Driving Home

9/1/17 – 9/4/17

 

I have no more stops to put on my blog.  We are just driving from Seven Feathers in Roseburg, Oregon directly home.  It will take 4 overnight stays, and south through California.  The weather south of Oregon is about the same, very hot and smoky due to fires in California.  Here is a picture of Mt. Shasta in the smoke.

You can hardly see Mt. Shasta through the smoke,
and it is right next to the road

Also, as we travel south through central California, it is getting hotter and hotter.  At home, I am told it is about 117 degrees.  Our poor little motorhome just isn’t set up for temperatures this high.  We have the A/C going all day and we are only able to cut the outside temp by about 20 degrees.  A lot of heat comes in through the windshield, even though we have a solar shade there.  Right now, as I am typing this final posting to my blog, it is 110 degrees outside, and 91 degrees inside.  We are in Lodi, California. 

 

This trip through the Canadian Yukon and Alaska has been our #2 bucket list trip, and it has turned out just great.  We saw unbelievable landscapes of huge mountains, glaciers, lakes, and rivers.  We had two boat cruises where we watched otters, sea lions, humpbacks, and orcas, not to mention millions of salmon in the streams.  Along the roads, we saw black bears, grizzly bears, marmots, snowshoe hares, foxes, and one large  cougar, but NO MOOSE!  It got to be a joke every time we saw a warning sign on the road to look out for moose crossing, and we never saw a moose.  Note to the blog:  I did put a picture of a Moose and her baby crossing the road in the blog, but it was a picture from a magazine, not one that I actually saw.

 

The people we visited were so very friendly, especially the Canadians.  Our neighbors to the north really do love Americans, and they went out of their way to help us along our journey.  Every stop brought new people into our lives. 

 

Lastly, our fellow travelers who also signed up for this Fantasy RV Tour to the “Heart of Alaska” were just the best.  As a group, we were 45 people from all over the U.S. and Canada, in 23 motorhomes.  Ages ranged from 51 to 84 with most of us between 66 and 70.  Motorhomes ranged from 24 ft. (van conversions) to 45 ft. (bus conversions).  With such diversity, you would think there would be problems, but there were none.  There was no class distinction between anybody.  Everybody just wanted to have a good time. All the travelers were either married couples or two women traveling together, and one single guy – Vince.  Vince was from Hoboken, New Jersey, and he was a joy to be around—always had a smile on his face, and always standing ready with his massive tool box to help another traveler in trouble.  He told me he had a girlfriend, but couldn’t convince her to come with him on this trip.  I think she missed out big time.  My hat’s off to Fantasy RV Tours, as they put on a fabulous trip.  So much so, that Tom and I signed on for another caravan in the summer of 2019 to the North Atlantic area.

 

As we drive home now, my mind turns to all the things I didn’t do for the last 3 months, and my list of ‘to dos’ is now 2 pages long.  However, it was all worth it.  I will never forget my trip to Canada and Alaska.