June 23, 1996

We got Jason's neighbor, Dave, to do the obligatory departure photos. We did four, two each with the regular camera and the digital camera. Juneau was getting restless to leave and we missed her in the last one. We stopped at the cabin tonight, and the trip up here was uneventful, thank goodness. Things are good here,except minor repairs are needed, as usual. They will have to wait, 'cause tomorrow it's "North to Alaska, North the rush is on..." I meant to see if I could find a Johnny Horton CD with that song on it. We sang it in the shower after high school football practice. Me and Edward Cates and Richard Amason. And probably countless others.

When we got to the cabin. I walked down the hill to pay George the annual water fee, but he wasn't there. Turns out a guy named Rick has rented his place. He gave me some fresh spinach from his garden, which JT and I proceeded to taste without washing. Then Jason found aphid eggs on the leaves. I guess I'll have aphids growing in my tummy soon!

Went for a little hike up the mountain behind the cabin before dinner. My lungs are not in the best of shape. I hope they will be better after I acclimate. I'm sure they will be after I've been in the mountains for a while.

Well, here's to an early start in the morning. We hope to make it into Wyoming before we stop.

June 24, 1996

Got up early, but still had much packing and rearranging to do, and had to shut down the cabin. Got away about 9:30. I drove first. We went the back route north via Ojo Feliz (yes, Happy Eyes), Ocate and Wagon Mound. Made a fast trip through Colorado and almost all the way to Montana. Stayed in a pretty little campground outside Buffalo, Wyoming. Had some gorgeous views of the mountains to the west. I'm not even sure what range it was. It's much greener up here... plenty of water. New Mexico is so dry, it's awful. We saw some antelope galloping toward what used to be a playa lake, but it was dry. I hope there was one around somewhere close with some water. It was a rather pitiful sight to see them running that way. Apparently they could smell the water that had once been there. Gives one a feeling of helplessness, as there's nothing you can do. Mother Nature can be a bitch sometime.

June 25, 1996

The sun was up by 5:00, but I didn't crawl out of bed til 7:00. Jason, JT and Juneau stayed in the tent. I slept in the truck. Had a good sleep, and woke up feeling good... pretty unusual for me! Juneau woke Jason up several times, and he was up early, but is tired. Got a nice start on the day, as the woman in the adjacent campsite decided she needed to change her panties right in front of god and everybody. Ah, the splendors of nature! I knew I loved camping for some reason.

Took a short, but steep hike up the hill by the campsite. Need to get a little exercise and get ready for some more serious hiking in AK.

Driving through Montana was a trip with no speed limit. Jason drove most of the way, and I worked on my DSS book. Have actually done quite a bit of work on it. It needs it! He didn't drive very fast... about 80. Several people passed us... mostly Montanans. We got a pretty good chuckle at two little old ladies in a big old land yacht when they zipped passed us going 90 or 100.

We stopped in Billings and had lunch with Karen, one of my AOL friends. It was nice to meet her in person. She is very sweet. Had a great time talking to her.

We picked out a campground called Trout Creek that was on a dirt road off the highway. There was a sign going in that the road was narrow, but it was fine at first. It did get very narrow soon, and we found ourselves on a sheer cliff overlooking the Clark Fork (of what I don't know) hundreds of feet below. We really thought we were heading for the back country, then we went back downhill and came to a huge sawmill and much better road. It was still pretty remote, though, and there were only two other groups in the campground. I took a pretty good walk this evening. Went to bed about 10:00, but it didn't get dark 'til 11:00 or so... a harbinger of Alaska, I guess.

June 26, 1996

Made it into Washington today. We still have plenty of time, and Jason wanted to fish, so we got off the interstate at Cle Elum, and drove up to the ranger station at Roslyn. I kept thinking that Roslyn sounded familiar, and finally it dawned on me that it was where "Northern Exposure" was filmed. We found the Roslyn cafe with the camel mural on it that was in the opening scene and got a picture of it. It’s so bad, though, that I’m not going to even include it here. Just imagine the opening scene with the skinny moose going by the mural!

After talking to the rangerette, we decided to camp at the Cooper River and fish it. They had a lot of snow this winter, and the river was still pretty high from the runoff, and it was pretty hard fishing. It was very clear, but we could not see any fish. I tried the Cooper and Jason went on up a trail to another creek that turned out to be too small to fish. So we drove back down to the Cle Elum river and tired it with no luck. At least Jason saw a fish there. Ha! Ha!

We camped at a beautiful little site on the edge of Cle Elum Lake. There were no fish rising here, either, but Jason tried his luck for a while, all to no avail.. Not a very auspicious beginning to our fishing extravanza!

Tomorrow it's on to Seattle, where we hope to get the requisite fishing equipment for Alaska, then it's on to the ferry on Friday.

June 27, 1996

Made it into Seattle this morning and got us a room at Tom Bodett's Motel 6. Juneau likes it here because they allow pets. We went to K-Mart, and they had 8-weight fly rods on sale for 20 bucks, so we scored a big coup there. They were just like some we saw in Roslyn for $33. I hope they hold up to those big fish we expect to catch. I hope we catch those big fish in the first place. I'd much rather have a fish break a $20 blue light special than a $200 Orvis graphite. We still have to go to REI to get reels, line and flies. We didn't like the reels at K-Mart. Oh yeah, we also got some plastic pipe and made cases for our priceless rods.

Went to a brew pub called Big Time in the University district of Seattle. I liked the porter and the brown ale. I had nachos, which were pretty bad. Also, met up with Suzanne there, another online friend. She is a sweet, little munchkin! Enjoyed meeting her in real life. And met another hot babe, Laura, the next day for lunch. So nice to meet people who only looked like keystrokes before! Boy, did she ever put the S in Shy. She’s a very sweet person, though. And very bright!

So it's off to Bellingham and the ferry tomorrow!

June 28, 1996

Oops! REI doesn't have fishing equipment. And the traffic was so atrocious in Seattle that we went on to Bellingham without our fishing gear. We stocked up on food at an Albertson's right at the exit to the ferry. A guy there told us to go to H&H Sporting Goods to get our fishing equipment. When we saw a Range Rover parked in front we knew we weren't going to get any blue light specials there! Actually the clerk was very helpful and gave us plenty of advice on fly patterns. We got some good, relatively inexpensive reels, 84 flies and 3 kinds of mosquito dope! They put 200 yards of backing on the reels and loaded the line free. Plus we got 10 free flies. Made it to the ferry only 15 minutes late. But you are supposed to check in 3 hours early, so we spent over 3 hours in the parking lot. Left Bellingham about 6:00. Next stop Ketchikan, ALASKA!