Exploring Natural Wonders from Montana to Denali

What if you could experience the untamed beauty of America through the eyes of an avid traveler? Join us as we welcome back Tandy Hammond, Director of Southlake Cares, for a thrilling adventure from Iowa to Alaska, filled with breathtaking landscapes and unforgettable wildlife encounters. From the majestic beauty of Montana to the awe-inspiring Yellowstone National Park, Tandy's vivid storytelling takes you on a journey through rivers, unexpected May snow, and a magical moment with a herd of bison crossing the road.

Ever wondered what it's like to explore Canada in an RV? Tandy shares the sheer joy and convenience of RV travel, likening it to a hassle-free cruise on wheels. In Banff, we discover natural wonders like Bow Falls and a unique cave home to a rare snail species. We even delve into some intriguing trivia about Russia’s time zones and discuss practical tips for extending your RV adventure. Get ready to uncover the flexibility and freedom that makes RV travel an unbeatable way to experience the open road.

The adventure doesn't stop there. We travel along the historic Alcan Trail, brimming with World War II significance, uncovering hidden gems like Jade City and the whimsical Sign Forest. Tandy’s essential travel tips, from keeping copies of important documents handy to navigating unexpected challenges like forest fires, are invaluable. Finally, our conversation concludes with charming anecdotes from Alaska, where Tandy's encounters with local cuisine and serene destinations like Tok and Denali leave you inspired to plan your own epic journey. Tune in and let your wanderlust take flight with Tandy’s incredible travel stories!

Check out Great Alaskan Holidays.

Chapters

• 0:01 Exploring Montana and Yellowstone National Park
• 13:36 RV Trip Through Canada
• 17:55 Alcan Trail Adventure and Exploration
• 27:43 Travel Document Tips and Road Adventures
• 42:16 Travel Podcast Interview With Z Michelson

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

Welcome to the Z Michelson Travel Podcast. This podcast is devoted to the travel industry. Z says let your imagination run wild and start dreaming about where you want to go. And dream big, reach for the stars, and if you only get to the moon, at least you enjoyed the trip. Your guide to travel is Z Michelson, a travel advisor, and sitting at the controls is Jay Lawrence, your concierge of podcast travel. Now here's Z.

Speaker 2 0:25

That's me. I'm Z Now. Jay, I know that you were very excited last weekend. I didn't get all Montana in for you yes. So what we did was we invited Tandy Hammond back.

Speaker 3 0:36

All right.

Speaker 2 0:39

Last week, of course, we had a guest in our studio who could not finish telling us all about her adventures of rediscovering America. It was just like a cliffhanger on your favorite TV show. So we did bring her back. Today I'm hanging You're hanging, but I want to let everybody know that we are being brought to you by Collage Travel Media Network.

Speaker 3 0:57

Bingo.

Speaker 2 0:57

Which is home to Collage Travel Radio.

Speaker 3 0:59

And ZMAX Radio.

Speaker 2 1:01

Got live. Yes, so there you have it. But because Jay is so excited and wants to get back to Montana, I want to get right to Tandy.

Speaker 3 1:11

Tandy, welcome to the show Tandy Tandy.

Speaker 2 1:12

Tandy Tandy, tandy Hannon, director of Southlake Cares, welcome back, and we're going to have to talk a little bit more about Montana, just for Jay.

Speaker 4 1:21

Okay, okay. It's good to be here. We enjoyed Montana way more than we anticipated. Okay, so a little recap.

Speaker 2 1:29

Tandy and her husband and two other couples all hopped in RVs courtesy of Great Alaskan Holidays. They were about 28 to 32 feet long.

Speaker 3 1:40

Class Cs.

Speaker 2 1:41

They were Class Cs and they were able to go from Iowa up to Alaska. So now we're in Montana.

Speaker 3 1:51

By the way, my sister's looking at getting a Class C.

Speaker 2 1:54

Your sister. She already has two. Now she had two.

Speaker 3 1:57

Well no, they were Class C's, they were fifth wheels. Fifth wheels, yeah. So they're looking at fifth. So now they're in Montana. So now they're in Montana.

Speaker 2 2:05

So now they're in Montana. We talked a little bit about Bozeman, but you guys not only did Bozeman, you did something else.

Speaker 4 2:12

Oh yes. So our friends had already been to Yellowstone National Park, so they spent the day in Bozeman while we my husband and I we took off for Yellowstone Yellowstone's such a small place isn't it? Yeah, I had no idea that place is huge.

Speaker 3 2:30

We entered and then we still had Miles to go.

Speaker 4 2:31

Yeah, I think we drove an hour and a half before we got to Old Faithful.

Speaker 2 2:37

Old Faithful, where you have to walk. You walk on ramps, apparently Little wooden ramps.

Speaker 4 2:42

Well, you know, we weren't paying too much attention to how far to walk. We were paying attention to it started snowing like giant snowflakes while we were out there and we weren't expecting it, and this was in May.

Speaker 2 2:53

In May, Snow in May, I understand. I used to live upstate New York. We had a blizzard May 7th, a day that will live in infamy in my brain.

Speaker 4 3:02

Right, like we weren't prepared, we did pack layers Right.

Speaker 2 3:06

Which saves you a lot.

Speaker 4 3:08

But we were not prepared for that.

Speaker 2 3:10

So tell us about what Yellowstone looks like. A lot of people they just think Old Faithful and nothing else is there.

