Every trip we've shared since 2011—filter by where we went, when we traveled, or what we explored.
Showing 28 of 236 posts
AlaskaTravels have ended for now. We've landed in Flagler Beach, Florida, where we're looking for a new home. A look back at the whole year, the miles, the bears and moose and orcas, the wine consumed (sixty bottles), the people we met, and the day on Tracy Arm to Sawyer Glacier that has to count as the single biggest thrill of the trip. We'll restart in the spring with new adventures.
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New YorkOut of New England with Irene behind us, a stop in New Bedford with the fishing fleet still in port, the ferry from New London to Orient Point, and on to Carol's in Locust Valley. A run into the city to see our daughter Kieran and son James, with the inimitable Panna II in the East Village (chili-pepper Christmas lights, disco ball, and a fake birthday). Then Labor Day weekend at Carol and Parker's beach trailer at Shinnecock Inlet, where this family has been gathering for 35 years.
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New EnglandPittsburgh with our son James and his fiancée Mary, and the great mouse caper that began in the Midwest. Clinton NY with Janice's cousin Bobbie. Elvis Weekend at the Akwesasne Mohawk Casino with Steve and Marilyn. Long Lake with Kim, Tony, Stella, and Daphne. Vermont, then a quiet visit to Janice's parents Stanley and Jeanne at Eastman Cemetery. Connie and Lee in Derry, the Bush home at Walker's Point, Cape Arundel at sunset, lobster in Rockport, and Cape Cod with Uncle Bill and Aunt Margaret as Hurricane Irene rolled through.
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MichiganAcross the Upper Peninsula on the UP Golf Trail. Mackinac Island with the Grand Hotel, the red phone booth, no cars since 1898, and clubs hauled between the front and back nine by horse-drawn carriage. Sleeping Bear Dunes with Pat and Anna Carney, who were also on the long road home from Alaska. Traverse City with our friend Robin Vaught and her family. And on to Noblesville, Indiana, where Janice took a swing at qualifying for the USGA Women's Senior Amateur.
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AlbertaAs the Walkabout Canada-Alaska wrapped up, a final swing through the Canadian Rockies. Grande Prairie in the rain, two days in Jasper with Park Day and Maligne Canyon, the Icefields Parkway south past the Columbia Icefield and Athabasca Glacier (water flowing from there to three oceans), Lake Louise, and a lunch view from the patio at the Fairmont Banff Springs.
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MontanaFrom Calgary down to the Montana border, into Glacier National Park with its mountains that somehow still impress after Alaska, then east through Missoula (where the people are absurdly good to strangers), across to Little Bighorn for a version of Custer's Last Stand we hadn't heard before, and on into the Black Hills for the Crazy Horse Memorial and Mount Rushmore. The first chapter of After Alaska.
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British ColumbiaDown the ALCAN from Whitehorse with Pete after Bunny flew home, a wildlife safari that turned up nine bears plus moose, bison, and sheep, the Sign Post Forest at Watson Lake, an evening soak at Liard Hot Springs, the rig stuck in the mud back at Dawson Creek, and a final goodbye to John and Melanie at the spot where the Walkabout had begun eight weeks earlier.
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YukonDawson City brings the Klondike gold rush stories back to life: Jack London's cabin, a personal connection to his grand-nephew Milo Shepard at the Jack London Ranch in Glen Ellen, Diamond Tooth Gertie's, a German Rotel Tours sleeping bus, the drive south to Whitehorse, Mom's famous family-sized cinnamon buns, the restored sternwheeler S.S. Klondike, the MacBride Museum, and the world's longest wooden fish ladder at the Whitehorse Rapids dam.
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AlaskaLeaving Alaska by way of Delta Junction, Tok, the rough Taylor Highway up to the town of Chicken (named because no one could spell Ptarmigan), the all-gravel Top of the World Highway, a stop at the Boundary station, an easy border crossing into Canada, and the Yukon River ferry into Dawson City.
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AlaskaAfter Denali, a few days in Fairbanks: camping on the Chena River, eighteen holes with Pete and Bunny Warenski and Patrick and Anna Carney at the most northern USGA course in America, the story of Fairbanks' swindler founder E.T. Barnette, our 12th anniversary at the Pump House Restaurant, and the Aurora Ice Museum at Chena Hot Springs.
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AlaskaDenali National Park, the highlight the whole trip had been pointing at. The Fanny Quigley dinner theater show, Kitty the barmaid collecting dollar kisses, an international potluck with Hal's Hungarian goulash and Bunny's Polish perogies, three days camped at Teklanika at mile 29, and a 6:20 AM bus run out the Park Road where we joined the 30 percent club and saw the north face of Mt. McKinley clear as a bell.
