Sue's Small Electric Appliance Recommendations

Now why in the world, you might ask, am I posting this item on my travel blog?

It is because we bought three new small electric appliances for our motor home during our long trip. Then when we returned, I ordered and bought all three for our condo. They are all so wonderful that I am going to share them now. Total cost through Amazon and Target: $225 plus or minus a few dollars. They have changed my life!

1) The Cuisinart Egg Cooker, Model CEC-7. Cost: $29.95. I ordered it through Amazon. Gary is a Prime member so we get two day shipping free. Amazon is going to rule the world. There is nobody anywhere that can beat their price and service. This wonderful little cooker fixes eggs four ways: in-the-shell soft, medium and hard, and poached. It is a no muss no fuss cooker, and it's very cute besides! We eat eggs every morning and this little cooker is just wonderful.

2) The Black and Decker Cordless Hand Vac DustBuster. I can't find a model number on mine but it came from Target and is either CHV1410,1410B, 1510, or 1610. It is 15.6v so I would guess it is either the 1510 or 1610 model. It has a brush and crevice tool built into the nozzle, no clumsy storage and difficulty attaching! Cost at Target: $49.99. I have had a series of DustBusters over the years, but this one is the best. It is so powerful, and easy to use. Easy emptying and cleaning.

3) The best for last. The Hoover Linx Cordless Stick Vac, BH50010. Purchased at Amazon. Price the second time: $144, a little less the first time. This vacuum has a removable rechargeable Lithium battery. It has a brush roller for carpets and can be turned on and off for hardwood floors. It works wonderfully well. I ordered a second battery ($50) so I can get over my whole house, changing the battery once. Very easy to empty. Filter is great. Lightweight. Makes vacuuming a breeze. I now love to vacuum!

BTW, after the battery has fully recharged each time, don't leave it in the recharger. Apparently doing so depletes the battery and wears it out faster. Remove it when the light starts a slow flashing, indicating recharge is done, and put the battery back in the vacuum.

There you have my current favorite toys!


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Home again

We arrived home yesterday afternoon. The RV is in the "barn", and most of our stuff is back in Minneapolis, except my iPad which I inconveniently left in the RV! (Will get it next week)

We had a hot drive from Bozeman, MT, traveling through the Dakotas on I90 to I94. Came back in to the US near Shelby, MT on I15. BTW, the drive from Shelby to Bozeman on I15 is beautiful, following the Missouri River and then swinging slightly west through a beautiful river canyon of a name I don't remember. Stopped for lunch at a great overlook of a narrow canyon.

We had a lovely day hike near Bozeman, at Hyalite Canyon, where we hiked up to a beautiful waterfall.



Along this trail one can pass at least 10 waterfalls if you do the entire 10 mile round trip hike. Montana, North and South Dakota, and indeed, northern Minnesota are very green. No signs of the severe drought that has hit some of the mid West. That was good to see. We know that Alaska continues to be cold and wet. Getting readjusted to heat will take a few days.

Good to be back! Lots of projects to complete on the RV before our next trip in the spring!

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A summary of our return from Alaska

We are just south of Edmonton, AB, tonight. Monday, when we were on the Kenai Peninsula, seems like a year ago! It is now Saturday night

We traveled back over the Alaska Highway, from Anchorage through Palmer and then through Gennallen and Tok, and on to the Alaska/Yukon border. The Alaska portion of the highway is in pretty good shape, nothing that 45-50 mph with adequate application of brakes from time to time for frost heaves, dips and ruts won't manage.

But then we went back over the portion in the Yukon, and that was truly horrific. In May it was not yet "road construction" season. But by early July they were in full swing. So we encountered not only the old, long unfixed frost heaves and breaks from the Yukon border to Destruction Bay, but also various other highway sections all the way to Whitehorse and really, almost all the way to Ft Nelson, undergoing the perpetual fixes and re-construction that occur. Usually this means either extended sections of gravel highway, or extended sections of seal coating (BTW, I HATE seal coating! Let there be no doubt about that! I think trucks just love to see how fast they can go and how much dust and how many rocks they can throw at RVs!) With either gravel road or seal coating, you are truly jinxed.

