After two long years of waiting, we are finally making our way to Alaska! We left Arizona at the end of April, and have been slowly making our way north to the border. We will be meeting up with our friends Al and Karen on Sunday in Shelby, Montana, and plan on crossing into Alberta Canada on Tuesday, May 17th. We will be stopping in High River for a few days, and meeting up with Don and Kathy, our “neighbors” in Yuma.

In a matter of days, we went from the mid 90’s in Arizona, to our first winter weather advisory! It was actually enjoyable to finally get out of the heat.

Now we are getting pounded by the wind in Shelby. The motorhome has a full wall slide with a slide topper. After listening to it get battered around for an hour, we decided to put the slide in for the day. Definitely not a day to be driving an RV.

We had a nice winter in Yuma. Dan’s parents were able to rent a park model in our RV park for two months. Dan’s brother Gary and his wife Julia were also able to fly down for a visit, along with their daughter Jasmine, who lives in Arizona. Makena was even allowed to visit in the park model. Everyone looks so excited!

Dan’s mom Joan loves to line dance, and they have classes two days a week in the park. The line dancers also participated in the park’s Mardi Gras parade, and Joan donned her mask to dance along the streets!

Our friend Ellen (who is behind Joan in the picture above holding the Red Hat ladies banner) turned the big 70 this March, so we had her and Tom over to celebrate! Ellen loves her cannoli’s!

We had a few outings/meals/card days at Dave and Marilyn’s house. Marilyn decided it was time to bust out a giant bottle of wine that she had stored in their garage for the past 6 years. Nothing like 110 degree summers to properly “age” the wine!! The cork disintegrated as Dan tried to get it out. As you can expect, it was not the best testing wine! It was only fitting we used dixie cups for our tasting!

We had a nice surprise visit from our friend Judy. She has recently retired and decided to escape the weather in Wisconsin and visit some friends of hers in Sun City. They all made the trek out to Yuma for the day. These ladies enjoy golfing, and making “sand angels” in the sand traps on golf courses! Avid blog reader Keith promised to be with Judy the next time they visit!

Jasmine turned the big 30 in April, and her mom Julia, and sisters Brooke and Carmen flew down to help her celebrate. We were able to meet up with them for brunch, followed by an afternoon at a nearby park, where we attempted to play pickleball on the tennis court.

This is our ninth year of full-time RV’ing, and this will be our first summer where we will not be working. It’s time to play tourist! For us, the price of gas has dropped about 50 cents per gallon since we left Arizona. Depending on what day it is, it’s either going up, or going back down. There’s nothing we can do about it, and we have waited two years for this trip. I plan on keeping track of all our expenses once we cross into Canada. Karen has done an excellent job planning our route, and we have booked almost all of our campgrounds already. We have a few flexible days in Canada on the way to Alaska.

Canada has an app, ArriveCan, that you have to complete before you cross the border. We have entered as much information ahead of time (passport and vaccine information), and then you have to complete the rest of the information 72 hours ahead of your arrival. So we will finish that up Sunday. From what we have heard so far, this app makes crossing the border a lot more efficient, because they will have all your information on file, and won’t have to enter the data as you cross. We shall find out on Tuesday how well it works for us.

INSTAGRAM

I have been looking into setting up an Instagram account for our travels. I think it will make it much easier to post updates than blogging. IG allows you to post up to 10 photos, and that’s what most people like to look at anyway. If I do set up an account, I will just post links on this blog, to each post that I do on Instagram. I’m not sure how much internet/cell service we will be getting in Canada and Alaska.

Back in 2014 when we were working at Crazy Horse, I recall talking with one of the college students working there for the summer. When I mentioned that I had a blog, she said “that’s old school, why don’t you do Instagram?!” Well, 8 years later, I guess I’m getting up to date with technology! I will let you know when I get that set up. I noticed they have Instagram for beginners videos on You Tube, so I will be watching a few of them!

Let’s get this long awaited journey started!

Quote of the Day: “Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before” – Dalai Lama