Haines: The town, the highway, the junction

Ah, it's good to be home. We returned to where the trailer has been stored (for half price in a waterfront site) to see that we were surrounded by mountains that last week's weather had hidden. Hope it stays like this tomorrow for the Haines Highway which we've been told is spectacular. #airstream #liveriveted #myrivetedlife #airstreamtoalaska #haines

One of the things we'd told ourselves when deciding on an SUV as a tow vehicle was that it could be useful to completely unload and be able to use the third row of seats, whether for a day trip with friends or if we spent an extended period of time somewhere. In fact, while in Juneau, we were glad to have the extra seats to take our family of four plus three from my brother's family and my mom out to see the glacier. Oh yeah, plus Gorilla. When we got back this afternoon, I unloaded everything we'd stored in the "living room" of the trailer and did a little time lapse to show where everything goes back in the SUV. #airstream #toyotasequoia #cargotetris #idonthaveaproblemyouhaveaproblem #ocdontevengothere

You know all that stuff they say about the beauty of the Haines Highway? Well, turns out it's true! #airstream #liveriveted #myrivetedlife #airstreamtoalaska #haineshighway #permissiontopostfourmorepicsofscenerywiththeairstreaminfront?

What a drive. #airstreamintherearview #airstream #liveriveted #myrivetedlife #haineshighway

Nice (if a bit sloped) spot to stop for lunch. As I run across the highway to take these pictures, @advodna_ann always yells "Don't get eaten by a bear!" I usually laugh and jog off, but then start getting (appropriately) nervous if I have to turn my back to any nearby bushes. #airstream #liveriveted #myrivetedlife #airstreamtoalaska #haineshighway

More than 6 months ago, I did a huge planning session for our trip to Alaska. That was when campground reservations for Denali National Park opened up, so we just picked a random week at the end of June and booked it. From that week, we worked backwards trying to figure where we'd need to be when in order to get there in time. We generally plan on no more than 150 miles of driving every two days, but then leave ourselves free to cover more miles or hang somewhere a little longer. Well, that planning session had put us in Haines Junction on June 12th and 13th, and it seemed like a real coincidence that a Yukon brochure we'd picked up somewhere listed a bluegrass festival going on that weekend in Haines Junction, especially since if we'd been at home, we would have been attending the Father's Day Bluegrass Festival that weekend. Unfortunately, when I checked the web site for the festival, tickets were sold out. But browsing the lineup to see what we'd be missing, I saw the name of a San Francisco band with a bunch of people I knew well from the music scene. A few Facebook messages later, and they were able to wrangle up a couple extra tickets for us! So this weekend, we're camped in this rather scenic parking lot of the convention center in Haines Junction in the Yukon listening to bluegrass and hanging out with a buncha friends from San Francisco. Couldn't have planned it better if we'd tried. #airstream #airstreamtoalaska #hainesjunction #kluanemountainbluegrassfestival