Travel Blog

Sue:

We've been working for over a week now, and getting back into the warehouse groove. It's weird this year to know people. Last year we came in late and pretty much kept to ourselves because the cliques had already formed, but this year we have friends from Skagway working here as well as folks from last year that we recognize and who remember us, so that's been neat.

We didn't get the job we wanted, which was picking, but we're still hopeful. We're stowers, and we put the stuff on the shelves for the pickers to pick. There's more of a need for stowers at this time of the season because of the gear-up to Christmas, and we have to get stuff on the shelves, but Phil and do miss picking. We'll just have to make due with our noses for the time being, I guess.

Sue:

Work is going well. We work with Linda Lavin and John Stewart. Pretty cool, huh? Both are very nice, and quite down to earth.

Sue:

Phil's mom requested some pictures of Coffeyville, so we drove around town yesterday to see what we could see. Our first stop was to the post office to see if we got any mail.

We walked in sort of a square, and no offense to Coffeyville, but there wasn't all that much to see. It looks like a cute little theater is under some renovations, though.

And it was fun to walk around town, even though it didn't seem like much was open, even on a Thursday afternoon.

So we hopped back in the truck to head to the dollar store to see if they had any dangerous water bottles that one could see through so we could  buy some to take to work with us (turns out we got one from Amazon.com today anyway), and we stumbled across this sculpture garden.

We're not sure what its deal is yet, but we'll look into it. And then as we were heading home for the day, we drove past the bank the Dalton Gang raided on October 5, 1892.

There's the Dalton Defenders museum here as well, but Phil and I haven't done that yet. But don't worry, we'll get to it, as well as taking a tour of the Brown Mansion that is nearby.

So that's just a glimpse of Coffeyville, but I'll be sure to take the camera out and about with me and see what else I can show you.

Sue:

So after the Columbus Days fun, we drove 7 miles north to West Mineral, Kansas, which is the home of Big Brutus.

Big Brutus is an 1850-B electric shovel, one of the world's two largest shovels. Some of the pamphlet hightlights are:

- the shovel is taller than a 15-story office building, 160 feet from the ground to the point sheave at the top of the boom

- working weight is 11,000,000 pounds

- 150 railroad cars were required to ship all of the component partsof the shovel

- it ran 24 hours a day for 11 years, ceasing operations in April of 1974

There is a website where you can learn more, and that's www.bigbrutus.org, and if you decide to visit, you can pay a fee and go out and climb all over it. Phil and I declined, but our friend Nick had done it previously and had a good time. But Phil did buy a Big Brutus patch for his patch pants, so we feel we contributed to its upkeep. It seems they want to raise some money to paint the sucker. Maybe we can get a workamping gig when the time comes. I'll do the tires, and Phil can get the rest.

Sue:

Phil, Nick, Liz, and a couple of friends of theirs, and I went to Columbus, Kansas, on Saturday for Columbus Days festiviities. But before that, check out this rainbow we saw on our way to Coffeyville last week:

Now back to Columbus...we had to get up really early on Saturday because Nick wanted to be in Columbus by 7:00 a.m. to see hot air balloons take off. So we got up at around 5:00 a.m. to meet up with them for the 50-mile trip. We got there in plenty of time for the balloons, though, because, as it turned out, all the rain Kansas had gotten lately made it impossible for the balloons to take off where they usually do, and there was a bit of confusion. So we didn't see all the balloons take off from where we were, but it was still pretty cool. We got to see the complete setup for one of the balloons, and we got to be right there when a few of them landed.

Getting the basket in place:

Getting the balloon in place:

Blowing up the balloon:

Ready to fly:

X marks the spot where the balloons were supposed to land. None of them came close.

Coming in for a landing (on our heads):

Another close encounter:

Then, after the balloons, we went to a church basement for a pancake breakfast. It had been quite awhile since I've been to a church basement eating event, and it was pretty fun. After breakfast, we roamed around the town square, looking at some arts and crafts, checking out an antique car show, a 1919 Seth Thomas clock that's the only one of its kind still in operating condition, we watched the Columbus Days parade and ate mummy cookies.

After the parade, we weren't sure what else to do, so we decided to go to West Mineral, Kansas, the home of Big Brutus, which one of the world's two largest shovels ever! But I think I'll save that for tomorrow. I'll end this one with some movie clips of the balloons...

