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Alaska is a HUGE state (I know… thanks Captain Obvious!)!  But for as massive as it is, there are relatively few paved/tended gravel roads.  We’ve been doing our best this summer to try to drive them all and this past week we spent a few days traveling the Richardson Highway from Fairbanks to Valdez.

The first thing we learned about the Richardson Highway is that no one here calls it by its Route number (Alaska 4) – it’s the Richardson.  All of the major roads have names in Alaska (The Dalton, The Top of the World, The Alaska, The Denali) and it has taken a while to get our heads around which road takes you to which place!

The second thing we have learned is that in Alaska, the term “highway” is relative – a “highway” can be 4-6 paved lanes headed North out of Anchorage, or it can be a single-wide gravel trail through the mountains depending on where you are headed.

The Richardson Highway was the first major road built in Alaska, and the Alaska Oil Pipeline runs adjacent to the highway all of the way from Fairbanks to Valdez.

Just outside of Fairbanks the highway passes through North Pole, Alaska… SANTA!!!!!

One thing you can always count on in Alaska is road construction…

But the scenery kind of makes up for it, don’t you think?

We are headed back out this weekend to check another highway off the list this weekend!  Homer here we come!

 

As we planned this adventure, we really wanted the kids to be able to meet up with us at various points along the way and experience our trip along with us.  So our arrival in Alaska was quickly followed by a visit from Mitchell.    Of course, we wanted to make sure that Mitchell could experience as much of Alaska as a week-long trip would allow… but the thing that he was most interested in was a fishing trip.

To say that Mitchell loves fishing would be an understatement.  And it just so happened that our arrival in Alaska coincided with the run of the King Salmon (I know… darn the luck!).

With a brutal 3:30am alarm on a cold and drizzly morning we headed north and met up with our guide Colton (who is AWESOME – check out his company at http://www.drifterzparadise.com).

Apparently cold and rainy is the best fishing weather… who knew?

There is a saying up here – there is a reason why they call it “fishing” and not “catching” – but things can go from boredom to mayhem as soon as you get a bite.  We only had a window of about 4 hours for our excursion – good thing we took advantage of our time on the river!

That’s about 50 pounds of salmon – I could barely hold that sucker up for the picture!  And they have some SHARP teeth!  Once we cleaned and filleted the fish we literally had an entire trashbag full of salmon!  Good thing we have lots of friends to share our good fortune with!

No fish from the grocery store can compare to freshly caught king salmon – I had no idea how good salmon could be.  One of my favorite ways to prepare salmon comes courtesy of Dinner at Tiffani’s (yes, that Tiffani from Saved by the Bell – check out her show on the Cooking Channel – it’s awesome!  Trust!).  It is easy-peasy… but SO very very good!  The friends we are staying with said this was the best Salmon they have ever had – which is high praise coming from born and raised Alaskan’s!

Honey Miso Glaze

1/2 cup Honey

2 tbsp each Miso Paste, Lime juice, Soy Sauce

5 cloves garlic, minced

Prior to grilling or broiling, baste salmon with some of the glaze.  Grill or broil to medium rare – PLEASE don’t overcook this!  Remember the salmon will continue cooking a bit after you remove it from the grill or broiler.  A few minutes before removing from the grill baste salmon with more of the glaze – and don’t be stingy, really coat that sucker!   Remove from grill and let the feast begin!  Enjoy!

A few days before we left on our adventure, I was on the phone with one of my good friends talking about how nervous I was about this trip.  After giving me encouraging words about how excited she was for us, she sighed and said the thing she was most envious of about this trip is that we would have “time.”

Time…

Time to relax… to get away from the rat race… time to unwind and decompress.

Time…

Time is a funny thing – and even after just 10 days on this trip I’ve realized that time is just going to happen a little differently for us this year.  Already, we’ve realized that so much of our lives have been spent on auto-pilot – you get up, drive the same roads to work every day, sit in the same office, drive home, have dinner, watch a little TV and go to bed.  Maybe somewhere in there you run some errands… do some shopping… spend time with friends.  But basically it’s the same thing every day:  working your tail off to make money to fund the big house and all of the stuff.  Everything is automatic – sleepwalking through our lives.

