July 19. We had set the alarm for 5:30 and got up early. It was as light at bedtime as it was when we got up. With sunset at 11:07 and sunrise at 5:13, and the associated civil twilight with each of them, we are still in a part of the world where darkness doesn’t last long. We did a little PM on the car, had breakfast, broke camp, and left at 7. Finding ourselves again in Anchorage, we did a little souvenir shopping and continued on, this time toward Seward.

Seward is similar to Skagway except it is more of a sport-fishing town. After looking around we continued on and appropriately, just beyond Hope, we ran out of gas. When we were in Seward, I was driving and Bill asked me if we needed to get gas. We had about ¼ of a tank and besides, I knew that we had 5 gallons in the jeep can on the back bumper rack, so I said we were fine. Little did I know that he and Lloyd had added the spare gas to the tank during the time we were doing PM on the car.

When we ran out of gas I was the only one of us that didn’t have a panicked look. My panic didn’t start until a few minutes later when they told me that the can was empty. The place where I had coasted to was a little side pull-off that was divided from the highway like a rest stop or an information place. Lloyd grabbed a Talkabout (CB type of radio), the gas can, and ran to the road because he saw a car approaching. They stopped, picked him up, and off he went.

Bill and I looked around our unscheduled camping spot and I took a picture or two to commemorate what had in my mind replaced Seward’s Folly – Marty’s Folly. Bill and I finally sat in the car and passed the time talking. I was feeling pretty stupid for getting us into this fix and also was thinking that I should have been the one to go get gas because of it. I don’t know if Bill was trying to cheer me up or just hiding his thoughts about my being so out of touch with how it had happened. Anyway, about the time we figured that Lloyd might be starting back we turned on a Talkabout and almost immediately heard him make a call. We were amazed because normally the range is about a mile or so unless you have an unobstructed line – which we did not. We thought that maybe there was some kind of a freak signal because we believed he must be about 30 miles away. About a minute later he showed up in a pickup with a couple of pipeline maintenance workers. It turned out that as he was pumping gas the two guys pulled in. Because they were headed the right direction he asked if he could get a ride. They were going to Homer, so they said to put the can in the back. As soon as they filled up they would take him along. We put the gas in the tank, drove to the station, filled the tank and the spare can, and continued toward Valdez.

At 8 p.m., and about 70 miles short of our destination, we stopped for the day at a location that had been one of the major work camps during the construction of the Alaska pipeline. The camp was on the edge of a long flat gravel covered plateau overlooking a forested area below. After we set up our cots and ate our dinner we walked over to admire the view. Lloyd spotted a bald eagle sitting in a tree down the hill. Pretty soon with, the sun in our eyes, we went to bed and went to sleep.

July 20. We woke up at 5:30 on my 64^th birthday, had breakfast, packed and were on the road by 5:30. The guys had bought me a birthday card and placed it on the dashboard. Eventually I woke up to the fact that it was there and read it. We stopped at the Worthington Glacier and Lloyd said that he was sure that he and Ted had stopped to see it on his trip, and Bill thought that he had seen it as well. We split up and explored what each thought were the best places to walk around. When we got back together Bill said that he had seen some kind of a rodent but couldn’t be sure what it was. Later we identified it as a hoary marmot.

I don’t know what I really expected to see at Valdez. It had been front-page news on March 23, 1989 when the Exxon Valdez ran aground and caused the worlds most publicized oil spill – at least up to that time. Because the publicity had indicated that the effects would be felt in the area for 50 plus years I half expected to see evidence of the spill. Perhaps there are places along the coastal areas of the Kenai Peninsula where damage can still be found, but Valdez itself seemed pristine. The spill had stretched from just out of the Valdez Harbor to about 470 miles down the Alaska peninsula past Kodiak island. In any case, Valdez is another small settlement similar to Skagway and Seward. It is nestled at the end of an inlet and the area is really beautiful. This is the town at the end of the Alaska Pipeline, the start being 800 miles northward at Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope.

