Well, this was quite the interesting "first family vacation." We had planned to travel towards the Wrangle Mountains, to Anchorage, to Denali, back up towards Fairbanks, and then back to Delta. That didn't work out so well.
On the first night, we traveled towards Glenallen and decided to camp 15 miles outside the town--if you want to call a gas station and a cafe a town. We set up our tent, lit our fire, and later attempted to sleep. It seriously got down below freezing. I almost died. How it went from comfortable during the day, to below freezing at night (when it never even gets completely dark) is beyond me. We made it through, however, and grilled some corn and shrimp by the fire the next day.
The drive from Delta towards Anchorage was amazing. My pictures cannot even begin to capture it (I need to get a better camera for this type of thing). The road wound through the mountains, rivers, and glaciers. It def would not be a good place to break down. Oh wait...
So after we left the camp site, we headed towards Anchorage. We stopped a long the way to hike near a glacier...it was gorgeous. About 15 miles up from the glacier, something went horribly wrong with our car. It would not shift out of third gear. After stopping on the side of the road and realizing that we were in the middle of nowhere, we traveled the next two hours driving 30 miles per hour in search of civilization....hoping that the car would not completely die. We made it to Palmer, and no one could help us with the transmission. We made it ten miles to Wasilla; of course there was no one that could help us on Saturday afternoon on Memorial Day weekend.
We ended up stranded in Wasilla from Saturday until last night. No mechanic could see us until Tuesday, and of course, they had to order a part. Turns out, when bought our car, I specifically asked the Ford salesman "Has there ever been anything wrong with this car?" and "Has it ever been in the shop?" He told me no, and that it had NEVER had any problems. In fact, when we went to the other Ford dealership in Wasilla, the head guy told us that there had been MANY problems with the car and that it had been in the shop each time at the dealership we bought it from and that we had been lied to. In fact, it had transmission work done to it 7,000 miles ago. In essence, we complained and are in the process of trying to take the car back. We weren't just told that "It's a good car, and runs great." We were completly lied to. I honestly didn't know people still lied about things like that with all the lawsuits, and computer technology. It's easy to catch someone in a lie about something like that. It's called the internet/other Ford dealerships/vin numbers.
Anyway, so about Wasilla. Wasilla is about like a smaller Troy, Alabama. There is one main road, with a suicide lane. There is no mall, a small movie theater, a Chili's, and...well that's about it. Especially with no car, we didn't have too much to do. We ended up eating at the hotel a million times, hanging out in our hotel room, and watching the two movies that were playing at the tiny movie theater. Terminator=Awesome. Star Trek=Okay.
So I'm glad to be home. It was a crazy trip...one we will never forget. I can't believe my first REAL camping trip was in freezing conditions and that our car broke down while climbing up and down mountains.
Oh...and NO I did not see Sara Palin...however, everyone knew her personally. Again, Wasilla is smaller than Troy, Alabama. Most of them love her as the governor, but hate the idea of her being pres/vice pres....mostly because Alaska is like a country of its own. Everything is different here, and they feel that she needs to take care of them and has no business leading the rest of the country. So that's that.
