TravelStream™ news feed for member ditchthecube on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/ditchthecube en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:56:46 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/1/1260148724/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/1/1260148724/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/1/1260148724/tpod.html Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:56:46 -0500 Pacific Trip 2008 (still transferring from www.ditchthecube.com)

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Kapaa, Hawaii, United States

As with every major trip so far, I didn't get hardly any sleep last
night while I was up walking around thinking of odds and ends I should
or shouldn't take. I really ought to make a concrete list of items
sometime and save myself some worry. Today's Journey will take us a
little over 4000 miles from KCI to LIH. Starting at KCI at dawn, we stopped over for about 90 minutes
in SLC, Utah. If anyone ever tells you that all the guys in Utah are
white with crew cut hair, believe it. The flight to Honolulu was one of
those where you look at your watch after taking a nap and playing 5
games of hearts and realize you're barely 1/3 of the way there. At this
point I'm going to stake the claim that driving over and over again
makes time go faster, while flying makes it go waaaaay slower.

We arrived in Honolulu round 2:30pm local time. I stopped to
get something at a little airport Chinese buffet place. He asked me
like 3 times what kind of starch I wanted before I realized he was
asking what type of rice I wanted. It's weird how you its so easy to
mis-hear a word you aren't expecting, even if you would have understood
it on written paper. Our flight to Kauai was uneventful, other than it
was nice to have a 30 minutes flight. We picked up our rental car and
found our place on the northeast corner of the island without much of a
fuss. It's been a long day and we're really tired, but it sure beats
flying east!


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246650876/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246650876/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246650876/tpod.html Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:10:26 -0400 Road Trip to the Arctic

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Olathe, Kansas, United States

At the morning twilight, we began day 5 of driving home. Around 11:30 we rolled into Olathe, picked up our beagle, and rolled into the driveway. Not bad time, we made it 3700 miles from Fairbanks in exactly 4 days time. We spent an hour or so unloading everything from the car.

Then came the cleanup....I took the car to the carwash and used $8.00 in quarters on the power-washer just to get the Dempster grime off the sides and the bugs off of the front bumper area. After that, I took it back home where Cari swept and wiped down the interior while I removed each wheel one at a time to remove the half inch of mud caked onto the inside of the wheel and wheel well. The next morning I bought some touch-up paint at the store and tidied up a lot of rock chips on the drivers side front fender and side mirror.

When I pulled up to return the car, the man was already outside and he took the keys and leaned in to check the odometer. Then we went inside and he started typing on his computer. After a moment he just kind of looked at the computer funny, took the keys and went back outside and checked the odometer again. Then he looked at me and asked how long we had the car. I told him we drove it for 15 days and he just said "Wow, that's a lot of miles". We had put 8,400 miles on the car, an average of 560 per day. He shrugged it off like he didn't care and gave me a receipt.

The end.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246647943/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246647943/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246647943/tpod.html Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:54:32 -0400 Road Trip to the Arctic

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Sioux Falls, South Dakota, United States

I've grouped the last 4 days into one written entry since it encompasses a long steady drive from Fairbanks back toward Kansas City.

== Day 1 ==

On the first morning, the rain and cloud cover persisted. We took a trip over to visit the University of Alaska where my aunt and uncle went to school in the early 80s. The campus seemed nice, a mix of old and new buildings. Apparently we were just in time for a conference of mammologists, although we couldn't find the right building.

We stopped by the Wal-Mart and Lowe's to buy a few materials to adjust our magnetic signs for the return trip. I used white electrical tape to cover up the rear "Arctic" and write "Kansas City" over it. On the side sign I just used the marker to cross out the "To Arctic" and put "From Arctic Ocean".

Anyways, eventually we just left. At about the same place it started raining yesterday (and at the same time), a line in the clouds existed and *poof*, we were back to the usual nothern summer weather of cool dry sunshine. We stopped briefly at the international border and took a few pictures. The Canadian customs is actually 20km inside of the border. They don't find it necessary to have someone drive pointlessly that far to work I guess. We ended Wednesday in Whitehorse where we camped at the town campground, which I must say was very nice. There was a chipmunk that I wanted to kill. He got very angry about 5:00am and kept making this crying sound above our tent for what must have been 30 minutes straight.

