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Destination: Alaska · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:11
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to View going to do a podcast.
0:13
Speaker 1: I am your host, Scott Brady, and I am here
0:17
Speaker 1: with my co host, Matt Scott. I'm here.
0:19
Speaker 2: I'm so glad that we were back together summer of travel.
0:23
Speaker 1: That's right, we were both Yeah, I was literally almost
0:27
Speaker 1: for months and I lived out of the Scout and
0:30
Speaker 1: the GMC for the summer two and a half months
0:33
Speaker 1: at least.
0:34
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
0:35
Speaker 1: But there was a lot of learnings that came from that.
0:39
Speaker 1: I realize that I am not at the point in
0:41
Speaker 1: my life where I want that to be what I do,
0:44
Speaker 1: and so I enjoyed it. There was no there wasn't
0:48
Speaker 1: like a negative experience of it. I realized that it
0:51
Speaker 1: was not. I mean, in life, we have to do
0:55
Speaker 1: the things that are the hell yes, they feel where
0:57
Speaker 1: you feel so excited and compel to do it because
1:01
Speaker 1: our time is so limited that we have. So I
1:04
Speaker 1: realized that by halfway through it that it was no
1:07
Speaker 1: longer a hell yes. It was just I was having
1:09
Speaker 1: an experience. It was better than most experiences, but it
1:13
Speaker 1: wasn't the hell yes. And I felt like that I
1:15
Speaker 1: wasn't doing what I really wanted to be doing. So
1:18
Speaker 1: I realized that I like being in Prescott. I love Prescott.
1:22
Speaker 1: I love this life.
1:23
Speaker 2: I love it more than I hate it.
1:25
Speaker 1: Right. I love this little town. I like being with
1:28
Speaker 1: the team. I like doing creative things. But then I
1:31
Speaker 1: still want to go out and do big trips. I
1:33
Speaker 1: want to do big, ambitious, hairy, wild, crazy, hell yes
1:38
Speaker 1: kind of trips. And you know, maybe when I'm seventy,
1:41
Speaker 1: I'll want to get back into a truck camper and
1:43
Speaker 1: be homeless again, But for right now, it'll probably be
1:46
Speaker 1: a sailboat by that point in time. But I did
1:49
Speaker 1: realize that it's not all that it's cracked up to be.
1:52
Speaker 1: There's a lot of inefficiency that I didn't expect because
1:56
Speaker 1: I didn't I had never done that before. I'd never
1:58
Speaker 1: I'd done lots of traveling out of cars, but never
2:01
Speaker 1: like I'm going to make a little home and I'm
2:03
Speaker 1: going to work from It's also.
2:04
Speaker 2: A little different when you're doing it domestically. In the
2:08
Speaker 2: US mar travels over the summer. I just found it
2:10
Speaker 2: a little harder to keep going. You know, you're not
2:13
Speaker 2: you're putting in these big drive days. Yeah, And I
2:16
Speaker 2: guess I learned that I like to travel for culture,
2:19
Speaker 2: I like I like museums, I like food, I like people,
2:24
Speaker 2: I like you know as much as I and I
2:26
Speaker 2: also like really remote spots. But as we're going to
2:29
Speaker 2: kind of get into with my summer trip up to
2:32
Speaker 2: Tuk tiuk Tuk, even though it was remote, there was Yeah.
2:36
Speaker 1: I missed those pieces that you really really wanted. And
2:38
Speaker 1: I think it was the same for me. So I
2:40
Speaker 1: didn't I didn't have the personal connections. I wasn't traveling
2:44
Speaker 1: with someone. I was away from the team that I
2:47
Speaker 1: really enjoy being. I was away from you man for
2:50
Speaker 1: so long, so like I didn't have my buddies, and
2:54
Speaker 1: I didn't have my team with me, and I didn't
2:56
Speaker 1: have a travel partner with me, and and I realized
2:59
Speaker 1: that all those things or a really important peace to
3:03
Speaker 1: travel for me. So that was a good lesson. The
3:06
Speaker 1: scout was awesome. The truck did awesome. But it seems
3:09
Speaker 1: like kind of the perfect size, Like I wheeled it,
3:12
Speaker 1: like I took it over Hell's Revenge. Yeah, so I
3:14
Speaker 1: didn't do Hell's Gate, but I did everything but it
3:16
Speaker 1: and it was like it did it.
3:19
Speaker 2: It's it's a great truck. Yeah, it's a good truck.
3:21
Speaker 2: It's a good size I think. Yeah, you know you
3:23
Speaker 2: don't have to like, you don't have to make your
3:25
Speaker 2: bed every night. You know it's there, but it's still
3:27
Speaker 2: relatively lightweight.
3:29
Speaker 1: Yep.
3:29
Speaker 2: And you know you can park in a regular parking spot.
3:32
Speaker 1: Yep.
3:32
Speaker 2: That kind of gets old with the earth roamers having
3:34
Speaker 2: to plan your moves every time.
3:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true with this one. It's just the brush
3:40
Speaker 1: scrat you just if you buy a hard sighted camper,
3:44
Speaker 1: you like have to make it part of the decision
3:47
Speaker 1: that I am going to scratch if you take it
3:49
Speaker 1: off road, which I do. I mean I went off watch,
3:51
Speaker 1: I went off road almost every day. Yeah, you are
3:54
Speaker 1: going to scratch the ever living hell out of that thing.
3:56
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. And I did like it. It is bad,
4:01
Speaker 1: like it will take a long time to buff out
4:03
Speaker 1: if it can't even be buffed out.
4:04
Speaker 2: We recently found a stick from the Arctic and and
4:09
Speaker 2: it's now in my garage. Was wedged in the in
4:12
Speaker 2: the auntie.
4:14
Speaker 1: You know totally, So you did. And that's what this
4:17
Speaker 1: podcast is going to be about. This podcast is going
4:19
Speaker 1: to be about traveling to Tuck t Yuk Tuck and
4:21
Speaker 1: it's going to include some conversations around traveling up to
4:25
Speaker 1: prude O Bay as well, some travel in Alaska and
4:29
Speaker 1: in Canada. But you did a trip you've been planning
4:32
Speaker 1: for years.
4:32
Speaker 2: For a while a while, yeah, we uh. We took
4:36
Speaker 2: the Earth Rummer from Prescott. Our first stop was the
4:39
Speaker 2: Northwest Overland Rally, which is a super fun event, you know,
4:43
Speaker 2: that event in particular, which I normally don't like going
4:47
Speaker 2: to events. This one had a good community feel to it.
4:51
Speaker 2: It wasn't overly commercial, you know, I think you know
4:54
Speaker 2: a lot of overland events have just turned into glorified
4:57
Speaker 2: flea markets that you can camp at, where like you
5:01
Speaker 2: walked away from it with friends and that was cool.
5:03
Speaker 2: And then from there we went up to Whistler. Actually
5:06
Speaker 2: we stopped in Vancouver for a night, and a hotel
5:09
Speaker 2: downtown Vancouver parked the earth Roam or underground for Laura's birthday.
5:16
Speaker 1: You know, could you call ahead to make sure it
5:17
Speaker 1: would fit or how that they would accommodate it, Yes, sir,
5:21
Speaker 1: we'll accommodate. It was like the Fairmont Pacific rim or
5:24
Speaker 1: something right downtown Vancouver, right in the water, and it
5:27
Speaker 1: was fantastic. We travel with our dogs, so you know,
5:30
Speaker 1: we generally try and find a little bit nicer hotels.
5:34
Speaker 1: It allows us to do nicer room service or something
5:36
Speaker 1: like that. I know that that sounds boogie, but Canada
5:38
Speaker 1: is the least dog friendly place on the planet, which
5:41
Speaker 1: really surprised me, almost maybe awkwardly. So it was a
5:45
Speaker 1: little bit frustrating, like you couldn't even have they had
5:48
Speaker 1: to have special licensing to allow pets on their patios.
5:51
Speaker 1: Oh wow, which was really weird. Yeah that is weird. Yeah.
5:56
Speaker 2: Interesting. Yeah, then went up to Whistler and then kind
5:59
Speaker 2: of really started the trip. From Whistler, you know, had
6:01
Speaker 2: a little bit of a reset there, did some mountain biking,
6:04
Speaker 2: and then you know, got on the road.
6:06
Speaker 1: And how was the mountain biking?
6:08
Speaker 2: Well, Laura, mountain bike. I watched the dog. I just
6:12
Speaker 2: you know, I ordered a room service and had a
6:14
Speaker 2: beer in the room and relaxed. You know, it wasn't.
6:18
Speaker 1: But You've been doing a lot more mountain biking recently.
6:20
Speaker 1: I've been mountain biking yourself too. Sure.
6:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I've been mountain biking more. I
6:25
Speaker 2: just built a new bike. But you know, it was
6:26
Speaker 2: Laura's birthday. Sure, you know, the trip this wasn't I
6:29
Speaker 2: don't want to say it wasn't her trip, as if
6:32
Speaker 2: she wasn't entitled to do things, but it was definitely
6:34
Speaker 2: the trip that I really wanted to do. Sure, so
6:37
Speaker 2: you know I felt, you know, part of that deal was, Okay,
6:40
Speaker 2: let's make sure she has a nice birthday and she's
6:42
Speaker 2: able to kind of you know, relax and do her
6:45
Speaker 2: thing before she sits in a car for the next
6:48
Speaker 2: I think we were start to finish like forty five days,
6:51
Speaker 2: which when I say, it's not that we wish we
6:54
Speaker 2: had longer to do it. We had given ourselves two months. Yeah,
6:59
Speaker 2: you actually a little short, but we actually cut it short.
