Travel Blog

Sue:

I know you aren't going to believe this, but it's true. It took me all day, but (drum roll) the Photo Gallery is up to date. I still have to go back and put real titles and descriptions on all of them, but they're there to look at, if'n ya want to. Skagway 2009 coming soon.

Sue:

Phil covered our journey this year pretty well, and I don't have much to add except that at times we were wondering what in heavens name made us do this trip again. We always tell people the Alaskan Highway isn't as bad as they may have heard, and I still think this is true, but traveling through Canada before April may not be the best idea.

I have some pictures to share, though, from the trip. In Montana, we stayed at an RV park so we could get our last shower for a few days, and I was taking the dogs for a walk in their designated pet area. I don't know how the dogs missed it, but I felt something watching me, turned around and saw this:

When I took Phil back to see the cat, there were two more cats hanging out on the hill. I got too close and scared them away.

Now here's a picture that looks a lot like something you'd find on the cover of the Weekly World News. It could be Bigfoot.

I guess it could be a moose. Maybe.

And then there's Toad River. We've stopped here the past three years to gas up, and I know I've gone inside before. But they really do have the largest ball cap collection I've ever seen (how many others have I seen? Um, my sister's?). I don't know about the "world famous" part, but it was impressive.I didn't have my camera inside, but there must have been thousands of hats. I guess people who visit give them to the collection. Phil saw two Penn State caps among them. Neato.

And now we're just kicking back in our RV, watching X-Files and waiting to get to work. They told us we'd start on April 2nd, but we're going to be starting on Monday. I guess there's some serious cleaning to do. What fun!

The drive through Wyoming to Montana was pretty uneventful. Sue and I agreed that even though the scenery was not much different, Wyoming had a color about it that the previous day in Colorado couldn’t touch.

We spent Saturday night in Great Falls, MT. The town seems like one of those places that still marches to its own drummer.

Sunday we crossed the border, but not without excitement. At the border we saw more people getting pulled over than in any of our previous crossings, so we were not surprised when they told us to go inside and see the immigration officers. We are not sure if they were training new border agents, or were just bored, but we got to cool our heels there for about half an hour answering questions before they sent us on our way without even searching our rig.

We think the thing that set off our little stop was that we said we have a can of bear spray. Once we had described the spray to a couple of agents and why we had it, they let us go. But we did see three RV’s get the rubber glove treatment, one couple had to pay $2,000 on duty tax for something they were carrying, and one guy got turned away altogether. So if you are coming through Canada this year, be prepared for a little extra probing.

As soon as we crossed the border we started to hit some weather. Most of the time it was just flurries, but that evening, outside our least favorite city, Edmonton, AB, we hit a bad combination of black ice and crosswinds. We knew these roads could be bad because some of our friends lost their rig here last year, but neither of us realized how bad it could be (sorry Pat. Breathe, breathe. We're ok - Sue).

We made it through safely and found a nice rest stop to spend the night. The next day we woke up to sunny skies and open roads. Around Grand Prairie we hit some of the roughest roads of our trip. It was a ten mile series of frost heaves that shook the house so bad that our hanging clothes jumped off the bar in the closet and our desk must have leapt up and crashed down hard enough to break the legs off.

When we reached mile zero of the Alaska Highway we hit some unexpected traffic.

We figured out that it was a combination of seasonal icy roads and unseasonable road construction that lead to the backup, but it cleared up after Ft. St. John, and we made it to Ft. Nelson for the evening.

The next day the flurries were back with some almost zero-degree temperatures (or -20 for our Celsius fans). The roads dictated a slower pace with some snowy hills to keep our attention:

The only traffic we saw on this leg was buffalo, moose, and these two fellows who would not leave the road:

We managed to get lots of pictures of the buffalo and carabou, but the moose would not stay put. (They're surprisingly fast for so big an animal - and through knee-high snow drifts to boot. Plus, I was too slow with the camera anyway. - Sue)

That afternoon the sun broke through and we had clear sailing through the rest of Canada down into Skagway. As we rolled down to the bottom of the hill, visions of a quick setup and a warm shower pushed us on, but as we pulled up to the entrance of the campground, we saw that was not going to happen because the lot had been flooded, and the entrance we were planning to use had been turned into a wading pool/skating rink.

Instead of fighting to get set up that night, we did one more night of boondocking. Yesterday we got busy pulling in and setting up and finally we were home for the summer.

Sue:

We didn't stay in Cheyenne. They didn't want us there. The rest area we stayed in last year doesn't allow overnight parkers anymore. What a bummer. We have to change our Camground Reviews now. So we drove on another 80 miles to near Douglas, Wyoming. We tried an RV park because we liked how they advertised...huge, white rocks on the side of a hill. But they wanted too much for too little, so we moved on. We're at another rest stop right now; one that didn't have any signs forbidding overnight parking. We're waiting for a knock on the door anyway, but until then, we're happy campers.

