How To Drive To Alaska From The South

I’m really doing this.  For reals.  I’m really driving all the way to Alaska.  Am I really doing this?  Is this really happening?  I think this way have been a mistake.  Why did I just not fly there?  No this is good.  I get to see the country (and I think a wee bit of Canada too).  It’s like a really, really, really, really long scenic car ride…

I didn’t cry.  I should’ve cried.  I hugged my family, but the tears they didn’t come a flowing.  I should’ve at least tried to cry.  I think it would have made the farewell more memorable.  Now it looks like I don’t care.  I should practice crying for next time.  People like outward displays of emotion.

So my Old Man (I use the term for my father not in the disrespectful hateful way, but the jovial Fonzie way) and I left on Wednesday at 4:00pm. We had like a stack of maps and such from AAA who lovingly prepared for us. But my GPS unit mapped out a different route. So in the spirit of youthful arrogance, we tossed aside the longer AAA-approved route in favor of the faster GPS-guided route (a decision which would later come back to teach us an important lesson about who you put your trust in at 3:00 in the morning).

Our route took us through Kansas (boring and flat, but home to many windmills), Colorado (don’t remember much becuase I was mostly asleep), Wyoming (same as Colorado), Montana (I didn’t get to drive the speed limitless bits, so didn’t enjoy it much, but also had lots of windmills), and then into Canada (after about 24 hours of solid driving).

So since then it’s been all Canada all the time.  I still have no idea how much I’m spending on gas here, because 1) it’s in liters and 2) I don’t know what the exchange rate is.  Also speaking of things I don’t know.  We past lots of signs in Alberta (a state of Canada) for the “Written-on-Rock” and “Head-Smashed-On-Rock Buffalo Point”.  I’ll admit it, I’m to lazy to look what those things are, so one Gold Star to whoever figures it out.

Last night during my shift to drive, I was fading a bit, kind-of zigging and zagging (but fear not, we were the only ones on the road, so no one was in danger of harm) so I stopped at a gas station to for a pick-me-up.  And I think I found the ultimate energy drink (even better than Vault the enegery drink that drinks like a soda, which I had yesterday at lunch), Canada’s Beaver Buzz (you should totally check out the back of the can, those Canadians can’t resist an easy pun).

Today we finally made it to our first check point, Fort Nelson, after about 42 hours of solid driving.  So we’ve been hanging out in the hotel room, resting up for tomorrow and Sunday (I watched Doomsday, which wasn’t bad, and Short Order, again, I totally didn’t even to watch it, I just got sucked into it, and I highly recommend).  We should only have 26ish hours left…

Also ignore the mileage on the picture above.  The total distance should only be 3800 miles.  I think it got confused with the miles and kilometers mixing them all up together with converting.  And I woke up to Maia Hirasawa today and a pretty sunrise, which was a treat (almost like waking up to her in real life, almost).