7:02
Speaker 2: It was it was interesting, you know, when we got
7:05
Speaker 2: to Tuck, it was it was ninety degrees at midnight
7:08
Speaker 2: with full sun and the bugs. Locals were saying it
7:12
Speaker 2: was one of the worst bug seasons that they've had
7:16
Speaker 2: a lot of rain, and then it got really warm
7:20
Speaker 2: and everything started hatching.
7:22
Speaker 1: Well and at night ninety degrees, the permafrost is going
7:26
Speaker 1: to be melting, so it's not good. Yeah, it was.
7:30
Speaker 1: That's unbelievable.
7:31
Speaker 2: It was a it was an eye opening trip in
7:33
Speaker 2: a lot of ways. You know, Like I didn't I
7:36
Speaker 2: didn't feel it when when you're in an environment, an
7:40
Speaker 2: arctic environment, and it's that hot, and everyone around you
7:45
Speaker 2: is suffering because there's no ac and it's twenty four
7:48
Speaker 2: hour daylight above sixty six degrees north for like fifty
7:52
Speaker 2: seven days or something, nearly two months. The sun doesn't set,
7:58
Speaker 2: so it just bakes, you know, bakes and bakes and
8:01
Speaker 2: bakes and bakes. Everything heat soaks because nothing has a
8:04
Speaker 2: period of cool off. But it didn't feel great being
8:07
Speaker 2: up there in an F five point fifty, right. You know,
8:09
Speaker 2: it's probably not the most environmentally friendly truck.
8:13
Speaker 1: You know, you don't you don't use it every day?
8:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, just the irony I guess
8:17
Speaker 2: of you know, hey, this isn't how it necessarily used
8:20
Speaker 2: to be up here, right, It's rapidly changing, and then
8:23
Speaker 2: you're driving something that nearly every scientist labels as one
8:27
Speaker 2: of the major causes.
8:28
Speaker 1: Yeah.
8:29
Speaker 2: So yeah, I don't know where we start.
8:31
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because for me, the first time that
8:34
Speaker 1: I went to Tuck was in two thousand and seven. Yeah,
8:37
Speaker 1: I remember that, So that's fifteen years ago, and there
8:41
Speaker 1: was no year round road and there was no condos
8:46
Speaker 1: that you could rent, There was no.
8:47
Speaker 2: Now there's no condos to rent or anything.
8:49
Speaker 1: So but they're like an Arab there are airbnbs to
8:52
Speaker 1: rent and they are like little condos. So when I
8:54
Speaker 1: was there in twenty eighteen, we rented one for the
8:58
Speaker 1: night like that, Like they hadn't they started to get
9:00
Speaker 1: that infrastructure and little restaurants and things like that, which
9:04
Speaker 1: was kind of surprising. Yeah, little places to eat and
9:07
Speaker 1: little places to stay. But in two thousand and seven,
9:11
Speaker 1: our experience was an incredibly inviting community. They were so
9:17
Speaker 1: surprised that we were there. We arrived via the Ice Road,
9:22
Speaker 1: McKenzie Ice Road, and the next thing we know, the
9:26
Speaker 1: mayor wants to meet us. The next thing you know,
9:29
Speaker 1: he's introducing us to the local polar bear hunter. He's
9:32
Speaker 1: telling us all the stories of polar bear hunting. And
9:35
Speaker 1: then they invited us down in the ice caves where
9:37
Speaker 1: they store all their food year round. And now no
9:40
Speaker 1: one can go in there anymore.
9:41
Speaker 2: Well, I wonder, Yeah, interesting, it's interesting because the way
9:45
Speaker 2: I would maybe describe it, you know, it felt like
9:48
Speaker 2: the travelers going up there were almost a bit of
9:50
Speaker 2: an annoyance. There's so many people going out there, see
9:53
Speaker 2: why that would be there, you know, I mean, I mean,
9:55
Speaker 2: full stop, this is not a trip that you need
9:57
Speaker 2: an earth romer for. You know, one of the guys
9:59
Speaker 2: that we were there's only so many places that you
10:02
Speaker 2: can camp, yeah right. You know this guy was in
10:04
Speaker 2: a Toyota Corolla hatchback sleeping on the ground on you know,
10:07
Speaker 2: on street tires. There's people that drive that road every day. Now,
10:12
Speaker 2: you know, my takeaway is if this is a trip
10:14
Speaker 2: that you want to do, go do it.
10:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, go.
10:17
Speaker 2: Now, we camped with a guy in a totally stocked
10:20
Speaker 2: Subreu cross track, you know, really cool dude. He was
10:23
Speaker 2: golfing his entire way up and there's apparently a golf
10:27
Speaker 2: course and in UVic that he wanted to you know, so
10:30
Speaker 2: you can have a Subaru with golf bags and a
10:32
Speaker 2: tent in the back and go.
10:34
Speaker 1: It probably would be a good idea, though, to still
10:37
Speaker 1: have a good set of tires because there is a
10:39
Speaker 1: lot of stone the roads.
10:41
Speaker 2: Really, Shaley, you can counteract up by just going slower. Yeah,
10:46
Speaker 2: I mean, we shredded a set of mpts because we
10:49
Speaker 2: were We just wanted to get it over with. There
10:51
Speaker 2: was between the heat and the sheer amount of bugs.
10:56
Speaker 2: I mean, I've I've camped in some really buggy spots.
10:59
Speaker 1: Well in Australia, which is like bug work.
11:02
Speaker 2: So it was worse flies than Australia.
11:04
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine that.
11:05
Speaker 2: And then the worst mosquitoes that I've ever seen, and
11:08
Speaker 2: then you know, a million of everything else. You know,
11:11
Speaker 2: they have this condensed life cycle that they have to
11:14
Speaker 2: They have to be born, reproduced, die, give whatever their
11:18
Speaker 2: their their natural cycle is, you know, so there wasn't
11:22
Speaker 2: much to do. Yeah, we were there during a heat wave.
11:25
Speaker 2: It was brutally hot, and these bugs and I know
11:29
Speaker 2: that there's going to be you know, somebody out there like,
11:31
Speaker 2: oh well, yeah, you're just your parents, are you know?
11:34
Speaker 2: You don't know bugs. I'm like, I had multiple mosquito
11:37
Speaker 2: bites on my from just going to the bathroom outside.
11:42
Speaker 2: Like I don't know how you can avoid that, Like
11:45
Speaker 2: I'm not spraying bug spray down there. I'm sorry. But
11:48
Speaker 2: we had like every like anti bug thing you know
11:52
Speaker 2: known to man, and you know we also it's also
11:55
Speaker 2: not just about me, it's about you know, my wife Laura,
11:58
Speaker 2: and she's the the person that if there's a bug
12:01
Speaker 2: in the zip code, it's going to find her. And
12:04
Speaker 2: then we have this, you know, lovely our lovely greyhound
12:06
Speaker 2: deck that we travel with, and greyhounds have bald butts
12:09
Speaker 2: and bald stomachs, so he'd go outside, you know, he
12:12
Speaker 2: goes into the grass and he's just covered, and this
12:16
Speaker 2: little guy's like suffering. So we ended up just deciding
12:20
Speaker 2: to spend the days driving because there was nowhere exciting
12:23
Speaker 2: to camp. Yeah, you know, I don't know if this
12:26
Speaker 2: was a byproduct of people not being up there for
12:29
Speaker 2: a couple of years with COVID and kind of the restrictions,
12:32
Speaker 2: but my general takeaway was, how do you say it
12:35
Speaker 2: due to the permafrost and how quickly things grow in
12:38
Speaker 2: the summer there, Like if there were campsites of the
12:42
Speaker 2: off the Dempster, they just weren't there anymore. Like nature
12:45
Speaker 2: just took everything back, you know, And the majority of
12:49
Speaker 2: that road is built up on top of the permafrost.
12:52
Speaker 2: So that's your road. It's not like you're going to
12:55
Speaker 2: duck off into the forest service road, you know, and
12:58
Speaker 2: go find a cool campsite. O.
13:00
Speaker 1: There's stuff around. There's little gravel pits, there's stuff around
13:03
Speaker 1: like Fort McPherson and ye that kind of stuff.
13:05
Speaker 2: There's there's like the provincial campgrounds and that kind of stuff.
13:09
Speaker 2: It kind of ruined the experience in a way because
13:12
Speaker 2: that was the only place you could really camp.
13:14
Speaker 1: Where would you stop maybe Eagle Planes is it? Did
13:16
Speaker 1: you see?
13:17
Speaker 2: We stopped an Eagle Planes. So we did a trip.
13:19
Speaker 2: Eagle Planes was something out of a Wes Anderson film,
13:23
Speaker 2: totally like it hasn't changed since the seventies. The bar
13:27
Speaker 2: in there was probably my highlight of the whole Dempster
13:31
Speaker 2: because it was the only place that you could interact
13:33
Speaker 2: with travelers. You know, you'd say some pleasantries at the
13:36
Speaker 2: sign at the Arctic Ocean, but that was really like
13:40
Speaker 2: a place that people kind of camped and there was
13:42
Speaker 2: an opportunity to come together and to talk to people.
13:45
Speaker 1: Right, and the bugs probably aren't quite as bad there.
