We have been wanting to drive to Alaska for a long time. Several obstacles stood in our way. One was time needed to take the trip, having a road worthy vehicle and camper, concern about road conditions, and the overall cost of making this journey from Georgia. When our son and daughter in-law announced they were moving to Anchorage, we realized the time had come to begin planning our big adventure.
We already had a Ford 250 truck that was rigged to pull our fifth wheel camper. However, after studying the RV blogs, we were concerned about the wear and tear a trip like this would have on our 5ver. So, we purchased a Lance slide on truck camper to make the trip with our two dogs. We now have 2 campers to use based on the type of traveling and camping we plan to do.
On July 13th we decided we would leave for Alaska on the afternoon of 7/30/2014. We had been studying maps and different RV forums, trying to learn as much as possible from other travelers experiences. We planned our route, loaded into our Rand McNally RV direction system. We then started working on a spreadsheet listing all campgrounds and fuel stops that we could quickly pick from along the way. We had to purchase new cell phones that would give us coverage in Canada. We checked with our health insurance company that we would be covered in the event of illness or accident. We notified our auto insurance carrier and obtained insurance cards for the time we would be driving through Canada. I made copies of our dogs vaccination records to take with us. We retrieved our passports out of the bank vault and placed them in a travel documents folder for easy access when going thru customs. Now that we have all the "paperwork" done, we can start prepping our camper and truck for the trip.
My husband ordered some heavy duty shocks to put on the truck and plans to rotate the tires, check the spare, and change the oil this week. We will be pulling the 5ver hitch and rails out of the back of the truck so we can load our camper. We plan on putting foam board under the slider to help cushion and protect the bed of the truck from damage.
I have taken inventory of all the nooks and crannies of the camper, rearranged stuff to maximize space. Since we rarely use the oven, that has made a nice cabinet for plates, bowls and other kitchen supplies. We have a counter top toaster oven we use to cook biscuits or baked potatoes. We don't plan on carrying a lot of groceries with us since most populated areas have a WalMart where we can replenish supplies.
As we get closer to our departure date, I will post pictures of the camper being loaded along with pictures of the camper interior.
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