November 28, 2010 – Travel To Q

We left our little spot in Pahrump and traveled south over Mt. Potosi where they must have had snow and ice last night – BRRR.

Going Up:

 

Yes, that is ice – WHOA!!!

Coming down the other side:

Vegas in the distance and notice – no snow – amazing!!!

We traveled thru Vegas into part of California:

 

And across the Colorado River:

Into Arizona:

In Arizona, we took SR-95 to Quartzsite.  Such amazing scenery since most of that route follows the Colorado River – Enjoy:

 

We are staying in Quartzsite at Hi-Jolly.  We were able to get one of our favorite sites along the wash – I will take some pictures tomorrow.   Not a lot of people here now but by January it will be packed.  We took a ride around town to see what was open and will be checking out those places in the next few days.   A number of the flea markets/swap meets are not open yet – :-(((…   I don’t buy much but LOVE just walking thru them – LOL.

And I am looking forward to some campfires if the wind dies down…  As well as some great sunrises, sunsets, and star gazing - so stay tuned.

Stats for today:

Miles Traveled: 273 miles

Nevada: Oakridge Road, Manse Road, SR-160; Windmill Lane; I-215; I-515; US-95

California: US-95; I-40

Arizona:  I-40; SR-95

April 30, 2009 – Fairbanks and Ice Bergs

We decided today to make the trek to Fairbanks and check out campground availability and the availability of water and dump.  So off we went….

We followed the Tanana River Valley:

 

 

The river is flowing here and making it’s own path through the ice.  How about these icebergs:

The mountains in the background are the Alaskan Range  - which we see every day – Beautiful!!

We checked out a number of campgrounds.  We found one in the North Pole (south of Fairbanks) that was open and had what we needed (a little costly for us).  We found one other but they could give us only electric.  So we had a list of places that had dump stations and not one is open.  What was really interesting to us was we were told the ground was frozen and they would open up on May 15th. (This may be sarcastic but does something magical happen that day??? Frozen the 14th and Unfrozen the 15th – Hmmmmmm!).  Oh well!  With no availability of water and dump, the state parks would not be feasible for us.   So we have decided to stay here until the end of next week at least!!

We did some site-seeing around Fairbanks (Ladies, I found a bead store – Yippee!) and then did some grocery shopping before heading home.

Here is the Chena River that goes thru Fairbanks – it is running but there are ice bergs floating down the river – Cool!  :-)

On our way back down, there were different areas where we saw icebergs piling up on top of one another.  One place (Salcha River) there was an ice – jam:

And more icebergs on their way:

 

 We found out that those people that live near the river have been evacuated because of the flooding.  With the weather we are having (70’s – breaking records), they are hoping it lets loose soon.

Looking up the Salcha River:

And the daylight hours continue to expand – :-)

April 24, 2009 – The Alaskan Highway – Part 4

We woke this morning to another snow/flurry storm so we did some shopping in Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire and the Dollar Store.  We also made some phone calls and found a campground in Burwash Landing that was open so that will be our next stop.

The storm ended by 11 AM, the sun came out so we decided to head up the highway.  We did not want to stay another night at Wal-Mart (our policy – one night only) and we did find one campground (actually parking lot) open in Whitehorse but very expensive (not sure why???).  We figured if the storm continued we would move there but to our relief it ended (although we did go thru some snow squalls as you can see in the pictures).

So today’s travels took us past the St. Elias Mountains, The Kluane Mountains, and Kluane Lake (which is also still frozen).  And of course, the scenery is incredible:

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

  

We did see wild horses:

 

 

and a wolf (sorry, no picture, he was too fast).

So tonight we are at Burwash Landing with electric hookups.  (And we have finally been able to get water and dump – we have not been able to do that since last Saturday – yikees!). There are a number of places run by towns or gas stations that have dumps and water, however, many are still snowed in.   Although this is like a parking lot, we are at the upper end of the lake and here is our view:

 

 

How about that!!!

We are not sure where we are going next…but that is part of the adventure – :-)))

Miles Traveled: 169 Miles

Routes Traveled:

YK: PH-1