ALASKA!

ALASKA!

Crossing back into America was an easy thing. Couple of questions about where our home was…I got it right, quicker this second time around. “Welcome home” he said and waived us through. There had only been one car ahead of us, little different from our crossing into Canada. It felt good to be back on US soil, and away from the exorbitant prices inflicted on Canadians! I thought that until my next fill-up. As soon as we hit the American road, it turned to crap. Pot holes and bumble-ruts like nowhere else except Arizona back roads. Did I wish I was back in Canada? Only sort of. It could be that it was too early in the repair season to have gotten to this highway. I’m giving them a break on that.

One of the sad parts of this section of the trip was the burned area. It seemed to reach all the way from Chicken to Tok. In some areas they have signs about what year the forest burned but there were none in this area so we don’t know the history.

Along about this time, Eloise decided that calling our rig, “the rig” sounded dumb, so she proposed calling it “Gertie”. I agree, and Gertie is as good a name as any…so all future references to our little house on the road will be as Gertie.

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This might be a good time to summarize gas issues getting to this point in our trip: Last fill-up was at Dawson City. Since leaving Benson, AZ we have burned up 460 gallons of gasoline. We have gotten as much as 10.2 MPG and as little as 6.3. We have averaged 8.65 mpg. We’ve paid as little as $3.45 (AZ) a gallon, and as much as $6.61 (Dawson City) a gallon for gas. We’ve used the generator 21.8 hours (estimated fuel use is ½ gallon per hour = 10.9 gal) which has been deducted before figuring the mpgs.