Ok, here is the story, and some day by day highlites...Wednesday, July 21st: The fam and I head to the airport for a 6:50 flight, it takes us 1:50 minutes to get there due to traffic, when it normally takes 45 minutes. I made it to the gate with 10 minutes to spare, first stop Salt Lake City. Arrive in Salt Lake on time, and have just enough time to get to my gate for Anchorage. This flight was awesome, had a window seat with no one sitting next to me and the on demand entertainment center on the seat back in front of me. Was able to watch ESPN and some other TV shows, best part is that it was free! Fight time was right a 5 hours for that one. This puts me in Anchorage at 12:30 Alaska time, 4:30am here. I then had 6 hours until my flight for Fairbanks boarded. For the first time in my life I slept on an airport bench, although I wouldn't really call it sleeping, more like resting the eyelids. Finally get on flight to Fairbanks, Jum, aka my little brother Justin, and Papi, aka my Uncle Bruce, were waiting at the airport to get me. First stop, the Cookie Jar, for some breakfast...
Thursday, July 22nd: This breakfast was strong to very strong, and the 3 of us split a world famous hot cinnamon roll which was about the size of my head. Time to gas up and hit the road. The trip through Alaska was good, although it was very overcast which took away from the scenery. I slept for the first couple hours on this leg. At 3:30 AK time we hit the Canadian border and customs, no real problem there, pretty painless actually. We all had our passports in order and Jum had his documentation ready. As soon as we cross over we see this sign:
In case you cannot make it out, it says "Maximum 90", it took us a few minutes to put together the whole kilometer versus mile thing, and had it not been a gravel road we may have pushed the limits of reasonable travel for a little while longer. Gave us a good laugh though, the Mounties could have a sweet speed trap there...The worst part about entering Canada is that all three of us lost all cell service, no roaming, nothing. This would prove to be a nightmare...
The trip through the Yukon territory of Canada was bizarre, it was a little scary to be honest with you. You could go hundreds of miles before having access to gasoline, let alone food or another human being. And when you did make it a "convenience store" the food looked like it had been on the shelf for years. In addition to the lack of cell service the roads throughout Canada were a nightmare. It was kind of like Mariokart for awhile, loose gravel as your base, no guardrails, drop to your death over a cliff on one side, or right into a lake on the other.
Thursday quickly rolled into Friday as all we did was drive as quickly as possible and drive in shifts. Thankfully Jum had planned ahead and had included three 5 gallon gasoline containers in the travel load on top of the Exterra. We ended up using these three times throughout Canada since we were driving over night and nothing was open. Sadly there was a lack of wildlife sightings along the way, we had hoped to see a lot. While I was sleeping in the back Thursday night Jum and Papi did roll up on a couple of moose standing in the middle of the road.
Friday, July 23rd: Once again we have no cell service, and it doesn't look like we are going to get any in Canada. Conventional wisdom would have called for us to stop and rest, but we wanted out of there. Somehow, God I say, I managed to get a roaming signal for about 15 minutes for no apparent reason. It was at that time I got the dreaded text from Bon that said. "I need u to call me asap we r ok but seriously stop as soon as u have a signal" Thankfully I was able to call her back and get the news...
While at the zoo around 11am on Friday morning, Truett had a seizure. In the ambulance on the way to Children's Hospital he had a second one, and at the hospital he had a third. Obviously it was extremely scary for Bonnie. The staff at the zoo and Children's were amazing. It is a worst nightmare being thousands of miles away when your family needs you. A blessing in the situation was that we felt the love and security of God through our friends and family. When I finally got full service in Washington state I had numerous text messages and voicemails from people offering words of encouragement and asking what they could do to help since they knew I was away. TruDawg is much better now thankfully. We just need to be aware of it moving forward when he has a fever. I actually had three seizures when I was a kid. I could never thank T-Bone enough for his help during that first 24 hours.
Saturday, July 24th: At 7am we hit the customs office for the good old USA. 44 straight hours in the car was enough, we had gone 2,100 miles at that point. We were able to find a hotel north of Seattle who would let us check in at 8am for the night. We hit the sack ASAP and finally got some showers and sleep. We had originally planned on attending a Mariners-Red Sox game on Sunday, but due to our early arrival we decided to go Saturday night instead. We grabbed a late lunch at a nice Irish Pub across from the hotel and headed for Safeco Field. We grabbed some Starbucks before heading into the stadium of course, and I absolutely loved Safeco Field. The Mariners are now officially my favorite AL team...
