North To Alaska 2025 - Day 1 - Brunet Island SP & Rice Lake, WI

Yes, yes, yes, it's that time. It's time to cross a great big item off our bucket list!!

NORTH TO ALASKA 2025

We have been marking all of these interesting places that we would like to go, see, and experience through Canada and up to Alaska and then back again. We have marked so many of them on our Google Maps just to remember where they are!

While actually driving, we use the Google Maps as kind of a guide, but mostly we use old Microsoft Streets and Trips with a GPS dongle to guide our way on a laptop. It can be used without an internet connection, whereas Google maps disappears once you get up into the rustic areas of Canada and Alaska. 

Of course, you can always download maps but that doesn't help you if you want to change your mind or go somewhere else? With the Streets and Trips I can navigate much better.

We have also re-installed our Starlink into the skylight of the motorhome and it can operate in Roam Mode while we are in motion.  We spend some time last month wiring in a DC connection to it so it can be powered while we are traveling without needing to run an inverter.

Here's our tentative plan to loop our way up and see some interesting things in various loops and then work our way back on a different route. That way we aren't backtracking over the same route very often.

Our kids know how absolutely excited we are to go, and although the kids and grandkids will miss us, they understand that this is a really important thing for us to do. We aren't getting any younger, you know. 

They bought us these T-shirts to wear. Steve likes his so much he said he's going to wear it every day of the entire trip. Yep, 120 days!

We've been preparing the last couple of months with ordering items that we think we will need. One of them was suggested by some other YouTubers who already live in Alaska. They are called KalKal Boots. They are waterproof, insulated, and the best part is they are lightweight and still flexible enough for comfortable walking. They run a little small in size, so I was glad to order them in advance. I had to return the first set of boots and get a second pair two sizes larger!  Steve's pair in the men's sizes came true to size, and he is quite happy with his.

At the same time we also ordered YaxTrax ice cleats. There's a couple places where we might have an opportunity to walk on a glacier. It's nice to have our own and not have to rely upon trying to buy some while we are up there. 

In preparation, we have been making lists upon lists. Seriously. I have two pages, two columns, single spaced. Every time we complete something or pack something or purchase something, we are crossing it off. We go over the lists together to update them. That way we know who's done what and if it's been done. So often we discuss things, but then each one might think the other one took care of it? So this method may sound like overkill, but it really worked for us.

In preparation, Steve assembled all of what he thinks he would possibly need in the form of tools and supplies for any on the road mishaps. We also have towing insurance through our American Family policy, as well as Coach Net. But for any quick repairs on the road, Steve is always ready. He went back and forth, and back and forth, over his array of tools till he figured out what made sense to take along.

We also ordered additional supplies in case of the impending Mount Spur volcanic eruption due to happen in Alaska at any time. It's been spitting smoke and fissures and cracks have been producing steam. Of course they can't predict when it will actually blow. The lava will be well far away from any civilization, but the blowing ash is where there can be a problem. We have purchased air masks with cartridges, plastic sheeting, painters tape to seal up window cracks, and of course extra filters for engine, cab, and generator. The best thing is to not run anything and stay put until the ashfall is over in a couple days. The worst thing I guess you can do is try to sweep it or brush it. It's very corrosive and can even scratch window glass. Hopefully we won't need it, or we can go in the opposite direction if there is ashfall in certain areas around Anchorage. 

As soon as the weather turned warm enough, we were outside examining the contents of every compartment we have on the motorhome. We would take everything out and assess whether or not it would be needed on this particular trip. Then everything left was replaced back into the bin in order a priority and necessity.

We are not taking the cargo trailer with the e-bikes and all the extra storage that it affords us. We decided that with the minimal suspension it would be bouncing all over the place on some of the more rugged roads. Also we are more maneuverable and nimble without having the trailer behind us. Because we are only 25 ft long, we can sometimes slip into regular parking spaces, being not much longer than most large pickup trucks.

On the mechanical side of things, Steve prepped by taking care of the oil change and topping off all of our fluids. He is very meticulous on the maintenance, and everything is up to snuff and ready to roll.

He also did an oil change on our generator. 

We moved the Bluetti power station from the rear cargo trailer now up to a compartment within the motorhome. That big lithium ion phosphate unit just about triples our battery capacity in the Coach portion of the motorhome. 

We had added a separate DC to DC charger from the engines alternator to take care of charging it up. 

Here is a link of that process: 

Installing DC to DC Bluetti charger

We can also charge with our extra solar panels, but don't have to depend on them completely.

One of the fun things that I decided to order was this little gold panning kit. We know of a couple of places where there's public gold panning allowed and you can even take lessons. We think it will be kind of fun to try it out and see what we can find. We let the grandkids practice with it a little bit with some gravel we pulled up out of Lake Michigan. They actually found three little tiny bits of gold, one bit of copper, and one tiny piece that our grandson insists is silver, but I think it was just a piece of Micah. It was fun to learn and to practice our swirling technique with the pan. Stay tuned and see if we strike it rich?

We've spent the last week loading up the motorhome bits in here and there. Clothing was loaded, extra dry and canned goods, as well all of our needed items as we travel. 

