North Star Trek - Captain’s Log – A Winter Exodus
One year ago - three weeks from tomorrow, we left Alaska and wrote the following posts in email messages to friends and family. We'd like to share the story and experience with you all here and now in the Alaska/Canada Forum. Today we offer the Introduction and first chapter called Final Preparations. Tomorrow we'll continue with travel day one, then each day a new chapter until we wrap up 10 days of travel and an "Afterward" covering final thoughts and logistics of the trip. We hope you enjoy our North Star Trek - Captain's Log - A Winter Exodus.
INTRODUCTION
In early November 2009, Dave and Ruth left their home in Wyoming (WY) for a new life, albeit temporary, in Fairbanks, Alaska (AK). Dave was to finish his career with this job move, perhaps spending as little as one year, maybe as long as three or more; and with such a move there’s always the chance of permanency.
Three years later, his career completed, they decide to move back home. They’ll be back amongst family, including their two adult age children and four grandchildren. And they’ll finally get to enjoy the fruits of their labors by really living in their Wyoming home, a place they’ve been building and remodeling for the past two decades and had only recently brought to an almost finished state before this move, and a previous one-year move to the Washington DC area in 2007 and 2008.
What follows is a humorous accounting of their winter exodus out of Alaska, three years and three weeks after the original trip there. The story was originally told in a series of email messages to their friends and family, in what Dave had styled as “Daily Captain’s Logs”.
Leaving Fairbanks, AK on November 27, 2012, they pick up the Alaska Highway – also called the ALCAN – in Big Delta. From there they drive the ALCAN’s 1373 miles along Alaska’s eastern interior, through Canada’s Yukon Territory (YT) and into British Columbia (BC), to Dawson Creek. From there they take what is know as the East Access Route through Canada’s Alberta (AB) province, reentering the United States in Montana (MT) and finally into Wyoming (WY).
In this work, the email messages have been edited and rewritten in a book format for the general reader. The entire trip is over 2800 miles and takes them 10 days. They are both drivers of two vehicles, including a trailer holding a third vehicle – their beloved 1954 Willys Jeep CJ3B - and their household goods. The trip includes plans to camp along the way, in an effort to control lodging and dining expenses, and to provide adventure.
Dave is driving a 2006 Dodge Ram 2500 four-wheel drive pickup with a 5.9 liter Cummins Turbo-Diesel engine and the 48RE automatic transmission, outfitted with a 2003 Starcraft Lonestar pop-up slide-in truck camper, and pulling an 2009 Interstate 20’ tandem axle enclosed car-hauler/cargo trailer. Altogether the outfit weighs 20,000 lbs. Yes, Dave is pretty amazing!
Ruth is driving her smiley-face-yellow 2000 Jeep Cherokee with the venerable 4.0 liter inline six-cylinder engine and automatic transmission with the Selec-Trac transfer case, which offers both full or part-time four-wheel drive as road conditions dictate. It is packed full. Ruth is alacritous!
Enjoy the story as you travel along with Dave and Ruth in this North Star Trek, a winter exodus.
CAPTAIN’S LOG - FINAL PREPARATIONS
North Star Date: 11/26/2012
Location or Route: Fairbanks, AK
Travel Miles: 2823 - Proposed Trip Total
Weather Conditions: Cold. Tonight’s overnight temperatures are forecast to be around -25F/-32C. Skies are clear and there is no expected wind or precipitation.
Road Conditions: Mostly bare and dry for the initial and latter sections; snow and ice packed throughout the majority of mid-route.
9:11 PM (-20F/-29C)
Our preparations are nearly complete. We disassembled the rocker-recliners last night and loaded them into Ruth’s car. Since then we have been sitting on camp chairs. The minimally remaining household goods are still to be loaded out. We have the trailer out of the storage lot and parked outside here at the apartment complex. Ruth has the food and water stores in various staged locations throughout the apartment. In the morning I’ll install the portable CB radios and rooftop antennas, load out the camera bags and mobile devices and the electronic equipment will be ready to go. The trailer is close to maxed out in both space and gross weight. Here’s hoping all 325 of the truck’s horses stay healthy and well fed or we may well end up having to discard some of our possessions along the trail.
