Home Sweet Home!

We got to home sweet home on Saturday, July 27!  There were many miles traveled from our last post, which ended in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. This area here is beautiful with canola fields and other crops. Our destination on Friday, July 19 was going to be Lethbridge at a KOA. The temps are much warmer and I want electric to stay cool! According to the news, they are having a historic heat wave!  Go figure! I lot Ron do most of the driving today as we were heading through two big towns - Edmonton and Calgary. 

Fields of yellow canola

Day 119, July 20 happens to be our granddaughter Lucy's 13th birthday. It also means the only day out of the year that our 2 grands are the same age, as they are 364 days apart. As we're traveling we notice that the corn is just now coming up, whereas back home it's already harvested. We had another easy border crossing and loved it when the officer said "Welcome Home!" Since we left Ft. Nelson in the Yukon, the wildfire smoke has been with us.  So as we cross into Montana, the skies again are hazy and it's hard to see the scenery. Around Helena the drive was beautiful through the mountain canyons.  We traveled I-15 the entire drive. We stayed the night south of Butte at Sportsmen's Lodge RV Park, after stopping for a late lunch at a great bar somewhere!!!

The birthday kids!  Lucy and Aiden!

One lane on the interstate made a slow crossing, but....they opened a second lane and he was in a hurry to get the traffic moving.

Day 120 is Sunday, July 21 and it's Aiden's 14th birthday! We had another long day of driving, swapping drivers off here and there. We left Montana, drove through Idaho and landed south of Salt Lake City. Goodness for a Sunday the traffic through Salt Lake was horrendous!  It is 100 degrees and it's dry heat like Vegas. We're staying at Lakeshore RV Park which is on the shores of Lake Utah. There's a marina here, a lot of Spanish speaking people. The most interesting thing was watching two cars with photographers all over them doing a photo shoot.  Hmmm...... I joined in and took a picture just because I felt like I should!

Beautiful sunset reflection on The Rambler

A hazy sunset over Lake Utah

My shot of the car in the photo shoot!

Day 121 our destination was 321 miles south to Mesa Verde RV Resort in Mancos, Colorado.  This is a super nice place! The next day we headed on into South Fork, Colorado where we plan to stay 2 nights catching up with friends and family that are there for the summer.  It's back to nice and cool here at 8,200' elevation. Mike and Terry made us dinner which was so nice. The next day we just rested and let everyone else go on buggy rides in the mountains.

Brad and Rhonda, Colorado friends came to visit.

Caught up with a lot of Gregurek's!

Day 124 was a long day. Ron decided we could make it to Childress, Texas. And 501 miles later, we did. We stayed at a nice RV Park - Love RV. It's hot as a pistol!  We treated ourselves to a pizza delivery.

Day 125, Friday, July 26, our destination is Fentress!  My cousin and her two daughters and family were going to be there as well.  We made a stop for BBQ at Cooper's in Llano. It was so good to see everyone. I think we stayed up until 1:30 am talking. It seems to be a rainy season at home. Ron's brother said we've had about 21" rain since Hurricane Beryl.

Our meal at Cooper's!

Lots of elephant ears have taken over the banks

Had to park in a different spot since it was wet.

My "little" cousin!

Day 126, Saturday, July 27 ends up being our last day on the road.  We couldn't decided whether to stay one more day at Fentress or not, but the call of home and being within 3 hours of home won out. 

This has been the most amazing trip!  We were blessed to have traveled places we have been to before, but seeing it in the spring made it all different!  We met many great people, were lucky to have crossed paths with people we have met in the past, and we had no major issues!

Here's a few trip stats:

We traveled 16,200 miles. We averaged 12 mpg.

Our highest fuel was in Ft. Nelson, Yukon Territory at $1.949 per liter ($7.76 gal.).

Our lowest fuel was on our way home in Hawley, Texas at $3.15 gal.

