Mosquitoville -a.k.a Liard Hot springs

Got up late this morning and then decided to put the shield on the toad since we had it washed clean. Left camp around 10:30 and headed to the Fort Nelson Museum. Now this is a neat little museum! It’s not a formal museum but is absolutely chucked full of old artifacts from life in the early days of the Alaska Highway. We watched a video of actual footage of the construction of the highway. The museum also has a most impressive collection of antique cars. A visit to this museum is a must for highway travelers.

For those who may not be familiar with it the highway was built by the U.S. Army Construction brigades in response to the threat to Alaska by Japan during what became WWII. The entire 1,390 miles of road was carved out of the then wilderness over mountains, rivers, rocks and tundra of permafrost and with black flies and mosquitoes in summer. Construction of the Alcan Highway (Alcan is the military acronym for the Alaska-Canada Highway) officially began on March 9, 1942. By June more than 10,000 American troops had poured into the Canadian North, most of them regiments of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Roadwork began in April, with crews working our of the 2 largest construction camps, Whitehorse and Fort St. John. Construction ended 8 months and 12 days later on October 25, 1942. This roadway is considered one of the world’s most amazing engineering feats. Civilian crews followed and smoothed out the rough road and improved upon the temporary bridges put in place by the troops.

A local lady working in the museum told Pat about Tea Tree Lotion as a mosquito repellent from Australia and Pat bought a couple of bottles in the local health food store. It works! She has used it often with excellent results and a more pleasant odor than DEET! We have lost all cell phone signals but our XM Radio is still working to pull in stations.

We are heading to Liard Hot Springs tonight hoping we can find a campsite available as tomorrow is July 1st and that is the major holiday (Dominion Day) that signals the beginning the summer for Canadians and they start their vacations or as they are called their “holiday”.

The scenery north of Fort Nelson turned very beautiful and more mountainous often with snow patches still on top. We started seeing animals along the roadway today. We saw several young caribou by the road in different places. Just after crossing the Trout River Bridge in the Muncho Lake Provincial Park we found a herd of about 40-45 woods bison spread on both sides of the highway and we were able to stop and photograph them. The herd included numerous baby bison. We were alone with them for five to seven minutes until more traffic arrived. We saw three Stone Sheep around milepost 454 including one baby sheep. We also saw deer in several places.



We encountered rain as we approached Muncho Lake. The road is extremely close to the lake for several miles with a mountain abruptly on the other side of the road. There are lots of sharp curves that require very slow speeds in case anyone is coming the other way and the scenery is beautiful. Continuing on toward Liard, we hit a long stretch of muddy road construction, again covering the RV and toad in mud! We arrived at Liard River Hotsprings Provincial Park and to our surprise were able to take our choice of several camping spots. The car shield is caked in mud! Mosquitoes, mosquitoes, mosquitoes!!! Never have we seen so many of these hungry beasts! We had to don our mosquito jackets with headnets just to be outside around the RV!!

Laird Hostprings is actually a true hot springs area where a quarter mile wooden boardwalk has been built over a marshy area leading to a facility and a choice of two very warm pools. Temperatures range from 107 to 120 degrees in the actual stream pools with the cooler water at the lower ends. We put on our bathing suits and braved the mosquitoes to cross the boardwalk and soak our tired bodies in the hot water for about half and hour.

We’re finally off on the Alaska Highway!

It is June 29 and we’ve been on the road 34 days. Finally we are starting the Alaska Highway….a long time dream!! And it’s raining and up here that means mud! First stop enroute to Fort Nelson is at a Wal-Mart to get more window washer fluid. You’d never know that we started the day with a clean car and clean RV!

On the Alaska Highway everything is noted by the milepost from the starting point in Dawson Creek and we are navigating by a book called The Milepost. It is the bible for all Alaska Highway travelers and details out every bridge, turnout, restaurant, campground or just about anything else including known construction or step grades. It is updated annually and we purchased ours 2005 copy over the Internet before we left Fleetwood. It is always open and nearby as we drive.

Topped of with diesel at Charles Lake at 89.9 Canadian cents per liter. Had two youth there who even cleaned our windshield on the RV. Nice service! Next stop Shepard’s Inn, which is noted for its rhubarb pie, a well-earned reputation, as Dick can now attest to! Pat had a large butterhorn pastry served warm and it too was delicious. Also picked up a loaf of their homemade sourdough rye bread.

Milepost 122 we saw our first snow on distant mountains. We have not seen any animals yet, although we have seen two moose that had been hit by vehicles! Proof that the Watch for Moose crossing signs mean it. The scenery is absolutely beautiful wit many vistas showing the vast expanse of boreal forests. There are many places along the highway with very tall white birch trees.