13:48
Speaker 1: We ended up, you know, one of the reasons why
13:50
Speaker 1: we ended up seeking a lot there. Yeah, we ended
13:53
Speaker 1: up seeking out a lot of you know, our v
13:56
Speaker 1: parks because we did forty five days and we probably
14:01
Speaker 1: only had about ten days where we weren't moving total
14:05
Speaker 1: for the trip, and it was eight to twelve hour
14:08
Speaker 1: days nearly every day. Now, the Earth rumer can't move
14:11
Speaker 1: as fast as some vehicles, but the roads were in
14:13
Speaker 1: pretty rough condition this year, so you really couldn't. You
14:17
Speaker 1: had to drive conservatively because sometimes you can't see the
14:20
Speaker 1: frost heaves. Yeah, yeah, totally.
14:22
Speaker 2: We ended up staying in a lot of our fee
14:24
Speaker 2: parks because that one. That was the only option. Since
14:28
Speaker 2: the road has really turned into an all season road,
14:32
Speaker 2: the Dempster Highway has a dozen Class A motor homes
14:35
Speaker 2: going up at every day, fifth wheels, travel trailers, there's
14:39
Speaker 2: you know, a white Horse you have, there's probably you know,
14:45
Speaker 2: dozens of these four to f three fifties with enclosed
14:48
Speaker 2: campers that people rent in white Horse or wherever to
14:52
Speaker 2: go to go do their trip. And it almost felt
14:54
Speaker 2: silly because there wasn't Yeah, it was just it was
14:57
Speaker 2: just interesting. It felt a little silly being and an
15:00
Speaker 2: earth roam. We're up there, to be honest, but you know,
15:03
Speaker 2: for so long I've been sold this trip of that
15:06
Speaker 2: it's so challenging and so technical in this and it
15:10
Speaker 2: was pretty boring if I'm being really blunt. It's funny
15:13
Speaker 2: like talking to more experienced travelers, they're like, oh, yeah,
15:17
Speaker 2: we all think that, but we don't say it. We
15:19
Speaker 2: don't want to ruin the joy. But I think the
15:21
Speaker 2: joy's gone for.
15:22
Speaker 1: Me well, and I think it's important for people to
15:25
Speaker 1: come into that eyes wide open, because for me, the
15:29
Speaker 1: last time that I went up there was twenty eighteen
15:33
Speaker 1: and or maybe even twenty sixteen with Dave Herreton and
15:38
Speaker 1: the Rams.
15:38
Speaker 2: Well, you guys went up there in the winter, which
15:40
Speaker 2: I think would be a totally different experience.
15:42
Speaker 1: It was also the last year of the Mackenzie River
15:46
Speaker 1: Ice Road, the year round road was just opened, and
15:50
Speaker 1: we actually tried to get permission to drive it, yeah,
15:53
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't let us get They had to let
15:55
Speaker 1: it subtle or something. There were some bridges and they
15:57
Speaker 1: were worried about our safety and stuff, but close to
16:00
Speaker 1: being able to pull that off. But we were able
16:02
Speaker 1: to drive up the ice roads and so there was
16:05
Speaker 1: no tourists because it's winter freezing up there. You get
16:09
Speaker 1: a drive on an ice road, which is super fun
16:12
Speaker 1: and interesting and exciting.
16:14
Speaker 2: And I think that that would be the challenge of it,
16:16
Speaker 2: you know, but.
16:17
Speaker 1: I can see why it would be so different now
16:19
Speaker 1: and I've never done that route. First time was in
16:23
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, second time was twenty sixteen. I think, yeah,
16:27
Speaker 1: both on the ice road and then one of the
16:30
Speaker 1: things for people to think about it they're looking for
16:32
Speaker 1: more of an adventure is you do go go in
16:35
Speaker 1: the winter either way, go drive the year round road.
16:38
Speaker 1: In the winter time, there's going to be no Class
16:40
Speaker 1: A motor homes. It's going to be much more exciting,
16:43
Speaker 1: and the weather's going to be more dramatic, and it's
16:45
Speaker 1: going to be feel like more of an adventure. But
16:48
Speaker 1: in the winter time, they still have part of that
16:50
Speaker 1: ice road open, so the Mackenzie River to the village
16:54
Speaker 1: of a Clovic remains is still an ice road, so
16:57
Speaker 1: you can still go have this, you know, it's sixty
17:00
Speaker 1: seventy miles of an ice road. And then they have
17:03
Speaker 1: a festival every year. Yeah, and they have a festival
17:06
Speaker 1: that they plow the road. And when I say plow,
17:09
Speaker 1: it's like they kind of make it passable between Fort
17:13
Speaker 1: McPherson and a Klovic. So you could if you timed
17:16
Speaker 1: it right, if you found out when the festival was happening,
17:18
Speaker 1: you could drive the frozen Peel River, which is it's
17:22
Speaker 1: so remote, like, yeah, I would go buy these little
17:25
Speaker 1: cabins with like the fish freezing and hanging out in front.
17:29
Speaker 1: It felt very very remote. So you could drive the
17:33
Speaker 1: Peel River from a Clovic down around back to Fort McPherson,
17:37
Speaker 1: which I think would feel like a total Yeah, a
17:40
Speaker 1: bunch of really cool but I could see why I
17:43
Speaker 1: like to see a bunch of motor homes would be
17:44
Speaker 1: kind of a bump.
17:45
Speaker 2: It was maybe disheartening. It's the way that I would
17:48
Speaker 2: put it. And then you know the rest of the trip,
17:50
Speaker 2: whether you're on you know, the Alaska Highway or you're
17:54
Speaker 2: on Cassie our Highway.
17:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you had to take that, didn't you, because we.
17:58
Speaker 2: Had to take it back because the Alaska Highway was
18:01
Speaker 2: washed out, right, So that's interesting. So you know, we
18:04
Speaker 2: actually really enjoyed BC. Yeah, I think the mistake that
18:08
Speaker 2: hindsight is twenty twenty. But we had a really good
18:11
Speaker 2: time in BC. The Yukon maybe not so much. White Horse.
18:15
Speaker 2: White Horse was another weird one where you know, people,
18:18
Speaker 2: oh it's such a cool town. Oh it's so cute.
18:20
Speaker 2: So this it was real dumpy and like bumper to
18:24
Speaker 2: bumper traffic.
18:25
Speaker 1: There's actually a lot of crime there, petty theft.
18:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't you know. You kind of come out
18:30
Speaker 2: of being in the middle of nowhere and then you
18:32
Speaker 2: end up in in white Horse and you're again people
18:35
Speaker 2: like talk these things up so much, and I'm like,
18:37
Speaker 2: I just personally didn't make the connection.
18:40
Speaker 1: You know.
18:41
Speaker 2: Again, maybe in the winter when there's less Peter's a Starbucks.
18:44
Speaker 1: There's a Starbucks and white Horse. It's just yeah, you.
18:46
Speaker 2: Know, like like the center of the overlanding universe in
18:49
Speaker 2: North America is the Canadian entire parking lot in Whitehorse.
18:53
Speaker 2: There's a Walmart next to it. There's a Starbucks in
18:56
Speaker 2: the lawn. Yeah. Yeah. It was Passing in the Cassiar
18:59
Speaker 2: Highway was beautiful.
19:00
Speaker 1: Very pretty. It is very pretty.
19:02
Speaker 2: Laura and I kind of said we would probably just
19:06
Speaker 2: do the Cassiar and turn around if we would ever
19:09
Speaker 2: do it again. Stuart and Hyder is really cool. You know,
19:12
Speaker 2: when you cross over the border into Hyder, you can
19:16
Speaker 2: go up to I believe it's Salmon Glacier and that's cool.
19:20
Speaker 2: But that's it was actually really busy too. Again, there's
19:24
Speaker 2: a lot of you know, you're on the dirt road,
19:27
Speaker 2: but you know you're kind of weaving in between the
19:29
Speaker 2: Cruise America's you know, some locals that are up there.
19:33
Speaker 1: Did you end up doing any of the canal road closed.
19:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think that was a bummer for us
19:38
Speaker 2: because the plan was to do Cassiar, go to I
19:42
Speaker 2: believe Wattson Lake. Let's stay there for just a night
19:47
Speaker 2: and then fuel up, get everything we need and then
19:49
Speaker 2: do South Canal Road, take that to Ross River YEP,
19:53
Speaker 2: and then go up. But it was all closed. There
19:56
Speaker 2: was a really really wet year. So that was another
20:00
Speaker 2: other bummer for us because I think all of the
20:02
Speaker 2: opportunities to get remote for us were shut down, whether
20:06
Speaker 2: that was due to flooding or whether that was due
20:09
Speaker 2: to fires. Like we wanted to go to Keno City
20:12
Speaker 2: because there's actually some backcountry camping and stuff back there,
20:15
Speaker 2: all of that was closed due to fire. We actually
20:19
Speaker 2: I think it was. Yeah, we had to Like when
20:21
Speaker 2: you're coming back from tuk tuk Tuk, we went through well,
20:25
Speaker 2: we stopped in Dawson City the first time. Here's an
20:27
Speaker 2: interesting thing is that hotels aren't that much more expensive
20:30
Speaker 2: than our v spots, and like in a place like
20:33
Speaker 2: Dawson City, there's very few places to camp. They've they've
20:36
Speaker 2: been through this before, yeah, and they want to get
20:39
Speaker 2: that money from you know, they want people staying and
20:42
Speaker 2: in areas where they can clean up after them and
20:45
Speaker 2: their services in that. So we ended up just staying
20:47
Speaker 2: at a hotel and then we ended up you know,
20:49
Speaker 2: it was like ninety five degrees in the room with
20:51
Speaker 2: no they advertised ac and all this stuff.
20:55
Speaker 1: It was just so hot.
20:56
Speaker 2: We wanted to when you spend that much time, it's so.
