North Dakota

Generally I've had nothing positive to say about North Dakota but I may be changing my mind. 

We spent several days in Minot doing laundry, grocery shopping and waiting for our mail.  We also went to the North Dakota State Fair.  It was a nice fair with racing pigs, strangely dressed sheep..

 and a very nice BBQ for the military.

And to be honest, the local mall has a Barnes & Nobles, a JC Penney and a Hobby Lobby so I guess I could live there - if I had to - still mighty cold in winter.

We're now spending a few days at Lake Sakakawea bfore going to Medora.  The campground is lovely and our site is not far off the lake.  We had drinks this afternoon at a local marina.

As you can see, Belle enjoyed it too.

'Toon town

We've driven past Saskatoon at least three times before we decided to stop off and spend some time there.  It was a nice weekend. 

Friday night we ate dinner at Saskatoon Station Place, a classy Victorian themed restaurant that served good food in large portions.  We ate the leftovers for lunch on Sunday.

On Saturday we went to the Farmer's Market and then watched the dragon boat races on the Saskatoon river.

In the afternoon we drove to Wanuskewin (http://www.wanuskewin.com/) Heritage Park devoted to the history and culture of the Cree First Nations people of Canada.  We helped raise a tipi and walked out to see the northernmost medicine circle in North America.  Archeologists still don't know the purpose of medicine circles but think they may have some relation to the seasons and the movement of the stars - maybe similar to Chimney Rock out in Chaco Canyon, CO.

The restaurant served First Nations cooking.  We had a bison wrap, honeyed chicken and three sisters soup made with beans, corn and squash -the three sisters.

The Aluminum revealed

Since we are officially heading home and are off the Alaska Hwy  and in Edmonton heading to Saskatoon Mark decided to remove the coverings of the camper that made it look like an aluminum armadillo.  First off, take a look at how badly the coverings were messed up by the bad roads...

All those pockmarks are stones that slapped into us.  Anyhow, Mark gently undid all the gorilla and 100 mph tape to reveal mainly dirt that could easily be washed and buffed away.

It worked!

Heading back on the Alaska Highway

We're officially on our way home now, heading south and east.  We should be off the actual highway itself in a day or two.

Around Muncho Lake we saw large groups of bison of many ages - whole family groups I imagine.  Aren't the babies cute - for a buffalo -

Skagway, Haines and a few other things...

Yesterday we drove from the cold air but bright sun of Whitehorse into the cloudy, windy drizzly  and even colder air of Skagway, AK.  Undaunted, I donned a long sleeved shirt, a fleece shirt, a down vest and a hooded jacket, packed my ear warmers and gloves and embarked, with Mark of course, for the FastFerry between Skagway and Haines.

After almost getting blown away while taking photos on the ferry, we landed at Haines.

The main attraction there, for us at least, was the Hammer Museum - yes, really, thousands of hammers on display.  It was very disappointing that the real Hammers of NY did not get a discount of admission.

Today I left off the fleece shirt was went went on a lovely drive and hike to Dyea, a ghost town that is - currently a Nationall Park Historic site but was once a thriving gold rush community.

It was one of the first times I remember seeing large open meadows.

Dinner was at the 'Northern Lights Pizzaria, specializing in Mexican and Chinese food' in town.  Actually, good pizza.  We also visited several shops specializing in Alaskan art and a store that was selling a quivit stole in georgeous purple for $800+

And what's really great is that we don't know where we'll be tomorrow!

More quviuq

Today we went to the Knit Now yarn store in Whitehorse and I got some more quviut - that's the musk ox yarn. I got some in a blue colorway( a blend with wool and silk) and a natural brown color that is 100% quviuq.

I had also read that this store had yarn spun from dog fur.  Unfortunately they had none at the time, but there were certain spinners that did it for them.  Most come from long haired breeds because the undercoat hairs had to be at least one inch long for spinning.  I think Belle is safe:)

Horrible road to Kluane Lake

Yesterday we went from Tok, AK across the border into the Yukon and over the worst part of the Alaska Hwy.  It truly is bad with frost heaves, large portions of loose gravel and TONS of dust all over.

After braving that we pulled into the lovely Cottonwood RV park right on Kluane Lake.  It would have been great to sit outside and look at the lake but the wind was wild with whitecaps all over the lake, and it was definitely cold.  Mark clocked the wind at 27 mph

Nonetheless I did take some pictures -

See the mist coming up from the water?

We saw the mountains!

As we drove down the Alaska Highway from Fairbanks we were greeted by several wonderful views of the mountains of the Alaska range.   One is called Deborah.  We figure that this is a good omen and bodes well for our trip home.

Denali - the Great One.

Sunrise? Sunset?

I know it's a lousy picture but I think it makes the point -

Actually, I think it is sunrise which was at approx. 3:30 AM today.  The sun set as 12:30 AM.

Anyhow, this is a picture of the sky at 2:30 AM this past morning.

A few flowers

We're spending the next day or two in Fairbanks attending to relatively boring things like laundry, mail, etc.  so I thought I'd just show some of the beautiful wildflowers that we've seen on the trip.

I had started out wanting to photograph birds but they were too quick for me:)  The flowers, at least, don't move most of the time.

This is a subalpine buttercup

Bluebell

? - but it's pretty

Diapensia

If I've made mistakes and anyone knows the correct names of these blooms, please let me know.

Into Denali

The last few days were spent camping at the Teklanika campground in Denali, completely cut off from the world eg. tv, radio, cell service, internet - even time if you don't wear a watch - since the sun sets after midnight and rises again around 3:30 am.  What you have in between is called "nautical twilight" and it is more than bright enough to get almost anything done.

Coming into the park on Thursday the weather was beautiful and we took an afternoon bus to Igloo lake for a short hike.

Then we attended a ranger program on moose with Belle.

Friday was our day on the bus.  The seats are still to small for a normal human backside!

We got up to Eielson Visitor Center at mile 66 when the day turned cloudy and cold.  After a short walk and  a visit with the local squirrels...

...who we understand are becoming a menace to society...

we headed back.  Friday night and Saturday were cold and raining with temperatures probably not getting out of the 50's and going down into the 40's at night.  We did manage a walk in the rain and attened the ranger program on Saturday night - it was held in the bus shelter.

July 4th started out rainy but cleared up by the afternoon.  Before our patriotic dinner of hamburgers, hot dogs (Hebrew National - straight from NY) and baked beans, we took a walk on the Teklanika river bed that was right behind our campsite.

This incredible sunset ended our glorious 4th.

I still can't believe I shot this right through the window of the camper about 11:30 last night.