Making it to the Alcan

We have arrived safely in Fairbanks, Alaska, after ten days on the road, and ten nights at a variety of interesting camp sites along the way. There were so many beautiful and interesting things to take in on our journey...here are some of the highlights we enjoyed.

7/23/10
Lunch with our dear friends Curt and Christina in Colby, KS (we miss you two! Can't wait for your wedding in May :). After Colby we pressed on toward Badlands Nat. Park, enjoying the beautiful, lush rolling hills of Nebraska. We stopped for the night in Valentine, Nebraska at "Wild West Family Campground" which was to our surprise not nearly as sketchy as it sounded (and it was only $13 to camp there!).

7/24/10
Nebraska to South Dakota where we enjoyed Badlands National Park. The Badlands were awesome, like traversing Mars... From there we drove through South Dakota to the Black Hills, home to Mount Rushmore Nat. Monument which we saw the same evening, patriotic lighting ceremony and all! We felt very American that night. By the way, if any of you reading this need a parking pass for Mount Rushmore, ours is good for the whole year...just let us know! Camped at Horsethief Campground.

7/25/10
Not far from Mount Rushmore is Crazy Horse Monument, carved out of Crazy Horse Mountain. This is a carving that has been under construction for over 60 years, currently the largest sculpture in the world! A must see if you are ever in that part of the country. From there, we headed west to Wyoming where we stopped to see Devil's Tower, America's first national monument since 1906. Thank you Teddy Roosevelt! We were in awe of the impressive monolith from miles away, and even more so up close. We also had fun watching the active residents of the prairie dog town below the base of Devil's Tower. Continuing westbound, we stopped at Shell Falls and discovered a very active place for hummingbirds which was so cool to see! We camped at "Oasis Campground" which claimed to be the best-kept secret in Wyoming...perhaps...if we hadn't been assigned a tent-site right next to the road and train tracks! Really noisy night to say the least.

7/26/10
In west Wyoming we finally made it to Yellowstone National Park where we rode bikes around the geyser basin and saw Old Faithful erupt. It is an enormous park with lots to see, and we definitely could have spent more time there. It was particularly cool to see the damage done by fires and the lush regrowth of the forest floor. And bears, bison, elk, deer, and beautiful prismatic ponds! The geothermal terrain was fascinating. From there we drove over the mountains to camp in Greybull, Montana at Orsen's RV Park which was awesome.

7/27/10
From Montana we pressed on toward the Canadian border! All we saw today was more beautiful mountains and plains...geez... :) We stopped in Bozeman, MT to change the oil in our faithful Ford Fusion and have coffee. We found a really cool co-op that served amazing coffee and sent us on our way. Once we passed into Canada we stayed in Lethbridge at Henderson Lake Campground, a beautiful oasis in the middle of a fairly large urban environment. Our dog Arnon enjoyed the walk we took around the pond.

7/28/10
And finally, after almost a week later, we found ourselves traveling to Dawson Creek, British Columbia, home to mile zero of the famous Alaska Highway! Along the way were fields and fields of yellow canola flower crops, a feast for the eyes. Particularly significant to u on this day were the thunderstorms we encountered close to Dawson Creek. On either side of our car were ominous-looking clouds, yet right in front of the road we were traveling was the bright, shining sun, as if God were saying to us, "This is your right path and I am giving it my blessing." And soon, after more than 1000 km of driving that day, we reached Mile "0" Campground in Dawson Creek. Praisealleuia!

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

While we intended to blog sooner, we find ourselves on the eve of leaving Kansas to head for Fairbanks, Alaska.

So, goodbye yellow brick road. What an incredible two years it has been living in a small town in Kansas. This is the community where we began married life together after returnig from our honeymoon in August of 2008, and it has been an incredible place of challenge and growth for us both.

We are very excited about our journey to the last frontier, and are eager to get on the road tomorrow morning. We wil be journeying west to Colby to have coffee with some of our good friends, and then northward to Badlands National Park, where we will spend the entire next day exploring its alien landscape.

Even as we are excited to begin our new adventure, we are very humbled by the tragic death of a high school student in the local swimming pool this afternoon. This last minute occurence has been a sobering reminder of the frequent pattern of adolescent death in our community, a pattern we have worked very hard to interrupt, but one which still requires our prayers and community-wide heart change.

So, humbled, anxious, excited, and otherwise in a whirlwind of emotions, here we go, embarking on a 4,000 mile journey to the Great Land, us and our dog...can't wait...