Hello Everyone,
After two days of beautiful driving in Banff and Jasper National Parks we arrived in Dawson Creek, mile zero for the Alaskan Highway. You can see Ruth and I in front of our "big rigg". Actually we have yet to see anyone traveling lighter than we are. Indeed we have seen many RVs pulling vehicles much larger than our Vibe. We are glad for the small vehicle here in Canada. Gas is $1.30-$1.50 which sounds good until consider that it takes 3.8 liters to get one gallon. Yes, we were just under $6.00 a gallon. But that wasn't our biggest sticker shock in Canada. The first six pack I purchased in Calgary was $11.60, that seemed like a lot until the next one in Dawson Creek cost $14.00. Right now we are in Skagway and I was happy to see gas was only $4.69 and we are happy to be getting 36 miles per gallon.

The Alaskan Highway has been a thrill. It has gone from pretty to spectacular and back to merely pretty over and over. There have also been surprises. Along the road we have seen sheep (pictured), caribou, bison, and red fox a coyote and a dead bear. Road kill comes large on the Alcan. We were also in for surprises. Pictured is a hot springs we stopped and visited. It was lush and tropical and felt great after a long day of driving. Just north of Skagway we drove by the "world's smallest desert" another surprise given our northern latitude.

The drive into skagway was spectacularly beautiful. We are glad to reach our destination. So far we have driven just under 4,000 miles since leaving Liberty. It has been 3,000 miles from Wisconsin to skagway. Tomorrow we meet Cheryl's family to scatter her ashes and then the next day we hike the historic Chilkoot Trail with our friend Steve. The trail is 33 miles long and rises about 3,500 feet. It will take us 5 days and then we will ride a train down. More about that next time.

Teddy Roosevelt Nat. Park

On our second night of camping we had a terrific walk in Teddy Roosevelt National Park. We could tell the wildlife was tame when the rabbits didn't even bother to get up from their naps when we approached. While walking we saw white stone from a distance that looked like wood. We debated what it was because the logs were huge, over six feet in diameter. Ruth said they were stone and I said they were wood. We didn't think they would be petrified trees because we didn't hear anything about them. But then we ran across the specimen I'm sitting next to and later learned that indeed these are petrified logs from a forest that was in this place 55 million years ago. The walk ended with a group of Buffalo deciding they wanted to play where we were walking. We decided to let them rather than fight for our rights.

Today we have finally left for Alaska. I do not say "finally" because we haven't had fun. In fact my parents 60th wedding anniversary was great fun. The immediate family stayed together at an old log house on the grounds of a retreat center in West Bend Wisconsin where the party was held. We took a few pictures of my Mom and Dad opening their gift from Linda, Kim and I. It was a scrapbook that Naomi put together. That is right we the children gave a gift and enlisted a granddaughter to make it. This demonstrates the (choose one) intelligence or the laziness of the baby boomer generation. Anyway Naomi did a wonderful job of taking our memories and pictures and making it look great. This demonstrates the (choose one) creativity or gullibility of the gen xers. Happily Mom and Dad loved the book and we all enjoyed telling funny stories from our past together. Only Paul, who is currently in Americorps is missing from the picture of my family.

The fish day race

My brother Kim and daughter Naomi and I ran in a 5 mile "Fish Day" race in Port Washington Wisconsin. All of us ran faster than we expected, perhaps because we wanted to get out of the rain that fell throughout the race. I ran the 5 miles in 36 minutes and 10 seconds and Kim was about 1 minute behind and Naomi a minute behind Kim. We all felt good at the end.

Chicago

Hello from Chicago,

Above is a picture of our friends from our early days in Chicago. We knew all these folks before we were married from when I was in Mennonite Voluntary service. Bryan and Teresa, second and third from the left hosted a dinner gathering. It is great fun to connect because I feel like a young adult again.

On the right are the second generation of our group practicing for a gig they have in Wisconsin on Saturday. They all look a lot the way I remember us from years ago. It is difficult for me to recognize ourselves in the picture of the old folks above.

Greetings

Hello from Chicago,
I am giving the idea of blogging a try. We will see if I can keep it up and if it proves to be better than sending out an email.

So far we have visited David and Deborah Maltby in St. Louis, Steve and Marion Jones in Rockford and Joe and Darlene Cools in Harvard and now Naomi in Chicago. Every visit has been terrific. It has been great catching up with old friends.

We are not in the picture taking grove yet so the only photo we have is at the left with the Maltbys. We are still looking pretty fresh but I am sure that will change in th future.