What was I thinking?

 The idea of going to Alaska is a relatively quick story, but why is a much longer tale.  

In the fall of 2021 my wife, Jen, was told that the cancer she had battling for the previous 3 years was no longer treatable and was now considered terminal.  I suppose you could say that we were smart in the fact that once we considered having kids we purchased life insurance.  Pro Tip: figure out how much you need to pay off all debit's and then double that.  At the time I bought enough to pay off debits plus X amount and 15 years later I wish I had doubled that amount.

In any event we eventually had the conversation of what I would do with the money.  Of course I said I would pay off our debits.  Make a few repairs and upgrades to the house.  And maybe a nice vacation at some point.  She told me we should go on a trip of a lifetime.  As a gift from her.

Jen was a beach girl so the majority of our vacations in the past had included the sand and ocean.  Any camping was generally the girls and myself.  If we were semi local Jen would come out and have dinner and s'mores and then head home to the comfy bed and puppy cuddles with the dog.  However, after her first round of cancer we had planned a trip to Arches National Park with the camper and I was really looking forward to that.

I always did enjoy our beach trips but if this was going to be a trip of a lifetime it was going to be something that I really enjoyed but thought I would never have a chance to do.  So I decided that we would go to Alaska.

We could have went anywhere but Alaska seemed fitting.  Jumping into the way back machine brings us to the mid 90's.  Jen's brother, David, was battling cancer.  He was 12-13 at the time.  He had a type of bone cancer that was best treated in Seattle.  There they met a family who also had a son the same age and had the same type of cancer.   The boys became instant friends and the family spent a lot of time together at the Ronald McDonald house.  At some point, both families went home and the boys passed away.   However the family's kept in touch.  The mom of the other boy was born in Iowa so they visited family and would reconnect with Jen's family.   Her parents also did an Alaskan cruise and visited them as well.

Fast forward many years, the mom of the other boy battled leukemia herself and because of her experiences with cancer she became an Oncology Navigator.  When Jen was diagnosed they were in touch often, even more so once she was diagnosed as terminal.  Jen called her, her Alaska Mom.

Several years back they had purchased a resort, P&K Anglers Retreat.  I always thought it would be really cool to take the camper up there at some point.  It didn't seem right to go anywhere else than to visit Jen's Alaska Mom!

Alaska by RV is not a trip you do in a standard two week vacation.  Even with driving 8-10 hours a day it will take about 6 days just to get to the Alaskan border.  Ever since Jen and I married it was assumed that I would start working for her dad and eventually take over.  Because I now have the freedom to take a leave I was now able to take the time needed to drive and see what we want to see.   My current itinerary has us gone for 70 days.  It would have been more but my middle daughter is in dance so we had to wait until after her dance recital.  And of course we have to be back before school starts.

The purpose of this blog will be as a journal for the girls and I to look back on as well as for friends and family to keep up on where we are and what we are doing.   I hope to have an update for each day.  Of course we will have a lot of places where we just do not have internet access so there will probably be gaps where there are several days updated at once.