It worked!

I was skeptical, but the magic plug in totally did the trick! Last night Zeus even sat on the couch with us!

This morning he also opted to sit on top of the fridge rather than in the cupboard. This is excellent progress. I highly recommend getting the plug in pheromones if you have stressed out cats!

I'm back in Salem now - time to go back to work and get the house ready to go on the market. Ripley got really sick when we were gone and even had to go to the emergency vet on Friday night because his stomach issues were so bad. I'm grateful that mom and dad were with him and have been taking great care of him while we were gone. He's sacked out on the bed right now and has no interest in anything but cuddling. Poor guy.

Traveling With Cats

Now that we're a little bit settled - though no furniture for another week it seems, (minus the new couch we bought on impulse after my legs fell asleep in the camping chairs for the bazillionth time) - I have had some time to reflect on the ordeal that was traveling/moving with the cats.  In short, I wouldn't recommend it.

We tried to do as much as we could to prepare them for the trip and keep them as comfortable as possible.  We got them a pretty large crate to ride in to allow them to move around if they needed to/wanted to, and we got them the drugs that were supposed to calm them down.  The drugs didn't seem to do anything, and we were treated to at least 5 hours every day of Fro just howling at us, especially when the roads were bumpy, which was always.

by the last day, Fro was just done.

One morning, as we were driving out of Williams Lake, B.C. at about 5 a.m., we heard them making more commotion than usual.  All of a sudden, Andy says "they're out!" and sure enough, they somehow got out of the kennel and were roaming freely over the piles of crap in the car (still howling).  We pulled over and somehow I got them back in without opening any doors (I was freaking out at the thought of them bolting into the woods in the darkness and us never getting them back), but from that point on we were extra paranoid about them getting out.

Hanging out in the hotel - they preferred rooms where they could get under the bed.

When we got to the house, Fro settled immediately like a champ.

Zeus, on the other hand, is still (6 days later) freaking out a lot.  He spends about 5-7 hours a day just howling for no reason, especially when we're sleeping.  When he isn't testing the acoustics of the house, he's hiding in the cupboards or banging the cupboard doors all night.  Oh, or peeing on my laundry (thank god for the washer and dryer...I have one pair of jeans with me). In short, he's been a joy this week.

What's that?

Yes, there is a cat in my cupboards.  Also, the wine is so we can put up with his howling. 

We are trying everything we can think of to help them (Zeus) settle better.  Today we bought a plug-in pheromone diffuser that promises to help the cats relax.  It smells like a combination of hippie incense and wild animal and is adding some nice ambiance to the house.  About 3 hours into the experiment, Fro is acting drunk and Zeus is just following us around.  I guess it's better than banging the cupboards.  We also got them a new tower:

They love it. Maybe even more than the couch. 

Playing with the Camera

As promised, we went up to Flattop again to take some night pictures.  I don't know if we just weren't thinking about it very hard, but the sunset was amazing and we could have captured the whole thing if we hadn't waited so long.  Oh well, I think we'll have lots more clear Anchorage nights to come.  None of these photos could have been possible without our fancy new (from Christmas) tripod.  We love it! Thanks, Dad! These are some of the better shots.  Night shots are a little tricky and we're looking forward to learning about the best way to take them.  Time for a photography class, I think!

Looking toward Denali

Sleeping Lady (official name - Mt. Susitna)

more of the inlet

back at the mountains....just enough light to take a picture (with the shutter open for about 15 seconds)

I love that the mountains are right up the hill from us and we can even see them from our little house.  It's a bit weird to just be driving around town and having these awesomely huge mountains just hanging out above you.  Even the costco has a million dollar view!

Close Encounters

First off, the blogging will probably be a little sporadic this week.  There's a lot to share but since right now we are stealing borrowing internet from a new neighbor named Linksys, we're trying to be kind and not steal too much bandwidth.  Then again, the neighbors could also password protect their network if they really cared. Just sayin'.

So yesterday we got into the house and did a big walk through with the realtor.  Everything seems okay - there are some issues with the windows (basically they all need replacing, which is something that we hope can be accomplished before next winter) and some other minor cosmetic things.  The owners run a carpet/flooring store in town and put new cherry hardwood floors in the living/dining room (I am terrified to let Ripley walk on them) and some new vinyl in the master bedroom.  They also put in brand new appliances recently, which is really nice.  A lot of the features (like the windows...also the kitchen cabinets) seem to be original to the house - probably from the 70s, which is kind of weird.  In all, the house is nice, it's going to be a fine place to live, especially once our stuff gets moved in and we're off the air mattress and the camping chairs, but it's not a house we'd buy.