== Day 2 ==

We backtracked from Whitehorse back to Junction 37 (near Watson Lake) and then turned south on the Stewart-Cassiar Highway (BC 37). This highway was scenic in a bit different way as off to the right is the Kluane range (highest in Canada) followed by the Cassiar range. Quite a lot of snowcapped peaks. This was one lonely road with very little traffic encountered in both directions. By about 8pm we reached the end and turned east on Canada 16. We drove into the night a ways toward Prince George, but only made it about half way before we had to rest for several hours in a rest area along with several other vehicles.

== Day 3 ==

Today we drove through Prince George and on down south through Jasper and Banff National Parks. These two parks comprise a crossing of the Rocky Mountains that isn't to be missed. I'll let the pictures speak for this area, but we'll definitely be back.

At nightfall we crossed back into the USA after the usual challenge/respond type questions at the border. We stayed at a nice Best Western in Great Falls after the full Motel 6 gave us a voucher.

== Day 4 ==
A full nights rest and off we go again. We drove east from Great Falls and then south on US-89 through Lewis and Clark National Forest. We reached the max elevation of our trip on this segment at about 7500 feet. When we hit the interstate we headed east to Billings. At this point we took a "shortcut" on US-212 toward Rapid City. Right at the turn-off was a National Landmark where Custer's Last Stand took place. We stopped by for a visit, but quickly realized that our $10 would have been better spent on a day when we had more time to look around.

With only about 12 miles left on US-212, we hit the mother of all construction projects, a reconstruction of 10 miles of the highway. They had a flag person on either side of 10 miles and a slow pilot car ferrying groups back and forth. We were second in line to wait, and the wait was no less than 30 minutes. We got out and talked to a trucker and the guy behind us for a bit.

We stopped for a bite to eat in Sturgis, SD, home of the biggest motorcycle rally in the world each year. The town seemed like any other really. We wanted to go see Mount Rushmore and drive through Badlands National Park, but figured we'd have to come back anyways sometime, and so left it for later. As night fell we headed on across South Dakota and I stopped and took a nap at a rest stop less than 100 miles from Sioux Falls.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246645201/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246645201/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246645201/tpod.html Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:55:39 -0400 Road Trip to the Arctic

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Fairbanks, Alaska, United States

We set out early for the US border along the Top of the World Highway, but the road was partly gravel and so the going was slow. The views were really nice and very remote, much like the Dempster, but perhaps after so many days of scenery, it began to wear on us, because it was not too "wowing".

Anyways, we arrived at the Poker Creek border crossing, most northerly land border in the USA around 9:45am. There's one of those air hoses connected to a bell in the road so that when you pull up, the man inside knows someone is waiting. This had to be the easiest border crossing ever. The customs agent asked us if we had any weapons and what we bought in Canada and then let us go on our way.

As promised to us by the Canadian information center, the American side of the road was in horrible shape. Most of it was dirt road with a lot of big chuck holes. I would not recommend this road for any heavily loaded vehicle. Eventually we came to Chicken Alaska, the world's smallest and most remote tourist trap. A dozen RVs were parked buying souvenirs and gas at the travel mart. The funny thing is, most of them were just coming up the way to visit Chicken and then return back to Alaska again. It would be a great sin to visit Canada, after all.

Is it to anyone's surprise that the first matching 2009 Silver Grand Marquis LS we found was in the first American town? Well, look no further than the pictures below.

After taking a washroom break, we headed on south down the Taylor highway (thankfully mostly paved) towards Tok. This junction of Tok is kind of a nerve center of transportation for Alaska. It is not possible to drive into or out of the main part of Alaska without going through Tok. I checked with a windshield repair place, but the man was in Fairbanks that day. Fantastic.

Anyways, having rejoined the Alaska highway after our 5 day detour, we resumed our northward journey toward Delta Junction and Fairbanks. Delta Junction is the end of the original 1942 Alaska highway, although nowadays it continues on to Fairbanks. We grabbed a bite to eat at a local diner and I checked in with work. After only being back in America for a couple hours, its funny the small things you notice. A sign on the wall stating "Prayer may not be allowed in schools, but it is welcome at our tables" made me laugh, as well as a huge reprint of a newspaper article where the owner gives a long explanation about why it is ok that he has the flag of Israel hanging out front. Just before we entered DJ, the rain started. This is a steady rain with no signs of cloud breaks anywhere, the first time on our trip.