20:59
Speaker 1: F or like as you're describing it, I can't even
21:02
Speaker 1: wrap my head around it because the weird the coldest
21:05
Speaker 1: temperature I've actually ever encountered, so colder than Greenland, colder
21:10
Speaker 1: than Antarctica, was up on the Dempster. Yeah, minus fifty seven.
21:16
Speaker 1: That's that's cold. So like I cannot imagine positive ninety
21:20
Speaker 1: degrees that think of the swing.
21:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's huge. So everything everything there is built for
21:26
Speaker 2: the cold, right and not the heat.
21:29
Speaker 1: Right.
21:29
Speaker 2: But now they're starting to deal with the heat and
21:31
Speaker 2: it's like interesting talking to locals and yeah, they're not
21:35
Speaker 2: prepared for it necessarily. But Dawson City, we're like like
21:39
Speaker 2: everything was booked, like we couldn't, you know, we don't
21:42
Speaker 2: like to book that far in advance, but it seemed
21:45
Speaker 2: that like when you're on this trip to Alaska or
21:49
Speaker 2: Canada or whatever, like kind of the Alaska Highway with
21:52
Speaker 2: some offshoots. People plan this stuff years in advance, day
21:57
Speaker 2: by day in their motor homes, you know, they do
22:01
Speaker 2: as a traveler, and I'm sure there's a lot of
22:03
Speaker 2: pent up demand when we were there as well, because
22:05
Speaker 2: it kind of was the first year there's really I
22:07
Speaker 2: guess it was open last year. Yeah, you know, you
22:09
Speaker 2: couldn't find a place to camp, and it was really
22:11
Speaker 2: stressful because there wasn't there just wasn't that many options
22:16
Speaker 2: for backcountry camping, right. But Dawson City was weird. You know,
22:20
Speaker 2: there's like the can Can Girls and all this kind
22:23
Speaker 2: of stuff, But it seems that their model has shifted
22:25
Speaker 2: towards cruise passengers, so they fly You're in this really
22:29
Speaker 2: remote place. I mean, you're you know, you're kind of
22:31
Speaker 2: you've been on the road, you're a bit grungy, and
22:33
Speaker 2: you're coming into this you know town in the middle
22:36
Speaker 2: of nowhere. And the way it was hyped up to
22:37
Speaker 2: us and in reality, it's it's just a package that
22:42
Speaker 2: you select on your crews and they're flying people in,
22:45
Speaker 2: you know, by the jet load. There was two seven
22:47
Speaker 2: thirty seven's part there. We weren't able to even get
22:51
Speaker 2: like dinner anywhere in this town, and talking to a
22:55
Speaker 2: lot of other travelers there, they were also kind of bummed,
22:59
Speaker 2: you know, because like you drive all this way and
23:01
Speaker 2: you know, Dawson City gets tucked up. I think the
23:03
Speaker 2: most interesting part of Dawson City were the people who
23:07
Speaker 2: were there that did not look like they should be there, Like,
23:11
Speaker 2: you're in the middle of nowhere. It's it's geographically very
23:14
Speaker 2: very remote, and you're like, it's very remote. Yeah.
23:18
Speaker 1: Was the ferry open.
23:19
Speaker 2: The ferry was open. Yeah, the ferry was cool.
23:21
Speaker 1: You know.
23:21
Speaker 2: The ferry then takes you over top of the World
23:24
Speaker 2: Highway and all that to chicken. Chicken was cool, you know.
23:27
Speaker 2: For us, we were then able to have deck outside
23:31
Speaker 2: of a restaurant instead of him sitting in the car
23:35
Speaker 2: with the car running because it was so hot. Yeah,
23:37
Speaker 2: so that was a little you know, it's like, oh,
23:39
Speaker 2: we're back in America. Yeah, the top of the World Highway.
23:43
Speaker 2: I've spent I've spent. The reason that I waited so many,
23:46
Speaker 2: like months to do this is I was hoping that
23:48
Speaker 2: like the positive.
23:49
Speaker 1: Things would soften, it would soften, But.
23:52
Speaker 2: It was like avoiding tour buses, you know. It was
23:56
Speaker 2: described to me as this and everybody talks up its
23:58
Speaker 2: Oh it's so beautiful, it's so remote, but it's this,
24:00
Speaker 2: you know, whether that was due to Alaska Highway being
24:03
Speaker 2: closed and some of the closures from the fires. There
24:07
Speaker 2: was like one hundred and ninety fires burning in the
24:09
Speaker 2: Yukon and we were there. You know, it was like, Okay,
24:11
Speaker 2: here's a tight turn, and then here's a here's a
24:14
Speaker 2: tour bus coming, and there's another tour bus coming and
24:17
Speaker 2: another rental RV and rental RV and Class A and
24:20
Speaker 2: tough as much as it's dirt. Yeah, it was just
24:25
Speaker 2: I feel like nobody talks about this, right, So that's
24:28
Speaker 2: why I'm kind of I I feel like people should
24:31
Speaker 2: know that it's maybe it's it's probably more of an
24:34
Speaker 2: RV trip now than it is. It's like the greatest
24:37
Speaker 2: RV adventure, not like the the overland Adventure anymore.
24:42
Speaker 1: Unless you go in the winter. Unless you go in
24:44
Speaker 1: the winter, go in the winter.
24:45
Speaker 2: I think going in the winter would be cool, like
24:47
Speaker 2: I would love to do like a yellow Knife, yeah,
24:51
Speaker 2: because then it's more of a driving challenge where this
24:53
Speaker 2: just felt like.
24:54
Speaker 1: There's nobody else really on the road other than people
24:56
Speaker 1: that have to be there and there's no bugs in
24:58
Speaker 1: the winter. That's why I go in the winter.
24:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was, it was. Unfortunately, I think it was
25:04
Speaker 2: our least favorite trip that we've ever done in eight
25:08
Speaker 2: or nine years together. You know, we kinda we kind
25:11
Speaker 2: of sat. Now now we're more motivated by what we
25:14
Speaker 2: said earlier, you know, history, food, culture, interacting with people.
25:20
Speaker 2: We'd like to camp remote, but we also like to
25:22
Speaker 2: have you know, it's kind of something along the way.
25:25
Speaker 2: There's Tim Hortons is not culture and Tim Hortons is.
25:29
Speaker 1: It's not even good coffee, it's.
25:31
Speaker 2: It's not good. The Wi Fi though phenomenal, phenomenal WiFi
25:36
Speaker 2: A plus Wi Fi B minus donuts. There are some
25:39
Speaker 2: really nice people.
25:41
Speaker 1: Of course, they're totally and it's it is beautiful. I
25:44
Speaker 1: think what would totally put a damper on it is
25:47
Speaker 1: being so hot in Canada. You're not expecting that. No,
25:50
Speaker 1: Like when you go drive El Camino del Diablo, it's like.
25:54
Speaker 2: It was hotter in tuk Tiyak Deck when we were
25:56
Speaker 2: there was the hottest place in Canada. Like you like
25:59
Speaker 2: when when I was in Eagle Planes. Eagle Planes is
26:02
Speaker 2: this it's a like ambulance station truck stop, mechanic shop,
26:09
Speaker 2: away runway, hotel, bar, restaurant, fuel, it's it's everything. And
26:16
Speaker 2: it was actually a cool spot because it was the
26:18
Speaker 2: only place I found on the trip where I was
26:21
Speaker 2: kind of able to interact with travelers. You know, you
26:24
Speaker 2: walk around the parking lot and you see all the
26:25
Speaker 2: overland vehicles from all over. It was, you know, talking
26:29
Speaker 2: to some of the guys that live up there, you know,
26:31
Speaker 2: because it's just so long that the long haul truckers
26:34
Speaker 2: stay there.
26:35
Speaker 1: Yeah.
26:35
Speaker 2: Sure, right, so this is like their second this is
26:37
Speaker 2: their living room, so to speak. They allowed they I mean,
26:40
Speaker 2: they didn't care. They allowed dogs in the bar, like
26:42
Speaker 2: it was. It was great.
26:44
Speaker 1: It was. It was a cool little gem I liked.
26:46
Speaker 1: I liked eagle planes a lot.
26:48
Speaker 2: But they said, when I was a kid, my dad said,
26:50
Speaker 2: the shrubs used to be you know, the size of
26:53
Speaker 2: a bowling ball, and now they're trees. Yeah, you know,
26:57
Speaker 2: things are changing. Yeah, and that's what became really apparent
27:02
Speaker 2: to us on this trip, Like our greatest takeaway was
27:05
Speaker 2: that we really have to respect the planet. Yeah, you know,
27:09
Speaker 2: we've made some changes, you know, converting our house to
27:12
Speaker 2: all solar, and the idea of going maybe to some
27:15
Speaker 2: electric cars, because we have we live in Arizona. We
27:19
Speaker 2: have an oil well on our roof. Yeah, you know,
27:22
Speaker 2: I don't I can be energy independent in this age,
27:25
Speaker 2: you know. And it's like that the industry that supports
27:27
Speaker 2: this place, these places, these far north Arctic communities generally
27:32
Speaker 2: is oil and gas. I mean, that's that's why Tuk
27:35
Speaker 2: Tyaktuk exists to a lesser extent than Dead Horseman Dead
27:39
Speaker 2: Horses the center of it. Yeah, dead dead Horse is
27:43
Speaker 2: a company town. Yeah, it's what's keeping them alive. That's
27:46
Speaker 2: also gonna really affect affect what they're doing well.