One huge bonus is that Andy's brother, Craig, lives less than two blocks away! We didn't know this when we rented the place, and it's going to be nice to have family close by, especially when Andy's all alone up here.  Craig also works at a really nice restaurant down the street from here, and he was nice enough to buy us dinner last night.  After road food for days and spending all our time (and money) yesterday stocking the house with the necessities, it was nice to have a sit down meal and visit with a friendly face.  Thanks, Craig!

Today we played tourist in our new city! We had breakfast at the Snow City Cafe, a place we tried to visit this summer but could not get a table at - even when we went really early.  We learned that 8 a.m. on a Tuesday is not their busiest time.  The food was incredible and we can't wait to take visitors there!

After running more errands, we went for a mini hike up at the Hilltop Ski Area.  This place is only 4 miles from our house and I have a feeling we'll be visiting a lot both in the summer and next winter.  I'd really like to try cross country skiing and they have excellent trails there and with it being so close to home, it doesn't have to be such an ordeal to go for a couple hours.

On our walk we enjoyed the beautiful weather - not a cloud in the sky...

In addition to the nordic trails, they also have some (small) chair lifts and downhill runs.

They also have ski jumps!

While we were walking around enjoying the sunshine and warm weather (in the 40s - I saw people in shorts today, I swear), we happened upon a new friend!

Well hello there, lady moose.

Lady moose was just enjoying her midday snack of pine needles and sticks.  She was minding her own business and, as much as she surprised us, we surprised her a little I think.  While I was taking pictures, she turned toward us and started to head our way.  This was our signal to turn around and find a new walking path.

Okay, okay, we'll be on our way.

I was very excited to have a close encounter with a moose.  I have seen probably about 4 of them between the trip here in the summer and the drive to Anchorage.  Until you see one up close, though, I don't think you can really appreciate how big they are.  Thankfully this one was not aggressive.  Andy says usually they are like giant cows - just content to stand around and chew on stuff.  That's my kind of animal.

After our little hike, we went up to Flattop, a popular hiking spot in Anchorage where Andy took me over the summer.

soooo many mountains

Hi there.  Sorry I didn't shower today, we didn't have a shower curtain.

The weather was so clear today, you could see for just about forever.  If you looked north you could even see Denali way out in the distance.  Absolutely amazing.  I'd like a house up here so I can just stare at this all day long.

The city with the inlet and "sleeping lady" in the background.  Can you see where it gets its name?

The city seems really far away, but Flattop is still in Anchorage - it's a very spread out city.  Basically, we live at the bottom of this hill and Andy works downtown (where the tall buildings are in the more densely built part), which is about 15 minutes from where we live.

Andy even tossed some snowballs off the viewpoint.

It was a good day.  We're about to head back up to Flattop and do some stargazing tonight.  I'm hoping to catch more northern lights, though I don't know if that will happen.  Even though it's already 9:15, which is past my bedtime, we have to wait a bit longer, like I mentioned last night, it stays light REALLY late around here.  Sunrise is at 6:52 a.m. and sunset is at 9:07.  I don't think it'll really be dark dark until about 11 or later.  I can't wait for the summer!!

Fun fact about Anchorage

I'll write a full blog tomorrow but for tonight I will just say that the most fascinating thing about Anchorage is that it's still light out at 9:39 pm on April 9! This is crazy to me!

Also here is a picture of our beautiful living room. We can't wait until the furniture arrives! For now the camping chairs are pretty comfy though.

Sorry, Tok. Maybe some other time?

(Sorry in advance for the long post - we did a lot today.  If you just skip to the pictures, I promise I won't be offended.)

So the original plan was to have an easy eight or so hour day today and just do the drive from Whitehorse to Tok, Alaska.  This isn't what we ended up doing.

Heading out of Whitehorse, we had fun trying to find a gas station that would give us gas at 7 a.m. on Easter Sunday (by the way, Happy Easter to all those who celebrate!).  This was harder than we thought it would be, but eventually we found a place that was open and we filled up before heading out of civilization.  We had been told by those in the know (hi, Uncle Jim!) that Whitehorse was the absolute end of the earth - I think because we had been driving through some pretty isolated places for a while, we thought this was a bit of an exaggeration.  Nope.  There. is. nothing. after. Whitehorse.  Not until basically the border, which is also in the middle of nowhere.  Really the first town is Tok, which is 8 hours from Whitehorse.  The one thing they have in spades out in the middle of nowhere is some amazing scenery:

Driving along the Alcan, you spend most of this part of the trip skirting Canada's Kluane National Park.  Just beautiful mountains and (frozen) lakes everywhere you look.  I would love to see this place in the summer - depending on when I get a job/sell the house, I might get my wish.