Valdez is also home to another disaster. On Good Friday, March 27, 1964, the largest earthquake ever to hit North America struck Alaska. The magnitude of this quake measured 8.4 - 8.6 on the Richter Scale and was reported as a 9.2 Moment Magnitude (Mw). It was the second largest earthquake ever recorded, second only to Chile in 1960, which experienced a quake of 9.5 (Mw). The epicenter of this awesome quake was a mere 45 miles west of Valdez and 14 miles under the earth's crust. Initial shocks lasting over five minutes affected nearly all of the Alaskan coastal communities. The ground under Valdez was determined to be unstable and it was decided to relocate to a new town site. After much research, The Army Corps of Engineers chose the delta of Mineral Creek, where the ground was more stable.

While in Valdez we saw several bald eagles in the wide shallow river that fed into the end of the ocean inlet. Several streams had Humpback (Pink) salmon in a frenzy of spawning activity. We circled around to the other side of the inlet to a hatchery. There were Humpies by the tens of thousands trying to fight their way into the stream beside the hatchery. Before we left town we bought gas!

We returned on the same road we came in on and at the junction, a town called Glennallen, we stopped at the local visitor’s center. We saw some examples of diamond willow used as artwork as well as the traditional walking sticks that can be found from time to time in tourist shops. The lady told us a location where we might find some diamond willow growing and we decided to investigate. We didn’t have any luck finding the willow, but we found two frogs and a jillion mosquitoes. We had always managed to stay out of the brush where the "squits" lived for the most part, but they were still plentiful in this area.

Instead of driving to Tok Junction, we decided to take the longer two sides of the triangle and go to Delta Junction. We wanted to stop at the visitor’s center and pick up some "End of the Alaska Highway" certificates. It was still my birthday and I didn’t want to celebrate with our normal sandwich dinner, so I asked the lady at the visitor’s center if there was a restaurant down the road going toward Tok. She recommended a place called Adam’s Ribs.

When we pulled in to the restaurent we found that it had just closed. The owner stuck his head out the door and asked if we needed help. When we explained that we were hoping to find a meal here he told us to come on in. He wasn’t going to fire up the stove because he had just cleaned it for the day, but the ribs were still hot if we wanted to have them. They were darned good!

After dinner we continued to Tok, filled the gas tank, and then on down the road. I was driving and noticed a dirt road on the other side of the road that looked like it went up the hill to a flat spot. I turned around and we located our typical road maintenance gravel pile only this time on nice penthouse view lot. We knew we were close to the Canada border, but we didn’t want the hassle of making the crossing that late in the day. As we drifted off to sleep we thought we heard thunder, but decided that it wouldn’t rain as we could see nothing but clear sky.

July 21. A few hours later we crossed the border into the Yukon Territory again. I don’t know if it is just a result of the Sept. 11^th terrorist strike, Canada trying to harass Americans, or just the paranoia of this particular lady border guard. In addition to the fixation on guns, drugs, alcohol, and other contraband, this lady was wondering how we were going to protect ourselves from the bears. Maybe she thought she could trick us into saying that we had a smuggled gun for protection or something. We were telling her that we hadn’t seen very many bears and she was telling us about how they hung around her house all the time. Maybe she has a garbage problem. We didn’t voice the thought to her, but we joked about it after we got going again. All in all our neighbors to the north are outgoing and friendly, but the border people seemed to look at the three of us as though we were suspect. I wonder how we would have been received if we hadn’t bathed at least once a week. Maybe a shave would have helped, but we were determined to have beards by the time we got home.

We stopped in Burwash Landing to get our passports stamped, but didn’t pay to go into the wildlife museum to see a bunch of stuffed dead animals. In Haines Junction we actually bought ice for the cooler chest as our snow had finally melted. Then it was back to Whitehorse to get a passport stamp at the Art Center. Again we decided to visit the fish ladder, but the salmon were still not that far up the river. There were still a couple of places we hadn’t gotten passport stamps at yet, so we retraced the road back to Carmacks and cut some more diamond willow at the place we discovered on the first trip through. We discovered the same mosquitoes as before too.

