We're off!

Well we hit the open road.

Haines is beautiful. We are at Marnie and Greg's house on the hill overlooking the Wm. H. Seward Fort and (finally!) the water. Gorgeous.

Chance is enjoying the break from the car in a sunny spot on the carpet. The drive has been good. Only one speeding ticket in Alaska. Oops.
Like a dope, Blain actually passed the cop. He was in an unmarked SUV. Sneaky bastard. Don't worry, we didn't call him that. This helped us avoid jail time. The old adage lies. You really don't have to try everything once.

We were sad to leave our little house, but we know Laura will enjoy a wonderful home.

We said farewell to friends Petra and Grant at Snow City in downtown. Fueled by the hearty "Veggie Bypass" plate and hearty company, we sadly part. Great folk. And preggers. We vote for Blain for a boy, and Monique for a girl, in case they are reading this. But Chance is nice, too.

It was then off to Peter's to dump some stuff and say bye to Laura and the big guy. Sorry we missed you Tracie. But as you can see, they were happy to finally close the door on us and our leaving town "donations" and get to work. So get to work you two, and stop reading this time-waster...

The road is dry and sunny. Lots of frost-heaves, but no construction. Which is an Alaskan joke about having only two seasons up here - winter and road construction.

We hit the border past Tok, stocked up on Coffee Crisps (YES!), entered Canada, left Canada past Haines Junction, and entered Alaska again. It was a sunny drive to Haines. Next is a quick ferry ride to Skagway to knock 200 miles or so off the trip. Then back into Canada for the BIG drive down.

The snow is deep and fluffy. We tried to ski a bit and bogged down the dog in the powder. We're looking for packed tracks, but no real luck, yet.

Here's our photo of a caributt.

Passed inspection, we pack the dog up

Well, we passed the house inspection. Our buddy Donny is going to do some dry-walling under the stairs that we got dinged on, and Blain replaced some rotten wooden piles that the inspector luckily spotted. They were baaad news. No wonder the house was sagging a bit.

Anyway, we packed up the car with half of our earthly posessions. The other half goes into the shed. A great arrangement and we are way thankful to Laura for this. It's weird, but it's now her house. We're spending the night for the last time. That's really weird after ten years.

You can see Capt. Grey Whisker was suspicious of his bed taking a trip without him, so he hopped in a little ahead of schedule. With all the weight, the car sagged about 5 inches. We hope our shocks are up to the task.

Got to talk today to the family. I think they are feeling the significance of this voyage more than we are. Same with our friends. I hope it hits us softly. Maybe after a couple of years.

Maybe because of all the planning and prep, this just seems like what we need to do to make it happen. Like, you gotta grab the shopping bags and car keys and wallet before you head to the grocery store. You just do those things. Granted selling almost everything you own is a bit more of a task, but it had to happen, so we just did it. A couple of meltdowns, but nothing more than any other stressful week. Weird. It just doesn't seem like a big deal, yet.

But man, it's on. We're off tomorrow after breakfast with Grant and Petra and a stop at Kevin and Jill's, and Peter and Tracie's. It's hard to say good bye, so we'll just leave it open-ended. Our stuff is here. Our friends are here. We'll be back. Anchorage anchored us for a while: It's now time for a new view. We are nervous, frazzled, thrilled, exhausted, and running on fumes. A road trip followed by a long sail. Yep. That sounds just about right.