The Last Hoorah to The Last Frontier

In 1970, when college was over, I asked Mom to make some sandwiches to fill a styrofoam cooler. I put the cooler, along with a sleeping bag, a large piece of plastic and some clothes into a 1966 Mustang and headed north. There were no cell phones or GPS devices, so my parents didn't hear from me for 5 days until I arrived at my uncle's home in Anchorage Alaska. I worked housing construction for the summer and drove back home.

In 1971, after my junior year of college I did it again. Only this time I took my new bride, 2 sleeping bags and a tent. We left immediately after the reception so we didn't get far the first day. The second night we were in Canada at some campsite that had an annoying raccoon--we had left some food out on the picnic table. I don't remember as much about the campsites after that, except one--on the shore of a large lake were the 2-foot-thick ice broke up during the night when the wind came up. Very noisy! We worked 10 hour days, 6 days a week for the summer and drove back to college.

 Much later when we had our own airplane we made the trip to our daughter in Fairbanks 3 times following the Alaska highway. Fast forward to 2021, our 50th anniversary. We wanted to make the same trip by car again but, alas, the border was closed due to COVID. Life got busy and now it's 2024. Age is having its effects on us, thus, the time has come to make one last attempt at the drive.

Although the old Mustang is capable we'll be taking a more modern car for much better gas mileage and air conditioning. We'll take sleeping bags and a tent again but don't know how much we'll use them. Wish us well!

Day 1

Highway 281 to I-90. The Lewis and Clark Visitors Center at the Chamberlain rest area had always been closed whenever we stopped there so we made it a point to stop now during regular hours and in tourist season. It was open! It proved very interesting and informative. We spent an hour and a half at the exhibit. Recommend seeing it at least once.

Then on to Rapid City pretty much non-stop. Lots of traffic in tourist season and occaionally we'd even see a South Dakota license plate!

Day 2

Church in the morning. Lunch and games with grandkids. Visited my senior year high school English teacher for 2 and a half hours! It was very intersting and the time flew by!  A light lunch/supper and a walk with the grandkids and DIL to the West Campus Game, Fish and Parks place near their home.

To be updated as we go. Maybe not everyday if we get busy (or tired) or don't have internet access (which is likely at campgrounds).