Travel Blog

On Sunday we had to go home. To Sioux Falls, that is. We had to get a new license plate for the RV because
ours fell off somewhere along the Alaskan highway on the way up to Skagway this year. We tried to get it replaced
through the mail, but no go. Have to get a replacement plate in person. Plus, we had to get registered to vote, and
to do that, we had to stay one night at either the Comfort Inn or Jellystone RV park in order to use either place as
our physical address for registration. We were going to wait until the beet harvest was over, but since it all
depends on the weather, we couldn’t be sure we’d make it down in time. It was time for a road trip anyway. We left
the house in Crookston, packed up the dogs and some sleeping bags, and headed down I-29 all the way to Sioux
Falls.

We left in the afternoon because there was a pre-harvest potluck that we wanted to attend first, and it was only a
5-hour drive. We were making good time and got to see a colorful sunset.


Things got a little hairy midway, though. South of Fargo (yeah, we went through Fargo) it started to rain pretty
hard. We hydroplaned a couple of times, and that was scary because it seemed there was always a big rig
passing us when it happened. It was kind of cool too, though, because I can’t remember the last time I saw
lightning like that. Woo boy! I love a good thunderstorm.

So anyway, we decided to stay at the Jellystone RV Park because that’s where we stayed three years ago when
we had to get our SD driver’s licenses. But this time, since we didn’t have the RV, we got to stay in one of their
cabins. We chose the “rustic” cabin since it was the cheapest.



Nice little place. It had two rooms in it; the main room had a double bed, a TV and a mini-fridge. The other room
had two sets of bunk beds. If you had to, you could sleep 6 in there. Can’t say as you’d want to, but if you had to.
Here’s the RV side of things:



There were some people tent camping right down the hill from our cabin, but I think they floated away in the rain.

They were gone by the time we got up at 7:00 a.m. Poor, soggy folks. But anyway, we had to get up real early to
get everything done and be one road by noon at the very least. Phil had to attend some training for the harvest that
for some reason I wasn’t invited to. That bummed me out a bit because we were going to swing by Laura Ingalls
Wilder’s homestead on the way back, but that had to be scratched. We made it to the County Treasurers office by
8:00 a.m., and there was already a humongous line. We said if we weren’t at the window by 9:00, we’d just forget
it. Who needs a license plate? But the line moved fairly quickly, and we were out of there by nine with a new plate
and registration card. I also talked to the voter registration people, but got scared off when you had to promise
under penalty of law that the physical address you wrote down was where you lived. We decided to go get advice
from our mail forwarder people about getting registered. They helped us a lot and told us not to worry about that
line, we’d be alright. Then they asked us if we knew who we were going to vote for, and if we did, we could vote
that very day! I wanted to do that, but Phil wanted to do more research on the local elections, so we went back to
the same place where we were earlier, handed in our forms, I voted, and Phil got his absentee ballot. Pretty cool.
With everything done, we headed back to Crookston.

So that was our Sioux Falls adventure. Now we don’t need to go back there until 2010 when our driver’s licenses
have to be renewed.

I promised you some pictures of the van/camper. I met Scott and Rosie at the potluck and asked them if I could
have their permission to take pictures and post them here. They’re a cool couple and said sure. While I was taking
the pictures, Scott gave me the thumbs-ip from inside. You can see him in the last picture. So here is the Vamper,
as Scott calls it.

You may be wondering by now what our harvest job entails. I will be getting to that in the next post…

We got off to a shaky start. A few posts back, I said we were going to be working in Crookston, MN. But that was
changed to E. Grand Forks, MN. So we get to the RV place in Grand Forks, with no idea what we were doing, or
where we were supposed to park our rig or anything. We call our contact guy, Arlin, and he says that he’s
changed his mind and that he wants us to come the 25 extra miles to Crookston. Here it was, 7:00 in the evening,
Phil and I hadn’t showered in three days, and we knew the Crookston place was a no-water site. So we told Arlin
we were going to see him tomorrow and stay the night where we could have water. So I drive around and try to
figure out where to park it for the night. I get in one space, but we couldn’t get very level, so I said frog it, let’s move
to another spot. About my third circuit around the park, some dude starts yelling at us. I slam on the brakes to
see what he has to say. It was a camp host, and he was wondering if we were with the sugar beet harvest. We
said yes, but we weren’t going to be staying for more than a night here, we had to go to Crookston. So the bugger
made us pay to stay there, which we weren’t very happy about because if we were there like we were told we were
going to be, staying there is free. But we just wanted to be parked and to get clean. I finally find a good spot for the
night and we get settled. We got our showers, and that made us happy. And there was an Applebee’s within
walking distance, so that made us happier. However, we forgot about the fickle weather in Minnesota, and by the
time we were done eating, it was pouring down rain, so we had two showers for the price of one.
Yesterday we get to Crookson, which is really a nice little place.


