Hey Tribe,
We bought a Scamp camper trailer back in May and it was, at
long last, finally, finally, finally ready for us to pick up from the Scamp
factory in snowy Minnesota. Scamps are
coveted and hard to come by, so we ordered new (instead of scouring the
internet for a used one with a questionable past) and had to wait for our
precious egg to be built. Living in
Alaska, we are pretty used to not having access to everything up here, so we
were not surprised to discover that we would have to make a trip down to the
factory to get our long awaited purchase.
It is roughly 3,000 miles from Alaska to Minnesota, one
way. Not a simple drive, especially not
in the winter and along the Alaska Highway through Canada. However, we were undeterred. I had scheduled time off from work, so
TheFather, Fly, and I loaded snow gear and supplies into the truck, kissed
TheMother farewell, and set out at midnight for a state I’ve never been to.
Crossing the Alaskan/Canadian border was uneventful: we
arrived early in the morning, thankful that the temperature had warmed to -8F
from the biting -24F we had driven through in Glennallen, and chatted with the
border agent about the weather and made predictions about the upcoming winter. After checking Fly’s rabies vaccination
paperwork, he wished us safe travels and, with a yawn and a shiver, retreated
back into the building and closed his window.
I drove through the snowy white landscape until I grew
sleepy and then TheFather took over driving while I slept in the passenger seat
with Fly perched on my lap. She, ever
watchful and alert, served as co-pilot through the night. Her hyper sensitive nose kept us from
avoiding collisions with several herds of animals. How?
As we drove, Fly watched out the windows, but apparently she was also
sniffing: she would suddenly begin sniffing with much energy, as if there was
some marvelous aroma coming from the top of the windshield and then, roughly a
¼ mile further down the road, we would see animals – sometimes in a herd,
sometimes solitary. Fly was like having
an early warning detection system. Her
sniffing alerted TheFather to slow down enough to avoid running into a herd of
Bison that was unhurriedly crossing the road in the darkness. We pulled over to look at them and so Fly
could get a better sniff of these marvelous hulking creatures; she gave them a
low growl and then gazed at them as they slowly settled in the snow at the base
of a glowing white mountain while fuzzy green Northern Lights silently weaved
through the sky overhead.
The rest of our journey through Canada was uneventful. High gas prices motivated us to drop down
into Montana, rather than continue through Canada to Minnesota. The border agent was surprised that we would
drive all that way to buy a camper, to which we replied, “We’re from Alaska.”
as if that explained everything. We
stopped in Shelby, MT where a wonderful, matronly gas station attendant gave me
free coffee after I staggered in, groggy with 45 hours of driving, to pay for
our gas. Bless you, nice lady.
After that, we made for Minnesota and rolled into frigid and
very windy Bemidji so I could see the Paul Bunyan statue that the always-trustworthy
Rand McNally road map had listed as something worth seeing.
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| Fly is not a fan of giant human statues, apparently. |
Eveland’s Inc. was easily found along a winding rural
road. “Wait, where?” you might be
asking, with as much confusion as I initially had - it is the home base for
where Scamp trailers are born – don’t ask me why they have to be dually
named. “Hey, there’s a Scamp up on a pole,”
I said as I drove along the icy road; then slammed on the brake, causing
ThaFather to fumble his phone and then report to a muffled TheMother that I had
just blown past our destination.
Tattletale. Naturally, I was
unprepared to be seen in public and ashamedly crept into the factory, looking
like a street urchin, to claim my not-inexpensive new toy. The tie wearing Scamp representative gave me a
once over glance and then professionally turned a blind eye to my messy hair
and disheveled 3-day-old clothes.
Perhaps all new Scamp owners arrive this way?
Our new fiberglass toy, sleek and shiny against the gray sky
and dirty snow, pulled behind the truck wonderfully as we made our way south to
Minneapolis, where we got lost along the twists and branches of concrete
arteries of the interstate highways, freeways, off ramps, and merging
lanes. After three ill fated attempts to
find the direction we needed, I whipped into a hotel near the Mall of America,
where a very helpful clerk was able to sketch me a map in the right direction
and we then found our correct way with no difficulty. Thank you, nice and patient man, for helping
a bedraggled, sleep-deprived girl find her way toward home.
Originally, I had wanted to stop at as many National Parks
as we could, but most were closed, or only semi-operational and I didn’t want
to pay the full entrance fee for limited access, so we chose to sight-see free
things across the county.
Fly posed with
many a statue, which I will share later, because the photos are hilarious and
deserve
their own blog post.
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| Hello from the Corn Palace! |
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| A tipi |
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| Sacagawea (must only be male statues that Fly doesn't like) |
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| "Enough photos!" |
We visited places such as Wall Drug, skirted the Badlands, saw Mt. Rushmore, and ate at fun little places.
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| Best donuts and coffee breakfast! |
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| Feeling the cowboy vibes. |
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| Inside Wall Drug |
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| The fanciest fast food restaurant I've ever visited - full fireplace, leather couches, even a rug! |
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| National Grasslands |
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| Bison spotted near the Badlands |
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| Fudge! |
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| Giving Washington a kiss. |
After a stop to see TheAunt in the PNW, our drive home was
uneventful.
Well, except for when I
accidentally passed the last gas station and we very nearly ran out of gas
before reaching the next town in Yukon Territory. There were 40 or so very tense miles where I
am sure I developed several stomach ulcers.
We coasted in to a gas station on fumes, with 0 showing for how many
miles of gas were left in the fuel tank.
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| Not fun. |
The trailer was pretty snow and road grime encrusted when it
made its grand arrival in our driveway around midnight, two weeks after our
departure. A hot water and soap bath was
in order the next day; now, our prized marshmallow sits, protected from the
elements in the barn, waiting for it’s next adventure.
