GETTING ORGANIZED

THINGS are getting very real as we approach zero hour for our departure.  I'm sure I should be working from a list of some sort, but every time I start to write one, I get distracted by our actual lives happening now, and must defer thoughts of the three weeks of our life during which we'll be on the road!  

Between now and our departure date, we're dining out with friends, entertaining my sister and her grandsons, setting up housewatching service with several people (is that a thing?), arranging to stop the newspaper and mail, arranging to get our third musketeer (my grandson) here from his home 3 hours away (without overlapping with my sister's grands because, well, FOUR pre-teen/teen boys in one house for more than a single day...NOPE), packing clothing, toiletries, and electronics (the latter of which must be in use daily until departure), picking up the rental van, and making sure any bills coming due before our return are paid or scheduled for payment.

Have I printed all the tickets, boarding passes, and lodging confirmations?  What time do I pick up that van, and is that enough time before we leave to load it properly?  Did I send that packing list to my grandson?  Do we have any prescriptions that need filling before we leave?  How many lightening wires do we need and how many mini-USB chargers?  What groceries will we take and how soon should I buy them?  Should we take more clothes or more laundry detergent and plan to wash clothes more often?  The questions are seemingly endless and yet all must be addressed in the next SIX DAYS!

So, how exactly will I manage it all?  Two words -- sticky notes!  May God bless the inventor of the Post-It and whoever was involved in further developing the various sizes, colors and shapes that have allowed me to label the various tasks, items, and processes involved in organizing this trip!  My PC monitor is likewise festooned with those colorful bits of paper with reminders for everything from asking the gardener to water the patio plants to clearing the fridge of perishables that won't last out our absence.  I've also purchased a binder with a zip closure into which, inside plastic sleeves, I've placed, in order of anticipated use, every document required for our passage, lodging, and tours, as well as our passports (just in case, since we'll be traveling in Canadian waters).

At some point I'll have to pull all the notes and reminders together and get it all done, but I have a sneaking suspicion it will be much later in the game than it should be.  Fortunately, my years of teaching have prepared me to work well under pressure!

LODGING LOGISTICS

THE most difficult part of the planning phase of this adventure has been figuring out lodging.  Throughout our lives, when we've traveled by car, lodging was a flexible thing -- you drove 'till you were ready to stop, then you looked around for a Holiday Inn, Super 8 or Motel 6.  All we really needed was a clean place to freshen up and lay our heads for 8-10 hours each night.  To a large extent, that might still work for much of this trip with a couple of glaring exceptions...

Arriving without reservations in Alaska at the peak of their Summer Season 1) ensures we'd have little hope of finding a room and 2) guarantees any decent room we did find would cost upwards of what might be a month's rent in most of the lower 48 states.  A neighbor whose business is travel advised us to try AirBNB, and bless her for that pointer!  We were able to book a one bedroom apartment for the time we'll be in Juneau at half the cost of any hotel room in the city!  Mind you, it took hours of searching through listings to find a suitable AND available place, but we did find something eventually. It comes with a top-notch host rating, but we'll give you our own review when we get there!

Likewise, although less expensive, finding a room at either Yellowstone or near Mt. Rushmore (two of our planned destinations on the return journey) might have proved problematic because of our chosen arrival dates.  Once again, the hours spent on AirBNB paid off, netting us a one-room cabin and a guest house respectively.  Note to anyone planning a similar trip in the future:  The minute you know you're going, book your lodging!  Most accommodation options will be gone if you wait as late as we did (only two months out).

Since Mom still carries Military Dependent status, we'll use Military Lodging whenever possible.  We highly recommend this option to families of active duty or retired veterans.  You get clean, safe accommodations at a fraction of the cost of comparable civilian lodging.

It's a real departure in practice for us to book lodging ahead of our arrival, but since over-nighting in the van is out of the question, we've taken the "better safe than sorry" approach!  I haven't booked all of our lodging. We'll stay flexible on those legs of the trip when our overnight stop is simply within a 50-mile stretch of road, but I did make a point of locating at least two viable lodging options within those stretches to minimize the guesswork at the end of a long day's drive.  I'll let you know how that works out.

