Trip Overview & Notes Regarding Trip Prep and Day One Activities

My dog and I are heading up to Alaska for the summer. I am Kate. She is Tess. I like to fish. Tess is afraid of fish. Actually Tess is afraid of almost everything that she initially sees. But hey, you only live once. And in this economy I may only have a cushy job that allows me to work remotely from Alaska for a finite amount of time. Not to mention that fact that neither Tess or I have a mortgage or a significant other, so why not live life to the fullest and head up to the last frontier for a summer of fishing, hiking, and camping?! Therefore, I have packed up my timid dog, loaded up my Toyota Tacoma with just enough gear that my dad would be concerned about the weight in the truck bed, and hit the road.

There are a few notes regarding my trip prep that I think you should be aware of:
1) I have outfitted my obnoxiously purple truck with a topper, home-made loft (which should double as furniture when I get to Alaska), an XM radio, new tires and various mechanical parts that the fine people at Hoshi Motors told me I must have to prevent my truck from exploding somewhere along the Alaskan Hwy. The truck is now worth a small down payment on a mobile home. I still don't have cruise control, but the truck feels practically plush compared to the Toyota Corolla (Betty!) that I made this trip with in 2004.
2) In preparation for the trip I picked up some homeopathic drugs and some straight up xanax for Tess. So far she seems quite content on the doggie St. Johns Wort. Ask me again about this on day 6.
3) I have spent the last week saying goodbye to what seems like every friend I have on the planet. This feels a bit like overkill since I will only be gone for about 1-3 months, but I am ok with it since it resulted in a lot of hugging and ego boosting tales about how great and adventurous I am. Nothing like leaving town to make your friends and/or the people who want to be your friend tell you how they feel. (I'm lucky to have great friends in my life. I know this).

Day One Activities/Highlights:
1) I actually left on Tuesday morning, despite my best intentions to leave on Sunday morning. I could beat myself up about this, but some unexpected things really came together on Monday night so I think I was meant to stay in Boulder until Tuesday morning. Another thing you should know. I told everyone that I left on Monday. Because although I love seeing my friends I wasn't getting sh*t done when they knew I was in town. If you are procrastinator, I highly recommend this approach the next time that you are packing for a trip.
2) Wyoming's Antelope appear to be related to LA mothers. They all seem to have twins. I don't know if this is normal for antelope, or if it's just the Wyoming air.
3) Every time I am in Wyoming I try to think of something positive to say about it. This is relatively hard because I usually just see a lot of wind and tumbleweeds when I am in Wyoming. But, I'm still going to try. Here is goes. Wyoming has nice weeds. Today I saw numerous stretches of yellow weeds. They were lovely. Not lovely enough to warrant a picture. But lovely nevertheless.
4) Today I played White Horse with Tess. This is the car game where you count white horses by stamping them on your hand, and every time you see a church the number of horses you have doubles (because they get married). If you see a graveyard, then everyone else's horses die. Since we were in prime horse country you would think Tess would have a fighting chance. But no. Score at the end of day 1: Kate 479, Tess 0
5) The last time I made this trip to AK (which for the record is a 3500 mile trip that takes about 56hrs) I had a stuffed moose as my mascot. I was a little bummed that I didn't have a mascot this time around, until I realized that Tess is the mascot. Admittedly she takes up more space and poops, but I would never consider trading her in for a stuffed animal.
6) Today we stopped in Billings, MT. We drove for about 9hrs, and you would think that since I built a loft for sleeping in my truck bed, we would be camping. But no, tonight we are staying in a cheap motel so that Tess can have a little time to relax and get acclimated to the road routine. It was actually surprisingly hard to find a cheap, dog friendly, non-smoking motel in Billings that wasn't already booked up. But I finally found this one. Of course, it wasn't until after I paid for the room and was pulling around to the other side of the motel that I saw that it's right next to the Porn Shop . . . . . Oh well!