The refrigerator in the motorhome with the various refrigerator magnets we bought on the trip!

As i write this, we are on I-94 heading towards Michigan. No further stops are planned except maybe a lunch. I’d like to add my final thoughts to the blog.

First, thanks to all of you who have shared this trip with us via the blog. Your notes, and comments have made the project of the blog an enjoyable one, and the blog will serve as a keepsake for us always.

The motorhome was incredible. I told Glenn at one point that this trip was the exact opposite of a cruise. On a cruise you magically appear in new cities/places, and you didn’t have to do anything to get there. On a cruise, everything is done for you. In an RV you know exactly how you got there because you drove over the crazy roads like the Top of The World Highway! And in an RV, you do everything yourself! But I wouldn’t trade this experience for any cruise.

If I had to pick the greatest single moment of the trip,  it would have to be right after we pulled into our spot at Miller’s Landing on Resurrection Bay. We had just set up the motorhome, and were sitting at the picnic table looking at the water. First we notice the Silver Salmon jumping, and as we are staring looking to see more, a Sea Otter swims by! But it could easily have been catching some of those Salmon, and cooking them just hours later for the best seafood dinner ever, or maybe sitting at the table after dinner, and realizing we had a beautiful view of the moon rising over the mountains. Wow! And that was just one spot!

But there were so many other memories. Walking the Matanuska Glacier, and the plane flight to Mt Mckinley were certainly highlights! So were the people we met. Every person you meet in Alaska is a story of its own! Learning about and driving the Alaska Highway, and the dinners we grilled for ourselves. Listening to the songs on each other’s ipods, and sharing memories of our childhoods, and I could go on and on, but its already in the blog!  It was all good.

To Glenn, I can only say thanks for letting me share this dream  with you for so many years, and finally making it happen. I  never thought it would. You went to extraordinary lengths  to make this the trip of a lifetime.

To Larry, I can’t believe we just spent more time together than we have in ther past 40 years! How blessed are we for the opportunity we had to be together? And to want to, and for it to be able to happen.

Thanks to Kim, and Mary Anne for allowing their spouses to go, but special thanks to Vicki who dealt with a crisis a day while I was gone. I know it wasn’t easy! And special thanks to Nick, Chelsea  and Jeff who missed me as much as I missed them, but encouraged me to enjoy my trip! I love you all!

We are returning to Michigan on September 2, 2011. This would have been my Mother’s 88th birthday. My Mom always said she hoped when we grew up, that we were all close. Happy Birthday Mom, you got it!

You can’t hear it, but “North to Alaska” by Johnny Horton  is playing on my Ipad as I finish this. I encourage you all to make the trip!

I would like to thank my brothers Glenn and Bruce for the trip of a lifetime. This trip would not have been possible for me if it wasn’t for the generosity of Glenn and Bruce. I am not sure how this trip has done it or in what ways yet but I am sure this trip has been a life changing experience. It has changed the way I feel inside every day that I wake up! I have never felt so calm and relaxed inside. The beauty of the country that we saw saw in our travels was so awesome, but it does not come close to the experience of sharing this trip with my brothers. The beauty of our chance to share time together that most siblings never get to do as adults. This was a truly awesome experience! There are more words to be said but none more important than these! Glenn and Bruce; I love you guys! Larry

Bruce relaxing on the sofa in the RV

Glenn working on the blog

Today we drove from Casselton, ND (near Fargo, if that helps anyone) to Milwuakee, Wisconsin. As we crossed Minnesota, traffic grew heavier and heavier. As we neared Milwaukee there were numerous accidents (severe) on the West bound side of I94. Luckily we were going the opposite direction but witnessed a near miss as a car veered out of its lane and almost smashed into a truck 20 feet in front of us. We sure miss driving in Northern Canada where you didn’t see another car for hours.

Tonight we are camped out in the Wisconsin State Fair Grounds RV park, and a few sites away from us is another RV which was camped out in the County Fair grounds RV park back in Oregon on Sunday night (small world, eh!!).

Anyways, tomorrow we will drive through Chicago and back to our homes in Farmington Hills. For me driving to Alaska has been the fulfillment of a dream I have had since 1961 when my family drove to Los Angeles.I will miss being on the road with adventure just around every bend in the highway, and rarely knowing what tomorrow will bring.

I would like to thank everyone who helped to make this trip possible. My wife Kim  for all of her support not just in getting ready for this trip but for the all of her support in the last 36 years. I would like to thank my brother Bruce. Without his encouragement and willingness to go on this trip with me it may not have ever happened. I would like to thank my brother Larry, for helping us to relive the dream of being kids again and sharing in this trip of old and new memories. I would also llike to thank Vicki, Bruce’s wife and MaryAnn, Larry’s wife for letting their husbands leave them for this trip.

I am also thankful to all of my employees at Glenn Computer Corporation for doing such a great job of taking care of the business, not just when I am gone, but when I an there as well. 

I hope everyone who has read this blog has a chance to go to Alaska someday and have the adventures and meet the great people there.

So long for now,

Glenn

The dinosaur skeltons were pretty cool, but it is not every day that you see the skull of an alien. 

An actual complete Triceratops skull found in the Hells Creek formation of North & South Dakota, and Montana, and put on display at the Dakota Dinosaur Museum

We continued our drive eastward, leaving Billings, Montana in the morning, heading towards North Dakota. We didn’t have anything planned for the day, but thought we would look for a dive for lunch in a city called Glendive. Get it?  So the restaurant choices  there looked so bad,we just heated up a couple of Burrito’s we had in the freezer.

Continuing into a very boring landscape of North Dakota, we decided to stop at the Dakota Dinosaur Museum in Dickinson, North Dakota. We enjoyed viewing the actual dinosaur bones on display, and the skeletons of dinosaurs, made from casts. We were both taken by one comment we read, that the Dinosaurs populated earth  for 150,000,000 years and are now extinct. The same plaque promised that man has lived on earth for 1,000,000 years and will some day be extinct as well!

Leaving the museum we set out for Bismarck, North Dakota, and decided to skip that. Instead we stopped for dinner at Jamestown, and are now stopped for the  night in Casselton, ND, just before Fargo. Still on target to arrive home on Friday.

We explored the possibility of taking a ferry across Lake Michigan, which we both thought would be cool, but the timing just didn’t work out!

The views out our window continue to be beautiful. This is a shot driving east on I-90 between Butte and Billings, Mt