What do you call a guy who sets off on a 3,600-mile road trip in the dead of winter to drive the Rocky Mountain chain from Alaska to southern Colorado? Bear in mind that this is the same guy who goes kayaking with his Australian shepherd - in the ocean.

Crazy doesn't quite sum it up, because there was a fair amount of planning up front. Adventurous is probably closer to the mark, because these are the undertakings that lead to stories - for your buddies and for your future grandchildren. "That's nothing. I once drove the Alcan in December with a dog and two cats."

Hey, it's got to be better than sitting in an office attending a budget meeting or deciding annual employee raises. Who's the crazy one now?

Day1-Alaska                     Day2 AK/Yukon border     Day3 Kluane NP
Day4 Teslin                       Day5 Northern BC             Day6 Muncho Lake
Day7 Dawson Creek       Day8 Grand Prairie           Day9 Northern Alberta
Day10 Southern Alberta  Day11 Western Montana  Days12&13 Bozeman
Day14 Eastern Montana  Day15 Wyoming/Colorado 
Epilogue  Driving tips       Photo gallery                      
Excel spreadsheet of available services in the winter

Day one: What the first day lacked in miles it made up for in hours. Moving day: The end of a year and a half at the University of Alaska Anchorage completing a degree in journalism. The culmination of 18 months of year-round college and working as a starving journalist. The final leg of a marathon race that ended with finals week, a major research paper, many goodbyes and the move itself.

Up at 8 a.m. after a long night of packing the Bigfoot travel trailer, the remainder of the move ended up larger than the quotient. There was still more trailer and truck-bed packing, the latter which my friend and loading assistant, Barry Piser, likened to completing a jigsaw puzzle. By time the rental house was clean it was rush-hour in Anchorage. Not only that, but rain was starting to fall on top of the previous layer of snow.

After taking a dinner break to let the idjuts¹ get off the highway to the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, it took 75 minutes to drive the 40 miles out to the house of my friends Will and Diana who live in Palmer. What had been snow-packed, the rain turned into hard-packed ice. Once safely parked in Palmer, walking on the ice seemed even more treacherous than driving on it.

Which raises an important point. The combined weight of my 1998 F-150², the 5,000-pound travel trailer with the 750-pound tongue weight and the 1,000 pounds of personal possessions in the bed of the truck actually combine for reasonable traction due to the excessive down force on the truck tires. The down side, of course, is that gas mileage drops to about eight miles per gallon - even lower if steep hills and head winds are on the day's agenda.

The rains on the drive out to Palmer were heavy enough to rekindle memories of the August rainy season. Fortunately, Barry Piser and fellow sportscaster Robert Stormo were on 88.1FM broadcasting the UAA women's basketball game against the District of Columbia, taking my mind off the fact that my knuckles were white. Hearing the voices of my old classmates was a fitting goodbye to my home of the past year and a half.

By time I pulled onto Will and Diana's street in Palmer I had experienced enough activity for my first day - and the odometer read only 39 miles.³ 

Day two
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¹ When they drive 70 miles-per-hour on ice-covered roads, they're not just idiots. They're idjuts.
² Which, by the way, has over 125,000 miles on it.
³ Astute readers will notice that the math doesn't add up. I forgot to reset my odometer until I was at Bragaw Street on the east side of Anchorage.

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