Speaker 4 3:16

Yeah, when you first enter the park, you're just driving in what is not just beautiful scenery, it's absent of so much that we normally see when we're taking pictures. You know, commercial buildings, lots of lines that are electricity and all that.

Speaker 2 3:35

And this is when you're driving up and into, Just up and into.

Speaker 4 3:39

Yeah it's just wall-to-wall wild.

Speaker 2 3:43

You feel like you're out west. You showed me pictures the other day with bison. Was that in?

Speaker 4 3:49

Montana. Yes, so on the way to Old Faithful, we're like why is everybody slowing down?

Speaker 3 3:54

Well, the unique thing about going into the park, there are like four different entrances and they're all totally different.

Speaker 4 4:01

Right.

Speaker 3 4:02

And so you went in. What the west entrance?

Speaker 4 4:04

So we were going in from the northwest okay and um. So we which is odd, but we kind of circled around and so we were going south, and um, yeah, you get into more, more and more dense wildlife, you're you're constantly seeing water. Um, so we traveled alongside a lot of rivers.

Speaker 2 4:25

Oh, it was a river, yeah, so you see the rivers.

Speaker 4 4:29

And then we saw some bison from far away, and so we pulled over and there was a river between us and them and so we thought, well, this is safe, we'll take a picture. And we did. Well, that's good. Then we got back in our vehicle only to realize we were getting ready to get much closer to bison. They were crossing the road, a whole herd of them, oh wow, and there was a park ranger out amongst them who evidently thought he was very safe, which I didn't get out of my RV.

Speaker 1 4:59

I did not feel safe.

Speaker 4 5:01

But you know, bison are like they don't see very well, so they were trying to. They had babies, they were baby bison.

Speaker 2 5:10

Everywhere Because it was spring, it was late spring.

Speaker 3 5:14

They would be very protective at that point.

Speaker 4 5:16

Yeah, so we were kind of amazed that he thought he was okay and he was okay.

Speaker 2 5:22

Well, he probably works around them quite a bit, so he knows how close and how not close to be with them you know, meg and I were in yellowstone and my wife used to take pictures and she was out.

Speaker 3 5:33

She got out of the car. Oh, I will go close to take a picture, which you're not supposed to do right and suddenly she she felt the ground moving Thumb, thumb, thumb and she got back in the car.

Speaker 4 5:47

Yeah, right, so they were coming to say hello.

Speaker 1 5:50

I'm not sure if the pants were wet or not Right.

Speaker 2 5:53

Yeah, yeah, I mean they are beautiful animals, they're very large, they are huge. People don't realize how big the bison are. You know, I'm still on the controversial shelf of saying bison and buffalo Right, but yeah, so I mean they're absolutely gorgeous. But, like I said, I always tease my husband because he's from South Dakota and he's always taking me out there and he's saying, oh, the bison are out here in the Black Hills and I keep saying to him, no, they're not.

Speaker 4 6:30

Because every time I'm there I never see them. That's how I feel about the bears.

Speaker 2 6:31

We go to alaska all the time and I have only seen a bear from like two football fields away, when someone else pointed them out, but on this trip I quit counting at 10 bears. Oh wow, we saw a lot of bears that in all the different states. Yes, okay, that was all the way through. Now, what we haven't really talked about is the rv that she was in. How comfortable, comfortable was it.

Speaker 4 6:44

Oh, now I will say we've rented other RVs and like we've rented a fifth wheel, we've, we've, we've been trying different ones of them because, we're curious about whether we want to buy one one day, right?

Speaker 2 6:56

You never know.

Speaker 4 6:57

This was very comfortable. We had no idea that the class C would be so convenient, as you're driving you know, like that the Class C would be so convenient as you're driving. Oh, okay, like because my husband doesn't like to stop and periodically I need to stop for biological reasons. It's a guy-girl thing yeah and, like I didn't feel bad, I could drink as much water as I wanted because I knew I wasn't going to have to ask.

Speaker 1 7:20

So that was very neat, I also could wash my hands.

Speaker 4 7:23

I also could crochet. I could make his lunch.

Speaker 1 7:26

It was just nice.

Speaker 4 7:27

Now what about the beds?

Speaker 2 7:29

Were they comfortable.

Speaker 4 7:29

Were they comfortable? Actually, I felt like our beds were very comfortable, and my husband did too. One of the other couples at one of our stops bought an egg crate to unroll on theirs because they wanted some more softness, more mushy.

Speaker 2 7:42

Now, these were Winnebago's that you guys were all in.

Speaker 4 7:45

It felt very sturdy in comparison to some other RVs we've been in.

Speaker 2 7:49

Now I know there's a burning question in everybody's mind saying oh my gosh, an RV. What was the gas like?

Speaker 4 7:56

Okay, so we traveled. I think, when it was all said and done, it was 4,300 miles.

Speaker 2 8:04

Okay.

Speaker 4 8:04

That's a bit, and I want to say that we spent right at $1,500 on fuel. That's not too bad. Considering the size of the vehicle that you're in and how far you're traveling along, that really isn't too bad. So what's interesting is because these are brand new RVs if you know something about mechanics that first 500 miles is some of your most expensive time of using gas, and so then we saw a drop after that of gas mileage got better at that point.

Speaker 2 8:36

And, of course, if you wanted to stop, you did have the ability. Did you have generators and things like that? If you wanted to stop in the middle of nowhere?

Speaker 4 8:44

Yeah, so we did some what they call dry docking. We did some of that between.

Speaker 2 8:52

Yeah, we did some of that Did some of that, and you also mentioned that you went to quite a few of the KOAs.

