miura-adventure.comLife should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "WOW, WHAT A RIDE!!!!"

We arrived in Whitehorse at noon and set up camp at High Country RV park, one of the nicest private campgrounds we have found on our journey.

On Saturday, we took a family bike ride into town. The paved path hugged the beautiful Yukon river. We picnicked near the Visitor’s Center after watching a 20 minute movie on the amazing Yukon. Ken made yummy salmon sandwiches and we sat overlooking the Yukon river, watching dogs jump in to retrieve sticks. The day was sunny and we had clear views of the mountains that encircled the area. By late in the day, those same mountains would not be visible due to the smoke from the fires in the area.

We followed the bike path to the “fish ladder” and the Whitehorse Power Plant. The fish ladder is used for the salmon migration up the Yukon river with their big arrival sometime in mid August. It’s the longest migration of salmon, an arduous 2000 mile journey UP the Yukon River to the exact location where they were born. The females lay their eggs (up to 5000!) and then die at their birthplace. Isn’t nature amazing?

Today we take off for Tok Alaska, the crossroads for everyone traveling north or south in Alaska. The road is touted as being very challenging so we will see how we survive!

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The drive to Skagway was beautiful as we hugged the long lake of Lake Tutshi much of the way from Watson Lake. The last 10 miles of our trek were shrouded in fog, so dense that we could barely go over 10 miles per hour. We knew the landscape was amazing but we couldn’t see any of it!

We arrived in the town of Skagway to find the streets filled with people. Cruise ship passengers who were checking out the town from one of FOUR cruise ships docked in the bay. Driving down the small streets in our RV made us feel like a big bull in a china shop. We set up home at Pullen RV Park with a clear view of the bay and all the ships. The day was cool and cloudy, which is what we expected.

The next day we awoke to bright sunshine and amazing views of the snow capped ragged mountains dropping into the bay. Spectacular to say the least. I took the girls into town to do some shopping while Ken and Andrew took off to do some salmon fishing. The girls and I had such fun as we have not been anywhere worthy of shopping in a very long time. Andrew and Ken arrived home with four pink salmon. This was just the beginning of a euphoric Alaskan fishing experience for Andrew. Her could barely speak he was so excited about “catching” in Alaska! That night we took Nikki out for her birthday dinner since we weren’t in any town with restaurants worth eating at since her birthday last week. We went to a really cool little restaurant with a view of the harbor and enjoyed fresh halibut (since we knew we had enough salmon at home for awhile!) Really special dinner for a really special daughter!

Very near to our RV park was a creek which spilled into a pond. This pond was full (I mean FULL) of KING salmon. We watched fisherman after fisherman hook a big King but no one could keep a hold of them and land them. Well that all changed when Andrew landed a big 50 pound King. You have never seen a happier boy! Many people from the cruise ships were passing by and heard the comossion. When he held it up for a photo, the crowd cheered! He went on to land another one and then become a mentor to other young fishermen. Andrew also gave Kevin (a very nice gentleman from New Zealand) the pool to reel in a big one. Kevin never landed one but he sure gave the fish a big fight!

Skagway is home to a small National Park. We stopped by and watched a film on the Klondike Gold Rush. Great story! Seems some residents of the Dawson City area found gold in 1896. Word spread fast and within months, people from all over the world were making the trek to the Klondike River near Dawson City. Gold mania was rampant and people were leaving their jobs in search of fortune. Even the mayor of Seattle resigned and headed to the Klondike River. It took more than a year to make the trek through abominable conditions and each person was required (by the Canadian government) to bring with them a TON of supplies, literally. Canada wanted to avoid a famine (a noble cause) but these gold seekers would be burdened with these supplies for hundreds upon hundreds of miles. On April 3 1898, there was a huge avalanche during and over 100 of the trekkers perished. We visited the “Slide Cemetery” in the town of Dyea. Few found gold as most of it had already been discovered by the time they arrived. But almost every person who made the trek said they would do it again as it was an experience of a lifetime. Pretty cool!