Driving into a seasonal (meaning, not open in April) area with a gas station/and rest stop we saw one of the most anticipated sights of the trip.  Andy had been talking this up for days and I was really excited to finally see it.  This sight isn't a mountain or lake or even some amazing wild creature that only lives in the Yukon.  Nope, this is pure human creation:

It's actually really convincing from a distance.

It's the Canadian solution to how to get people to slow down when there is one police officer for every 1,000 square miles (I totally just made that up) - a cardboard police cruiser.  I have to admit, it tricked me! I'm glad we actually saw one since Andy really had been talking about this phenomenon since we got into Canada.

After driving through some snow flurries and perhaps the worst road in the world (the cats caught air over pretty much every bump), we hit the border!

hurray! 

And, just for visiting, they gifted us an extra hour in the day! 

We hit the border and made friends with the customs agent who told us his life's story (spoiler alert: he and his attorney wife who he moved across the U.S. with so she could go to law school end up getting divorced 17 years later...all is not lost though, he finally fulfills his dream of writing songs about Alaska and their now-adult son is a grammy-nominated bluegrass fiddler).

With the extra hour we got from crossing the border and the improved road conditions - seriously, Canada, you need to repave the Yukon...all of it - we hit Tok before lunch.  Looking around and realizing that our option was to either sit in our motel room for the next 16+ hours with the cats or push on to Anchorage, we decided to push on.  I got behind the wheel, filled the car with $4.50/gal gas and went for it! (we never noticed the price of gas until Tok - something about it being roughly 143.4 Canadian cents to the liter (litre) that made us totally oblivious to the cost of fuel.)

Time for more mountains!!

This is the view from somewhere before the "town" (highway intersection) of Glennallen.  Giant mountains surrounded by lots of teeny tiny trees.  These mountains are in the Wrangell-St. Elias Preserve.  From looking at the map, we think this is Mt. Sanford.

Then we drove some more hours and entered the Mat-Su Borough, which is the borough that neighbors Anchorage.  This part of the state is ALL mountains.  We just about filled the memory in our camera with pictures of the scenery here.  We're already thinking of some fun day trips we can take out here to explore the glaciers and mountains.

Finally, around dinner time, we rolled into Anchorage.  Just to give you an idea of just how far we drove in 4 days, here's a map:

Yes, it does seem like a really indirect route.  It feels more indirect when you look at the compass in your car and see that you are heading EAST for forever. Frustrating.

When we got to Anchorage we saw this:

Yes, that idiot is riding with the top down. No, there's no way that's appropriate.

Tomorrow we get into the house!

Wildlife Safari!

We had another early early morning this morning.  We left the hotel in Fort Nelson before 5 a.m. and while we were driving towards the Rockies I saw my first hint of Northern Lights! It was thrilling for me even if they weren't super impressive to a seasoned Alaskan like Andy.  As the sun came up we drove into the Canadian Rockies and saw some amazing scenery.

Today was definitely the best scenery we've seen on the whole trip.  I almost didn't notice that I drove over 300 miles in my part of the driving today.  Almost.

We also saw some roadside friends!

We saw a couple herds of elk along the way...

We pretty much only saw lady elk.  Apparently they are called "cows" but I prefer "ladies"

Some of our friends were very courteous and stuck to their designated areas:

I wonder what's coming??

We saw a ton of buffalo (bison, if you so prefer) today, and they did not seem to be bothered by the cars whatsoever.

The final friend of the day - Caribou!

Our big milestone for the day (other than making new animal friends) was making it out of British Columbia.  We're in the Yukon now!

 The ALCAN crosses back and forth across the YT/BC border a bunch of times around here.  We passed several "Welcome to BC" and "Welcome to Yukon" signs in a short period of time.

We ended up in Whitehorse today, which is the capital of the Yukon Territory.  The whole day we only drove through one other place I would actually call a "town," which was called Watson Lake.  The coolest thing about Watson Lake is its signpost forest:

According to the Milepost, the signpost forest was started in 1942 by a U.S. Army soldier who was working on the ALCAN.  People from all over the world add signs to the collection.  We saw a lot of German signs for some reason.  These pictures only show a really small portion of the forest - there are apparently more than 72,000 signs here!

Well that's about it for today.  Tomorrow we have a short(er) drive to Tok, Alaska, which means we'll be out of Canada! From there it's just over 300 miles to Anchorage.  The cats are especially excited to only have 2 more days in the car.

Finally on the ALCAN

So despite being on the road for two whole days, we only just hit the actual Alaska Highway around lunch today...or the time we would have had lunch if there was anywhere to eat in Dawson Creek and we didn't spend 40 minutes on the phone with our credit card company and our bank.  Thankfully the financials are all sorted out now and we made it to our goal of Fort Nelson, BC before dinner time (that would be pizza in the hotel room while the cats run around paranoid trying to hide under things).

