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| The sea ice I said good by to on May 21st! Yahooo let the migration begin! |
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| If you are a smoker this is your lovely smoking area outside the waiting room in Unalakleet. |
Once the school year is done, we head south to a land full of green trees, colorful flowers, lakes, mountains, family and friends. This year we drove back down and had a great trip. The drive from Anchorage to Whitefish is 2,376 miles The driving overall was easy and relaxing, the camping was great with out many campers, and the four hot springs we visited were very relaxing. The drive took us 9 days and we obviously were not in a hurry we aim for about 300-350 miles a day. Traveling with "The Girls" we need to stop and let them stretch out their legs as well.
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| "The Girls" traveling in the luxury of the back seat. |
A note on camping since we are still tent campers: in several camp grounds hardly anyone is outside next to their fire pits. They are in their RVs. So my question is this: Is there Wii camping? You know you split wood, make a fire, run from smoke, swat bugs, run to the outhouse, set up your tent . . . a sad statement I think. To go camping and then spend all your time in your RV! It makes for nice quiet camping for us tent folks!
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| Camping at the Columbia Ice Fields an area I really love full of long ago climbing memories. | | | | |
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| Our tent which we love is made by Mountian HardWear. Our first new tent in about 15 years. |
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| That sign says "1982" as that is where the ice/glacier was then. I was there climbing in 1983 and 1984. I would have been putting on my crampons at this site and heading up the glacier. |
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| Nice glacier striations on the rock. |
We of course have a good selection of photos but here are a smattering of our trip south. As we drove south we would be in places with green leaves on trees and others with no leaves at all yet due to elevation mostly. The drive down through the Yukon and British Columbia is spectacular.
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| Tally enjoying a cold swim after the ever popular stick! |
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| Pretty Sadie! |
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| Christian enjoying a photography break. Many of the lakes we went by where still frozen. |
Animal Sighting List:
Wood Bison-you see these in southern Yukon northern BC and they are HUGE!
Black Bear-way to many to count we gave up
Grizzly Bear-one
Dale Sheep-several
Caribou-a handful
Elk-a few
Moose-a few
Stone Sheep-several
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| That is a Stone Sheep. |
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| We bought this great tarp at REI and it is perfect! Fits nicely over the back end of our 4-Runner and if needed we can get our tent opening under it to have dry cooking. |
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| One of our many camp sites. |
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| Relaxing in the morning sun before the day of driving starts. |
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| Nothing like a nice tail rub! |
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| Morning dew . . . |
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| Spruce Grove Camp Ground is a nice privately owned campground in Fairmont, BC. We bought some firewood and in the bag was kindling wrapped up in newspaper---what a nice touch! | | | |
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| At last we arrive home to Whitefish and can enjoy our break nothing like summer time true bliss! |