The rivers are spectacular with some having deep canyons that the highway descends into and out of. Construction so far is minimal. We did encounter several heavy rain showers while Pat was driving that helped wash off some of the ever-present mud and dust that coats both the RV and the toad.
Photos 15b & 15c

We arrived in Fort Nelson about 3 pm. Stopped by the visitor’s center then checked into the Westend Campground. Pressure washed the car AGAIN! Worked on trying to catch up this log and enjoyed a leftover dinner in the RV. Then we rushed off to the local theater where we caught a presentation by the local For Nelson area. It was a nicely na slide presentation. From there we walked next door to the library to get onto the Internet to check e-mail. Since the library internet prohibited the use of disks Dick then tried unsuccessfully to find a wi-fi spot to send out the first typed installments of this journal to Dan Small who has so graciously offered to host this Blog on his website Blog. So now all of your readers of this now how late we were in getting this up and running to share with you. For those readers to whom we had given promises of earlier availability of the log we extend our apologies. By the time you are reading this we should be getting somewhat caught up depending on Internet availability.

Dawson creek - Starting the Alaskan Highway

Again up and out early to pressure wash the RV before heading off to Dawson Creek, BC, which is the starting point for the great Alaskan Highway! Made advance reservations for tonight at the Northern Lights Campground as Dawson Creek is often crowded with campers gathering in caravans to travel to Alaska. It took us until 11:45 to wash the RV!

Two women stopped by as we were breaking camp and identified themselves as from Slippery Rock College in Slippery Rock, PA. They were on their way back from their Alaska visit and gave us a coupon book that offers a two for one price on many of the attractions in Alaska. The books can be bought at Safeway stores for $99 and they had used it and saved a lot but wanted to give the remaining portion of the book to someone and chose us! Very nice as there are some excellent deals there that we expect to use. One coupon would save the $99 but we got them for free! Stopped in Beaverlodge, AB for Diesel and we show averaging 14.6 mpg! Probably not a complete fill up but I have been holding the speed way down to around 50 mph and expected an improvement but not that much!

We got to Dawson Creek and the Milepost Zero marker on the Alaskan Highway at mileage 20330.


We started home at 17104 so we took 3,226 miles to get to the start of the Alaska Highway and it’s about 1700 miles long although we will go longer via Northwest Territories and Dawson City.

When setting up camp noticed that we had somehow lost the pull strap for the awning over one of the bedroom windows. Can’t figure how it came off but after trying to locate a replacement at three RV parts places in Dawson Creek, Pat decided we could make one and we did using some sewing materials from Wal-Mart for about $5. Used an antique crochet hook that just fit into the slot in the awning retaining space to loop the upper loop around. We hit the Dawson Creek visitor’s center and got a good BC map and some post cards then took photo op with a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman in his scarlet tunic before touring the town on foot and getting DQ cones.

The weather is quite warm, in the mid 70’s! There is a 17-unit caravan of retired military personnel in the campground and one of their members gave us a magazine and application to join SMART (Special Military Active Retired Travel club). Trying to get to bed earlier tonight to get a good start on the Alaska Highway tomorrow.

Edmonton Layover 2 days day - 30/31

In RV the next morning at Battleford the temperature had dropped to 57 degrees and we turned on the RV’s propane heater for the first time…it is zoned for both the main part of the RV and/or the bedroom and bath area. It worked well. Now off to Edmonton, Alberta where we plan to stay a couple of days to look around and rest a bit from driving. The border between Saskatchewan and Alberta runs directly through the middle of the city of Loydminster down the main north/south street. I’m sure this unusual arrangement must cause some interesting issues on taxes, jurisdiction and politics. Also interestingly the Alberta Visitors Welcome center is located in Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Visitors Center is located in Alberta. A most unusual arrangement.

Having enjoyed the A&W last night in Battleford we again stopped at the A&W in Loydminster for lunch. We arrived in Edmonton, a very large and modern city that is the capitol of Alberta, about 3 pm. As we have chosen to travel without advance reservations for places to stay and this being a weekend we found that our first choice for a place to stay was full and we had to drive out to the western side of Edmonton to find a place at the Glowing Embers RV Park and Travel Center off highways 16A and 60. This is a large park and they gave us a pull through site by combining two back-in spaces toward the rear of the park. This made it very convenient for hook ups to water, sewer and electric. The park offered wi-fi connection for PC’s but our site was out of range so we went to the room they have set up as a library where we could connect but had problems getting connected.

