Here starts a new series in the blog (yes, I know, yet another, but I hope this one will stick). I’m calling it Grateful and Proud because it’s a retrospective of special places I’ve been in the Airstream, but not an “I’m so sad that I gave that up” but a “Yay look what I […]
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Home, Home on the Range
I’m backtracking a bit, because the prairies of Western Alberta and the grasslands of Montana and Wyoming, and even those of the western edge of South Dakota, have all blended into one big range the last few days. A gorgeous range. Oh, give me a home, where the buffalo roam. Where the deer and the antelope […]
Alberta into Montana: Seamless Prairies and Big Sky
Western Alberta is astoundingly beautiful. Gently rolling grassland—as far as you can see—for hours of driving. I’m sure we saw lots of cattle and horses, but the land is so vast that they seemed like only a handful scattered around. In some places, the grass was so tall when we drove through that they’d look […]
Alaska Trip Retrospective
After our summer-long trip to Alaska, we’re traveling south through British Columbia, Canada, and the climate, sunlight, ecosystems—really everything—is all changing rapidly. No more alpine or subalpine terrain, and it’s kind of shocking. I shouted out to Tracy when I saw a cow. We both said, “Hey, look at this!” when we had to use the flashlight […]
Down the Cassiar Highway
We’re heading south through far-western Canada along the Cassiar Highway, a relatively new road (1970s) that connects the Alaska Highway to British Columbia. There are a few small First Nations villages on either side, and that’s it. The Cassiar The highway runs through the Cassiar, the Coast, and the Skeena mountain ranges, in a southward river […]
Canada Day on the Klondike
The confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers is where the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin have gathered for thousands of years, and in the early 1900s it’s where gold was found—which began the big Klondike gold-mining boom. Travelers like us who go through famous Dawson Creek to the south call this “Dawson City,” but I’ve noticed that […]
A Big Deal over One Dead Toe
I found a street sign in an rv park up here in Dawson City, Yukon, that says “Margaritaville.” Really, could there be a place on Earth less like whatever Margaritaville is like? It’s true that even here you can order a shot of tequila at the bar. But, it doesn’t come with a wedge of […]
The Price of Adventure (at Tombstone)
On our way to Tombstone Territorial Park in Yukon we drove a short stretch of the Klondike Highway and then the infamous Dempster. Up here there’s constant roadwork in the summer, and by roadwork they mean, “bulldozing the old road and pushing a pile of dirt beside it for a new road.” I was too […]
You Keep Watching the Tundra, Then You Remember to Look Up (at Tombstone)
I said this to Tracy yesterday while we were hiking along the mountains in the northern part of Tombstone Territorial Park, here in the Yukon, a little east of Fairbanks. The sub-arctic tundra here is so beautiful—moss and lichen and flowers—a deep cover that insulates the permafrost right below. Even if the ground weren’t captivating, […]
We Live on a Giant Rock in Space
You’ve had a significant epiphany, right? I’ve had a very few, and I remember each one. The time I realized that the meat in my mouth used to be alive, and it dropped right out of my mouth, with no meat entering again for 15 years. The time I was part of a herd (I […]