We knew we were on this endless treadmill – and we knew we wanted off.  But it took until we actually got off the track to really look objectively at how we spent our time up to now.

One of the things that has been difficult for us so far on this trip is that everything takes TIME and thought.  There is no auto-pilot… at least not yet.  No real schedule, no routine.  Exactly how did we used to fill 24 hours?  And how are we going to fill them now?

It’s just different now… different routines, different stresses and different priorities.  We aren’t far enough into this to know exactly how this is going to play out – but I am getting the sense that it isn’t going to be more or less free time as much as it is just going to be spending our time differently.  Some things that were automatic before take more time now – getting connected to the Internet, doing laundry, getting to the store… that kind of thing.  Cleaning and organizing… trust me, 160 square feet can get dirty and cluttered REALLY quickly!  So cleaning as we go, and constantly picking up and organizing is essential.

But that takes time…

On the other hand I have already finished two books this week and we’ve been able to do a little sightseeing too.

Right now it is impossible NOT to compare how we are spending our time now against how things were before.  At some point I hope that we’ll stop comparing then and now and just live it.  If you are tired, sleep… if you are hungry, eat… do what you want to do.  Getting there is going to take time… part of the evolution of this trip and this next step in our lives.

 

 

We’ve come a LONG way baby!  Week three and we spent most of it busting out miles trying to make up time and stay on schedule to Alaska.  Schedule? I know – we aren’t supposed to be on a schedule!  But I have a meeting back in DC June 1, so that means we have to get to Anchorage by May 30 at the latest so I can fly back east for the week.  It kind of stinks – we feel like Ewan and Charley in Long Way Down (“I want to ride through all of Africa without stopping, without getting to know the people, or experiencing any of the culture”).  But I think we’ve decided that we’ll make up for it on the way back from AK later this summer by taking LOTS of time coming back through Canada and down to Montana, Idaho and the Northwest for the early fall.

Heading out of Nashville we headed North and stayed at Camp Turkeyville outside of Battle Creek, MI (yes it is really called that!).  Trying to figure out where to stay during this trip has been really difficult – do we go the full-on KOA route (which is kind of like eating at McDonalds when you travel to Paris – pretty cookie-cutter at times) or do we mix it up with some state parks and private campgrounds?  The problem with the state parks is that often they are off the beaten track, and they don’t offer services such as water, sewer, or wifi.  They can be beautiful – but unfortunately because we are working we just can’t be off-grid too often.

Private campgrounds are kind of like Marriott Hotels (sorry Mr. Marriott) – they are very hit or miss.  Many times private campgrounds are mostly filled with “seasonal” campers – these are essentially folks who live full-time in the campground.  And while sometimes seasonal campers are tidy and keep a nice looking site more often than not you feel like you have just stepped into the filming of Deliverance.  I know… I know… that sounds so snotty… but sadly it is true.

Camp Turkeyville was pretty nice for a private campground – the people were wonderful and the facilities were beautiful.  Fred enjoyed it!

After commiserating with the poultry, we kept heading north for one of the highlights of our trip, a concert featuring Alter Bridge (members of Creed and the singer from Slash’s band).  Check them out if you haven’t every heard of them – Myles Kennedy has a rockin’ voice!

We had wanted to see them in DC but we were going to miss them so we decided to make this a stop on our own personal tour!  Did you know that you can still smoke indoors in the Indian-run Casino’s in Michigan?  Neither did we…. yuck!  But the concert venue was intimate, we had great seats, and the band was in fine form.  It was an awesome show!

Duluth, Winnipeg, and Saskatoon rounded out the week and now we are working our way through Saskatchewan and Alberta.  We are really liking Canada (BTW – have you ever noticed how CLEAN it is in Canada?  No litter… anywhere… seriously!  They do need to work on their roads in spots (can you say BUMPY???), the scenery has been serene – flat farm and ranchlands – and the weather has been impeccable

As I write this we are in a campground in Grande Prairie AB (a private campground… it’s only for one night).  Our stress levels are still pretty high because of our travel and work schedules (and a few other challenges we are trying to work out) – so we are still a bit on edge.  But we can’t wait to get to Alaska so we’ll keep pushing on…