Thursday, 3/27 2008 Winfield, Georgia: Mistletoe State Park

This week at Mistletoe State Park in Appling, Georgia has been great. Spent all day Thursday in the park. Took a nice little hike around a portion of the park. Read a number of books, cleaned out the refrigerator, did some paperwork, and discussed whether or not we should go to Alaska this year or next. I lived in Alaska when I was a young boy and have always wanted to go back.

Alaska is a big trip. No that’s not right.
ALASKA IS A BIG TRIP. There, that’s better.

We would go on a caravan with about 15 other RVers. This caravan takes 41 days to travel around and through Alaska. These caravans move at a pretty good clip, especially compared to our current method of staying in each location for about a week. Usually the caravans stay in an area just 1-3 days before 'moving on' since there is so much ground to cover (4000 miles) in only 41 days.

OK, the mileage during these 41 days is ~4000 miles. Then you figure its about 5000 miles just to get to the caravan’s starting point of Dawson’s Creek. Plus back home again. Altogether I figure 14,000 miles or 1400 gallons of diesel at ~$5/gallon and you get ~$7000 in fuel costs plus the cost of the caravan, and then food and campground costs going/returning from Alaska.

While expensive, it’s not really the money. We are going to be traveling in our RV; if not Alaska then somewhere else. Probably drive a little less but would still have the campground and living costs, so money is not the only consideration…. (my financial planner would disagree with that statement).

Time is an issue but not in the conventional sense. We have the time to take the trip. Our issue is being away from family for so long. This trip would take at least 4 months, possibly longer as we would take our time coming back. On the plus side we would get a chance to visit other friends and family across the US.

We had been thinking about putting the house back on the market again this spring. However, if the house sold while we where away we would not be able/willing to come back. Settlement could be handled with power of attorney however the logistics of disposing and/or packing everything up could only be handled by MLA and I.

Right now we are leaning towards taking the trip. After last year’s health challenges you realize there are no promises of longevity (or any other promises) for any of us. Who knows what (Health, Family, Politics/World Events) might occur between now and next year that might limit our ability to take this trip. (OK - hard to imagine politics/world events precluding a chance to go to Alaska but you never know -- maybe the US will sell Alaska back to the Russians or more likely to the Chinese).

In any case, today has been a beautiful relaxing day here in the park topped off with a dinner of steak and salad while watching another great sunset. Gotta love that….

See Ya!