In short order we were headed to Faro and the village of Ross River, two as yet unexplored towns and both were passport destinations. A few miles up another dirt road we stopped at the camping place we had reserved, only this time it wasn’t a maintenance gravel pile, just a wide spot off of the road.

July 22. We got up at our now accustomed early hour, did the normal routine, and headed for Faro. Faro is located in the Pelly River Valley in the Anvil Mountains and owes its existence to a major lead-zinc deposit discovered in 1953. The deposit was originally developed under the name of Dynasty Explorations. Dynasty later joined forces with Cyprus Anvil Mining to put the open-pit mine, one of the largest of its type in the world, into production in 1969. The townsite of Faro was still being built at that time. We restocked some of our food supply and moved toward Ross River.

Shortly after leaving Faro we crossed the Lapie River and stopped to look down at he view. It was a beautiful clear unspoiled river. The kind that you seldom see anywhere anymore. While we were stopped a gray jay flew over to investigate us. This is the same kind of friendly bird that visits our camp in Oregon, near Dutchman Peak, when we hunt deer on opening day. This little guy actually accepted breadcrumbs from our hands. Wild, yet very trusting - much like us. (Check out this bird in the photo album of the Yukon.)

Near Ross River there is a ferry crossing on the Pelly River with a road across the river that leads to the Northwest Territory. It was a sorry looking road and according to our map, it didn’t go to any towns. At least not big enough to make the map, and there were some really small spots that did make it. There is a suspension pedestrian bridge that was replaced by the ferry. The bridge, although still useable, is as crooked and twisty as a snake on drugs.

We decided to walk the bridge to the other side. As we were crossing, a large 18-wheeler pulled onto the ferry which had been parked on the far side of the river. Lloyd hurried across the bridge and rode back with the ferry. When the ferry completed the crossing, Bill and I met it and we talked to the operator. Bill asked him if it had been the old ferry at Dawson City on the Yukon River. The guy said that it was and Bill explained that he remembered it from the time he and Grandma Bug had made the trip with Dutch, Doc, and Judy. The operator then told us an interesting story about how the ferry had ended up at Ross River when a larger one replaced it at Dawson City.

It turns out that the man’s father and uncle pulled the ferry from Dawson City to the town of Ross River with a small tug barge. The last afternoon before they were expected to arrive at Ross River, they tipped a few beers and before they knew what happened – they grounded the barge on a sand bar there on the Pelly River and couldn’t get off of it. The next morning they were picked up by a fisherman in a small boat and were taken to Ross River where the whole town had turned out and was waiting to celebrate the arrival of the ferry. They hired a couple of cat drivers that were working in the hills to drive their rigs down to the river and pull the barge off of the sand bar. Somewhat embarrassed, they then proceeded on to the town where the people had, for the most part, gone back about their normal business. In any case the current pilot is the second generation to operate the ferry at its present location. Proving that nepotism exists in places other than our security work at the Josephine County Fair.

When we were through talking to the operator we drove on to the town which was a stone’s throw away. We stopped at a small store and some kids were selling cookies at the entrance. We bought one each, one of the few treats we had on the whole trip. One little girl who had been counting their daily take as we entered and was counting it again, was very serious about selling and keeping track of the money. "One cookie, that’s twenty-five cents, two cookies, that’s another quarter, three cookies, that’s another quarter, 1-2-3… so you owe me three quarters."

Then it was down the Canol Road to Johnson’s Crossing and Teslin. Just before we got to Johnson’s crossing we finally saw what we had been hoping to see. A confirmed grizzly bear. We had thought we saw one before, but it was such a fleeting view that we couldn’t be positive. However, we were going to swear that it was should we not find another one. This big guy was definitely Ursus Horibilis.

