Alaska Trip - Day 16/17

The end of our trip was a bit hectic. I am very glad to be home. The trip to the West Coast set us back a few hours, and we definitely had to make up for it the last two days of the trip.

We left Spokane early Saturday morning. The Spokane/Coeur d’ Alene area is very nice, and looks like it is growing quickly. We went through Idaho and then through various cities along Interstate 90 in Montana. It seems like we were in Montana forever, despite going near 80 mph the whole time.

We stopped for lunch in Butte. It was good to get out of the car for a bit. We were moving along very quickly until we stopped for gas near Columbus, Montana. I put unleaded 85 octane fuel in, and I think that was probably the worst decision I made the entire trip. After that the Rav4 wasn’t the same. The engine knocked a couple times, and after we made another stop, the car couldn’t even get into third gear, and soon the transmission seemed to shut itself off, and we stranded along a highway where giant trucks were zooming by at 75 mph.

Our worst fear came true. The car broke down. Who knows, maybe 7,000 miles of driving mostly through mountains began to finally wear the car down. I called Hertz and they sent a tow truck out to tow us to the Billings airport, over 40 miles east.

We waited about two hours in 90 degree heat for the tow truck gentleman to arrive. He drove us, of course, and we had a good talk with him. He was a really nice guy, but it seemed like he was about to die from a heart attack at any moment. We took the poor guy away from good barbecue and John Wayne. I felt bad.

We arrived at the airport just as it was getting dark. It was dead when we walked in. Thankfully someone was still at the desk. He couldn’t believe we had drove all the way to Alaska. The biggest thing he had available there was a Nissan Altima, which had to be big enough.

We transferred everything to the new car, and got the heck out of there. At this point, we were about 16 hours away from home, and the broken down SUV put us back about 4 hours. We decided it wouldn’t be worth it to find a hotel Saturday night, so we just kept on driving, even though our loved ones tried to talk us out of it on the phone.

We headed South through Wyoming, where hardly anyone lives. We looked around and saw an endless sea of grassy hills. Under the moonlight, it almost looked like we were driving through the ocean. Then, out of nowhere, bright lights were signal a city, usually spread out at least 50 miles. Casper looked pretty cool at 3am when we arrived.

Just as we were heading east on Interstate 80 from Cheyenne, the sun was coming back up. I fell asleep soon after that, but only for a couple hours. Don’t worry, I wasn’t driving at the time. Steven and I would drive for 2-3 hours, then switch.

We made it through Nebraska pretty quickly, and ate lunch in Lincoln around 1pm. Almost there…

We got to Shawnee about 4pm, not as exhausted as I thought I was going to be. The journey was complete. We drove over 8,000 miles in 17 days.

This was certainly a life-changing adventure that we will never forget. It’s safe to say we will never drive that much in one trip again. I spent less than $1500, and it was rough sleeping in the car and staying at “less than ideal” locations, but it was definitely worth it. I don’t think I will mind driving 45 minutes to work everyday anymore. If anyone has the opportunity to do this, take it, if you can handle all the driving. This trip definitely is not for most people, but I feel lucky to be one of the few people in the world to experience this. I will cherish the memories forever.