We started out our day in the Crescent City by exploring the French Quarter.  A bit of aimless wandering and we found ourselves at Jackson Square, anchored by Saint Louis Cathedral, and also the location of the Louisiana State Museum.  There were two main exhibits in the museum; the first floor was a poignant remembrance of Hurricane Katrina from the tropical depression forming over the Bahamas all the way through landfall, flood control failure, personal struggles, recovery, urban replanning, forecasting science, and the engineering of present and potentially future flood control systems, while the second floor held a much more upbeat exhibit about the history of Mardi Gras and carnivals in New Orleans, including turn-of-the-century dance cards and invitations to the krewes’ formal balls.

     Leaving the museum we realized that we were getting a bit hungry for a late lunch, so our wandering began to include looking for a place to eat.  After seeing more of the French Quarter, and even walking the famous Bourbon Street, we ended up at Johnny’s Po-Boys, consistently named one of the best po-boy restaurants in the city.  The reviews did not lie, and our po-boys were delicious.  After this mid-afternoon meal we wanted to rest for a bit, and headed back to the hotel to take advantage of the pool/hot tub/sauna and again watched the sun set over the Mississippi River from our room.

     Refreshed and ready for a night out, we went downstairs, where we enjoyed bar food and cocktails at the Café Adelaide and Swizzle Stick Bar.  The shrimp and tasso corndogs, shrimp and okra gumbo, and bacon encrusted oysters paired with an Adelaide Swizzle and a Sazerac made for a perfect last dinner in New Orleans (this time around).

     From the hotel, we walked through the French Quarter, where many bars and shops were already closed, for some reason we have yet to figure out.  So, we headed for the music of Frenchmen Street, where we first went to the Spotted Cat Music Club.  The Smokin' Time Jazz Club was playing in the window of the intimate club while swing dancers showed off their best moves on the floor.  At the Spotted Cat, we met up with Charla’s classmate Paul, who is at the end of his forty-five-day journey around America on Amtrak, and his friends Kunal and Erin.  While the band took a break, we stepped across the street to Café Negril, where we caught their funk band’s last song as they closed shop for the evening.  Walking back towards the River, we found the Balcony Music Club, where a fantastic band was still rocking the house.  Their set mixed some classic jazz tunes you would expect to hear in NOLA with some funky brass/rock hiphop tunes, like a cover of “Get Low,” that surprised and delighted the crowd.  Our night started winding down, as we hung out at Molly’s to swap travel stories and then made our way to Café du Monde for a late night bag of beignets, which we ate as we walked back to the Loews.

     As has been the pattern when we are staying with our friends, we got a late start out of Dallas.  We were all treated to a scrumptious breakfast courtesy of Charla and Katie; deliciously fluffy scrambled eggs and potatoes from Charla and bacon from Katie.  (While they were cooking, Chris and Chase were busy out on the town procuring Lindt truffles, so the boys were also working on important tasks.)

     After a couple hours on I-20 heading out of town, we decided it was time for a snack and pulled over at a rest area to make sandwiches.  Much to our surprise (or, maybe we shouldn’t have been shocked), each picnic table at the rest area was built to resemble a giant oil derrick on the side of the highway.  Oh, Texas…

     Not far from the rest area, we crossed the Louisiana state line and then were soon in Shreveport.  Although the Louisiana tourism booklet we picked up near the border suggested a lot to do there, Sunday night was not exactly an ideal time for a visit, as the majority of attractions were museums that would not be open until the next morning.  We cruised through the city a bit, however, and decided to stop at the River Walk.  The park is situated across from Bossier City and near some interesting metal bridges made for swinging and lifting to allow various ships down the Red River.  While there, we also glimpsed a few old fashioned steamboats at rest (ahem, these days, riverboat casinos).