We stopped along the way at a gift shop called Trapper Bill’s. The shop is actually the front room of their house. Trapper Bill runs trap lines and the gift shop supplements their income. We talked a little, bought a couple of hatpins and a post card or two, and continued toward Teslin. I was driving and at Teslin we stopped to camp at a place we had noticed before on the trip going the other way. It was called Mukluk Annie’s and they offered free camping. Considering that we had not paid for any of our camping up to this point, one wouldn’t think of this as a big incentive to stop. Our entire journey had been through areas where you could pull off of the road and camp.

Even though we were doing a very rudimentary version of camping, there are many places where RV’s, trailers, pick-up campers, etc. can pull off the road onto a flat paved areas that usually parallel the main road for a couple of hundred yards and then lead back onto the highway. In our case, because we were sleeping in the open on our cots, except for the few times we fixed a tarp because of rain or slept in the car for the same reason, we usually wanted to be out of view for privacy. Thus, finding a gravel pile to sleep behind suited out purpose for the most part.

In any case Mukluk Annie, and her husband Mukluk Chuck, operated a campground and restaurant. Free camping, water, and a dump station. If you wanted electric hookups or a shower, you paid for them. However, if you buy a meal at the restaurant, you get a free ride on Teslin Lake in Mukluk Chuck’s houseboat as well as comments from Chuck. You also get a free car wash which is usually needed because the dirt roads and rain that keeps the potholes full, makes for an ugly vehicle.

We had salmon and Lloyd added ribs to his plate and shared with us. There was an endless salad bar, but the selection was not endless. None-the-less it was a good meal at a good price and we were the only passengers on the second sailing of the houseboat excursion. Bill and Lloyd went to the showers, but didn’t pay to take one. Instead they just took pretty thorough sponge baths. I was guarding my camera as it charged at one of the electric outlets and decided to clean up in the morning. When they got back we played cards by the twilight until about midnight when my camera was finally charged, and then turned in for the day.

(Sadly, Mukluk Annie's closed in 2008. Annie & Chuck retired and their children had no interest in continuing the campground. All good things eventually bite the dust!)

July 23. We decided to eat our normal breakfast in lieu of an all you can eat pancake breakfast at Annie’s. I took a sponge bath while they packed things up. The car wash turned out to be a gravel spot with a hose and nozzle. It worked well enough for us though. We headed on to Teslin Junction that was just a mile or two down the road, arriving there at 9 a.m. The museum, where we needed to obtain yet another passport stamp, was closed. Lloyd wandered around to the back door and about that time the girl unlocked the door and Bill and I went in. Shortly, Lloyd wandered through the museum. He had knocked on the back door and some man let him in. Because we had them surrounded, they stamped our passports and we bought a couple of hat pins and left. Lloyd had whispered that the exhibits in the museum were pretty sparse and probably not worth the price of admission.

Continuing, we were once again headed Watson Lake. We stopped at the visitor’s center and talked with Joyce who remembered us and listened to some of our adventures. We took a cup of coffee with two sugars to the lady in the sign shop, and then went to the Northern Lights Center, turned in our passport sheets, and picked up our posters. We decided to backtrack back toward Teslin Junction about 22 miles and then head south on Hwy 37. From there we planned to return to Prince George via the Western Route. This would also allow a stop at Hyder, Alaska, where there is supposed to be excellent bear viewing, both black as well as grizzlies. We wanted to get close enough to Hyder that we would be there early in the morning for good bear viewing, so we drove for quite some time.

While I was behind the wheel we came to a stretch of road that Milepost Magazine, the official travel Bible for the Alaska Highway, described as the world’s largest Huckleberry patch. There had been a fire in the area some time back and Huckleberries are some of the first shrubs to make a comeback, along with fireweed. It turned out that it was also the world’s largest dining room for bears. The berries were ripe enough to attract them and they seemed to be really intent on dining out. There was one section where we counted 20 black bears and I don’t think we went twenty miles during that time. Lloyd took over the driving and shortly, we found a place to set up camp – another road maintenance gravel pile. Because it had started to rain we decided to just sleep in the Blazer. The fact that we were in the middle of a large concentration of bears had absolutely nothing to do with that decision. NOT!

