June 4th, Saturday 57 degrees, partly sunny Sourdough Campground, Tok starting mileage 9027 Drove a couple miles or so, back into town to fill up the gas tank and buy some groceries. I also wanted to check out a shop that had advertised that they sold only Alaskan made items and was an outlet for the nearby Athabascan Indian reservation. Got gas at $4.29 a gal took 17 gals and mileage at 9030. Went by the local, one and only, grocery store and bought just a couple of items as prices were higher than high, and felt we could hold out until we got to Anchorage. Tok is a major intersection of 2 highways. We left the Alaskan Highway and started down the Tok cut off toward the Glenn Highway, which we planned to take to ... read more

June 1, 2011 Haines, Alaska 8565 starting mileage and 68 degrees This RV park is the cleanest we have been in. Not much in looks, as it is just a “posts in a field” type place, but it at least has grass and the bathroom and showers are like brand new. We did ALL our laundry here first thing as we were almost completely out of clean clothes. Filled up our water tank and all inside “good drinking/cooking” water vessels as not sure what kind of camping we will do when we are back in Canada. Drove downtown to purchase some fresh foods as we had eaten down all frozen and fresh stuff in preparation of leaving Rosie II on the ferry dock with everything turned off. Haines has a small IGA and it was in ... read more

Monday May 30, 2011 Memorial Day in Sitka, Alaska Bright sunny day. Set off walking toward the Raptor Rehabilitation Center. On the way, looked at the Sitka National Cemetery, which we thought appropriate for this day. Found the Raptor Center after a bit of an uphill walk. Extremely well run, clean and modern center for the care of all injured raptors, eagles, falcons, owls etc. They have many caged birds that are used for educational purposes as they can’t, for one reason or another, be returned to the wild. They had several birds in two inside flight runs that are being trained to return to the wild. The center takes in about 200 birds a year and returns about 40% to the wild. While we were watching outside, a wild eagle came and perched on a ... read more

Friday, May 27th starting mileage 8550 50 degrees. Mud Bay outside of Haines, AK Left early on the ferry to Juneau after parking Rosie II in the free, short term, overnight parking area of the terminal. The first couple of hours were really pretty with lots of waterfalls along the way. The look of the area is like what you see of pictures of the fjords in Norway, thickly forested mountains that come right down to the water with no real shore but maybe a few rocks. Very few places can you build anything on, so you have miles and miles of emptiness. Valerie saw a killer whale. We landed out of Juneau in Auke Bay and called the motel for a ride. They picked us up and we called it a night. Valerie walked 3-4 ... read more

Wednesday, May 25, 2011 Started out at 9:15 with an overcast sky with temps at 51 degrees. Mileage to start was 8422 at Tagish, First Nation Provincial Campground Drove back to the turn off and went into the town of Carcross—as it is now known. This is an abbreviation of the old Caribou Crossing name. The herd comes down the mountains and crosses at this point which is a narrow pass. The town is also the end of the narrow gauge White Pass and Yukon railroad that soon replaced the necessity for the stampeders to climb the Chilkoot and White Pass trails. From this town boats were then taken across lakes and up the Yukon to Dawson City. From this point down to sea level at Skagway, was the most scenic road so far on this ... read more