One of the well know features at Edmonton is the West Edmonton Mall. It is a gigantic shopping mall that includes an indoor amusement park, a large hockey skating rink and a Casino in addition to hundreds of stores. We went there for dinner after setting up and chose to eat at the Spaghetti Warehouse Restaurant, one of a dozen nice restaurants in a food court section that is the size of many other malls. We then wandered the mall and found a large Chinese grocery store where we discovered and bought some fresh made coconut bread. It was delicious and we enjoyed every slice over the next several days as morning toast. Apparently Edmonton has a large ethnic Chinese population as the one section of the mall that was anchored by the store also contained a dozen or more other Chinese/Oriental specialty stores. Then, of course, we went to the casino as seems to be our habit on this trip. A casino in a mall! Don’t know if this exists anywhere else but it was busy with mostly slot machines. We don’t play much but enjoy people watching and a few minutes excitement at the slots. Pat hit for $50 on a quarter machine and we ended up with a net win of probably $20 for an hour’s enjoyment.

Sunday morning we started off to take a ride to see about finding the spare serpentine belt for the RV and to get an oil change for it. Found the belt at a Freightliner truck place but wouldn’t pay their $139 plus materials price for an oil change! Will get one elsewhere tomorrow.

Then it was of to the Elk Island National Reserve, a national park located just east of Edmonton that is renown for its wild bison and elk herds. They have both woods bison and plains bison. Woods bison used to roam the eastern US in the Appalachian Mountains but were all killed off the mid to late 1800’s. They are slightly smaller and darker in color than the more well know plains bison. We spotted a small herd of woods bison at a distance off the main highway before we entered the park but no photo opportunity. The park is large but with limited roadways and while we drove the full length of the park and visited the pavilion area near the largest lake in the park for a bite to eat at a fundraiser picnic put on by Friend of Elk Island, we did not see any wildlife. Then, as if on que, just as we were leaving our last side road trip there was a large solitary bull bison appeared directly ahead of us on a bank at the edge of the road. Pat was delighted as we got to watch him lay down and roll around to scratch his back in the grass.


Shortly after we returned to the RV, Dick spoke to the lady in the RV next to ours who was walking one of her two Dalmatians and found she had successfully made a wi-fi connection. Later he and she went to the library and she helped him through the gyrations needed to establish a connection.

Monday morning Pat took the laundry to the RV park laundry mat and took her PC to get on the net while doing the laundry. Dick took off in the RV to get an oil change at a quick lube and oil place that did the job plus lubricating 27 fittings for $104 including materials, but they did have to use our filter. We met in a Wal-Mart parking lot, did a bit of shopping and headed off to continue our adventure.

Wind effect and $20 cherries - day -28

In need of fuel for the RV we found a station carrying diesel and filled up at 89.9 cents per liter. We took 201.13 liters for $180 Canadian! Now we have to think in liters and play conversion exercises to relate it to gallons. What’s this??? Only 6.93 mpg on this tank…we had been getting between 8.5 and 9.5 mpg! Sure hope that was just due to the effect of the very high head winds we encountered most of yesterday and it is still quite windy! We will check it closer on the next few fill ups.

Dick got Pat to drive this morning at a rest area as we headed toward Battleford, SK on highway 11. The prairie is still very flat and the ranches big with lots of cattle and the highway excellent. AS we came upon Saskatoon, another large city in the province, Pat received her baptism in big city driving with the car in tow on both two and four lane highways with plenty of truck and auto traffic, lane changes and stop lights. Definitely NOT her idea of fun! At the next opportunity she turned the wheel back over to Dick.

Continuing on we arrived at the town of Battleford’s Eiling Kramer Campground around 3 pm. This is a particularly delightful and clean park operated by the municipality with lots of space between sites and nice facilities and a large playground. It is located at the south end of town adjacent to historic Fort Battleford.

About 5 pm we decided to drive out to get some fruit at a truck stand we had seen. We bought 6 ears of fresh sweet corn for $6 and then the bags of Bing Cherries looked great so said we would take a bag. The bag cost $20 Canadian! These prices may have to take some getting used to! Back to the RV for fresh corn and hamburger dinner.

Then off to the Golden Eagle Casino to try our luck and visit our first Canadian casino. We registered for player’s cards and received $5 each for being first time patrons. We each lost $25 Canadian and $20 US but then Pat staked me for a small roll of nickels and I hit for $50 and we cashed them out and left. Net about $50 down…oh well entertainment expenses.

Now to find the Dairy Queen. We drove to downtown North Battleford where the book said there was a DQ. We looked and looked for it but settled for an A&W and root beer floats! The A&W is the largest we have ever seen.