We are, therefore, "injured". Seven rock dings in the Saturn windshield at last count (new windshield required), 2 rock dings in the RV windshield (can be repaired), and the hydraulic tank for the levelers cracked due to the frost heaves (can be replaced by Gary. He's done it before). Currently we have no levelers. This is not a huge problem, but on unlevel parking sites, the inside feels, well, unlevel. We have heavy rock damage to the front of our poor, trusty Saturn. We are undecided about the repair we will do to the car body.

Now, in all candor, one can take steps to minimize this kind of damage (and in the past we have done this) - a rock guard mounted on the front of the car, car windshield screens. Did we do this? No. Gary thought about it, but we optimistically decided that it would be fine. We had made it up there in May with no problem. So it would be no problem on the return journey. Wrong! (This being said, there is nothing you can do about the RV windshield to protect that. And the cracked hydraulic tank? Well, that just happened.)

My bottom line to future travelers on the Alaska Highway (especially the Yukon portion): We were there 18 years ago, and then again 9 years ago, and the highway is no better today than it was then.

But otherwise we are fine. And these are all things that can be fixed.

We will be back in the US tomorrow, coming in at Shelby, Montana. Still some miles to go, but we are on our way.

It was all worth it. Some things you just can't put a price on. Having such great fun with family in such a beautiful place is priceless.

PS: For anyone who was paying attention to what I said our intended route back was: I said we would be on the Cassiar Highway, avoiding the Alaska Highway altogether, but we decided that with the leveler problem and a problem with one of our slides, it would be better not to do that. So we chose the other route. Interesting because we might have avoided all the rock damage. But the Cassiar was an unknown thing. We have been over it before when large portions were unpaved, muddy and/or dusty, and we read that while more is now paved, there are lots of frost heaves. Who knows? We never will.

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A quick summary

Tonight is the first night Gary and I have been just the two of us in three weeks. It has gone by so fast and was so great. First Chip and Penelope for two full, happy wonderful weeks and then Rob, Maria, Henry and Annie for 5 1/2 wonderful days.

We covered a lot of territory in that time: halibut fishing, exploring Halibut Cove near Homer, two bus trips to Kantishna in the back country at Denali Park including seeing so many wonderful wild animals, and one spectacular flight seeing trip back out from Kantishna to the park entrance, fishing in the Kenai River, hiking to Exit Glacier, gold panning, a tour of Gold Dredge Number 8, two fabulous boat tours of the Kenai Fjords Natl Park, and riding in a cart pulled by a team of Alaskan huskies through the forest as they keep in shape during the summer. Lots of laughs, great meals, great conversations, and satisfaction at seeing this beautiful state.

I posted photos on Facebook and that's about what I can do for now. WiFi is underpowered at best and non existent in many places. Facebook seems to work better than anything else.

We are in a nice RV park on the Glenn Highway tonight, just below the snow line. It has been cool and wet much of our time here, if not just downright cold. The only nice weather was in Fairbanks. This strange weather pattern persists. It snowed two nights ago in the mountains near Seward. Some are wondering if this is still last winter or the start of next winter!

We will be back on the Alaska Highway by tomorrow, and will then head down the Cassiar Highway, for anybody who wants to look on a map. Then we will head east through the Canadian Rockies before re-entering the lower 48.

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Anchorage, AK

We have had several days in Anchorage to re-provision and get clean. The RV and car were really dirty after the trip up here, and as of today we are once again clean! We have been getting ready for the twins arrival tomorrow, on their 11th birthdays. They get here about 5:30 pm which will be 8:30 their time. We will go immediately to dinner at a very cool place, giving a taste of Alaska and the gold mining culture. I think there is a big stuffed grizzly in the lobby area, too.

Yesterday I did a walk down by the train station and took a couple of photos. Very picturesque. The Alaska Railroad main track is about one hundred yards from the RV park we are staying in. Fortunately they are pretty quiet at night, if not during the day!










Today both of us did a run on the Tony Knowles Trail, also very close to the RV park, which runs along the shoreline of the Knik Arm of the Cook Inlet (I think I have that right). This photo is looking east toward the Chugash Mountains over a lagoon of the Chester River which flows into the Knik Arm. The salmon are running on many of the rivers, but have not come in here yet, either on Chester Creek or on Ship Creek, where the salmon derby, called Slammin' Salmin is currently underway. We walked over there the other night and didn't see much happening.