27:50
Speaker 1: And there's just been so much change in that amount
27:52
Speaker 1: of time. Not only has overlanding exploded, but just with
27:57
Speaker 1: the summer road and everything. Because when I was in
28:00
Speaker 1: Eagle Planes the first time, there was this storm coming
28:03
Speaker 1: in and like we got gas really quick, and we
28:06
Speaker 1: realized that the road wasn't closed, so we went ahead
28:08
Speaker 1: and we like went for it, and we're just solo
28:10
Speaker 1: vehicle Tacoma driving up there, and it got really bad,
28:14
Speaker 1: Like the snow drifts were big. We were in like
28:17
Speaker 1: four low driving over these massive snow drifts. I mean
28:20
Speaker 1: we'd go from like we went from like little marker
28:24
Speaker 1: to little marker that was as far as we could see,
28:27
Speaker 1: and if you got more than twenty feet from the car,
28:30
Speaker 1: like you could lose side of the car. So it
28:34
Speaker 1: was extremely difficult. And we finally we finally get through
28:38
Speaker 1: to the other end, to the other gate, and the
28:40
Speaker 1: other gate is closed, and I was like, oh, this
28:43
Speaker 1: isn't good. And then a local guy he pulls up
28:45
Speaker 1: and he was he was First Nations from that area,
28:50
Speaker 1: and he walks up. He's like, it's like, I'm really glad,
28:52
Speaker 1: really glad to see you guys. And I said why.
28:55
Speaker 1: He says, well, we forgot to close the gate on
28:57
Speaker 1: the other end and you got through, so like it
29:00
Speaker 1: was the road was supposed to be closed.
29:03
Speaker 2: I would have I would have loved to have, you know,
29:06
Speaker 2: that was a great experience. Some challenges to the trip.
29:08
Speaker 1: It was definitely a challenge. It was definitely a challenge.
29:12
Speaker 1: And then he says he's like, oh, by the way,
29:15
Speaker 1: and he just had this really sweet way about him.
29:17
Speaker 1: He's like, by the way up over the if you
29:19
Speaker 1: go to the top of this hill. He's like, that's
29:21
Speaker 1: why I wasn't here, is that there's wolves on a
29:24
Speaker 1: caribou kill, and I'm like, are you So I go,
29:27
Speaker 1: I go running up to the top of the hill.
29:29
Speaker 1: And when I when I run up to the top
29:30
Speaker 1: of the hill and I get to the top, I'm
29:32
Speaker 1: thinking this was this, this is exactly how tourists die.
29:35
Speaker 1: I'm like, I just ran towards.
29:37
Speaker 2: The wolfson, let's come into my rental car.
29:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I just ran up to the top of
29:43
Speaker 1: the hill and sure enough, now I'm three hundred meters.
29:47
Speaker 1: But to be that close to the wolves, I think
29:50
Speaker 1: that's one of the challenges, is that maybe that's where
29:53
Speaker 1: the hype comes from because I had I had such
29:56
Speaker 1: an experience.
29:57
Speaker 2: We see, we didn't see any wildlife, Like we see
29:59
Speaker 2: more wildlife in our backyard in a week in our
30:02
Speaker 2: fenced backyard and Prescott than we did on the entire trip,
30:05
Speaker 2: which is which is crazy to me, I mean crazy.
30:08
Speaker 2: We saw on top of the world, we saw like
30:10
Speaker 2: maybe four caribou. No bear, we saw like two black bear.
30:15
Speaker 2: No side of the road, no no brown bear. We
30:18
Speaker 2: went spots we were a little bit before the salmon
30:22
Speaker 2: run and a hider to see him there.
30:25
Speaker 1: But I have a picture of this grizzly bear and
30:27
Speaker 1: I was standing in the doorway of the ram taking
30:30
Speaker 1: this photo, and he was not that far away, like
30:33
Speaker 1: another dumb This is like how tourist had he eaten
30:36
Speaker 1: thing that I was doing. So I'm taking I take
30:38
Speaker 1: this photo and I go back and when you look
30:40
Speaker 1: look back at your photos, I realize that this bear
30:43
Speaker 1: his he was his head was pointing straight away like
30:46
Speaker 1: he was walking past me. But I zoomed in on
30:49
Speaker 1: his eye. His eye was looking directly at me, So
30:53
Speaker 1: he was faking me out. Yeah, some of those bears
30:56
Speaker 1: are really super smart, and he was huge. He's huge.
30:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I was really hoping to to have some
31:03
Speaker 2: more you know, wildlife experiences. We did on the on
31:07
Speaker 2: the dumpster, we saw those moose actually I think it
31:09
Speaker 2: was called Moose Lake. It was in the kind of
31:12
Speaker 2: their provincial park at the southern end there. I don't know,
31:16
Speaker 2: did you.
31:17
Speaker 1: Go to Denali on your way over to Anchorage? Did
31:21
Speaker 1: you make this?
31:21
Speaker 2: So it was all it was all covered in and
31:24
Speaker 2: there was a lot of wildfires burning. So we were
31:26
Speaker 2: basically told there's zero chance of seeing Denali. Sure, and
31:30
Speaker 2: you know, we went to Anchorage afterwards to you know,
31:34
Speaker 2: kind of try and get some.
31:35
Speaker 1: So you went from Fairbanks down to Anchorage.
31:37
Speaker 2: We didn't go to Fairbanks. Now, we were we were
31:40
Speaker 2: after honestly after the dumpster, as we were calling it.
31:45
Speaker 2: We were pretty done, you know.
31:47
Speaker 1: It was so you did the Taylor Highway around and
31:50
Speaker 1: then you just shot straight down the one to Anchorage. Yeah.
31:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, we went top of the world. You had to
31:56
Speaker 2: Taylor Highway to talk, stay in stit in talk for
31:59
Speaker 2: a night.
32:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
32:00
Speaker 2: There's actually a really cool, cool campground that had a
32:03
Speaker 2: like I found the only way that I could get
32:06
Speaker 2: kind of the interaction that I wanted because at r
32:09
Speaker 2: V parks they will generally well, people were like really
32:11
Speaker 2: curious about the earth room, where we definitely met some
32:14
Speaker 2: nice folks. But I was trying to say at these
32:15
Speaker 2: RV parks that had little restaurants or a little bars
32:19
Speaker 2: or something, because it was it was just a point
32:22
Speaker 2: to actually talk to people like otherwise it was like
32:25
Speaker 2: like me and lauren Ne didn't have some space. There
32:27
Speaker 2: were thromer I'm not complaining about the size or anything.
32:29
Speaker 2: It was it was it was a champ. Yeah, but
32:32
Speaker 2: it's still nice to be outside of the box where
32:35
Speaker 2: you've been, you know for a while. Yeah, Anchorage, we
32:41
Speaker 2: had planned to go there, kind of stock up, interact
32:45
Speaker 2: with people.
32:47
Speaker 1: There's some great museums.
32:49
Speaker 2: And one we couldn't get anything done. The Ford Dealer
32:52
Speaker 2: there can't work on anything more than eight feet tall
32:55
Speaker 2: because it's in like some nineteen seventies oil building that
33:00
Speaker 2: you know, was never meant to be there. The whole
33:01
Speaker 2: town seems like it really wasn't meant to be there
33:04
Speaker 2: more than a couple weeks. Yeah, you know, none of
33:08
Speaker 2: the tire none of the tire places would help us
33:10
Speaker 2: with our rotation. We didn't having to do everything ourselves,
33:14
Speaker 2: you know. And then we went down to the Keynaie Peninsula,
33:17
Speaker 2: which was really pretty.
33:18
Speaker 1: It is super and that's actually on the Keyennye Peninsula.
33:22
Speaker 1: Is the furthest point west that you can get in
33:26
Speaker 1: North America. Oh yeah, by a road on a road. Yeah,
33:29
Speaker 1: so you can. It's on the Sterling Highway and it's
33:33
Speaker 1: near near home or it's somewhere down there.
33:36
Speaker 2: So we made it so wittier. Yeah, And we were
33:38
Speaker 2: going to go further down and we just we literally
33:41
Speaker 2: couldn't find a place to camp. So every place was
33:45
Speaker 2: booked out and you call like, oh, do you have
33:46
Speaker 2: any last minute stuff now? We've been booked out for
33:48
Speaker 2: months and there's no place to really wild camp. And
33:51
Speaker 2: at that time, like listen, there's places that you can
33:54
Speaker 2: wild camp, but we're not really interested in sleeping next
33:58
Speaker 2: to a highway. Yeah sure, you know, we're not interested
34:00
Speaker 2: in you know, stealth camping and you know, a parking lot,
34:04
Speaker 2: hoping that we don't get the knock on the door
34:06
Speaker 2: at you know, three in the morning or or something.
34:09
Speaker 2: So we bailed like after Wittier, which was pretty but
34:12
Speaker 2: there's like a salt store there and like there wasn't
34:16
Speaker 2: even a restaurant. There wasn't like I don't know why
34:18
Speaker 2: you would go there. It was yeah, you know, like
34:21
Speaker 2: it keeps going through a head, like a lot of
34:23
Speaker 2: these towns must have just gotten totally wrecked. You know.
34:26
Speaker 2: They didn't have cruises. They still don't have a lot
34:28
Speaker 2: of cruises. They didn't have the r v ars for
34:31
Speaker 2: you know, they couldn't get through Canada, right And I wonder,
34:34
Speaker 2: I wonder if it was just a mistake to go
34:37
Speaker 2: up there that soon.
34:38
Speaker 1: I've heard that about Hawaii right now too. There's a
34:41
Speaker 1: lot of issues because all the sources of income for
34:45
Speaker 1: those many of those families is was devastated.