On to Canada 6/22 day - 27

After giving some hard thought to our preparedness for long lonely roads ahead in Canada and Alaska, Dick decided we needed to pick up a few spare parts for the RV. We did a late breakfast, cleaned up the RV and Dick tried, with marginal success, to remove the mark along the passenger side of the RV we received from our scrape with the tree in the park two days ago. Then for the first time we drove the car and RV separately, heading to Williston, ND where Pat found a laundry mat to do a large amount of laundry while Dick looked for a truck parts store to get two belts and an oil filter and a fuel water separator filter for the RV. He could only get the air conditioning belt so we have no spare serpentine belt. Need to find that one somewhere. We met and hooked up the Saturn Toad then lunched at a Taco John’s. Now off to Canada!

We arrived at the border crossing on ND route 85 at 3:20 and mileage 19417. That’s 2,313 miles from Fleetwood! A good start. The crossing security went relatively smoothly with the Canadian agent asking only a few questions and then looking into all our drawers and closets. Then off to Canada…..over the hill and Whoops! What’s this? The road ahead as far as we can see is a gravel road!! And we are towing our car! We have never even opened the box the Tow Car Shield is in! Now we need it in a hurry and the wind is gusting at about 40 or 45 mph. We pulled over and got to work. It must have been a sight if anyone had been there to see it but we made a good team. It took about an hour to figure out how to get the shield to go onto the car, adjust the tighteners and be ready to go. Dick kept a close watch on it in the TV back up monitor when he could see it through the dust.

Thankfully the gravel road lasted for only about fifteen miles. However the very strong winds continued all the rest of the afternoon as we drove to reach Regina, Saskatchewan. This is one of the prairie provinces of Canada and the land is truly flat and level. The farms are very large and houses outside the cities are spaced often by miles or in very small communities with a grain elevator being central to the towns. Many of the smaller grain elevators appear to have been closed and the towns are dying with only a small gas station and perhaps a very small general store remaining open. Selected towns have new much larger grain elevators and they are thriving much better. Regina is the capital of the province of Saskatchewan and isd a large metropolitan city with big buildings, suburbs and a network of major highways. We are pleased we continued to receive our XM Satellite Radio stations her in Canada although we had read that they stopped in Canada which made no sense to us that they would stop. We camped at Buffalo Lookout municipal campground located east of Regina. The site we took turned out to not be level and we had to fully extend the front levelers on the RV raising the front tires about 3 to 4 inches off the ground. We could see prairie dogs in the field ahead of our location and there were even some within the campground.

TR National Park North Unit

The morning started slowly in the quiet and we slept until 7:30. Dick went for a walk down to the river and found fresh bison dung nearby the RV indicating we had had visitors last night. We then drove into the balance of the southern park on a long and beautiful drive that winds around and up and down the canyons and bluffs of the area. The road is normally a large loop but had one section in the very most remote areas closed due to construction so we had to back track on part of the drive. The colors were again spectacular and we rounded one curve and on the hill across from us was a large herd of wild bison. We climbed several of the trails and took many photos and video of the areas and the stunning and varied wildflowers that we observed nearly everywhere. The spring the year has been very wet and the foliage and plants are very green giving a vibrant coloring to the entire area. Dick is making many comparisons of this area to the beauty of the Grand Canyon but with vegetation. See photos for some of the beauty of this spectacular National Park that is so little known. We encourage everyone reading this to try and find a way to visit this beautiful area.

About noon we finished touring the park and went into Medora to have lunch and visit some of the really neat little shops and the museum there. Medora has been carefully maintained as a vintage western town with wooden boardwalks and some dirt streets. You can really feel you have stepped back in time to the late 1800’s or very early 1900’s. Of course we bought some souvenirs and a book about the park and badlands to help preserve our fantastic memories.

It’s off to the northern section of the TRNP. We had to back track a few miles to the east to get to route 85 north along the eastern edge of the national grasslands. The day was sunny and bright but not uncomfortably hot. It took about an hour and a half to reach the northern section and we decided to enter it and check out the campground.

Westward Ho to Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Tuesday June 21

Now the trip begins in earnest as we have seen the last of family until on our way home from Alaska. We are on our way directly across North Dakota on Interstate 94 our first Interstate in several days. Trying to continue to hold it down to not over 60-62 MPH even though the speed limit was 75 to test how good an effect it will have on mileage. Well, we continued to do well and got 9.23 mpg about the same as the last tank in Wisconsin. Will try to keep it there from here on.