     From Shreveport, we traveled south on I-49.  We were excited (and surely they were too) when we saw another car on the road with a Vassar license plate frame, this one a black mini SUV with Texas tags.  While Chase slowed down so that our windows could meet, Charla made a sign saying “We went to Vassar too!” to hold up in the window.  As soon as the two other travelers saw it, both drivers started honking while thumbs-ups and lots of waving went on in the passenger seats.  After seeing the Vassar vehicle, our night was fairly quiet, as we made our way to the Kisatchie National Forest to set up our tent and have dinner.

_      We had stopped in Tuba City for gas, and the gas station attendant had told Chase that highway 264 was a straight shot out into the desert wilderness and camping would be easy along the road.  Unfortunately, much to the contrary, the road was notably twisty and curvy around rock formations; this prevented us from making good time and made it harder to eat the ice cream we had bought in Tuba City.  Furthermore, the road was very highly populated, with towns every few miles and nowhere to pull off and camp.  Because of that we drove later than we normally do, passing into New Mexico after dark to camp in the Cibola National Forest. 

_       “Later” is kind of relative though, because we didn’t exactly have a clear idea of what time it was.  Arizona is in Pacific time, though the state does not follow Daylight Savings Time, though the Navajo Nation Reservation does follow Daylight Savings Time, though some towns in the reservation don’t, and then New Mexico is in Mountain Time and is different altogether!  Rather than trying to keep it straight, we just set up camp and slept when we were tired.

_      After seeing the view from the tower last night, we wanted to return one more time during the day so that we could see more than just the lights from the Strip.  The red mountains surrounding the city and limiting the growth of its sprawl were beautiful juxtaposed against the blue sky, and they are very different from the white mountains Chase is used to seeing in Alaska.

_      Once we finally left our hotel, Charla created a fun challenge for us to attempt.  Near the hotel was Bonanza Gifts, the tackiest-looking gift shop on the Strip.  We were each going to spend 15 minutes shopping, with a $5 maximum, to buy the other the tackiest item we could find, and we’d have to wear the other’s “gift” at some point during the road trip.  Much to our dismay, though the shop was incredibly tacky, it was also shockingly expensive, and we realized that a $5 maximum would not provide for more than a glittery keychain flask.  Sadly enough, we decided to scrap the challenge and must rely on our own already tacky wardrobe for the rest of the trip.

_      Unfortunately, while parked in a lot on the strip, we were approached by our parking lot attendant who notified us that someone had stolen the tire and wheel off of Chase’s bicycle, which was mounted on a bike rack on the Pilot.  The parking lot attendant had attempted to stop the man and had called the police, who arrived shortly thereafter.  Even more unfortunate, we had seen a man riding a bicycle carrying an extra bicycle wheel a few minutes earlier, but didn’t think much of it.  Las Vegas Metro Police have a shockingly quick response time, dispatching two police cars and two police motorcycles to the parking lot, but a brief search failed to turn up the suspect or the wheel.  Oddly enough, one of the responding officers notified us that they had recently raised the minimum for petty larceny to $650, which means that in effect it is not a crime to steal tires off of bicycles; if they ever caught the suspect, they’d give him a ticket on par with a ticket for jaywalking.  Even so, we filed a police report and the police took pictures, noting the brand and size of the wheel and tire.  We can only hope that the wheel happens to find its way into police custody in the next few days, or Chase will be buying a new one in Florida.  (In reality, we think that if the motorcycle cops didn’t spot the guy in the first few minutes, the odds of it ever turning up are remarkably slim.)

_      Finally making our way out of town, we stopped at the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, something we probably would have done a couple days before if it were not on the opposite end of the Strip from where we were staying.  We said a quick hello and goodbye to the city of sin (and to an Elvis impersonator taking tourist photos there) and got out.  Before we were too far away, we spotted a Jack in the Box, which was offering free chicken nuggets for the people of Las Vegas.  We counted ourselves among that crowd for a hot second and took the chicken nuggets to go.

_      As we made our way to Hoover Dam, a small brewery in Boulder City caught our eyes, so we stopped at the Boulder Dam Brewing Company to try their sample flight, conveniently arranged in the shape of the dam.

