Vancouver with Family

Rachel & Kelsey

Barb & Tim 

Rachel, Thomas & Kelsey

Peter, David & Thomas

Peter, Rachel, Heather, Thomas, David & Kelsey

Anna, Heather & Tim at the amazing Chinese Restaurant

On our way up to Alaska we swung through Vancouver to visit with my brother David, his wife Heather, and their three daughters Rachel, Kelsey Que, and Gillian. In addition my brother-in-law Tim Greenway (my deceased sister Jennifer's husband) and his current wife (my cousin!!) Barbara joined in with the festivities.

As is the tradition with us Dunns, due to our having been born in China, we invariably get together in one of the finest Chinese restaurants, order a plate for each person at the table, and when the food arrives it is placed on an eight-foot diameter lazy susan from whence we all dive in as the plates rotate past us.

After dropping Anna off at the Anchorage airport for her pre-arranged return trip to Ohio, Thomas and I decided that we wanted to return to Vancouver for another visit with the family. This we did, and spent a relaxing two days with the Dunns and the Greenways.

Gillian, the youngest of the cousins, attends Trinity located in Langley. We had a tough time locating her on campus due to security issues. It literally took us two hours of sleuthing before we were able to track her down, but it was well worth it. Gillian has a rare sense of humor. She could very easily be a stand-up improv! (unfortunately we did not get a picture of her).

We visited Kelsey while working at the Bank of Montreal. She works part-time and attends university full-time studying history and psychology.

Rachel is student teaching at an elementary public school. We stopped by for a visit.

Thomas visited a seminary in the area. I took long bicycle rides around the Vancouver Seawall, and twice around Stanley Park. It was an invigorating time to relax while at the same time tone some muscles after sitting for all those hours in the truck.

Heather and David were gracious hosts providing us with the opportunity for much needed showers, some much appreciated home-cooked meals, and a relaxing time of simply catching up.

Alaska Reflections (by Anna)

Road trip to Alaska. Crossed off the bucket list. Now that I’m settled into a more normal routine in Ohio, staying put in one place for more than a few weeks, I have time to reflect on the places we’ve been. We’ve covered many miles, seen places of monumental beauty, visited dear friends, made new ones, and crammed more new sights, sounds, tastes, textures, and smells into my memory bank than I possibly could have room to digest. Here are some that rise to the top.

Sights:
• the endless plains of northern Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, and eastern Washington
• Aunt Rachel’s homey bungalow in NE Portland
• a cloudless day in Vancouver, biking around Stanley Park and crossing the Burrard St. Bridge with a view of the English Bay
• the mountain lake north of Whistler
• the clear waters of Kluane Lake (Lake of Many Fish) framed by the mountains and glaciers of Kluane national park in the Yukon Territory
• the view from Cindy’s window of Grewingk Glacier
• mountain sheep and caribou nibbling at the salt beside the road
• salmon jumping up a mountain stream

Sounds:
• the gurgling of a creek
• the honking snort of great blue herons
• the crack and crunch of sunflower seeds between my dad and brother’s teeth
• Dad snoring
• laughter
• conversations and stories with the Dunns, the Knutsons, Aunt Rosie, Aunt Rachel, and Cindy
• the wind whirring by the driver’s side door
• people honking as they drive past and read our Alaska blog sign

Tastes:
• authentic Chinese meal in Vancouver
• poached egg and smoked salmon on toast, made by a creek in the Yukon Territory
• fresh grilled salmon with Dave’s secret sauce, potatoes from the garden, and rolls with salmonberry jelly at Cindy’s house in Homer, AK
• homemade vegetable soup and chocolate chip muffins in Anchorage, AK
• homemade ribs, rolls, and salad in EGF

Textures:
• the slippery slime of fish scales of a rainbow trout
• the cold pitter patter of rain and the splash of ocean water in Homer
• the soothing smoothness of water-softened pebbles on Diamond Ridge beach
• the soft sinking of sand beneath my feet

Smells:
• the dank, musty, worn-sock odor of the camper after a few days on the road
• the crisp cleanness of my mother-in-law’s well-kept house
• coffee brewing in the morning
• the smell of home in my aunt Rachel’s bungalow
• pine trees
• fish and ocean water