North Dakota is a beautiful state with highly productive farmland. The eastern 2/3 is about as flat as any land we have ever traveled. While we normally prefer not to travel interstate highways as we travel so that we can see the small towns that make up America, I-94 seemed the appropriate route and went directly from Valley City to Medora the town outside the southern section of Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP). The TRNP is split into two separate and distinct sections about 90 miles apart in the National Grasslands of ND. About 5 or 6 miles east of Medora the scenery abruptly changed as we broke over the hill and into the badlands of western ND. We stopped at a visitor’s spot that had a great overlook into the colorful canyons that exposed layers and layers of different rocks in many shades of brown, gray and red. We took photos there and saw our first bison, a solitary bull that was on a bluff within the canyon below and across from the visitor’s center (Bison is dark spot about and inch from lower right corner). Continuing on to Medora we located the entrance to the TRNP and Pat obtained her Golden Eagle Passport that will provide us with a half off on the entrance fees and many other expenses in any of the US National Parks for the rest of her life. It will even get us a 50% refund when we get to Denali NP in Alaska where we made reservations before she was eligible for the Passport. Dick will get his next year.

We camped in the campground in the southern portion of the park in site #27. Unfortunately while pulling into the site Dick cut it a little too close to a tree with course branches and we put a substantive scrape high along the passenger side of the RV. It will take a lot of rubbing to try and eliminate that one!

One of the highlights of Medora is a long running musical show that is held in an outdoors amphitheater featuring Western singing and cowboys. The show is revised each year and also in conjunction with the show there is a steak BBQ/fondue where the steaks are cooked on the tines of pitchforks over a hot fire and served up in a buffet with all the trimmings. The event is a ritual and many people we met there had been to the western fondue and show many times over the years. It was a delicious meal of the steak, baked potato, beans, salad and coleslaw topped off with a death by chocolate brownie. Again we took photos and videos. The weather was warm and cooperatively pleasant as we entered the amphitheater. Many folks had jackets and blankets expecting the night to get cold as the sun set but we were in short sleeves and rather comfortable. The show did not disappoint anyone and the amount of stage settings moved on what appeared to be railroad tracks was amazing. Nearly a whole western frontier town front and of course one of the actors/musicians played the role of Theodore Roosevelt. TR had lived here in the Medora area and worked on a ranch, eventually he bought a large ranch in the area and he credited his time there as developing his spirit and strength that he displayed as a Rough Rider and as President. Today, being the summer solstice is the longest day of the year and the sun set late. The owners of the show couldn’t have paid to have a more beautiful large orange harvest moon appear over the setting just after the skies finally yielded to twilight It was spectacular. We returned to the RV to sleep in near total silence, void of any traffic noises for the first time on the trip!

Fargo and Valley City ND

The morning of 6/20 was windy and the weather quickly turned quite threatening as we headed west from Detroit Lakes for Fargo, ND. Dick tried to turn on the emergency weather channel in the RV only to discover the radio was out and checking further the two cigarette lighter type power sources were also not working. A quick stop at a service station as the rain was starting in earnest revealed a 25 amp fuse, labeled as a spare, had blown. Replacing it fixed the problem, though no telling why it had occurred. Dick picked up more spare fuses just in case. Sure enough there were tornado warnings in the area just a very few miles south of our route.

Just as the rain stopped we stopped at the Riverside Cemetery in Fargo, ND to search for the grave of Pat’s grandmother, Mable Smally Flatt. We had a lot of difficulty in finding it even with the aid of the custodian as it was in an early section of the cemetery which was nearly flooded and thick with mosquitoes. The grave had only a small metal marker and that was bent over and lying flat under some tall grass. It needs a proper marker. Add this to our to do list. We took photos of the location and of three young fawns we saw there.

We then continued on to Valley City, ND where at the suggestion of Merle Flatt found a spot in the city RV Park with electric and water at about 3 pm. The park was right along the main street and on an honor system for $6.50 plus $3.25 for electric. Merle and Marion came right over to greet us. After seeing our RV they took us on a very nice tour of the area starting with a visit to the cemetery to see where Pat’s grandfather Gordon Flatt was buried. He is resting alone high on the hillside toward the north side of the cemetery. They included a visit to the approximately 1,200 acre farm they had lived on for many years prior to moving into town a few years back. Their son and his family now reside there and work the farm with some assistance from Merle. The farm country is very beautiful with nice rich soil. Merle, Marion and we then went out to dinner which they insisted on treating us to. We returned to their home for several hours of wonderful conversation about family, life and friendship. Their home is very nice and Marion showed us many items she had made. They made us feel so very welcome and we had a wonderful time. Thank you Merle and Marion! We left the evening with new ball caps and a large jar of local honey along with very warm memories. We’d love to have them visit us in Pennsylvania and to return the favors.

