In or Out?

"The Alaska Highway winding in and winding out fills
my mind with serious doubt as to whether 'the lout'
who planned this route was going to hell or coming out!"

- Retired Sergeant Troy Hise
Stationed at Summit Lake, Historical Mile 392

The famed Alcan Highway, what better place to begin a journey? Matt has been dutifully plotting our course, and planning our adventure.

We'll join the Alcan Highway at it's start, Mile Post Zero in Dawson Creek, British Colombia. From there one can journey 1523 miles to Fairbanks Alaska, if they so choose.

Remember to Finish What I Begin

And OHH has it begun...

Well folks, that settles it. Matt has started to itinerize (not sure that's even a word) our caches along the route. He's called me numerous times and emailed me even more with pictures and anecdotal stories of our quest to come. Even more daunting however, today he went to the end-all be-all, the Mecca of geocachers, the first ever documented gecocache in the pacific northwest. I could tell you where but then yeah, we'd have to kill you.


Heaven help us, I've opened up the hornet's nest!!!

Geo Pro's?

Brian geocached in St. Martin, Caribbean while Matt & I managed to ellude the geo-cops. Wonder what they'll do to us at the border?

3084.73 to be exact!

Mapquest tells me to buckle up for 50+ hours behind the wheel, EACH WAY!

Someone PLEASE email me an audiobook?

Damn History Channel

As heavily addicted to my tivo as I am, I should have known better than to fill it up with NatGeo, Discovery and History Channel documentaries but alas, I was not fortunate to reel the obsession in on time.

A few nights ago, I found a Modern Marvels just begging to be watched, all queued up in my list of to do's. Browsing through the info guide, it seemed benign enough. A one hour summary of the building of the Alaskan Highway. One regiment of black soldiers started in Alaska and worked south while a regiment of all white soldiers traveled north to meet in the middle. Cool, should be fun to learn about no? It was the dawn of WWII, Japan had become an overnight threat and the US needed military access from the contiguous 48 to Alaska, to fend off the early cold war Russians.

The show itself was cool but one thing stuck in my mind. It was the first documented signpost forest, created by a soldier named Watson. His job was to make signposts for the Alcan highway (duh) but he felt he needed a respite from the routine so back at the barracks, he put up a simple sign, pointing to his home indicating the distance. Other men in the regiment started to add their own home towns and world landmarks. The signpost was etched into history from then on. I remember as a child seeing similar forests on re-runs of M*A*S*H. Today, estimates put the number of signs near 50,000 in this forest.

Well, anyhow, I thought it was neat and I filed it onto my list of 1000 things to do before I die. Heaven knows 950 of them will probably never happen but damned if this is one of the ignored 950. I spoke with my brother Matt, in passing really, about this signpost forest. Instantly he latched onto the idea with eagle-like talons. He's started planning the epic roadtrip, stops at geocaches (http://www.geocaching.com/) along the way and hours on the road of family fighting, I mean bonding.

Looks like, I am going (starting from Minneapolis) in spring of 2010. He's going to meet up with me in Portland, and his adult son, Brian, will pop in somewhere along the way. Truth be told, we expect to see him thumbing a ride somewhere around the Queen Ann Neighborhood of Seattle. I 'spose Matt, will see him because I will likely be asleep after logging nearly 2 turns on my odometer yet being less than half way to the goal.

This site will serve as our journal of this epic road trip. My plan here is to really keep you off the hook from having to do this. If your big brother says, 'Man, we gotta go' you can simply say 'No, let's do it vicariuosly through Dave's blog.' Don't say I never did anything for you.

We hope to make the last official stop of the journey at the Geocaching World Headquarter's in Seattle WA. We'll need an appointment but hopefully, they will oblige. A cold beer waiting for me would be cool too ;). Once the journey begins, I will update the blog as technology allows, check in for updates.