Initial plans

This road trip will be more thoroughly planned than our trip through the south. It was amazing to have the freedom of changing our route last time: adding in extra states (Virginias? DC? Why not!) and even extending the trip (Let’s go down to California!). However, we are more financially bound this time, and our destination is part of the equation, instead of just the journey (though our journey is still a large part of it). Therefore we’re going to plan to make sure we see everything we want to see, but also don’t have any unnecessary driving.

I created this route based on some recommendations I found online, but I have done almost no research so far. I just wanted to get an image in my mind of what our trip could look like. Learn where some of the highways are, and just get a better idea of the proportions in my mind. So, I share this with you to help you better understand where we may go: 

If you’re curious, the shortest route between Edmonds, WA and Fairbanks, AK is 2139 miles. If we averaged 60 mph (which I’m sure we won’t), and we drove 10 hours per day (which we could, though we will probably choose not to), it will take 3.5 days. 

Just from my most basic research, I see that going a slightly longer route (Alaska Hwy) will probably be better. Take into account any parks, towns, waterfalls, etc that we may want to detour to – this trip will probably take us about a week. The more we create our route, the better we will know our start date.

I’d like to introduce "Ben" (which is my name for him and not necessarily what he will forever be called), who will be our driver. Well, Laura will probably be our driver for the most part. However "Ben" will play a very important role in this trip as well.  I'm sure Laura can give more info about him at some point!

 

What a beauty!

Laura bought the book Milepost – which is apparently an excellent guide on (and to) Alaska. I will be seeing Laura this weekend and look forward to looking through this book. And possibly stealing it. So hopefully after this weekend I’ll have a few ideas of where to stop along the way. If you’re interested, here is the link with some information of its own: Milepost.