34:48
Speaker 2: And it was interesting like Chase, who was just camping,
34:51
Speaker 2: he just came came down, you know, he lives up there,
34:54
Speaker 2: been around the overland space for a while. And I'm
34:56
Speaker 2: kind of you know, we met up and had a
34:58
Speaker 2: beer and anchorage and and I'm I kind of almost
35:00
Speaker 2: felt bad, Like the he got the brunt of it.
35:04
Speaker 2: What the what in the heck the heck is going on?
35:06
Speaker 2: He's like, Oh, no, that's just how it is. You know,
35:08
Speaker 2: we have like hit hit. I think it was his
35:10
Speaker 2: theory or my theory or somebody is like, these people
35:12
Speaker 2: invest so much time and money into this trip that
35:15
Speaker 2: they're just like afraid to say anything bad about it. Yeah,
35:18
Speaker 2: but every person that was on the trip that we
35:21
Speaker 2: talked to had a very similar opinion to us of
35:24
Speaker 2: a lot of the places.
35:25
Speaker 1: Well, and I can tell you for me sitting here,
35:28
Speaker 1: since I've always done it in the winter, that the
35:30
Speaker 1: extreme North Arctic stuff has always been in the winter
35:33
Speaker 1: or the very early spring. For me, I get to
35:36
Speaker 1: see the Aurora borealis. I don't have any bugs. There's
35:38
Speaker 1: no tourists on the road. Yeah, the road conditions are.
35:41
Speaker 2: Making camp anywhere because there's so many places to camp.
35:44
Speaker 2: That's right. If there's not so on the ground, there's
35:47
Speaker 2: people on those camps rights.
35:48
Speaker 1: And they were. There's plenty of places to camp. Yeah,
35:50
Speaker 1: So my experience was very different. Now, I have done
35:53
Speaker 1: a lot of traveling in southern Alaska in the summertime.
35:57
Speaker 1: So when I finished the sailing trip up across the
36:00
Speaker 1: Pacific last year of my buddy Mike that I was
36:03
Speaker 1: in the Air Force with, I met up with him
36:05
Speaker 1: and Anchorage flew in and we drove down to that
36:08
Speaker 1: most westerly point that you can drive in North America
36:13
Speaker 1: together and we did that little trip. But you know,
36:15
Speaker 1: for the most part, the bugs weren't too bad. Plenty
36:17
Speaker 1: of wind, it was not too bad. But we were
36:20
Speaker 1: in an RV, like we drove there. That's what you
36:23
Speaker 1: wanted to be in, was an RV.
36:24
Speaker 2: The thing that I will remember most about anchorages like
36:27
Speaker 2: kind of doing some maintenance. We stayed in like midtown
36:30
Speaker 2: Anchorage just at an extended stay, you know, for like
36:34
Speaker 2: a night or two, just to you know, we had
36:36
Speaker 2: to the refrigerator and there's there's maintenance, yeah, and stuff
36:39
Speaker 2: that you eventually have to get done when you've been
36:42
Speaker 2: you know, pretty remote change the oil, that kind of stuff.
36:45
Speaker 2: I hear these people screaming and like this, these like
36:48
Speaker 2: blood curdling screams. Three people were murdered like five hundred
36:52
Speaker 2: feet from where I was in the woods. Found out
36:54
Speaker 2: about that in the news the next day. Wow, Yeah,
36:57
Speaker 2: that was so that was my like summer experience.
37:00
Speaker 1: Well that was that was Matt's summer. You guys now
37:03
Speaker 1: know what matts summer vacation.
37:04
Speaker 2: I now know. I now know what. You know. Three
37:07
Speaker 2: unhoused people on meth killing each other with knives sounds like. Yeah,
37:12
Speaker 2: that was probably my Anchorage experience that I will remember
37:15
Speaker 2: until I die.
37:16
Speaker 1: Well, and that's negative and for well, you know, but
37:19
Speaker 1: it's also what you experienced too, right, And it's important
37:21
Speaker 1: and it's important for us. It's important for us to
37:23
Speaker 1: always share our version of what our experiences are. And
37:28
Speaker 1: and me traveling around Anchorage with someone who lives there
37:31
Speaker 1: is probably going to be a differently different Yeah, because
37:34
Speaker 1: he knows where to take me, not to take me.
37:37
Speaker 2: Well, that's where it was nice to have. Chase two
37:38
Speaker 2: is like you know some of the like we went
37:40
Speaker 2: to this really cool brewery south of town, and you know,
37:42
Speaker 2: there's definitely some history there, Like there's the motorcycle shop
37:45
Speaker 2: and they've got like some of the fairings from long
37:47
Speaker 2: Way round. Yeah, it's a really cool. I feel like
37:52
Speaker 2: I'll go back to Alaska. But you to see Alaska,
37:57
Speaker 2: like there's only like three roads, like three main highway.
38:00
Speaker 2: It's true, right, if there's a paved road, there's people
38:03
Speaker 2: on it. You have to have like a bush plane
38:05
Speaker 2: or a boat or something. So I would have to
38:08
Speaker 2: imagine the moment you get, you know, five minutes from
38:11
Speaker 2: where you can drive. It would have to be amazing,
38:13
Speaker 2: Like but we just we couldn't hike with the dog
38:15
Speaker 2: and the bugs and you know, but it was interesting,
38:18
Speaker 2: you know, it felt like, you know, I got the
38:21
Speaker 2: I got the boy Scott patch of driving to the
38:22
Speaker 2: Arctic Ocean.
38:24
Speaker 1: And that is something like if people want to experience
38:27
Speaker 1: driving to the Arctic Ocean, that's how you have to
38:29
Speaker 1: do it. You got to go up to Tuck. Yeah,
38:32
Speaker 1: if you want to get to the northernmost point you
38:34
Speaker 1: can drive on a road, you got to get up
38:36
Speaker 1: to dead Horse. When I was up in dead Horse
38:39
Speaker 1: for Expedition seven, we actually got permission to drive the
38:41
Speaker 1: vehicle out to the Arctic Ocean. That was really which
38:45
Speaker 1: was a rare experience. But again this was really early spring,
38:48
Speaker 1: so there was snow all over the roads. The Brooks
38:51
Speaker 1: Range was stunning beautiful, covered in snow, muskos and it
38:56
Speaker 1: was My experience was totally different. I imagined going up the
39:00
Speaker 1: Dalton in the summertime with all the truck traffic and something,
39:04
Speaker 1: it's probably not very fun.
39:05
Speaker 2: So so here's here's the mistake that I made for
39:08
Speaker 2: the entire trip is that I didn't listen to Ray Highland.
39:13
Speaker 1: He lives there.
39:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, very accomplished explorer has been all
39:17
Speaker 2: over there. I mean there's literally a little there's a
39:19
Speaker 2: highland and a little Highland river that's named after like
39:23
Speaker 2: his grandpa and his dad, Yeah, who helped build the
39:26
Speaker 2: Alaska Highway and were you know, early explorers in that
39:29
Speaker 2: area and that kind of stuff. And he's like, you
39:31
Speaker 2: should go in the fall. Like, go in the fall.
39:33
Speaker 2: There's no bugs, the campgrounds and everything is open. You
39:36
Speaker 2: can travel kind of as you want. That is where
39:39
Speaker 2: I messed up. I likely would have had a drastically
39:42
Speaker 2: different experience had I have gone in the fall versus
39:46
Speaker 2: the summer. That is, like, I you know, it's still
39:50
Speaker 2: one of those trips that would I do it again.
39:53
Speaker 2: I'll probably end up doing it again, but I would
39:56
Speaker 2: love to do it either in the winter or maybe
39:58
Speaker 2: the fall.
40:00
Speaker 1: But that sounds the fall sounds great too, because you
40:02
Speaker 1: could also experience the aurora and the Aurora borealis if
40:06
Speaker 1: you get the chance to see that. It's worth going
40:08
Speaker 1: to Alaska, Ya just to see that. In fact, I
40:11
Speaker 1: did a trip years ago where I just I flew
40:14
Speaker 1: to Fairbanks. Oh yeah, yeah, just got to go see
40:17
Speaker 1: the aurora. I just like stayed out in a like
40:19
Speaker 1: a Arctic shell. A.
40:21
Speaker 2: I had no idea that a large part of the
40:24
Speaker 2: business of the like Aurora borealis is targeted towards Japanese
40:30
Speaker 2: tourists that are trying to It's considered very good luck
40:34
Speaker 2: to conceive.
40:34
Speaker 1: A child, he told me.
40:36
Speaker 2: And I didn't just hear this once. I heard this
40:39
Speaker 2: multiple times in multiple places where like apparently the guy
40:44
Speaker 2: like China Hot Springs has like a sleigh and they
40:46
Speaker 2: take him out.
40:47
Speaker 1: The cultural peculiarities of the world, it's what makes the
40:50
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41:48
Speaker 2: But it was, you know, to go on like maybe
41:51
Speaker 2: a little bit more positive thing. The earth Roamer was
41:53
Speaker 2: so much fun. Yeah, so comfortable, you know, so comfortable.
41:58
Speaker 2: You know, the worst parts of that truck are the
42:00
Speaker 2: things that Ford touched, you know, like the doors that
42:03
Speaker 2: literally move in and out and rattle, and but that's
42:07
Speaker 2: not Earth Roamer, you know. The earth Roamer side of
42:09
Speaker 2: things was so comfortable. Like as a system boy, they
42:13
Speaker 2: just have it figured out.
42:15
Speaker 1: You know.
