It’s been quite a while since I finished a Tiny House, and this one was a doozie to get back in the game with, let me tell ya. For one thing, I’ve wanted to buy this kit for years—especially when my Wisconsin friend Doug picked it out when I asked if I could make him […]
Crossing into Alaska near Chicken
This photo says it all! Although, I don’t know why I’m using an exclamation mark, since this whole trip has been lovely, and Alaska seems like it will be just another nice leg. We will see. Top of the World Highway To get from Dawson City, Yukon, to the border crossing nearby, we drove along […]
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 […]
Faro: Named for a Card Game
Faro, Yukon, is a tiny little town born from mining, but not the kind we’re used to hearing about up here near Alaska. Yeah, people panned for gold along the Pelly River (Pharaoh/Faro is an old French card game they played), but the big deal was lead and zinc. As in, the world’s largest open-pit […]
An Interior Check, Where the Exterior Is Commanding
I do this about once a year: realize I’ve written a lot about where we are and what we’re doing but nothing about how we’re doing. If you’re curious about previous years’ internal check-ins, here’s one from 2020 in Florida during the our first winter on the road, here’s one from that first summer in […]
Along the Klondike and Campbell Highways
Just a little north of Whitehorse, we left the Alaska Highway for the first time in ages and drove north along the Klondike, then east along the Robert Campbell. These names may seem to slip off my tongue easily (despite my terrible map skills) only because I’ve been hearing Tracy and Melanie plan their trips […]
