Jack London, the celebrated American author, got it right when he wrote glowingly about the far north of Canada and Alaska with it’s majestic mountains and wide open spaces.   Julie and I have also felt that call of the wild, an alluring, almost compelling magnetism of that vast landscape, since our first visit there nine years ago.  That was at the start of our Follow the Sun worldwide journey and we have said ever since we absolutely have to return to northern Canada and Alaska to relive those experiences in that beautiful and remote land.  And now the time has come to feed that beast and head north again.

Joining us once more for this adventure will be our ever-reliable and much-loved home of wheels, our friend and partner in travel – Tramp.  Tramp is a Ford F250 with a compact but comfy pop-up slide-on camper and together the three of us have visited five continents and 70 countries together.  Luckily for us Tramp knows the way to Alaska and is fully kitted out with all that we need to make our trip a success.

When Tramp is not exploring dirt roads he lives in the garage of my mother’s home in California so that’s where Julie and I headed first up.  Of course it was fantastic to see my Mom again and as a special bonus my youngest sister Diane joined us.  Together we spent almost a week at our family home where I grew up, getting Tramp ready for our expedition, cleaning, packing, fixing and testing all sorts of things. 

It wasn’t all hard work – we took time off to head north to Santa Cruz, perched on the northern lip of Monterey Bay, to explore the historic Santa Cruz Mission, have lunch on the extended Santa Cruz pier and walk amongst the giant redwoods in Larry Cowell Redwood State Park.  California has something special to offer around every corner.

We spent the days doing various tasks around the house and working on Tramp while catching up with each other’s life and activities, each night finishing with a great dinner and a raucous game of cards.  Family is everything.

The main focus for the mechanic was a few issues that Tramp had been suffering from, including the need for a couple new tires, fixing the air-conditioning system, replacing rear brake pads and a figuring out a pesky oil leak.  After breaking our piggy bank to fund these problems we finally released Tramp from his hospital bed and were ready to go.

Ah, not so fast.  On the morning of departure Tramp’s air conditioning system went completely on the fritz again so we were back to the mechanic for what turned out to be a small but expensive repair job before heading north again. 

We spent our first night on the road to Alaska in familiar territory, next to an old hunter’s cabin on land which is very dear to the family and an integral part of my growing up.  Here we built a fire of old oak, sat amongst the green-tinted rolling hills, squirrels scurrying around us, owls calling in the distance, perhaps mountain lions not far away.  As it grew dark we dined out on the northern hemisphere stars while frogs serenaded us from a nearby creek and coyotes howled in the background. It was a fantastic start to our big adventure.

The next day we were on a mission to see my best buddy from primary school and high school.  Mike has built up a great business and personal life in the northern California town of Chico.  Even though blokes our age may not keep up with each other on a regular basis we still we are close in spirit and it was fantastic to catch up with him over a couple of beers at a local brewery, share stories and updates of people we know and love.  It was like old times with Mike and we’ve committed to seeing each other again before Julie and I finish this visit to North America.

We camped that night in Sacramento River Bend Recreation Area, a sprawling area of mature oak trees and long green grass on the banks of the Sacramento River which was good for the soul after a day on the Interstate.  In the near distance we had fabulous views of snow-capped Mt. Lassen, peaking out at 10,457 feet (3,190 metres).

Normally we avoid Interstates like the plague, they don’t match our way of travel, but we had some future commitments that we needed to aim for so reluctantly we jumped on the multi-lane Interstate 5 and trekked ever northward again.  As we have been reminded before, northern stretches of this state feature fabulous mountains, beautiful rivers and much less people than you might think. 

We followed the bitumen as it weaved it’s way along beautiful Lake Shasta and then passed the stunning snow-capped volcano of Mt. Shasta.  Mt. Shasta stretches 14,179 feet (4,322 metres) and is an active volcano with seven glaciers (who knew California had glaciers?).  It features a ski resort in winter and offers unlimited hiking and climbing opportunities in summer.  Best of all, it stands tall in the region and can be seen gracefully reaching for the sky from a long way away.

We crossed into Oregon, another state with endless outdoor adventure possibilities, loving the rolling mountains, fertile green valleys and small communities that speckle this area.  At Eugene we turned east and northward into the forests and found a place to camp amongst the Oregon pines (of course!), just off an old loggers road.  I built a fire to keep us warm and with the swishy sound of the tall trees swaying above us as our only distraction we were in heaven.

But we had to catch a boat so the next day we dragged ourselves away from exploring this beautiful state and headed ever northward, across the wide Willamette and Colombia Rivers at Portland and into the state of Washington.

Washington is another state that deserve much more time. We’ve explored a few corners of it on previous trips but kept heading north along another beautiful drive towards the Olympic Peninsula and the town of Port Angeles.  We drove past snow-capped Mt. St. Helens, followed the extreme western shores of Puget Sound and skirted Olympic National Park before arriving at Port Angeles.  And as ever-resourceful and flexible as we are…we camped for the night in the carpark of the Red Lion Hotel next to the ferry terminal.  Not salubrious, that is true, but it did give us access to a pub which served cold drinks and hot pizza. 

And most importantly, we were positioned to catch an early morning ferry from the United States to Canada.  We had completed the first stage of our trip, that hard long slog north to the Canadian border, and were keen as mustard to see what was waiting for us on the other side.

And a little fun fact from me – this is my 500^th post in our Our Pangaea travel blog.  I started the website as a way for Julie and I to keep in touch with family and friends when we moved to Bangkok in 2010 and it has become an integral part of our travels ever since.  In fact, Julie once said that the only reason we travel is so I could blog.  I think she was joking.