42:15
Speaker 2: We were able to, you know, when we did find
42:18
Speaker 2: the odd place to kind of remote camp and it
42:21
Speaker 2: was ninety degrees with sun or it wasn't always ninety
42:24
Speaker 2: degrees at midnight, but it was you know, hot enough
42:26
Speaker 2: to where well you couldn't really have the windows open
42:29
Speaker 2: because then the bugs would find their way in. Yeah,
42:33
Speaker 2: so you almost like had to run the We were
42:36
Speaker 2: lucky enough to run the ac Like. Listen, there's people
42:39
Speaker 2: that do this trip on way out numbers, on motorcycles
42:42
Speaker 2: and ground tents, and those are the heartiest mother flipping
42:46
Speaker 2: people in the world. Like the bicycle touring folks. Oh,
42:50
Speaker 2: it's crazy. I don't know how they have any blood left. Yeah,
42:54
Speaker 2: Like we're gonna we're going to insert for the YouTube video,
42:57
Speaker 2: like just a video of the flies alone on the
43:00
Speaker 2: Peel River crossing or Mackenzie River crossing, one of them.
43:02
Speaker 2: Those guys have those those guys and gals that are
43:06
Speaker 2: doing the bicycle touring, there's some cajones there.
43:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, you would be. It would be a constant assault.
43:12
Speaker 1: How do you carry rose? I mean they don't have
43:16
Speaker 1: a wine cellar?
43:18
Speaker 2: No, But yeah, it was a It was a joy
43:21
Speaker 2: and a and a and a dream of mine. You know,
43:24
Speaker 2: I always said, if I'm going to drive the Arctic Ocean,
43:26
Speaker 2: got how cool when I was how cool would it
43:28
Speaker 2: be to do it in an earth rommer? And I
43:30
Speaker 2: was able to do that on my own, which was
43:32
Speaker 2: you know, that was cool. So like when I separate
43:36
Speaker 2: the the traveler Matt from the like car enthusiast bucket list,
43:42
Speaker 2: did this cool drive in this cool car that was
43:45
Speaker 2: really cool. Yeah.
43:47
Speaker 1: Well, and it's an escape that's I think doing. If
43:50
Speaker 1: you're gonna dare do it in the summertime, you gotta
43:52
Speaker 1: have something you can escape into, like give it a
43:54
Speaker 1: call it a scout camper, call it an earth roamer,
43:57
Speaker 1: call it an earth cruiser. Something that you can somehow
44:01
Speaker 1: like close the door, kill the remaining bugs that got
44:04
Speaker 1: in with you, and then you have some some little
44:07
Speaker 1: spot to retreat to.
44:09
Speaker 2: It's nice, you know, Like I said, there's as I'm
44:13
Speaker 2: sitting here being the guy that's complaining about the trip
44:17
Speaker 2: in a luxury expedition camper thing, you know, with anything
44:22
Speaker 2: and everything that he needed and no real budget. You know,
44:25
Speaker 2: there's there's people that are having a blast on bicycles
44:28
Speaker 2: and motorcycles, and you know, I could see the dempster
44:32
Speaker 2: being a challenge on an adventure bike just for the
44:35
Speaker 2: sheer amount of gravel and sometimes it gets it's deep
44:39
Speaker 2: gravel and you know, comes up kind of nowhere and
44:42
Speaker 2: corrugations and that kind of big trucks come in the
44:44
Speaker 2: other direct, trucks dust. I could see it being a
44:47
Speaker 2: real challenge on a bike, Like it almost appeals to
44:50
Speaker 2: me more to do it on a motorcycle again in
44:52
Speaker 2: the summer, because you obviously couldn't do that in the
44:54
Speaker 2: but the fall would fall would be great before it
44:57
Speaker 2: starts to snow. Yeah, you know, I think the there
45:00
Speaker 2: is just a lot of circumstantial stuff that went wrong
45:03
Speaker 2: on our trip.
45:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's good to be aware of that.
45:06
Speaker 2: But again, I just I said on this trip, like
45:08
Speaker 2: me and Laura were talking, like everybody that talks about
45:11
Speaker 2: it just sings praises. I'd like to maybe be a
45:14
Speaker 2: little bit moretalistic and try to try to have enough
45:18
Speaker 2: time pass where I wasn't. I know that the podcast
45:22
Speaker 2: comes off negative and I'm not trying to say don't go,
45:25
Speaker 2: like if you want to go, it is so so accessible.
45:29
Speaker 2: But maybe just since that all season road has opened,
45:34
Speaker 2: I do think things have changed, you.
45:36
Speaker 1: Know, and maybe be really considered around the timing that
45:40
Speaker 1: you go, yeah, go in the spring, or go in
45:42
Speaker 1: the fall. You're not going to have the summer tourists,
45:44
Speaker 1: you're not going to have the class A motor homes
45:46
Speaker 1: as much, and I think you're going to have a
45:48
Speaker 1: much better experience.
45:50
Speaker 2: Or fly into white Horse. I think it's the company's
45:53
Speaker 2: canna dream and you can get an F three point
45:57
Speaker 2: fifty with an enclosed camper, go do the drive like
46:01
Speaker 2: it's actually so accessible now. Yeah, from Prescott to the
46:06
Speaker 2: top was about ten thousand miles round trip, which is
46:11
Speaker 2: that's a lot of seat time, it is.
46:13
Speaker 1: You know, I've done that drive more times than I
46:15
Speaker 1: would care. You've done it a lot, Yeah, I just yeah,
46:18
Speaker 1: that's the challenge is it's just an it's an enormous
46:22
Speaker 1: amount of very long days and that's that's a challenge
46:25
Speaker 1: for sure. So I don't mind. I mean, it's nice
46:28
Speaker 1: to fly in now. I guess it would be good
46:31
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about the Dalton Highway because
46:34
Speaker 1: it's all kind of part of this experience. But the
46:37
Speaker 1: Dalton Highway is also super long. It's about five hundred
46:41
Speaker 1: miles ish, And you've done that in this summer and
46:44
Speaker 1: the winter, I have, Yeah, Well I've done it in
46:46
Speaker 1: the spring twice once with the So I took the
46:52
Speaker 1: expedition seven vehicles up there and then back and we
46:56
Speaker 1: drove back through Fairbanks and did the whole Catier and
47:00
Speaker 1: everything all the way back south. And the other time
47:04
Speaker 1: was the Caazier is awesome.
47:05
Speaker 2: I mean it's very pretty, like that is one of
47:08
Speaker 2: the most pretty drives that you can do.
47:10
Speaker 1: It's very pretty, like do it, yeah, but it's also
47:13
Speaker 1: much further south, like much.
47:14
Speaker 2: Further south, like really attainable worth it on its own.
47:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, neat little restaurants and places to stop. And the
47:20
Speaker 1: other time that I did it was when they launched
47:23
Speaker 1: the new Tacoma TRD pro where it had it had
47:27
Speaker 1: the snorkel and Sinwey invited me to come along and
47:31
Speaker 1: we did a we actually did kind of like a
47:32
Speaker 1: video production for Toyota up there. But that was also
47:36
Speaker 1: really it was either early spring or late fall. Yeah,
47:40
Speaker 1: so it was wintertime. There's snow everywhere and snow drifts
47:42
Speaker 1: and all the cool stuff.
47:44
Speaker 2: That would be super cool. I think the challenge is
47:47
Speaker 2: really the winner, yep. And what's the town halfway that's
47:51
Speaker 2: kind of like Coldfoot? Cold Foot? Yeah, what what's that like?
47:54
Speaker 2: Is that similar to like the Eagle planes where there's
47:56
Speaker 2: like a little restaurant.
47:58
Speaker 1: It's not as charming. It's not quite as char I
48:00
Speaker 1: mean as eagle planes. There are a bunch of bunch
48:04
Speaker 1: but I liked it though. I mean it. There's like
48:05
Speaker 1: a bunch of connex box style accommodations, like those prefabbed
48:11
Speaker 1: accommodations that a lot of the oil industry uses. So
48:15
Speaker 1: you stay in these little boxes. And then they do
48:18
Speaker 1: have a rest like a restaurant where they serve hardy yeah,
48:22
Speaker 1: hardy food, but it's all you know, they don't they
48:26
Speaker 1: don't screw around with the food because the food's got
48:28
Speaker 1: to be right. Yeah, So like I would not say
48:31
Speaker 1: that the food is bad. It's like hardy truck or food.
48:35
Speaker 1: By the time you get there, you're ready for hardy
48:37
Speaker 1: trucker food, you really are. You like want a HOGI
48:40
Speaker 1: or you want a pizza or you want a cheeseburger
48:43
Speaker 1: or something like that. Yeah, And you have to stop
48:45
Speaker 1: there for fuel because it's that far. And then the
48:50
Speaker 1: next time that you get access to fuel again is
48:52
Speaker 1: you're in the company town, but up in dead Horse,
48:55
Speaker 1: so you're like up in the company town, so that
48:57
Speaker 1: you have to like there's only one gas station that's
49:00
Speaker 1: open to the public. You got to find that. And
49:03
Speaker 1: then the accommodations you have to book in advance because
49:06
Speaker 1: a lot of times they're full with companies, company town people,
49:10
Speaker 1: and they're extremely expensive. I think they have some requirement
49:13
Speaker 1: to have accommodations for the public. I think that's probably
49:16
Speaker 1: part of their agement, would just be on contracts, that's right.
49:20
Speaker 1: So they have very limited number of rooms. I remember
49:23
Speaker 1: them being well over three hundred dollars a night, and
49:26
Speaker 1: it does include food, so you can go to the
49:27
Speaker 1: cafeteria and you can have you know, soft sorreve of
49:30
Speaker 1: ice cream and whatever else. I think it is very cool. Yeah,
49:34
Speaker 1: it's a trip to see it like it's and it's
49:37
Speaker 1: a dry town. There's no alcohol. Very restrictive things around
49:41
Speaker 1: putting a bunch of people into a confined space.
