Time to Leave Alaska

The golden leaves are falling. We now have to clean frost from the windshield. Fresh snow has fallen on the mountaintops. Terry is watching the weather forecast every day.

Terry has washed the roof of the RV. He even surprised me and defrosted the refrigerator last week while I was running errands. I got a last minute haircut. I cleaned out drawers and rearranged stuff. We will leave Alaska on Tuesday.

Soon it will be time to pack up the satellite dishes, bring the slide-out in, turn the recliners to face the front windshield and drive east and then south.

If you do not hear from us for a while, it means we are in route to our southern destination of Arizona. We will not have access to our email during that time. I will not write in the blog. Sometimes we can get phone service while traveling but sometimes that is very poor. Don’t worry. We will contact you after we set up in Arizona.

Alaskan Women

Alaskan women are friendly, natural women who also are good workers but I was surprised to see them working on road crews. (By natural, I mean that Alaskan women wear little make-up. They do not appear fragile. They don’t put on airs.)

Okay, I have seen women work in construction crews by standing and holding the flag to stop you or driving the pilot car or pick-up but I have never seen them use post hole diggers to set signs in concrete that they have made. But it does happen. There were no males on this crew.

While this was happening, Terry and Raymond were drinking coffee and discussing the hunting trip that Raymond was on last weekend. He and his friend, David shot a moose. (Soon we will be able to taste what moose meat tastes like.) Now Terry is busy with the backhoe while Raymond is helping a client with a C-PAP breathing machine.

Home Improvements

Those of you who have seen our RV or read about it in RV Chuckles and Chuckholes – the Confessions of Happy Campers know that Terry was unhappy with the 20 inch TV in our motorhome. When we moved into the RV in 2004, Terry took out the J-couch and replaced it with the 27 inch TV set taken from our 5th wheel. It could only be viewed comfortably from the sofa across from the TV.
Terry started to research the possibility of getting an LCD TV. Either the technology or the price was not what he wanted. Raymond and Terry renewed their research last week and found a Samsung 32 inch LCD that is the answer to all Terry’s requirements. By removing the little 20-inch monaural TV and the larger 27 inch TV from the 5th wheel, we also lost about 100 pounds of weight. As you know, weight is always an issue in an RV. The Samsung LCD was mounted on a horizontal multiple position arm with 45 degrees of tilt.

Then came the miles of wires to connect it to a good sound system and DVD player. Soon the living room was a mess.

But the results are worth it. The TV can be seen from everywhere you want to view it in the RV and it looks and sounds wonderful.

Dutch Items and Stars for Dutch Star

I looked for things to make our RV homey while in Iowa. Since it is a Dutch star and I am of Dutch descent, I like to use Dutch items and stars as a theme. I found this quilt in the Worn and Mellow Antique Store in Knoxville, Iowa. The trivet, from Pella, depicts Dutchmen planting trees and flowers. It reads “De Hovenier.” My maiden name is Hoven. The name means landscaper or gardener.

While I was in Iowa, the second and third week of August, autumn came to Alaska. (At the end of May, spring came in one week with the buds on trees opening in one week.) Now the fireweed flowers are gone, the temperatures are cool, the green grasses and leaves are turning yellow/brown, and the tops of the mountains have fresh snow. I don’t know how many weeks before we will have to turn south to stay ahead of the snow on the highways.

We plan to drive south via Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. When we reach the USA, we will go south on Highway 15 all the way to the Arizona border. We hope to get south before the ice and snow make it dangerous for the RV. Terry cannot use the exhaust brake to slow down in those conditions. The back end comes around to the front. This happened coming up to Alaska on the Cassiar gravel road. This route will take the quickest, shortest route which goes to Edmonton, AB, Great Falls, MT, Las Vegas, NV and then Highway 95 to Lake Havasu, AZ.