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Starting on a journey

I posted this under the trip report section because I'm planning on making this a travel log. I've never written a trip report before so bear with me. I'm currently on a trip to drive my jeep to the Artic ocean and Alaska. Total mileage is somewhere between 8k-9k depending on detours and rescheduling. This was always the plan when I bought my jeep 20+ years ago, I just don't remember what came first. I might have bought the jeep and then wanted to take it to Alaska, or I wanted to drive to Alaska and decided I needed an Alaskan Postal to do it. Either way it's happening. I do plan on stopping by the Wasilla museum of transportation to go check out the other postal there and maybe take a picture with it.

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My post are probably going to be pretty short for now since I'm putting in long miles for the first week. I'll post up some pics taken along the way when I have time. I also managed to schedule this trip for the absolute worst time of the year, going through Nevada in the middle of a heat wave without air conditioning was a real experience. If you've seen my other recent post you'll know what I'm going through.
 
Exciting trip, look forward to following your post. This is a dream trip so we are all going to need lots of photos. Safe travels…
 
Looks like a fun and exciting trip. Would love to do that one day.
 
Kim Dawson said:
Lots of camping I expect. What do the letters on the map stand for?
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Those are just stop along the way I put in as waypoints to route the way I want. Google maps will take you on the fastest route, but that's not always what I wanted.

The plan is a mix of wild camping, established campsites, and hotels. I didn't make any reservations because I didn't want to be stuck on a schedule, so the plan is to just drive and find a place to stay for the night
 
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To give you a little background, I'm taking this trip with my teenage son right now. I was supposed to do this trip last year with some friends in a caravan, but due to other issues I had to postpone it. Unfortunately, our schedules didn't sync and my friends weren't able to make it this year and I didn't want to postpone it again so here i am.

First day - I was originally planning on leaving SoCal and heading up through Vegas to the Extraterrestrial highway and pass by Area 51. I did that trip about 30 years ago and wanted to stay at the Lil Ale inn again. Unfortunately the west coast it going through a bit of a heat wave, and the though of going through Las Vegas in 105-110 degree heat with no air conditioning didn't sound like a good start to the trip.

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So, at the last minute I switched plans and went up the Eastern Sierras through the Owens valley (for those not familiar with California that's skirting the left edge of the hot zone in the above pictures. The ridge of cooler temps in that picture are the Sierra Nevada mountains). Still in the mid 90's, but not life threatening. I don't have many pictures from the first day, I was busy trying not to die from the heat. But my son happened to take one somewhere along the 395.

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First night was spent camping at a random hot spring in the middle of Nevada.

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Obligatory Jeep shot with hot springs in the background

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Day 2 - Second day was a little more interesting, as good as it gets in the middle of Nevada I guess. The first 3-4 days was spent just trying to get out of the hot zone as fast as possible, so lots of miles and fewer stops.

First stop was the world scariest motel in Tonopah. I'm a sucker for these types of road side attractions, so I've been wanting to visit this place for years. I don't think I'm scared of clowns, but I also don't know if I could spend the night in one of these rooms.

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Had to take a picture next to this sign. Luckily I upgraded to a 30 gallon tank.

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I hadn't had any problems up to this point, but heading up to Elko the stalling seemed to be happening more often. So somewhere along Highway 50, the lonliest road in America, I got to change the ignition coil in 90+ degree heat.

One of the first real "destinations" i wanted to visit was Jarbridge, nicknamed the most remote town in the lower 48. Coming from the Nevada side, it's 40 something miles of unpaved roads. As you can see, the ignition coil wasn't the problem. Also, if you look closely at the sign, you can see the sticker my daughter made for our trip..

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Even though it took a few hours longer than expected, the drive in was amazing.

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After eating at the (only?) restaurant in town, we decided to head out. I had planned on camping somewhere near town, but with the stalling problems I was having I thought it would be better to drive out during the cooler hours of the evening. Luckily the road north out to Idaho as much easier than the drive in, but we still had to stop a couple of times to let the engine cool down.

Made it to Twin falls idaho that night, where i picked up a CTS sensor and changed it in the parking lot on the edge of the Snake River Canyon.

Obviously with all the issues I was having with the jeep, I decided the best course of action was to keep driving, but do it at night when the weather was cooler. So we kept going further north where we were supposed to camp at Silver creek near Carey ID. But when we got there the bugs were so bad that we ended up just camping on some random dirt road off the highway

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