_      Leaving Boulder City, we soon arrived at the Hoover Dam, and the trusty Pilot once again had the pleasure of driving over a massive dam.  We stopped for photos on the far side of the dam, as we crossed the Arizona state line, and then we parked the Pilot to walk back into Nevada over the dam.

_     From Hoover Dam, we traveled Highway 93 to I-40 and into the quaint town of Williams, whose main street is the famous Route 66 (we got our kicks!).  We had planned to go all the way to the Grand Canyon that night, but Williams captured us, and we decided to stay.

     We started our day at Tiny’s, a trendy little coffee shop near Elliot and Brad’s apartment that featured delicious breakfast sandwiches and good coffee.  There, we said good bye to Brad and made moves to our last stop in Portland, the city’s staple where good things come in pink boxes.  We could not possibly leave without trying Voodoo Doughnut (Too)!  When we pulled into the parking lot, Charla spotted a Voodoo Doughnut tuk tuk.  She didn’t even need to try one of their creations before she was in love.  We waited in the short line (much shorter than the one wrapping around the block in front of the original Voodoo shop we had checked out on our first night) and then faced a difficult decision:  what to order?  Chase settled on the Portland Cream and the Maple Bacon Bar (yes, that’s bacon on a doughnut!) while Charla went the sweet route with a Captain My Captain, covered in Cap’n Crunch cereal, and an Oreo King, topped with Oreo crumbles and chocolate.

     A few miles on I-84 led us to Highway 26, a scenic road that took us through Mt. Hood National Forest.  To get an even better view of the snow topped mountain, we cruised up to Timberline Lodge.  There were skiers and riders walking around the lodge, and Chase started aching for a ride.  If only the winter gear were more accessible in the Pilot right now!  Meanwhile, Charla was channeling her inner film buff and getting a little scared just thinking of The Shining, which filmed its outside shots here.

     After leaving Timberline and driving southeast, we started to experience a dramatic change of topography and temperature.  From the cool mountain climes that promoted the growth of much greenery, we entered into the hot and dry high desert where the only green we saw grew up around irrigation systems.  Coming into Bend, we came back into a lot of vegetation, as the Deschutes River and National Forest are nearby.

     Miles back, in Kirkland, Washington, Charla spotted her first Jimmy John’s since returning from Southeast Asia, but we went out for a great Thai meal with Alison instead.  The craving had not gone away, so we went straight to Jimmy’s when we arrived in Bend.  After loading up on sandwiches, we walked around downtown and the riverside before going to the Deschutes Brew Pub to sample the local brews.  In addition to the Chainbreaker White IPA and Spencer’s Gold Ale, the bar staff gave us directions to a camping spot in the National Forest.  We ended up pulling off the road a bit before their favorite locale by Tumalo Creek for a good place to watch the Perseid meteor shower that was just getting into swing.

_     Our day began with texts from Elliot: “Make me a breakfast sammich!”  Over egg sammiches, we made plans for the day to go to “the river,” a Portlander term for any river surrounding the city.  After making friends with Grace and Benji, we followed them to the Washougal River just over the Washington border.  We were on I-5 for just a few minutes before taking a state road that led to the dusty, gravel Forest Service roads.   Grace led us to a spot perfect for swimming and catching some sun, a place where the current slowed around the rocks scattered throughout the middle of the river.  Just upriver was a large swimming hole surrounded by rock faces perfect for jumping.  The sun dipped below the surrounding mountains in the mid-afternoon, so we moved from our secluded spot to Dougan Falls, a more populated spot but one that had better sun.  Dougan Falls was a series of short waterfalls that you could swim under, climb up, and play around.  Unfortunately, it was nearing time for Benji to go to work, so the whole crew returned to the city to drop him off.

_      Back in Portland, we made a stop for some groceries for a quick dinner at sunset overlooking the Coast Range from a beautiful apartment that Grace was housesitting.  After dinner, we retreated to the complex’s pool and hot tub.  We expected the river water to be cold, but even though the pool was relatively warm, it felt cold to us and we stayed in the hot tub.