Speaker 4 8:59

Yeah, we've camped a lot before, but one of our guys reserved this first KOA that we stayed at on the west side of Glacier National Park, right, and I went to him and I said, listen, eric, this was a win. Like I would tell people who don't RV to come here and rent one of these cabins, because this was a nice campground.

Speaker 2 9:21

Nice.

Speaker 4 9:23

It actually won an award in 2017, and I could see why.

Speaker 2 9:26

Do you remember the exact name of that in particular campground area?

Speaker 4 9:28

It's West Glacier National Park, koa.

Speaker 2 9:33

Oh, there you go. There's that little inside Inside Park KOA. Oh, there you go, there's that little inside Inside. So now we're sitting in Montana and we heard how nice the camper, the camper, the RVs were and how nice that campsites are. Was there any place else in Yellowstone or Bozeman or Montana that you went to?

Speaker 4 9:57

Yeah so, and there's some places we would go back to too. I didn't realize like, on the way to see Old Faithful there's a lot of other geysers along the way. Oh yeah, and it dawned on me like we're on a volcano here. You know, like I didn't know why, like when will this explode? Right, but I had never really put that together. They have these places that smell like sulfur.

Speaker 1 10:17

Right, it's heavily sulfur.

Speaker 4 10:17

Put that together, they have these places that smell like sulfur, which is like a terrible smell, but the water looks like the Caribbean only too dangerous to touch right and chemical-wise. You wouldn't want to touch it either.

Speaker 2 10:29

Right, I'm highly allergic to sulfur, so I'd probably have to look at these things from a helicopter because I couldn't be anywhere near the scent of the sulfur.

Speaker 3 10:37

Even with the windows up, you could smell I would.

Speaker 2 10:39

I would be definitely out of out of touch. Yeah, but did you go anywhere else in montana or did you just move?

Speaker 4 10:46

on from there, just the national, the, the I'm sorry national park, yes, but um the glacier national park which is in the north part of montana. We drove across Glacier National Park Right, because Glacier National Park wasn't open quite yet Right. It really doesn't open until June. However, we were amazed at what all we were able to see by driving across it. Oh yeah, and you know, we said, oh, this is a place we would come back to. And now we know that.

Speaker 2 11:17

Montana is very wide open country, that's for sure.

Speaker 4 11:20

Yeah, and some beautiful rivers, good fishing. If we go back, we will definitely whitewater raft. There's no question about that. That's an activity my husband and I both we like whitewater rafting Really rough whitewater rafting, really rough white water rafting.

Speaker 2 11:38

Oh yeah, I really get into it.

Speaker 4 11:40

We both did that together. Before we ever dated. We were all in a bible study class together that went every year. We would do class five and sixes.

Speaker 2 11:49

So yeah, we got pretty serious about it wow well, there you go. Sandy hammond is a wild woman on the wild water. Well, not quite, not quite as wild as my husband with activity, but yeah, I like it it's great, so now get her in canada, I'm moving on to canada, because I know that you left montana and you kept going north and you went to canada. Yeah, and where did you?

Speaker 4 12:16

go in Canada. Well, I'm going to say this too, because this was a fear that we had. Crossing the border was actually really easy with our passports.

Speaker 2 12:27

You've never crossed the border into Canada.

Speaker 4 12:28

We have, but not in a vehicle, oh really. So I've done that on a cruise.

Speaker 2 12:36

I've been back and forth to Canada so many times Like my head spins and I've done it with the airport, but I've never driven across the border like that and it went really well.

Speaker 4 12:46

It's pretty easy. Yeah, it's pretty easy.

Speaker 3 12:48

And now everybody needs a passport, you had to use a passport.

Speaker 2 12:51

Yeah, they don't stamp it. No, no Passports in canada. We never really had to use a passport years ago going into canada. Um same with mexico, believe it or not, but now, the way everything is in the world, passports are required to go either direction. Um so, but it's pretty easy getting into canada and if you know if you're a good person and not a criminal, you can come and go pretty easily so the southern part of canada, though, was a lot of farmland, oh yeah, so that's what we first saw, uh, and it was, wow, windy oh yeah, which matters in an rv, because you're going into I think you're going into british columbia yes, so we were alberta.

RV Trip Through Canada

Speaker 4 13:33

Okay, albert and then we then we ended up in British Columbia.

Speaker 2 13:36

Now you went to a little place called Banff.

Speaker 4 13:39

Yeah, yeah. You know, what's really funny is like some of our people were excited about Banff. I had never heard of Banff, but, wow, what a great place. We would go back there. We've already sent some friends a message like, hey, do you want to go to banff with us? One time.

Speaker 2 13:58

It is an amazing area and it's very holiday-esque. You can do a lot of things there.

Speaker 3 14:03

You know skiing, staying yeah I've heard, I've heard it's very pretty it is.

Speaker 4 14:08

they have a beautiful hotel there on the river. They have, uh, bow falls is a place that we went there, which was beautiful. And then we went to this other cave, which, what's really funny is, I have refused to go into any caves after watching Planet Earth about the caves Because there's some gross things in those things. But I was like, look, I read about this cave and I'd really like to go there, and my husband jumped on that because he was just excited that I was willing.

Speaker 2 14:43

You're willing to go into a cave. That was pretty cool and you threw away your Tom Sawyer book and said go in the cave.

