Great Alaskan Road Trip: Week 3 Roundup

Each Friday, I post some relevant (and not-so-relevant) stats about the trip, as well as a little write-up of what it’s like to live out of a van for weeks on end. Here’s where we are overall:

• Total miles driven: 1906
• Total days on the road: 18
• Total miles hiked: 31.7

Here are some interesting stats for this week:

• Fuel stops: 2 (diesel: $3.82 / gallon in Orem, UT; $3.93 in Afton, WY)
• Technical issues: 1 (The door latch leading to the bathroom broke, locking us out.  Unable to uninstall it from the outside, we had to break it off to get the door open.  I kind of knew from the get-go that the flimsy handle with its push-button mechanism wouldn’t last very long. It’s not a problem when we are parked, because the door usually holds itself closed. But when we are moving, it’ll swing open and block the view from the driver’s rearview mirror.  We are now using a sophisticated system of painter’s tape and a heavy toolbox to hold it closed while driving.)
• National Park Service sites visited: 1 (Grand Teton)
• Sunrise Wake-up Calls: 1 (see photo above, taken from the shore of Jackson Lake.  The lengths we will go to for a good photo op!)
• Moose sighted: 7 (including 2 calves)
• Marmots sighted: 3 (they are adorable; I want to take one home)
• Bison sighted: too many to count (I stopped counting at 38, but we saw a herd of 150 or more on the Antelope Flats road)
• Bears sighted: 0 (still hoping)

Momma moose and very young calf; herd of bison roaming Antelope Flats

So, the bear count is still at zero (thanks a lot, bear bell), but I am optimistic that we’ll see a few next week while we are in Yellowstone.

Life in the van is still pretty good.  I had thought we might need a break from it and want to stay some nights in a hotel, but so far we have really enjoyed it.  It is nice to basically have your entire house at your disposal in case you want a snack, or to change clothes for hiking, etc.  Of course we are only three weeks in; I am sure at some point it might feel a little confining, especially in bad weather.

One thing that we have come across about living in the van vs. living on the boat is that in certain campgrounds, you end up really getting to know your neighbors because the sites are so close together.  So far, we’ve mostly been lucky; we’ve met some friendly older folks who’ve had good tips about where to go and what to do, we’ve camped next to a couple of nice families with young kids – after 7 or 8pm you wouldn’t know they were even there, bedtime rules apply even in the wilderness, I guess.  But last night, we had probably the most bizarre neighbor ever.

Our site at Signal Mountain campground had a pretty view of the mountains and water, but it was awfully close to the site next to us.  We’d deliberately picked a spot in the generator-free zone because we weren’t planning on running ours at all.  The site next door was occupied by a single small tent, but the car was gone so we figured we’d be next to a quiet solitary hiker-type or something like that.

In the early evening, just as I was getting dinner together, we heard a weird groaning sound.  We weren’t sure but it sounded like a person.  A few seconds later, we could hear some faint guitar strumming and the guy began to really wail it out, grunting and groaning along to songs I didn’t recognize.  Now, I’m a big fan of acoustic music (lots of very talented musicians in my family), but this was just awkward because it was so incredibly loud and gutteral.  Plus, he was sitting on his picnic table, just 8 feet or so from ours – where we had planned to eat dinner. 

That’s our table top in the lower right corner, and his campsite and “stage” just a few feet away

What to do?  It was silly to eat inside the van; the weather was so gorgeous.  But it felt very strange setting up dinner on the picnic table right next to the one-man show.  (I can’t explain – you really had to see and hear him to realize the weirdness of it.  It was one of those situations where you get embarrassed for someone else, you know what I mean?)  We noticed the other campers in nearby sites were just ignoring him.  So we went outside and proceeded to have our dinner, talking quietly, so as not to disturb him.  I noticed he was knocking back pint-sized cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and every so often he would get up to take a pee break in the woods (the bathroom was just one campsite over, but whatever). 

During one of his “set breaks”, I invited him to come sit and chat with us (and stop wailing).  He was a real nice kid, and didn’t seem mentally disturbed or anything, but definitely something was a little off.  We chatted for an hour or so, but it was getting dark and we’d been up since before sunrise so we politely told him we had an early start and were going to sleep. 

Once we were inside, his party really started.  Even with all the vents and windows closed we could hear him singing loudly until well after quiet hours (10pm).  He had a little radio with him and even when he wasn’t playing he’d sing along and every so often get up and do a little dance by himself around his campsite.  Just.  Really. Weird.

So we’ve learned an important lesson about choosing a campsite if the neighboring site is already taken.  The thing is, with a motorhome, the people spend most of their time inside.  Even if they’re running a generator it isn’t too bad, you can tune out the monotone rumble.  But with campers in tents, they are outside pretty much right up until bedtime – there’s nowhere else for them to go.  So far we’ve been choosing our sites based on scenery, whether it’s level, proximity to the bathroom, etc.  We’ve just added one more criteria to the list – proximity to neighbors, specifically those in small blue tents with a case of PBR and a guitar case.