DAY ONE: We left Fairbanks, AK at about 9am (later than we wanted but it is what it is). The drive took us about 13 hours. It was during this day that we crossed the border into Canada and stopped in Whitehorse. We saw SO MUCH wildlife, horses and caribou, and were delayed by a lot of construction. It was also during this day, DAY ONE, that we determined the original setup with Ditto (our cat) was just not going to work.
So the plan was to make the trip as comfortable as possible with our furchild. We got him a harness and one of those seat belt adapters for dogs, so that he could have the whole backseat of my car to himself. We even went as far as to run the idea by our vet and take the harness to him to make sure that everything fit properly. He had food, water, a litter box, and a bed. It was a great setup! Well, it lasted towards the end of day one. During the ride he was a little vocal (which we figured would be the case). The change in elevation was making his little ears pop and there was A LOT of mountains we were driving through. As it got later and darker I was super focused on the road (I'm blind at night!) and I didn't notice the silence that came from the back seat. The next thing I know that little turd has wiggled out of his harness and climbed up the back of my seat! He then proceeds to climb onto my chest and sink his claws in. I CAN'T SEE! So I immediately pull over and jump out of the car. Ben pulls in behind me and asks what's wrong. I point to the car and Ben just breaks out laughing, the darn cat is just chilling in the front seat like he owns the place! So yeah, from then on Ditto stayed in his pet taxi unless we were stopped.
DAY TWO: We drove from Whitehorse to Fort Nelson. This drive ended up taking closer to 14/15 hours. We were EXHAUSTED by the time we'd arrived at our destination for the day. Heck, I get tired just thinking about it. But we were able to see the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake AND there were lots of wildlife sightings. Just in this day alone we saw caribou, elk, bison, goats, a fox, and a bear. I was able to capture pictures of almost all of them.
DAY THREE: Fort Nelson to Grand Prairie. Thank goodness we finally hit a shorter day because we were pooped! We arrived early enough in the day that it was still light out and there were restaurants open other than McDonalds. We had a fantastic hotel and we decided to take showers and watch TV in our PJs while we ate. It was heaven! Haha.
DAY FOUR: Grand Prairie to Calgary (Yupp, still in Canada!): At this point we were just so ready to get Canada over with. You see, we have Straight Talk, so we didn't have cell service or anything all the way through Canada. The only way we were able to update family and friends on where we were was through a Facebook group that we had created.
DAY FIVE: Calgary to Great Falls, MT! FINALLY, we were back in the US. We got up early and crossed the border. There was a small mishap at the border, when a guy drove into the back of the Pontiac that the hubby was towing. He was not a happy camper. Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done because it happened on the Canada side, but thankfully there isn't too much damage.
DAY SIX: Great Falls, MT to Billings, MT. Originally we were supposed to be headed to South Dakota, but there was a lot of construction showing up when we checked out the route. Plus at this point we were really just trying to hang in there. So we chose to stop in Billings, do a load of laundry, and get the hotels booked for the rest of our trip. We also made a call to Uhaul and had the dolly that we were using to tow the Pontiac switched out for a trailer. Honestly, the Pontiac shouldn't have been on a dolly to begin with, but it was all Alaska had.
DAY SEVEN: Billings, MT to Hill City, SD. This was a big day for us, and probably my favorite of the whole trip! Before entering South Dakota we saw a sign and pulled over to do a little sightseeing. We were able to see and take pictures of Little Bighorn Battlefield! That was cool. I'd only really read about it in Mrs.Wine's history class. We're suckers for a good piece of history though so we took the opportunity to get out, stretch, take pictures, and look around.
After that little pit stop we pushed on to Hill City. Now let me first start off by saying, we knew this was going to happen but we definitely underestimated the enormity of it! Because of who our fathers are we were fully aware of what event occurs every year in South Dakota at the beginning of August. What we weren't prepared for was the nonstop parade of bikes and streets being closed down for the event. That's right! We got caught up in Sturgis! We didn't actually go to Sturgis, we would've loved to, but with a cat and a massive Uhaul and trailer it just wasn't feasible. We honestly figured choosing a small town 50 miles away would put of out of the chaos. NO, the Black Hills is biker central during the first couple weeks of August!
ANYWAYS, after we checked into our hotel we jumped back into my car and drove over to MOUNT RUSHMORE!!! It was a dream come true. Haha. I've wanted to see it since I was a kid. It was cool. :) Total nerd alert. We walked around, snapped a bunch of pictures, hit up the gift shop, and drove back to our hotel.
DAY EIGHT: Hill City, SD to Sioux Falls, SD. Getting out of Hill City was stressful because of how crowded and busy the area was but it was pretty smooth sailing the rest of the way. We did start to get grumpy though from the long drive and all the traveling. Once we made it to Sioux Falls we called the housing office and set up an appointment to move into our house the day that we arrived.
DAY NINE: Sioux Falls, SD to Madison, WI. Driving in Wisconsin was fun because of how beautiful it is there. It was another day full of driving though. It was such a smooth and uneventful drive that we didn't even realize that we had went through Minnesota.
DAY TEN: Madison, WI to South Bend, IN. Originally we were going to drive from Wisconsin to Ohio but we didn't want to drive that far so we went with Indiana instead. It was about 100 less miles and a couples hours less of a drive, which was great because getting through Chicago sucked majorly. I don't ever wanna go back to Illinois.
DAY ELEVEN: South Bend, IN to Pittsburgh, PA. We ran into some crappy weather right before Pittsburgh. We were driving towards a dark cloud and expected some rain but what came down was just insane. There was lightening and the rain was so heavy that we couldn't see the road in front of us! Not even the brake lights of the person in front of us!! Traffic practically came to a stand still, we were all crawling down the highway at like 10mph. Thankfully that only lasted about 10 minutes. Once it let up we booked it the rest of the way to the hotel in the hopes of avoiding it again.
DAY TWELVE: Pittsburgh, PA to Frederick, MD. On our last day we were up and out the door at 6am. The plan was to get to Maryland early and avoid the storm that was brewing. Fortunately we did arrive and the weather stayed mostly clear for the rest of the day.
So, yeah! That was essentially our trip. Haha. The day we arrived we were given the keys to our new home and thankfully a friend came over and we were able to unload the whole Uhaul that day. We were lucky to already know someone here, he's like family. The next day we turned the Uhaul in. Since then we have SLOWLY been working on getting settled in. We got the cable and internet set up, washer and dryer have been delivered, and boxes are slowly being unpacked. I started school this week (8/20) and the hubby will start work next week. Though this move was totally last minute and super stressful, we're so excited to be here.
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