July 24. Since Lloyd was still behind the wheel in the morning, we started driving pretty early. It is difficult to sleep while sitting halfway up. He figured that he would drive for a short while and then get in the back and snooze. (The best laid plans…) It didn’t work out that way. We came to a place called Jade City, named because someone had found a large outcropping of Jade back in the hills. They had been mining it for the last twenty years or so and had opened a souvenir shop to sell carved and shaped pieces. They had some large chunks, some the size of a pickup bed, that weighed more than five thousand pounds. Lots of jade pieces and lots of high prices. We looked and then we left.

Lloyd continued to drive and shortly we got to the junction for the road to Hyder. Not far down the road we came around a corner and there were two cubs on the left side of the road, with mama bear on the right. She was nonchalantly eating while her cubs were J-walking across the road. We decided to try for a close-up picture of the twins, but by the time we could get the car in a good position one of them had scaled the 3-foot safety barrier. The other guy was jumping up and not quite reaching the top where he could grab hold and pull himself over. Mama continued to eat. Eventually I got a couple of pretty good pictures and we continued on to the border town of Stewart, B.C., and crossed back into Alaska.

A short distance later as we entered Hyder, a mama and two cubs ran across the road. We took all of these recent bears as a good omen for sighting bears at the viewing area. Just past the town we came to a series of small parking lots and located a space to leave the blazer. We walked back to the viewing area - a raised wooden walkway enclosed with cyclone fencing. We walked on the walkway, which is above and parallel to a salmon-spawning creek. There were only a handful of salmon in the creek and no bears. There were a couple of merganser ducks, and all of a sudden one of them became quite panicked and tried to get out of the middle of the creek as fast as it could move. A bald eagle swooped down the creek and made a pass at something. I don’t think it was the duck, because in spite of his attempt to move, he would have been plucked out of the water had the eagle been so inclined. As we left there was a group of people pointing midway up a tree across the road from the walkway. There on a limb sat a bear. We decided that with as many bears as we had seen the night before that the trip down here was a success in spite of the scarcity in the "prime" area. The bears were just on a berry diet at the moment instead of fish.

We continued on to see the 5^th largest glacier – the Salmon Glacier. There were lots of evidence of old mines, and Lloyd and I walked partway into an old road tunnel that had been abandoned because they eventually cut the road around the point of rock that it went through. While we were in there, Bill built an inukchuk at the tunnel entrance. We drove a little farther and found the other end of the tunnel. We also found several marmots along the way. They like to live around rock piles to hide in as well as to perch on for a view of their surroundings. This was prime rock pile country, both for marmots as well as building inukchuks. We found a clean snow bank, packed our cooler chest, and turned around. As we passed Bill’s inukchuk, we noticed a lady hunkered down between it and the tunnel entrance taking a picture of Bill’s artwork. I have a great picture of her taking her picture. (See the photo album.) 

As we crossed back into Canada we didn’t have any problems, but there were still the endless questions about weapons, bears and alcohol. I don’t know if there is any way that we could have been coming from Hyder other then the way that we went in, but they had a guard there. We didn’t think they would bother as the U.S. doesn’t even check people leaving Canada and going into Hyder. When we told the lady that we had just driven in a couple of hours earlier, and only went as far as the glacier, which is a dead-end road because of bridges that are washed out, she informed us that the glacier belongs to Canada not to Alaska. (Some kind of an inferiorty complex thing with Canadians I think.) We wondered why they didn’t have a border station on the other side of Hyder as well.

