Wednesday, June 27, 2007

vacation plans! ^_^

I am going to Alaska next week for about 10 days for vacation (feel bad cause work is really busy haha). I am pretty excited. I am going with my favorite fellow traveler Paddy and this crazy couple we recruited off the company mailing list. ( I say they are crazy because the guy just got married, he has never gone camping and his wife has never been in a road trip but they are totally gung ho about it.) Paddy always had this dream to drive the Seattle -> Alaska route. It is apparently one of the best roadtrips you can do. We did some investigations and found out that the one way trip takes about 6 days of driving which basically means we have to drive there and come back immediately. Also the rental fees were outrageous in the thousands range. so after weeks of planning (the crazy couple backed out once due to cost but came back) we decided to fly one way and rent a car to drive back. Avis actually had a summer deal for one way drive to Seattle so I guess we are not the only ones doing this. The cost turned out to be acceptable so here is our final plan: I thought I would post this here incase we all got eaten by bears at least you guys would know where I went -_-!

June 30th: Fly Seattle to Anchorage

July 1st: Anchorage - Seward, Anchorage - Denali National Park- Camp for the night

July 2nd: Shuttle bus tour to Wonder Lake, in front of Mount McKinley (10 hour round trip, this is gonna be so painful) camp for the night

July 3rd: Fairbanks - Deadhorse - Prudhoe Bay driving on the infamous Dalton Highway (12 hour one way gravel road to the Northern tip of Alaska inside the Arctic Circle) stop at the last camping site on Dalton highway - camp for the night

July 4th: Prudhoe Bay - Fairbanks - (Another 12 hour gravel road if we are still alive lol)

July 5th: Fairbanks -- Haines Junction and camp. This drive is 8hrs.

July 6th: Drive from Pine Lake - White Horse - Watson Lake (6hrs to get here) - Muncho Lake, BC (10hrs to get here, if we can)

July 7th: drive to Fort St John 7hrs

July 8th: Prince George - Williams Lake - stay for the night

July 9th: KamLoops - Seattle (should be back by midnight).

Route Map:

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, sounds like a pretty neat roadtrip. I've always been apprehensive about traveling with random folks off of mailing lists, but I guess since they are MS employees, you'll at least be comrades of the evil empire. How many vacation days do you get, anywas?

Tochi said...

Wowowow. Haha, the Hawaii trip was just precursor training for the Alaska roadtrip. I am so jealous!

Definitely collect those National Parks cancellation stamps!

Is this the week with the midnight sun, by any chance?

Kungfucius said...

Alaska seems like the place to be for July 4th week vacations. My friend Orca is taking a cruise somewhere around Alaska around the same time you're up there. Hope you have a good time! :)

Anonymous said...

Sounds like fun! In case of bear attack, try to wave your arms and make a lot of noise to look big and scary. I understand this might be easier said than done. If it still comes for you, go fetal position and play dead so it doesn't think you are a threat.

If all else fails, one-shot the bear by throwing a log at its head.