The next morning before we left for western ND Merle and Marion met us and took us to a local

The Flatt Family Reunion

June 17th started with a call to our daughter Connie to wish her and Eric a Happy 10th Anniversary! Then we got a call from our son DJ. Didn’t break camp until 10:20 to head off across Northern MN to Detroit Lakes via route 200. Stopped by the Northern Lights Indian Casino to try our luck on the slots for a few minutes. We left with a net win of about $35, mostly Pat’s fortune! Not bad for a retired hour! Next came Akeley, MN and a huge statue of Paul Bunyon where I got a photo of Pat sitting in his hand. This trip along route 200 is a beautiful roadway with many small lakes and of course trees everywhere. Not a place for “city folk” who don’t like outdoor scenery. Stopped at Leech Lake for lunch where we errantly took a small road exit to the roadside park and rather violently rocked our way through some gigantic mud puddles trying to find our way back to route 200.

We got to Detroit Lakes and the American Legion Campground around 3:45 and set up with full hook-ups in the very busy park located right across form the lakeshore and very near the commercial lakefront shops and beach. The last 25 miles before Detroit Lakes (DL as locals call it) saw the terrain flatten considerably and change into nice farmland from forests. John and Cheryl Flatt (photo left) came to the RV to greet and welcome us. They gave us a pack age we had shipped to them by a vendor. It is a Tow Car Shield, a leather like cover to put over the Saturn when towing it on gravel or dirt roads which we expect to encounter in Northern Canada and Alaska. We thanked them and then went into the RV and shared old family photos of the Flatt family that we had brought just for the occasion of the Flatt reunion scheduled for Sunday. John and Cheryl then gave us a quick city tour and treated us to a nice Chinese dinner while we learned more about each other and the family ties. John is the one who has assembled much of the Flatt family information and has had a hard bound book published for the descendants of Joseph James Flatt who is Pat’s Great Great Great Grandfather. When John had gotten to Pat’s grandfather when assembling the book, he had only that her father and his brother and an unknown child were born of his marriage to Mabel Smalley and nothing further. It was only by chance that one of John’s cousins had met Cindy Conley Vipond, a cousin of Pat’s on her mother’s side in Phoenix, AZ last winter. When Cindy saw the cousin’s last name of Flatt she inquired if he had relatives in California and that led to her giving Pat’s name and address to him. The cousin passed the information on to John and John called Pat and invited us to the reunion and it times in well with our Alaska trip. Sound confusing? It was to us to for quite awhile too!

Saturday morning John and Cheryl entertained us with a delightful brunch in their beautiful home (photo right) on a small lake just outside DL. Following brunch we drove to meet John’s father, Herbert and his wife Stella. We then took off with John and Herb, now age 86, to visit cemeteries and the old Flatt homestead in farmland near Gardner, ND. The old homestead had been cleared away and the land is now cropland but Herb could point out where it was located. The trip took us over many miles of dirt roads so prevalent in the rural farmlands of ND. The weather was hot and we saw much of the flooding of the river by Fargo, ND that was still occurring following very heavy recent rains. Late in the day we returned to DL and met up with Merle and Marion Flatt from Valley City, ND and Stella and Cheryl joined us to make a nice group for dinner at the former Elks Lodge now a restaurant. Since today is our 39th Wedding Anniversary we bought wine for all to help us celebrate that with a group of new found relatives.

Sunday June 19 we slept in a bit in the RV. Then Pat fixed prepared a nice Father’s Day breakfast of pancakes and bacon. After making a veggie pizza to take along we went to the reunion being held in the American Legion Hall adjacent to the RV park. There were about 22-25 people there and we spent most of the time meeting them and sharing the Flatt family photos with them in hopes of identifying many of the unknown folks in the old photos as well as letting them reminisce over them. We left the large box of photos with John Flatt to allow him to digitally scan any of them he wishes to. The event was a pot luck meal also and the food was excellent! We chatted quite a bit with Merle and Marion Flatt, Merle has many features that very much remind Pat of her father, Bob Flatt who passed away in 1987. The resemblance is very close. Merle is a semi-retired farmer and they graciously invited us to visit them in Valley City where they would show us Pat’s grandfather Gordon Flatt’s grave. We quickly accepted their kind offer.
That evening after the reunion we spent some time making a VHS video for John of a digital videotape Dick had made of John’s father Herb telling us stories and about the places we had visited with him and John on Saturday. We left the tape at John and Cheryl’s. Dick had a great Father’s day as he also received calls from both Connie and her family and from Dick Jr. and his family

A Few More Days in Wisconsin

June 14

We headed northwest from Harnischfeger Park 153 miles to Camp Holiday RV Park near Boulder Junction, WI to spend two nights and join Dick's nephew Lance and his wife Martha and children Daniel and Rachel who by coincidence were spending the week at YMCA Camp Nawakwa on Little Crooked Lake located on the Lac de Flambeau Indian Reservation. We started by nearly getting lost trying to find our way about 12 miles from the RV camp to the "Y" camp on local roads around several lakes. Too many turns.

