Road trippin' the AlCan

So every summer as the school year ends we gear up for our summer "Up North". We pack our bags, clean up the house, pre-pay a bunch of bills, suspend a few services, arrange for the yard to be watered, and the cat to be fed and loved. We jump on a plane and head to our summer life. With all the changes this year in my sweet little family of course summer had to change as well. I put the college girl on a plane a month before I was scheduled to head North. Instead of leisurely mornings sleeping in or early mornings secretly making wild blueberry muffins for mom and dad she got off the plane, headed straight to Redden to get new rain gear, to AC to get a fishing license and on to the boat to go fishing. The Flats aren't really her favorite place to fish with dad but this was her summer of "Work". Her introduction into the adult world of earning your living.

I spent the next 3 1/2 weeks wrapping things up at work and home and geared up for an road trip with a few of the Fisher Wives. The 4 of us congregated in Missoula, MT, packed up the Sportsmobile and headed North to Alaska via the Canadian Rockies. The agenda was hot springs and fellowship and more than 3000 miles for the next 9 days. Our first day we spent the morning visiting the campus of Univ. MT at Missoula. What a great town and and looks like a great school... I began to visualize my girl walking to class and hiking the nearby mountain and studying in the library. Sure is alot closer than North Carolina... hmm I wonder... Kathryn, Ben and Lola were such great hosts and guides. They had good input on our first days drive and we heeded their advice.

Our first hotspring was Fairmont in Canada. We had a nice evening soak - the hot pool was glorious and the cold pool a bit too cold to spend much time in. For a developed hotspring it was nice but not fabulous. I still enjoy the undeveloped ones best but the developed ones are of course so much easier to access! The goal became a hot spring each day...