Zeus is really upset that he can't get under the bed in this room.  

This morning we drove through the mountains for awhile.  Pretty much the only time we have seen snow on the roads.  We feel REALLY lucky with this weather.

Kind of looks like a Subaru commercial. 

I took that picture by a random Canadian "rest stop."  (It was basically a shack with a hole inside)  Before I went in Andy said, "you...are not going to like that."  He was right.

So after a morning in the mountains, we made our way to Dawson Creek.  Here's milepost zero of the Alaska Highway, which is also called the ALCAN.  According to my new bible, the Milepost book, it was built in 1942 and until then there was pretty much no easy way to drive to Alaska (not that it's "easy" now).  There's some trivia you can share with your friends.  This pole in the middle of the street's about the only interesting thing in Dawson Creek:

I looked everywhere for James Van Der Beek.  He lives in a different Dawson Creek apparently. 

After driving through what Andy has declared to be the worst possible place in North America (that would be Dawson Creek), we hit the mountains again.  Look at this cute gas station!

Oh! and today was a big day for wildlife!  After the gas stop we saw a lady moose and a coyote by the highway (they weren't hanging out or anything, just in close proximity to one another).  I didn't get any pictures because we were driving fast and Andy was being mean and wouldn't stop to let me take a picture.  Earlier in the day we also saw two wolves (we think).  They were bigger than coyotes but all white.  They were eating something dead on the side of the road.  They must be Canadian because they're too polite to hunt.

We've got another 12 hour day in front of us tomorrow - hoping to make it to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory.  We have heard Whitehorse referred to as the "end of civilization," which will make the rest of the trip pretty interesting.  In the morning we'll be driving through the Canadian Rockies - hopefully we can get some good pictures after the sun comes up.

Blame Canada!

We made it into Canada by lunch today.  We'll be here for the next couple of days at least.  The towns are getting more and more spaced out and there are less amenities.  Right now we're trying to plan the remainder of our time so we have specific end locations and backups in case the roads are bad.  We've been seeing a lot of snow (even coming out of the sky!) and the lakes up here are all frozen.  It is definitely still pretty winter-like in the middle of B.C.

One highlight today was Hope, B.C.  We didn't know until we dropped into the visitor center that this is the town where they filmed the original Rambo!

The mountains look familiar...I always thought they filmed this movie around North Bend, WA...

Look! It's Sylvester Stallone! Interesting note, like Rambo, Andy was also made in 1982.  

 As we were heading out of town (and I got behind the wheel for the first time in the trip), this is what we ran into:

There's snow in that storm.

Thankfully the storm passed quickly and we had mostly dry roads the whole way today.  The drive was really pretty and mountainy and then kind of scrubby. Not an ugly transition, just different.  It reminded us of the scenery changes on the drive from western to eastern WA/OR.

There were a ton of tunnels going through the Fraser Valley 

On the other side of the really mountainy part. More pines, less fir trees. 

We ended up in Williams Lake, B.C.  Sorry I didn't grab a photo in town.  It's probably the ugliest town I have ever been in. I'll have to get a photo tomorrow because I need to share the depressing surroundings with everyone (I'm not talking about the scenery, I'm talking about the town).  We are staying at a motel that is advertised as a Howard Johnsons on the outside, but they barely had a credit card machine and it identifies on all major signs as "Williams Inn."  Nice bait and switch, hotel people.

The only major (and I do mean major) snag of the entire trip so far is that when we stopped to get gas in some blip on the map, our credit card was rejected.  In all our planning, neither of us thought to call the credit card people and notify them we'd be in Canada.  Whoops. So we called the card people and got it all ironed out...or so we thought.  When we arrived in beautiful Williams Lake and ran the card at the motel, it was rejected again (If I was bank of america and I saw someone was trying to use the card here, I'd probably think the card had been stolen by criminals, too).  After running through the credit card gauntlet, it turns out that by a TOTALLY RANDOM COINCIDENCE our card was flagged in a large group of card numbers that had been potentially compromised by a 3rd party, so even with the travel notification, the card was blocked and they are sending us new ones.  Um, not helpful when we are driving through Canada.  We got some temporary authorizations to keep using the cards since we're in a bind, and we are keeping our fingers crossed that it will work for the next couple of days, but this is kind of a huge headache.  Here's to hoping it's smooth sailing from here on out.

Oh, and the kitties are fine.  They slept pretty much the whole way.

Fro is checking out the room.  Zeus is under the bed and will probably be there all night.  

Tomorrow we hope to make it to Fort Nelson, B.C.  Google says it's going to be a 14+ hour day.  Can't wait!