This afternoon turned out to be another beautiful one of several we have had recently. It was so nice that John and I headed to a local park to walk Merlin and get a little exercise and a good dose of sunshine, which I have been needing recently.

This is an exciting week for me. I have been to two concerts (The Fruit Bats on Monday night and Ani Difranco on Tuesday) and I leave tomorrow for SXSW. I’m not sure how the new diet and workout program will go with the upcoming traveling but I’m dedicated to giving it my best and making it work. I’m more concerned about finding healthy food options more than anything. My hotel has a great workout facility so I think I have that part mostly figured out. Anywho…. that’s life right? I gotta figure this stuff out some time or another.

I’ll leave you with a couple of my favorite songs by the Fruit Bats:

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December 9 Challenge. Something that really made you grow this year. That made you go to your edge and then some. What made it the best challenge of the year for you?

Almost a year and half ago I created a list of things I want to do in this life and on that list was to travel to Fairbanks Alaska to see the Northern Lights. I have already written about this trip in this Best of 2009 series but I think it definitely fits in this topic as well.

This trip was one of the most challenging and rewarding things I have done in my life. This trip taught me that I can accomplish anything I want if I break it down into achievable steps and took it little by little.

First, I had to convince myself that it was fine to ask for a month off work and to let some freelance clients know that I wouldn’t be available then. I didn’t know how much I needed that month until I was in the second week and realized that it took that long for me to get use to not checking email and thinking about working or feeling guilty that I might need to do something. It is so easy now to be connected all the time and sometimes it takes going to a remote area with no service to see how nice it is to unplug for a while.

Second, we had to save for the trip and we learned how to change our priorities so that we could do this. We sold one of our cars and bought an older model that we could pay cash for so that we wouldn’t have the car payment. We ate at home more and stopped spending money on things we didn’t really need. Everything was focused on our goal of this trip and we made it happen. This was huge for us.

Finally, we left home with a very basic outline of what we wanted to accomplish and the rest was completely flexible. We had no reservations and had nothing booked. We started driving each day with a general plan and there were many days those plans changed and we went with that. It was freeing and exciting and it pushed my comfort zones to the limits some days, especially when we were driving along the Alaskan highway and were not sure if we had enough gas to get to the next gas station and we had not seen another car in an hour or so… oh and big bears live there.

I thought this trip would be the trip of a life time but that suggests that we will never make a similar trip again and I don’t think that is the case at all. If anything, it has made us want to travel more and it has empowered us to think that we can go anywhere we want. We just have to think and will it into existence. It also makes me realize that those other things on my life list are ready to be checked off as well. I just need to get a plan together and make them happen. I also need to revisit that list and tweak it and add some more.

I did make it to Fairbanks but I didn’t see the Northern Lights but that is OK. I guess I will just have to plan another trip up North. We need to see what is going on in the arctic circle anyway, because we can.

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The December 1 prompt was “What was your best trip in 2009?” and mine was an easy one to pick, my road trip from Kentucky to Alaska and back to Kentucky. It was one of those amazing trips you wonder if you will ever be able to beat.

I wrote about the trip as I was traveling so I will just link back to those entries.

1. KY –> AK – Week 1
2. Fort Nelson –> Fairbanks
3. Alaska
4. Back in the states…
5. Home and beyond

You can also see my trip photos on flickr:

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I have to say, the trip was amazing. Living like a nomad for a month and going where we wanted was amazing. I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to do this and I have decided it won’t be my last journey like this. There is so much to see out there people!

So to wrap up the final week….

First, I loved Portland. It made the list as one of my favorite cities I have visited to date. I loved the music scene, the vintage stores, the crafty/artsy people, the breweries and Powell’s book store! I could live here easily and so wanted to bring some of it home with me.

Second, Yellowstone was crazy cool. I love how wild and beautiful it is. I like that is bubbly and hot and unpredictable. While driving through the park late at night, we stopped, turned off the car and looked up at the stars and it felt like we were alone in the world. It was dark and wild and you could even see the milky way. Thinking about it now gives me chills. Amazing. Oh and the colors……. Mother Nature, you saucy wench!