Sunday, July 25th: After a solid night's sleep in the hotel, we hit the original Starbucks on Pike Place in Seattle and then went to Mars Hill for Sunday church service. Absolutely loved it, and I must say that 4 Corners band is MUCH stronger than the Mars Hill music, just saying...
After service we started heading for Montana and eventually stayed in Butte, MT. However, soon after leaving Seattle my new, 10 day old Droid X died, permanently, I was able to call Verizon with Jum's phone and figure out that it was my battery that died and would not charge, not a phone issue, which was good. They actually found a replacement battery for me in Spokane, WA and we stopped and picked it up without any trouble, kudos to Verizon for accommodating my situation.
Monday, July 26th: We got some more good sleep and got up to head to Red Lodge, MT and hook up with Bon's cousin Joel, who lives in Billings, MT. Joel hooked us up big time with a camp site and teaching us how to fly fish. He had some awesome camping gear, including a grill, oven, and a shower. Have to admit that fly fishing was not really for me, but I could get into bass fishing a little. Montana was absolutely stunning, and it would not bother me to spend every vacation there, forget beaches. We will definitely have a vacation home in Montana someday...
Joel brought some elk burgers and deer steak for us to have for dinner, and we spent the night camping out next to a stream, very cool.
Tuesday, July 27th: Woke up to the Montana air, helped Joel pack up his camping gear, and headed up the Beartooth Pass, make sure you look at my photo gallery, this place was stunning! This was the most beautiful day of driving, and we made our way to Cheyenne, WY to stay for the night. I have failed to mention yet that Jum's four foot ball python Jake was also with us for the trip. When we would stay at the hotels, Jum had a pillow case he could tie off with a string and bring him in the room for the night, was never an issue. However, in Cheyenne, I roll over in my bed about 2am and my hand feels something kinda like a snake. Jake had escaped the pillow case and had made it under my pillow with about 6 inches of his body and head poking out and laying right next to my head. Honestly, I am proud of how I did not freak out, snakes do not scare me in general, just prefer not to sleep with them, you know...
Wednesday, July 28th: Before leaving Cheyenne we grabbed breakfast at a truck stop, a family tradition Grandpa would have been proud of. This was the day we were dropping Papi off at the Denver airport so he could get back to NC. We got to Denver with plenty of time to spare so we hit the 11am showing of "Predators" near the airport. Not an awful flick, but would not watch it again. We were kind of limited on what was showing at 11am. After the movie we dropped Papi off and Jum and I headed to Denver Broncos training camp. They had a great facility and I was able to pick Bon up a Tim Tebow jersey, her favorite player. There is a reason why he leads the NFL in jersey sales, my wife would have NEVER wanted a jersey, he transcends...
After training camp we headed towards Coors Field to watch the Rockies play the Pittsburgh Pirates. Coors Field is a solid park as well, the most entertaining part of this game was batting practice beforehand. A guy in his 70's was wearing his baseball glove and trying to snag home run balls. He whiffed on one right at him, it stuck in the seat in front of him, and he reached down to grab it as two 9 year-olds tried to get it. He then refused to give it to the boys and bragged to everyone around him during the game about his exploits, embarrassing as a fellow man to watch this display...
After the game Jum and I are feeling pretty good and have tickets to the Kansas City Royals game the next night. It's 10pm local time and we decide to hit the open road again. We make it to Hays, KS at 3am and decide to crash there for the night. We got the sweetest deal on our hotel there, $65!
Thursday, July 29th: After sleeping in a bit and getting showers we leave for KC at about 11:30. We make it to KC in plenty of time. Parking at the Royals stadium is awesome, right at the gate and only $10! These were also the best seats we had of the trip, 4th row from the field, dead center. It was one dollar hot dog night as well. The game goes to extra innings, but we bolt after nine because we have a new mission, driving straight home from Kansas City, 600 miles. The original plan was to hit St. Louis and see the Cardinals play, but we were both ready to get home. Jum had not seen his wife and daughter in six weeks, and one week was killing me given the situation with Truett, so we bailed on St. Louis to drive through. Adrenaline definitely kicked in, and we pulled in to my driveway at 8:15 Eastern time on Friday morning with 4,934 miles on the trip odometer. If I could describe this trip in one word it would be "long" but we had some good times and have now have some great memories together.
See the entire reel of photos HERE