     At Elliot and Brad’s, we caught up on the day’s Olympic events.  It has been interesting watching the Olympics while traveling; each day that we are able to hear Olympics news it is biased by our location.  While driving through Canada we were listening to results of Canadian athletes, and we listened to some of the controversial Olympics moments involving Canadian teams.  The Canadian badminton team (Bruce-Li, Michelle Bruce and Alexandra Li) was thrust into the international spotlight after a host of other teams were disqualified, while the Canadian women’s soccer team lost their semi-final to the US by a questioned call to the ref.  Once we crossed the border these stories were never focused upon again, and this evening in particular the big story was that the US team had 40 athletes with Oregon ties (including Ashton Eaton, who had just won the gold in the decathlon).  Overall, we haven’t been able to keep up with the Olympics as much as we would’ve liked, but the local flavor definitely has made it more interesting when we are able.

_      Once again, we had the pleasure of packing up camp in the rain; we went to sleep with a nice lightning show above and assume the rain started shortly afterward.  The benefit of a rainy morning is that it got us on the road nice and early!  After a couple of hours we drove out of the rain and stopped at an overlook near Big Bar Lake to cook up some breakfast.  After passing through British Columbia’s agricultural district for a couple hours, we made it off Highway 29 and onto the Trans-Canada Highway to drive through the Fraser Canyon.  The Fraser Canyon is a narrow, rocky canyon cut by the Fraser River, and the two-lane road follows the path of the river while clinging to the side of the cliff.

_      Once through the Canyon we had one last Canadian stop in Chilliwack, by far our most successful shopping attempt of the trip.  We were able to do a last-minute stop for Canadian chocolates and beer not available south of the border, as well as some other errands that needed to be run.  We sped immediately from Chilliwack to Abbotsford, where we crossed the border for the last time into the Lower 48!  Another easy border crossing (where we did declare our Timbits, or donut holes from Tim Horton’s), we found ourselves in Sumas, Washington. 

_      Two hours of interstate travel later we stopped in Kirkland, Washington, to visit our friend Alison.  It was great to reconnect, and we took a walk through beautiful Kirkland past the Wilde Rover, the scene of past adventures of Charla and Allison.  Our destination this evening was just next door at Hanuman Thai Café, Charla’s first Thai food since leaving Thailand earlier this summer.  The prices were a little higher than Bangkok street-food (though also significantly lower than prices in Talkeetna), but Charla still approved of the cuisine.  Later that evening we headed into Seattle to visit Noelle, one of Chase’s friends from Talkeetna.  We quickly all became friends and slept soundly that night rocked by the waves of Lake Union.

_      We woke up early as we experienced a HOT morning in the tent for the first time on the trip.  The sun was baking down on our overlook, and our tent, but it was also creating a magical view overlooking the entire Peace River Valley.  We had a simple “eat-it-before-it-goes-bad” breakfast of yogurt and cereal with milk before packing up our camp.  While we were packing up, our overlook became a very popular rest stop.  A motorcyclist from Grande Prairie was taking in the view and chatting up a local lady, meanwhile four support vehicles pulled into the overlook.  Curiosity got the best of us, and we discovered that we were about to be a checkpoint on an 800-kilometer bicycle journey called Bikers for Bibles who were raising money to translate Bibles into local First Nation languages.  We decided we should get out of there before we got swarmed with sweaty bicyclists.

_      Our first stop was at the W.A.C. Bennett Dam, the most massive earthfill structure in the world, operated by BC Hydro.  We took an underground bus tour into the dam itself, where we found ourselves 500 feet underground inside a dam.  Luckily for us, one of the turbines was out of commission for maintenance, and it was on our tour route.  The entire turbine was taken apart and we got to see all of the massive parts and pieces.  And we mean massive; the underground chamber holding the turbines was as long as three football fields and as tall as the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower.   The next stop on the tour was the dam manifold, roughly equivalent in purpose and use as a massive version of the manifold on a car’s exhaust.  Once the water was done producing electricity, all the turbines spat the water into the same manifold, along with the seepage water that was naturally coming through the earthen structure of the dam.  Interestingly, the seepage water reinforces the strength of the earthen fill of the dam, much like building a sand castle with wet sand rather than dry sand.  (They didn’t allow cameras on the tour, so you’ll just have to trust us on how cool it was.)  After the tour we discovered that it was possible to drive across the crest of the dam itself, so of course we took advantage of that opportunity.