Now that I’m home, and grateful to be so, I am mindful that the beauties of a small farm in Wayne County, Ohio, are as abundant, if not as grandiose, as those of the Alaskan wilderness. I’m working on a different kind of seeing, now. Instead of taking in as much as I can and skimming the surface of things, I’m looking more carefully at the intricacies of the land that I love, and trying to live the words of Marcel Proust: “The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”

Final Blog Summary

Anna, Thomas & Peter on our day of departure

The time has come to put this blog to rest. We have been home for a couple of days now. We pulled in at 2:00 a.m. on Friday. Whatever it took we were going to make it home that morning. Neither Thomas nor I wanted anything to do with one more night in the camper. Thirty two days was enough! I was not aware of how much adrenaline I had burned, and energy consumed in preparing for and completing a trip of this nature. I slept until 3:00 p.m. on Friday, and didn’t really get back into gear until Sunday.

The following are some of the highlights:

12,980 – miles travelled

200 – approximate hours spend in the truck cab

40 – approximate number of friends visited on the trip

0 – number of flat tires on the truck

1 – number of black bears run over at 70 mph in the dead of night

998 – approximate number of gallons of diesel fuel consumed

15.9 – best miles per gallon (achieved heading east)

7 – worst miles per gallon (heading west and up a steep grade)

15,145 – number of hits on our blog

The Spot Messenger Data Feed was probably the most appreciated part of the blog. People appeared to genuinely be interested in knowing where we were at all times.

Between the three of us we posted 53 blogs. We were not happy with blogspot.com as it was not conducive to comments and in many ways we found it rather cumbersome to work with. Having said that, I found the blogging experience to be a gratifying and learning experience, and am seriously considering continuing a personal blog, but on a much stronger platform than blogspot.com.

Looking back over the blogs we posted I am finding it difficult to summarize the experience for the three of us, suffice to say it was an unusual opportunity for a father to reconnect with two of his children, a privilege to experience the grandeur of the United States and Canada, and last but not least, the reconnecting with family and friends.

Our thanks to all of you for "traveling with us" on this odyssey. You made it more pleasurable for us, knowing that we had friends and family staying in touch with us through this medium.

Goodbye and God-speed until the next trip!

Thomas’ Bear Story (by Peter)

Seeing as Thomas' story of our collision with the bear is either the highlight or lowlight of our trip (depending on one's perspective), I will not steal his thunder by revealing any details, but I will give you my personal reaction to our little incident on the Alcan Highway.

As much as one prepares for a 13,000 mile road trip of this nature, and builds in all the redundancies one can think of to assure a failure-free trip, how does one account for a collision with a bear?  After the collision I did notice how many semis and pickup trucks have a “cattle guards” or “brush guards” mounted onto the front of their truck.  We obviously didn’t.

Amazingly the air bags did not explode.  We still don’t know why.

If the bear had been a couple of inches taller than the front bumper of the truck, vital parts of our truck would have been demolished and we would have been stranded.  Upon inspection we discovered that our truck has four radiators – one each for cooling the engine, the transmission, the power steering, and I can’t recall the fourth one.  Damage to any of these radiators would have stopped us in our tracks.

The next morning when I fired up the truck at six in the morning I was nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs watching the heat gauge rise on the radiator.  If we had even so much as a minor leak, we would have lost fluid while parked overnight.  It was with a great sense of relief that I watched the heat gauge settle in at the same spot and stay there.

Before purchasing our 2007 Dodge 2500 Cummins 5.0 turbo-diesel, we did a lot of research on the ideal pickup truck for this trip.  It has performed for us flawlessly.  It has not missed a beat, knock on wood – not even a flat tire.

Some thoughts on the blogging process… (by Peter)

Anna has some experience in blogging, but this is a first for Thomas and me.  It has been an interesting experience for all three of us.  The following are some of our observations on blogging:

1.     Posts without pictures (like this one) are boring.

2.     It takes discipline to blog on a regular basis.

3.     When we don’t blog, friends such as Sheri Steiner pepper us with impatient e-mails wondering why we are slacking off.

