Great Alaska Adventure Wrap-Up

What a Great Ride!



M Back Home in Our Garage, with Her Friend the Old Brown Audi

With M back home in the garage, Bob and Lisa rested up a bit from the final days of hard driving, the mail opened, the mountains of laundry started, and a significant dent made in the unpacking, we wanted to take a moment and reflect on the totality of our Great Alaska Adventure.

Let's begin with some stats:
  • Trip Duration: 78 Days
    • Start Date: 7/28/17
    • End Date: 10/13/17
          
  • Total Miles Driven: 9,179 
    • Starting Mileage: 17,372
    • Ending Mileage: 26,551
    • Ferry Miles: About 800-- where M got to ride.
        
  • 46 Stops for Gas
    • Cheapest Premium Gas: Laramie, WY at the start of the trip--$2.599
    • Most Expensive Gas: Whitehorse, YT Canada-- $1.98 Canadian/Litre--  That's $7.50/gallon Canadian, or about $6 US / gallon.
    • Cheapest Gas in Alaska: Palmer at $2.769
        
  • Average MPG-- 27-- not bad, considering all those horrid roads in Canada.
      
  • We stayed in 27 different places
    • The Best:  The gorgeous house in Gig Harbor closely followed by the caboose in Sequim
    • The Worst: Definitely the Super 8 in Fort, St. John YT, Canada


We spent countless hours in transportation museums of all sorts (car, train, airplane, boat, and even tank), and about the same amount of time in art galleries and art museums.  And while we did bring home quite a number of cool pieces of art, we thankfully did not acquire any old cars (yet).


Best Moments of the Trip:  

  • Rock Climbing in Banff
  • The motorcycle side-car ride in Jasper
  • Visiting the Musk Oxen farm in Palmer, AK
  • A helicopter ride with glacier landing, and clomping around in clamp-ons on the glacier near Palmer
  • Sidling up to a whale in a 30 foot boat in Seward
  • Watching the sunrise from bed in our windowed bedroom in Gig Harbor
  • Driving the road from Haines Junction to Haines (Lisa)
  • Visiting BOTH LeMay car museums (Bob)


Worst Moment of the Trip: Finding M with a smashed window in that horrible Seattle garage.


Best Things We Brought

  • GoPro: A great way to make you feel like you are in our back seat.
  • Hiking Boots: We needed them far more often than we thought!
  • The Alaska Coupon Book (Cost $70-- saved over $500!)
  • The Yeti Cooler & Mug-- expensive and worth every penny!
  • Our own frying pan and sharp knife.
  • Phones & Tablet with an unlimited data plan-- even in Canada.  Frequent use of Google Maps & Trip Advisor saved many a day.



Things We Should Have Left at Home:
We knew traveling with M was going to be tight, so we very carefully culled our stuff to take only what we really thought we would need.  Here are some things that took up space that could have been better used for bringing home art.

  • A Gallon of Windshield Wiper Fluid
  • A Chess Set (in a long box)
  • Rain Ponchos
  • Big Box of GoPro accessories (we only needed the dash mount & wrist strap)
  • Heavy long-sleeve shirts and sweaters and heavy winter coats. (Alaska wasn't nearly as cold as we feared.)



Along with all the fantastic places we visited, and all the cool things we saw and did, chronicling them in this blog was an integral part of the trip.  It forced us to purposely reflect together on each day, which made everything we did more memorable and even more special.

We hope all of you who followed along with us-- whether on a daily basis or just by dropping in from time to time-- enjoyed the journey as well.  We very much appreciated all the comments and suggestions-- especially the local insights from Tom (Zippy)-- and hope that we have provided some inspiration and ideas for your future travels.

It has truly been a fantastic trip-- for us and for M, who finally got to really hit the road and drive the way she was made to, instead of simply commuting back and forth to LoDo.  We would do it again in a heartbeat.

This is the very last post, but the blog will remain live for as long as Google supports it.  I'm sure we'll return to it nostalgically from time-to-time.  If your travels ever take you along any of the places on our route, feel free to refer back to it for ideas and observations.

Until Our Next Great Adventure...

--Lisa, Bob & M




Comments

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