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AlaskaEagle River nights and 18 holes at Eagleglen on Elmendorf Air Force Base, up to Hatcher Pass and the old Independence Mine, then on toward Denali by way of Talkeetna, where the three great peaks of the Alaska Range, Foraker, Hunter, and McKinley, were as clear as a bell. Plus Pete Warenski and John taking on a two-pound Seward's Folly burger at the West Rib Pub.
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AlaskaSix moose along the highway up the Kenai Peninsula, six days at the Diamond M Ranch in Soldotna with patriarch Carroll, salmon fishing on the Kenai River, a drive out to Captain Cook State Recreation Area, a razor clam dig that yielded over 200 clams for Friday night's soup, and a bald eagle's nest at the heart of the ranch with parents feeding their eaglets.
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AlaskaFerry from Valdez to Whittier across Prince William Sound, the single lane shared tunnel into the Kenai Peninsula, six glaciers in the Portage Valley, musk ox and Kodiak cubs at the wildlife center, the old gold rush town of Hope, an orca pod off Seward, sockeye fishermen at Cooper Landing, and a few rounds at the Salty Dawg with Navy sailors in Homer.
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AlaskaA week in Valdez on Prince William Sound: a fresh halibut picnic with the locals on Memorial Day, the 1964 earthquake history, a glacier cruise out to Columbia Glacier through ice flows and sea otters, and a salmon barbecue using a recipe John's father, Jack Wilson, perfected decades ago.
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AlaskaOff the Marine Highway at last, with the Roadtrek group reuniting in Haines and Tok. Wonderful drives through the Yukon to Kluane Lake, the Sourdough RV Park's pancake throw, fishing in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, and a long beautiful road down to Valdez.
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AlaskaGlaciers in Juneau, Russian history in Sitka, totem poles and ferries through the Inside Passage, and a drive over White Pass to Carcross with three grizzly bears along the way. A week on the Alaska Marine Highway.
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AlaskaA day on the Adventure Bound from Juneau through Tracy Arm Fjord to the face of Sawyer Glacier. Mountains rising from the sea, bears and eagles and seals along the shore, icebergs floating thick, and the kind of day you remember the rest of your life.
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British ColumbiaFrom a casino parking lot in Prince George up over a snowy Pine Pass, then a chance find that turned into the best three days of the trip so far: an RV park with a golf course, run by John and Melanie Rigsby, who pulled us into their opening weekend like we were old friends.
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British ColumbiaWe reached Dawson Creek, Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway, and met the rest of the Walkabout Canada-Alaska group. Twenty-five Roadtreks from across North America, organized by Wendell Nunes of the Western Chapter, ready to head north together.
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AlaskaIf you have never driven to Alaska, there is one book every veteran of the road will tell you to get. The MilePost rode in our glove compartment from the first mile to the last.
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British ColumbiaFrom the ferry at Vancouver up through Hope and the Okanagan wine country, with stops in Kelowna and a round at Tobiano Golf Club outside Kamloops, then north through Cache Creek to Prince George. Three days now until we meet the Walkabout group at Dawson Creek.
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British ColumbiaA week exploring Vancouver Island: Victoria's waterfront, Sooke on the river, Butchart Gardens in spring bloom, Parksville's mile-wide beach at low tide, and golf at one of the oldest courses in British Columbia. Eight days now until we meet the group at Dawson Creek.
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WashingtonA pause on Whidbey Island at John's brother Will and his wife Cathy's home overlooking Mutiny Bay. The Roadtrek needed a new radiator part, Janice and Will took care of it, and the Walkabout was about to begin in earnest. A look back at the months that bridged the gap: Clay's wedding in Hawaii, the Lake Jovita home selling, and becoming officially homeless.
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HawaiiThe whole reason for the Hawaii trip: our nephew Clay Trauernicht's wedding to Talia, on the North Shore of Oahu. Then a week on the Big Island with the Wilson clan, Akaka Falls, kayaking out to the Captain Cook Monument in Kealakekua Bay, and snorkeling among more colorful fish than we knew the ocean held. And the news at the end that turned the page on the rest of the year: we had sold the house in Florida.
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HawaiiA visit to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial. Over six hundred feet of battleship resting on the floor of the harbor with the sailors of December 7, 1941. The wall of names, the small amounts of oil still escaping from the hull, and the USS Missouri turned inward to watch over them. Eleanor Roosevelt's wartime prayer at the circle of remembrance.
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OregonTwo weeks on the road from Florida to Oregon to start our adventure, with stops in Texas, Arizona, and California along the way. Family visits, two birthday parties, our first Walmart night, a water leak in the rain, and a roll into wine country.
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AlaskaHow we went from a tent at Anvil Campground in Williamsburg to a 22-foot Roadtrek on a Mercedes Sprinter chassis, and how a thread on a Roadtrek forum about a 2011 caravan to Alaska turned into the trip we came to call Walkabout Canada-Alaska.
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