7/27/1991 - Saturday

John:  We headed out about 8AM and got into Yellowstone in about 5 to 10 minutes.  We snarfed on a camp spot ASAP.  We then drove 114 miles within the park.  We did “the longer loop”.  We decided not to go to the Northern Loop as there isn’t that much up there.  We saw all the Yellowstone features... such as Yellowstone River and a lot of the spectacular waterfalls, the many hot geysers, mud pots, Yellowstone Lake, and saw Old Faithful blow up twice.  We stopped at a visitors center and listened to a park ranger give a talk about Yellowstone’s wildlife.    We then viewed a video about the 1988 Yellowstone Fire.  You can’t believe how many acres or should I say miles & miles of burnt forest there is.  What a waste.  It’s really sickening.  In our travels, we ran into several bison jams, saw elk, deer, bald eagles, pelicans, and a marmot.

ODOM: 31303

Summary:  After six weeks, we’ve spent a total of $3590 cash, plus 550.78 on gas credit cards for a grand total spent of $4141.  Total miles driven = 7441

Deer among Yellowstone's burned trees

Large Mud Pot

Upper Yellowstone Falls

Upper Yellowstone Falls

Bison Jam

Bison

Pelican

Butterfly

Indian Pond Lilies

Indian Pond Lily Closeup

Karen, Kari & Susan at a small waterfall

John, Susan & Kari in front of a geothermal feature

Bubbling Mud Pot

Susan & Kari in front of a geyser

Susan & Kari in front of the burned forest

Grand Prismatic Spring

Road through the burned forest

Blue Star Spring

Susan & Kari pose in front of Old Faithful

Old Faithful

Very clear hot spring water

Old Faithful

Susan & Kari in front of the second eruption of Old Faithful

7/20/1991 - Saturday

John:  The day started off being rainy, but cleared up by noon.  we went to the Columbia Icefields.  You go out on them on these monster six wheel drive snow mobile coaches.  They cost $375,000 each... they have 12 of them.  The ice fields (glacier) were huge... and cold.  The glacial ice is approximately 1200 feet thick.  The glacier deposits about 550 tons of silt and rock debris at the “toe” of the glacier.  The twelve tallest mountains in the Canadian Rockies are in this area.  It makes up a “Tri-Continental Divide”... which means the glacial ice melt flows into three different oceans... the Arctic, Pacific or the Atlantic oceans, depending which way the water goes.  There’s only one other place in the world that this happens... in Siberia some place.  Susan and I took a drink directly from a glacial stream.  The water is 99.9% pure!  They test it all the time and have never found anything in the water.  It was good and cold!!  That water came from ice probably 400 years old or older!!  The glacier was really something!  We then hit the road and headed for Banff... Went by some more great scenery, fantastic rivers and lakes, and more glaciers.  We also stopped to photograph a big horn sheep... more great pics I hope.  We also saw a coyote and a deer.  We visited Lake Louise (was pretty), then got a camp spot at “Protection Mountain” campground in Banff Nat’l Park.  We drove 99 miles today.

ODOM:  30346

Summary:  After five weeks we have spent a total of $2935 cash, plus $455 on gas credit cards... for a grand total spent of $3390.  The total mileage driven = 6484 miles.