Speaker 4 14:49

There's a cave there with a body of water that has a snail that only lives there, nowhere else in the cave in that water yeah, which, if you're into biology, which I kind of am, um, that was pretty exciting and fun, yeah, and I'm assuming that canada was a bit chilly as well yes, it snowed there too now you went into was bam first yeah, that was really our first stop in Canada and we spent the night there. That was one of our dinners out.

Speaker 2 15:23

Oh, that was one of your dinners out Were you at a KOA campsite as well.

Speaker 4 15:27

We were not at a KOA campsite there. Where were we? What was that campsite?

Speaker 3 15:33

You didn't stay in the hotel, did you?

Speaker 4 15:35

No, we stayed in the RV.

Speaker 2 15:37

We stayed in the RV. You couldn't leave it.

Speaker 4 15:40

Well, and here's the thing, that was the trip, and what I liked about the RV is that we weren't constantly packing, and unpacking Isn't that great.

Speaker 2 15:49

That's kind of why I like cruises, yeah, because you just unpack once and then you go to all these different ports and you don't have to unpack and pack. That's fabulous. I'm trying to convince my husband we need an RV. He's not quite convinced yet, but we're getting there. We're getting there. But before we get into more of Canada, we are going into our traveling trivia question. Can you believe it? We have another one. Well, you guys did pretty well on the last show you have four out of five.

Speaker 3 16:16

You have four out of five.

Speaker 2 16:18

Okay, so now this one's a strange one. You know, jay, do you remember when we were talking about China a while back? China, it only has the one time zone. Oh, yeah, okay, yeah. Now how many time zones does Russia have?

Speaker 3 16:31

That's the question. That's Okay. Rush is not a. I think she's on her phone.

Speaker 2 16:36

No, I'm not. I see her counting on her fingers.

Speaker 4 16:40

Oh Okay, this is going to be a total guess for me Okay, but my guess would be eight.

Speaker 2 16:45

Okay, and Jay.

Speaker 3 16:46

I was going for five.

Speaker 2 16:48

Well, both of you would be wrong, but she's closer. Is it 12? It's 11. Oh, wow, okay 11 time zones, and that makes more sense to me than China's one time zone.

Speaker 3 16:59

Well, yeah.

Speaker 2 17:00

Because look how big China is. And if it's 2 o'clock on one side, it's also 2 o'clock on the other and it's like but it's 2 o'clock and it's dark.

Speaker 4 17:06

I don't understand that. You know what I was doing.

Speaker 3 17:08

I was counting missionaries Because you know, we think about what time zone that we have somebody in. Oh cool, what a way to think about it. That's why she was counting on her fingers.

Speaker 2 17:21

So there you have it. Time zones. In Russia, there are 11 time zones. Okay, let's get her back into Canada, we're going to go back into Canada, because we're out of Banff now. And where did you go next in Canada?

Speaker 4 17:33

So what's interesting about the RV trip is you plan your route. The company does not do that to you.

Speaker 2 17:40

You can go any direction you want, and our original plan, but you do have to stay within the time zone, so time limit or the price goes up, so you can go beyond 18 days, but then your price goes up.

Alcan Trail Adventure and Exploration

Speaker 4 17:51

Right, then you're paying a little more, right, 18 days, but then your price goes up, then you're paying a little more. Our plan because it was the best mileage and the most challenging was to go the entire Alcan Trail. Our plan was to go north.

Speaker 2 18:04

The.

Speaker 4 18:05

Alcan Trail says what.

Speaker 2 18:07

That is the.

Speaker 4 18:08

Canada-Alaskan Highway that was built actually after Pearl Harbor was hit.

Speaker 3 18:15

Because we wanted it for the military exactly and it was built in eight months, which is amazing feat of man, but of course it was not paved at that time right, and then again they weren't driving bmws on it either.

Speaker 4 18:31

There's a lot of it that's still not paved and needs improvement.

Speaker 1 18:34

I will say that so.

Speaker 4 18:36

So our plan was to go north and then go west, but I travel with a real map I like to call it.

Speaker 2 18:47

Actually, that was one of my tips Always bring a real map with you, because you never know when your GPS is going to fail.

Speaker 4 18:54

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 18:55

We did have a satellite gps that we know was kind of an old-fashioned gps that we picked up for about 80 dollars right, which I never failed, by the way well, that was good, because I know my husband has one of those and every now and then I want to fling it out the window.

Speaker 4 19:09

Right, I just trust my map I like the real map and so we got that out and we decided to go the Cassian, the Cassier Highway from Banff, which took us west and then north, and we got on the Alcan a little farther west, and the reason why you did that there were forest fires that we talked about on our Facebook group. There's a Facebook group for this trip and everybody was talking about they were getting to a certain point on the trip and then having to turn around because the highway was closed.

Speaker 3 19:42

Oh, wow.

Speaker 4 19:42

And so we just didn't even go that way.

Speaker 2 19:45

So you have to be very flexible, yeah, on some of these trips because of things like that, yeah.

Speaker 4 19:51

We actually had a couple people on the trip that were like you could see the disappointment on their face, and that's when I pointed out like hey, you gotta be flexible, you know? And um, so we started looking at the cassier highway and we started researching what was their good to see on that. And as they saw the good in that, they their attitude totally changed. For instance, my husband said let's stop at jade city I think it's on this highway. And I was like what are you talking about? You're saying what?