We continued back to the junction of Hwy 37 and continued south until it ended at the junction of Hwy 16. At that point we turned left (east) toward Prince George. About 50 miles from Pr. George we stopped near Vanderhoof, pulled off onto the old road, put out our cots, and went to sleep. July 25. When we awoke, there was a lot of dew that had dampened our sleeping bags. We thought we might find a laundromat and dry them so we didn’t roll them and pack them away. We never found one but that evening they were dry anyway. We continued through Prince George, and over to Jasper, Alberta. We parked and then wandered around the town. Once again I located a visitor’s center and left my camera to charge. We bought a few souvenirs and left town headed for Banff. Between these two towns is one of the prettiest National Parks anywhere – Jasper National Park. In spite of the previous 3 weeks of pretty spectacular country, we stopped several times to take pictures. Admiring great scenery is hard to get burned out on. At one location I talked to a young couple that, as it turned out, were on their honeymoon. They had been married on my birthday in Anaheim, CA. I told them that Mary and I had honeymooned in Banff and had driven through Jasper and seen Lake Louise and all of that stuff in 1969. (That area had really changed – tourist-wise since then.)

When I asked him what he thought of the country, his answer seemed almost perfect. He described it as "like Yosemite times ten" which is close, but we all felt it was much prettier than that! We filled up with gas in Banff and forgot to use the last of our Canadian money. As a result we came home with about $50 Canadian. Bill was driving and in Kootenay National Park he found an "improved" campground. A gravel pit with an outhouse! We were finally far enough south again that it gets dark at a reasonable hour, and that night we lay under a black velvet sky and got a great view of Mars. Mars was within a few weeks of being closer to Earth then it has been, or that it would be, for many years. We also saw quite a few satellites flying in various orbits.

July 26. We got up, ate, packed, and continued down the road. We stopped at a few more small stores to try to trade coins. Since we looked real grubby with our beards, and were closer to the border, we had more problems, but managed to trade them out three times anyway. At this point I was driving, and when we reach the U.S. border near Eureka, Montana, the lady on the U.S. side quizzed us much as the Canadians did. She also misunderstood about our birth certificates, and thought we didn’t have them with us. She ranted on about traveling without some kind of official identification. When I explained that I had my passport (the real one, not the Yukon one.) and that the other two had birth certificates in a storage tub in the back of the Blazer, she continued to read the riot act for not having them in our hands.

We explained that we thought we would have to get out to be searched as we were when we first entered Canada and just figured to retrieve them then. She told us that we should always have our documentation in hand anytime we crossed a border so we would not slow traffic, and to help streamline the process. Although there wasn’t another car in sight and we hadn’t seen one approaching us for half an hour or so, we didn’t inquire further about the crowds of people. When we said that we would be all to happy to pull over to a spot beside the station and get them out, she declined the offer and was happy to get rid of us without looking at them. Just another example of the fallout from Sept. 11, 2001, and the way that it has changed our lives forever.

I continued driving on to Lake Koocanusa where Mary and I had spent several weeks over a few summers with the group that I fish with. I drove into a US Forest campground called Pecks Landing, and we went to the boat ramp and took a bath in the lake. Several hours later I remembered that I had hung my suit on a bush to dry and left it there. Apparently that will be my last bath until I get home now that we are back out of the "bush." All except my suit that is. 

We had previously decided to drive to Flathead Lake and visit Terry and Sue Lindley. We all knew Terry although from different situations. Mary was Terry’s babysitter when he was a wee lad. Lloyd and Terry were in the Boy Scouts together, and Bill knew him from Mare Island because they were both supervisors and moved in the same circles. I met Terry when he came to a party that Mary hosted shortly before we were married when Lloyd had brought him along. That was when I met him for the first time that I can remember. Later I knew him from Mare Island, but mostly through the connection with Lloyd. However, there was a time when he was doing management training and moved in my circle as well. We spent the evening talking about old times. Some of it Boy Scout stuff and some of it Mare Island stuff. Because Sue had also worked at the Shipyard, most of the conversation was slanted in that direction. They fed us a great dinner consisting of wild game that Terry had gunned down, continued to talk, and then went to bed in their bunkhouse. Because it had a shower, I had my second bath of the day.

