Slow Down, Gwen

Our journey to Alaska began on a warm June evening. We left my parents’ house in the Berkshires (western Massachusetts), and headed west on Interstate 90 – the plan was to make it to Chicago by morning. The windows were down, our eyeballs were glittering with images of polar bears and glaciers, nothing could stop us. Nothing except my uncontrollable tendency to drive at an illegal – and some would say dangerous – pace. 75 in a 55? That’s not fast, is it?

Within the first hour of our week-long voyage to Alaska, we were pulled over by a young (and I would say over-zealous) traffic cop. Getting pulled over is nerve-racking, but I wasn’t as scared of the flashing lights behind me as I should have been. You see, this was the third time I had been pulled over in as many months, and the previous two occasions (once in Kansas and another time in central Massachusetts) had turned out well, resulting in the issuance of “warnings” – the Police Department’s equivalent of a light, painless wrist-slap. And that’s all I really deserved, right? I thought so.

Apparently this cop disagreed, and after I handed him my ID, gracelessly explained that we were “driving to Alaska”, and flashed him some feminine charm (awkward smile), he gave me a ticket that I would later repay with two and a half days’ wages as a line cook in one of Alaska’s many small family restaurants.

Whatever. Onward, to Alaska!

Big Fat Ugly Footprint

No, that’s not Jesus’ footprint. It’s mine. Or maybe Christopher’s. I honestly can’t remember whose it is, but it doesn’t matter because it’s just a metaphor anyway. This post isn’t about feet – it’s about the relatively enormous environmental impact of our trip.

Lots of people are talking about gas prices these days, and as you can see on our “At the Pump” page, the price of gas has been floating around at a record-high $3 million a gallon over the last month. It’s been hard on our wallets, but we’ve been saving up and we expected this trip to be a big drain on our bank accounts, so each time we spend 50 bucks filling up the tank I may wince a little, but the pain passes and off we go. The high price of gas may deter many Americans from driving as much as usual – and for Christopher and me it’s been more of a challenge to put the pedal to the metal.

Gas Guzzling

With all this driving we have to stop for gas pretty frequently – and we’ve been saving the receipts. This is probably of much more interest to us than all you out there, but if you’re curious check out the “At The Pump” page and see how the cost of gas varies state by state (and week by week). I guess it’ll also serve as a running tally of the trip’s cost. You can watch us go broke! Online!

Disclaimer: we’ve been shelling out for premium because our mechanic told us that Precision Auto is a picky eater and it would be cost-effective in the long run (feel free to call us suckers). So take that into account when crunching the numbers.

Also… If you’re interested in where we’ve been (and where we might be going), check out the new “Map” page.

Precision Auto

Alright, so we’re a little late with the whole blog thing, but for good reason. When we first decided to quit our comfortable jobs, move out of a great apartment, and hit the road we ran into a little problem. To hit the road you need a car… and we didn’t have one. So we set out to buy a vehicle. And we did. A low-slung roaring beast of a machine, nimble and sexy. That’s right, we became the proud owners of a mid-90’s, virgin white station wagon with a built-in booster seat for the kiddies.

Now this next part is a little painful so I’m keeping it short. Turns out that after the papers were signed, the cash had exchanged hands, and we had left the fine state of New York our noble stead turned out to be a major lemon.