4.     There is a reason we “binge blog”.  We do not have regular access to Wi-Fi.  We are dependent on McDonalds, Starbucks, or our friends that will be agreeable enough to allow us to log in on their personal computers to blog.  We will frequently travel hundreds of miles without access to Wi-Fi.  When we find a hotspot, we are inclined to compile things as quickly as possible, post them, and then move on.

5.     Blogging, as we do, with a GPS signaling device giving away our exact location within 6 inches every 10 minutes has developed a class of followers on our blog, which we call the “protective stalker”.  An example of this would be a virtual friend by the name of Bob Kirk.  He is frequently more cognizant of our location than we are.  On one occasion, the batteries in our GPS died, and as a result it showed us stranded in a freeway outside of Prince George.  He e-mailed us immediately, concerned about our safety.  He points out for us in advance road conditions, and even biking trails for Thomas.  We look forward to meeting Bob in person some day.  (He has read Mom’s book through twice and was very encouraged by it.)

6.     Keep the amount of hits to our blog in perspective.  I thought we were doing rather well with our approaching 13,500 views since we left home, until I discussed it with my ever-intuitive wife.  Her reply?  That means you probably have around 100 followers, as they are each opening up your sight about five times a day – YOU do the math.

7.     Some of you keep us open on your URL all day, and flip back and forth among your activities to keep track of that “spot” that is posted every ten minutes.

8.     Blogging can be arduous, but it is generally enjoyable!  It has made the trip much more memorable.

Thanks to all of you for showing interest in our travels.

How Facebook Changes Your Life. (By Peter)

It has only been a couple of years since I started to Facebook.  I fought it for years, arguing that it was a waste of time and energy.  I had better things to do than Facebook with my friends.

Fast-forward two years.  I recognized that I would be travelling through Central Alberta where a number of my childhood friends still live.  What would be a good way to get together with them?

I asked Len and Judye Hartzler if they would mind hosting a get-together on Sunday evening at their home.  If they agreed, I would post a notice on this blog, cross-reference it with a post to Facebook, and wait to see what would occur.

Promptly at six o’clock on Sunday evening my friends started showing up, some of whom I had never met in person before.  There were approximately forty of us, and without the aid of any adult beverage we were able to enjoy each other’s company well into the wee hours of Monday morning.

I hesitate to picture post a picture of just one of these friends, but frankly, I simply can’t resist.  This “gentleman” is Tim Callaway, whom I had not met prior to Sunday evening.  For those of you who communicate with me on Facebook you will recognize the name.  Now you have a face to go with it.  If I would choose one word to describe Tim it would be irrepressible (he wishes it would be “humorous”).  He is a dear friend, but no more so than the rest of my friends – but he is one of the more unusual ones!

This one’s for you Lorraine! (by Peter)

We were under strict instructions by one of our best retailers (aren’t they all the best?!)  to post a picture of Banff, Alberta, as we motored through, this being one of her favorite vacation spots.  Unfortunately we were unable to do so.  It was dark when we arrived.

However, before arriving in Banff, we made a flying pit stop at Lake Louise.  Thomas had never been there before.  My sisters and cousins all worked at the Paradise Bungalows during their growing up years.  I had held down multiple jobs as a young man in Banff.  As a result I knew the area well.

Thomas was taken aback by the grandeur of the lake.  One of Thomas’ hobbies is handcrafting wood-strip canoes.  He couldn’t shake the thought of paddling across the lake.  The lake is completely calm due to its being quietly tucked at the base of three mountains with a glacier feeding it from the rear.  The Chateau Lake Louise, unlike most architecture, actually compliments the surroundings.  It does not have the look of a Frank Lloyd Write design, but it maximizes the synergy of nature and facilities in a similar fashion.

Just prior to pulling in at Lake Louise we travelled the Roger’s Pass from Revelstoke to Golden.  As we drove past Trail we managed to time the traversing of a train as it snaked its way through Tunnel Mountain.  If you look closely at the enclosed picture, you will see that the front end of the train is emerging from the upper level of the looped tunnel inside the mountain while the tail end of the train is disappearing from the lower entrance.