We continued on up into Fairbanks through the rain. We stopped at a suburb called North Pole on the way and had the windshield repaired and oil changed. They were really nice people, but the repair job on the windshield didn't work out so well. It is fixed, but there is a little line of bubbles where the crack was. They tell me it can't be helped. Sigh, hopefully the rental car company is lenient. In any case, the rain persists.

We pulled into Fairbanks in the late afternoon and spent some time trying to find a place. It seems like most places are sold out or near sold out, so we got a room in one of the seedier places in town, the Alaska Motor Inn. The owner was an Arab who didn't understand why we wanted to stay there, but took our money all the same. I think everyone else there was more of a permanent resident so to speak. In any case, it was better than a campsite in the rain.

Our only other event of the day was visiting the Fairbanks library so we could catch up on Internet activity and let people know where we were. So ends the day. The rain persists.



]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246642545/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246642545/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246642545/tpod.html Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:15:31 -0400 Road Trip to the Arctic

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Dawson City, Yukon, Canada

In the morning we stopped by the library so Cari could see what it was like. She said it was a very sad library because all of the books were new and unused. They sure weren't very busy when we showed up other than one guy sitting playing solitare on a computer.

Nothing is quite like having a mentally tasking trip in front of you that you already committed to doing and can't back out of. Returning down the Dempster is such a trip. Other than a chip in the windshield near the beginning, we had a rather uneventful trip back down. We arrived in Dawson City right around 8pm, giving a total drive time of about 12 hours. We took the ferry across the river to the west bank at a "camping hostel" (never seen one of these before) where you could camp but there was no electricity or running water.

Not too exciting of a day, other than getting to review all the Dempster scenery again.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246591328/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246591328/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246591328/tpod.html Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:34:41 -0400 Road Trip to the Arctic

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Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada

Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. In Canada, today is also Aboriginal Day, a day to celebrate the original Canadian inhabitants (i.e. "Indians"/"Eskimos"). So, what better place to be than Inuvik? It is inhabited by something like 70% native Canadians and is the furthest town north you can drive to on a public road in North America in the summer.

All day long they had events scheduled. Unfortunately not many of the locals are very interested in doing...anything, so the day didn't start out too fast. There was a breakfast at the community center at 10am, but there were only about two dozen people there, about half tourists. At noon they had a parade that included a contest to see who could create the float with the best aboriginal theme. We really should have entered because there were 4 cash prizes but only 3 entries. Only the first place winner put any effort into their float.

Anyways, the better part of the day was the gathering at the park in the middle of town. They had several entertainment items scheduled, including a blanket toss, a modern cookout of hamburgers and hotdogs, a cookout of aboriginal foods, various musical groups from around town, and a feast in the evening. We sat around for a couple hours whiling away the hours until we could hopefully take a flight up to Tuk on the Arctic Ocean.

At 4:30 we headed over to a tour agent and took a van ride over to the airport and caught a flight up to Tuktoyaktuk (Tuk), a village on the Arctic coast. The only person in the airport was our pilot. Despite looking something like a small modern airport, I could tell the place operated a lot like the single-wide trailer FBO that I learned to fly out of in mid-missouri. The pilot was a young guy in his 20s and took flew us up there in a Cessna 207, a 6 seater plane. We flew about 300-500 feet off the ground the whole way in kind of an indirect route that followed the river north and then went east to the town. From the sky, you can tell the terrain is very pock marked with endless nameless ponds and lakes, interrupted occassionally by a pingo here and there. Pingos are the pimple looking hills in the ground that are formed from underground water sources freezing and pushing the soil up.

The only person in the airport at Tuk was a short native man wearing jeans and a fleece. He introduced himself as "Boogy" and proceeded to take us around town in a van. Our first stop was a hilltop where we stood and overlooked the town while he talked about its history and stuff. The only problem was that it was maybe 45 degrees with a 30mph wind. There was another couple about our age with us and both me and the other guy were taking the stiff wind as best we could with our wives hiding behind us. The local guy didn't seem to mind, although he did have a bit more natural insulation than we did.

After that, we drove around a bit and saw a few things here and there. They have a little monument thing where the Trans Canada Trail is supposed to someday come through Tuk and go all the way back east along the northern coast. We stopped at a little beach head and touched the ocean and took a few pictures.

Our last stop was the ice house, an underground cavern carved of the frozen ice-ground to act as a freezer for storing meat throughout the year. A 30 foot ladder takes you down underground and then hotel-like rooms line 3 hallways. Of course it is all dark except for flashlights, so it kind of has a crypt-like weirdness to it. That ended the tour and our pilot was waiting to take us back to Inuvik. The return flight was fairly uneventful, other than we flew at a higher, smoother altitude and took a straight path back.

