July 2009 Planning for a vacation is not easy especially when you haven’t a clue where to go, so my oldest son and I decided to return to Southern California and see some old neighborhoods and visit the grandparents. Plotting the flight and hotel with rental car seems easy and for the most part it is unless you want to stay in one part of the San Fernando Valley and Expedia wants to fly you into Los Angeles airport. Burbank airport was closer to where we wanted to stay, but no matter how we tried, Los Angeles was the airport picked, [View Full Entry]

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Early on Sunday morning the wind whirled and snorted around like a bull in a china shop, it was gusting to over 30mph and blowing horizontal snow around like cotton. We were getting ready for our over night trip to Jackpot Nevada which as the crow flies is around 160 miles from Pocatello. I-15 is the interstate we needed to travel on parallels the Snake River and comes in close proximity to the American Falls Reservoir for several miles. This then creates the “lake effect“ so many weathermen talk about. I might add that, until this trip, I had never experienced, [View Full Entry]

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Road Runner’s Move Over After visiting with family and the final drive through the valley, it is once again time to pack up and move out. This park was small, so we needed to off load the car and then disconnect the trailer so we now needed to reverse this process before we could pull out. Everything done we pull onto the Venture free way heading towards Pasadena and pick up the 10 freeway. This drive will take us through Pasadena, Irwindale, Azuza, Pomona and down the line heading towards the Arizona border. You pass through Eagle Rock and until now [View Full Entry]

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The 101 is now a freeway that has taken some of the landscape around it. Once the vast Earl Warren show grounds that stretched from 101 (the original) hundreds of yards back, has been reduced in size. The stables now stand 20 or so feet from the freeway and some of the shops and homes are now a past memory. You are on the freeway that has been carved along the eastern hills and you overlook the old highway and the ocean. You can see the original highway, which now serves as an RV parking lot as well as the main [View Full Entry]

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During the early phase of creating freeway systems, Cal Trans learned their mistakes in freeway design from the Pasadena Freeway and for many years designed and maintained fantastic systems, that were user friendly. Ah not so now, what we faced was a jumbled mess of lanes, off ramps, clover leafs and a huge amount of commuter frustration. As you exit the bridge you are in the town of Raymond and soon see signs for Burkley and Oakland which are either merge to the right and then immediately exit on the left or take the middle and then either extreme right or [View Full Entry]

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We pull out on the highway quickly running out of daylight. We cross the border with no fan fare, there are no check points any longer to check for fruits and vegetables. We arrive in Crescent City, and remember we are hungry. We spot a Burger King with a parking lot that seems large enough for our entrance and exit and stop to dine on Whoppers. Our plan is to make it to Eureka about 80 miles down the coast before stopping, so dinner is now or never. After dining on our gourmet burgers we again head off down the coast [View Full Entry]

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The Rain Forest The ferry terminal is located in Edmonds, and the ferry takes you to a small isthmus, where you disembark. You find your self going though a small town with very narrow streets until you cross over a bridge to the main body of land. You pass through Gardner a picturesque town, resembling a Maine fishing village. There are quaint shops, scenic over looks and harbors, and not to forget very nice homes. You continue on and soon leave the shore line and travel slightly inward along the 101 where the land flattens and the scenery changes to farming. [View Full Entry]

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Circle The Wagons We pull over to take a peek at what awaits us, from a vantage point of about 1500 feet we look down on Dawson City. It reminds you of a cartoon, the town is laid our on a square grid and each one is painted a pastel color, yellow, pink, blue, green and some reds and browns. As we look over this historical town, we notice one item of interest, there is no road from our side to the other side of the Yukon River. To get there from our side you must take a ferry across this [View Full Entry]

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Morning dawns early and cold, we load up and start on the road to Dawson City. We turn right from Chicken onto a gravel road and over an old bridge, we start climbing up a long narrow road with steep drop offs on our right and a straight mountain on our left, no room for mistakes. The road in rocky, full of ruts and when you do encounter a car your tires are just on the rim, one slight miscalculation and your over the side. We continue on for a while and it’s my turn to drive, we stop and Larry [View Full Entry]

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South to California We started off on September 8th departing Chugiak Alaska around 11am. A cool cloudy day that promised rain, but only dropped enough moisture to rearrange the dust on the windshield. Heading northeast along the Park highway to the new freeway exchange and turned towards Palmer, had we opted to turn the other way we would have headed to Wasilla and beyond to Denali. Arriving at Palmer we then got on the Glenn Highway and continued on towards Richardson. Along the way we passed the braided Matinuska River and up ahead the glacier its self. I had the opportunity [View Full Entry]

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