After paitently waiting since the January 18 Peace Corps "mail date" for the staging materials, I finally emailed them when I hadn't received the packet for Romania. Right away, a reply came saying they would send me another packet to Las Vegas, so apparently they sent the first one to my Alaska address. The email staging info was attached to the message, and I immediately called Sato Travel to make the travel arrangements. Sheila had it all completed in only five minutes! I will leave from Redmond at 6:35 a.m. on February 18, arrive in Philadelphia at 4:35 p.m. She also made a hotel reservation for me at the Sheraton. I heard from Dorie, another 60+ year-old volunteer, that she'll also be arriving the day before sessions start, and Anne and her husband (also both 60+ volunteers), live there, so hopefully we can enjoy dinner together that night and have a chance to get acquainted.

It's been nice with Grey and his kids. We went up to Mesquite to the first condo for a few days, it was a nice house, with two baths, garage with door opener, and our own golf cart. They went home on Monday and I returned to Vegas on Wednesday. That gave me a chance to clean out my car and repack my bags, and gave them time alone with Cheyenne. While we were up there, we attended a BYU "Living Legends" performance which was wonderful. The students portray many indigenous dance groups, in full costume, it is very professionally done. We all really enjoyed it. We also went hiking one day up in the Red Cliffs area, driving into Arizona and Utah. The last day the kids hit a couple of complimentary baskets of range balls at the driving range. We had a great Japanese dinner one night, wonderful breakfast one morning, and grilled chicken another night on our patio BBQ.

Today Grey and Lorin and I went to the Las Vegas Zoo. Don't hold your breath to visit there soon. It is all of three acres, about the size of my yard at home. We heard that Steve Irvin, before he died, had wanted to put money into the zoo here to fix it up. It could use it. But we did have fun. Tomorrow afternoon we'll go to South Vegas to check into our next condo, at the Monarch Cancun. We're enjoying each other a lot.

I saw in the PC staging material that volunteers need to do as much "closure" as possible before departing, to enjoy all the things they love, visit family and friends, have goodbye parties, whatever they'll miss during their time away. I'm certainly trying to do that. The dogs Rosie and Cheyenne are also getting to be buddies. They started playing together and it seems they'll do just fine. One disaster: I dropped my digital camera and broke the LCD panel! After many phone calls, I finally managed to get the manufacturer to send me the part ($100 plus shipping), and Grey can install it for me. The camera still works, but you can't tell what the picture will be, so we've had fun with my "mystery" pictures. The part arrives next Tuesday, we can't wait to see the results.

In Las Vegas at last! -- January 19, 2007

Finally... ARRIVAL! I made it to Las Vegas at about 5 a.m. on January 18th... three weeks after leaving my home in Soldotna. It was a lovely trip, not leisurely but enough time to visit friends and family.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if the journey had cost even more, considering the high price of gas. But I sure can’t complain about the car, it performed flawlessly. The welding repair noted in the summary below was apparently from damage received years ago, and my last hood slam finally broke the brace through. Along the way, I only purchased two items, a 12-volt thermos that worked for a few minutes and quit, and a 12-volt immersion heater to make hot water for cocoa and tea, it worked for only one cup, then shorted out my car outlet. Great. Fortunately, my amazing son Grey managed to fix both of them while we were in Vegas! He also managed to fish out my tweezers that had fallen into the crack beside the emergency brake.

Cheyenne is adjusting to life with their little lab Rosie, and learning the “territory” of her new “home” for the next couple of years. I know I’ll miss her, so will take a couple of nights away so I can still come back, before I leave for Bend after Dara’s baby is born on Feb 7th.

Cheyenne and I logged 5000 miles on the road, traveling as follows:
Step 1 -- Soldotna to Anchorage, 150 miles, visits with Katie and my Aunt Pat, four nights with friend Jane
Step 2 -- Anchorage to Seattle, via the Cassiar Highway, five motel nights    Day 1 -- Tok, 330 miles (motel $57)
   Day 2 -- Teslin, 470 miles (motel $60)
   Day 3 -- New Hazelton, 650 miles (motel $53)
   Day 4 -- Quesnel, 350 miles (motel $50)
   Day 5 -- Hope, 330 miles (motel $66)
   Day 6 -- Hope to Seattle, 200 miles
Step 3 -- Seattle to Westport, Westport to Portland, 300 miles
Seattle -- overnight with Darla and Brian, then 2nd overnight in Westport with Darla
Portland -- overnight with David
Step 4 -- Portland to Emmett, Idaho, 415 miles
Two nights in Emmett (motel $92)
Four visits with stepfather A.J. in nursing home, drive to Boise and back 75 miles to see stepmother Lucille in assisted living, also had hood latch welded and radiator hose replaced here
Step 5 -- Emmett to Bend, Oregon, 315 miles
Overnight with Dara, Matt and Gus, also breakfast with Sabra
Step 6 -- Bend to Gold Beach, Oregon, 390 miles
Overnight with Uncle Ed and Aunt Kathy in Corvallis
Three nights with Jo and David in Gold Beach
Step 7 -- Gold Beach to Las Vegas, Nevada, 1025 miles
150+330+470+650+350+330+200+300+415+75+315+390+1025=5000 miles
TOTAL trip cost: $600 for gas travel costs, $400 for motels and food, plus extra for treating friends and family for meals.