Lance loves fishing and has a nice boat similar to the one Dan had. Lance picked Dick up at 5:30 am the next morning to go fishing on Little Crooked Lake. We caught a few smallmouth bass then about 8:30 we met up with the rest of the family and Pat and Lance and Martha treated us to a local camp Breakfast on the Point. The weather was windy and cool but we all ate well on open fire cooked pancakes, eggs, bacon, hash browns and juice. Martha and Rachel even canoed over to the point and back.

Dick, Lance and Daniel went fishing and landed and released a number of nice smallmouth bass on a variety of lures and rubber worms. That evening after Pat demonstrated and cooked up a delicious Tracy favorite of pizza on the grill over an open fire and some s'mores, Pat, Dick and Lance went out fishing and Pat proved that their family Wisconsin fishing license was worth it by catching about six or seven nice smallmouths, outfishing both of the guys!

Next morning before breaking camp at the RV park Dick and Lance again fished and this time worked surface lures and rubber worms very successfully in some shallow bays on Little Crooked Lake. Dick even landed one largemouth. Pat was gracious enough to do laundry while they were out. We said goodbye to Lance Martha and the kids and after returning to Nawakwa one more time, to retrieve Dicks fishing shirt he had left in Lance's truck, headed off for Minnesota to get us closer to Detroit Lakes, MN where we are to attend a Flatt family reunion with relatives of Pat's father's family we had met only over the phone and internet. The reunion is to be on Sunday the 19th but we told a distant cousin, John Flatt, we would get in a day or two early and meet him and his family. We crossed into Duluth, MN from Superior, WI by way of a high bridge on highway 535, and the view of Duluth and surrounding area was amazing. We had never been into northern MN before. Visited a beautiful welcome center then found another RV park at Saginaw Campground in Saginaw, MN a few miles west of Duluth.

Old Buddies Together Again

June 11-13

Life has a way of keeping people apart but it can't steal thoughts and memories of times shared. Dan Small and Dick met in the sixth grade when Dick moved from the City of Buffalo, NY to Harris Hill and the Clarence Central School District and immediately became good friends. They shared many of the same interests in hunting, fishing, shooting, academics and even often the same girl friends (though not at the same time, Dan points out!) as well other common buddies. The military, through a Navy ROTC scholarship took Dick west to the University of Idaho and then off to active duty for 11 years around the globe. Dan's number did not come up and he went on paths that took him to France for studies and then ultimately to his return to make his love of the outdoors his livelihood as his readers know. Dick and Dan kept in touch infrequently over the years but thoughts of shared memories kept the embers of friendship warm. In 1999 Dick went on a week-long fishing trip with his nephew Lance, a pediatric dentist near Chicago, to a YMCA Camp located in northern Wisconsin and they contacted Dan and stopped by to see him and Shivani for a few hours on the way back to the Chicago area. Friendship was refreshed and Dick started longing for the opportunity to share some time in the field or fishing with Dan once again.

It took Dick's retirement and this RV trip to Alaska to allow it to happen. I called Dan as Pat and I were planning the trip and worked with Dan to find an open spot in his busy calendar. We settled on June 10 [^] 13. June 10 happened to be Pat's birthday so after our late afternoon arrival at Badger Campground only a few minutes from Dan's home, we took Dan and Shivani out for dinner to celebrate Pat's birthday and our getting together after so many years. It was great just seeing my old buddy and Dan offered up his plan to show me some Wisconsin fishing. His plans had been modified by the loss of his camping trailer and truck in an accident only a few weeks prior so our plans were to go more local instead of going to a campground in northeastern Wisconsin.

Saturday June 11 was a windy Wisconsin day, but that was not to deter us from going out. We took off with Dan's boat to Beaver Dam Lake, where we tested the waters for 5 or so hours with a wide variety of different surface and diving lures to no avail. The choppy waters would not yield to our desires and the fish either stayed down or chose to ignore whatever we offered them. But as you may have guessed just being out together and catching up on each other was results enough, although Dan was surprised at us getting skunked. That evening over dinner at Dan's with our wives we planned the next day.

