A lot has happened since my last post… but the biggest of news is that on July 31st we loaded up absolutely everything we owned into a 26′ Uhaul, 8′ trailer, truck, travel trailer, with the dog, 2.5 kids (and of course the hubby) and started our almost 2 week-long trek up to the beautiful land that is called Alaska. It was a very strange feeling to drive absolutely everything we own across the entire country…. but we did it.
I moved to Oklahoma when I was about 18 months old so I’ve really never known anything besides the humid land that is Oklahoma. (more specifically, Tulsa Oklahoma) The beginning of the trip was very hard… I was uncertain and incredibly stressed about the drive. I thought we were crazy (and the jury is still out on that one, if we’re being honest with each other here). I knew I couldn’t do it. I was sure we were all going to die on the Alcan. I knew I was going to drive off a cliff somewhere.
But I was wrong! (for the first time in my life)
We traveled from Oklahoma through Kansas to Omaha (Nebraska), hooked a left in South Dakota, into Wyoming, up through Montana and finally crossed into Canada from Sweet Grass, Montana. (As an aside, I’m bummed that I wasn’t able to get even 1 single picture of the state lines we crossed.) We chose that path, instead of going through Seattle for two main reasons; mountains, but also because my history-loving hubby wanted to visit some battlefields… and not even a 6-month pregnant wife should deny her hubby that! I am the world’s biggest scaredy cat when it comes to driving through mountains. And being an Oklahoma girl who hadn’t driven much outside of the surrounding states (OK, Kansas, Texas pretty much sums it up), I was just not used to mountains. So we chose the path that may have been a bit longer but also put off most mountain driving until later in the trip. (and honestly I can’t say I regret that decision even a little bit)
The first few days leaving Oklahoma were not exactly a cake walk. We sold our 2 vehicles (Toyota 4-Runner and Nissan Xterra) and consolidated into 1 super-bad truck. We also bought a 29′ travel trailer that would be our home for about an entire month. Mind you, we have never owned a travel trailer before, let alone driven one, and especially haven’t driven one across the entire country. Even though we had loads of space in the Uhaul and trailer, we ended up selling/giving away many, many of our possessions because we just didn’t have room for everything.
But most of all, I had left behind the family with whom I’d spent my entire life. (and I didn’t get to say bye to my grandma….. sorry grandma, if you’re reading this!!)
I had left behind the very few friends that I had. (and really, it’s a VERY small amount)
I had left behind the only life, the only place, I’d ever known.
On top of all of that, the biggest vehicle I had ever driven on a regular basis was a Toyota 4-Runner… a time or two I’d driven it with the 10′ utility trailer hooked up but that wasn’t a regular occurrence. I had no idea what I was getting into with this trip.
But somehow, against many odds, we made it through.
Our first day on the road took us 3 hours to travel 60 miles… funny, right! We had no clue what we were doing. I had no idea how to drive the ginormous Uhaul we had rented let alone the burden of the 8′ trailer I was toting behind it. I was unsure about switching lanes, making turns, backing up, and how the heck do you get into a friggin gas station??? We left late in the evening on a Thursday and ended up spending the night in our new trailer in a Homeland parking lot just 60 miles from the town I’d called home most of my life. (Yeah, Homeland shocker, I didn’t know it still existed either!)
Both the hubby and I were new to this “big rig” driving thing. We learned many things along the way, which I plan to get into greater detail on a later post. We learned how to seek out gas stations that were “big rig friendly”, we learned to think like truckers (sounds crazy but you really do have to adjust your whole way of thinking), we learned quickly how to change lanes without plowing through cars (a total plus!), we learned how to adjust our speed so that we weren’t constantly holding up traffic by constantly driving 80 miles under the speed limit …. and that was just the beginning. I’m not sure I’d ever like to repeat the almost 4,000 mile international/cross-country journey again (especially not with everything we own in tow)…. but it is surely a trek I will never forget.
The rest of the trip (including the trip up the Alcan) is really another post meant for another day. (and kudos to you if you’re actually still reading this.) But really, the best part is… we are here in beautiful, wonderful, incredible Alaska. And ya know what? There are NO. scorpions. in. Alaska. And I think that’s fantastic!!