If you read part one and two of our long drive from the Eastern US back home to Alaska, you know that we were in the Yukon Territory on Monday, hoping to get to the Alaska border that night.
It was close to 8 PM when we reached the Alaska border, and thankfully we had no trouble going through customs and were quickly on our way once more.
It was so nice to be back in our own familiar country where the gas is sold by the gallon instead of the liter, and distance is measured by miles instead of kilometers.
The road during the last hundred or so kilometers in the Yukon Territory, and the first 2-300 miles across the Alaska border was full of potholes, frost heaves, and broken up pavement. We had to slow down considerably because of the road condition and didn’t make great time.
One by one the children fell asleep, and I began to nod off myself in the passenger seat, but Andy was still going strong and just kept on driving.
We reached Tok, and Andy stopped for gas, but it was pretty expensive (almost $5 per gallon), so he only got enough to get us through to Glenallen. Alaskan gas prices were high, but still better than Yukon gas prices, where we had to pay over $8 per gallon at some of the more remote outposts.
At Tok, we were five hours from Andy’s sister who lives in the Palmer area.
“Let’s try to get a couple hours closer, and then get there for breakfast in the morning,” Andy said. Apparently he was still not sleepy, so on we drove. Finally, a little after 11:30 PM we pulled off into a pull out about 30 miles above Glenallen to sleep. It didn’t take us long to unbuckle car seats, get the sleeping children into sleeping bags, and crash into bed ourselves: we had had a lot of practice by now.
That day, Monday, we had started in British Colombia, driven the entire way through the Yukon Territory, and over four hours into Alaska. With getting an extra hour after crossing the time zone at the Alaska border, we had driven 18 hours that day. That was a long day for sure!
6 AM on Tuesday, we were up and stowing stuff so we could get on the road once again. We drove through a bunch of snow covered mountains and there was more snow coming down. In about 3 1/2 hours we reached Andy’s sister Elaine’s house where she fixed us breakfast and we ended up staying longer than what we had intended because the visit was just so good.
After we said our goodbyes, we drove on until we reached the Anchorage airport where we had parked our Excursion in long term airport parking back in January. We couldn’t remember where we had put the keys and had a desperate half hour search before we located them. Andy went to see if it needed to be shoveled out of a snow drift, but it was actually pretty easy to get out.
Gabe wanted to ride with me, so he and I drove in the Excursion following Andy in the motor home through one last mountain pass.
We stopped several times: at a couple of friends houses to pick up our dog and drop off some things, and also to pick up groceries. Several friends sent food home with us so we wouldn’t have to think about making food right away.
At 7:02 PM on Tuesday, we drove into our lane, parked the Excursion and motor home, and we were home. What a wonderful feeling to be done with that long drive! Praise God for keeping us safe all those miles.
The children had fun re-discovering home, and the special toys and dolls that they hadn’t seen for weeks. There are so many things to bring in and unpack, but most will have to wait until tomorrow.
Now we just want to sleep for about a week.