all aska tour.....2010

first time we have had internet for a while.

we are heading home!

rounding out the tour with a final night in nebraska

first pic

yes the motor home can go up here...we went down it to a campsite...and it was the only way out!

second thing is a dredge i toured.. it is like a giant ditch witch which sorts gold dust out of tons of rock....quite a machine.

these three happy guys are modern day gold miners. they had a small dredgeing operation and

worked all day for about 1 half oz of gold dust and "pickers"

they were excited!

this is how the guy makes his living.

lynda snapped this pick on the side of the road.

wolves are making a BIG comeback up north.

should be home soon.

jim and lynda

all aska tour.....2010

this was a really neat waterfall outside of valdez

we are in tok about to enter the top of the world highway. after today we will be out of contact a few days i would guess for email.

whitehorse is the capital of the youkon with 24000 people ...youkon has a total of 34000...we will be visiting with the other 10000 for the next day or so and that makes alaska look like columbus area population wise compared to what we are going to.

got gas/water and we are off to the most northern part of the trip!

then its the dash for home!

love

jim and lynda

all aska tour.....2010

first pictures were of large styrofoam blue blocks floating in prince william sound...although the boat captain swore they were icebergs....

2nd, as you cand see we visited sarah's house....and we couldn't quite see russia.

3rd...on a cruise in front of a glacier.

4th for trilly...we saw a lot of whales, but they kept going under water......

and lastly....this is lynda's....

we are having a WHALE of a good time but.....

we MOOSE be going north for our last leg of our adventure to dawson city...site of the klondike goldrush of 1898.

then its a quick 5000 to 6000 mile jaunt home...

love you all

later

jim and lynda

all aska tour.....2010

we are seeing beautiful sites and finding some decent camping areas. it is pretty cold here, not just cool. the wind makes it cold.

we went and spent a day on the spit in homer...pics to follow, and went on a 6 hour glacier cruise in seward.

tonight we head for valdez.....

we are going to try and hit two or three glaciers before we get to valdez .

all continues to go well.

see you all soon...we saw a sign in seward today that said seward nebraska 4133 miles/

guess they are into the all aska tour thing too...

later

as always

jim and lynda

Lauren and amber and I have been having a blast. Too much fun in fact. We are staying another day or so. Yesterday we went to amber's church. It was kinda on the wild side and reminded me of campus crusade in college a little bit. Then we went to the beach. The beach was swarmed with other people celebrating the 4th. It was like a beach party with thousands of people. Reminded me of Spring break or something. Everyone on the beach was between 20-30 years old. It was kind of weird. Amber and I went and played in the ocean. The water was cold and the shore dropped off really quickly. To get out where the waves were breaking you couldn't touch the bottom. There was a crazy rip tide where we were so the whole thing felt a little dangerous. I played until I couldn't take getting driven into the sand by another wave. The sets were coming in at about 5-7 feet. It was really cool.

After we were covered in salt and sand, we ran into this cool group of people that had a sweet suite at a hotel along the beach. We didn't have a place to shower and we wanted to stay and watch the fireworks that night so we went back to their hotel to hang out with them. They had 14 people in one gigantic hotel room. It was a crazy set up. After a while a bunch of us went down and went in the pool and hot tub. It was a lot of fun. The group were people from all over the world who were working as interns at UCLA. We had a great time meeting and talking with people. After the hot tub we split off from the group and went back to the boardwalk where the houses meet the beach which is what they call "the strand". I made friends with some people along the beach and amber and lauren went into this crazy fancy house party with bouncers and everything. I got a picture of them dancing in the second story window like idiots. LOL At this point it was dark and crowded and by the time they came outa the house party the fireworks started. The display was weak compared to red white and boom!!! After the fireworks one of the people who I was talking to before the fireworks got into an argument that the cops had to break up. It was pretty funny. Amber Lauren and I wandered around talking to people and people watching. We went up the beach and saw another house party where they had a michael jackson impersonator. He did a show and about 2500 people gathered. It was pretty well done with lights and everything. He performed off a huge balcony. It was really funny! As if the day couldn't get more random we ran into a couple people who we were talking to earlier and they needed a ride home so we all hopped in ambers car and drove them across town. Crazy end to the day. We were all tired and hadn't eaten dinner. WHen we got back to Ambers house we warmed up left over pizza and made quesadillas.

miles so far: ~4600
elevation: 190 ft
temperature: 84 degrees

all aska tour.....2010

well , heres the proof that we made it to the end of the alaska highway. delta junction.......

this is a shot out our window of the trucks trying to break our windsheild. the road was bad......

we are now crusing alaska and visiting the mcdonalads in wassilla and we can't find sarah...she must be at a classier place.

raining a lot here right now, lots of good campspots. just took a chance that roads will be good for a while and washed the motorhome. $5 worth of quarters still only took off half the bugs....

as always

dad and mom

Good Morning Los Angeles

We made it to Ambers house!!!!! YAY!! we have finally gotten to L.A. after all this time. I have yet to make actual contact or see the pacific ocean but Amber says it's only ten minutes away. She is graciously putting us up in her house and we are going touring with her today. The city looked huge and beautiful with all it's lights when we came in last night. It feels much bigger than new york but also less dense.

We had a blast at Joshua tree yesterday and saw two rattlesnakes. One of them even rattled!!!!! We stayed up late talking with Amber last night and had a delicious pancake breakfast this morning. It is nice to have a break from the mini van.