We prepped with an appointment at the veterinarian for Nicholas to get a health certificate. We also got a new dose of his flea, tick and heartworm medication. He passed with flying colors. We printed out the online CDC form for getting him back into the United States every time that we leave the country. We printed out six copies because we will be moving back and forth a couple times between Canada and Alaska. 

After my own final doctor appointment on Tuesday, I was cleared and declared good to go. 

So now the actual trip begins on Wednesday morning.

I thought we had everything all in hand, and we were just about ready to hit the road. But you know how things happen? They say it always happens in threes! So yep, we had our three things!!

Steve went down in the basement of our house to turn off our on demand water heater. It's kind of an expensive piece of new equipment, and suddenly it was throwing an error code at him. Yes, I know we could have just turned it off and not done anything about it till we come back in 4 months. But you know Steve... That would have bugged and bugged and bugged him not knowing what was going on with that crazy water heater. So he fiddled around with it and found out that it was the condensate reservoir needed to be adjusted and emptied. The filters were all clean, he was able to fill it back up and everything worked out great. He was able to clear the code and then correctly stow away in storage mode while we are gone. 

Second thing to go crazy was he was adjusting the door lock code for our lawn cutting person. While changing the batteries to fresh ones, it suddenly lost all the codes! But that wonderful Stevio, when he installed it, he fortunately saved the book! He had to learn the entire system setup all over again, reading the instructions carefully. But after about 15 minutes he was able to reinstall the codes and everything was back to normal. Now with fresh batteries, there shouldn't be any problems for the lawn cutting guy to take care of things. 

The third item that went goofy was our tire pressure monitor system on the motorhome. It works flawlessly and has saved our butt twice with low tire pressure over the years. We had just installed all brand new batteries last week. Imagine our surprise when gearing up in the driveway to suddenly have one throw us a low pressure signal. Of course it had to be an inside dually which are a little more difficult to check. But Steve did check it and everything was fine with the tire. We reset the sensor and it recalibrated. Everything is now good to go. 

We put on our happy little Alaska t-shirts from the kids, posed out in front of the motorhome for a little video clip and I stole a screen grab from it. It's a little blurry but you get the general idea. 

We look pretty happy, don't we?

I had all of my gear in front of me on the dash and my GoPro camera set up to video record us. The GPS and the Streets and Trips are both functioning perfectly. I'm ready to sit in this seat and watch the world go by for the next 9,000 miles.

Mr Happy Motorhoming Man Stevio is going to just cruise along down these wonderful roads, hopefully finding more back roads and beautiful scenic areas than buzzing along on interstates and seeing the same old billboards and chain stores.

As we cruise through Central Wisconsin, a lot of the territory is familiar to us. We've traveled in these directions many times over the years. Some of the area we traveled through is Amish and Mennonite country. As we were heading down the roadway, we saw this beautiful horse and carriage. We slowed down and pulled wide to give him a little extra room. I snapped this photo and I was quite pleased with it. What a magnificent animal.

We traveled about 200 miles for our intended stop at Burnet Island State Park. We drove through and picked out a site, just like we usually do. There's only one other camper there, (the host camper) but nobody there.

I went online to pay for the site as we normally do in the Wisconsin State Park System. Hmmmm It wouldn't let me pay??? That was strange. It showed NONE of the sites are available in the entire park? We know many Wisconsin State Parks often offer winter camping. We didn't need hookups or the dump station or even though shower building open. Just a beautiful spot park for the night. 

I double checked on the website and it says that the park is open year-round.

We left our intended site and drove on down to the office. It was closed. But the sign there at the pay kiosk said the campground would not open till May 1st! We tried the kiosk just to see if we could pay for one night and it would not even allow you to input for camping fees. Only to buy year-long park permit fees. The old Iron Ranger pay posts with envelopes are long gone. 

So I went back to the website to double check, sure enough, it says the park is open year-round. It also listed hours of operation. It did not specifically say the campground was open though... It just said the park was open. 

Why do we have to drive all the way into the park and read it in tiny print on the sign? How hard would it have been to put it on the website? 

Oh well, although we probably could have snuck in a spot and stayed for the night, that's just not our style. We don't need to break the law. 

Instead, we just headed back out on the highway and drove another 50 miles up towards Rice Lake. Every campground we checked along the way would not open until May 1st. We were just too early for Wisconsin! 

Once we get up into Canada, it's all called "Crown Land" and you can boondock almost anywhere legally. 

We knew at Rice Lake there was a little Walmart right near the highway. It's a small town and it was pretty quiet overnight.

We found a quiet spot to park over near the auto tire shop area and extended our bed slide over the grassy area behind us. Nobody else was around and it was peaceful and quiet. In the morning, we did see three other RVs over in the main parking lot. We went inside for a couple small purchases and then headed on our way, after cooking our breakfast.

Thank you, Camp Walmart, for giving us a spot to overnight. 

If you are interested in seeing the video of today's activities, here is my link to my YouTube that I just posted this morning: 

North to Alaska- Day 1 - Burnet Island SP, WI

251 miles traveled today

14.99 mpg diesel