Very busy summer

[bullseye]

Following my retirement at the first of the year we decided to hit the road.

April found us making a trip to Texas to visit Bridgefarmer and his family. We towed the boat behind the truck and truck camper and spent most of the month down there. We had a good time and managed to get out fishing for a number of days. Nothing huge but we did manage to catch some.

May was get ready for our Alaskan adventure. First stop was a visit with BIll, Don, and Bounce. Don and Bill took me out turkey hunting a couple of days. I saw birds and got a shot but managed just feathers.

From there it was up to South Dakota to the Black Hills, the Badlands and a number of other sights around Rapid City. Then we headed west and south to Wyoming to Jackson. Then it was north through Teton and Yellowstone. We spent a few days in Cody and I found a spot to shoot a Gattling gun. 20 rounds went real quick.

Then we turned north into Montana and stayed there a few days to wait for the 15th. I brought a 44 pistol along and had all the necessary paperwork to get into and through Canada. Then we spent 2 months in Alaska. We traveled everywhere we could and a couple places we should have left unexplored. We saw all kinds of wildlife both on land and in the ocean. By mid August it was time to head for home. We stopped at a campground (Sourdough Campground) in Tok for a few days. During that stay the owner offered us a job for the summer of 2018. We decided to take it so we are headed back in May.

We put 15,000 on the truck to go and get back home. We are looking forward to an interesting trip next summer which will start with a trip to visit Debby's aunt near Cooperstown, NY then into Canada. I left the 44 at the campground and will be taking my 20 gauge and my 22 along on this trip. I will try and fit in some grouse hunting this time. They have a spruce and roughed grouse species, sharptails, and Ptarmigan to hunt in August.


I don't know how many more years we can do this but we are going to enjoy it while we can.

[Jack]

What a great trip!
I'm sure you know the Baseball Hall of Fame is in Cooperstown, NY. Well worth a visit.

[bullseye]

Yes I know about the Baseball Hall of Fame. We visited in 2015 and 2016 and my wife and her Aunt visited it in 2015 while I was trout fishing. Personally it is not high on my list. I stopped following baseball when the players went on strike in the 1990's. On the Alaskan trip this summer we also took along my buddy's widow (she is 75 and he died in 2009)so some of the things I would have liked to do had to wait. She has mobility issues and can't walk very far. Any hikes I did on by own. I did manage to get s few hikes in with the dogs. From observing the trash cans at two of the campgrounds in Tok it appears they do not have a bear problem. Campgrounds that had one had the big metal dumpsters. Both of the ones in Tok had plastic garbage cans. We are definitely looking forward to next summer. I purchased a 7 cu ft freezer and wired up the trailer for electric. The halibut I caught pretty much filled up the camper's freezer this summer so I added some additional freezer space. My brother wanted some halibut and I told him if he wanted some he would have to pay for the shipping. 5# cost $122 to ship overnight via Fed Ex. I hope to bring more fish and grouse back in 2018.

[Purebred Redneck]

Sounds like a great adventure!

[jmarriott]

A dream of many me included is the Alaska trip.

[Purebred Redneck]

Dec 29, 2017 17:17:16 GMT -5 jmarriott said:

A dream of many me included is the Alaska trip.

The Mrs and I have been getting credit cards with large bonuses, redeeming for $500 Carnival Cruise gift cards, closing the cards, and doing it all over again with another company. As long as your credit is well over 720 it's not going to impact you much if any at all. We are well on our way to a FREE Alaskan cruise.

[jmarriott]

Not close to 720 credit score. Down in the 650 range. Just never put enough time into it to get it higher.
The idea of free trip sounds great. But if I chose Alaska over say the islands that start with saint in them the wife would not be down with it. Got to do the regular cruse first the up north

[Purebred Redneck]

My aunt and uncle did the "Saint" cruise last year and had a great time. While I've never been on a cruise, I think they are a good way to scout out 4-5 countries/islands and plan a more detailed trip to your favorite later.

[bullseye]

While we thought of taking an Alaskan cruise there were a few factors we thought about before deciding to drive.

+ we decided that we didn't want to kennel the two dogs so they needed to go with us
+ in looking at the cruises to Alaska we realized that most of the stuff we wanted to see was IN Alaska not on the way
+ most of the cruises offer bus rides to a number of places, we didn't want to be on someone else's schedule.
+ during research for the trip I found a number of day cruises. We did one in Homer, Valdez, and Seward. We got to see what we wanted to see. We stayed in Valdez and Homer for almost a week.
+ I didn't want to be on a schedule with reservations so we didn't make any.
+ Through observation most people showed up at the campgrounds between 4 and 6 so we stopped at campgrounds before 4 and never got turned away because they were full.
+ I learned that most travelers didn't make reservations either. There were "caravans" of 10-20 campers (mostly buses) that would make reservations. They would stay at campgrounds for a week and sight see with the vehicles they towed and leave the buses in the campground.
+ We would disconnect our trailer, and drop the truck camper off the truck and sight see with just the truck.

We didn't regret the decision to drive. We got to see what we wanted to both on land and in the ocean.

I did get to fish for halibut for one day. It was quite expensive at $285 + the one day license fee of $25.