From Asheville to Anchorage: Across Two Countries in Two Weeks

Well folks, here’s the itinerary. Our two-week, two-country, too awesome trek across the United States and two Canadian territories carrying two humans and two dogs has commenced.

We’ve prepared for weeks, planned and re-planned. We have a route mapped out and an old-school GPS to guide us. Unlike the modern GPS systems named things such as “Tom-Tom,” we have a National Geographic road atlas of the USA, Canada and Mexico, which we have named “Gunter-Gunter.” (Yes, it’s made of paper. Remember that stuff!?) It talks in different accents.

Our trip, hopefully, will look something like this:

We’ll start by driving from Asheville to Chicago to stay the night with my brother, whom I love to hang out with but seldom see.

Then we’ll travel northwest stopping and camping somewhere near Sioux Falls, SD. A former professor of mine spent 4 years in Sioux Falls and always described his time there as 4-winters.

We’ll spend the next day traversing South Dakota to our next destination: Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park and the Black Hills. All close together, we hope to see some when we arrive and some the next morning before continuing on.

From there, we journey into Wyoming to spend two nights in Yellowstone National Forrest. We’re looking forward to Old Faithful, hiking trails, wilderness and wildlife.

Leaving Yellowstone and Wyoming, our plan is to drive over the course of two days to Seattle, WA where we will meet up with one of my best friends growing up, Landry.

A day in Seattle will include a drive across the US/Canada border and end in Vancouver, British Columbia.

After only one day in Vancouver (far too short an amount of time to see one of the world’s prettiest cities), we will embark on a 4-day drive through British Columbia and Yukon. We’ll stay in hotels along the Alcan (Alaska-Canadian Highway) in towns such as Prince George, Stewart, Watson Lake and Beaver Creek.

Hopefully, they’ll let us back into the United States and it’s a one day drive through Alaska to our new home: Anchorage!!!