Halibut & Mac n Cheese

Hi all,

We have been having a relaxing couple of days. With few things thrown in. Alex decided to make himself some mac and cheese in the microwave. Unfortunately, he forgot to add water. Burned macaroni smells really bad. The whole rv filled with smoke and we had to open the windows for quite a while.

On the other hand, the beach has been beautiful we have seen up to five bald eagles on the beach at one time. also we done some fishing for king salmon but have been unsuccessful.

Today, Alex and I went halibut fishing. the limit is 2, however, only one can be over 29 inches. Alex caught his first over fairly quickly. I caught my over at 43 inches. A short time later, I hooked a really large halibut that was over 50 pounds. however we did not bring him on the boat as it was too big. I caught my under a short time later and then Alex caught a large halibut that he had to release since he had his over also. Also caught several cod on the light tackle which the boat crew was happy to keep for bait.

In the end, after the three fish were cleaned we had 27 pounds of halibut meat.

Today, we will be heading to Lake Kenai  for some camping and trout fishing.

breakfast  at boardwalk bakery

looking back at Homer...there was supposed  to be storm, so we only went out 9 miles

Alex catching cod 2 at a time

The final count

Today, we are raiding Safeway in Homer and Lucy has a hair appointment.   Then it is off to Kenai  lake.

Good travels, 

Gordon

Homer,Alaska

Hi all,

Yesterday we drove to Portage Lake and after a brief hike we drove down to Homer. We are currently staying on the Homer Spit at the Heritage RV park. It is very beautiful here. Bald eagles have been landing on the beach in front of us. Leia chased a few eagles and seagulls.  We have seen sea otters and seals and people catching salmon. We are looking forward to having a great stay here.

View from Gulliver

Good travels,

Gordon

Alyeska ski resort

Hi all,

A few days ago, we drove with Beth and Mike to Alyeska resort.  It was a beautiful drive getting there.  The resort is about 45 minutes south of Anchorage.  Everyone but Lucy took the tram to the top. Lucy decided to walk with Leia to the top.

The view from the top was awesome. We hiked to a small glacier and the kids played in the snow.  Then we went down and had dinner at Chair 5.  That was great also.

Lucy and Leia had their own adventure, running into a couple of black bears!  They did not make it to the top of the mountain but she saw bears sitting on top of cars

Good travels,
Gordon

Gulliver spa day

Hi all,

We spent today relaxing.  We  washed Gulliver (thanks to Mike and his power washer) and I lubed her slide outs.  Jeremiah came by and said hello.

Tomorrow we are going to Alyeska resort and riding the tram to the top...At least that's plan a.

Good travels,

Gordon

Jeremiah and Lucy

Hatcher’s pass

Hi all,

Today, Beth, Jennifer and the family all hopped in Gulliver and we drove to Hatchers pass. It was a beautiful drive into the mountains with a mountain stream flowing just next to the highway.  At the end of the road was the independence mine. It was a gold mine and ran until 1951. It was shut down after that it was let go to ruin.  now there is a nice park there was some great hiking trails.

 At the end of the road is the Independence  Mine

Lucy, Beth and Jennifer in Gulliver

tomorrow, we are going to sit around all day and do nothing. it will be nice just to have a nice relaxing day without driving somewhere.

Good travels all,

Gordon

Fires and pictures

Hi all,
Writing a blog on a phone is proving to be challenging. So I will keep this short. We spent two days at byers lake. We kayaked and fished.  No fish but we had fun. We spent one night as an RV park at Montana creek. There was a big fire in Willow which closed the Parks highway. The family running the RV park had to leave when they learned of a fire near their house. I later heardthat a helicopter and plane dropped water and put the small fire out. Unfortunately, Willows was declared a disaster area.

The highway reopened andwe  were able to drive to Wasilla to Beth and Mikes house and have dinner. Becky and Wayne came over to say hello as well.
So that is a quick synopsis of what's going on.  Below are some pictures from the trip.

Fishing and relaxing

hi all,

we made it to byers Lake, in Denali State Park yesterday. Must have put in the GPS coordinates wrong because we overshot by 20 miles and had to turn back. still that is not much of a setback.

took the time to figure out how to access the blog from my phone so will try to upload a couple of pictures.

below, is a picture of Alex and Evan at the ice Museum in Fairbanks.