We met a very nice couple, Donna and Bob, who told us about Dyea. As history goes, this is the town where all the masses of people coming for the Klondike Gold Rush set up camp before making the trek by foot down one of the passes. The main camp later moved to Skagway leaving Dyea a simple and beautiful port with little activity. We enjoyed a picnic along the river in Dyea and Andrew did some fly fishing. Ken told the girls that the first of them to catch a salmon from the stream with their bare hands would be awarded $5. Half an hour later, Lauren emerged as the winner with a big female salmon in hand. There was a lot of screaming and excitement as you can imagine! Later, Nikki (with a little help from Daddy) reeled in a big pink salmon. She looked so proud with her catch! (Although getting her to eat it is a different story!)

We left Skagway full of great memories. Heck, Lauren and Andrew even want to live here one day! We are now off to Whitehorse, the capitol of the Yukkon.

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We decided to plan a two night stay in Fort Nelson so we wouldn’t be traveling on Nikki’s 12^thbirthday. Turns out that Fort Nelson is one of the most basic towns on the planet and the campground was ever so basic as well. Nikki was happy not to be traveling on her birthday but had a craving to shop. Shopping was not something I could offer in this town although we did try to find something in the morning. All we found was  a Movie Gallery store where we rented the first season of Grey’s Anatomy for watching later in the day.  Since there was nothing to do outside of our simple campground, the day focused on food! Nikki awoke to homemade crepes (thank you Daddy!), taco salad for lunch (ala Mommy) then Daddy’s famous potato balls for dinner. Warm brownies with ice cream and whipped cream ended the day full of carbs! Nikki was oh so happy to receive the top gift on her birthday list – a red ipod (red was her request as some of the money goes towards children with AIDS in Africa) and she spent most of the day setting up all her songs. Nikki’s 12^th birthday was a memorable day and I am sure we will look back and chuckle when we think of Fort Nelson on her 13^th birthday.

We met some really great people at the campground who cycled in from Fairbanks. Ward and Jacky were great to chat with and we were so impressed to learn they have biked in 46 countries so far! They were biking with an Englishman, John, who they met along the way and added the SPOT GPS unit to the trek. Now everyone knows where this trio is located at any moment. Ward and Jacky visit schools and give the students a piece of paper and a pencil. They ask the children to write down their dreams as “with paper and a pencil, you can create anything!” We plan to keep track of them through their website, www.fromthebenchesoftheworld.com.

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We have heard from many people how a stop at Liards Hot Springs is a MUST! We are so glad we made the stop as it was really amazing. The Hot Springs (110 F) were about a ½ mile walk along a nice boardwalk through meadows and a forest. We all soaked in the hot water enjoying the relaxation of the beautiful natural setting and the cool rain which lasted for only a few minutes. We woke up early the next day to have a quick soak before heading off to the Yukon!

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On Thursday, we took off for Pike’s Place in downtown Seattle. Ken took me to Seattle many years ago and I have never forgotten Pike’s Place.   It is foody heaven!  We started our eating agenda at a Russian Bakery with a yummy combination of goodies that were all filled with everything from smoked salmon to marzipan. Oh how fat I would be if we went there everyday!  I was craving a good cappuccino and found myself inside the ORIGINAL Starbucks!  It was pretty cool to be where the coffee craze all started.  The Starbucks sign was brown and beige, not the green we see today.  Quite fun!  We all ate our goodies overlooking beautiful Puget Sound.  Pike’s Place is a wonderful shopping experience and houses one of the most beautiful flower markets in the world.  You could smell the sweetness of the flowers throughout the whole place.  We passed many people selling everything from leather journals (Andrew bought one make of bison leather with paper from handmade cotton), to pure honey (had to get some of that!) to amazing fruit (we bought a ton of cherries) to HUGE fish (counting on Andrew to catch us some salmon in Alaska!)  A guy ordered a big halibut and salmon and they THREW the fish to the filet table and shouted the whole time.  All part of the fun show!