Finally, our last stop was Fort Collins, CO. This area isn’t new to us. John spent three months here a few years ago working at the Shambhala Mountain Center and I had visited and drove back with him when he came home. It was a great way to wrap up the vacation. We took our time exploring downtown Fort Collins and eating in the great restaurants, shopping in the interesting little shops and making a pit stop at the New Belgium Brewery to taste some of their great brew and bring back a growler for ourselves. We also spent the afternoon before we left checking out the grounds at the Shambhala Mountain Center, sitting and meditating in the Great Stupa, and eating a wonderful lunch on the grounds there. It is a great place to relax, reflect and recharge and that is just what we needed before our final push home.

So now we are back in the “real” world but boy did I bring some ideas and excitement from the trip home with me. There is nothing like taking yourself out of your regular routine and environment and throwing yourself into others to make you see things differently. I have a new appreciation for my home, Lexington and Kentucky in general. It is nice to be looking at it with fresh eyes.

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The trip through the Yukon on the way back from Alaska was even prettier than the first trip through, if that is possible. We had barely entered back into Canada when a moose walked up out of a lake and stood majestically glowing in the morning sun right by the side of the road. That pretty much summed up the rest of our Yukon experience from there. We saw amazing snowed-capped mountains above the most colorful fall foliage I have ever seen.

After passing through Whitehorse and heading toward Watson Lake, the setting sun hit the rainy clouds perfectly and we saw the most beautiful rainbow ever! It was huge and marvelous and arched across the road, like a huge gate welcoming us into the land of milk and honey. How can this site not make you deliriously happy??

We were rather worried about taking the Stewart-Cassiar because we had heard that it was rough in some places and gas stations were always a concern as well but we also heard it was a beautiful drive with the ability to see wildlife and other wonderful scenery. We decided to take the chance and I’m glad we did. Not only did we see three black bears along different parts of the road, we also saw beautiful lakes, mountains and more. I actually preferred parts of it to the historic Alaska Highway and it turns out that there were more gas stations on this road compared to the alternate route.

Prince George was just a place to sleep before we headed on to Vancouver and I didn’t see anything there that I would have wanted to stay for anyway. It was pretty much a medium size town with lots of hotels and places to eat but I didn’t see much more.

Our next stop, Vancouver, was home for three nights and we really enjoyed it. It is such a neat, diverse town with so many things to see and do. We started downtown in the Gastown, Chinatown and Stanley Park area the first day.

My favorite part was Stanley Park and the Vancouver Aquarium. If you haven’t got the theme yet, I like critters and there were plenty to view there. We met friendly ducks, swans and, the coolest of all, raccoon at the park. They would just walk up and say hello. It was a little unnerving at first.

I had visited the aquarium several years ago when I got to spend an afternoon in Vancouver and I remembered that I loved it then and it didn’t disappointment me again this time. It is one of my favorite aquariums.

The second day in Vancouver, we started out eating breakfast at a neat little diner called The Templeton that has a lot of vegetarian alternatives. It has not always been easy finding vegetarians choices that are great on this trip, especially since the places we have visited have been big on seafood, caribou sausage and other meaty fares. The Templeton’s interior design has been preserved and much of the furnishings/soda fountain booths, stools, and jukeboxes at tables are original, since at least the 50’s.

Next we hopped on the great Canada line train and headed to the Punjabi Market area also known as “Little India”. Here we found great Indian shops with everything from Saris and silk materials to stores with trinkets and other goodies from India. We had a wonderful Indian lunch at a place called Best Quality Sweet & Restaurant that was recommended to up by one of the other shop owners. We ended the lunch with some Masala Chai… Yum! We walked until we had blisters on our feet but it was worth it.

The next morning we left Vancouver and drove to Seattle were we spent a few hours at the Public Market, checked out the Andrew Wyeth and other great exhibits at the Seattle Art Museum, visited the Space Needle and wrapped it up with some dinner downtown before we found a cheap little room on the outskirts of town. We definitely want to come back for another visit when we have more time. It seems like a great place. As a side note, I saw Kate Hudson shopping at the Public Market.

