Highlight of Day Five

The highlight of the day was going through customs and entering Alaska. For a few minutes I was worried that trouble was around the corner when we approached customs. My husband was trying to be sure we were in the appropriate lane…he swung wide towards the truck lane, and quickly, a customs agent came out of the building, pointed his finger at us, and motioned for us to move into the other lane. We quickly got in the right lane.

There were several cars in front of us, so we cut off the truck and waited our turn. As co-pilot I kept up with all of our paper work: the gas receipts, hotel receipts, food receipts, passports, the U-Haul rental paper work, the military papers authorizing the transporting of the items in the U-Haul, and our driver’s licenses. We were ready. When there was one car ahead of us, my husband eased up. I mentioned there was a stop sign, but the customs agent, leaned out the window, pointed his finger at us and yelled, “Back Up!” In my mind I was thinking....Woah!!….these people don’t play! I said, “By the time we get to the window there’s no telling what they will do to us. We’ve already been reprimanded two times!” Of course, my husband just laughed and made light of the instances. When it was finally our turn, we eased up to the window and my husband put the truck in park. The agent said, “Sir, please turn off your vehicle.” I was thinking…this is bad….when we entered Canada, they didn’t ask us to do this. Needless, to say, we had all of our paper work in order and he let us pass through with only answering the usual questions about transporting weapons (we had none) and declaring food purchased in Canada etc. He was very polite and sent us on our way with hearty, “Welcome, to Alaska!”
My favorite photo stop thus far was at the Alaska sign. When my husband traveled to Alaska earlier in the year, he had is picture made at this sign. I wanted my picture made there too and had been wondering about the whereabouts of the sign. While we were snapping pictures, a young family approached us—a husband, wife, and three young children. They asked us questions about where we were traveling from and where we were headed. Interestingly, they were from Fairbanks. They were both teachers. They were headed to Idaho to visit the husband’s family. His father had been a school superintendent and was retiring after 42 years of service. We’ve met quite a few very nice people. It was very interesting to me that sometimes we kept seeing the same people over and over.