WHAT DO WE TAKE?

WITH the itinerary set and the route planned, it was time to turn to the question of what we needed to take to keep things as simple as possible on the road and at our various stops along the way.  Obviously, we'd have to pack enough clothing to get along for at least 5 days at a stretch without access to a washer and dryer, but there remains the fact that, for Mom at least, we'd be traveling in both high summer and "Florida winter" temperatures.

If you don't know my mom, you can be assured of this -- "winter" is any weather at any time of day or year that includes temperatures below 70 degrees farenheit.  Winter, for mom, means leggings, flannel pants, and long-sleeved sweaters!  So while our journey north will take us through high summer temperatures in most of the lower 48... say, 78-108 degrees, Alaska (at least the part we'll be seeing) will be enjoying summer temps of 60-70 degrees.

We will each take a small suitcase of overnight necessities and a change of clothes for our many stops.  The rest of our clothing will be in lidded, plastic bins -- easier to access and stack in the back of a van.  One bin each for Paul and me, and two for Mom -- one for summer things, one for winter!

As for our travel needs, I've invested in a few luxuries and one or two "must haves."  In the must have column, I've included a first aid kit, roadside emergency kit, visor extension (for when we're driving into the rising or setting sun), and lap trays for Paul and Mom, who are both addicted to games on their iPads.

In the "luxury" department, we've decided to skip the fast food so I've included a small folding table and chairs for roadside stops, along with a small fridge (and I do mean small... 5-6 drinks, some lunch meat, cheese, and condiments in small containers), a plastic tub for bread, crackers, chips, extra drinks and like that.  And for the heck of it, I bought a fancy iPad holder (because I love WAZE and expect to use it over the onboard Nav system in our rental van), and an old school, Rand McNalley Road Atlas, 2018, so my grandson can both learn basic map reading and track his travels for posterity!

Doubtless we'll spend the best part of the nine days between now and our departure changing and rearranging our packing lists, but eventually we'll just have to hit the road and make do without anything we forget!

YOU'VE GOT TO START SOMEWHERE!

I'VE done all the planning I can do.  I have no doubt there will be adjustments along the way, but we're starting from here:

I had planned to drive my own vehicle.  It's large enough to comfortably carry the three of us and all our required clothing and travel needs cross-country, and new enough to be equipped with nav, charging ports, bluetooth and all those things that make it possible to take to the road somewhat fearlessly.  On the other hand, one of my sibs pointed out, because it is MY vehicle, if anything were to go wrong with it on the road, we're going to be stuck until I can arrange a resolution.  In the interest of removing as many weak points as possible in our travel plan, we've decided to rent a mini-van.  It will accommodate our needs and should there be any problem with the vehicle itself, the rental company will simply bring us another and we can continue our journey with little time impact.

With the vehicle question sorted, it was time to get down to routes and miles.  We've got one driver (yours truly) and an appointment with a ferry roughly 3,000 miles away on July 13.  I've allowed seven full days for the journey out to ensure I don't have to be behind the wheel more than 8 hours each day, and to allow for fuel/bathroom/food/exercise stops, and for any delays due to road conditions, weather, traffic, or unforeseen trouble with the rental van.

I had allowed for two "visits" along the way, the first of which was to have been in Waskom, TX (roughly 8 hours from home) to see a cousin, but, alas, she will be traveling herself at that time, so our first stop will be at Barksdale A.F.B.'s Military Lodging just outside of Shreveport, LA.  We'll cross most of Texas on day 2, stopping for the night near Amarillo.  Day 3 should see us through the northeast corner of New Mexico and into Colorado near Ft. Collins.  Day 4, I'll add my 43rd state when we cross into Wyoming on our way to Ogden, UT and an overnight stay at Hill A.F.B.  From Ogden on day 5 we'll cruise through my 44th state (Idaho) and aim for # 45 for what we hope will be a two-day visit with a childhood friend in Burns, OR, whom I haven't seen since we were in college (for those of you who weren't paying attention to my first post, that would have been about 40 years ago)!