Yesterday we stopped in the Mount Rainier National Park on the way to Portland and did a small day hike near Paradise and the visitor center. I have some photos for the day but have not had time to download and process them yet so those will come later. One of the coolest things we saw on the hike was a mother deer and her baby walked into a clearing just a few yards from us and stood eating and then looked at us and slowly made their way across the path and up through the mountain on the other side. It was so peaceful and lovely. It made my day.

We are now in Portland and are finishing some laundry in the hotel before we head downtown to see what this city is all about. We have today here and then we leave tomorrow and head toward Idaho and then on to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

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In some ways, I feel like we blew through Alaska like you would an ice cream shop, just sampling the many flavors, but I also feel like we chose some of the best and now we want to come back and experience them more thoroughly. Fairbanks is a nice little town and we had originally planned on camping at the Chena Hot Spring Resort because it is one of the best places to view the Aurora. After reviewing the Aurora forecast though, we saw that it wasn’t in our odds to see it so we decided to head South and check out the North Pacific and try to see some critters there.

We spent the day driving from Fairbanks and stopping off in the Denali National Park on the way down. Denali was beautiful and we got a great view of Mt. McKinley, which we hear is not always the case. It stood out all white and snow capped against the bright colors of the fall foliage.

Our next stop was in Talkeetna and this was one of our favorites. Talkeetna is a great little town at the base of Mt McKinley where climbers and others who like to find some adventure in the Denali area often stay. It has one main street and a little campground at the end of the street that cost $10 a night. It takes maybe 10 minutes to walk through the entire town but you will find several art shops, some wonderful places to eat, a great general store, a micro-brewery and more opportunities to find your own adventure than you could imagine. Emily had told me about this little town, as well as many other great things that we saw and did in Alaska, and I’m so thankful that she did. John says it was his favorite part of the trip. The breakfast at the Roadhouse was the perfect thing to send us on our way and to Anchorage and beyond to Seward.

Seward was our destination to take a boat cruise to see wildlife and a glacier up close and personal. We had been really lucky with weather up to this point but that luck ran out a bit as we spent the next few days in rain and cold. The boat cruise started out not too bad weather-wise but they did recommend taking some motion sickness medicine because the water was pretty crazy the further out we got. John and I wanted to brave the upper deck which was not covered because they claim it was the best place to get great photos. We were feeling pretty good about cameras and position on the boat until a guy walked up and pulled out a lens as long as my leg. We discovered that, although it was cool to see the animals with your eye, they often looked like little specks on the photo. I got one of the seals that turned out decent and the Idyllic glacier but that was it. It was still a cool experience though! We saw sea otters rubbing their little bellies and porpoises came over and played with us which was exciting. We even saw a black bear drinking on the bank and then he jumped in a swam across.

After leaving Seward we headed to Homer and I would rate this as our second favorite town in our mad dash through Alaska. Maybe it was because it was a couple of days and nights of resting and relaxing and maybe it was the quirky little shops and restaurants and interesting people there. It is a really eclectic little town with something for everyone. You can go fishing if you like or check out their many art shops and museums. It is known as a place were many people visit and then end up moving there. We actually met a lady that had been there for three years that was originally from Ohio. She was really excited to learn we were from Lexington. We spent  a lot of time walking the beach and looking at the beautiful rocks. I don’t think I have eve seen prettier rocks anywhere. They were so colorful and varied. We even found some sea glass that we brought home as souvenirs. One of my favorite moments was watching a little seal swimming just a little way off the beach. It would dive down and come up with a fish in his mouth and then eat him and find another.

Tonight we made it to Tok and tomorrow we will be heading back into Canada on our way to Whitehorse and beyond. I’m not sure when we will have internet and phone again but we will update when we can!

