Well, it’s now a week since we returned to normal life, if there is such a thing. Actually, I was starting to think of life on the road in a 19-foot motorhome without the distractions of home as being a pretty nice normal, but I guess there are limits to such an existence.
I was hoping to write this follow-up sooner, but once we got home time just started slipping away. My back started bothering me the last couple of days on the road, probably because of the long stretches without the normal stops every few miles for photos or just getting out and stretching my legs. Plus, all the unpacking probably exacerbated it, but when I woke up Saturday morning I was a sore puppy. Even today, six days later, it’s still a little stiff. The only real result of this was a delay of a couple of days in getting the motorhome cleaned up and starting on some repairs and modifications on the Tiger itself. Owning a motorhome is like owning a boat – there’s always some little something to fix or some improvement to be made. So that’s what I’ve been doing the past couple of days. The real start was washing the exterior. It was somewhat surprising that the exterior wasn’t dirtier and grimier than it was after eight weeks of mud and dust, but it sure looks white and sparkly now that it’s washed.
But seriously, reflecting on the journey, I suppose the first question that comes to mind is was it worth it? Absolutely! It was a journey of discovery for us – new places, new people, new ways of looking at life in other parts of the country and world, and most importantly, realizing that once again, when stripped of all the trappings of normal daily life, how compatible and loving we are to each other. After 45 years of blissful marriage you’d think we’d know each other pretty well, but when you live for eight weeks in a space the size of a walk-in closet, you learn real quickly what each other’s foibles and hot button issues are. It’s not like we haven’t done this before, but our longest previous trip in the motorhome was only four weeks – half of this one. Surprisingly, we had only a couple of testy times, neither of which turned out to be anything serious. The biggest problem is really the close quarters. There’s no such thing as a personal space in something this small. We just learned to deal with it, and to always look at whatever the situation happened to be in a positive manner. And it helps to learn to laugh at oneself.
It’s been said that driving to Alaska is America’s last great road trip. After doing it, I’d have a hard time arguing with that assessment. I’m sure there are other great road trips in North America, but I doubt that any of them offer the variety of geography, of geology, of scenery, of wildlife, and of people you meet along the way. I guess the only thing that might beat it would be the Arctic Ocean to Tierra del Fuego journey from the extremes of North and South America, but that’s a trip that is not realistically doable for 99.999 percent of us. Probably the best thing about driving to Alaska is that all it really takes is time. That limits it to retirees like us or someone like school teachers who have an extended vacation. We first started thinking we could do this trip in six weeks, but realized that we would either be driving every minute or else missing some really special places if we tried to squeeze it into that short a period. As it was, I think eight weeks is pretty much the minimum one should plan to spend on a trip like this. In fact, most people we met were spending the entire summer, just taking it slow and easy and savoring every moment and every mile.
So what’s it really take to do this journey, assuming one has the time? Number one would be an RV of some type, either a self-contained motor home or a travel trailer. We saw RV’s of every type – million-dollar Class A motor coaches to pop-up tent trailers. I wouldn’t rule out tent camping – and we saw a lot of people doing that. But even though we never saw dangerous wildlife in any of the campgrounds or boondock sites we camped at, the possibility exists. I for one would rather have a metal wall between me and a snooping bear than a piece of canvas or nylon. Besides, I had my fill of setting up and taking down tents in the rain, and sleeping on the ground (even with an air mattress) in my younger days. So for me, doing the Alaska Highway in a tent would be the last resort.
What about hotels and motels? Sure, they’re there, and that is a possibility if you don’t have an RV, but don’t expect anything even close to a Holiday Inn. Probably the only place between Edmonton and Fairbanks that has anything close to first-class hotel or motel is Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory. Other than that, at least in the towns of consequence, it’s 1950’s style drive-up motels. Between the towns there are “lodges,” which for the most part are rustic cabins, some of which look like converted shipping containers. In short, yes, you can do it without an RV, but your accommodation choices are pretty limited. If you don’t have an RV, I’d seriously consider renting one if you want to make this journey. Probably a fourth of the motorhomes we saw along the way were rented, as evidenced by the logos on the sides. It’s not a cheap option, but it’s certainly a way to do it. If your time is limited to only two or three weeks, I’d suggest flying to Anchorage (for Alaskan destinations) or Calgary or Edmonton (for Canadian destinations) and renting an RV.
