Rachel's Partially Reversed Déjà vu

For those of you who know what's going on with us these days, we apologize that this post is about a month late.  For those of you who don't really know what we're up to, you are none the wiser, and we don't really apologize to you...  :-P

Friday, June 1st, 3:30 PM - Ben leaves SeaView Community Services for the last time as their Prevention Coordinator and heads for home to help Rachel finish packing the trailer, hook the truck up, get the rental inspected (and hopefully get our full deposit back), and hit the road to the lower 48.

3:55 PM - Ben gets stuck at a road construction point and has to wait for a pilot car so that he can drive 100 yards to his driveway, the entrance of which he can see, but can't get to.  Rachel, meanwhile, has finished packing the trailer.

4:05 PM - Ben makes it to the apartment, and he and Rachel begin cleaning out the last of what's left in the house.  They load the animals, get the trailer hooked up, and Ben does a walk-through with the landlord; they get their whole deposit back!

4:45 PM - Ben and Rachel leave that place for the last time, heading North on the Seward Highway toward Anchorage!

What followed was 12 hours of driving followed by 1 hour of sleep followed by 16 hours of driving followed by 8 hours of sleep followed by 20 hours of driving followed by 2 hours of sleep followed by 19 hours of driving!  We arrived in Livingston MT around 1 AM, Monday, June 4th.  (For all of your smarty-pants types that want to add up those hours to say that the numbers don't quite match, we had to stop to relieve ourselves, get gas, food, and let the dogs out once in a while!)  I should point out that during the total of 11 hours of sleep that we got on the trip, the two of us were curled up in the bed of the truck with two dogs and two cats, and their food, toys and a few other things...it would have been a tight fit with just the animals...

Luckily there were some redeeming aspects to the trip...