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The drive from Fort Nelson to Whitehorse was long and I made it even longer because I wanted to drive an extra 2.5 hours round trip to the Northern Territory just to say I had been there. We only went a few miles over the border and then turned around and drove straight back to were we started but at least I can now say I have been there.

All day Friday we traveled the Alaskan Highway. We saw some beautiful scenes along the way including lots of caribou and buffalo. They would just be walking in the road and you would have to slow down and ease around them when they felt like moving. One of my favorite sitings was a caribou that was swimming across a lake and then he bounded out on the other side, shook himself off, did a little dance and ran across the road in front of us and up into the hill on the other side.

We ended up stopping in a little town between Fort Nelson and Whitehorse called Watson Lake. It is often called the Yukon’s gateway because it is the first town you run into in the Yukon if you are coming from Canada to Alaska. They have a great little visitor and info center there and they talked us into watching a short movie on the history of the Alaskan Highway. I found it to be very interesting and it was a nice break from driving. One of the things that Watson Lake is best known for is their Sign Post Forest. “The forest was started in 1942 by a homesick U.S. Army G.I., Carl K. Lindley of Danville, Il., Company D, 341st Engineers. While working on the Alaska Highway, he erected a sign here pointing the way and stating the mileage to his hometown. Others followed his lead and are still doing so to this day. On July 20, 1990, Olen and Anita Walker of Bryan, Ohio placed the 10,000th sign.”

We made it to Whitehorse really late on Friday night and found a room, fell asleep and headed out again about 6 a.m. so we saw very little of it. It is the capital city of the Yukon and was the largest town we saw while traveling through the Yukon. There are very few places to stop along the Alaskan highway and there were a few times when we got a little nervous on the gas situation because the places that sell it start shutting down in September for the season. We will have to plan well on our trip back through in a week or so from now! We are hoping to get to see more of Whitehorse when we pass through again on the way home.

One of the great bits of advice that we got from the lady at the Watson Lake info center was the suggestion that we take one route out of the Yukon into Alaska and another back in so that we didn’t have to drive a lot of the same road both ways. We decided to detour and take the Klondike Highway to Dawson City on the way to Alaska.

The drive itself was pretty and we stopped along the way to see things like Gravel Lake:

We also saw the entrance to the Dempster Highway which we would like to make into a future adventure. It is a road that will take you all the way up and into the Arctic Circle. It has been known to bust a few tires and beat up vehicles pretty bad but the scenery is well worth it they say.

Dawson City was once a booming gold mining town and it has kept its charm with dirt streets and wooden sidewalks. You can even see some of the original buildings from the early 1900s mixed in with the newer, more colorful buildings. We had lunch there and then took the George Black Ferry across the Yukon River to the road that would take us to Alaska on the other side. The ferry and road is only open in the summer so we just made it. After September 15th we would not have been able to do this. The road I’m talking about is called the Top of the World Highway and it was BEAUTIFUL! Fall has arrived in the Yukon and we saw it better here than any where else.

I could have taken photos all day on this road and we stopped a lot which made us a little late in getting to Fairbanks…. but it was totally worth it! Most of the road on the Top of the World Highway was unpaved and rough but we didn’t mind.

We crossed into Alaska on top of the mountain at the most Northern US customs gate. The Taylor Highway, on the other side of the gate, took us off the mountain, past the little town of Chicken, AK and then back to the Alaskan Highway on the Alaska side. We made it to Tok, AK (the first Alaskan town on the Alaska Highway) just in time for dinner and had some awesome pizza and the famous Fast Eddy’s restaurant.

We are in Fairbanks and the surrounding area for a few days and then on Wednesday will head out again to Anchorage in the South. The weather has been great and we are having a blast! Hopefully we will get to see the Northern Lights while we are here…

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We crossed into Canada in Manitoba on Saturday night and stayed in Winnipeg. We got up on Sunday morning and drove west on the Trans-Canada Highway through Manitoba and Saskatchewan and into Alberta and made it to Drumheller that night. Western Canada is really pretty going from huge fields of sunflowers, wheat, canola and more all the way to Alberta with the Canadian Rockies standing majestic up ahead. It is hard to describe what they look like and pictures just don’t do them justice.