A cold air mass in the form of a surface high pressure system is sinking south from northern Alaska and Canada’s Northwest Territories. Forecast weather charts indicate it will move over our route and remain in place, perhaps for the next several days, pushing up against the coastal mountain ranges south of the Alaska Highway. Therefore, our route should remain clear and cold. That’s at least favorable for driving and scenery – we should have some magnificent photo opportunities – but with nighttime lows possibly into the -25 to -35 degree range, a whole new definition begins to emerge for the phrase “winter camping”!
Some nervousness has started to set in. Yes, we have two cars, so if there is trouble with one, having a spare vehicle is much better than just having a spare tire. But a major vehicular problem in the winter wilderness of Alaska or Yukon Territory presents its own unique concerns and challenges. Extreme cold is very hard on machinery and because while living in Alaska we haven’t had to depend on Ruth’s car as a daily driver, when it got to -15 or below we would just leave it parked. So it’s never been outfitted with: block heater, battery heater, engine and transmission oil pan heaters. Even so, it’s a good, dependable car and the truck is also in good condition and does have the above mention heaters. At those times when electrical plug-in is unavailable we can use the remote-start every few hours if necessary to keep the truck’s life-giving fluids from getting too cold.
Cold temperature stress on the trailer’s running gear is one of our greater concerns. We adjusted the trailer brakes and greased the wheel bearings in late Fall (August), and we have in our supplies an extra set of wheel bearings, races and seal, just in case one wheel suffers a failure.
We have a full set of tire chains for the truck, but none for the trailer – which theoretically might be helpful on a steep downhill run to prevent jack-knifing. And, we don’t need chains for Ruth’s mountain-goat-of-a-Jeep. Actually, we really don’t expect to need chains at all, what with the expected storm-free weather under this frigid arctic air-mass, a condition which typically only provides additional frozen precipitation accumulation on road surfaces in the form of a thin layer of ice crystals, and because I don’t usually chain-up until after I need them, and by then it’s too late and unnecessary.
Tonight we’ll get a good night’s sleep and tomorrow morning we’ll turn to a southeasterly heading from our “furthest north” abode. The condition called retirement, and the life changes associated with it - and of going home - have not yet taken up much of our mental excesses. Ahead of us we have miles and miles and hours and hours of solo-driving for those thoughts to begin to gel and to take on more definitive shape.
INTRODUCTION
In early November 2009, Dave and Ruth left their home in Wyoming (WY) for a new life, albeit temporary, in Fairbanks, Alaska (AK). Dave was to finish his career with this job move, perhaps spending as little as one year, maybe as long as three or more; and with such a move there’s always the chance of permanency.
Three years later, his career completed, they decide to move back home. They’ll be back amongst family, including their two adult age children and four grandchildren. And they’ll finally get to enjoy the fruits of their labors by really living in their Wyoming home, a place they’ve been building and remodeling for the past two decades and had only recently brought to an almost finished state before this move, and a previous one-year move to the Washington DC area in 2007 and 2008.
What follows is a humorous accounting of their winter exodus out of Alaska, three years and three weeks after the original trip there. The story was originally told in a series of email messages to their friends and family, in what Dave had styled as “Daily Captain’s Logs”.
Leaving Fairbanks, AK on November 27, 2012, they pick up the Alaska Highway – also called the ALCAN – in Big Delta. From there they drive the ALCAN’s 1373 miles along Alaska’s eastern interior, through Canada’s Yukon Territory (YT) and into British Columbia (BC), to Dawson Creek. From there they take what is know as the East Access Route through Canada’s Alberta (AB) province, reentering the United States in Montana (MT) and finally into Wyoming (WY).
In this work, the email messages have been edited and rewritten in a book format for the general reader. The entire trip is over 2800 miles and takes them 10 days. They are both drivers of two vehicles, including a trailer holding a third vehicle – their beloved 1954 Willys Jeep CJ3B - and their household goods. The trip includes plans to camp along the way, in an effort to control lodging and dining expenses, and to provide adventure.