July 27. In the morning, Lloyd and Bill showered and we packed. Terry and Sue fixed us a breakfast of pancakes and hunters sausage. They had an appointment to keep, but they said we could stay as long as we liked. We left shortly as soon as we had the car loaded with our stuff. We turned onto US 200 which is the highway that goes to Sandpoint, ID. I wanted to show them the "fish camp" at River Delta Resort and also stop at a spring in Montana, about 5 miles from the Idaho border. After filling our water bottles we stopped at Cabinet Dam on the Clark Fork River just to look at the water rush out of the dam and through the gorge. A couple of miles beyond that, we were at "RDR" and visited with Virgil & Pam Berry, my neighbors in Vacaville, as well as Floyd & Betty Welch. I knew Floyd from the shipyard also.

Virgil, Pam, Floyd, and Betty had been going to RDR for about 25 years and when Mary and I were invited to join them there about 12 years before, we were welcomed into the circle of people that vacationed there every summer. Every year we fished for kokanee (landlocked salmon) either there on Lake Pend Oreille or on Koocanusa in Montana and always had friendly competitions about who the best fishermen was. From Sandpoint we drove south on US 95, and in Kamiah, tried to contact Judy Mercer – the cousin that had made the Alaska trip with Bill in 1955. I think it would have been fun to hear them talk about their trip and have Bill recount the differences that he had seen. It probably would have been a chance for him to see if she could remember some of the things that he might have been hazy on. In any case, she wasn’t home or at least was out of the house away from the phone.

At Lewiston, we crossed the border to Clarkston, Washington, and drove toward the Columbia River and Oregon. Near Moro, we found a place to set out our cots at McMoss County Park and slept. July 28. We continued on Hwy 97 to La Pine where a friend that Bill & I knew from our Mare Island days, named Hank Del Fiorentino, owned a sport shop. We talked with Hank for a short time and then drove to Crater Lake. I bought Bill a Golden Age Passport, stopped to take a few pictures from the rim, and then went to the visitor’s center to get a Junior Ranger Pin. We were trying to get to Merlin by 5 p.m. and made it to Grants Pass at 5:15 and filled the gas tank. Karen called on my cell phone as we were leaving town and was wondering where we were. We told her that we were pretty close, and shortly we arrived at Lloyd’s home around 5:45 p.m.

I'm sure this does not include the total list of animals we saw on the trip because sometimes I would just check a bird off of the lifetime bird index of my bird book. But, we did write down the following birds, rodents, and mammels:

American Dippers, Arctic Terns, Bald Eagles, Canada Geese, Crows, Gray Jays, Mallard Ducks, Mew Gulls, Ospreys, Ravens,  Red-necked Grebes, Red-throated Loons, Rock Ptarmigan, Sand Hill Cranes, Steller's Jays, Trumpter Swans, Willow Ptarmigan.

Arctic Hare, Beavers, Black Bears, Buffalo, Caribou, Chipmunks, Coyotes, Elk, Fox Squirrels, Grey Squirrels, Grizzly Bears, Hoary Marmots, Mice, Moose, Mountain Goats, Porcupine, Rabbits, Red Fox, Red Squirrels, Stone Sheep, White-tailed Deer, Wolves, and (in Alaska) 1 Wood Frog.

The round trip from Lloyd’s house was 9,700 miles. Our reduced calorie intake paid off as Lloyd had lost 15 pounds, Bill around 20, and I had dropped 18. The total cost for the trip was later calculated at $2,699.93. We considered it a bargain even though the bulk of the trip was spent on gas. Camping costs were zero and the food bill was, as you can imagine, only a small part of the expenditures. We ended up with lots of memories, a few souvenirs, and a continuing bond that has existed since each of us were children, which is surprising for three brothers who spent three weeks in the confinement of a vehicle and experienced what some would think of as sleep deprivation. We came back still good friends and would voice the opinion that we should do a similar trip again in the not too distant future.