Alaska Roadtrip 2024

2024 has been a year of transition. Some changes have been terribly painful and difficult, but I have to say that retirement is fantastic. The freedom to travel and spend time doing things we love opens up all kinds of possibilities we only dreamed of before.

Tomorrow morning, we’re setting out on a ~8 week, 9,000+ mile roadtrip to Fairbanks, Alaska. The route we’ve planned takes us across the midwest to Coeur d’Alene, ID where we’ll cross into Canada and visit Banff and Jasper National Parks for a few days, then head north west through British Columbia and across the Yukon on the Alaska Highway. We’ll spend a few days in Whitehorse, YT and then on to Tok, AK, arriving at Denali National Park on June 24th. We’ll spend a few days there and then travel to Fairbanks to spend the week of July 4th with Chandler and Ben. It’s been nearly a year since we’ve seen them so I’m very excited to spend time with them and see what it’s like to live so far from home.

As you can imagine, lots of time has been spent planning, researching and coordinating such a long trip. Many places along the route are remote and without much infrastructure so Riley set up a Starlink router for internet service. This required drilling a 2″ hole in the side of Charlie to install an ethernet port on the outside to connect the receiver rather than having a cable running out of a window or door. I was just a bit nervous when I realized what he was doing, but his handyman skills are no joke and it looks factory installed! He also replace the electronic control panel in Charlie that turns on lights, monitors the water and propane tank sensors, controls the heating and AC units and lots of other things in the coach. I’m continually impressed with his abilities. In retrospect, I really shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, he did build an airplane that we just flew to Kentucky last week. I guess if I trust him to build something that flies us 10,000′ in the air I shouldn’t be nervous about him drilling a hole in the side of the van.

The biggest time hog for me has been debating what clothing to pack. I hate packing even for a weekend trip, much less two months. I’m sure we’ll do lots of laundry so I tried to just make sure I have things for all kinds of weather, temperature and activities. We’re taking our bikes and planning to do lots of hiking both in Alaska and along the way. We both have bike shoes, hiking boots, sandals, raincoats, backpacks, camera gear, bear spray, lots of mosquito repellant, books to read, crossword puzzles to work, dvds to watch, etc. Ugh, listing that out makes me dread unpacking all this stuff when we get back home.

Speaking of research and preparation, mosquito mitigation has been at the top of the list. Thanks to some good advice from NYT Wirecutter, we are armed with the best mosquito repellant spray, a rechargeable Thermocell mosquito repeller and a big bottle of spray on mosquito repellant to treat our cloths and gear. It’s supposed to last 30 days and up to 6 wash cycles. We’ll see how well it performs. <fingers crossed!>

I think I’ll go check everything one last time and get a good nights sleep in our kingsized bed before calling a 24′ sprinter van home for the next 2 months.