Monday, April 6, 2014, Washington, D.C.
I haven't even finished unpacking completely from last year's journey (OTR6) and today I am hoping to start the planning for this year's. Right now, there are some big unknowns: where we will go, when we will set out, when we will return. I am hesitant to even think about a fourth unknown, but I will mention it because it is a reality, and that is, who will be making the journey. Leben and Erde turned 13 a week ago and I am extremely mindful of how lucky I am to have had two wonderful German shepherd (GSD) siblings for 13 years. But because of that, and the fact that GSDs have a life expectancy of 12 years, I am also mindful that one or both of them may not be with me in two days, let alone four months, or may not be able to make the journey. I will, however, dismiss that possibility and plan a trip somewhere.
A fifth unknown should also be mentioned as it, too, is a reality: what will I be driving. My Land Rover Defender 90 has been an absolutely wonderful partner on all my journeys, and indeed long before they started. It turned 20 on New Year's Eve and I am mindful, too, that, despite the big bucks spent on keeping it in top condition, it, too, might deserve a retirement from these long road trips. But beyond its age, something tells me that I could use a longer vehicle and, finally, a hardtop after 30 years of driving soft-tops (a Jeep CJ-7 before the Defender). The Defender is in the shop now for a new transmission and once I get it back I will make my decision on that before anything else.
At the present, my thinking is that I will set out in mid-July 14 and return whenever it is right. Considering the weather south of the Canadian border, my guess is that most of the trip will see us north of that border again. I doubt if I will attempt the original Labrador-Alaska trip as I think I proved that that 20,000-mile journey is undoable, if it is to be done right and the way that I would do it, that is. Maybe I'll head northeast again and spend the months on the road moving from one campsite to another, staying in each place for more than one day at a time.
Another thought is to head right up to Quebec and attempt the Bay James Road, a 385-mile empty highway that runs north through Quebec to James Bay, which connects to Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean. (Click here for details.) If I go this route, it would take us at least eight days to get to the start of the road, at least six days on the road itself, and then another five days to get to Thunder Bay, Ontario, if that's where we would plan to set out for the next leg of the trip.
Instead of James Bay, or perhaps after it, we would plan to head northwest again, spending some time in several of the wonderful camps we discovered during our past journeys, especially Johnson Canyon in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada, among many others. Maybe then we would head up to the Yukon (Dawson City) and perhaps then hop over the Alaska, especially if we win the Denali Road lottery again, or maybe we would head west and spend a month on Vancouver Island, and then return home first by way of the California Coastal highway.
Those are my rudimentary thoughts now. At some point, however, I will have to make a decision and set in concrete a tentative schedule. I say tentative only because on these trips, I actually make my route decisions at every intersection on the open road I come to, and there are many, albeit far between in most instances. I say tentative also because one of my rules on these trips is to give myself the option to turn around and head home whenever it is time to do that.
ED
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