SO Things get a bit fast forwarded here with pictures...I may have more at home on the computer but I'm uploading this post with my iphone so I may go back in the timeline to recap this part.
Anyway...from Colorado we made a really hard push to get to Canada. Our next day of driving took us to Great Falls arriving late, tired,and delirious we opted to give our stealth camping setup a try in the Wal Mart parking lot. We did research before arriving and knew that they were RV friendly so it would be a perfect chance to give that setup a test run without risk of being bothered, kicked out, ticketed etc...We knew at some point on the trip we would find ourselves in a situation where we needed to be stealthy. As we arrived we both went to work moving our bags to the floorboard of the front seats, laying out our dogs (our security system) blanket in the front seat where she would be sleeping, hanging up our portable fan to keep air circulating, cracking windows, and unrolling our camping mats in the back of the vehicle. This setup was surprisingly ok, granted not as comfortable or spacious as our ARB tent but tolerable and secure. Being able to leave quick is the most important part of stealth camping, so the only thing to be done to leave is move the dog to the rear, crank'er up and roll out.
The next morning we rolled out toward the Canadian boarder. We took all the required paperwork for a shotgun, even so we still were questioned thoroughly, and even chased out of the boarder office to be reminded of needing a trigger lock, store firearm in separate compartment (impossible in a gutted out Land Cruiser, it's all one compartment), no shells in the firearm, blah blah blah....so basically if you are going to be legal in Canada with a shotgun for protection from bear and other wildlife you'll have to politely ask the attacking animal to "wait just a second for me to unlock my trigger lock...oh wait, where's the key...oh, there it is, hang on....ok, unlocked...darn it where are those shells, oh yeah....over there, hang on, let me load a few....ok Mr. Grizzly now we can move along with this encounter". Totally useless in Canada....if you follow all the rules.
We survived though, made it across the boarder and plugged along trying to make good time....remember we are attempting to get to Seward Ak in 7-8 days from the start in Atlanta...
That first night in Canada I drove till about 2am and were forced to sleep at a gas station in the middle of NOWHERE, out of fuel and unable to pump until the station opened in the AM. I slept in the driver seat, in an abandoned building parking lot just beside the gas station...yeah sketchy, by far one of the weirder restless nights.
Day broke and we filled up, and made our way to the start of the Al-Can highway, where is where more photo taking started to happen...like I said before, I'll see what I can find between Co and here at a later time, just figured I should post an update as it's been a while.
We traversed the Al-Can with rain, and poor road conditions. We found a place to camp along this stretch of rough road after days of less desirable sleeping situations a good night sleep in the tent on a full belly was well received. The light patter of rain on the tent, cozy, and relaxed, me and my wife stayed up talking and marveling at what we were doing...we were so far from home...on the Al-Can Highway...is this real life?! So quickly our journey was becoming an adventure, and with so much more ahead...we were only on day 4!