About 60% of our campsites had no utilities.  The Rambler by far was the best rig to make this type of trip in. We have put him up for sale as we want to go back to a small fifth wheel for our future trips.

Thank you for traveling with us! Until the next trip!

Ramblin' Around The Kenai - Fishing and Friends

I have been a little negligent in my writing.  Life gets busy and in the way. We are speeding our trip up back home. That dang hurricane Beryl. It's just hard to ask others to take care of your property. And the homeowner is the best person to lay eyes on everything. My daughter FaceTimed us so we could see the yard. It took my grandson several trailer loads of picking up limbs and sticks. But I think this is the only picture I was sent, everything else was video. My neighbors had a tree come through their garage and part of their house, so we were extremely lucky!

Just needs a little trimming and tlc.

So here we go.....We went through Anchorage on July 4. Had a great late breakfast at Gwinnie's. Reindeer sausage and eggs.  We found a spot at Bird Creek Campground, about 20 miles from Anchorage on the Turnigan Arm. 

Turnigan Arm

July 5 we weren't sure where we would land for the evening. But I said - let's try for Williwaw Forestry Service Campground and by a stroke of luck, we found a spot.  Chose the spot for 2 nights.  We love this beautiful campground. We have an awesome view of snow capped mountains.  There's a great walking trail, great visitor center. But it's cold and drizzling. The view from our back window is amazing! So now we're starting to watch Hurricane Beryl head toward our neck of the woods. Her path kept changing.  From our house to Sargent Beach is about 15 minutes. From our house to Freeport as the crow flies is about 20 miles. And I'll be danged if that is where she decided to travel.

It's so lush!

Great walking trail

The view from behind our campsite

July 6 we had thought about going to Whittier. But it's cold and raining.  The last time we went to Whittier it was cold and raining and we couldn't see much. So we decided to stay at the campsite and Ron made taco soup. We enjoyed a campfire under the awning. Keeping an eye on Hurricane Beryl. Thank you Starlink!

July 7 we decided to find a full hookup site so we could leave StarLink hooked up to monitor the hurricane better as it seemed it was coming towards our home. So here we are at Princess Lodge RV Park. Nothing to write home about this place. Got laundry done.  It's damp so your towels never dry. Cloudy and in the 50's. Beryl is headed for our house. Wish we were home.

Beautiful view of Turnigan Arm

July 8 we decided we needed another full hook up as Starlink can mess with your batteries and we needed to monitor the damage from the hurricane at home. Found a spot a Ninilchik at Alaskan Angler RV, and we monitored what was happening at home.  (Lots of wind damage, trees down, no electricity, etc.).

July 9 we weren't sure where to go so we just stayed in Ninilchik at Ninilchik View State Park. A very pretty site. 

Two juvenile eagles being taught how to catch fish

July 10 was a great day!  We met up with our blog friends, Jim and Barb Nelson. Now how do we know them? Well I started following Jim's blog JimandBarbsRVAdventures in 2016 when I was planning a trip to Alaska in 2017.  All good trip planners enjoy reading other RV posts especially when they are doing what we will be doing. We almost bought a truck camper from them as well, but there was just a little bit of miles involved. And in 2022 when we were doing our Maritimes Tour, they were as well but we never could connect. Anyway, they offered a great diversion from the issues at home. We met them down on the Homer Spit. We walked around the Homer Spit, the harbor and enjoyed a good drink at the Salty Dog Saloon where we put our dollar on the wall. There are so many dollars posted in the bar that it makes it dark and claustrophobic. (Every year they take the dollar bills off the wall and donate to charity.)  But we put up our dollar bills and enjoyed that cold drink.  Jim and Barb are really great people (they gave us 3 packages of salmon lol). After our visit, we found an awesome, beautiful spot at a Boondocker's Welcome called  Deep Creek. It was beautiful! Overlooks the Deep Creek river. Very peaceful. We're waiting to hear if we get to have our fishing charter in a few days as the weather is supposed to turn bad.