_      Our next stop was the Bennett’s baby sister dam, the Peace Canyon Dam.  Though there was no way to get into the dam itself, we were able to watch a fascinating video called “Wide Load North” about transporting a nine-meter-wide, 250-ton steel turbine runner from Leningrad to Vancouver and up to the Peace River.  They constructed a 21-axle, 130-wheel, two-engine Mack truck to haul it 600 kilometers over road, most of which was built specifically for this project as nothing that large had ever traveled through northeastern British Columbia before.

     After the Peace Canyon Dam we got to see some of the less-than-awesome elements of dams.  We had lunch by lovely Dinosaur Lake, which was a beautiful spot teeming with locals.  Hudson’s Hope’s two claims to fame are dinosaurs and dams.  They had discovered a brand new species of dinosaur, as well as 1,700 dinosaur tracks in over 150 different trackways.  The very next thing they did was bury all evidence of dinosaurs under a lake created by the Peace Canyon Dam; luckily they did at least name it Dinosaur Lake in honor of the footprints hundreds of feet under water.

_      We were also pleasantly surprised to discover that today is apparently a major holiday in British Columbia: BC Day.  We happened to arrive at the W.A.C. Bennett Dam to be told that all dam tours were half price; then we stopped at a Post Office that was mysteriously closed; then we had lunch at a very crowded park for a Monday.  It wasn’t until hours later that we heard on CBC that it was BC Day today, and it all made sense.  (We also learned from CBC that today is the 50th anniversary of the day Jamaica gained its freedom from England; a little late compared to us, but happy 50th birthday anyway Jamaica!)

     From Dinosaur Lake we really hit the road and made it all the way to Prince George, “the capitol of Northern BC.”  (Though Charla was quick to point out that seeing as how we had been driving south through BC for two days now, this should hardly count as “north.”)  Prince George is really where the drive returns to civilization, for better or for worse.  There are traffic lights and four-lane highways, as well as big box stores with names such as Canadian Tire (which has much more than just tires) and The Great Canadian Superstore (which seems to have every product imaginable with the notable exception of beer).  In better news, Prince George also featured Tim Horton’s, the Canadian staple of fast-food donut eateries.  Since Charla had never eaten at a Tim Horton’s before, we of course had to stop.  After snacking on donuts and coffee, it was time to be back on the road heading south to our roadside stop in McLeese Lake for the night.

_      We woke up early and packed up camp before the mosquitoes had a chance to catch us again.  Not too far down the road, we found a perfect place to make breakfast (that we wish we had found the night before!) at Whirlpool Canyon.  The Liard River makes a screaming right turn, and during spring break-up, the ice floes take out a lot of trees along the river and deposit them on the shore here as they cannot make the turn with the very fast-moving water.  The shape of the rocks below the scattered trees also reflects the power of the water and ice during break-up over the years, as the layers of shale, too, are broken up at harsh angles.

_      On our drive to Liard Hotsprings down the river, we were lucky to glimpse a lot of wildlife from the road—two herds of buffalo, a black bear, and many birds.  Once reaching Liard, we were disappointed to be turned away, as the boardwalk-lined hot springs were blocked with crime scene caution tape from an event the day before.  We spotted a helicopter and a four-wheeler along the road nearby, but we have still yet to spot anything in the Vancouver Sun or on the CBC about what happened there.  Leaving Liard Hotsprings, we drove past the jade-colored Muncho Lake and on to the Toad River Lodge. 