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Haines and on to Palmer, AK

We left Skagway on the ferry that goes down the Lynn Canal and over to Haines, a short ride. It was a bright sunny day, one of the few we have had in both Canada and in Alaska. Here are a couple of photos I took, watching Gary maneuver our RV down the ramp, and then on to the ferry. He says that this process is always a panic.








He got the job done!

On board the ferry



We had a lovely time in Haines for two nights and one day.

View of the harbor at Haines



So so nice to see the sun. Not as nice the next day, but not raining. We first drove to Chilkat State Park. I liked this boat house which is so like the ones you see all over the Atlantic coast. They seemed to be crabbing in these waters, just as they lobster on the east coast.



Then we drove to Chilkoot Lake out of which flows the Chilkoot River. The salmon are just beginning to run up the rivers for spawning. The nice thing about the Chilkoot River is that it wasn't "blown out", a new term to me used by the locals to refer to the rivers that are flooded, muddy or silty. They almost all are blown out. The amount of water flowing up here is just stunning. Here is the Chilkoot with beautiful clear water.



We saw four grizzlies foraging on vegetation along the river on the opposite side from us. My camera is not up to this task, but it was amazing. We didn't know there was such great bear watching in Haines.

Yesterday we drove from Haines to Tok, AK. Long long day. The Haines Highway is just gorgeous. Unfortunately we had heavy overcast most of the day, and rain off and on. But this is a good highway, crossing the border back in to British Columbia and along the Wrangell - St Elias mountain range. The highway goes above tree line. Lots of snow at the higher elevations, with much melting taking place. Water water everywhere. We saw trumpeter swans nesting in the high mountain ponds. Then down into the taiga forest that goes for hundreds and hundreds of miles along the Wrangell -St Elias range, basically along the edge of the huge Kluane National Park (in Canada) and the huge huge W-St E Preserve in Alaska. The land is dotted with uncounted and unnamed lakes, stunted forests of black spruce, called a drunken forest because the trees have liquified soil to stand on in summer and they lean all directions.

The long section of road that goes from Destruction Bay in the Yukon up to Tok, AK, and then from Tok down to Gakona, AK, on the western side of the Preserve is truly horrible, pretty but horrible. I made a note in my 2003 log about this stretch of road, and at that time pulled a quote from Milepost (the travelers guide) that is still absolutely accurate for today!!! No change. Here it is:

"Note: Northern travelers watch for sections of highway with loose gravel, bumps, frost heaves, patched pavement, no pavement, narrow road, no shoulders, road construction, and improved highway."

The stretch of road after Gakona, and on in to Palmer, AK, where we are tonight, is much better. This road (the Glen Highway) goes between the Chugach Mountains on the south, and the Talkeetna Mountains on the north, along the Matanuska River. We couldn't see much of the mountains due to rain and clouds ( did see them the previous trip), but we did get a great view of Matanuska Glacier which looks about the same as when we saw it in '03. Many Alaskans believe that Alaska ( and I guess the north) is headed for another ice age, due to global warming which increases moisture and heavy snows and then cool temperatures which reduces melting, which increases reflectivity and further reduces melting which will cause the glaciers to grow. How's that for a theory? We have heard this from several people including one national park ranger at Mendenhall Glacier 9 years ago.

Here is Matanuska Glacier from an overlook on the Glen Highway.



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Skagway, AK

The wildlife along the Alaska Highway in BC was everything we hoped for. I reported on Facebook that the wildlife count is: 5 black bears, 1 grizzly bear, about 10 bison, 1 moose, 1 silver fox, 4 stone sheep, and one probable golden eagle. We arrived in Watson Lake in heavy rain, and it rained most of the night we stayed there.