The Milwaukee River became our haunt on Sunday morning and we worked the low water feverishly to try and locate the nice bass and/or northerns that Dan had found there in other visits. Dick hooked into a large and strong something that took off upstream with his line but shook loose without showing itself. We'd like to think it was a nice northern! Dan caught what seemed like it would be a very nice bass based on the heft on his rod but to his surprise instead landed an 18-inch channel catfish! This was the first time Dan had known of a channel cat to be caught in that section of the Milwaukee River. Dan also finally landed and released one small 10 or 11-inch bass to finish out the catch for the day. The combination of quite low water and the heat were offered up as excuses for the day but again any day fishing beats most any other type of day! The afternoon was spent taking Pat on a delightful trip to Lake Winnebago where we met Dee Dexter, a business associate of Dan, on her 32-foot sailboat. We enjoyed an afternoon of sailing and friendship. The weather was perfect for sailing and we watched dozens of fishing boats returning to port to record their catches in a walleye festival. Delightful afternoon. We topped it off with a brief visit to another friend of Dan's named Jeff Kahlow. I have to describe Jeff as the Mad Hatter and an extreme extrovert with a friendly smile. Jeff's place is a licensed menagerie of animals and birds in loving care. But, Jeff's passion is making foam hats for special events and in every form imaginable and some I couldn't imagine. He had made them for President Bush, Ted Nugent, Tiger Woods, and the governors of Minnesota and Wisconsin, as well as for individuals just for fun. A sample of them includes, walleye, pike, pheasant, automobiles, and many many more. As a surprise at an Outdoor Wisconsin banquet, Jeff even presented Dan with a coat that has about a dozen of Wisconsin's fish and animals on it. You can see more of Jeff's zany hats on his website, www.bigguyhats.com.

Monday, June 13 was a big day with Dan playing a lead role in promotion of the Rock River Coalition annual Send Your Legislator Down The River Day, held this year at the newly aquired Harnischfeger Park. Before going to the park, Dick and Dan took an early morning try for muskies in a local lake but with minimal success. Dan did get one "follow" up to the boat, while the weather again cooperated with a beautiful morning and near glassy calm waters. We relocated our RV from the park near Dan's to the Harnischfeger Park, arriving just as a localized and very windy thunderstorm hit the area. We tried our first "brat" (This is Wisconsin slang for "bratwurst," a delicious sausage of German origin, made locally and grilled or boiled for summer picnics and at tailgate parties.) at the picnic supper included as part of the event. Then Pat and Dick joined the entourage in a five mile canoe trip down the Rock River. The trip was peaceful and included about twenty canoes and 7 or 8 legislators from both the local and state level and a rep from one federal congressional office. Everyone had a good time and although it had been a long time since we had done any canoeing we survived the trip with only sore muscles and one blister.

We said good-bye to Dan and Shivani as it was getting dark and Dan presented Dick with one of his Filet King fish-cleaning boards and also loaned him a nice salmon-weight spinning rod and reel to use in Alaska. Many thanks to Dan and Shivani for showing us a wonderful time. We hope that we can reciprocate sometime in the next year or two back in Pennsylvania on some of the local trout streams.

Onward to Chicago, June 4-10

Saturday we tested driving the RV in heavy urban traffic as we crossed Ohio and Indiana then skirted downtown Chicago enroute to Dick's sister Mary Anne (MA) and her husband Bob's home in Glen Ellyn, IL a northwestern suburb of Chicago. It is amazing how freeway drivers in urban areas can crowd in on a big rig and its toad while doing 60 to 70 mph and changing lanes constantly. Since Glen Ellyn is an upscale neighborhood and on street parking for an RV is not allowed we stowed the RV at a local RV storage site at a very reasonable $25 for up to a week. MA and Bob were super hosts as always and we spent 5 delightful days relaxing and taking in special sights such as the Morton Arboretum and the Museum of Science and Industry where we caught a great Cinemax movie on the Secrets of the Nile, a great documentary of the first rafting of the full length of the Nile and the many unbelievable sights along the waterway. We also took in the special exhibit of the human body where a special placticized technique was used to preserve actual human body cadaver parts and present them in a unique and amazing presentation. By using a hand held recording device you can punch in the number of each presentation and hear fascinating details on how the part works and/or interacts with the rest of the body. This exhibit should be a must see for anyone in an area where it is being exhibited.

MA and Bob also arranged for good friends of theirs to come over for dinner and share with us their adventures in their RV trip around Alaska in 1998. The friends, Ken and Melissa shared their photos and offered much welcomed advice on things to see and do or not do while visiting Alaska. They left their photos for our later perusal and we made pages of notes. Thanks Mary Anne and Bob for a great time.