Arctic Songbird Adventures

We are on our way down the Erie Canal. We successfully went down our first locks ib Lockport. There were only two other boats and one local tour boat we saw today. The marina only has one boat...us! Before and after dinner we managed to get in 8 miles of biking. Beautiful country!

Carrie and Frazier arrived in Buffalo 2 1/2 hours late which made for a 15 hour trip from Palmer so they were quite tired. I teased them that they had no reason to complain compared to my 125 hour trip getting Here! The day was filled with heavy rain showers and even though we were all soaked we had fun visiting Niagara Falls. That is one massive drop off where the water has cut through the Niagara escarpment between the great lakes. After all the sightseeing we found Panera Bread and Good Guys Pizza for a nice dinner. Frazier passed out and Carrie and I went to N Tonawanda to pose for Grandma on the webcam. It was a fun day with the family.

The pups and I have been exploring the local area and getting the boat ready to launch. There are veteran memorials all around here and it appears many men and women from this area have been involved in wars dating back a long time! The weather has been changing from hot to cold throughout the week. My friend Andy found a webcam of the Tonawanda boat harbor so I had to pose in front of it. WP (Carrie) and Frazier will be here in three hours and I look forward to them joining in for the launch and next phase of the grand adventure. Every time I mention their names, the dogs run to the back of the boat and look for them. I had some yummy NY pizza the other night from a local shop, where I met a man who asked if he could take a picture of my license plate, not ever seeing anyone all the way from AK in these parts! Lot of fun and super nice people. My new boat neighbor, Dave, gave me a tour of the local area and I have greatly enjoyed his company. We will tour Niagara Falls next, and t...

It was quite an exciting drive but we made it to NY in one piece. Day one was the longest at 795 miles. The next day we saw lots of black bear, bison, Caribou, elk, a coyote,  a red fox, and dozens of porcupine along the road. We ended up stuck in a freak snowstorm which dumped 14-16 inches of wet snow and made it extremely difficult to drive. I didn't think to bring a shovel to dig myself out of the 30" berm the snowplow sent into my Truck! 3rd day was snow and then heavy rain and wind making it too difficult to continue into Saskatoon so we camped in a convenience store parking lot. Day four was back in the states into ND when I literally was stopped due to billions of bugs that splattered the front of the truck so fast I could not see out of the windshield. Don't drive in ND in May when the sun goes down! Day 5 was beautiful in MN, WI, and upper MI. I saw the Great Lakes for the first time and they are awesome. The last leg of the drive was 610 miles back into Cana...

Yesterday was a long day finalizing the packing and organizing the boat for the long journey ahead. This monumental expedition would not be possible without Carrie's organizational skills and ability to put 10 pounds of stuff in a 5 gallon location. I got 5.5 hours of sleep at best and woke to a crystal clear Alaska morning. Going to hitch up, have a quick bite to eat, drop Frazier off at school, and start motoring northeast toward New York! Those pesky 18,000 foot mountains prevent me from actually driving toward NY for the first 300 miles so around them I go. A very exciting day and God has blessed us with this glorious morning to begin! Carrie and Frazier.....see you in NY next week! Here we go....Brian, Gibson, and Gracie!!!!

The boat is nearly packed full with two months worth of STUFF! Everything is fitting in a cubby, compartment, hatch, bucket, or box but we need a table of contents to remember where everything is! The cockpit just got a little more space with a custom throw together bike rack I built for the cabin top. If we just had an old mattress to throw up there we could officially rename this as the Palmer Hillbilly Adventure.

I am getting excited for the journey to begin. Carrie has been adding to our luxury with compact items and now we have a mini....toaster, blender, coffeemaker, and hair dryer. Each item is 800 watts or less which allows us to use our Honda 1000W generator for power. One of the most important things is we  have a shower on board! A sun shower and a curtain for the back deck will definitely be luxury! I installed towel hooks too so now I don't have to stand by and be the towel holder! Now....where does the washer and dryer fit in! I guess we need a bucket of quarters for the laundry facilities we will visit!