The following day we drove on to Skagway, driving over the spectacular White Pass, and on down the very steep hill. Travelers are required to stop at the US Border for customs. I am always intrigued by what they will be interested in that I might have in my refrigerator. This time it was tomatoes — just the few little pear tomatoes I had. I was told that I should have been forced to confiscate the red bell pepper I had, but he would let me keep it. In the past I have had to confiscate kiwi fruit, oranges, chicken, beef, potatoes, and apples. It is a guessing game each and every time!

We are having a great time in Skagway, camped right on the harbor where we can see the comings and goings of the small craft and the cruise ships. We have been to Skagway several times before, and each time seems to offer something new.

Outstanding activities this time: the drive to and seeing the sights around Dyea, the former town at the start of the Chilkoot Trail (which we climbed a little of). This town was at the start of the trail which hopeful miners used to reach the Klondike goldfields in the late 1800's. There is very little left of the town.

The pier pilings used to unload boats for the start of the Chilkoot journey. View is looking out toward the ocean inlet.



The false front store. The town site is now woods.



The meadows around the area were really pretty



Today we road the steam train of the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad up to Fraser Meadows at the summit of White Pass, which we had driven over a couple of days ago. It was spectacular!! There is so much snow up there. In fact, it snowed up there just last week. So what is called The Tormented Valley, a desolate moonscape of small lakes, rocks, snow and stunted trees, met expectations as viewed from the train.








The views along the route are really wonderful







Here is the steam train engine




Last night it REALLY rained here and in many places along the Alaska Highway. We have heard and read reports of numerous road closures due to washouts and mudslides. We are hopeful that these will be repaired fairly soon. We are taking the ferry to Haines tomorrow.

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Continuing our travel in BC

We have been a bit "off the grid" for a few days. We left the Vancouver area last Thursday, and spent the first night in Lac La Hache along the Fraser River Canyon, which is beautiful. A very big river.

The next two nights were at Barkerville, BC, which is essentially in the middle of nowhere. This amazing gold mining town of the 1860's through the early 20th century, located in the Cariboo Region of BC, has been restored and reconstructed with excellent living history exhibits. We camped in the nice campground there, dry camping, no hookups. The only problem was how cold it was. At 4000 feet in elevation, there was still snow on the shaded north slopes, and it just wouldn't stop raining. We were happy to leave there and move to lower ground. The "town" is well worth a visit, however.

From Barkerville we drove to Chetwynd, a lovely little town on the eastern slope of the northern Rockies. The rivers are just roaring everywhere. This area all drains into Hudson Bay, big rivers and lots of them! It was much nicer in Chetwynd at 1900 feet instead of 4000 feet!

Today we drove from Chetwynd to Ft Nelson, BC, and got on the Alaska Highway at Ft St John. We are using Milepost to read about everything we see along the way. It really is indispensable for travel to Alaska. Just before we got to Ft St John, we drove along the beautiful Peace River Canyon. This river now has a dam which I remember was quite controversial when it was built. Downstream the canyon looks much as it must have looked before the dam.

We are camped in Ft Nelson tonight. Our drive along the Alaska Highway today was notable for one main reason: energy exploration and development is just roaring up here! We have seen truck after truck hauling heavy equipment of every imaginable type. Where previously we saw small travelers lodges or campgrounds, used primarily by RVers like us, now these places have been augmented by work camps, housing hundreds of workers in manufactured housing, or workers in their own RVs in the campgrounds. Our campground tonight in Ft Nelson is about 1/2 workers. This is REALLY different from what we have seen during our two previous trips up here. There is much more traffic on the highway than before. The good news is that the highway, so far(!), is in good condition. The amount of truck traffic requires a decent road. Maybe the various energy companies are paying their fair share of road maintenance.

It is now 10:30 pm and the sun has just set. It will not get totally dark tonight. Time to go to bed, however. Photos will not happen tonight.


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Goodbye to Ucluelet, BC

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Vancouver Island, BC

We've been on Vancouver Island several times previously, but never to the west coast. Until our friends Sue and David told us about Ucluelet and Tofino, we had never even heard of these towns.

What a sensational area! Thank you, David and Sue!

We moved the RV from Burnaby near Vancouver to a town east of there, Aldergrove, and left it there for a few days. We boarded the car ferry from Tsawwassen to Nanaimo and drove the twisty but mostly good road over to the west side. We stayed in a "cabin", a small house, in Ucluelet, and hiked and saw the sights in the area.