Clip One:

Clip Two:

Clip Three:

Sue:

Ok, here's the deal. My computer went kaput. I am without usable USB ports. That means I have no way of downloading all my great photos that I've taken lately, and that's why there hasn't been a new post in awhile. But I'm going to snag Phil's computer tomorrow and get some new pictures up and all that. I don't really have a lot of pictures of Coffeyville yet, but we went to Columbus Days in Columbus, Kansas, this past Saturday, and I have some great pictures of what we did there. In the meantime, if anyone wants to buy me a new computer for Christmas, let me know. I have some ideas.

Sue:

Payne location update: Coffeyville, Kansas! Yay!

We made it to Coffeyville and are ready to go to work. Actually, we need a day to fix a flat tire on our RV and then we're ready to work. We pulled into our RV park tonight, and something just didn't look right. I always am asking Phil to look at the tires, though, because I'm a paranoid freak, and usually they're just fine, but this time when I had him check he agreed that it looked a bit flat. So after we're done checking in with the Express folks for our Amazon.com gig tomorrow morning, we'll be changing a tire. Wheeeee! And Gabe, if you still read this, I'm going to take pictures this time since we didn't the last time. I'm just glad we made it all the way here without the tire blowing. We don't know when it got flat, and when I touched it, it was HOT, hotter than the other tire. So that can't be good. And Phil and I were just discussing our tires today and how it's probably time to get the RV tires checked out. Hmmmmmmm. Makes you wonder.

Nothing much else is going on. I think I'm done talking about the ferry trip unless anyone has any particular questions about it. And if you do, leave a comment, or send an email.

Sue:

Payne location update: North Platte, Nebraska.

The average annual rainfall in Ketchikan, Alaska, is around 160 inches. So it wasn't much of a surprise that it was raining when we got there. After we took the dogs ashore to do their business, Phil and I headed into town. We decided to walk because we read that the touristy area is only about 2 miles from the ferry dock. No big deal. We walked more than that daily in Skagway. What we didn't factor in was the temperature plus the rain equalled horribly uncomfortable walking. But we're no lightweights. We made it to town, bitching all the way.

And the town was closed.

But we found a nice place, called Annabelle's, to eat, and once fortified with non-ferry food, we decided to hoof it back. We had dried off by then, and this time the wind was pushing us, so the walk back wasn't so bad.

As the usual, I'll end this post with some pictures.

Wrecked boat on the way to Ketchikan:

Ketchikan houses way up high:

Ketchikan welcome:

Post-walk warmup coffee:

Sue:

Payne location udpate: Rawlins, Wyoming (watching the Steelers game since it's a nice evening game).

Before we get into Sitka, a funny thing happened on the way to Kansas. We pulled into a Flying J in Evanston, Wyoming, to fuel up. We usually use the non-commercial-truck pumps if they're accessible enough, and this one wasn't too bad. So we drove all the away around the pumps, driving past the store itself, and into a far deisel pump on the end. I made sure Phil pulled up enough to be out of everyone's way, and we got out to commence fueling. Phil had just swiped his card when we heard a tremedous CRUNCH! I said, "What the hell was that?!?" while Phil went around the RV. Here, an SUV full of teenaged stoners had backed into our back end. Luckily, the only damage to our rig was one tail light on the scooter trailer (not the RV tail light, thank goodness). The SUV wasn't so lucky. I went back to see what was going on, but once I saw that only an already broken light was our only casualty, I went back to pumping the fuel, but Phil had to endure many a "Woah, dude. Sorry, dude. I'm sorry, dude." And the whole thing was witnessed by a Flying J employee out for his smoke break who came over and helpfully chimed, "Yeah, you guys really sneak up on people with that thing, don't ya?" Har har. We didn't make a fuss, though, since the light was already broken and their car was a mess (they won't be driving any time soon), and hopefully they learned not to back up into huge, stationary objects, especially not while under herbal influences.

As for our time in Sitka, as we were docking, Phil and I spent our time looking at jellyfish. I never really thought about jellyfish in Alaska, but there they were.

Then we spent the rest of the time walking the dogs around the Starrigaven Recreation Area. It was really close to where the ferry dock was, and it was easier to do that than figure out how to walk the dogs, put them back on the ferry and then catch a ride for the 7 miles into town. I was kinda bummed about missing the town proper, though, because I wanted to see the Russian architecture, but I guess I can always do that online.

Our docked ferry:

The hike was really nice, and the weather was cooperative. The dogs enjoyed themselves since it was a 2-hour walk for them. Heck, that was more exercise than they'd gotten in Skagway!

Neato tree:

And we got all the way to the end of the trail, and then saw the sign about the mother bear and baby bears in the area. Nice. But we didn't have any troubles, thank goodness, because I just heard about a hunter who had his arm bitten by a bear in Sitka. Sheesh.