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We left Seattle early en route for the Canadian border.  We were ready with all our paperwork including passports.  The gal at the booth was very friendly and we passed through with no problems.  We did have to toss some of our fruit out (why I don’t know) and the pass through for our RV was SO tight that I can’t believe Ken made it through without a scratch.  We were in Canada (the second country to visit on our RV trip) and that was very exciting! 

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When Andrew was little, he tried to call Ken’s mother by the Japanese name for grandmother,  Oba-chan.  All that emerged from his little mouth was “Tun”.  This name stayed with her for 13 years.  On July 4 2009, our beloved Tun passed away.  She was an amazing woman and we will miss her very much. 

When Tun was just 43 years old, her husband (Ken’s father) passed away from cancer.  With two growing children (Ellen was 13 and Ken 10), she found herself standing at many crossroads.  She spoke little English,  had no business background and was being encouraged to return to Japan.  She decided to stay in Los Angeles and raise her children in America.  She  opened  “Miura Market” in the San Fernando Valley and managed to send Ellen and Ken to private Catholic school.  This small framed woman was huge in her desire to give her children a wonderful childhood and will forever be their hero. 

Tun loved to travel and eat all kinds of different foods.  When Ken moved to Switzerland for work, she and Ellen visited this beautiful country.  Tun fell in love with Switzerland.  She returned again to Europe and visited many other countries.  When we lived in Brazil, Tun came over several times and fell in love with Brazil as well.

This is part of Andrew’s speech at Tun’s funeral.  It is a sweet memory.  Isn’t that what life is all about – creating as many wonderful memories as possible in our own book of life?

“One time when we visited her, we drove all the way from Arizona when she was at her nursing home.  We would bring her something fun to eat like sushi or something she didn’t usually get at her nursing home.  One day, we brought her ice tea.  But, knowing Tun, what she really liked was beer!  So we went out to our motor home, dumped out all the ice tea and filled the cup with beer.  (Because you know nursing home don’t let you bring in beer!!)  We snuck in the “ice tea”, put a straw in it and handed it  to Tun.  She took a sip and a huge smile came across her face.  She loved the beer!  I will miss Tun and I will have memories of being with her that will last a lifetime.  I am so glad I had her as my grandma.”

Tun brought us all together and it was really wonderful to visit with Ken’s family. Ken’s sister and daughter (Ellen and Aimee) visited from Sunrise Florida. Aimee is just three weeks younger than Lauren and is more like a sister to our kids than a cousin. Ellen and Aimee spent several nights with us in our RV and Aimee played in the campground pool with our kids while Ellen and Ken ran errands. Ken’s aunt and uncle (Chieko and Donald) live in Sun Valley and they are always very welcoming and Chieko keeps us well feed with her yummy food. Ken’s aunt, Noriko, flew in from Japan. Noriko is such an upbeat and positive person. She and her family live in Kawasaki Japan and we “pinky promised” to visit them soon. We can’t wait to show our kids Japan as they will surely fall in love with the country. Ken’s cousin, Aileen, flew in from Boise Idaho with her darling daughter McKenzie. We visited Aileen’s family in Boise last year and our kids got to know McKenzie really well. It was a great reunion. Ken has another cousin, Kathleen, who we got to spend time with along with her husband John and their three young adorable daughters (two of which are twins). It’s great to see Kathleen and John as parents and how great they are with their big family! Jimmy is one of Ken’s cousins who visited with his wife Mikki. They are looking at buying a house in the Pasadena area and Ken chatted at length with Jimmy about some do’s and don’ts of buying your first house. Haruko flew in from Hawaii with her husband Takeshi and it was fun to chat with her and her sister, Masako. Ellen’s best friend, Ruth, was a great help during this time and helped us immensely during the gathering after the funeral. While the event behind this big reunion was difficult, it reminded us all how great a family we have and how much we enjoy spending time with each other.

