An eventful departure....

Day 1:

First day on our grand adventure.  I started by finishing up all the out-processing still left on Fort Wainwright, signing out at my unit at about 10:15.  A few errands later (there always seems to be something left to do) and we were on the road shortly after noon. 

 

Ben and Beka are cataloging our stops in their notebooks I gave them at Holiday, where we topped off the gas tank, our last stop in Fairbanks.  They are recording the number of gallons/liters we get when we fill up with gas, the odometer reading at every stop and the location.  So far, they've written the following locations:  Fairbanks, The Knotty Shop, Delta Junction, Delta Meats, Lisa Lake Trail, Tok, Tanana River Bridge, and Border City. 

Of course, this is all a ploy giving them various computations, mileage between destinations and fuel efficiency. We've already developed some good math problems out of the mileage and gas usage on the trip.

 

The Snethen-Seven motor-home next to the American flag at Delta Meats.

At Delta Meats, we stopped and got some yummy meats to try and a few postcards.  For the next several miles, the kids began writing in the postcards to their friends in Fairbanks.  A couple hours later, we stopped in Tok, eating dinner at Fast Eddy's Restaurant, where we met a man from Colorado Springs who was more than complimentary of the Army and the Army bands.  We also created a number of quotes from inside the store which I instantly posted on Facebook from my cell-phone:

Stopping to eat, after driving four hours from home (and in the middle-of-nowhere, Alaska), Ben (9): "We should have come here more often."

Me: "Where's your chicken?"
Daniel (3): "I put it in my belly button."

Me: Daniel, you can't take your shirt off in a restauant!
Person at another table: when you turn eighty and do that, they put you in a home.

These posts have gotten a lot of positive feedback on Facebook, and I decided to share them here.  After leaving Fast Eddy's, which was a delicious meal and not too expensive for what we ate with excellent service, we thought about staying the night in Tok, but decided to pull on for another stop.  When we got to the Tanana River Bridge, we got out for a short hike to the old bridge, an excellent place for viewing the magnificent sunset that God created--apparently just for us because no one else was stopping, just speeding by as fast as possible down the Alaska Highway.

When we got back to the RV, Jenny set the laptop up so the kids could watch Rio and we kept driving.  It kept getting darker and darker, yet I kept driving.  By the time we got to Northway, it was completely dark outside, but we didn't see anywhere open that I could stop, so we kept going.  Finally, we pulled over in a pullout and couldn't start the generator.  The Milepost said there was another stop before the border, so I just decided to keep going.  

Jonathan and Belle playing in the bed at the back of the motor-home.  Jonathan began cutting his first tooth on Day 1 of our great adventure....

Finally, we stopped at Border City in the dark, crossing a wooden bridge and parking in the campground.  The water was turned off, but the electricity worked.  According to the kids' logs, we had come 289.2 miles on our first day of driving....