We staying in Central Park, and it’s really pretty and we’re surrounded by green, green grass. The dogs love it.



We were greeted right away by a nice fellow named Larry who told us there was limited space, but that folks were
working on getting everyone electric. He told us to park anywhere we could, but he was a newbie to the harvest,
and wasn’t really sure what we should do. Luckily, as we were rounding a corner to park and call Arlin, we were
met by three of the nicest folks we’ve ever met. Darlene, Carl and Ron have worked the harvest for years, and told
us good things about it and how fun it can be. Carl and Ron are both foremen (we found out today we’ll be working
for Ron, which thrilled us), and Darlene worked as a sample taker the last couple years, but has moved up to scale
operator, so she was very happy about that. But they filled us in on the space situation, and recommended we just
back our RV next to Ron’s and use his electric box. Cool with us. So now we’re parked in the grass with no
neighbors to the one side of us and Ron on the other.






View of a church from the park:



View of the river from the park:



I wasn’t my normal self, and actually enjoyed talking with all the folks here. We’ve met another couple with a pug,
and Xander had fun meeting Pugsley. I didn’t trust Willough with the old guy (he’s nine) yet because sometimes
she’s not so nice, but they’ll meet one of these days. And we briefly spoke with a young guy who, along with his
girlfriend, is living in a mini-van chainsawed to fit a camper onto it. (When I know him better I’ll ask him if it’s ok to
take a picture.) He had been at training earlier in the day and said he ate a sugar beet. He described the taste as
“sweet dirt.” I learned from the repeat folks that sugar beets are used in things like Hershey’s chocolate and Coke.
And they can get as big as bowling balls, and they’re white. I can’t wait to see one. I don’t think I’m aloud to take
pictures on the job, but I’ll see what I can do.
Sugar beet field:



As I said before, the park we’re at has no water hookups, but we had filled up our water tank the night before at the
other park, so we were good to go. We turned on our pump and nothing. Not a sound. Pump wasn’t working. So
we made due with our water jugs for the night, but today, Ron and Carl helped us figure out what was wrong, and
now we’re good to go. I love RV’ers!

We had the first part of orientation this morning, which consisted of a whole bunch of paperwork, W-2’s and
whatnot, and a training video for the harvest. Arlin said something to the group about not everyone being
guaranteed a job, and that sort of ticked us off, but we were told later that all the RV’ers will have a job. There’s a
lot of migrant workers looking for work too, and not everyone will get a job, so I guess that’s where Arlin was
coming from there. Whew!

We go for more training tomorrow afternoon at the sugar beet main company here. That’s where we’ll see what the
job is really all about and where I’ll get to taste my sweet dirt. Can’t wait. Then we’ll actually start the work on
October 1st, and barring any weather problems, we’ll be done ten days from that. I guess we don’t work if it’s
raining too hard, if it’s too hot, or if it’s too cold, so I guess delays can happen. But the weather so far has been
awesome, so hopefully that will keep up. Phil and I are pretty sure we’ll be working nights (Darlene, Ron and Carl
all swear that’s the best shift so we’ll believe ‘em), so our hours will be from 8pm to 8 am.
So far so good. We have a great internet connection here, so in my four hours of not working or sleeping per day,

I’ll be sure to keep this updated. I’ll leave off with a picture of the new dog bowls we bought today.

So we said goodbye to Skagway for another season.





We were ready for some sun for a change. Canada is always sunnier than Skag. And it was. For the first half a day. Then it rained on us the rest of the way down. But I finally got to see a big, male moose with all his antlery glory. I even pulled over so we could get a great picture to share, and this was a feat because we were going about 60 when I saw him and there was no pullout. I just sort of screeched to a halt. The problem with that being the screeching halt made him run into the trees, so no picture. Oh well. I got to see him. Plus two female moose besides. That was about all the wildlife we saw this time around.

Not too much else went on in Canada. It was a lot of this….



The foliage was very pretty, though. A lot of yellow.

We spent the first two nights sleeping at little rest stops, but we splurged on the last night in Canada and stayed at Buffalo Pound Provincial Park. Very nice place. Not really made for big rigs, but we squeezed in.




There were little deer everywhere.



We took the dogs for a walk and scared all the deer away. But we got to sit by a lovely lake for a little bit.