_      Chase added his well-worn John Deere hat (the front of which had completely fallen apart while we were tubing in Vang Vieng, Laos, earlier this summer) to the lodge’s famous collection, making 8,189 hats.  He hung the hat in a small cluster above the beef jerky section of the shop and took his registration card for memories.

_      As we traveled through the Rockies, we were excited to see the Military Vehicles Preservation Association convoy lining up at the top of a mountain to begin the day’s drive, a leg of their trip the length of the Alaska Highway to celebrate the 70th anniversary of its construction.  There were over seventy vintage vehicles, mostly World War II era, and fifteen support vehicles.  The owners of the vehicles were private collectors who had restored their vehicles and, in the cases of the larger trucks-turned-RVs, fixed them up to make such a cross-country drive.  Our favorites, though, were the smaller Jeep CJ-2As, and there were at least fifteen or twenty of them in the line-up.

     As the convoy headed out to Toad River, we continued in the opposite direction on the highway towards Fort Nelson, where we stopped for gas and groceries.  From there, we traveled a little further down the road and cooked dinner at the First Nations Prophet River area.  After dinner, we drove our last section of the Alaska Highway and got onto the Hudson’s Hope Loop, which took us alongside the beautiful Peace River until we stopped at an overlook rest area to set up camp for the night.

_                 We started the second day of our trip with pancakes made with fresh blueberries and strawberries that Charla picked with Sarah and Logan on Monday afternoon.  While Charla was busy at the camp stove, Chase re-packed the Pilot so what we needed was easy to reach and what we didn’t need on this trip (like a snowboard and winter gear) was organized and out of the way.

                We drove into Tok for gas and some errands, including phone calls before our service cut out (even though Tok is 80 miles from Canada, there isn’t a lot going on in the space between the small town and the border).  On the way to Tok, we had a nice surprise and saw a lynx!  After ten miles on the Alaska Highway out of Tok, we got on the Taylor Highway to Chicken.  Our journey into Chicken started with a big disappointment, as the “Chicken Community” sign formerly covered in an assortment of stickers from travelers had recently been replaced.  It was brand spanking new, with the Department of Transportation laminate still peeling off on the corners.  Things got better once we got into town, and we got laid in Chicken!  We also picked up free chickens that we had earned and met a couple Romanian motorcyclists who were journeying across North America on their own bikes from home.  We had one last stop at Downtown Chicken for gas, and luckily for us we paid up and were ready to leave just as two busloads of Princess tourists pulled up to Downtown.  The tourists slowly waddled off the bus, cameras in hand, to invade Chicken as we sped out of town.

_                 But we didn’t speed too quickly, as the Taylor Highway ascended up into the mountains and grew increasingly hairy.  Just a short time before we passed, a large RV motorcoach with a car in tow had rolled off the side of the mountain and come to rest approximately 150 feet below the road.  The Troopers had already cordoned off the scene so we didn’t stop to investigate ourselves, but it didn’t look like a rollercoaster ride we’d have wanted to experience.

_                 The Taylor Highway becomes the Top of the World Highway as the road becomes Canadian.  Luckily we were let across the border without too hard a time from the Canadian Border Security Agent on duty (even though we were smuggling some more of Charla’s freshly-picked berries).  We had been foolishly using our time earlier in the day, so we cautiously drove as fast as we dared along the beautiful and treacherous road to Dawson City.  Arriving just in time to jump on the George Black, the free ferry across the Yukon River (because the Yukon territorial government hasn’t yet gotten around to building a bridge) we made it to Diamond Tooth Gertie’s just in time for their first can-can show of the evening.  Gertie’s is Canada’s oldest casino from before casinos were legal in the Klondike gold rush of the 1890s, and today in addition to gambling Gertie’s offers shows throughout the evening.  Told by Diamond Tooth Gertie (the actual proprietor in the 1890s, who actually did have diamonds in her teeth at the time) and her dancing girls, the show tells us how she met Phineas and all the hilarity that ensues.  After a dinner between shows at the Triple J Hotel, and the second show at Gertie’s, it was time for one last hop across the ferry to camp in West Dawson.