Dreaming of an Alaska Trip in the Little RV

 

For the past few days I have been pondering Alaska. Specifically an RV trip to Alaska this summer.

We could see brown bear...

...polar bear...

...fishing eagles...

                      ...Northern Lights...

...moose...

                  ...sled dogs...

...and this bear who seems to have eaten one or two tourists.

We'd also love to do some fishing.

Everything I read or see seems to produce more questions than answers.  It seems I/we have a ton of research to do in short order.  

Rob ordered "The Milepost" to help with our planning.  Apparently it is THE go to book on planning a trip. 

Do we take the ferry and shave weeks off of our drive?  The cost of the ferry is quite high.  

What do we need to purchase before we go?  

• We'd like to have another gas tank added to the truck with an automatic switch.  In parts of Alaska gas stations are few and far between.  
• We think an additional propane tank is a good idea for times when we don't have an electric hook-up.
• We'd also like to get a small propane heater like the Little Buddy to help with our heating without running down our battery bank.
• What about staying connected?  They say cell service is very poor and even satellite service is sparse in places.  I am not at all comfortable with being without some means of communication given Rob's health.  

Rest assured, we'll do our research and be as ready as possible.  If you have any tips please feel free to leave  a comment. 

Another Problem Solved in the Little RV

We're baaaaaaack!  It's been three and a half weeks since I posted on our blog.  I always find it difficult to blog when we aren't moving to a new spot occasionally and I've just been lazy about it lately.

We've just been living our ordinary lives, going to doctor visits, spending time with family and friends, you know how it is. Rob has two and potentially more medical things to deal with before we can get back on the road.  We are still working out where we are going to go when the time comes.  

Given all of the delays and things holding us here in the Pacific Northwest, we have wondered if we are meant to be heading for Alaska this summer.  Alaska is the single most important place we want to see while we are still able to travel. So, we are considering going there instead of south.  

In the mean time life goes on and light bulbs burn out.  Back in August the repair shop changed out the pendant lights in the dining area.  

The light bulbs were impossible to remove and the threads on the pendents were stripped.  Recently one of the bulbs burned out and we have been unable to remove the bulb.  In our efforts to get the bulb out, we again broke the fixture.   After searching high and low for an alternative we settled on a completely different type of lighting.  

We no longer have a dining area so the pendent lights are a bit out of place and they really interfere with my access to the cabinets behind them.  So we decided to install ceiling lights like those in the rest of the Little RV.   I was able to find them with built in LED lighting.  

First we removed the old fixtures and the decorative wood panel they were attached to. 

Then we had to enlarge the holes in the ceiling.  We used a hole saw kit to make the cuts.  

These are the lights we installed.  Inside the base of the light are the light emitting diodes.  This particular light is guaranteed for 5 years.  I found them on ebay.com and paid just under $8 each for them.  

Here they are installed.  Much better, don't you think?

We plan to transition to all LED lights because they put out much less heat and use far less electricity to run.