I left Weyburn, Saskatchewan about 1:00 in the afternoon because I was able to watch the finale of the US Open in my room. Damn, another disappointing finish for Phil, but I will still pull for him. While cruising down Highway 39 toward the border, I kept feeling a vibration at 75 mph and I was sure I had a wheel out of balance, so I found a Cenex shop in Kenmare, ND that could check them in a half hour. It turned out that I had thrown all the weights off all 4 wheels except for one. It had to [View Full Entry]

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It's Sunday night, Father's Day and I'm in Weyburn, Saskatchewan about 1-1/2 hours away from the US border to N. Dakota. It's just about midnight here and I've just received an email from Heather & Brett with a letter attached for me for father's day and I still have tears in my eyes. On top of that, Field of Dreams is on Bravo and I'm crying as I always do when Kevin Costner plays catch with his dad. All of you baseball people friends can identify with that. It never crossed my mind when I left for this trip that I [View Full Entry]

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As I previously said, when I left Dawson I wanted to start heading for home in the most direct way. I headed down from Dawson to Whitehorse, where I got back on the Alaska Highway. I ended up putting on over 400 miles and camping on Teslin lake in the Yukon. I was back driving through the Northern Rockies, which is a very beautiful, remote area. It is chock full of mountian goats, bears and moose. Having gone through the Northern Rockies on my way north, I kept thinking these are the Grandpa mountains of the Rockie Mountain Range. They must [View Full Entry]

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My next must see location before I go home is Dawson City, Yukon Territory, but I decided to spend the night in Tok, Alaska and see if I could find a new set of tires. One of the things that I pondered long and hard before I left was the tires on the Burban. (BTW, in my many long miles alone in the car and listening to my Jack London audiobooks, I've started to call her "Buck," after the St. Bernard Shepherd mix sled dog hero of "Call of the Wild." I know I've always thought of cars in the female, [View Full Entry]

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(This is going to be a biggie.) I headed down the dirt road from Slana and thought, 42 miles of dirt road, I'll be there in about an hour. Well, it took me more like an hour and a half. Mostly because I'm a lifelong flatlander so crossing creeks with big rocks in them is new to me. I stopped at the first one, surveyed it, then thought I'd better get moving so I don't get stuck. I probably went a bit too fast because I bottomed out on the rocks bouncing through. When I got to the other side, I [View Full Entry]

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When I left Seward, I intended on driving the Glenn Highway to the east from Wasilla to the Tok (pronounced Toke) Cutoff Highway and start heading closer to the Alaska Highway, which runs through Tok. I spent the night in a campground in a place called King Mountain State Rec. Area. It was about 1:00 AM when I pulled in there. The Glenn Highway drive is another very scenic area. But I didn’t get to see a whole lot of it since it was rainy with low clouds obscuring the mountains all around me. This is the second straight day of [View Full Entry]

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After my misadventures and adventures in the Talkeetna area, I headed south to Wasilla to buy a new digital camera. I was told to go to a Ritz store there so I plugged it into the GPS and off I went. I really wanted another Canon because I've been so happy with the one I broke. I couldn't find the store. It was in a strip mall, but I couldn't find it. I ran into a mail man and he pointed to a coffee place and said Ritz was right next to it. When I got there, there was only a [View Full Entry]

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Howard, the owner of the Susitna River Lodge, sent me some pictures he recently took of Brown Bears. They are so cool I had to add them to this story. I guess I always didn't have perfect luck. I wish I had been there when, as Howard said, they were overrun with bears. Thanks Howard. [View Full Entry]

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(If you've been wondering why I took so long to add this update, read on and you'll find out.) I left Fairbanks with Denali National Park as my next destination. Thanks to the good old Milepost I finally found an interesting bar along the highway: Skinny Dick's Halfway Inn. I had a beer (no Bloody Mary mix or tomato juice) and checked out the most extensive collection of goofy, utterly tasteless sexual humor I've ever seen...... It was great. I got to the park mid-afternoon and decided to drive in as far as they allow cars, only 15 miles. To really [View Full Entry]

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When I was getting ready to depart Kluane Lake, I thought I would plug Fairbanks, AK into the "where to" on the GPS. It just said, "Turn in 443 miles." I guess I won't get lost. There's only one road to get there. I got an early start. After Whitehorse the road gets quite a bit rougher and the wilderness is deeper. There are more and more frost heaves in the road. The engineers call them thaw bulbs. They cause a roller coaster type ride and you better slow down or they'll launch you. They are usually about 50 feet across [View Full Entry]

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