Great Alaskan Road Trip: Week 15 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: 10,261
• Total miles by ferry: 537 
• Total days on the road: 102
• Total nights in a hotel: 4
• Total miles hiked: 105.94

It’s easy to see why our Milepost guidebook calls the area south of Cache Creek, BC the “Arizona” of Canada. 

Some interesting stats for this week:

• Fuel stops: 5 (diesel: as low as $4.25/gal in Bellingham, WA up to $4.88/gal in Prince George, BC)  
• Bears sighted: 2
• Buffalo sighted: about 30
• Manta Catamarans sighted: 1

Say…that looks like our boat!  We recognized the distinctive profile of this Manta catamaran anchored off Lopez Island in the San Juans.

It’s been a looong week of driving, but yesterday we made our final border crossing back into the United States.  Yay!  Total number of border crossings for the trip: 12.  This time we had to wait in line at the border with all the Canadians who were heading south for cheap gas and groceries.  We were in line for about an hour, then I made the mistake of “declaring” that we had six – count ‘em six – cherry tomatoes in the fridge.  Well, that got us singled out for an Agriculture inspection which meant that our van was searched inside and out for any additional stray tomatoes or other veggie contraband.  If I had known the delay those stupid tomatoes were going to cause, we would have just eaten them while we were waiting to get to the checkpoint!  Needless to say, our tomatoes were confiscated, and we finally made our way to Bellingham.

We were eager to get to the RV park because we’d ordered our mail delivered, and the package included our Arizona license plate tags for the van (which expire at the end of August, so we were cutting it close.  I was worried about what might happen if we got pulled over in Canada without having proof of valid registration.  We wouldn’t want a repeat of what happened with our Coast Guard documentation back in Martinique!)  Luckily our mail was waiting for us when we arrived, we put our shiny new tags on our license plate, and were once again law-abiding citizens.  Welcome to Washington!

The Great Alaskan Road Trip: About The Van

So for those of you just catching up with the blog, we bought a camper van in November 2011.  We had been toying with the idea of taking a road trip in the summer of 2012, and we went back and forth on whether it would be better to travel by car while staying in motels, or just bite the bullet and get some sort of RV. 

Kevin did some research (‘cause he’s good like that) and figured that motels would be very pricey at $50-100+ per night, but that if we had a camper we could get that cost down to $25 (or even free in some cases).  Mr. Research then spent several weeks looking into different types of RV’s (motorhomes, trailers, camper vans, you name it) and settled on a Sprinter van.  It’s a reliable vehicle (FedEx uses them as delivery vans) and small enough to park in a regular parking space while still sporting all the amenities.

Several companies make Sprinter van camper conversions.  In November of last year, we went to California and “test camped” in a Roadtrek Adventurous model, which was a blast.  We camped in Sonoma and at Samuel P. Taylor State Park, and tried to get a feel for what it might be like to live in a van for weeks or months at a time.  By the end of the weekend, we hadn’t killed each other or called a divorce attorney, so we figured we should go for it.  The Roadtrek had a lot of amenities, but we didn’t like the layout, which included two additional passenger seats which took up a lot of space – we wanted more storage.

We shopped around on the used market and ultimately found a very gently used 2006 Pleasure-Way Plateau being sold by the nicest elderly couple.  They had only gone on about four trips with it, and it was in great shape.  Once Kevin saw the odometer (only 18,000 miles!) we had a deal.

Of course Kevin saw lots of room for improvement and began by getting rid of the fading and peeling gray vinyl decals along the sides.

Kevin the handyman also installed a backup camera, fixed some leaky overhead vents, and replaced the bare-bones radio with one that could be hooked up to an ipod.  The van interior can only be described as cozy.  At just 22 feet long, it’s ideal for us because it is easy for both of us to drive and to park.  But the flip side of that coin is that everything is very compact, so space inside is limited.  There is a fold-down sofa/bed, a kitchen (range, microwave, dorm-size fridge) and a very small closet for clothes.  The narrow walkway means we are constantly doing the do-si-do dance move to get around each other in the kitchen.

It’s equipped with an A/C unit (which we probably won’t need) and a propane furnace (which we probably will – it is still COLD up north in June, especially for us spoiled Arizonans).  There is also a genset, which brings back frustrating memories of the boat and our generator that never ran for more than 5 minutes before overheating and shutting down.  But at least the van’s generator seems to work and starts up on the first try! 

Here is a shot of the interior looking forward.  To the right of the refrigerator is the closet (it doesn’t hold much; I plan to leave most of my shoe collection at home).  And just to the right of that is the door to the bathroom.

The bathroom/shower combo is also a very tight squeeze.  Check out the faucet on the sink – you can only just barely fit your hands under it to wash them.  And note the drain in the floor – yep, it’s one of those showers where the whole bathroom gets wet.

As you can see, we’ll definitely be living in tight quarters for the next five months.  But we figure that will just keep us motivated to spend most of our time enjoying the great outdoors!  We have big plans to see and do as much as possible en route to Alaska.  Stay tuned!