We're in ALASKA!

We're heeere!!!! Ok, well, not really, but we're at least in the right state now! We crossed the border back into the good ol' U.S. of A this afternoon, a little later than we'd hope due to the worst conditions we've seen yet on the Alaska Hwy. WOW... frost heaves make the highway into a roller coaster! It was very slow going for most of the trip today - I looked over at the spedometer a couple times and saw us averaging only about 35mph instead of 60-65. Very slooooowwww. And, the truck is probably a little worse for the wear... Jason's out right now getting it washed, but here's what it looked like when we stopped to take pictures at the "Welcome to Alaska" sign!

And here's us at the sign:

We were pretty happy to find ourselves back in the states - even if it is Alaska. Canada is super, wicked expensive (I will NOT lose my New England vernacular!), and we were just happy to see gas for ONLY $3.07/gallon instead of $1.20-ish/liter (which comes out to roughly $4.55/gallon). The exchange rate was NOT great, so we were paying close to the same amount in Canadian as US dollars. UGH! I'm afraid of figuring out how much actually has been getting charged on our credit card because we just haven't paid any attention!

So, anyway, in addition to the truck being a disaster and finally getting ourselves back into our own country (not that Canada was bad!), we had some more amazing views to take in while we drove today. We were in the car for about 9 hours, I think, so it was nice to have some fun things to look at. Pretty early on in the trip this morning, we came across these two on the side of the road.... (hopefully you can see it well enough!)

I was going to post another picture of the view we looked at for a long stretch on the road today, but it doesn't want to load, so I'll leave the pictures at that.

We're now in Tok, AK, staying at the neatest little place called Burnt Paw. They raise husky puppies (it's going to be very difficult for me to NOT take one with us!!!), and have a few cabins for people to stay in. We're in the Iditarod Cabin this evening... check 'em out at www.burntpawcabins.com. We'll definitely add this to the list of places to stay again on the way back in 3 years!!

Tomorrow we head to Anchorage, and our last chance to eat at any chain restaurants and shop at any major stores (besides WalMart!). From there, it's on to Homer and the ferry!

That's it for tonight! Jason says HI!
Becca