On the Road Again -- January 5, 2007

Jan 2 -- Believe or not! The motel in Tok has wireless Internet! So cool... (but my laptop is picking up three others in this neighborhood, anyway...) It's only 327 miles from Anchorage, so I got here before 4 p.m., found a motel that allows my dog, and it even has a pretty nice restaurant. Only $57. I'm sleeping just 90 miles from the border.

The day after I left, my tenants had the dishwasher (which I almost never used) leak all over the floor. So today I bought a brand-new Maytag dishwasher for them. I told them that at my age, I expect this'll be the last dishwasher I ever buy, so I'd like to get a good one. I sure hope nothing else goes wrong for a while. But I'm gone now, and just can't spend all my energy worrying about it.

It was nice to spend four nights in Anchorage, to say goodbye to my friends and Aunt Pat. Thanks to Jane for giving me her house as a refuge. She's now officially another "sister" for me, I absolutely adore my adopted sisters!

Today before we got to Glenallen, both Cheyenne and I were in screaming pain, needing a potty (and I DID stop in Palmer!). We got off the road when we finally found a pull-out, and I peed by the car. I didn't care if the whole city drove by. A semi came by, honking, honking and waving, but my pants were already up by then. Still, I'm sure he guessed. I saw lots of semis today, one loaded with a trailer full of new cars, so I'm hoping the highway is okay.

I got a harness for Cheyenne to fasten to the seatbelt. It was a hassle at first, but I think she's adjusting to it. So far so good.

It feels great to be on the road.

Jan 4 -- Well, tonight I'm in Smithers... I decided to push on down the Cassiar Highway. I really love that route, but not so much in the DARK. And this time of year, it's dark a lot. Mid-day it was breathtakingly beautiful! Raw, strikingly angular new mountains, and fabulous for camping in the summers, but this time of year, no restaurants, no motels, many, many graders and snowblowers, every curve and hill thoroughly sanded! Lots of semis. Several blowing snow storms along the way, but bits of clear sky with sun (day) and short shots of full moon (night) There is a luxury resort hotel ($200 a night) built for snow-lovers, about 200 miles north of here... I got gas there, and enjoyed looking, but even the restaurant was closed for the heli-skiers, who were due any moment. They weren't exactly waiting for old grammas traveling with their dogs. So I drove another 200 miles after 5 p.m... sun went down by 4 p.m. (The Cassiar is almost 450 miles long, heads south just before Watson Lake, I drove about 650 miles today.)

I made it to Teslin last night from Tok, after driving right past Whitehorse (for some reason, I never stop there). I found a slightly creepy but acceptable room for Cheyenne and me. It was $70 Canadian. This room in Smithers is actually an efficiency apartment, with refrig, stove, microwave, even a toaster and coffeemaker. Great satellite television and free wireless internet, all for $61 Candaian including BC taxes.

So far, my Acura is doing fine. The front tires always look low to me, and a couple of these bridges were so terrible that they convinced me I had a flat tire, but they look about as low as usual, so I continued on. No problem. So far. Most of the gas places don't have air, anyway. I brought three books on tape, so the entire Cassiar has been The Godfather, unabridged. It keeps me going, and keeps me awake. I'm 1000 miles past the Alaska border now, but instead of going East on the (boring) Alaska Highway, I came south and am now heading East to Prince George. I thought I might get more daylight and cut off some miles, enjoy more beautiful scenery. Not much to see in the dark, though.

Cheyenne got to stop and play retriever two times today, but she's dying to run around. She's become an angel in the car, is absolutely wonderful to travel with. It was a stroke of genius to put her in the front seat, and clip her into a seat harness. She's finally learned how not to get tangled, and to stop whining. What a team we are! By now everything I wear is covered with dog hair. The dog seat-bed I got her is perfect, doesn't scrunch in the passenger seat, and makes her travel bed in every rented room.

Jan 5 -- It's lightly snowing this morning, the kind of flakes that fluff downward and some go back up again. Even with the hour time change forward, it finally gets light earlier in the morning. Thankfully, I'm tired of 10:30 a.m. sunrise, 3 p.m. sunset. Now I'm on the trans-Canada highway, so there will be lots of services and I can relax, not think about getting stranded in the freezing wilderness. Ever since I left Tok, my cellphone shows "No Service". This'll be the easy part of the trip, so now I can be more of a tourist.

Lots of animals on the Cassiar! I saw white willow ptarmigan, spruce hens, a coyote right on the road, then had to wait for several herds of caribou to meander across, lots of moose ( missed a mama with her baby, on the highway in the dark). Cheyenne leaps up every time I put on the brakes, thinking she'll see critters. She's loving this trip, sleeps during the boring parts, but I'm sure she'd like to get out more often.