We'll leave Burns on 12 July and head into my 46th state, Washington, where we plan to overnight, 60 miles from the ferry terminal, at Ft. Lewis (just outside of Everett), leaving ourselves a short hop to Bellingham the morning of 13 July for a 3:00 boarding call on the Columbia.

ROAD TRIP PLANNING IS NO PLACE FOR SISSIES!

ONCE the decision had been made to see Alaska, the planning began.  First off, how will we get there? Thank all the stars and whatever powers may be for the internet!  I cannot imagine how one would go about planning a trip like this with a 90 year-old great-grandmother and a 12-year-old lad in tow before the advent of the internet.  Mom nixed the fly and cruise option ("Flying is such a hassle these days.") as well as the train option ("We'd have to drive somewhere else first and leave a car there.") so I was unsure exactly how we'd pull this thing off.  Mom was set on driving or rather, riding while I did the driving to Alaska.

While investigating routing possibilities, I took a look at the Alaska Highway and realized one important thing - there's NOTHING out there!  If you're young, into wilderness, camping, and the rugged back-country of our northernmost state, you might want to tackle 1,400 miles of it with a tent or RV.  But I'm a 60-something traveling with an untraveled youth and an elderly Mom -- 1,400 miles through wilderness is not for us!

Then,  while searching for general information on Alaska, I stumbled upon a page called "North to Alaska" that had been developed for the State's 70th anniversary this year.  One of the page links took me to the Alaska Marine Highway site and just like that our plan solidified.  The Alaska Marine Highway System is a fleet of large ferries that ply the waters of the Inside Passage between Bellingham, Washington and Dutch Harbor, Alaska (of "Deadliest Catch" fame).  

It took three, 12-hour days to rough out a plan, make the preliminary inquiries, sort out the various schedules and options, and write up an itinerary we could live with.  After several more days of a few hours here and there, I had a mostly final plan covering 6,000+ driving miles and an 1,800 mile ferry trip during which we'll see amazing natural wonders and wildlife across the United States.

The outbound journey to Bellingham is on the map in the gallery on the right.

More on our itinerary next time...

WHY ALASKA? WHY NOW?

AS the daughter of a retired Marine, I became used to road tripping early in life as it was the primary mode of transport for changing duty stations and family vacations.

As an adult, I continued to take to the road with my own son because it afforded the opportunity to see much more of the the country than flying and provided great opportunities for conversations about the places we went and the things we did along the way.

At present, I've seen 42 of the 50 states and lack only the Northern Plains (the Dakotas, Montana & Wyoming), Pacific Northwest (Idaho, Oregon & Washington) and Alaska.  Having lived 30 years longer and traveled more extensively than me, my Mom has seen all but Alaska!  During my Dad's lifetime, whenever Mom would remind him how much she wanted to see Alaska to complete the 50 states, Dad declined, having already seen Alaska (and not the best of it) during his military service.  He joked, "You can see Alaska when I'm dead."

Dad passed away in February 2017, and I moved in with Mom to help her manage the household and take care of various tasks that have become too difficult for her.  We attended the retirement party of one of our neighbors a couple of months back and they talked about taking a trip up the Alaska Highway as one of their retirement goals.  Later in the week, Mom turned to me and said, quite out of the blue, "I really do want to make that trip to Alaska I always talked about."  I'd promised Dad that as long as I was here to look after Mom, I'd do my best to accommodate her every wish, so it's off to Alaska we go!  

I thought we'd fly/cruise, but Mom didn't want the hassle of flying.  Then I explored train travel, but that would have necessitated leaving a car somewhere far from home.  And ultimately, it was Mom who said she'd be most comfortable just taking it easy on the road.  So road trip it is!  

In addition to Mom and myself, my 12-year-old grandson, Paul is going to accompany us on our epic journey, and make a serious dent in his own 50-State quest.