That's about it for Sitka. I'll end this post with some final pictures of the day, and we'll talk about Ketchikan tomorrow.

Tagish River:

Pretty field:

Old Sitka with our ferry in the background:

Sue:

Payne location update: we're in Declo, Idaho, for tonight. We're not sure if we'll be heading out tomorrow or trying to watch the Steelers game. We got to listen to the Penn State game today on satellite radio, so that was fun. It was a pretty exciting game, even over the airwaves. I know Phil's vote is to keep keepin' on, but I've been a bit out of sorts since getting off the ferry. I have a bit of vertigo, like I'm still rockin' and rollin' with the waves. Um, Pat, you took the ferry. Did that happen to you? And if so, when does it stop? Ugh.

Enough about that...back to the Malaspina. The ferry left Skagway around 5:00 p.m., and I think at that time there were only about 54 people on the ferry. So Phil, me and a fellow Corrington employee, Sonya, who was taking the ferry as far as Juneau, walked around the empty decks for awhile.

Sonya was an old hand at taking the ferry, so she showed us where everything was - cafeteria, movie theater, game room, etc. We stayed on deck until we reached Haines, but by then it was getting dark and everyone needed a nap. So Phil and I went to our cabin while Sonya went to find her nephew. We reached Juneau at around 2:00 a.m., and they let us go down to take the dogs out. We met up with Sonya at our RV to say goodbye to her, and then we got off the ferry to walk Willoughby and Xander.

Juneau:

Luckily we had been to Juneau before, so we didn't care that this was the best picture we could get. Plus, the ferry dock is about 17 miles from downtown Juneau anyway, so it's not like we would have seen much more.

We felt pretty awake after the dog call, but it was the middle of the night, so we went back to our cabin and went back to bed, and surprisingly enough, fell back asleep. But we were up pretty early in the morning, and had time to take some great, spooky pictures before we reached Sitka.

And then we got to Sitka at around noon, and since we were only going to be in dock for about two hours, and since the ferry dock was once again way out of town, Phil and I spent the couple hours walking the dogs around a very, very beautiful, woodsy hiking trail near the ferry terminal. But I'll show you all that in tomorrow's post. For now, I'll leave you with a picture of Sitka's ferry dock.

Sue:

Sorry, sorry, sorry. I know my disgusting booger blog has been up for too long, but we didn't have internet access on the ferry, so what can ya do? Let's just erase that guy from our minds, and get on with things.

Our last day in Skagway, which was Monday, was the absolute most beautiful day ever. Skies were crystal clear, the sun was out and nary a raindrop fell. Phil and I think it did it on purpose just to remind us how gorgeous Skagway can be since we don't plan on going back next year. It almost worked.

(Yes, this picture was taken from the Malaspina ferry, so it's out of order with the rest of them, but check out this view of Skagway!)

We said all our last goodbyes to folks, hooked up the rig and headed down to the docks to line up for the ferry. Sherry, Stacey and Noah came down to say bon voyage and brought beer and nachos!

(See the empty plate of nachos to Noah's right? Yum, yum.)

The ramp down to cargo hold where our RV was going to be for the trip seemed crazily narrow to me, but Phil had no problems with it, and didn't even break a sweat when he had to back the rig into its spot.

The crew of the ferry was awesome, and helped us every step of the way. I guess they've done this about a billion times before, and we were in and parked in no time.

When we first planned to take the ferry, we were going to rough it out on the deck in a tent and sleeping bags.

But luckily towards the end of the season, when it was cold and rainy and even I was shivering, we came to our senses and realized we weren't in our 20s anymore, and Phil called and snagged us the very last stateroom they had available.

And even though we would have been okay on deck for the first night (just absolutely wonderful weather), we were glad for the room when we passed Sitka and the weather was more like fall in Alaska. Plus it was nice to have a place to escape when the public part of public transportation (old lady perfume, whistlers, hummers and religious zealots) started to annoy.

I'll have more posts on the actual trip and what we saw in days to come. And as for our thumbs up or down on the ferry, it's a mixed bag. As with everything else in life, there were pros and cons to taking the ferry rather than driving the Alaskan highway through Canada. It was nice not to worry about driving and being able to sit back and relax, but we don't like having to adhere to someone else's schedule. In a nutshell, we would recommend taking the marine highway if you have to get to or from Alaska when there's bad weather in Canada to contend with, but if that's not a factor, RV'ers would most likely prefer (and your pocketbooks will be better off, that's for sure) to drive. And Phil's planning on writing more about both the Alaskan highway and the marine highway later, so I think I'll leave it at that for now.