Our trip yesterday was pretty uneventful. The weather was nice; the temperatures were warm. But the view was mostly this:



So that's why you're not getting many pictures from then. Boring.

We did pass this cute butte:


We're not sure if the name of the place was Butte as well, but that's what was on the sign.

I took a few pictures of the pamphlet capital of the world, Pueblo, but only one came out good enough to share:



I have a few good ones from Colorado Springs, and I'll show a couple here, but the one of the Air Force Academy will have to wait for the Photo Gallery.





Poor Phil had to drive through a lot of big cities yesterday, but the worst was, of course, Denver. I have no pictures of Denver because, as my husband requested of me, my eyes were squinched shut for most of it. It's ironic that even though I'm a full-time RV'er, I'm still a very nervous rider. It's worse when I'm a passenger. I think there are many, many times Phil wishes he had a tranquilizer gun. He would have used it on me today, that's for sure. I always said I'd put some Rescue Remedy in the glove compartment to use on days like this, but I never remember to put it in the truck. I'm not going to take all the blame for how bad I am though. City drivers are for suck. I'm not even going to apologize to you if you live in a city. You probably know it's true. And the slower traffic gets, the worse people drive. You think I'd get less nervous the slower we move, but it's just not the case. People use jams as an excuse to see how close they can cut us off. I guess they failed Physics class in high school. They're gonna get smooshed some day, mark my words. But enough about that for now. Remind me to tell you about the big rig driver who almost killed us and a few others. I have his license plate number. I'll share it and the story with everyone soon, but I left my notebook out in the truck.

So I'll end this with the view that we ended our day with.


Tonight we are almost to the Canadian border, so hang tight for the rest of the story. It's only about three more days until Skagway.

Sue:

Well, this is it. Our last night in Albquerque. We marked the occasion by going out for our last Chinese food for 6+ months. We went with Pat and Paula. The food was fantastic, as always. We go to a place called Kai's. If you're ever in ABQ and have a Chinese food hankering, make it Kai's.

Tomorrow we plan to leave around 7:00 a.m. (sorry, neighbors). We're all set except for minor outside things. We shouldn't be too noisy. I'll try not to be anyway. I always hate it when RV'ers leave early, early. But we mainly bitch when it's pre-7:00, so hopefully most folks will be up already by the time we start clanking around.

Phil plans to make it to Cheyenne, WY, by tomorrow evening. We'll check in then and post some pics.

Oh, and I know I spelled Monterey incorrectly on the picture that's at the top of the page. I've decided to live with it.

I know we didn’t write much while we were in Albuquerque this year. Part of that was we were working on the new site. The other part was, while Sue was working, I was landscaping my moms’ back yard.

When we first got here they said they wanted to do some work on the back yard – put in a raised bed, lay some pavers, put mulch around the edge. Sue and I were only getting small jobs at the time, so we said we would help out. Well, once I got to thinking of everything we could do some work turned into totally redoing the yard.

Because it hardly rains here, keeping up the grass on the lawn was impossible, so the yard had turned into one big dirt pile.

My first project was putting in a large raised bed, so Paula could cultivate some climate friendly plants.

Then we had to level the yard so when the monsoons come in the summer the water would flow away from the house. For this monumental project we went out and rented the smallest bobcat I’ve ever seen so it would fit through the gate.

This not only leveled the yard, but packed the dirt in, so we had to bring out the rot-o-tiller to break up the soil.

Once we prepared the foundation we started laying out the pavers for the two patios.

After we lay in the pavers we put crushed gravel around the outside for the dogs to run through. Unfortunately this meant we had to shovel all the crush.

But after everything was done and Paula got her plants in, the place looked a million times better and now there is hardly any dust.

And the swing and hammock fit in nicely.

Sue:

I got a few albums in our Photo Gallery. More will be coming soon. I'm starting chronologically, so the albums in there are from 2005 and 2006. Hope you enjoy!

Sue:

My eyes couldn't take our small font anymore, so I'm goading my husband into changing the font size from 10 to 12. Let us know what you think about that. I would have left it, and let you all zoom in, but I noticed our pictures got all messed up when I did it. So if you liked the font at 10, let me know. If you prefer it at 12, let me know. I'll go with whatever the majority prefers.

Check out the front page, old AccuPals. Phil added a weather widget today. I didn't know they came that big.

Well cripes, apparently it doesn't matter what size font I use here. When it posts, it's still small. Sorry about that. We'll try to figure it out.

Sue:

Don't worry, our visitors from Roswell weren't originally from outer space (not that I know of anyway), but they did come straight from Roswell to us, so the title works for me. Glen and Elissa, Phil's dad and stepmother, are on a road trip to visit all their kids, and we were their first stop. After Albuquerque, they go to see Phil's sister, Zoe, in Flagstaff, Arizona, then it's Elissa's daughter in Sacramento, California, and they end with Elissa's son Drew in Littleton, Colorado. Sounds fun, huh? Of course, I may be a little biased.