As Ucluelet and Tofino are on the west coast of a range of mountains on the island, the area they are in has all the features of western slopes in most places, that is, tons of rain! This is a rain forest. There is a national park that protects a large section of the land along the Pacific Coast called the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve (a reserve because the Canadian government is still negotiating with the First People over land use). It is spectacular! We have seen the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, but we think this beats that. We hiked many of the trails in the park and explored several of the beaches.

The forests are dense with green foliage of every imaginable type: ferns; cedar, hemlock and Sitka spruce trees that are HUGE; other plants, moss, fungus, grasses, wildflowers, bushes, and much more, all growing on top of each other, competing for space and light. This is old growth forest. Trees are hundreds of years old. The dead ones serve as "nurse trees" on which other trees grow, a tangle of living and decaying plant matter, huge dead trees lying on the forest floor, covered with other plant life. Huge living trees with mammoth root systems and gnarled trunks and limbs. Trees are so tall that the tops can't be seen, just like the giant Sequoia in California, I think bigger than the coastal redwoods of California. It is WET, and, indeed, it has rained every day we have been here.

Here are some photo examples of what we saw on our various hikes on trails with names like Wild Pacific Trail, Schooner Cove Trail with its long boardwalks and stairs (lots of stairs!), Rainforest Trail (more boardwalks and stairs), Shorepine Bog Trail, Nuu-chah-nulth Trail, Long Beach, New Trail at Tofino, and a few more.













The boardwalk going down to Schooner Cove









Nurse tree






Rocks in the tidal zone covered with barnacles and mussels


Fantastic tide pools


Big driftwood logs piled up on the beaches















Well, maybe these give the idea. I don't think my photos convey the hugeness of the forest trees, the density of the growth, the wetness of the forest and the beauty of the ocean, rocks, tide pools, views from the cliffs, etc.

We got in our kayak one rainy morning and went out for a paddle on a sheltered bay. Fun, a little wet, cold and windy for my taste, but we were glad we did it.

No shore birds here now except for a few gulls here and there. We saw ravens, two kingfishers, heard a few song birds in the dense forests, and saw one eagle soaring above us. This is a great birding area, on the Pacific Flyway, but most of the migrating shore birds are gone - they have moved north for the breeding season. We were a few weeks too late to see them in the numbers that fly through here.

Back to our RV tomorrow on the ferry. It was really nice when we came over. It will be raining again tomorrow.



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More sights in Vancouver

We had a great day yesterday in Vancouver. The rain let up for most of the day which was nice. We took the Skytrain and a bus to the University of British Columbia (UBC) Museum of Anthropology.

View walking to the museum


This is a fabulous museum, focusing on the Northwest Indian populations and their culture. The totem exhibits were wonderful, both inside the museum and out. The ones inside are very old, some the only surviving examples of a kind. Researchers are using infra red technology now to discern the colors that these old totems and other items once were painted.











Examples of masks and canoes


There is a whole gallery devoted to Bill Reid, a 20th century artist who produced beautiful pieces depicting the stories of the native people. He worked in several media including jewelry, wood and paint. Here is his most famous sculpture: The Raven and the First Men.





Another gallery had nothing but the works of another 20th century native artist, Doug Cranmer from Alert Bay, BC. Northwest Coast Kwakwaka’wakw art is known for its flamboyant, energetic, and colorful carving and painting. Doug was an early player in the global commercial art market, and one of the first Native artists in BC to own his own gallery. Here are a couple of examples of the large collection we saw. He apparently was a great teacher and inspired many others to participate in art.






Outside we saw recreated examples of the great houses of the Northwest Indians and we strolled around the grounds.











Then we walked over to the Niobe Memorial Garden. This is THE finest example of a serene Japanese Zen garden that we have ever seen. At every turn there was another beautiful view. Not a blade, leaf or stem was out of place.











We walked back across the UBC campus which is torn up at every turn, undergoing some kind of major change. Got on the crowded bus back to the Skytrain, got off at Yaletown and had dinner at a great restaurant, Rodney's Oyster House and ate -- guess what? Delicious!

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