*After a couple months of research, planning, and buying new gear and equipment we feel somewhat prepared to leave on a 5 week trip to Alaska. Here’s to hoping the bears stick to eating fish and not us.*

Friday, May 18, 2018:

Emmy and I started on our new adventure to Alaska! I woke up early in the morning for a business meeting, and then finished up some work. Around 10am or so, we were ready to go, albeit some minor repacking to get everything to fit.

We ended up leaving around 11am. Took the 99 to the 36 to the 299 then up to Klamath Falls, OR and took the 97 the rest of way.

The ride up to Klamath Falls was great. It was fun seeing the north side of Mt. Lassen and then the east side of Mt. Shasta. That was a first for Em and I.

We got lunch in Klamath Falls at a place called Chilitos Mexican Grill. We found it from Yelp, it’s basically like a Chipotle on steroids and also eats its wheaties. Seriously, tho, the food was amazing. I think the burritos weighed more than a new born and tasted like paradise wrapped in a tortilla.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful considering that the 97 is a pretty boring road. The scenery was nice, but the road itself has zero personality. It’s more less like 2-lane interstate :bleh:.

Emmy is a funny human for a lot of reasons, but one of the funnier aspects of her personality is how she only deals in extremes. We didn’t eat any breakfast that day because we thought we’d get Taco Bell or something for lunch, but because we left late, we ended up forgoing that treat. Emmy was devastated. Her life basically ruined, and for the remainder of the trip, she was starving. I mentioned to her how there are actually people who starve and she responded with: “Well, ya?, I’m one of them” lol, can’t argue with that response :).

Anyways, Chilitos burritos are massive and because she was sooo starving, she clearly was able to eat an entire one by herself… and she did eat an entire one by herself. Only 5 minutes later start complaining how much her stomach hurt because she ate too much… See what I mean? only the extremes with Emmy :).

About 50 miles before our campsite Emmy started saying how thirsty she was, just utterly parched. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought she accompanied Jesus on his 40 days in the desert.

So about 10 miles before camp, I stopped at a gas station to buy us a liter of water and two 50c beef sticks (because why not?). She started downing the water and was “too thirsty to eat a beef stick right now” whatever that means. We ended up downing the liter of water before we got back on the bike and I lucked out into eating 1 and 3/4 beef sticks due toEmmy’s severe dehydration.

Lo and behold, not 1 minute after we guzzled the water, Emmy started complaining how much her stomach hurt again because she drank too much water. She’s crazy, but I love her so much.

We got to camp while it was still light but maybe had 30 minutes left. I checked my GPS tracker and we had spent 9.5 hours traveling since we left and drove about 450 miles. Not bad for a first day. Took us only 15 minutes to setup with all of our fancy brand new gear.

-RJ