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.