Heading Home

Greetings! 

After we left Homer we spent a few days in the Portage/Girdwood area. Mom and dad took a train ride to the Spencer Glacier.

The next day they took me with them as they visited the small town of Hope, not too much there except some great old buildings.

We were going to head to Valdez, but as mom and dad had been there before, they  decided it was time to leave Alaska for the long ride home. After some TERRIBLE road conditions giant potholes, ruts and gravel between the border of Alaska and Destruction Bay in the Yukon, I was so happy when we stopped for the night at the Cottonwood campground on the beautiful Klaune lake. Dad decided to go fishing on the shore and mom and I were surprised when he caught our dinner!!

A big five pound lake trout

We had so much fish that we invited a bicyclist from Germany to join us for dinner. After weeks of eating  soup and noodles, he was sure happy to have trout, grilled zucchini and risotto - and of course some wine!

I really had a good time at our next stop for 2 days  at Boya Lake Provincial Park.  Check out my photo op at the playground on Boya Lake - hope nobody gives me a push!

 We had a nice camping spot right on the lake.

One day we took a hike around the lake and saw some beaver dams, but no beavers. 

However, I did a double take when I saw this motorhome - check out the deck on top!

It was so hot I had to cool off in the lake.

The views around the lake were incredible. 

From there we headed down the Cassiar Highway, the alternate route home through British Columbia. Our primary reason for taking this route (other than it was a different route) was to go to Hyder, Alaska and see the bears! On the way we did see several young grizzly bears along the highway. I was wondering where their mother was and why she let them go out on the highway.

Hyder, Alaska is a very small town across  the border from Stewart, BC. It is so small and remote from the rest of Alaska that they stay on the BC time zone and use BC currency except at the US post office there.  There are two things to do in Hyder. One is to drive up a long, bumpy mountain road to see the Salmon Glacier.

But the real reason is to go to the bear viewing platform - a very long wooden deck built over a river full of salmon. The deck is staffed by National Forest rangers.While I got to see the glacier, I wasn't allowed to go on the bear viewing deck - so I had to rely on dad's pictures. I couldn't believe how many salmon were swimming up the river.

Look, the entire river is full of salmon swimming upstream.

Mom and dad waited for well over an hour before the bears decided it was time for dinner. Then a huge grizzly came out of the bushes

 heading for the river

You can see from his belly that he could afford to be selective in his fishing. He seemed to be searching for just the right one.

and then he caught it!

He headed back to shore so we could watch him eat it.

Delicious!

Think he wants more?

Yep - there he goes back for seconds

Mom and dad really had a good time watching the bears!

After Hyder, we just kept driving, stopping only to sleep each night . We got to the border in Sumas, Washington a few days later, and dad thought we would have an easy border crossing, as we did all of the other times - but mom was worried about the firewood dad insisted on bringing from Alaska. Guess who was right! 

It wasn't so simple as just turning the wood over and heading on our way. Instead mom and dad had to go inside the customs office, fill out a bunch of forms and wait until a custom officer had time to search the rv. I was inside by myself when the officer came in, luckily it was a lady so I didn't bark. She looked all over and left with 2 baking potatoes, 1 sweet potato and 1/2 an orange.   I wish mom had gotten a picture of dad as he had to carry the wood over the border to Canada, where a Canadian was only to happy to take it off his hands.

We were hoping to stay in the Seatlle area, but it was the week-end and we could find nowhere to stay - so we stopped north of Seattle at a casino for the night. 

Now we are in Portland for six nights. 

Adios,
Yuki