Big Horn Sheep

Big Horn Sheep

Susan & Kari on the Athabasca Glacier

Kari, Karen & Susan in front of one of the monster snow mobile coaches

Glacier

Another Glacier

A tiny kid near the huge snow mobile coach

One of the old, retired snow mobile coaches

Susan, Kari & Karen in front of a Glacier

Glacier & scenery

7/13/1991 - Saturday

John:  We headed out towards Teslin Lake.  The idea was to find somewhere to try and fish at... Although the fishing was supposed to be great there, we really needed a boat to do it.  So we decided to kiss it off and head on down the road.  We got to Watson Lake.  At the visitors center is where “the sign forest” is... the Sign Forest is poles & poles of signs to people’s home towns.  It all started 50 years ago when they were first building the Alaska Highway.  One of the workers was lonesome for home, so he made himself a sign of his hometown with the number of miles to his hometown and stuck it on a post.  Then other workers started adding to it... and now there’s tens of thousands of signs with the name of people's home towns on them.  Soooooo, not to feel left out, I searched for a piece of wood to make a sign... I found an old piece of 1x4... I cut it in half, sanded it, and wrote our sign with a permanent marker I brought along.  I put Conifer, CO across the top and we all signed the bottom... also put the date on it.  The hardest part was finding a vacant spot to hang it up.  In our search for a spot, Karen spied another Conifer, Colo sign!!  I couldn't believe it... I’ll have to call “Nelson” when we get back and tell them we saw their sign.  Well, we found a spot and I nailed it up there... we got someone to take our family portrait by “our sign”... so now there’s tens of thousands and one signs there now.  What a trip!!  (People sure go crazy over their hometowns... me too!!)  It was getting late now, we were all starving, so we gassed up the truck and found a nice restaurant across the street.  We got the buffets for 11.95, all you can eat, the kids wanted salads - the buffets were salads, chicken, spaghetti, and roast beef, and cake.  We stuffed ourselves.  I also bought license plates from the Yukon and Northwest Territories (shaped like a bear)  The camping around here didn't turn us on, so seeing as we were half way recharged, decided to hit the road.  We figured we would just find a “pull out” (free-be) somewhere in the middle of nowhere... but, when we were getting tired, we were in the middle of a burnt out forest from the second largest forest fire of 1982 in the Yukon... so we kept on truckin'.  The road was terrible for around 150 miles (all gravel)... so it was slow going.  One stretch of road had new loose gravel on it, but was so loose, that big semi trucks going the other way made deep ruts in the road.  After a while somebody called me up on the CB and it was a trucker going our way who was behind me.  He must’ve wanted to talk to someone, so when I answered him back, we talked quite a bit... (which was helpful, as he knew the road conditions very good)... We kind of decided to keep on going until we got to the Liard River Hot Springs Campground.  We pulled in at around 10:30 PM.  The campground was full (no surprise), so we just camped in a wide spot by the road right in front of the campground... (so did 12-15 other campers).  Slept in a coma all night.).  We drive 402 miles despite the crappy road... and more mud on the truck.  We got another bird.

ODOM:  29120

Notes: After four weeks, we have spent a total of $2185 cash, plus $455 on gas credit cards... for a grand total spent of $2639.  The total miles driven = 5258.

Kari & Susan 

L & E Nelson - Conifer, CO

Karen, Susan, John & Kari under the Puskas family sign.

Closeup of the Puskas family sign.

Kari & Susan under the Puskas family sign.

7/6/1991 - Saturday

John:  An almost no drive day today... just 20 miles going to the train depot and back... of course ten miles of that was driving around lost!  They sure screwed up by calling their streets by three different names, they are all one way (the wrong way), and the maps don’t really reflect what the roads are really doing... Other than that, Anchorage is very pretty.  It’s surrounded by big mountains and have bore tide (2nd largest in the world).  A bore tide is one that a lot of water goes into a restricted inlet.  This creates a wall of water when the tides come in (sometimes 20-40 feet high!).  We did not see this phenomenon occur due to timing.  (It came in around 1-2 am!).  Anyway, we got up at 4:45 am to catch the train.  It was easy, as I was awake since 2AM.  After heading out in the wrong direction and getting lost in the train yard, we finally found the depot.  The train was actually a diesel rail car, which is a self propelled train car.  (There were two of these hooked up together.)  The train was pretty full.  The scenery was fantastic along the way.  The engineer was great, he stopped the train at all the scenic spots for picture taking, and also stopped the train whenever dall sheep, moose or bears were spotted.  The kids and I rode up in the front of the train half there and all the way back.  The engineer let the kids blow the whistle at all the remote crossings.  We saw many moose (with babies), and two black bears... (one cub and one quite large black bear a few miles away.)  I hope my pictures come out.  We also stopped by three different glaciers... some probably 200-300 feet thick.  We saw more moose and bears from the train than on the tour bus in Denali Nat’l Park.  It was great that the engineer stopped the train when critters were spotted.  The trip took 4 hours to get to Seward.  We ate our sack lunch on the train, so when we got to Seward we were ready to explore.  We hiked into “down town” Seward (about 10 blocks).  We went to the Seward Museum and a few gift shops.  We walked back to the docks and watched people have their pictures taken with their halibuts they caught on their fishing trips.  Also watched the fishing boat crews fillet those fish.  They throw the fish carcasses to the sea gulls.  Susan & I went aboard a US Coast Guard ship and got the VIP tour.  Nice boat!  It’s a 110 foot long with a crew of 18 men.  We ate supper at Ray's right on the shore.  We caught the train back after the engineer bought the kids and me ice cream cones!  The Alaska Rail Road really takes care of their customers!  We were exhausted by the time we found our way back to our campground.  We left the bunks set up so we could just crash when we got back... but when we got back, someone else snarfed our camp spot!  We drove around the joint and parked on the black top very near where our spot was.  We all slept like dead people and slept in in the morning.