We got back just in time for Cari to participate in the Midnight Sun Fun Run, a half-marathon taking place each year in Inuvik during the solstice. The half-marathoners took off at 10pm and ran to the airport and back. The 5k/10k runs took off at midnight. I got a really good picture of Cari running past the "Welcome to Inuvik" sign and another good picture of her running past the finish timer.

While she was running, I went back to camp and set up our tent. The wind kept gusting to 30mph and the campsite is on a hill, so the entire time I was fighting mother natures efforts to break the tent and blow it away. The other problem was that because most times of the year it is snowy and/or muddy, you have to camp on these wooden slats built up from the ground. So, I have nowhere to stake the tent that is blowing uncontrollably. After 45 minutes of work, I managed to secure each of six tiedowns to the wood using all kinds of engineering magic. I took several pictures of of the tent because of how proud I was to solve such an annoying problem. If it had been dark, I would have given up. Thank you midnight sun.



]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246501749/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246501749/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246501749/tpod.html Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:05:35 -0400 Road Trip to the Arctic

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Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada

We didn't get a very early start, but at least we slept well. By 10am we had eaten some breakfast and were on our way.

Not far up the road, it is designated an emergency air strip. This basically means that the road is slightly wider and has a small turnoff for one airplane. The tie-downs are some big rocks.

Not an hour beyond the lodge is the Arctic Circle. The sign says 66d 33', but in fact the GPS reads almost exactly 66d 34'. It's the thought that counts. In any case, we finally made it to the Arctic, which means that we did not go bust. The sign boards contain some interesting information for those who didn't pay attention during 4th grade science. Did I mention, ARCTIC ACHIEVED WOOOO!!

The road north of the lodge is somewhat less scenic than the first half. There are two ferries to take on either side of the town of Fort McPherson. After the second ferry, the road becomes entirely flat with long straight stretches. Still no services. There are a lot of ravens in the Yukon and NWT. Those are the huge black birds you see in at least one picture below.

We finally rolled into Inuvik in the late afternoon. You'll notice in some of the pictures that there are above ground ducts that run to all the houses. All of the utilities that we normally bury and in these ducts to prevent the permafrost from melting (which causes everything to sink). You can think of permafrost ground to be like a wet sponge that has been frozen. You can set a lot of weight on it, but as soon as it thaws out the sponge will compress and support no weight. No consider that the permafrost goes thousands of feet below the surface, with only the top several feet thawing each summer.

Groceries are relatively expensive in Inuvik, but check out the price of perishable goods like milk.... $11 per gallon! Still, that is exactly double the price of gas, which I think is the same ratio that we enjoy back at home.

The whole town of Invuik was built by the Canadian government to promote resource exploration in the Arctic. Everything in town is 58 years old and built on stilts, including the large school.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246496505/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246496505/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246496505/tpod.html Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:34:13 -0400 Road Trip to the Arctic

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Eagle Plains, Yukon Territory, Canada

Up early, we headed north on the Klondike again toward Dawson City. About 30km before of Dawson is the junction with the Dempster Highway that leads to Inuvik. We weren't sure that we would attempt it, so we just stopped and took some pictures. The first 5 miles or so are paved, so we drove up those and onto the gravel to see what the road condition was like. It seemed ok, but of course the road condition of the first 10 miles doesn't mean much about the other 440 miles.

We headed back down and over to Dawson City and checked with the NW Territories Dempster Highway tourist information office. The woman there said our car would be fine on the Dempster as long as we had a full size spare tire. Well, we didn't have one. The NAPA auto parts store could get a full size spare the next day, but it would cost $500, so we opted for buying a second can of fix-a-flat. I figure our sign says "Arctic or Bust", so something like the fear of being stranded shouldn't stop us. A tow back to town costs $400, cheaper than the full size spare. Also, I don't want to buy a spare for a car that I don't own.

Anyways, we filled up the tank, and headed back towards the Dempster, turned the corner and took a picture of the sign indicating 735km to Inuvik. At Highway speeds, that is a smooth 7 hours. On the Dempster, it is 14 hours of bumpy riding.