Speaker 4 20:19

in the world is Jade City. He watches Alaskan shows all the time. And this is Canada. Are you guys going to eventually move to Alaska? No, he, just he, just he totally loves our missions that we're involved with there. Well, that's good. So he's always watching the Discovery Channel there. So he's always watching the Discovery Channel and it turns out Jade City is on the Discovery Channel. They have artists come in from all over the world and carve jade.

Speaker 2 20:44

Jade is an amazing, amazing stone.

Speaker 4 20:48

It's harder than steel. I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 20:52

They were nice people. Did you buy anything while you were there?

Speaker 4 20:56

I did, I bought a ring for $35.

Speaker 2 20:59

She's wearing a jade ring Right $35.

Speaker 4 21:02

That was a good deal. And look how pretty. I mean it's pretty and it looks perfectly round. Yeah, it's beautiful.

Speaker 2 21:08

They do beautiful work there, so you were able to pick up something from Jade City, from Jade City, and the other guests that were traveling with you also like Jade City.

Speaker 4 21:17

Yeah, they did. It's this little small place literally in the middle of nowhere. We saw a lot of bears on that road, wow, and we saw what we thought was a ram. No, no, no, no, no, they were black bears.

Speaker 2 21:29

They were black bears, okay.

Speaker 4 21:31

If you're going to see a bear, that's the kind you want to see right, right, they're bear.

Speaker 2 21:33

that's the kind you want to see, right they're a little friendlier.

Speaker 4 21:35

We did see one brown bear, but we weren't stopping so that was good you do not the bears.

Speaker 3 21:40

You do not want to be anywhere near a brown bear did you first stop and take pictures of bears and then you saw so many that you just kept moving?

Speaker 4 21:48

so it's actually hard to get a picture of a bear larry. Most of the time there they see you, especially a black bear, and they're going the other way because of the noise but we did manage to get a few good pictures oh good we also saw what we thought was a ram um. It turns out it was a rocky mountain sheep they do.

Speaker 2 22:08

They do look like a ram. You're right, they do resemble it and beautiful, oh yeah, majestic and they can climb up a mountain sideways. I mean, they're amazing.

Speaker 3 22:18

Now, there was some sign park or what was that.

Speaker 4 22:20

Oh, when we got to the Alcan Highway, there is a place called the Sign Forest.

Speaker 3 22:27

Sign Forest.

Speaker 4 22:28

And what is that S-I-G-N?

Speaker 3 22:30

Right like a sign.

Speaker 4 22:31

So a long time ago somebody stopped there and nailed like I don't know, it was probably their license plate Like Kilroy was here Right Right, the Lawrence family was here.

Speaker 1 22:43

Right.

Speaker 4 22:43

Jay, but people do this and last year like 100,000 people did this.

Speaker 3 22:50

Oh my goodness Whoa.

Speaker 4 22:51

The town maintains this place and it's actually clean and nice. But you walk through and you see basically all the states, several countries where people have stopped and put a family sign what are they? Paper. What are they there? No paper, but they're metal, they're wood, they're painted. You can, you could, we could have made our sign here at home, right, and traveled with it and put it there now. Could you have made the sign right there? Yes, and did you? No, we?

Speaker 4 23:23

didn't well, we wanted to watch the movie and everybody was like it was the beginning of the day and we weren't sure what the alcan highway was going to be like. And we were just like, okay, we're glad we did this, let's take pictures, let's do a video and let's move on.

Speaker 2 23:41

So was it wilderness around the signs A little bit, but it was mostly the wilderness. Mostly the wilderness, and the signs were like shoved in there.

Speaker 4 23:49

Yeah, it's quite a picture, if you're into selfies and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, so she has a picture of it.

Speaker 2 23:54

She'll have to put it on our site.

Speaker 4 23:56

Yeah, okay, I'll send you one Fabulous.

Speaker 2 23:58

So there you go. We went to Jade City and we went to the Sign Forest, and this was all in Canada.

Speaker 4 24:05

Yes, and then we headed to Whitehorse.

Speaker 2 24:08

In Whitehorse. Tell me about Whitehorse.

Speaker 3 24:10

Now is that Alaska, that's Canada, okay.

Speaker 4 24:13

It's Canada. So basically you gas up there.

Speaker 2 24:17

That's the gas stop.

Speaker 4 24:18

There's literally nothing else there Like you realize, like you have hit the edge of nowhere and you're heading into. So we went from Alberta to British Columbia, to the Yukon oh gosh, yeah. And so I really wanted a picture of something in the Yukon because you know, when I was a little girl I watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and you know you had Cornelius from the Yukon hunting the monster right.

Speaker 2 24:46

So you wanted to make sure you had something from the Yukon. So we stopped in Whitehorse and you said that's where you got gas. Yeah, um, but what else was? There was just that one gas station and then you had to get on the road. There there was nothing to see or do or eat.

Speaker 4 24:57

Yeah, you weren't on the road, Like this Alcan Trail. Just the adventuresomeness of saying that you did it and you survived is a big deal. I survived the Alcan.

Speaker 2 25:08

Trail.

Speaker 4 25:09

Yeah, because there's not a lot of places to rent or stop or get gas or food.

Speaker 2 25:17

That's a good question that people are going to ask. Are there things along the way saying last gas for 300 miles? Yes, okay so they would know if they're getting low in their gas tank that they better fill it up.

Speaker 4 25:29

we, we just did not miss opportunities to gas up because of that um and and you don't want to miss a sign but they do market well, which is helpful.

Speaker 2 25:41

Oh, that's good.

Speaker 4 25:41

But you know, like our son has talked about traveling this, when he comes home this next fall and you know he's younger he might not pay attention as close attention. You'll get a phone call.