And I just really liked this tree:



Then we were on the road again for the last leg of Canada. We missed a few landmarks that we should have stopped for. There was the story-high beaver. Rugby, the geographical center of North America. And whatever this giant teapot was there for:



At the border, we got questioned by two border guards. I don’t know if the one was a trainee or what, but we started out with a woman who took our passports and left for awhile. She came back with a second border guard, who asked the usual alcohol/firearm questions. Then he asked if the RV was locked. I said yes. He said he wanted the key to go inside. I said, “Ok, but we have two cats loose back there. Don’t let them out, ok?” He asked me if we had a kennel for them. I said yes, but it was behind a slide and that’s why they were loose. He looked at this partner, paused a moment and said, “Well, I guess I’ll just have you two hold them.” So we stood outside with two petrified cats while they had a look around the RV. They confiscated half of a lemon, and let us be on our way. Phil and I got cat scratches from the experience.

But then we were back in the good, ole USA, land of the miles-per-hour and gas by the gallon. We were driving through Minot, ND, and I saw a sign advertising a convenience store called Schatz. My PA buds may know of my affinity for the Sheetz chain of stores, so I laughed and asked Phil if Schatz was the past tense of Sheetz. Ha ha ha. Ten miles down the road we pass the Shatz, and I wish I could have taken a picture because a Schatz is an exact replica of a Sheetz store, down to the hideous brick red/mustard yellow color scheme. Hoo boy! I wish you could have been there. Fun-nee.

We’re now in E. Grand Forks, Minnesota, which we’re counting as our night in North Dakota for our RV sticker map. We called our sugar beet dude, and he’s moving us from this place to another place about 25 miles down the road. But at least we got one night with running water, and we were able to bathe after three days without. That’s always a pleasant experience. I’m not sure what our connection will be down the road, so don’t worry if you don’t hear from us for a time.

I’ll leave this posting with a picture of the traveling Willoughby and her head rest, Xander.

I’m coming to you live from Corrington’s Alaskan Ivory. It’s our last day of work, and the excitement is palpable. Ok, that’s not true. The only excitement today comes from wiping the raindrops off the counters after the few customers we’ve had today plop their umbrellas down. It’s a slow ship day, meaning there’s only about 1200 people in town today, and since it’s raining, I think about half that are shopping.

We’re almost ready to leave tomorrow. Almost. We always have to put off some stuff until the last minute. You know how that goes.

We talked to the sugar beet people. We’ve been moved from Crookston to somewhere close to Crookston. We don’t really know what’s going on, but we’ll find out when we get there, I guess. Just the way I like it.

The salmon run fizzled out sooner this year than last. I don’t know why I thought it’d be the same every year. The King Salmon ran this year, as you saw in an earlier post, but that was over with by the time Phil’s moms got here.


So they didn’t get to see all the dead fish lying all over the place like they saw on our website last season. I hope they weren’t too disappointed.
While Pat and Paula were here, we took a ride up to Carcross, Canada.
Bridge a little ways out of Skagway:


One of the rumors we’ve heard is that Carcross is a little town that the cruise ships are buying so they can bus people straight from the ships past Skagway into Canada. I guess that hasn’t happened on too big a scale yet because there’s not much to Carcross at all. We got there at around 2:45 p.m., and everything was getting ready to close at 3. And by everything, I mean one general store. That and the train station was about all Carcross was. Who would want to pass by Skagway for that? But the drive up was great. Phil and I don’t remember the drive out being so pretty last year.

When we got back from Canada, we decided to go try to see some bears at Dyea. But since there were no fish anymore, there weren’t any bears either.
Dyea Sunset:


But we did get to harass an eagle (did we learn nothing at Yellowstone?) and get some great pictures.

















Also while Phil’s moms were here, we got to do something new. Our boss, Sherry, used to drive the street cars here, so she was able to get us on the street car tour for free. (It’s so good to have connections.) I had a blast, and learned some stuff about Skagway that I didn’t know.






Tour Guide Doug:



The last part of this blog is courtesy of our good friend and co-worker, Jerry Harlin. He let us burn some great bear pictures and movie clips. Some are a little too great. He got wayyyyyy too close to a bear for some of these shots, so enjoy!

We have five more days of work, and then we’re heading out Saturday morning to Crookston, Minnesota, for the sugar beet harvest. Then it’s full-steam ahead for Carrolltown, Pennsylvania. I’m not sure how many more blogs I’ll get in before we leave, but I’ll try my best. Keep with us, though. I have a feeling life is going to get exciting in Minnesota.

Well, I updated the front page pic at least. I don’t have time right now for a full blog, but I’ll work on that tonight. The in-laws are gone, and things are pretty slow tourism-wise right now. We’re winding down and preparing to head off in a couple of weeks. We haven’t heard from the beet people yet about a specific location, so we’re not sure what’s going on there. More to come…