ODOM:  27837

Kari:  We saw tons of moose and some bears.  The engineer let Susan and I toot the horn.  When we were on the dock, we saw a big fish with eye balls sticking straight out.  (A rock fish or red snapper fish).  The train ride was very fun and neat.

Notes:  It was still very light outside at midnight... it’s pretty weird not getting dark at night.  After three weeks, we have spent a total of $1530 cash, plus $455 on gas credit cards total... for a grand total spent of $1985.00.  Total miles driven = 3975

Susan & Kari on the train.

Glacier seen from the train.

Stream seen from the train.

Moose crossing the tracks.

Kari & Susan with the train engineer.

Karen, Kari, Susan & the Train Engineer.

Susan & Kari in Seward, AK.

US Coast Guard ship we toured.

Moose on the loose!

6/29/1991 - Saturday

John:  Today we drove to Fairbanks...  A total of 269 miles.  The Alaskan Highway was pretty good today, only a couple bad spots.  We viewed the Alaskan Pipeline for the first time.  We met Peter & Betty (from the ferry) in Tok.  They were also headed to Fairbanks.  I found out from Peter that the ‘miniature forest’ is caused by the permafrost... seems like the trees have very shallow root systems and don’t develop like normal.  We caught up on our laundry today at the campground - the campground has all the facilities but the spot is pretty basic.  We saw our first moose today!  It sure is weird having daylight for 24 hours... last night Karen or I woke up nearly every hour and it never got dark!  The local birds must have it figured out, although at 3:30 AM last night one bird was singing it’s morning song,  The roof carrier is disintegrating each day.  I hope it holds together till it’s empty.  I may need to duct tape the whole thing to help hold it together.

ODOM:  27225

Kari:  We saw a big fat moose on the loose finally!  We saw another brown bunny.  We fed some chickens at the campground.

SUMMARY: After two weeks, we have spent a total of $961 cash, plus 343 on gas credit cards total.  It’s very warm & sunny today.  It’s after 10PM and the sun is still 2-3 inches over the horizon!  Pretty weird!  Total miles driven = 3363.

Alaskan Pipeline

Kari, John & Susan in Tok, Alaska

6/22/1991 - Saturday

John:  We drove 376 miles today - it was sunny & beautiful all day on the road - scenery still good - guy I talked to at camp says the scenery from here to Prince Rupert is excellent.  It seems to take longer to travel here, as we average 50-55 MPH... we still haven’t figured out liters and kilometers... what a drag.  We have beautiful snow capped mountains around us at this campground.  There’s 3 other campers here... sure nice campgrounds so far, not crowded, and quite cheap - I found a Home Hardware Store & bought 2 older banks.

ODOM:  26292

NOTE:  After one week we’ve spent just under $400.00 plus about 340 on gas cr. cards.  We’ve killed about 29 billion bugs on the truck’s rock screen so far.  Total miles 2430.  Also the days are getting a lot longer - some Indians run & own this campground and they say the sun goes down about 10:30 & starts coming up around 3:30!  This will get weirder up in Alaska...