Northern Trails And Tales

This is a blog about heading home, but thinking of my home state reminded me of a scene in Woody Allen’s “Small Time Crooks” where an oily hustler offers to ‘help’ a couple of newly wealthy ignoramuses, one of them Woody Allen, with their cultural education.  “Is there ANYTHING you would like to learn,” he asks?  Woody reluctantly replies, “Well, I always wanted to learn how to spell Connecticut.”  (Jeez, and my problem was always Massach-up-there-above-us….)
So….  It’s Saturday, and we’re in Whitecourt, Alberta, about an hour west of Edmonton.  We left Alaska on Wednesday.  As you will recall, our trip into Skagway was enlivened by a dense fog in the mountains that slowed our travel to about five blind miles per hour for about ten miles or so.  For that reason, we were hoping for a clear day to leave, and we got it.  The fog was there but several hundred feet above the road we were traveling.  We passed through the Canadian border check quickly and without causing an international incident.  Just a mile or two further, we came across a black bear standing on the shoulder of the road, and he posed for us till we came abreast of him at which point he lumbered into the brush.  So, it might have been a delightful goodbye except we slogged the rest of the day in rain, the same rain we contended with throughout our Alaskan stay.
We spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday driving down the Alaska Highway through the Yukon, British Columbia, and, now, into Alberta.  [ For those of you corresponding on the computer, we’ve crossed two time zones and are now on Rocky Mountain Time, only two hours behind, how-do-you-spell-Connecticut.]  It must be National Wildlife Week in Canada!   Close-up, we have seen bears, numerous herds of caribou along and in the road partially blocking traffic, mountain goats, stone sheep, elk, moose, deer, coyotes, foxes, several herds of buffalo, some of them placidly grazing at the edge of the highway seemingly oblivious to the occasional passing vehicle.  I’m not sure what has drawn all the animals to the highway, but we are grateful for seeing all of them as we missed seeing most on the way up.
It appears that we are among the last of the RVers to flee Alaska.  Above Anchorage, as we traveled to the north of the Chugach Mountains, it snowed two nights in a row.  The snow was falling at ever lower elevations, or “coming down the mountain” as folks up there say.  I guess that’s as good a message as any that it’s time to head south.  The foliage along the roadsides was browned out or had turned yellow, russet, and maroon.  Daytime high temperatures were only in the upper forties.  Yup, time to go.  Evenings in the RV parks felt like visits to ghost towns.  Campgrounds that on our way to Alaska in June had been filled, or nearly filled, with eighty or a hundred or a hundred fifty trailers and motor homes now were hosting six or a dozen.  We were informed that the hordes heading south had passed two or three weeks ago.  Now, like struggling and straggling tuba players, attempting to stay in step with the bass banging drummers, we’re bringing up the rear of the parade.  (By the way, can anyone out there tell me why someone would play the tuba in the rear of a marching band when he or she could finger a featherweight flute up front?)  Yup, now you can really tell, it’s time to go.
We came through the beautiful, nay, scintillating, Northern Rockies again.  As words failed me the first time, I won’t mangle them again this time around.  See the Rockies for yourself!  In a way, they are even more beautiful now as the aspens, cottonwoods, and deciduous shrubs dash some yellow and an occasional splash of dark red or even orange into the scene.  Fall is definitely here.  The grass, weeds, and scattered wheat along the roads has turned to yellow or brown.  The greens are left to the sentinel spruces and their kin but, of course,  they still predominate.
Yesterday afternoon and this morning we traveled through the higher prairies where the wheat and hay have been mostly harvested and the stubble shines a magnificent burnished gold under the endless sky which has been blue!, blue!, blue! and brought us temperatures around eighty.  I had forgotten what this feels like.  This is also an area of gas, oil, and timber, but those things don’t stir me the way the farms and ranches do.  I would have loved to be a farmer on a warm fall day when most of the work has been finished.
We have more or less made a decision to skip Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks and turn east after a day or two with the dinosaurs outside Calgary.  Yup, it’s time to go.  With all due respect to Thomas Wolfe, you can go home again, or at least I’m going to try.  I already find myself talking to folks about the trip in the past tense.  I also find myself thinking of the Maine fishing I’ll miss this fall for the first time in many years.   Falling asleep, I no longer conjure up sockeyes, kings, and silvers, but have visions of the Connecticut streams which will shortly be stocked with trout and of the Atlantic salmon that will soon be swimming in the Shetucket.  It’s time to see Charmi before she changes the locks on the doors, and my progeny before their father is completely gray.  It’s time to see friends and talk to them without a computer screen in the way.
I started this blog over three months ago with an old Spanish proverb to the effect that “An ass that goes traveling doesn’t come back a horse.”  And so it is.  This small town boy went traveling and he liked a lot of what he saw, but he wouldn’t trade it for what he has.  Spell that C-o-n-n-e-c-t-i-c-u-t, and all it means to me.
The trip isn’t over, so you’ll have to bear the blogs a while longer.  We’re still a bit of a way from home and have plans to see a few more sights.  This weekend is a reminder that summer is still in the air.  It’s a holiday weekend up here too, and  possibly the last warm weather trip for many. They’ve escaped from Calgary and Edmonton. Last night (Friday) every campground around Grand Prairie was filled.  We finally got a spot in the overflow lot of one of the nicer parks.  There was wi-fi but, of course, no water, electricity, or sewers.  It jogged my memory of Denali, and why I like to do my camping in a Holiday Inn.  All this prompted us to call ahead to see if we could get reservations for tonight.  Sure enough, we finally got one here at Sagitawah RV Park, where we had stopped on the way up.  There are 88 sites.  We were assigned #31— the exact site of our first stay!   Say “serendipity.”
Anyway, the clock is ticking.  This ass, or horse, or is it horse’s ass is beginning the trip back to the barn  It’ll be good, real good, to see you all again!!!

On Labor Day we stayed over in Calgary. We used the day to visit the Terrell Dinosaur Museum, an absolutely fascinating place which not only features dinosaurs but traces the various ages of the earth. It’s located in the Canadian Badlands, which are fairly amazing in themselves, and similar to the Dakota Badlands for those of you who have visited there.

Tuesday, we cleared the Sweetwater, Montana, Port of Entry without causing an international border incident. Since, we’ve been moving south and east as fast as the trailer will allow. We’ve done a bit of sightseeing, too. We stopped at the national park commemorating the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the site of Custer’s Last Stand. The terrain is rather hilly and the battleground something over five miles long and a couple deep. though I’ve read a couple books over the years on the battle, I was surprised by the hills and the size of the area on which the battle took place. We also visited Mt Rushmore. The sculpture is impressive, but the surrounding area is tourist trap personified.

The past couple days we’ve been rolling through corn and soybean country. Tonight (Sunday), we’re in Indianapolis, Indiana. With any luck, we plan to be home on Wednesday.

For any of those who might be interested, once I’m home I’ll do some Alaska musings which might help any of you considering a trip similar to our…. See you all very soon!