Speaker 2 25:57

I'm in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 4 25:59

So this is not to be taken lightly because, we really do take these things for granted. It is, and you've got to pay attention. It's like the outback.

Speaker 2 26:07

I mean, when you're traveling, people don't realize parts of Canada are very, very desolate, Right. And when you're traveling through it, yeah, it's very beautiful. You've got pine trees and mountains and all of this other stuff going on. But when they say there's no more gas, there's no more gas.

Speaker 4 26:23

And like we all had spare tires, we all had a fix-a-flat kit with us, just in case, and we had each other. How are your cell phones working? Sometimes, most times, not at all.

Speaker 2 26:35

Not at all. Most times not at all. Not at all. Most times not at all. That's another tip.

Speaker 4 26:37

Your cell phones may not work in certain areas we had walkie-talkies, so we talked to each other that way. Well, you were able to talk to each other.

Speaker 2 26:44

but just in case you had to phone home, that would not be no.

Speaker 3 26:47

What brand walkie-talkie? How expensive were those?

Speaker 4 26:52

So for me they were free, larry, because our friend that was on the trip he used to be in the military.

Speaker 3 26:59

Oh, okay, so they're really. He had them. You really could walk your tux and they were nice.

Speaker 4 27:02

Yeah and boy, you know we Smokey and the Bandit, we all had call names and you know we had fun with that.

Speaker 2 27:10

Breaker, breaker. Yeah, oh, my word, okay. So now you are all there, and before we get into heading into Alaska, let me do a travel tip.

Speaker 3 27:21

Alaska is five times I mean Florida would take five times to fit in the state of Alaska.

Speaker 2 27:28

Right, exactly.

Speaker 3 27:29

So there's got to be a lot that she's got to talk about.

Speaker 2 27:32

Well, from where she went to where she's going to be, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 3 27:36

So what's this tip you've got for us?

Travel Document Tips and Road Adventures

Speaker 2 27:38

Okay, so very important, very important, particularly when you're traveling in and out of the country. Yes, you want to keep copies of important travel documents on your phone or in the cloud. This way, you can always access them.

Speaker 3 27:51

Yeah, if the phone works.

Speaker 2 27:53

Well, because sometimes people get their wallets stolen, they get their purses stolen. That's a great tip. And now what happens if you have to go to the embassy? They're going to say, well, what was your number? And you're going to go uh. So if you have the ID on your phone, you can just say here it is, and it'll be easier to get it replaced.

Speaker 4 28:13

Okay, that's a great tip. I'm going to do that from now on.

Speaker 2 28:16

yeah put it on your phone.

Speaker 3 28:18

Yeah, because you know we are a nation of our phones are constantly with us, no matter where we go and I made a call the other day to a travel company and I was trying to identify what I needed to do. What is your phone number?

Speaker 2 28:32

and boom, there was all the information right and the other thing I would recommend on this is not only put it on your phone, but give it to somebody else that would put it on their phone, because sometimes, like a woman, might have her phone and her passport stolen. Yeah so then you call up your daughter or your son and say, uh, what was the number? And they have it, but someone you trust that's our traveling tip today so now I know, jay, I want to go to Alaska.

Speaker 2 28:59

You're going to go to Alaska soon on a ship which is going to be pretty cool, and let's talk more with Tandy. Tandy's moved from Canada and she's heading into Alaska. What was the first place you stopped in Alaska?

Speaker 4 29:14

So I say talk, but I think they say toke.

Speaker 2 29:19

T-U-C-K or something like that no, it's T-O-K. T-o-k. Yeah, I would say talk too.

Speaker 4 29:26

Yeah, you know what's really funny? We were going into this RV park and these people were coming out and they had on Boston Red Sox shirts. And my husband said something about oh hey, are you from Boston? We've been to Boston and they're like no, we're actually from Florida. And he's like where are you from in?

Speaker 1 29:47

Florida.

Speaker 4 29:48

And they're like you don't know, it's just this little town, it's Fruitland Park where they were from. How funny. And they come to Claremont every year.

Speaker 2 29:59

And so we were like neighbors by the time we got to rv.

Speaker 4 30:01

They have friended us on facebook and it really is funny it is a small small world.

Speaker 3 30:06

Same thing happened to me in yellowstone a couple years ago funny.

Speaker 2 30:09

I used to work years ago with in another radio station, no, and we had, um, we had a jock there called charlie, and charlie was a motorcycle guy and the owner of the of the radio station actually drove out to south dakota. He was at sturgis and he was saying you know, somebody said, well, what do you do? And he says, well, I, you know, I'm a manager and president of this radio station, blah, blah, blah. And he says they said, oh, is that what charlie works? Oh, that was funny.

Speaker 2 30:41

That's fun, though, too yeah okay, so you went to tiktok, here, you went to talk, and what was there other than other than our neighbors? Well um one restaurant, one restaurant. Did you go and experience it? We did, we, we had breakfast there.

Speaker 4 30:56

How was it? This is funny. We asked what was the reindeer sausage like? And the waitress says well, it kind of tastes like caribou. And we were like you know, she was 12, so she didn't know. You know, it kind of tastes like caribou, yeah, like we didn't know what caribou tasted like yeah, that was fun, did you try it? I did not.

Speaker 2 31:25

Did anybody else in your party try it?

Speaker 4 31:27

Yes, then they liked it. Oh, okay, so it was very good. I'm a little cautious, you have to be you have to like.

