver. We have a great view of BC Place, where the skating events were held, from the deck on the 16th floor. (there's a foosball table up there also, which is what the kids like) Out of our window on the 4th floor, we have a view of high rise apartment buildings.

I'm used to Houston, and to some extent Austin, where people work downtown and live outside of downtown. Vancouver seems to be the opposite. The tall buildings all seem to be living space.

We took a drive around Stanley Park and some of the downtown area today. I'll be at the conference through Wednesday, so this will probably be the last post until then. Here are some pictures of what we saw.

BC Place


Stuck in traffic. The sign says "Welcome to Vancouver A Nuclear Weapons Free Zone."


My phone is not the best at taking night pictures. Here are the boys in front of one of the Olympic torches, all lit up.