Back From Vacation

Can't believe it has been this long since I posted here. YIKES! Well I do have a little bit of an excuse......VACATION! We were gone on vacation for several days! We took a camping and fishing trip up north and I mean wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy up north. We drove what we call the "Haul Rd" which is the Dalton Highway here in Alaska. It is the road that all the truckers that service the oil fields in Prudoe Bay and the Alaskan pipeline. It is the furthermost road that can be driven in this state. It is literally at the end of the world. Goes all the way to the Arctic Ocean! Man what a trip! It has been on our "bucket list" and we finally got it done. 

We spent several days of fishing which was absolutely awesome and seeing all the country and what an amazing sight that country is. The road was pretty rough and stressful driving at times, but we just kept bumping along. 

Here are a few pictures of our trip....


This is one of our camping spots. The weather for the first few days was gorgeous. Blue sky and warm. I love camping in the trees like this. It was by a nice creek that we fished for two days and caught an unbelievable amount of fish. We catch and release the fish as that keeps the fish population going strong. 

The Haul Rd is 414 miles of gravel and some paved roads. This is Atigun Pass which is the pass that goes over the Continental Divide and then you drive 170 miles to Deadhorse which is the industrial camp that services all the oil fields. That is where the road stops. In the winter Atigun Pass is terribly treacherous for the truckers. It wasn't really steep, but the gravel road was pretty beat up. We had to drive 20 mph for 170 miles because of the road. Took us 8 hours to get to Deadhorse, but now I can say.....been there!

On the was back over the pass we saw this grizzly bear foraging along the side of the road. He was really a nice looking bear. Probably about 4 years old we thought. 

On our last day up there it rained all night the night before so we thought we better get out while the getting is good because the road really gets muddy. There are parts of the road that they call the "roller coasters" and those are hills that go wayyyyyyyyyyy up and then wayyyyyyyyyyyy down!. Here is one of those hills. I called it "the road to nowhere".

And then we made it to the end of the road and back to civilization and our truck showed the mud we had to travel in. It was slick and muddy, but we did ok. 

It was an amazing trip and we had so much fun. Now we are hoping to get one more camping trip in before the snow flies which will be soon because the trees are already turning up here!! AHHHHHH!!!!!! We think we will take our 4 wheelers out a camping trip in a couple of weeks. 

Now...back to work. Have a great week!

Colleen :)