If You Dream Of Going To Alaska This Summer

Alaska is renowned the world over as the "Last Frontier," the Land Of the Midnight Sun. It is a great place to visit in the summer. Just be sure to take a sleep mask with you. Let me explain why I say that.

On the first of May 1997, after many years of dreaming of going to Alaska, my wife and I left New Jersey in our self-contained 30' motor home determined to drive all the way from Freehold, New Jersey to Alaska.

As a young man, (back in 1948) I was recently discharged from the U.S. Navy. That is when I made plans to go to Alaska as soon as possible and spend the rest of my life there. But first, since I wanted to be an Alaskan bush pilot, I decided to use part of my GI Bill benefits to learn how to fly a Piper Cub airplane. So, I signed up for flying lessons at the flight school operated at our local Red Bank, NJ airport. Learning to fly was a great experience and I enjoyed every lesson to the utmost.

Then, soon after my first very exciting solo flight, when I got my "wings." I met the girl of my dreams. We met at the Baptist church in Freehold, NJ where we both lived. Naturally, I told my new girl friend all about my plans to first learn to fly, then move to Alaska and become a bush pilot.

Of course, because of my enthusiasm, this beautiful young lady soon became as excited as I was about moving to Alaska and we talked for many hours about the great adventures I expected to have while living in Alaska, the Last Frontier.

Well, as you might have suspected from what I've just told you, we fell in love. Several months later we were married and about a year after that we were pregnant and soon our first son was born. I went to college at night and worked in my father's business during the day.

The move to Alaska was not to be – yet.

The years passed, I started my own business; we had more children, a house mortgage, payments on two cars and later, our elderly parents to take care of. The children's needs kept both of us working hard to make ends meet. Of course, we had lots of fun. Life was good. Even so, our dream of going to Alaska was always there, buried in the back of our minds.

We vowed to do our best to get to Alaska – someday.

The children grew, went to collage, got married and made us grandparents many times over. During all of those years we still talked about somehow, someday, going to Alaska.

Then, in the fall of 1996, the one hundred year old converted farmhouse where I rented space for my direct mail advertising and printing business caught fire. The fire (an accident caused by the torch of a careless roofer) caused so much damage; I was put out of business. Fortunately, we had enough insurance to cover our losses. Then, instead of going back in business, we decided to use the insurance money to buy the motor home and – drive to Alaska!

"Someday" had arrived! Alaska was no longer a dream, we were on our way.

We left New Jersey in May and drove about two hundred miles each day; found a campsite each night, then followed the same routine for the next thirty days.

It was the first of June when we drove into Tok, Alaska. We were so excited! We were in Alaska at last! We stayed in Tok (wonderful people there) a couple of days and then headed for Fairbanks, Anchorage, Denali, and later, Homer. Our general plan was to spend the whole summer in Alaska and see as much as we could of that spectacular Great Land.

During those wonderful months of leisurely traveling and camping all over Alaska, from June to September, we met lots of friendly Alaskans wherever we went. The snowcapped mountains, the moose, the bears, Mt. Denali, panning for gold, all were absolutely spectacular to see and experience first hand. We had a great time every day.

The only real problem I had, and it was a problem that bothered me the whole time we were in Alaska, was this: I discovered that in Alaska, in the summertime, there is constant daylight. It never got dark! Even at midnight there was daylight and bright sunshine. One "night" at one AM in the morning, I remember looking out of the RV's windshield and I saw a double rainbow in the sky right there in front of us!

Constant daylight in the summer in Alaska was something I had not expected. I suffered because I just could not get to sleep with all of that light around me. There was constant (23 or 24 hours) bright daylight, all day every day for each of those three months. Eventually, here is how I solved the problem. I made myself a sleep mask to put over my eyes and then, and only then, could I go to sleep and get some much-needed rest.

In short, our long awaited visit to Alaska has left us with many wonderful memories and we have the satisfaction of knowing that dreams really do come true.

Terry Weber
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Terry Weber is a retired advertising/direct mail sales letter copywriter and inventor of several useful items. Terry and his wife Doris are Habitat For Humanity, RV Care-A- Vanners who, for the past eight years have volunteered to help build more than 39 houses all over the USA. They travel to and from the 2- week long builds in their RV. The money they make on their Crafty-Ones website helps them pay their expenses to and from those volunteer Habitat builds. P.S. Due to the high cost of gasoline we can no longer afford to drive the RV to Habitat builds. The RV is parked until gasoline prices come down. (4/28/06)