JerrysJourneys

Today marks the 25th and last day of our journey. The day began in Paducah, temperature at 96* and expecting 103*. It ended in Wetumpka, Al with a balmy wind and 87*. What a pleasant surprise. This is also my last blog entry. We had a good trip down, about a 7 hour drive. We stopped in Clarksville, Tn and were going to tour Ft. Donelson.(A Civil War fort). I got lost and about 45 minutes later got back to the interstate. After a lunch in Nashville we continued on home. We got here around 7:00pm. There were no wildlife sightings, no black bear, no moose, no caribou, no deer, no stone sheep and no grizzlies. Bear spray is intact. If anyone is going to drive to Alaska, don't buy the bear spray, I'll lend you mine. This trip covered 10,988 miles, 11 states, 4 Canadian Provinces, 4 time zones and 25 days. While we saw a lot of breathtaking scenery, Alabama is just as pretty as any place we have been. We wanted to be back by football season, which we did. We have unpacked and put aw...

Hot weather, sweet tea, grits, and SEC football......... what Canada and Alaska do not have. It is good to be back in the South, a little over 400 miles from home. Tomorrow is the last day Linda has to listen to Finebaum . We get to see the grandchildren. Tonight finds us in Paducah , Ky. We just crossed over the Ohio River, where we cooked hamburgers on the bank almost a month ago. After a great evening last night, we went to the WW I National Museum today, owned and operated by the city of Kansas City. It houses the largest collection of WW I memorabilia outside of Europe. Very educational and I recommend you attend if you are in KC. I was especially interested in the Army Air Corp displays...if only they had had helicopters. After leaving the museum we had a 7 hour drive to Paducah . We saw a Cracker Barrel and stopped for lunch. Then we really knew we were almost home. Tomorrow night we will be home and I will make my last blog entry. We'll rest up and get ready to join my high...

We left Fargo en route to Kansas City. Weather was nice, in the '60s. We drove down I29. Road was good, minor delays due to construction and arrived in Kansas City, The temperature was 101*. This was the first time we had been hot in a month. Mitch and Linda came over to the hotel and then Mitch gave us a tour of KC. A pretty town. We then went to the Majestic, a noted KC steak house. The building was a former speak easy and owned by the mob. There was an underground tunnel the mob used to go back and forth with out being seen. Quite a bit of history. The steaks were to die for. As I have said before, this has been a great trip. Said by some to be the trip of a lifetime. I hope not. We have other trips planned. I will say, the KC stop is a highlight of this trip. Anytime you can spend time with your friends and have a good meal, it is to be treasured. We are going to the WW I museum and on to Paducah , Ky' then home. Jerry

Today was an eventful day. We left Saskatoon and drove about 6 hours to the USA Border at Portal, ND The terrain was all rolling hills and ravines. In Canada the canola fields were very numerous and oil was plentiful. When we crossed over into North Dakota, the crops became wheat, sunflowers, corn and oil. Several things happened today that were of interest to us. I stopped for petrol in Canada and struck up a conversation with a gentleman from Kamloops, BC. His name is Gordon Tiessen. He drove a truck over the ALCAN back in the 50's and wrote a book about it. I shared a few of my experiences of driving a Tahoe on the same road and asked what he thought about me writing a book. He said stick with the blog. He did give me an autographed copy of his book for $15.00. Later as we approached the border, I could not but notice the customs officers were very thorough in their searches of the motoring public. So the first thing I did was to let them know I was a retired Alabama ...