I took it slow driving at first, only going 35-40mph for the first couple hundred km. The road wasn't too bad, although I had to maintain almost constant focus to make sure I avoided potholes and loose gravel that could destroy a tire or send us off the road at any time. Any time you pass a car, the appopriate action was to pull to the far edges and pass each other going maybe 25-30mph to avoid kicking rocks into each others vehicles. At all other times, you just drive on the part of the road that is in the best condition.

The scenery is utterly beautiful as you drive up the first half of the highway. It winds through Tombstone Territorial Park, as well as a high plateau that leads up to the Eagle Plains Hotel, the halfway point service station. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246489194/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246489194/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1246489194/tpod.html Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:00:48 -0400 Road Trip to the Arctic

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Carmacks, Yukon, Canada

In the morning we stopped by the signpost forest again and found some towns from the KC area. You could easily spend an entire day looking for a sign among the thousands there.

Just about 10 miles past Watson Lake is the junction with the southbound BC Highway 37, the "Stewart-Cassiar Highway" which we plan to to take on our return trip.

Onward we went murdering bugs by the thousands with our Grand Marquis. When you hit mosquitoes that already had lunch, they leave a red bloody spot on the windshield. Every single time we stop for gas we have at least several minutes of scrubbing the windshield.

Eventually we arrived at Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon Territory. There were a lot of tourists around, but we managed to grab a reasonable bite to eat at the Pizza Hut. We also visited the only operational Catholic log cabin in the world in downtown Whitehorse. There were some other minor things to see, but we had places to go and people to see, so we headed on up the road.

Just a few miles north of town is the junction with Yukon Highway 2, otherwise known as the Klondike Highway. It leads northwards toward Dawson City, the furthest Canadian town you you can get to on paved roads. Along the Klondike we passed several areas where the trees had been recently (within 10 years) ravaged by forest fires.

We stopped at a scenic "five fingers rapids" lookout and met a Canadian driving a camper-pickup with two jerry cans (we call them red plastic gas cans in America). We talked for a bit and learned he was going to try to head up to Inuvik in his truck. In future posts I will refer to this gentleman as jerry-can man. Anyways, shortly after that stop, we camped at a government campground for $12. For the first time, the mosquitoes were absolutely horrendous. You basically couldn't stop moving outside of the tent or else 30 would be in your face immediately. There was a lot of walking around.

Some other notes about Canada:

All of the school buses in Canada have their hood painted black, I assume to help keep the engine compartment warmer in winter months.

Canada also has a series of signs that are supposed to indicate that a vehicle intersects with the roadway, however, my warped mind always interprets it as the vehicle is speeding into a cinder block wall. I'm weird.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1245310036/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1245310036/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ditchthecube/6/1245310036/tpod.html Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:44:50 -0400 Road Trip to the Arctic

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Watson Lake, Yukon, Canada

We continued our trek up the Alaska highway all day, stopping various times to see wildlife, mountains, road construction, and other exciting things. The highway is very beautiful and very remote in the sense that there isn't a lot of traffic. I would estimate the traffic we see to be (in order of highest to lowest occurrence): RVs, Semis, Motorcycles, Cars, Bicycles, Hitchhikers.

We run into road construction a lot because there are only a few months they can work on the highway. Since it is two lane, this almost always means stopping for a flag person who rotates between letting one side or the other through. In extreme cases, they have the flag person and also a pilot vehicle that leads the traffic from each side through the construction zone.

As we drove up today, we saw several buffalo grazing on the side of the road. I thought it would be hard to find animals, but in reality, all of the animals are marked by several RVs parked on the side of the road taking pictures.

We also drove down a stretch of the highway that had been closed last week due to a forest fire in the area. All along this stretch were those big rubber buckets you see helicopters using to dump water on fires. One spot was even still smoldering, giving off smoke that blew over the highway.

In the evening we finally reached the technical Yukon border where we took a picture in front of a really old sign. I say technically because this is the point at which the road crosses the 60th parallel. The road actually dips back below 60 several times over the next 50 miles, at which point the 'official' border crossing signs are placed as well as a very tall 60th parallel post.

The town of Watson Lake is just beyond these signs where our second couchsurfing hosts lived. They were an older couple and very welcoming to their home. I will add that they make the best omelet and hashbrowns I've ever had! Watson Lake is known for one other thing, and that is the "Signpost Forest". Basically when the highway was being built, some guy put a sign up from his hometown. Now there are 70,000+ signs on dozens of dozens of posts around the info office. It really is more signs than you can imagine. Hopefully the pictures and video do it justice.

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