Dave is driving a 2006 Dodge Ram 2500 four-wheel drive pickup with a 5.9 liter Cummins Turbo-Diesel engine and the 48RE automatic transmission, outfitted with a 2003 Starcraft Lonestar pop-up slide-in truck camper, and pulling an 2009 Interstate 20’ tandem axle enclosed car-hauler/cargo trailer. Altogether the outfit weighs 20,000 lbs. Yes, Dave is pretty amazing!
Ruth is driving her smiley-face-yellow 2000 Jeep Cherokee with the venerable 4.0 liter inline six-cylinder engine and automatic transmission with the Selec-Trac transfer case, which offers both full or part-time four-wheel drive as road conditions dictate. It is packed full. Ruth is alacritous!
Enjoy the story as you travel along with Dave and Ruth in this North Star Trek, a winter exodus.
CAPTAIN’S LOG - FINAL PREPARATIONS
North Star Date: 11/26/2012
Location or Route: Fairbanks, AK
Travel Miles: 2823 - Proposed Trip Total
Weather Conditions: Cold. Tonight’s overnight temperatures are forecast to be around -25F/-32C. Skies are clear and there is no expected wind or precipitation.
Road Conditions: Mostly bare and dry for the initial and latter sections; snow and ice packed throughout the majority of mid-route.
9:11 PM (-20F/-29C)
Our preparations are nearly complete. We disassembled the rocker-recliners last night and loaded them into Ruth’s car. Since then we have been sitting on camp chairs. The minimally remaining household goods are still to be loaded out. We have the trailer out of the storage lot and parked outside here at the apartment complex. Ruth has the food and water stores in various staged locations throughout the apartment. In the morning I’ll install the portable CB radios and rooftop antennas, load out the camera bags and mobile devices and the electronic equipment will be ready to go. The trailer is close to maxed out in both space and gross weight. Here’s hoping all 325 of the truck’s horses stay healthy and well fed or we may well end up having to discard some of our possessions along the trail.
A cold air mass in the form of a surface high pressure system is sinking south from northern Alaska and Canada’s Northwest Territories. Forecast weather charts indicate it will move over our route and remain in place, perhaps for the next several days, pushing up against the coastal mountain ranges south of the Alaska Highway. Therefore, our route should remain clear and cold. That’s at least favorable for driving and scenery – we should have some magnificent photo opportunities – but with nighttime lows possibly into the -25 to -35 degree range, a whole new definition begins to emerge for the phrase “winter camping”!
Some nervousness has started to set in. Yes, we have two cars, so if there is trouble with one, having a spare vehicle is much better than just having a spare tire. But a major vehicular problem in the winter wilderness of Alaska or Yukon Territory presents its own unique concerns and challenges. Extreme cold is very hard on machinery and because while living in Alaska we haven’t had to depend on Ruth’s car as a daily driver, when it got to -15 or below we would just leave it parked. So it’s never been outfitted with: block heater, battery heater, engine and transmission oil pan heaters. Even so, it’s a good, dependable car and the truck is also in good condition and does have the above mention heaters. At those times when electrical plug-in is unavailable we can use the remote-start every few hours if necessary to keep the truck’s life-giving fluids from getting too cold.
Cold temperature stress on the trailer’s running gear is one of our greater concerns. We adjusted the trailer brakes and greased the wheel bearings in late Fall (August), and we have in our supplies an extra set of wheel bearings, races and seal, just in case one wheel suffers a failure.
We have a full set of tire chains for the truck, but none for the trailer – which theoretically might be helpful on a steep downhill run to prevent jack-knifing. And, we don’t need chains for Ruth’s mountain-goat-of-a-Jeep. Actually, we really don’t expect to need chains at all, what with the expected storm-free weather under this frigid arctic air-mass, a condition which typically only provides additional frozen precipitation accumulation on road surfaces in the form of a thin layer of ice crystals, and because I don’t usually chain-up until after I need them, and by then it’s too late and unnecessary.
Tonight we’ll get a good night’s sleep and tomorrow morning we’ll turn to a southeasterly heading from our “furthest north” abode. The condition called retirement, and the life changes associated with it - and of going home - have not yet taken up much of our mental excesses. Ahead of us we have miles and miles and hours and hours of solo-driving for those thoughts to begin to gel and to take on more definitive shape.