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Our beloved “Tun” bestowed many “gifts” on her two children and one of them was her love of food.   That love of the culinary arts has been passed down to our children through Ken and it sure makes life more interesting!  During the time when we were not visiting Tun, we  visited many of her  favorites eateries throughout the Los Angeles area.  If only she could sit alongside us and enjoy it with us.  .  .  

One of her favorite places is “El Tepeyac”, a famous Mexican hole in the wall in East L.A.  We were greeted by Manual who has owned and operated this place for more than 50 years.  He humbly boosts  his many “jobs” which include  bouncer, wife stealer and  flirt.   Whoever this funny man is there is one thing for sure, he makes the BEST and BIGGEST burritos anywhere!  Ken and Andrew shared “Manuel’s Special” which is a 5 pound bundle of joy.  They almost finished it too!  Our niece Amiee joined us and we girls  had smaller versions (a mere 2 pounds) and managed to make another few meals out of them.  We also ate at the famous fish market in downtown L.A.  with Aimee and Ken’s sister Ellen.  We had shrimp and crab salads which were SO loaded with shrimp and crab that we couldn’t finish them!  (How often does that happen??)  All for a mere $8.95.  Such a deal!   Ken and Ellen stopped by Philippe’s,  the restaurant that INVENTED the French Dip sandwich.   We also stopped at  the original Tommy Burger (on Beverly and Rampart), King Taco (a place Ken used to take me when we were dating) and Orochan Ramen.  This last place is actually new to us and after seeing it on the Food Channel, we knew we had to make a stop.  They brag about having the HOTTEST ramen anywhere.  The challenge – Eat the number TWO ramen in 30 minutes or less and  you get your picture on their “wall of flame!”  Ken wasn’t up to the challenge but the guy behind us was and he actually did it!  He is now one of only 12 who have accomplished this challenge.  After he finished,  he looked a bit off color and admitted to having rid himself of the ramen.  (I will save the details!) 

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Near the end of our time in the Los Angeles area, we drove out to beautiful Carpenteria (a seaside town south of Santa Barbara) and got together with my brother-in-law Kurt (Gretch’s husband), our three nephews, Ryan (17), Weston and Kyle (14) and his bride-to-be Gina with her two adorable girls Haily (15) and Chrissy (11).  It was SO wonderful to ALL be together and Kurt really seems happy.  Gina is a great person and her daughters are very sweet.   This seems to be a wonderful new family unit and we are very happy for everyone.   We watched Ryan’s basketball team play a great game and enjoyed Foster’s Freeze as a celebration desert! 

The next day, we drove out to Orange County to my sister Robin’s house.  Her and Steve recently renovated their backyard and it feels like you are relaxing at a beautiful spa hotel.  Our friends Rich and Mary joined us for the yummy BBQ along with their kids Katie and Dan.  The date was July 11 which happened to be Gretch’s birthday.  Robin and I toasted our wonderful sister and shared some special memories.  She is still so dearly missed by us all. 

Tomorrow we depart Valencia California after 16 days.  We are ready to return to our life on the road and plan to reach Canada within four days followed by our much anticipated destination,  Alaska .  It has been a difficult two weeks yet we know in our hearts that Tun is at peace.  She lived a full and wonderful life and we are all the better for having had her in our lives.

 We were so excited to return to Montana.  We visited this awesome state last year and fell in love with it!  We remember driving through the town of Bozeman and saying to ourselves, “We have GOT to return to this cool town!”   We could totally see ourselves living in Montana in the future.  We would just have to go somewhere WARM during the cold Montana winters.  We camped at a neat private campground which had a great pool, a huge BBQ area (which we used one afternoon for a hamburger cookout) and a beautiful view of the rolling hills.  We found a cool coffee place and visited it 2  mornings in a row.  One evening, we dropped the four kids off at “Transformers 2” (or whatever it’s called!) and Ken and I took off for a wonderful dinner sans kids.  We sat outside at the Montana Ale Works and had such a nice time.  This is definitely a town worth visiting and we hope to visit again soon. 

