They Went Without Me so I'll Go Without Them

4x4x4doors

Explorer
Mom and Dad went up and down the AlCan twice in the early 1950s with my sisters (before I was born). On the second trip, they pulled the Spartan behind the Packard on the way up and behind a Chevy pickup on the way down.

On the second trip, Mom had an Argus C3 that she bought with money earned from baking pies which Dad sold at work. I heard about their trip my entire life and saw the pictures and had this trip on my "bucket list" before I knew what a bucket list was. This Sunday, my wife and I will take off from Maryland in our own Chevy pickup to retrace some of their route.

Thanks to the folks who gave me pointers and recommendations in thisplanning thread and via PM.

The only hard date we have is to be in Haines for the ferry on July 31 (reservations made and paid).

Here's a couple of Mom's pics (scanned from slides) to get started.

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Her other trip pictures are here.

Stay tuned.
 

Scrapdaddy

Adventurer
Great pictures! You are lucky to have parents, that had an adventurous spirit. Seems you inherited the same. Good luck on your travels.
 

Arktikos

Explorer
I enjoyed looking through your album. Back then the Alcan was much less pavement and pretty rough going-definitely an adventure. Have no idea where they got the photo of the polar bear cubs. Not on the Alcan, unless someone grabbed them for pets. But, it looks like they're on the coast. No roads to Alaskan coasts at that time, except around Anchorage, and polar bears only live along the far northern coasts.
 

4x4x4doors

Explorer
I enjoyed looking through your album. Back then the Alcan was much less pavement and pretty rough going-definitely an adventure. Have no idea where they got the photo of the polar bear cubs. Not on the Alcan, unless someone grabbed them for pets. But, it looks like they're on the coast. No roads to Alaskan coasts at that time, except around Anchorage, and polar bears only live along the far northern coasts.

I suspect it was either a traveling exhibition of some type or perhaps a zoo. There were other pictures in the batch that were mainly family that were taken at some kind of celebration associated with the Army up there.
 

UHAULER

Explorer
Wow, I can't believe your parents went on a trip like that without 4wd, a snorkel , and a big roof rack :ylsmoke:


Its nice to see pics like that of people "just doing it" with what they had at the time.
 

4x4x4doors

Explorer
Wow, I can't believe your parents went on a trip like that without 4wd, a snorkel , and a big roof rack :ylsmoke:


Its nice to see pics like that of people "just doing it" with what they had at the time.

Hey, I never said I didn't come from crazy! I'll try to remember to include some of their adventures when I do the blog posts.

In the meantime, we are having a blast and I will hopefully update with some pictures soon. We drove across PA, OH, IN, IL, WI, MN, SD, WY, and MT so far and are currently in Lethbridge, AB. I used a passport for the first time in my life today.

WI: Thunderstorms
MN: Rochester has a corn cob water tower but it doesn't compare to Gaffney, SC's peach!
SD: Hit the Corn Palace and also stayed the night in Wall. Mt. Rushmore was impressive as was Crazy Horse. Some issues with getting the credit card approved by the hotel in Custer but I think the issue was the hotel rather than the CC company.
WY: Devils Tower and Yellowstone
MT: Glacier NP and the Going to the Sun Road.

Seeing lots of other travelers and still driving with my mouth hanging open at the big wide spaces and beauty of this country and we're still on our way to our planned destination.

Only "issues" so far have been trying to cover too much in a day, trying to find a hotel room (but we did) of ANY type in Kalispell on a summer Friday night, getting the kinks worked out of the 5 gal bucket clothes washer and the knowledge that the front tires on the truck are wearing on the inside. Looks like I may be buying new ones when we get home unless I feel inspired to rotate them to the back before its too late.
 

4x4x4doors

Explorer
Last 7 days locations (rolling) from SPOT
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0cKxpSFvWX5hiZ0dOCiLz82SFABBdSZoT

Truck has been getting 26 mpg since we got into Alberta and are buying gasoline rather than "up to 10% ethanol". Need to make a correction here. Since we got home and corrected some figures in Liters to Gallons conversion, we see only a modest increase in gas mileage by using gasoline rather than "up to 10% ethanol". The actual increase seems to have been in the 5-8% range for a couple of single tanks which could also be attributed to several other factors.

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Storm clouds rolling in WI
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Double rainbow in Rochester MN
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Viking Bronze in hotel lobby
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Corn cob water tower at the fairgrounds in Rochester MN
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They're serious about their tractors here
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Corn cob mural in Corn Palace Mitchell SD
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Getting ready to cross the Missouri River
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Marker for South Dakota Rest areas

More to come another day
 

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4x4x4doors

Explorer
Yellowstone
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Yellowstone Lake
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Old Faithful
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Fox with unidentified prey
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Let's talk about stopping in the middle of the road and getting out of the car with children while Mama Bear is on one side of the road and 3 cubs are on the opposite side. On second thought, let's not.
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