All the folks together (Paula,  Elissa, Glen, Pat and Phil):

That picture was taken as we were heading into the Rio Grande Arts and Crafts Festival on Saturday. We had a great time, and the art was fantastic. I ended up buying a couple things myself. I think we all ended up with something. And even though I didn't buy this, I really liked it so I took its picture.

Lizard pot:

Glen and Elissa stayed at a casino hotel down the road from us. We were all glad they stayed there, and actually, Phil and I recommended the place because it was close to us and we were curious as to what the rooms were like, so we were lucky that it ended up to be a great place to stay. None of us are gamblers, but we all tried our hands at the slots, and none of us lost our shirts. We didn't win anything either, but that's neither here nor there.

Route 66 Casino:

We also dragged them out for a walk at the volcanos that we talked about in a previous post. We took the dogs this time, and they had a really good time. And Xander and Willough did a good job dragging us up the hills, so that was helpful.

At the top:

Volcanic Glen and Elissa:

The visit was really fun for us. I hope they had fun too, although they had to be subjected to us getting some chores done in order for us to be ready to hit the road on Friday. They were nice enough to let us piggyback on their Costco card so we could get our bulk supplies. And they watched us try to get our scooter up and running, and we all watched Phil fix the awning.

Roofer Phil:

And when we got bored watching Phil working so hard, we went inside the RV park office building to do some putting. I would show you pictures of that, but I don't like how I look in them, so I'm using my girl-picture-veto power here.

So that's what's been going on with us for the past few days. Now we're in serious packing up mode, and we're excited to be getting back on the trail. I think the weather may actually cooperate too, so that would be a pleasant bonus.

And except for when we're going through Canada, I'm going to try to keep different pictures running on the top of the website daily so ya'll don't get bored. I don't know if I'll have the mental capacity after nine hours or more of driving for a blog, but I'll do my best.

Sue:

How are you liking the new website? I hope you do, because we love it, and Phil has spent a lot of time getting it up and running. As you can tell, we're trying to gear it towards RV'ers, but for our friends and family, and loyal readers who aren't RV'ers yet, you'll still have this blog to come to and read about our adventures. But check out the site regardless of your RV-ing status. We'll have the photo gallery up and running, we'll have our blog archives finished one of these days, so you can go back and read the old ones, we have RSS capabilities (there you go, Jesse), and lots of other things to check out. If you've visted this new site already, you may have noticed we had about 50 rotating pictures up top of the pages. Well, I decided that was too many, and I would miss the Pavlechko's Pic concept, so I pared it down to five pictures at a time. That way I can put new pictures up on a regular basis, and you'll be able to see the new ones without wading through too many pictures. For the old ones, we will actually have a photo gallery on this website. I know you've heard that before, but I think I mean it this time. We also have RSS capabilities for this site (there ya go, Jesse), and lots of other cool features, so have fun. And don't forget to leave comments. It's unrestricted except for a security code you'll have to put in to prevent spam comments, but once you comment it should be up right away. We've missed your feedback, so take some time and do that, would ya?

Now a rundown on what we've been up to lately. The most exciting thing that's happened lately is we finally found diesel that's cheaper than unleaded. It's about freakin' time. We haven't seen that since we bought the Beast. That was my fault, though, because I was bragging to my friends and coworkers that I'd be paying less for fuel than they would, and I nah-nah-nah-nahed a bit. That karma...get's me every time. But I've been good lately, so she's starting to treat me better. Some other news is that I was about one number off all five numbers in the PowerBall a couple weeks ago. Seriously. That kinda sucked. Other than that, I've been working pretty steady for the past few weeks. I'm back at the same place I worked last year. It's nice to work with those folks again, however, I'm working with numbers and spreadsheets and I'm starting to get a bit sick of it. But I only have two days left, so I'll live. And I'm grateful for the work because things were ugly there for awhile. Phil wasn't as lucky as I was temp-job-wise. I think the temp agencies are a bit sexist here. I got calls all the time for receptionist gigs, but he didn't. So he's been working on his mom's yard, and boy did he do a great job. It was a lot of work, but he had fun. He got to drive a bobcat too, and he was glad for that. Now we can put that on our resumes.

We'll be leaving for Alaska next Friday morning. Wish us luck. We are itching to be back on the road, but sometimes the trip up makes me a bit, well, freaked, so think of me and send good vibes our way.

It's Willoughby's 5th birthday tomorrow. She's almost as old as I am now. My little girl. So in honor of her, and because I really don't have any new pictures of anything except the animals, I'll finish this blog off with them.

Phil:

Well you found our new blog.  For those of you who are moving over from our www.worldofpayne.com site, we're glad you made it.  For those of you who are finding this blog for the first time, we prommise they won't all be this dull.  Usually we will be talking about our workamping experiances, traveling, and new places.  This time I'm just trying to make sure this new format works.

We will also be migrating over our old blogs, so don't be supprised if there are a bunch of posts in one day.