Speaker 2 31:33

It's a gamey flavor. You know, I've tried quite a bit of wild game. I don't like it.

Speaker 4 31:39

But some people do.

Speaker 2 31:42

It was like caribou it was like caribou, yeah, so everybody stopped there for breakfast. Was there anything else in the town other than one restaurant and a gas station?

Speaker 4 31:53

Yeah, this was more like hitting civilization. We could do laundry there. We caught up on some of that.

Speaker 2 32:02

How long were you on the road by the time you hit here?

Speaker 4 32:06

I think we were right about our 10-day mark, about 10-ish Okay.

Speaker 3 32:10

So it's two days in Alaska. That's it. That's all it is.

Speaker 4 32:13

Wow, we had a little bit more time in Alaska because, we flew to Juneau after this.

Speaker 2 32:19

Right, so they went more after they dropped the RV off, so we have to talk when did you go then?

Speaker 4 32:26

So from Tock we headed southwest, and most people at this point might have gone north to go across to Denali because they don't want to miss Denali. I had already seen Denali before, but nobody else on the trip had, and so I was very encouraging to okay, let's go that way, y'all Come on Right. And they were like no, no, we're ready to go this way. And I said okay.

Speaker 2 32:53

So you know, I don't care because I'd already seen it, jay can't see what you're looking at, so you know I don't care, because I'd already seen it. Jay can't see what you're looking at. She's looking at a map over here.

Speaker 3 33:00

Well, I know Denali. My wife flew over Denali.

Speaker 4 33:03

It's amazing, and I saw it on a clear day.

Speaker 3 33:06

That's what she saw.

Speaker 4 33:08

I mean it was amazing. I had a friend who was a forest ranger over there. Yeah. So you know, I had to tell you a funny story about Denali sometime, but I want to go to what we actually did. So we went southwest on alongside of what is called the Rangel Mountains. Range Elm yeah, w-r-a-n-g-e-l-l Mountains. Oh, rangel, yeah, rangel Mountains. Oh, wrangell, yeah, wrangell Mountains. And I'm going to mess up this name Chukka Mountains. It's spelled C-H-U-G-A-C-H.

Speaker 2 33:49

But it's a mountain range. Yeah, true, gotcha.

Speaker 4 33:50

So along our left-hand side this entire highway to Anchorage until we got to Palmer anyway was unbelievable mountains, and we had seen some pretty great mountains at this point.

Speaker 2 34:07

Well, alaska is known for all their mountain ranges, wow, yeah.

Speaker 4 34:11

These took your breath away.

Speaker 2 34:13

Now were there snow on the top.

Speaker 4 34:14

Oh yeah, we saw two different glaciers this way. This way, you can see the largest glacier that you can drive to in the world. Wow, so that's a big deal.

Speaker 2 34:29

Right, yeah, that is a big deal. Well, Alaska is very, you know, open territory.

Speaker 3 34:34

Is this now still on the Alcan Highway?

Speaker 4 34:39

Yeah, so we went to haynes junction and then um, from haynes junction to anchorage was actually the worst part of the highway, if you want to know the truth, because it was well so what?

Speaker 4 34:54

what's interesting is like the road. I mean, maybe you guys get this because you've lived up north, but I'm a Floridian, I didn't get this. So the road will like underneath there's a permafrost, they call it, so it freezes and then defrosts, and so then you get these random bumps in the road and then you get these random potholes in the road and you really don't have a warning going 60 miles.

Speaker 2 35:19

We don't have permafrost in New York, but we have a lot of potholes, Okay well, this is like I mean.

Speaker 4 35:24

I think a couple of times our RV got a little bit airborne which is no joke and one time, yeah, it kind of threw me. So there's times when you're on this, these highways, that you need to have your seat belt on. You need to stay in your seat. You shouldn't be making lunch and you know that goes also for california.

Speaker 2 35:46

You know, because there is a road in california that I was driving on and it says caution, constant land motion. Because california has all of those earthquakes. And I thought that was the weirdest thing and me and my friend who was sitting in the front seat driving were saying we've never seen that. And as we were driving we slowed it down, and good thing we did, because the constant land motion had a drop Bam. If we would have went over that, the car would have been broken. Oh, wow, yeah. So when you're in Alaska Now, you also talked about these roads. Some of them were just still gravel.

Speaker 4 36:21

Yeah, Like I would say. The road between Haynes Junction and Anchorage right now is about half gravel. They call that area Destruction Bay. It's due to be repaved, I believe next year. It's on the schedule to get repaved.

Speaker 3 36:37

Good, I'll plan it for next year.

Speaker 4 36:40

Right, I don't think we're going to be doing this next year, but we will do this again. We had a great time.

Speaker 2 36:46

Well, you said something about Palmer earlier.

Speaker 4 36:48

Yeah, we went south towards Anchorage, and before you get to Anchorage, there's a little town called Palmer. And what's there? Palmer is beautiful. It's this little town that has everything you know bowling alley, and everything, ooh, has things to do. So this little town, though, is in a valley that's literally surrounded by these mountains, oh wow, and she lives in an apartment building. That's basically. You know, you know your neighbor, and y'all look out for each other.

Speaker 2 37:24

That's nice it is. Did you stop in and visit your aunt while you were there? Oh yes, absolutely it's.

Speaker 4 37:29

You know, seeing family is just such a joy for us and she is fun, so yeah, I was not going to miss that opportunity.

Speaker 2 37:37

She has to be kind of a tough one to live in.

