The day following our long boat ride, we opted for something a little smaller and self-propelled: kayaks. We launched from the rocky beach just below our cabin and paddled through the handful of boats in the harbor to the opposite shore. It was a flood tide with only light wind and a nearly cloudless sky, … Continue reading
Our 3-night reservation at Glacier Bay Lodge included an all-day, 150-mile boat ride from the dock at Bartlett Cove, north to the far end of Glacier Bay. We walked down to the dock early Monday morning, arriving about 6:30 a.m., the sun had already been up for 2 hours. This time of year at such … Continue reading
Sunday was a travel day, flying out of Haines airport on an Alaskan Seaplanes Swiss-made, 9-passenger Pilatus PC-12, a plane I had never heard of before. Our ultimate destination was Glacier Bay N.P. with a layover in Juneau before landing in Gustavus for a shuttle ride to the Glacier Bay Lodge. It was a little … Continue reading
Only three settlements of the Southeast Alaska Panhandle are reachable by road and we have visited them all: Hyder, Skagway, and now Haines, although we didn’t get to Haines via its highway connection, the Haines Highway, which runs north through British Columbia and the Yukon to Haines Junction. We will be leaving by that route, … Continue reading
We left Skagway around noon on Thursday, taking the high-speed Alaska Marine Highway ferry M/V Fairweather to Haines, 15 miles down the Lynn Canal. I had been looking forward to the ferry ride, but not to boarding the ferry at Skagway. We have had our motorhome on ferries before, without incident, but never at a … Continue reading
I’ve mentioned that gold was found near Dawson City at the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers in August 1896. But the world remained unaware of that discovery until a year later when groups of miners from the Klondike arrived in San Francisco and Seattle with over 2 tons of gold in the summer … Continue reading
We left Whitehorse late Monday morning and drove south for 10 miles on the Alcan to where the Klondike Highway (Yukon Hwy 2) veers off to Skagway, Alaska, 98 miles distant. The Klondike Highway’s northern terminus is Dawson City and its route and name are a result of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898, gold … Continue reading
Not long after we crossed into the Yukon, the Cassiar Highway ended at a T-junction with the Alaskan Highway, also known as the Alaska-Canada Highway or the “Alcan.” We took the Alcan from that junction all the way to Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon territory (Yukon is not yet sufficiently populated to become a … Continue reading
We filled up the fuel tanks on the RV and the Jeep before leaving Stewart Thursday morning, then headed up the Glacier Highway, BC37A, to the Meziadin Junction of the Cassiar Highway, BC37. About halfway, Dale spotted a black bear lazily crossing the road ahead of us. By the time we reached him, he had … Continue reading
The drive north from Hyder runs along the easternmost edge of the Tongass National Forest. The Tongass, established in 1907, is the largest National Forest in the United States with 16.7 million designated acres, most of it temperate rain forest. The Tongass encompasses most of the Southeast Alaska “Panhandle,” an archipelago that includes, in addition … Continue reading
The town of Stewart, British Columbia, is located at the head of the 90 mile long Portland Canal, named, like so much of the Pacific Northwest, by the English explorer, George Vancouver, this time for the Duke of Portland. The word “Canal” is a holdover from the earlier Spanish, meaning “channel.” In fact, the Portland … Continue reading
Another late start, we left Smithers around 10:00 a.m. after stopping to fuel up. Diesel in Canada costs about CAD$5.00/gal, but the favorable exchange rate between the US$ and the CAD$ (1.00:1.32) makes our cost US$4.00/gal, just a little more than what we were paying in Washington State when we left. Of course, fuel is … Continue reading
We departed Bellingham, Washington, yesterday morning on our way to Alaska! Getting an early start, we headed north through the farmlands of Whatcom County (below, top left) to the border crossing into Canada at Sumas (top right). Once in British Columbia at Abbotsford, we took Highway 1 up the Fraser River valley to Hope where … Continue reading
We had our first misadventure of the trip on Sunday as we traveled by Shinkansen bullet train to Mishima, a city near the base of Mount Fuji. The bullet trains we’ve been on have all traveled at a speed of 170 mph. I was so busy writing my Miyajima blog post as we zipped along … Continue reading
Besides the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, there wasn’t much in Hiroshima of interest to us, so on Saturday we went on an excursion to Itsukushima Island, a short train ride along the coast to the southwest. Itsukushima Island is popularly known as Miyajima, which translated means “Shrine Island.” We scooted over to the JR Ferry … Continue reading
We left Kyoto on Friday for Hiroshima, a port city near the southwestern end of Honshu, the largest of the four main islands that make up Japan. Hiroshima’s sister city in the United States is Honolulu, symbolically linking the beginning and end of the Pacific theater of World War II. In Hiroshima city, we had … Continue reading
For our final day in Kyoto, we decided to visit the main tourist attraction, Kinkaku-ji, the Zen Buddhist Temple of the Golden Pavilion. The original Golden Pavilion was created in 1408, but it was burnt to the ground by a mad monk in 1950. A reproduction was built in 1955, complete with gold leaf covering … Continue reading
Having enjoyed our day out of Kyoto, we went on another excursion on Wednesday, this time to the city of Nara, 25 miles to the south. Nara was the capital of Imperial Japan from 710 to 784 A.D., the “Nara Period;” thereafter, the capital was moved to Kyoto where it remained until 1868. In 1998, … Continue reading
Two days in Kyoto visiting congested shrines and temples was enough to make us anxious to get out of the big city for a day. So on Tuesday, we got up early and took the train to the northwestern outskirts of Kyoto for a day outdoors. From the JR Saga-Arashiyama Station, we walked west through … Continue reading
After leaving the Inari Shrine, we visited the Rengeō-in Buddhist temple, commonly known as Sanjusangendo, a short distance to the north. “Sanjūsan-gen-dō” translates to “33-interval-temple” which relates to the building’s architecture of 34 columns, creating 33 intervening spaces. The number 33 has special significance with regard to the goddess Kannon, to whom this temple is … Continue reading
Sunday, April 15th, was a travel day. It was raining in the morning and when we tried to arrange for a taxi to the train station we were told that road closures due to the Spring Festival meant no cabs would pick up on our side of town. Fortunately, our landlord, Hiroto, graciously offered to … Continue reading
Our purpose for coming to Takayama was to attend the Spring Matsuri, one of two festivals held each year: the Spring Festival, every April 14-15, and the Autumn Festival, every October 9-10. Dale had read that there could be as many as 200,000 visitors for this event which is why we booked everything in advance. … Continue reading
The city of Takayama is located in Gifu Prefecture in Japan’s Northern Alps, a little less than 200 miles WNW of Tokyo, although by going to Nagoya first we traveled a little over 300 miles by train to get here. Takayama’s sister city in the USA is Denver, Colorado, but it should be Jacksonville, Florida. … Continue reading
The afternoon of Monday, April 9, we flew from Hanoi to Tokyo on the same plane as Bob and Annie, arriving late and discovering to our dismay a long line to clear immigration at Haneda International Airport. Finally clearing customs around 11:00 p.m., we made our way to an airport hotel, grabbed a bite just … Continue reading
It was a 6-hour drive from the Can Cau market on Saturday to Hanoi where we checked back into the Silk Path Boutique Hanoi in the heart of the city on Hồ Gươm, the Lake of the Sword. Sunday morning, Loc took us on a quick tour of the major sites in Hanoi, starting with … Continue reading
The Road Less Traveled 