Nerd Nomad

My passport arrived a couple days ago, so I’ll be making my way into Canada, and up the Alaska-Canadian highway to Alaska in a few days. I’ve been doing a little reading, and it sounds like there are some pretty long stretches of nothing, including no phone service, on the way. That’s the kind of thing you have to prepare for, so I’ve made a checklist of stuff to have, Just In Case™.

Since I’m travelling in the summer, I don’t have to worry about freezing to death. And, because I’m travelling in a huge motorhome, I don’t have to worry about dying of starvation (assuming I stock the pantry and the fridge before we leave civilization). But, I do have to worry about the reported 100 mile (ahem, 160 kilometer) stretches of no phone service and no gas stations, so the worst case scenario is having Hugh give out on us, for whatever reason, 50 miles away from working phone or services.

So, here’s what I’m checking and doing before I leave civilization and hit the Yukon Territory and Alaska.

Vehicle stuff:

• Full tank of gas (60 gallons, or 600-750 miles)
• Full tank of propane (I don’t expect it to get cold at any time during my trip, but propane keeps the fridge running, and makes hot tea in the morning possible)
• Valid insurance. GEICO insures in Canada, but you have to get a special visitor insurance card. I picked one up at the very friendly GEICO office in Bellevue.
• Freshly changed oil and filters. I’m approaching 20,000 miles anyway, so it’s right on schedule. Changing the oil is easy on such a big/high vehicle, though I’m not sure I’ll have a place to park to do so between now and reaching the border. May have to take it to a shop.
• Engine passes OBD-II diagnostic with no issues. My dad loaned me his ScanGauge II when I was RV shopping, and he’s let me keep it and it’s been priceless for keeping up with gas mileage. Running self-diagnostics takes a bit of time, but it’s very useful in spotting engine trouble early. And, I’ve been able to repair engines in the past using engine error codes, so I’m a total believer. My engine fan is squeaking a bit at the moment, so I’m going to have a look at that when I do the oil change.
• Extra motor oil for both the engine and the generator.
• Tire pressure normal and tires look healthy.

Emergency preparedness:

• Bike in good working condition, bike tool, extra tubes. In the event the Hugh Laurie quits on us, and we don’t have phone service, I can reasonably bike 50 miles in a day (25 over hills) to find either phone service or civilization. I’ll be sore for a week afterward, but if I can’t hitch a ride, I can definitely bike it.
• Canadian phone service. Rogers reportedly works at up to 2G/Edge speeds with my G1, and has coverage around Vancouver and up the highway north through Prince George and a bit beyond, so I’ll stop at a store in Vancouver and sign up for a pay-as-you-go account. T-Mobile has a roaming agreement, but the data roaming charges are so outrageous that I wouldn’t be able to use Places or Maps, which are tools I find invaluable when in new towns.
• Paper maps or a standalone GPS or CoPilot Live on the G1 or all three. I’ve learned the hard way that Google Maps simply will not work at the times you need it most (when you’re in the middle of nowhere, with no one to ask for directions and nowhere to stop for gas or other services). The developers have known it’s a problem forever, but it seems to be a very low priority.
• First aid kit.
• Jack and jack stands for changing a tire. The Hugh Laurie has a spare tire somewhere underneath. I have roadside assistance with Good Sam, but if the phone isn’t working, and one of my old tires gives out…well, I’d rather not have to bike up to 50 miles.
• Flashlights and plenty of batteries.
• CB radio, and an antenna if I can find a decent one for a reasonable price somewhere along the way (I probably won’t be parked anywhere long enough to order online, otherwise I’d buy one that I could use for wireless signal boosting, as well).

Border crossing paperwork:

• Passport
• Insurance and registration for the Hugh Laurie
• Certificate of vaccination for Gidget

Staples:

• Food. Well-stocked fridge and freezer, plenty of cold and hot cereal, fruit, frozen veggies, rice (turns out the rice cooker only needs 2 amps for about 30 minutes, so I can run it off the batteries/solar without trouble!).
• Water. Full fresh tank (40 gallons) for showers, washing dishes, etc., and five gallons of drinking water in bottles (I could drink from the fresh tank in an emergency, but I’d prefer not to, as it gets a little stale, and it’s been a few months since I did a drain/sterilize/rinse cycle; though I might do that if I stop in a campground between now and then). I know from experience that we go through about one gallon a day of drinking water.
• A big bag of food for Gidget (she has food allergies that means she has to eat a very particular diet, which can be hard to come by outside of cities). We usually buy the small bags so it’s fresher, but a 20 lb bag lasts about three weeks, so we’ll go with one of those. Treats and chews for her, as well.

I’ve got a couple of maps for the first leg of the journey opened up on my laptop, so I know how to find the Rogers store to get maps on my phone working in Canada, and how to get to an RV park should getting the phone working prove troublesome (I’d want to have WiFi to figure out alternative plans, just in case). My phone will probably work for the first few minutes of driving over the border (and I can go to roaming, in an emergency, as T-Mobile has roaming agreements with Rogers and a couple of other carriers in Canada; the data roaming rates are outrageous, but it would be worth paying five bucks to pull up a map if I were lost).

And, finally, I’ve got a Kindle with international wireless support. I’d kinda forgotten that the Kindle has a browser, because using it is like browsing the web in 1994, including being on dialup (and the web is no longer designed to work with browsers from 1994 on dialup). But, Google and Wikipedia works fine, so I’m sure in the event of a “Joe’s really lost now” situation, a solution could be found. Unfortunately, images, particularly images with lots of detail like maps, on the Kindle are useless because you can’t zoom or pan. So, I ended up buying a paper copy of Frommer’s Alaska, since the maps in the Kindle version were illegible. I tried samples of all the travel books available for BC and Alaska and they all exhibited the same issue: Maps are illegibly small and the “zoom” option is laughable (it makes the image maybe 10% bigger in most cases).

Alright, next post will hopefully come from the great white north.

Post-Alaska Highway edit:

The Alaska Highway is an extremely civilized drive. All the hype is completely overdone. The stretch of west Texas on 290 going into Austin is more desolate and has longer stretches of no phone service and no gas stations than at any point on the Alaska Highway (it’s also about as rough). And, there are definitely stretches of secondary highways in the desert in New Mexico and Arizona that are longer without services. the highway going west from El Malrais National Monument, for instance, is like being on another planet, it’s so deserted.

Anyway, the Alaska Highway has gas stations every 150 miles or so, at least during the summer, though reportedly about half of them close during the winter. Plenty of rest areas and campgrounds along the way, and Walmarts in most of the bigger cities along the route. Highlight of the trip was Liard Hot Springs just past Watson Lake.