A Day in the Life

I know many of you are wondering just what a ‘typical’ day on the road is like for us.  Well, it goes something like this… with room for variations.

Rounda’bout 7am the sky starts getting light.  Jim and Susan are still in bed trying to make a point of remembering that Crazy dream they each just had.  At 8am Jim jumps out of bed ready for the day and Susan rolls over and wonders where he went all of a sudden.  By this time, Jim has the espresso brewing, the heater on, is fully dressed with hair and teeth both brushed and has been outside making another modification to Thumper and taking some morning pictures for the yearbook.  Jim comes back in, warms and froths the milk and prepares Susan’s dry Cappuccino while she is commenting how warm and comfy she is in our bed.  Susan crawls out of bed and gratefully sips her morning beverage as she lets out a “Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr” and gives a little shiver while she gets dressed.  If there is any power left in the batteries, and time left in our busy schedules, we fire up the laptops and update our entries for the ongoing Blog and prepare them for the next elusive Wi-Fi hotspot so we can get them off for you to labor through.

About this time, Susan takes over and makes breakfast for us, prepares tea and snacks for the days drive, makes the bed and prepares Thumper for take-off.  Inevitably, we leave camp at or around 10am.  Occasionally we manage to get out earlier, but not often.  Our speed on the road isn’t much faster… As the case yesterday, we manage to drive 57 miles in a trail-blazing 2-1/2 hours!  

No…not always because the roads are that bad, but because we stop here for a picture, and there for some glacial ice and somewhere else to look for cool bits of wood along the riverbed.  Then we turn around to go back for another picture or to stop at that interesting looking place we just missed.  We are breaking no land-speed records here… at least not the fast moving type.

Very seldom does the road just go in one direction.  When we come to a fork in the road, we usually take it.  Sometimes the fork does a little loop and puts us back where we started, other times it sends us on an excursion that can last for days.  In either case, as the road dips and turns and rises and falls, it unfolds an endless display of beauty and grandeur in front of us.  We are constantly an awe of what we are seeing and how Alaska has put on its best face for us.  We drive perpetually down the road with Susan reading to Jim about the upcoming areas and finding hidden gems to stop at and explore, finding the next-best album on the i-pod or practicing her scramble through the back window out of the truck and into Thumper to retrieve something…  all the while watching for Moose.  Jim keeps one eye on the dips in the road, one eye on the fuel gauge, one eye on the fields & woods for random wildlife and the other eye in the rear-view mirror making sure we aren’t holding up too many other drivers.    

After visiting roadside booths and mini veggie stands, stopping in at a museum, visitors center or a little pull-off to take a hike and make our afternoon espresso, 

we decide that we should look for our nesting spot for the night and inevitably find ourselves yet another beautiful campsite along the road.  Jim tinkers outside possibly gathering firewood or but more than likely just walking in circles once again being amazed by his surroundings.  Susan, on the other hand, has dinner in mind and gets to work on another culinary delight.  She constantly puts together one great meal after another and keeps us well fed on the road.  As of today, we have only eaten out once, and that was with JC in celebration of our accomplishments at his place.   We sit down and enjoy our meal complete with a nice Chianti and fine china as we reminisce over the days events and discuss the many possibilities that tomorrow brings.  Jim jumps on the dishes and gets them somewhat clean and puts them aside for Susan to get what he missed.  

We attempt to write postcards or sort pictures for The Blog but for the most part we just collapse from a combination of food coma and adventure exhaustion.  Jim crawls up into bed with one of the many volumes of Alaska travel brochures and tries to read up on the road ahead but can only get 2 or 3 sentences in before he succumbs to the comfort, warmth and horizontal position, mumbles something that resembles “goodnight” and heads straight for R.E.M.  And Susan, on those rare evenings that she isn’t already in bed when Jim gets there, fumbles through a page or two in her most recent picture book or updates the travel journal then makes a comment like “thank goodness it’s bedtime!” and wrestles her way into the bunk.  We open the vent above the bed so we can hear the forest rustle, the river rush by, the ocean waves crash or the wind blow as we drift off to sleep ever so thankful we are where we are and doing what we are doing.

Alaska has a magic to her that is tremendous… and comforting.  Our days are full of discovering and our nights are full of dreaming.  We have a warm, dry home and good food.  We have unbelievably beautiful surroundings and wonderful new friends.  We have families and friends that we think of constantly.  We have each other.  We could not ask for more.  

And don't forget... it is the Simple Things that really make a day special.