The next morning we headed out to see the Hoo Doos, the badlands and the world’s largest dinosaur and then headed west again to visit the Calgary Zoo and finally made it to Banff National Park and to our campground at Lake Louise.

We spent two nights there and one feature of the campground that was both comforting and disconcerting was the electric fence around the perimeter. It is their bear prevention efforts. I have to admit I did rest great knowing it was there.

We did a bit of exploring round the Banff area and one of my favorite spots was Peyto Lake. This lake is beautiful! The water is blue because of the “Rock Flour” made when the glacier ice grinds the rock and the sediments in the lake water absorb every color but this brilliant turquoise color.

Wednesday morning we drove up the Icefields Parkway to Jasper. It is probably one of the most beautiful drives I have ever made.

We stopped at the Athabasca Glacier and hiked up to the base. You can see below the very bottom of the glacier. “Sadly, the overall meltoff of the glacier has become more noticeable in recent years, due to warming trends and lower than average snowfall. At present time it recedes about two or three meters a year.” – climbwild.net

We Made it to Jasper in the early afternoon and grabbed a spot at the Whistler Campground just outside of town and then took a ride to the top of Mt Whistler on the Jasper Tramway. The tramway only takes you to the top but you have to hike up another 2km (1.24 miles) to make it to the summit.  It was quite the climb since it is at 8100 ft and straight up! It was totally worth it once we made it though.

Unlike the campground at Banff, the Whistler campground did not have a fence and all along the path to the bathroom was elk tracks and elk poo and bears were seen in the area recently. We did not see either but we did get a wake up call from an elk (a very loud and honking call with snort) at about 3 am that sounded very close to our car. While we tried to go back to sleep, we finally got up and headed out to Fort Nelson, where we are now. Tonight we are in a hotel room with cable, a hot shower, internet access and no wild animals!

The agenda for tomorrow is Whitehorse and then Fairbanks on Saturday. Has it only been one week??

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In two days, John and I are hitting the road and we are driving to Alaska and back… yep, that’s right. Driving. to. Alaska.

Are we crazy? Probably. Are we madly looking forward to it. Oh yeah!! We have been counting down the months, then weeks and finally the days until we leave. It will be a month long adventure were we are living like a couple of gypsies. We have no reservations anywhere, only a general idea of where we should be on any given day. Even those are flexible though.

We have a stack of books on places we need to visit and web sites bookmarked on things we need to do while there and lots of new memory cards for the cameras. Anything that we haven’t thought of, we will pick up on the way. No worries, just living big!

I plan on updating this blog when I can along the way plus you will be able to follow me on twitter, facebook and flickr for quicker posts.

OK, much to do before we leave… See you on the road!

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On Saturday, Shannon and I met at Third Street Stuff to work on putting together a web site for her. She is an amazing artist and she needed a place to show off her portfolio. Well we sipped coffee…. and I may have had a brownie…. and a couple of hours later, voila!, she has a brand new web site. Check it out! http://www.shannonjohnsonart.com/

We then decided to celebrate the new web site by grabbing John and heading to Joseph Beth Booksellers to have dinner in the cafe and to browse through the books. It was the perfect way to wrap up the day.

On Sunday, John, Shannon and I got up at 7:30 a.m. and headed for the Red River Gorge to enjoy the beautiful weather we were having and to get in a hike. We decide on the Indian Stairway Loop Trail and after a nice little climb up the face of a cliff, we got to enjoy some of the best views in the Gorge.

We even got to see a plant that apparently only grows in the Red River Gorge and is protected, The White-Haired Goldenrod.

The hike was wonderful and it felt great to sweat a little and get in some much needed sun and exercise. I managed to come out of the woods without a scratch on me and then I stepped off onto the highway running by the trail and immediately tripped and fell on the asphalt. I am now sporting some minor road-rash and bruises. I spent the whole morning climbing rocks and stepping over tree roots and then step on a perfectly flat surface and tripped over myself. Good grief!

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