Alaska Loop 2011

The Alaska Loop covers an 8 week loop to Alaska  in Jul-Aug 2011. The first 11 days cover the trip from Nashville north across the Missouri, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon to Anacortes, WA.  We drove north on Vancouver Island to Port Hardy and took ferries to Haines Alaska arriving on Day 20. Our destination was Seward, AK which we reached on Day 24. The return trip took us around Alaska then back via the Alaska Highway, the Icefield Highway, Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota. We spent 5 days with friends and family in Minnesota and returned to our boat in Kentucky on Day 55.
Click here to start this trip from the beginning

August 31, 2011 Trip Wrap

56 days total

9,407  road  miles + 741 water miles = 10,148 Total

550 gal diesel

16.79  avg mpg

$2,404 fuel cost

$4.37 avg cost/gal

$3.66 – $7.40 price range per gal

$0.260 avg diesel cost per mile

Filled up with propane once

Generator was run for 4.6 hours

Alaska Ferry $$1,127 + BC Ferry $1,285 = $2,412

Ferry cost per mile = $3.26

Aug 25 Day 56, Thursday, Rend Lake, IL to Aurora, KY

Rend Lake Sunset from our Campsite

Whitehaven Welcome Center

This was our last day on the road. Tomorrow we will get the tires checked and a wash in Murray and put the View away in the storage shed. Tonight we are on the Katy Leigh for the first time since June. About the most interesting sight today on the road was the Kentucky Tourist Welcome Center in Paducah. In 1983 the state restored a beautiful old mansion, Whitehaven, beside I-24.  At one time it was owned and occupied by the mayor. It’s well worth a stop. Next week I’ll make one more post with the trip statistics.

Aug 24 Day 55, Wednesday, Carlock, IL to Rend Lake, IL

Campsite on Rend Lake

Tonight we are at the Wayne Fitzgerrell SP on Rend Lake. The park was highly recommended by our friends Doc & Eileen. Doc said to get site 36, 37 or 49. However, with the park practically empty we got site 45 on the lake (see photo) and with DirecTV access. This is the first really hot day in the high 90s on the entire trip so the AC will have to run all night.

Illinois 2nd Statehouse in Vandalia

We started our trip out on the Lincoln Highway and today on our last full day on the road we headed south on the Lincoln Heritage Trail, US 51. We stopped for lunch in the second capital of Illinois, Vandalia. (The first capital was at Kaskaskia until 1820 ). Lincoln first appeared as a representative in the Illinois State Legislature in 1834.. This new building was the statehouse from 1836 to 1839 when the capital moved to Lincoln’s home town, Springfield. We don’t know if the furnishings were the original.

House of Representatives - Lincoln sat here

Vandalia has more than one historic road. It is the HQ for the Historic National Road, US 40 which was built by the Federal Government starting in 1806 to enable development of the west. The road was corduroy and designed for Conestoga Wagons. I-70 pretty much follows the route from Baltimore to St Louis. The road ran through the capital cities at the time of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

Aug 23 Tue, Iowa City, IA to Carlock, IL

Colony Campground, Iowa City

We really liked the Colony Campground last night near Iowa City. It was well off the Interstate and close to the Hoover Presidential Library, Museum, and Birthplace. I chose the Kamp Komfort at Carlock for tonight because on the map it looked like it was well off the Interstate. It was a couple of miles from the interchange but turned out to be squashed between the Interstate and a railroad track.

 

Hoover Birthplace

We spent the morning with President Hoover in West Branch Iowa where he was born in a tiny house in 1874. He was orphaned at 10 and raised by relatives in Iowa and Oregon. He studied mining engineering at Stamford and got a job with a gold mining company in Australia. He soon found a rich seam and made a lot of money there and later with his mining consulting business. In WWI he gave up engineering and help figure out how to feed millions of starving children and families in Europe. Entering politics as Secretary of Commerce in 1921 he introduced regulation of such mundane but common items as tires. He was elected President by a landslide in 1928 but soon became the scapegoat for the market crash and depression and lost to FDR in 1932. Hoover never retired and wrote books in his Waldorf Astoria suite until he died at 90 in 1964. Speeches he gave in the 30’s could have been given today. Little has changed in government.

Fly Fishing Exhibit

Presidential Library & Museum

Aug 22 Mon, Woodbury to Iowa City, IA

Minnesota Corn Field

Spring Valley 1876 Methodist Church

There is not a whole lot to write about when all you can see for 260 miles is corn fields and soy beans as you cross Southern Minnesota and a good part of Iowa. However, in the tiny town of Spring Valley, MN I spotted a sign about an historic site involving Laura Ingalls Wilder, the author of the Little House on the Prairie series of books. About 17 months ago coming east across Missouri, we saw a similar sign in Mansfield. You can see the blog story here. This time we were in a town where Laura’s husband, Almanzo, grew up. The Wilder family bought farm land here and donated money to build the church. Laura and Almanzo lived with his parents in Spring Valley from May 1890 to October 1891 while recovering from diphtheria. Records show they attended this church. Once again I have been inspired to read one of Laura’s books. I hope they are on Kindle.

