Daily Archives: April 16, 2014

On the Road to Alaska . . .

Thought maybe I’d relate some of our travels during our first year on the road. We weren’t blogging then, so all we have are all the photos we took, and some emails Jan sent to friends and family.

Although we left Houston on February 6th, the Alaska part kind of started on April 9th, 2008. But between then, we did Las Cruces, Casa Grande, Yuma, San Diego, Long Beach, Las Vegas, Flagstaff, Phoenix, Tucson, Denver, Casper, Billings, Sturgis, and Coeur d’Alene.

After Coeur d’Alene our first stop was Cle Elum, WA. The attraction for Cle Elum is the fact that it’s right down the road from Roslyn, WA, which stood in for the fictional town of Cicely, AK, in the TV show Northern Exposure.

And it’s all still here.

The Roslyn Café.

Roslyn WA 1
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Chris’ KBHR Radio Station

Roslyn WA 2
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The Brick Bar

Roslyn WA 3

But the inside is completely different from the show.

Roslyn WA 6

Roslyn WA 8
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And here’s Ruth-Anne’s General Store.

Roslyn WA 4

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The first thing you notice is that Cicely (Roslyn) is much hillier in real life than on the show.

Roslyn WA 5
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And you remember Maurice’s big house on the lake. Well this is what it looks like in person. It’s actually pretty run-down. No lake anywhere nearby, either. Just goes to show you how TV shows can fool you.

Roslyn WA 7

Northern Exposure was supposedly loosely based on Talkeetna, AK, but the town did not want the TV show filmed there, so Roslyn was selected. All of the inside scenes were filmed in a converted warehouse over in Redmond, WA.

On April 13th we entered Canada at Sumas, WA, about 25 miles northeast of Bellingham, and spent our first night at the Brookside Campsite in Cache Creek, BC after a 172 mile trip.

Cache Creek 1

Note Mister wondering what all the fuss is about Canada.

One funny thing we found when we got up the next morning (note the time) was Mister sound asleep atop the kitchen cabinet. We’re not even sure how he got up there.

Cache Creek 2

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And from the look on his face when he woke up, neither was he.

Cache Creek 3

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We spent the second night 269 miles away at the Southside RV Park in Prince George, BC, and saw our first Moose Warning sign.

Prince George 1

Prince George 2
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And then a 254 mile trip took us to Tubby’s RV Park in Dawson Creek, BC, the official beginning of the Alaskan Highway.

Dawson Creek 1

Dawson Creek 2

Dawson Creek 4
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We also saw our first Magpie’s there.

Dawson Creek 3

We ended up spending 3 nights in Dawson Creek due to bad weather and very high winds. In fact semi’s were banned from the highway.

And if the semi’s ain’t going, I ain’t going either.

I’ll follow up with more Alaska another time.
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Thought for the Day:

The NSA – "We’re the only part of government who actually listens to the people.”

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