Speaker 4 37:39

Alaska. You know she moved there about six years ago. She sold everything that wouldn't fit in her car here. She had never been there and she moved there.

Speaker 2 37:50

I'm going to take a hunch and say she's not in her 30s, no.

Speaker 4 37:55

She is in her 60s and she has loved it. She's made friends there, she's flourished there and Palmer is a great little town. So we spent time with her and then we went on and headed into Anchorage from there.

Speaker 2 38:13

Now, when you went from Canada into Alaska, did you pass the border again?

Speaker 4 38:18

Yes, we did, and it was just as easy. The guy was a little more stern-faced.

Speaker 2 38:26

That's okay, they have to be every now and then the Mountie yeah.

Speaker 4 38:30

This was our guy.

Speaker 2 38:32

Really.

Speaker 4 38:32

I consider this our guy.

Speaker 2 38:34

It would be an American side.

Speaker 4 38:36

Yeah, he wanted our license plate numbers. He really checked over things.

Speaker 2 38:41

He had a few more questions. Do you own this vehicle? Yeah. What are you here for? What are you doing? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 38:48

And when he explained that you were transporting this vehicle, did that make a difference or not?

Speaker 4 38:53

It didn't. It didn't. We said you know we're on holiday and we're headed towards people we know and you know we were on our way to marry somebody so that was fun. My husband. We've known a kid since he was eight years old and he's getting married. That was fun.

Speaker 2 39:12

So when you went from the United States into Canada you had to pass a checkpoint, you know. And then when you went from Canada back into the US you had to do another checkpoint. And they're not that difficult, just make sure you have your proper identification with you Passports, of course, because they're very important. And you went from Palmer visiting family and then you got into Anchorage is where you met up now with the company called Great Alaskan Holidays to bring the Winnebago back home.

Speaker 4 39:38

Yeah, yeah, and these people are nice they're, they are really friendly. They uh communicated with us along the way as a group well, that's good now.

Speaker 2 39:49

If you had any difficulties along the way, like it broke down, would they be?

Speaker 4 39:53

accessible to. So what's interesting is, uh and we didn't really pick up on this until we were, you know, in it they actually had, you know, people that are very close to them traveling either ahead of us or behind us, or around us so somebody could have helped us.

Speaker 2 40:11

That's some. It's floating nearby, okay, well, that's really cool. But when you got to alaska and you finally got to anchorage and you handed in your r and went, you didn't leave Alaska quite yet?

Speaker 4 40:24

No, we didn't, we didn't. And we hung out there for a day or so, mostly just kind of resting, making sure we were ready, because we were getting ready to go to Juneau. There's a camp there that's off the grid that we've gone to for over 10 years. It's a camp for children, a camp for kids. So you're going to go visit that.

Speaker 2 40:51

We're going to go there to help for a week. Then you had to leave because you had things to do back home. That's kind of cool.

Speaker 4 40:57

I'm going to tell you this too. This is one of my best travel tips that I shared with the other couples as we were traveling. And then they saw it work. And then they were like I'm doing that from now on Whenever we go to a new place. I'm a real big high school football fan. Some people like professional football, some people like college football.

Speaker 2 41:20

He's football all the way.

Speaker 4 41:22

I love high professional football. Some people like college football. He's football all the way. I love high school football, and so I will in particular like I want a local T-shirt.

Speaker 2 41:29

Oh from the local high school.

Speaker 4 41:30

Not just like a tourist T-shirt but a local T-shirt. So I always hit the thrift stores. Oh, and, like in Montana, I got a name brand hoodie. Looks brand new and it happens to be for the Montana Grizzlies, which is a college team, but I got it for three bucks. Yeah, and like I do that pretty regularly when we go to Indiana and our kids would change sizes real fast, the families from there and they wanted Indiana.

Speaker 2 41:59

University shirts. So what does your closet look like with all these shirts and sweatshirts?

Speaker 4 42:02

Yeah, it's kind of fun, right, it's a variety.

Speaker 2 42:05

Does your husband say how many more t-shirts do you need?

Speaker 4 42:08

dear. I clean out pretty. Actually, I clean out my t-shirts way better than he does, so we're okay there.

Speaker 2 42:16

Well, you know, it's been a pleasure having you here, tandy. Thank you for coming into the studio and sharing your journey with us. I here, tandy. Thank you for coming into the studio and sharing your journey with us. I'm sure you're going to have more journeys along the way and we'd love to have you back again in the future. That would be great, but thank you again. Well, you know so much traveling to do and so little time to do it in, so tune in every week for more travel info and insights and just plain fun. Please follow me and like me on Facebook. Do you have a favorite location or perhaps an interesting travel tip?

Speaker 3 42:43

Yes.

Speaker 2 42:43

Let me know at ZMichelson at gmailcom, and Z is spelled Z-E-E, and I am overly excited to let you know that my podcast can be heard on all. Your favorite, favorite, my favorite. I got into Canada so I had to get a different accent. My favorite podcast players feel free to give me a review. I'd love to hear what you have to say. Thanks for listening today. Traveling does truly open up the world to you. You learn all about the unfamiliar cultures and lifestyles and, of course, food, and then you realize we truly really are all the same.

Speaker 2 43:15

So dream dream big, reach for those stars, and if you only get to the moon, at least you made the trip. If you're looking for wonderful places to travel, to feel free to visit my website. It is free. It's z michelson travelcom and z is spelt z ee. This is z michelson, making your travel dreams come true.