Dunfey Alaska Journey

Trip from Slowlow, AZ  to Santa Fe, NM

We left Slowlow, AZ in White Mountains on the morning of 7/3 to head for Santa Fe, NM.

We were really impressed by the New Mexico mountain rock formations!

Santa Fe Visit

After we arrived in Santa Fe, we contacted our friends, Ian and Marshay Artig, to finalize plans for dinner. They used to live in our community in Vail, AZ and belonged to the Liberated Minds Group there. They moved to Santa Fe last year because they couldn’t stand the summer heat.

We eat and conversed at The Ranch. This was a wonderful restaurant! It had excellent food with great decor. Milly has a pulled meat combo plate and I has an outstanding full plate of baby back ribs. These ribs had more meat on them that I have ever experienced. Great meal and even better conversation.

We stayed at the Santa Fe Skies RV Park, high in the foothills overlooking the city. We were told to be sure to attend  the  Annual Pancakes on the Plaza, Santa Fe’s favorite July 4th event!  When Ian also mentioned they planned to go for the pancakes, we made arrangements to meet them there.

You could say the Pancake Event was a zoo. There were three lines of people winding all around waiting to get there breakfast. People were all over the place eating. The lines moved quickly. The food was surprisingly good – pancakes, ham, strawberries, juice and coffee for a $8 contribution.

When we met friends of Ian’s and Marshay, they invited us to the annual 4th party at Fred’s House. We went. It took a while to warm up to the party and meet people. We had good conversations. The people were musicians and artists most of whom were our age.

That night, we watched multiple sets of fireworks from our camper site overlooking the city. We couldn’t hear the bangs and the view from afar wasn’t the same as being at the actual fireworks display.

Show Low, AZ in White Mountains

Milly and I left Vail, AZ on the morning of June 29th heading for our 1st stop Show Low, AZ in the White Mountains.

We are staying at Fools Hollow Campground run by AZ State. Here are the pictures we took on the way to Show Low AZ:

Pickleball and Kayaking at Lakeside-Pinetop 7/1/2014

After our arrival at Fools Hollow Campground in Show Low,  Bob and Barb Merow came over after supper. They are friends from Vail. They frequently stay in Lakeside-Pinetop near Show Low. They are new to Pickleball but invited us up to Show Low to show us the local Pickleball scene.

We played Pickleball the next morning starting with a group of A-level players at 7:30 AM in a Lakeside-Pinetop Gym. There were three quality courts. We were welcomed and introduced to their open play board signup rotation system. The Pickleball Club there in Lakeside-Pinetop had renovated an abandoned gym. The Gym was now used primarily just for Pickleball.

We had a good time playing Pickleball with players of various skill levels.

We went to lunch with a bunch of Pickleball players at a Taco “Palace” up the street from the gym. After lunch, we kayaked on Rainbow Lake with Bob and Barb. Then, we visited with several of Bob’s friends on the shores of Rainbow Lake.

Kayaking at Show Low Lake 7/2/2014

On our last full day in Show Low, we went to Show Low Lake to Kayak. We met Bob and Barb there. They planned on taking their sailboat out for a spin.

Show Low Lake is a deep water lake. It is fairly large. It took us about an hour and a half to paddle around it. There are no homes on it. It is nestled in the pine forest.

When we unloaded the kayaks at the boat ramp, a fish and game truck loaded with rainbow trout  arrived. They dumped about 900 trout into the lake. These poor fish were clearly stunned by the processed of being flushed into the lake. We saw people in fishing boats scooping up some of the stunned fish with nets, We also saw a heron swoop down to snatch one of the newly arrived fish.

We stayed at the Fools Hollow Campground last year. We loved both our stays here. The camp sites are nicely set in the woods and rocky terrain with lots of privacy. There is a man made lake and “river” that almost surrounds the public beach and campsite areas affording many camp sites with excellent water views. On this trip, we spent most of our time appreciating what the local towns in the area had to offer for recreation.

We had to arrive at ferry dock in Prince Rupert at 7:15 am for our 10:15 am departure. We needed to have car and camper length measured, go through customs and load vehicles. Watching the process of loading vehicles was interesting as some were going to Ketchikan and others were going further. They also had to balance the weight on the car deck.

The voyage was scenic and uneventful. The crew were very courteous. The food service was surprisingly good.

When we arrived in Ketchikan at 3:30 PM, we found a fairly large city. It is the 4th largest city in Alaska.

We are camped in Tongas National Forrest in Last Chance Campground about 7 miles from the city. Our site is alongside a running brook with a lot of privacy in the woods. Outhouse and old fashion water pump are down the road. This is what we call rustic campering.