Before getting to the physical roads themselves, I should mention other modes of transport. We were surprised at the number motorcycles we saw. Every day we passed a dozen or so, traveling in solo or in twos or threes. Some pulled small trailers, and others were loaded with storage boxes and packs. There were two or three in every campground, each with a small one-man tent and one-burner propane stove for cooking. But what really surprised us was the number of bicycles – at least two or three on most days. These are my real heroes, pedaling for thousands of miles with nothing more than a raincoat, a tiny tent, and maybe one change of clothes. We met one young man who had flown to Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean, and was planning to ride his bike all the way down to the tip of South America. Not only that, he was doing it solo. I’m not sure if he is brave or crazy, but whatever it is, he’s certainly adventurous.
There is one other mode of transport I want to mention and that’s the “expedition vehicles.” These are large 4x4 or 4x6 trucks that are outfitted as self-contained on-road or off-road travel anywhere in the world. Most are built on Mercedes Benz or Iveco truck chassis, and some appear to be converted military-style command vehicles. These are especially popular in Europe, where the more adventurous (and wealthy) types can drive across Siberia and Mongolia and back, or take a short ferry hop across the Strait of Gibralter and circumnavigate Africa. We saw a half-dozen or so of these which had been transported across the Atlantic and were now spending a year or more touring North America, and in some cases South America as well.
OK, so what about the roads themselves? Forget the myth of hundreds or thousands of miles of bumpy, rutted gravel roads, of having to carry extra gas in jerry cans, extra mounted spare tires, jugs of drinking water, and emergency food in case you get stranded. That may have been true twenty or thirty years ago, but today you can easily drive across northern Canada and all around Alaska on decent, two-lane paved highways that are the equal of any two-lane US or State highway here in the lower 48. To be sure, there are stretches of gravel in construction zones and there is one notorious stretch of severe frost heaving, but otherwise, unless you want to take some of the well-known side trips, you’re on blacktop all the way. Plus, fuel is readily available at the numerous lodges and outposts that seem to be spaced every 50 or 60 miles, and there’s always someplace to get food, either in the form of groceries or a café of one sort or another. So from the aspect of roads and wear-and-tear on a vehicle, it’s no different than taking a coast-to-coast or similar trip of eight or ten thousand miles down here in the lower 48. (I would, however, if traveling in an automobile, take at least a couple of bottles of water and a few energy bars or the like. Washouts can occur, and you might find yourself stuck overnight someplace. But that’s standard fare for those of us in the mountain west.)
I guess the final question is, would we do it again? The answer is a qualified Yes. There a couple of reasons I say qualified: First, it’s a looong drive. Our GPS spat out 9023 miles when we pulled into our driveway last Friday. Just getting to the best part is the equal to many normal road trips. Going up the route we took up through Alberta and west into British Columbia at Dawson Creek entails a lot of miles of routine scenery. Things don’t really get interesting until after Ft Nelson, which is 2300 miles from Denver and, for us, ten days of driving. But after that, we can’t complain about any of the scenery, especially since we came home via Jasper, Banff, and Glacier National Park. The second reason is that it seems like every time we’ve gone back to someplace we’ve really liked, it never seemed to be as good as the first time – the old You Can’t Go Home Again syndrome. What I would do again, though, is take two or three weeks and drive back up to Banff and Jasper and spend more time in that area, or fly to Anchorage, rent an RV, and visit some of the places we missed, or spend more time in some of the places we barely touched.
There are so many other places to see, and while I don’t like to dwell on my mortality, at this stage in our lives our time is limited – we need to spend it on new things. So what’s next? Well, for one, there’s a lot of National Parks here in the west that we haven’t seen. Another long trip we’re looking at in perhaps a couple of years is eastern Canada and the Maritime Provinces. And then there’s the theme trips – Route 66, across the country on US 50, visiting all the major league ballparks, following the Lewis & Clark and Oregon Trails, Civil War battlefields, and the list goes on. One thing for certain, as long as the Tiger lives the adventure will continue.
Adios for now, my friends…until we hit the road again.
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