August 6

SOLTESWEB.NET ALASKA TRIP 2005 - AUGUST Page 6

Tuesday, August 23 - Watson Lake to Dease Lake

British Columbia

On the road again, south on the Cassiar Hwy (Rt 37, B.C.) towards Stewart. We saw many beautiful sights. Fall is coming, and some of the fields are sprinkled with yellows, browns and reds. Lakes and streams everywhere. The white in the picture on the right is not snow, but a flower that produces fluffy white seed like dandelions. Isn't this place gorgeous?

This last picture on the left is what we see out of our window in the camper. We stopped here for the night. It's great to fall asleep to the sound of rushing water.

Wednesday. August 24 - to Hyder, Alaska

I put this picture here to show you what difference it makes when you get the right light, the right angle and something other than a gray sky. It's the same scene as the picture just above it. No wonder professional photographers take many pictures of the same scene, and often wait hours for the right light. I read that for every picture you see in National Geographic taken by their professional photographers, as many as several thousand are thrown away!

We started on our way south again, and soon met Sam and Jody. They were stopped by the side of the road with their bicycles. They had flown to Anchorage and were cycling back to Prince Rupert. Sam was having what appeared to be a bladder infection, and was sore enough that they were trying to hitch a ride to a place she could find some help. We flagged another truck camper to take one of the bikes, while we took the other bike and the two in our camper to Meziadin. There, because the other camper was not going to Stewart where we could find help, we found a way to put both bikes, with Sam and Patty on the camper bed and the bikes inside the camper, while Jody drove with Ed in the front. When we arrived in Stewart, we discovered that Sam's bags, which we took off so that both bikes could fit into the camper, were accidentally left in Meziadin, 40 miles away! We phoned the station at Meziadin and they told us there was no need to come for them...they'd send them in to the campground with the next local that stopped by. We left the two in Stewart to drive a little further into Hyder, Alaska. There we stayed at the Run-a-Muck campground. After checking in, we headed up the road 4 miles to see if we could catch bears eating salmon at Fish Creek. No luck. Maybe tomorrow.

The transmission was again making some noises today.

Thursday, August 25, part 1 - Fish Creek, Hyder, Alaska

These are some pictures from Fish Creek this morning. No bears. We saw some mergansers having fun with the salmon, and a gull that made sure that everyone knew that fish was his!

Post office at Hyder, Alaska. We have been fortunate to have Wes Williamson at Aldersgate United Methodist Church in College Station taking care of our mail. Recently, we asked him to send whatever he had acquired by Priority Mail to us, General Delivery in Hyder. If you look at the office hour posting, you will see that the mail gets delivered Monday and Thursday by float plane, weather permitting! That's a model of the deHavilland Beaver that brings the mail. It turns out that the weather was not "permitting" and the plane came on Tuesday afternoon instead of Monday. Wes mailed the box on Friday afternoon, and it arrived in Hyder on that plane! Hyder is a small US outpost, population 80, reachable only through British Columbia or by plane. Since it doesn't have a bank, it even does business in Canadian money.

Do you know that posting Priority Mail to Ed Soltes, General Delivery, Hyder, AK, 99923 is perfectly safe? The mail is held for thirty days if someone doesn't show up with a picture ID with Ed's name on it, and it is sent back to the sender. Before the 30 days are up, Ed can phone the Post Office, and he can have it forwarded anywhere in the US, and it will travel Priority Mail with no additional postage.

How about this RV? Had both solar panels and wind generator.

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