49:44
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And maybe I should clarify, like on the
49:47
Speaker 2: on the Dempster, there are places to camp the Dempster.
49:51
Speaker 2: For us in particular, it was just so hot that
49:54
Speaker 2: we wanted to find an RB spot because we can't
49:56
Speaker 2: plug in. Is there ample camping kind of?
50:00
Speaker 1: So the challenge that you have with the Dalton is
50:02
Speaker 1: the proximity of the pipeline. So I remember we were
50:08
Speaker 1: taking the E seven trucks up there. Ray Highland was there,
50:11
Speaker 1: Mike mcmaud. We were getting the trucks up to meet
50:14
Speaker 1: the rest of the team, and we pulled off down
50:17
Speaker 1: this little road which we were fairly close to the pipeline. Yeah,
50:22
Speaker 1: and where we start camping out. And it was not
50:26
Speaker 1: forty five minutes and there was like two police vehicles
50:30
Speaker 1: coming down and they start walking. I mean they didn't
50:32
Speaker 1: harass us or anything, They're just like, dude, you can't
50:35
Speaker 1: camp here.
50:36
Speaker 2: Interesting, So it's kind of a similar thing where it's
50:39
Speaker 2: like and I wonder how much of it is just
50:42
Speaker 2: the perma fross, like you can't you can't, you can't
50:45
Speaker 2: go off the road no, because your truck will sing.
50:49
Speaker 1: We found places to camp, yeah, so in the winter time,
50:52
Speaker 1: you don't have you're not competing for camp sites. Yeah,
50:55
Speaker 1: so we found places to camp. That was not a problem. Yeah,
50:59
Speaker 1: So that was one of the advantages of doing it
51:01
Speaker 1: in the.
51:01
Speaker 2: Early So we found like the little like the gravel
51:03
Speaker 2: pits that they would pull the aggregate to make the roads,
51:06
Speaker 2: Like we would just kind of pull in there and
51:07
Speaker 2: nobody bothered us to work. You know it's not scenic,
51:12
Speaker 2: but it totally works.
51:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
51:14
Speaker 2: You know what's weird is I like almost got anxiety
51:17
Speaker 2: from the amount of trees. It's like you're driving through
51:19
Speaker 2: trees for.
51:20
Speaker 1: So long you've lived in Arizona, lived in Arizona.
51:24
Speaker 2: Big views and big vistas and that kind of stuff.
51:26
Speaker 2: That was that was interesting.
51:29
Speaker 1: You're like in the black spruce for days and days
51:32
Speaker 1: and days on end.
51:33
Speaker 2: It's cool, but you know, just naturally really really beautiful.
51:38
Speaker 1: Yeah.
51:38
Speaker 2: Boy, Like I just I know that if I was
51:41
Speaker 2: leaving now, you know, because we're in well I guess
51:43
Speaker 2: maybe not now, but you know, if I was up
51:46
Speaker 2: there now, I feel like you've been able to do
51:48
Speaker 2: the hikes and you would have been able to get
51:50
Speaker 2: out and you would have been able to do things
51:52
Speaker 2: like I just remember the few hikes we did is
51:54
Speaker 2: it was like we would kind of run in proximity
51:56
Speaker 2: with each other and like swat each other and then
51:59
Speaker 2: I'd be like wadding Jax. But for the you can't
52:02
Speaker 2: wear deep if you have pets. Public service announcement, got
52:06
Speaker 2: it, It is very bad for them. It can cost Caesars
52:08
Speaker 2: like really quickly.
52:09
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting to so yeah, well, so this is
52:13
Speaker 1: our public service to the audience. Yeah, if you go
52:16
Speaker 1: to Alaska and Canada, you may want to do it
52:18
Speaker 1: in the shoulder seasons.
52:20
Speaker 2: I think that that was my big takeaway. You know,
52:24
Speaker 2: there was a lot of circumstantial stuff with our particular
52:28
Speaker 2: trip that you can't plan for a heat wave, you
52:31
Speaker 2: can't plan for a bad bug season. But what you
52:34
Speaker 2: can do is go in a different season.
52:36
Speaker 1: And that's why you and I don't do the influencer thing.
52:40
Speaker 1: We're not trying to tell everybody that every day is
52:42
Speaker 1: a perfect day when you travel. There are days that
52:45
Speaker 1: it's really tough and you want to give up, or
52:48
Speaker 1: you want to turn around, or you're not having any
52:50
Speaker 1: fun or maybe that. I mean, I think of all
52:53
Speaker 1: the mistakes that I've made on those trips up there,
52:55
Speaker 1: including camping and minus fifty seven degrees, I put myself
52:58
Speaker 1: and the people that I was with at a lot
53:00
Speaker 1: of risk. Yeah, because we were trying to camp in
53:02
Speaker 1: roof tents and that was just a really dumb idea
53:04
Speaker 1: that I shouldn't have done. There were things that you
53:07
Speaker 1: learned that like, wow, I should have listened to Ray
53:09
Speaker 1: Hyland or should have done these things different. And because
53:12
Speaker 1: you and I aren't. We're not trying to paint like
53:13
Speaker 1: the perfectly rosy pictures. Yeah.
53:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, We're not like being paid to go up there
53:17
Speaker 2: by a tourism board.
53:18
Speaker 1: No, this is like what we do, and what we
53:21
Speaker 1: do is share our experiences, so those that are listening
53:25
Speaker 1: realize that it's good to do the research and it's
53:27
Speaker 1: good to know the best time to travel to these areas. Yeah. Yeah,
53:31
Speaker 1: And if you want it to be more adventurous, consider
53:34
Speaker 1: going in the spring. If you want it to be
53:36
Speaker 1: less people, more hiking, turning of the leaves, open camp sites,
53:41
Speaker 1: maybe go in the fall. Yeah.
53:42
Speaker 2: And honestly, I'm looking forward to going back to Alaska.
53:45
Speaker 2: The natural beauty of that state was stunning, stunning, the
53:49
Speaker 2: nicest people that you'll ever meet. We just kind of
53:53
Speaker 2: we were. So you just get to a point where
53:55
Speaker 2: when you know we've been doing this for a while,
53:58
Speaker 2: like this, this wasn't like our one an only trip. Yep,
54:01
Speaker 2: you know. So are we jaded?
54:03
Speaker 1: Yeah?
54:03
Speaker 2: I mean, Laura, like like they wrote the Aerosmith song
54:06
Speaker 2: jaded about me. I want to go back to Alaska
54:09
Speaker 2: on a boat.
54:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
54:10
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I have to figure out that whole
54:12
Speaker 2: motion sickness thing wandering back in a bush plane like
54:16
Speaker 2: a like a stole plane, and like some of those
54:19
Speaker 2: lodges and stuff in the back country to fish. And
54:23
Speaker 2: I'm not a hunter, but you know, I'd love to
54:25
Speaker 2: the opportunities for photography and stuff. You know, I'm not
54:28
Speaker 2: saying Alaska is a dump. I'm saying Anchorage is a dump.
54:32
Speaker 2: Go fly up there, maybe give a But if you're
54:35
Speaker 2: just going up to Alaska, boy, that's a long drive.
54:39
Speaker 2: And they make planes, now, that's right.
54:43
Speaker 1: Or like when I rolled into Alaska last summer in
54:46
Speaker 1: a sailboat into the Aleutian Islands, that was just a
54:48
Speaker 1: different that. It was amazing. It was amazing. So it's
54:52
Speaker 1: a different experience.
54:53
Speaker 2: Spend time in BC. Don't blow through BCAH to get
54:57
Speaker 2: to this stuff further north, because the further north you go,
55:00
Speaker 2: the harder it is to survive. And that means that
55:04
Speaker 2: if you're somebody like me that's motivated by the you know,
55:08
Speaker 2: the the interactions and experiences and maybe a nice meal.
55:12
Speaker 2: A nice meal for me can be like the Kitchie
55:14
Speaker 2: cheeseburger or something. Yep, get that in down south.
55:18
Speaker 1: I've had some gigantic cinnamon rolls in Alaska and Canada.
55:22
Speaker 1: They were just like, why are they so huge? I
55:25
Speaker 1: didn't take any It's like, here, take three thousand calories
55:28
Speaker 1: of sugar and dough. Yeah, and a little and dash
55:32
Speaker 1: of cinnamon.
55:33
Speaker 2: So I had Laura cooking, so yeah, and she's yeah,
55:37
Speaker 2: you know, it's great, exactly, instant pot for the wind
55:40
Speaker 2: and on that.
55:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, thank you all for listening. This is a
55:44
Speaker 1: really important topic. It's a place that people ask to
55:47
Speaker 1: go to a lot. Alaska is very high on people's list.
55:50
Speaker 1: Maybe take some of our advice with a grain of salt,
55:53
Speaker 1: but talk to others that have traveled. Asked them for
55:55
Speaker 1: the real story, not the instagram filtered story.
55:58
Speaker 2: You know, so not the hashed. Get them in a
56:00
Speaker 2: comfortable place, whether that's a relaxing environment in a nice
56:04
Speaker 2: chair with a cup of tea or a couple of beers.
56:06
Speaker 2: And I'm confident that similar things will come out unless
56:10
Speaker 2: I listen to Ray Hiland and went in.
56:11
Speaker 1: The fall exactly. So well, we thank you all for listening,
56:16
Speaker 1: and we'll talk to you next time.