Cell phone works to our surprise. We have to get closer to city to pick up internet broadband signal.

At the airport parking lot, there are two ferries that take passengers and workers across the narrow passage between the mainland city and the island where the airport is located. This is where the “bridge to no where” was planned to be built. This bridge make a lot of sense. Although no one lives on the airport island, building the bridge was part of their economic strategy for the future. The media circus and political outcries about this “pork” project were quite off the mark.

We left Jasper area on June 1st on way to Prince Rupert. We stopped in Prince George for the night at a Walmart. We got oil changed for the car before continuing. We arrived in Price Rupert on June 2nd. We depart on ferry for Ketchikan on 10:15 am. It is a 5-6 hour trip.

The scenery from Smithers to Prince Rupert was outstanding as the coastal mountains appeared and we wound our way through the passes to reach our destination.

We planned to spent at least part of day in Prince Rupert kayaking. We took a drive aroundall the roads in Prince Rupert area in search of a good place to Kayak. We didn’t find a good put-in that interested us. We visited Port Edward and Richey Island. We ended up hiking Dianne Creek. It was an interesting hike. It was almost like seeing in a rain forest. The cool water rushing by in the river creek caused moments of coolness in the heat of the day. We saw an occasional red wood tree and a black Blue bird(?). We also forgot our camera. We are wondering if all we have seen will dull our Alaska experience.

Prince Rupert was larger than we expected. Our campground for two nights was right up the street from the ferry. Our site was quiet and shaded with a lot of privacy. The ferry station was empty of people, workers or anything else the first two times we visited. There is nothing else there except the BC ferry. It seems that the people work when the ferry is coming or leaving. This morning, we met a man who had worked all night and was closing the ferry station for the day at 10 am in morning! He did tell us all we needed to know.

We arrive in Alaska tomorrow! Looking forward to ferry.

We started morning intending to kayak at Pyramid Lake in the hills above Jasper Village. We stopped at Pyramid Island and found that the views there were the same as would be found paddling. It was also a bit windy so we chucked the paddle and added another hike.

We first hiked around Cottonwood Slough. We saw many ducks and geese in the mashes and small ponds there. From there we visited the Fairmont Jasper Lodge on Lake Beauvert – a great Golf Vacation destination. Then, we hiked up Maligne Canyon.

We had planned to go up the Tram to the mountain top for the view. We decided to call it a day. We got an ice cream in the village instead.

Jasper is an outstanding vacation location in summer or winter. The number of hiking trails available is incredible. The variety of these hikes was quite diverse. Taking the snow train from Edmonton to Jasper seems like a great Winter getway!

Our Verizon Broadband access finally stopped working when we got to Lake Louise. We don’t know why the 1st day it was okay in Lake Louise and then it started telling us that their modem had a problem.

My wireless connection was also not working. Somehow I turned off the wireless switch and I couldn’t get it turned back on. This happened when I allowed Verizon to manage both broadband and WIFI connections and I manually disabled WIFI radio. I couldn’t reverse this. Last night, I spent several hours trying to get the wireless switch turned back on. I couldn’t find any help on this that really helped. I finally used a Dell utility that somehow did the trick. I don’t understand how it did it. I now have wireless WIFI connections back when I am in are with free WIFI. I did delete my Verizon Broadband software and will re-install later tonight. Hopefully, there will be no issues.

The Icefields Parkway is an extremely scenic highway that runs the length of the Banff and Jasper National park between Lake Louise and Jasper – a distance of about 250 km.

We got up and out of campground at 8 am. Our 1st major destination was the Columbia Icefields. On the way, we hiked up to Peyto Lake overlook – which gave us outstanding views of the highest point in the Canadian Rockies. We also visited Mistayla Canyon.

We had lunch at the Columbia Icefields Information Center and went through the exhibits about the Glacier area.

As we got back on parkway, we spotted a black bear and her cub in a filed adjacent to highway. We did get a picture. We stopped alone the rest of the parkway at Sunwapta Falls and Arthabasca Falls. When we checked into the Whistlers Campground in Jasper, an Elk was grazing between campsites.

The town of Jasper was larger than we imagined. It was smaller and more subdued than Banff but much larger than Lake Louise. We arrived about 3 pm. After setting up camp, we went to information center and the Gondola to go to the top of this place. It was closed due to high winds.

After super, we went to Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Jasper. It was Pentecost Sunday. The church was a modern, conservative style. The local people were a very diverse group from all races. We enjoyed being at our first church service since leaving. We always seemed to be in a remote location.

We added a couple of pictures of our camper being shutdown to our camper page (TAB at top of blog)