Long long drive back to the USA!

After waking up pretty early and walking Maxwell we made some breakfast (Coffee and Oatmeal with fresh cherries) realized we weren't going to be able to pay anyone for the nights camping so we hit the road!

Actually first we filled out water tank which had pretty much emptied because we drove for an hour with our water pump on and the kitchen faucet had wiggled on emptying most of the water.

As you can see above Maxwell gets the whole backseat to himself and mostly just sleeps. He used to love car rides but now he just tolerates them.

Although he loves to stop and get out someplace new for a walk. We did that once on this long drive back from Canada to Michigan. It was a short hike to a lookout and then we were back on the road to the Upper Peninsular of Michigan.



Finally we reached the Mackinac Bridge (Link to Wikipedia info on the bridge) it is really really long! Crossing it there were high winds and we were alerted to keep our speed with the trailer to 20 mph.  Then is was a short drive to our campground for the night. I had picked it out a few weeks ago as we were going to be staying a few nights and I wanted a nice place.  The view is great and the price is only $25 per night.

It was getting windy and about to rain when we got in so we didn't fully setup outside. That is our new camp mat and new director's chair.

We were pretty tired so we just relaxed, made dinner and watched some TV.

I tried our trailed "Roast" feature of the convection microwave which uses both heat and 30% microwave power to cook stuff quickly.

I made Lamb, potatoes and onions and some asparagus. This microwave thing is funky but it worked, dinner was fast, but the potatoes were kind of underdone.

It wasn't a large meal so we needed a little snack. We had more fresh cherries so we threw together a cherry crumble using Oatmeal, cherries, sugar and some blueberry sauce. We used the roast feature and it was done in 5 or 6 minutes. It was great but could have used some ice cream.

As the title says this was a long long day. We covered 432 miles! That is much longer than we really ever expect to drive in one shot but it actually wasn't that bad. We each drove about 1/2 of it. We used 37.2 gallons of gas for MPG of 11.6.

Our first trip milestone of 1032 miles, that is 1/5 of the way to Alaska.

We are here for 3 nights so now we get to do some fun stuff instead of all driving!

A quick shortcut through Canada

Our day started very early, we woke up and had breakfast in Walmart parking lot and got right on the road. We actually didn't need anything at the Walmart which is probably a first.

Today we opted for taking smaller highways which makes for more scenic and relaxing driving. And brings you though towns like Waterloo where a classic car fair was going on. I quickly snapped a picture of a classic car pulling an old Airstream.

We drove through some other small New York towns. Although we didn't really stop to see anything it is a lot nicer than just whizzing by the freeway.

Today is another long drive day so seeing stuff like this even if we are moving makes it more fun,

By about 10:45 we had already made some good progress so we stopped for a hike. We we only had to slightly detour to stop at this Iroquis Wildlife Refuge which had a nice couple of trails.

Maxwell very much liked hiking though the trails.

He doesn't love the car like he used to when he was younger. But what do you expect from a 17 year old dog.

The entire trail was under 2 miles and completely flat so it was just about his speed.

It was very pretty and not nearly as buggy as I had expected.

You could hear and spot all sorts of birds and frogs.

This trail wasn't at the main entrance of the park, but we lucked out it had a huge parking area, so parking the trailer was no problem.

We made some sandwiches and checked out our options for the next place to camp. It will be in Canada as we are going to cross southern Ontario to get to Michigan.

I tried booking a campsite at Long Point Provincial Park but they wanted extra money for doing it online and they were empty so instead we just got back on the smaller highways and continued on our way.

Crossing into Canada with the Trailer and Maxwell was a breeze, actually I think technically we snuck Maxwell in as they had no idea he was in the back seat.

When we got to Long Point there was no attendant but you could pick a empty site and check in the next day. So we picked and empty pull-thru since we didn't plan on un-hitching or anything.

It wasn't too late when we got in and we took showers and made a delicious chicken dinner. The sunset was very nice.

Long Point is a big long sandbar which must be absolutely mobbed in the summer... but was completely dead! Lucky Us.

This beach was a 1 minute walk from our site. It was beautiful not exactly beach weather but hey it is still May.