Homer Harbor

The lupines are big and gorgeous

He's taking a good nap with no care in the world!

Ron found a spot for our dollar bill at the Salty Dog!

Jim and Barb and us in front of the Salty Dog

July 11 we decided to stay one more day at this spot. It was that good!  They are trying to move our charter up, due to the weather. Jim and Barb came for mimosas and we enjoyed a great visit. And they brought gifts!  Packages of halibut and cod. I think they were concerned that we drove 11,000 miles and might not get to go on a charter. That's some great people!

Beautiful view from our free campsite

Enjoyed another great visit with these two!

July 12 I ended up sleeping with the phone close by in case we got a call that our charter was moved.  We got a call to see if we could come at noon today. It started raining when we left in the boat.  No problem. That's why we have rain gear and our Xtra Tuff rubber boots!  Our captain was a 22 year old girl, and she was awesome.  The deckhand was her uncle, who happened to own the boat. Lol!. J and J Smart Charters was great! We had time to do laundry before the charter. It's cold and a light rain. The charter was about 3 hours. I loved it because it was about 30 minutes out. They put us on the halibut, we caught our limit of fish quick, and then we were headed back. Ron sealed up 16 bags of halibut. We decided since we were going to start heading home we could just freeze it and save $400 in shipping. 

You get launched with a tractor

July 13 is raining, windy and cold! We got our fish situated and left about 9:30. We landed at Tolsona Wilderness Campground outside of Glenallen. The last time we were here it was a great spot. Not so much on a Saturday though lol. There's a lot going on here. They had a race event. Our check in was delayed because they were going to have a color explosion on the runners. Then all the sites were full of locals who were partying. And then these crazy people were floating in the glacial river until about 9 p.m. Oh my. This is also the day of Trump's assassination attempt. 

July 14 we got up early knowing we would be on the worst road of the trip and it would take time. From Tok, Alaska to Destruction Bay in the Yukon Territory it is full of bumps and frost heaves. We had rain between Glennallen and Tok. We stopped for fuel, water and food at Fast Eddy's in Tok. We kept going until we were tired. Easy border crossing. Found a nice spot at Lake Creek Yukon campground. The drive showed us a beautiful spot of fireweed everywhere.

Road hazard!

Border crossing!

July 15 we finished the rough drive to Destruction Bay. It was a beautiful drive! The fireweed in one spot was amazing! We stopped in Whitehorse for fuel and water. Landed at Teslin Lake Yukon Campground. We could kinda see the lake from our campground. Enjoyed a campfire.

Fields of fireweed!

July 16 was our longest drive ever on this trip. I even got to drive! After 9 hours, we landed at Testa River Regional Campground. We can hear the river, just can't see it. And...it's starting to get warmer. Gonna blacken us some of that halibut tonight!

July 17 we decided to head to Dawson City, better known as mile 0 of the Alaskan Highway. It was 547 km. So a long day! Stopped for fuel and a quick lunch at Ft. Nelson. OMG soo smoky. Hard to breathe. We stayed at Northern Lights RV Park in Dawson City, which was a great choice as there was a Fantasy RV Group there and we met up with friends Bill and Wendy Julien from our Maritimes Tour in 2022. We enjoyed a great visit with them! And,,,,the first time to see the moon and a little sunset in months.

Bill and Wendy Julien

July 18 found us looking forward to going to Edmonton, AB and meeting up with other friends from our Maritimes tour in 2022, Barry and Robin Wilkerson. They suggested a campground for us, came and picked us up and took us for a steak dinner! We came back to camp and enjoyed a night cap and a great visit.

Fields of canola in Alberta

First sunset in months

Robin and Ron

Barry Wilkerson

Meeting up with folks on your RV travels are the best.

Here are some quick stats:  In Alaska we traveled 2,164 miles.  We were only there a month, but it was a great month!  We so enjoyed the journey just getting there.  Now we are heading south as there is no place quite like home!