I'll post up pics on my return.

We're at the far point on our family road trip, having set up camp on the beach here at Seward, Alaska. We've done about 3800 road miles at this point and should easily match that on our return journey.

It's about 10:30 at night, the sun is breaking through the clouds, and theres about another hour till "sundown" but then it just grows dimmer for a few hours until sunrise. It remains bright enough to read all night long.

People are out walking the path along the beach.

There are otters in the kelp just offshore.

We came up the Alaska Highway route, going through Flagstaff, up through Utah, a bit of Idaho, and then into Montana on the first day. We bivouaced at Butte and got an early start, crossing through the Rockies, out onto the prarie and up into Canada by mid day. By the evening of day two we were camped at Banff, in the Canadian rockies. We stayed two nights and exited the park up through Jasper to see the Athabasca glacier, and it was snowing on us at the top of the pass. By the eve of day four, we arrived at Dawson Creek, the gateway to the Alaska Highway and camped.

The weather followed us up from Banff and we were in scattered showers most of the way. There were some weather warnings about potential flooding rains so we made haste the next morning to get ahead of it and it turns out we left not a moment too soon. It was rainy and gusty for much of the northern plains section, and when we got to our next camp at Muncho lake on day 5, we found that the road had been closed due to flooding behind us, and that the town of Grand Prarie had incurred a fair amount of damage. Meanwhile, we grilled steaks on the lakeshore because the storm was moving the opposite direction from us, and we were past it.

We were making pretty good time, and the drive lengths seemed reasonable. We had left open a fair amount of the itinerary because we are mostly limited by my work schedule on one side and the girls' tolerance of car time on the other. How far we would get depended on how far we could reasonably average. Crossing the US in a day and a half was encouraging, and we were actually ahead of what I had considered to be an aggressive time line when we camped at Banff on the second and third nights instead of the third and fourth. We decided to make the 1500 mile Alaska Highway section into 3 days instead of 4 or more, and made Whitehorse, Yukon on day 6 and then Tok, Alaska on day 7.

Tok was our farthest north campsite, but not nearly as cool as coastal camping. We transitioned down and west to the Kenai peninsula where snow capped peaks rim deep fjords and waterfalls cascade through the forest and land on black sand beaches.

We're here another couple of nights at least.

The rough plan for the return trip is to run the Cassiar Highway down through BC and pass through Seattle, then Portland, and then head into NorCal. I'm thinking to skirt the bay through Sacramento, run Donner Pass to get into Bishop and escape SoCal out the back door by going through the high desert and avoid the metro areas entirely.

We'll see how it goes!

So no ship return?

The return trip sounds like a fine decession. Awesomeness thats all i can say

The boat is super expensive and moves at a really slow pace. It basically goes from stop to stop per day and since there arent a lot of them, days go by with no boat. It would be cool, but it would have to work with a larger chunk of time than I have, and it would be the focus of the trip.

I was just pleased to find that there was at least another road choice so I can make a loop.

Make sure to stop in Skagway if you are going by White horse again. The White horse pass RR is a great family ride.

Sounds like an absolutely awesome vacation. Stay safe!

I think you're all f***ed in the head. We're ten hours from the f***ing fun park and you want to bail out. Well I'll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. You're gonna have fun, and I'm gonna have fun... We're all gonna have so much f***ing fun we're gonna need plastic surgery to remove our g**dam* smiles! You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of your a**holes! I must be crazy! I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose! Holy S**t!

TUFFY wrote:

I think you're all f***ed in the head. We're ten hours from the f***ing fun park and you want to bail out. Well I'll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. You're gonna have fun, and I'm gonna have fun... We're all gonna have so much f***ing fun we're gonna need plastic surgery to remove our g**dam* smiles! You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of your a**holes! I must be crazy! I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose! Holy S**t!

Are you suggesting BellyDoc take a park security guard hostage?

What a fantastic sounding adventure! To be honest, the first time I make that drive up with my FJ, will probably be the only time I make that drive with my FJ.

Enjoy AK!