We got a good night sleep and again an early start.  It turned out there wasn't going to be staff at the park till the next day so we didn't end up paying anything for the campsite.

We drove 258 Miles today and used 21.3 gallons of gas for a much improved MPG of 12. This is more in line with our previous trips. I expect it was a combination of flatter terrain and reduced speed.

The Journey Begins

After many months of planning and looking forward to the our Alaska trip the day was finally here.

A few days before departing we managed to bring the trailer to our house to start the finally packing.

Today we worked all morning packing before we finally disconnected the trail from the power and did a final inspection and head off.

We planned on this first day being mostly driving, as we had been through this area of NY last fall in the trailer.

We covered some good distance and then took a couple breaks along the way. The traffic was very light and we made pretty good time.

The timing worked out very good and we ended up passing through Syracuse at dinner time and revisited The Dinosaur BBQ for dinner.

Luckily the weather was cool enough to leave Maxwell in the truck eating his dinner while we ate ours.

Plus we licked out with a great parking spot for the trailer which in a city is no easy feat. Luck for us the restaurant is in a quiet part of town

We haven't really seen anything in Syracuse except the Dinosaur so we took a little walk around some of the nearby buildings.

We enjoyed a beer in the outside patio area while we waited a bit for a table.

The BBQ was great again, if you are ever in the area check it out.

We are trying to be healthy so we didn't have apps or dessert.  But you should have the Fried Green Tomatoes if you go!

Driving all day we planned to stay the first night in a Walmart parking lot.

The local Syracuse Walmarts were both off limits to RVers so we drove another 45 minutes to Auburn, NY and tucked in for the night. No other RVs were there but we shared the lot with a trucker who was staying there.



Overall we covered 342 Miles used an astonishing 35 gallons of gas for terrible 9.7 mpg average. We were doing almost 65 the entire day and it was kind of hilly. Usually we do a little better on MPGs but with a fully loaded trailer and the bikes who knows.

Less than 3 weeks to go!

It is hard to believe we will be leaving for Alaska in under 3 weeks! We had already figured on taking the trip as far back as last Thanksgiving and finalized the idea this Christmas so that was a long time to wait.

Preparing for the trip has been stressful, although mostly it is non-trip related things that are causing the most problems. These final weeks of work are finally starting to feel like final weeks. I think from the trailer, truck, equipment point of view we will be fine. Although I still need a rain jacket as I can't find mine. I haven't seen it in years so I could have lost it during one or two moves.

Renting out the beach condo is turning out to be the most painful. The renter I had lined up has been so flaky, and as of today has basically failed to honor the contract we signed. Sadly I let him talk me down on the deposit so if it doesn't work out I won't have much to show for it. He swears he still wants the place but refuses to meet the terms I gave him as options after he missed today's deadline. I have been so accommodating to this guy, I get screwed anytime I am nice to someone.

My brother and his wife are already several days into their journey. I chatted with Maureen today and they seem to be driving too much. We have a tentative date to meet in Edmonton AB in the middle of June. I think we are going to go fast through MA and NY and try to make sure we have more free time places we haven't been before!

The next few weeks promise to be crazy busy, stressful but all in all amazingly exciting.

Less than 2 months till Alaska!

The posts covering last summers travels in the trailer are almost caught up. I should have known better and done them during the actual trips but being a RV newbie I had a lot of other things to worry about.

Anyway back to the Alaska Trip!  At the end of May we are packing up and heading off a big adventure to Alaska. It is along way (over 4600 miles 1 way). We think it is going to take about 4 months total, with a month to get there 2 in Alaska and a month to get back.

We are setting off from Boston and my Brother and his wife and their Airstream will be heading off from Texas. We will rendezvous someplace and travel together for a the middle of the trip. Right now we have tentatively planned to meetup in Edmonton.

Below is a rough Google map of the route to Denali NP. We have a reservation at a campground 28 miles into Denali NP, otherwise the trip is pretty much unplanned or will be planned on the way.  Checkout the route map an if you know of something we simple have to see or someplace we have to eat drop us a line. Or if you are on the route let us know and we will stop in for visit!