Iowa River at Cedar Rapids

Aug 18-21 Wed-Sun, Brainerd & Woodbury, MN

Relaxing Deck on the Log House near Brainerd

Mavis' Egg's Florentine at Perkin's Sunday

We have been staying with friends and family so there are not a lot of items of general interest for the blog; just lots of food, fun, and renewing relationships. In Brainerd, Gary had bought a new Ford Edge with all the “stuff”. The crossover SUV is gorgeous inside and out and Gary loves the car except for one thing. Who at Ford in his right mind decided a joint project with Microsoft, Sony and Ford could produce a better radio, CD player, satellite receiver, temperature control, GPS, and lord knows what else into one integrated system. I learned years ago that integrated systems like this one often do nothing really well. We tried to integrate a phone with a computer at Nortel and it was a disaster. Well the Sync system is also a disaster. For example, every time you turn it on, it decides at random what settings to use. If you were previously listening to your iPod, when you restart, it forgets where your iPod was and starts up with a random satellite channel. You have to start all over again selecting what you want to hear. At times a big red warning is displayed saying the iPod has disconnected even though it continues working just fine. After shopping for groceries, when Gary started the engine the entire system locked up. Nothing would work at all; no radio, no AC, no GPS, no cell phone, or anything else. A week or so ago he had the same problem, took it into the dealer, and had to wait 3 hours while the firmware was upgraded to the latest issue. We drove over to the Brainerd dealer and as soon as we got inside, the unit started up. The service advisor said there have been a number of problems with the Sync and Ford is working on it. This has to be an all time understatement as the system has been around for at least a year.

Big Time Toy's Sea Monkeys

Growing up as a kid I was always interested in the comic book ads for the Sea Monkeys. A Nashville friend of mine’s toy company now owns the rights to the Sea Monkey business, so I bought a kit for my grandson when I spotted it at Walmart. It was in the kitchen window and there they were happily swimming around in their little tank. (see photo above).

Tomorrow we start a 4 day trip to Murray KY where we will put the View away and spend the weekend on the Katy Leigh on Kentucky Lake.

Aug 17 Day 47 Tuesday Casselton, ND to Brainerd, MN

Downtown Fargo

Burlington Northern Train Station Converted to Parks Dept & Senior Center

We spent the morning in Fargo, ND walking around downtown and then I went to the Radisson Hotel for the Fargo Rotary Club. Some members were impressed that we had come from Alaska and one wondered why we stopped in Fargo. When I said it was on the way and I had always wanted to visit after seeing the movie, Fargo. I learned that not a single frame of that movie was filmed in Fargo. The speaker was a state representative who has decided to retire and reported on what had been done in the last legislature. The major issue seemed to be funding the universities and the large number of universities in the state. She said like Tennessee they need to focus on paying for numbers of graduates not number of students. The smaller institutions should be left on their own to set their own fees. She also thought the state should invest in elearning and spend less on building facilities.. It was music to my ears. We drove about 130 miles from Fargo to Brainerd where we are staying with friends Gary and Susan. Gary and I worked together at Nortel in Minneapolis. Both of us left around the same time to start our own businesses.

Fargo Rotary Club Meeting

Aug 16 Day 46 Tuesday Minot, Casselton, ND

Flooding at Minot beside US52

Carrington, ND Home

The route today took us southeast on US 53 to I-94. We stopped at Casselton about 20 miles west of Fargo. We took only 28 photos, the lowest number yet for a whole day. Leaving Minot the flood waters still remain in the fields. We went buy the KOA and it must have been under a lot of water. We had to go out of our way to go through a number of beautiful old farm towns because US52 bypasses them. The home photo was taken in Carrington, ND. The wind was very strong today and as there were lots of clouds’ shadows crossing road we were able to measure the wind speed at the clouds altitude.  We clocked the shadows moving at 45 mph.

Measuring Windspeed at Cloud Level

The fields most of the way were covered with sun flowers and wheat. Only when we hit I-94 did we start to see corn. Now there were billboards that said “Be an American – Use Ethanol”, and “Ethanol Starts Easy”.  It’s hard to believe the stuff on  billboards today.

Aug 15 Day 45 Monday Glasgow to Minot, ND

Storm over Canada

Last evening there were some big thunderstorms over Northern Montana and Southern Saskatchewan. From our campsite 55 miles south of the boarder the clouds were spectacular.

 

 

Fort Peck Lake & Dam

Fort Peck Dam Spillway

Since we lost an hour today we were up early and out at 7:00AM to see the Fort Peck Lake and Dam. The dam on the Missouri River is 21,026 feet long and over 250 feet high. It is the largest hydraulically filled dam in the US and the fifth largest man-made lake in the U.S., The lake is more than 130 miles long, 200 feet deep, and it has a 1,520-mile shoreline which is longer than the state of California’s coastline. The shore line at the dam looks a lot like the California Pacific coast; strange in the middle of the prairies.

 

Stanley Lodge

Crossing into North Dakota the place is booming with oil activity. Traffic is heavy and we passed a number of “lodges”. These are mobile villages rented out to the oil workers. The Stanley Lodge at Stanley, ND boasts comfortable rooms with housekeeping, kitchen, laundry, and Internet. We also noted that North Dakota is not very tourist friendly. In over 100 miles of 70 mph highway there was not a single rest stop let alone somewhere to pull over and stop. At Minot we learned the KOA was closed until 2012 due to the flood. Other RV parks said they were full, but we did get a site at one that was not even in the directory. They said due to the flood they now only rent by the month, but as someone left this morning, I was able to get that site.