Friday, April 30, 2010

HOLY COW! I BLOGGED!!! :) ***Drive to Alaska***

So I am finally blogging again! Now that I am not in school I have more time. I have posted some pictures from the drive out...I didn't think about it but I didn't get any of the people that we went with, just scenery and animals haha

So let me tell you about our experience...
Day 1: Beau, Chris, Meagan and I left Saturday morning, stopped in Provo for a while at the APX building then made the last of the drive to Shelby, MT.
Day 2: We woke up early the next morning and drove to the boarder. The boarder crossing was a nightmare! We were their really early so we could drive really far that day. We had to wait there for 2 hours because the notes we took were screwed up and they said they were invalid and uncredible. So we had to call from a payphone because there is no cell service...call Craig in Florida, have him call someone in Provo (because for some INSANE reason the phone wouldn't call 801 numbers) then wait for a while and call back, etc, etc. But we needed someone to go over to the APX building (it's Sunday mind you) and get all our contracts we signed and fax them to the boarder. SO...two hours later we got them and finally was able to go on. Driving in Canada was confusing because the gas is in Liters. The cheapest gas we were able to get was in Calgary and it was $0.98/Liter, other than that it was like $1.15/Liter avg. Our next stop was in Dawson Creek, BC. We met up with Jimmy (Meagan's husband) there and found a hotel.
Day 3: We went on to drive to Whitehorse, YT and stay the night. The roads on this day were pretty bad though. We never saw one cop the whole drive so we were driving about 25 km/hr over the speed limit (80mph) and the roads, out of nowhere, were way damaged and had huge pot holes in them. It was weird to be pulling into our next city because not only did we lose an hour each day but the sun was still up till the time we fell asleep and it was already up when we got going again.
Day 4: We finally got back to US soil and couldn't wait! We thought the roads were bad from Dawson Creek -> Whitehorse....they were WAY worse from Whitehorse to the boarder! And as were showing the guys at the boarder our papers you could see people working on the roads on the other side! haha Our last little bit of drive in Canada might have had terrible roads but it was by far the most beautiful scenery! Huge mountains, frozen lakes...it was just green and white! Needless to say, we finally made it! Anchorage is kinda dumpy right now, but I can't wait for it to be green and pretty!

Here is the map I used when we were in the Yukon Territory...so this is about 1/3 of our drive! The mileage from Cedar was 3,400 miles! We went straight up I-15 to Calgary and Edmonton, then over on the Alaska Highway to Dawson Creek, Whitehorse, then to Alaska.
This is Mt. Logan (by Whitehorse) It's the tallest point in Canada :)
19551 ft tall!!
Just some pictures. There was TONS of lakes and rivers. Most were frozen or unthawing.
**Jimmy and Meagan in the blue truck, and Chris in the red car.
an iced lake
There were all kinds of animals crossing the roads. It was really dangerous at night, not only because of the animals (which are HUGE) but I think all their snow washes off their painted lines because SO many roads are missing lines and Anchorage's roads are like that now. It's weird having a 4 lane highway with no lines...I'm surprised their aren't accidents!
Caribou Bison

Sheep
Moose
some snowy mountains
Paul Bunyan is even in Canada!
So the drive was so boring and ugly (you know what So. Idaho looks like...no mountains and no trees or anything) but once we got on the Alaska Highway after Edmonton we got more trees and then we came to mountains and out of nowhere there was this huge valley with this little city in the bottom. It was really pretty but my picture doesn't do it justice.
Then we finally saw it! ALASKA! We were so excited to be back on USA soil! There were many reasons why everyone hated Canada, but the reason I did was because they didn't have any FOUNTAIN soda! And when we crossed the boarder there was a gas station with a fountain! Thank you America!

1 comment:

Audrey said...

Oh my gosh, that drive is probably the only reason I am glad we didn't go out this summer haha. I bet you guys are going to have an awesome summer. We will be missing you! Good luck!