On Tuesday, we received a call that Ken’s mother’s health was very poor.  After reviewing our options, we decided it was vitally important that we ALL go visit “Tun”  (the kid’s nickname for her).  So on Thursday morning, we took Austen to the airport for his scheduled 6:30AM flight (we sure LOVED having him with us!) and we all took off for Los Angeles, 1200 miles south.   We knew this was the best decision and I have to applaud Ken for his ability to drive over 1200 in just TWO DAYS!  We were in Los Angeles by Friday night and were so glad we make the trek. 

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We left South Dakota en route for the famous Devil’s Tower. This national monument was made even more famous by the movie, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (which we watched in its (LONG) entirety the night before our visit). On our way to Wyoming, we made a stop in Deadwood. This town is pretty cool on the exterior and it has a lot of history. We saw the bar where “Wild Bill Hicock” was shot dead. I am sure other bar brawls took place in this town but that was the most famous. Most of the buildings house casinos now which was a bit of a bummer. We hoped to experience a bit more of the authentic wild west as opposed to something more like Vegas! We then drove by Sturgis which is home to the biggest motorcycle rally in the world. One week out of the year (this year the rally is at the beginning of August), the town of Sturgis welcomes over 500,000 people on motorcycles. It must be quite the party! The town is completey DEAD for the other 51 weeks out of the year. We figured the businesses in town probably make enough in one week to last them all year!

When we arrived at Devil’s Tower, we were really blown away. We drove by rolling hills, prairies and small rock formations. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, this amazing huge formation appears known as Devil’s Tower.  We camped at the national campground near the Tower and when we awoke, it was as if the Tower was in our backyard. We took the 2 mile hike around the Tower and got to view it from all different angles. It really reminded us of a HUGE tree truck! Indian folklore tells the story of 7 young sisters who had wandered towards the area where the tower now “towers!” They were chased by a large bear and ran to a rock which was only 3 feet tall and stood on top of it. They asked the rock to help them. The rock heard them and started growing towards the sky. The bear clawed at the rock, making big long claw marks on the tower’s walls.   The bear’s claws fell off and it died at the base. There are seven stars above the Tower and these stars are said to be the seven sisters. The kids just loved hearing this story and enjoyed retelling it to each other.

Andrew’s friend Austen was with us which added to our fun. Andrew and Austen went tubing down the nearby river and caught a snapping turtle along the way! Glad the turtle didn’t snap off their swimshorts (or one of their toes!) We left Devil’s Tower with great memories. Montana here we come!

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South Dakota wasn’t on our list of “must-see” states and having now spent some time here, I have to say it is an AMAZING state and totally worth a visit. We spent our first night at a campground on the Missouri River. The rolling hills and beauty were reminiscent of Northern California without all the people! On the way to our next destination, we were caught in a huge hail storm. Many cars literally parked IN the traffic lanes under the overpasses to protect their cars which made the traffic back up for miles. I was SO afraid one of those little hail pellets would crack our windshield but we made it through the storm unscathed!

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We arrived in Hill City and set up camp along a beautiful creek. The main attractions of this area are Mt. Rushmore, the Badlands, Black Hills National Park and Custer State Park. We visited Mt. Rushmore today and it was spectacular. We took a walking tour and learned about the sculptor, Gutzon Borblum who, with the help of 400 workers, carved out this monument back in the late 1920s. He was the person who chose the four presidents, (Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt) and we learned the reasons behind his choices. Very educational day!

Behind our campground was a 100 mile bike path (part of the “rails to trails” program). It was so amazing and took us on a slight incline up through flowering meadows, alongside creeks and into dense forest. It was my favorite bike path, so far! Because we were going slightly uphill, the ride home was a BLAST as we coasted all the way (16 miles round trip). Really made us feel a part of nature and physically fit at the same time!

Andrew and Austen are having such a great time together, sleeping outside and putting fish traps out in the creek. There is a great playground and a basketball court here so they were busy all day long. Austen is a great boy and we are really enjoying having him with us on our adventure!

Now onto “Devil’s Tower” and the site of the movie, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind!” We plan to watch this movie tonight as part of our preparation!

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