Tuesday, May 31, 2011

A Blog is Born!

Welcome to the twenty-first century, Daisy.  Not only you're blogging - you've created your own blog.  Not bad for an Old Dog learning New Tricks.

I thought about using this blog to share my travels with friends and family for the next six months - you see, I'm going on a sabbatical from work beginning on July 1.  I'm still going to do that, yes, but I think this forum can be more than a travel repository.  Not sure what yet, but it'll come to me. 

My husband (Eric) and I are planning for our summer voyages in our '99 Eurovan (known as the Albatross, or 'Tross for short).  'Tross has been freshly converted to a manual transmission and a TDI engine that runs on diesel.  On a hungry day, she's been working at an impressive 30 mpg on the B99 stuff we got from down the street.  I believe she's supposed to work more efficiently after the first thousand miles or so.  Good 'Tross.  Eric also added other bells and whistles to her; I couldn't tell you what they are if my life depends on it (I wasn't paying THAT much attention...)   BUT, he got this incredible commercial-grade memory foam for the bed!  It's like the Westin Heavenly Bed, only in a campervan!  I am stoked!

First trip:  I can almost see Alaska from my backyard!!  Tsk tsk...  Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Northbound to Alaska on The Alaska Highway, probably via the central access and start at Dawson Creek.  A ~3,500 miles roundtrip will take us to Skagway, a couple hours ferry ride to Juneau and back, then return via the scenic Stewart-Cassiar Highway (aka BC Highway 37).  I wish we could  make it all the way to Denali but it's just too much for one trip. 

I'd love your insights if you've ever driven these routes, or any "must see" along the way.  What do you think?  4-5 weeks for this trip?