Fairbanks had one of the best visitor centers I have ever seen. You have a nice museum with some great exhibits and the inside Plus the Park Service is located inside so you could ask questions. Below is a picture of Devon and Alex in front of the visitor center.

we are going to spend another two days here at Byers Lake. My sister Beth in Wasilla informed me that there is a 40 mile stretch of freeway closed between our location in Wasilla due to a wildfire.

since there is no other way around to Wasilla, we will have to wait for the road to open before we can get there. Darn another few days of having to fish and kayak in the lake. Pictures to follow.

Good travels,

Gordon

No pictures this time

Hi all,

We made it to Liard hot springs. this is a provincial park it is very nice we had a private campsite. The hot springs for awesome. The kids spent  all day playing in them. Lucy will post the pictures when she can. We are having trouble uploading pictures do to slow wifi at r_v parks.

we spent last night at the discovery yukon r_v park on the White River. it was army base number 3 when army was building the alcan during world war 2. It has some old world war 2 vehicles and a landing strip which is still used.

Crossed into Alaska this morning, June 12th. we had no problems but we did have to show leias rabies certificate. we drove to fairbanks. We will be spending two nights here.  We have around 2600 road miles on Gulliver. And are getting just over 6 mpg.gas prices in the yukon were very high. 1 dollar 29 and more per liter at some gas stations. For those interested, there are 3.79 liters per u.s. gallon.

Day after tomorrow, we will head to Denali  state park and stay for two days.

take care all, good travel,

Gordon

In the middle of.....

Hi all,

Well the crossing at Sumas was easy.  It must have been our honest faces! We drove to Hells gate. But the tram was $22 to ride per person. Being that it was only a 500 foot ride down we decided to skip it and save our Canadian money.

So we have been doing a lot driving. Last night we boondocked at a rest stop near Quesenol, called Hush Lake. Then we drove to Prince George to fuel up at Costco. IMPORTANT point here!  Canadian Costco's don't accept  American Express or Visa. Then we drove to Dawson Creek and are spending the night here tonight.  Tomorrow, drive 9 hours

Selfie

A picture of Lucy... or at least her hand!

Some confusion,  posted this under an old blog name.  Hopefully, it's gone now...but I thought it was gone before.

Good travels all

Gordon

RV Tour

Smokey Rest Stop Washington

June 6th, 2015 we started out again.  Just before leaving Gordon surprised me with a basket of Godiva chocolates to celebrate our 17 year anniversary (Gordon got his anniversary gift before we left)!

We filled our gas tank at Marysville Washington.

We stopped at Bellingham Washington where we exchanged US currency for Canadian currency.



Anniversary gift from Gordon at the Smokey Rest Stop Washington.  Look how big, green and clean the rest stop is.  Happy Anniversary!

Lucy's first post

On June 5th, 2015 at approximately 10:00 a.m. we left our home for our Alaska adventure.  Our first stop was the Jelly Belly store.  We picked up some gifts for family we plan to visit in Alaska.  

Medford Oregon was our first stop at Costco for gas.

We drove and drove till 12:45 a.m..  We spent the night at Smokey Rest Stop in Washington.  The rest stop was clean, big, green, large trees, and free coffee provided by a volunteer group.  They had a free RV dump station and water refill.

Almost ready to go....

Hi all,

Well, we started loading Gulliver and cleaning the house at the same time.  It made for a long day!  We are just about all loaded up and will be heading out tomorrow. Not sure if it will the 9am start time I was hoping for but it will be in the morning.

So I promised earlier to show a video of the inside of Gulliver.  Being that it is late and I've been loading for several hours, it is a short video. It is surprising how much stuff that we are trying to load.  Five people for 8 weeks means a lot of clothes and stuff.  Being new to long term RVing, we are probably over packing but better to have it and not need it....etc.

Wow, learn something new everyday.  This blog site only allows 100mb videos.  So, I had to trim down the video I was going to upload.  Because, really, I am too tired to go shoot another one!  So it will start in the middle of the video, sorry about that.

Well, that is it for tonight.

Good Night and safe travels,

Gordon