Miles, States and Canada! Road Trip to Alaska
There’s an adventure around every corner, but we are on a road trip to Alaska. We need to get going and push for the Canadian border. We can always make a return trip to this upper Midwest region and explore further.
We enjoyed our “Zero Day” (a term used thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail for a day with no actual trail miles hiked) at Devil’s Lake State Park in Baraboo, Wisconsin. We hiked to Balance Rock and around Devil’s Lake.
Road Trip to Alaska:
- Shepherdsville, KY to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
- 7 Days
- 1,674 miles
Out of Wisconsin and into Minnesota on Day 5 (May 13, 2025) of our Alaska Road Trip. Perfect timing! Managed to slam right into Minneapolis at 4:30pm and experienced rush hour traffic for the next two hours. The slow crawl gradually popped us out on Interstate 94 and we eventually pulled into a Walmart parking lot in Sauk Centre, Minnesota for the night.
The thing about boondocking for free in a Walmart parking lot (or anywhere else) is managing expectations and realizing they are not a campground. We woke at 2am to the sound of a generator and some concrete drill not too far across the parking lot. Yep, they decided there was a need for a new sign post directing people to the Walmart pickup spots. For whatever reason, in the middle of the night with a portable generator these two guys drilled a hole and installed a new sign post.
Back on the road to glide through Minnesota and into North Dakota. The plains are flat with some very mild rolling hills and fields of wheat, corn and grazing cattle. On occasion the gentle rise of the land provides a panoramic view for miles. Certainly no mountains yet, but the Canadian Rockies are not too far off. We just have a stop to make before we get there.
400 miles later we stopped at Lightning Arrow Ranch near Underwood, North Dakota. They offer a free overnight parking space for RVers through the Harvest Host program. After a less than quiet previous night at Walmart, we were ready for a good sleep.
A quick tour of the ranch revealed chickens, horses, gardens and a couple new kittens. The skies told the story that rain was quickly approaching, so grilled cheese and tomato soup was perfect for a comfortably cool and rainy night. The rhythmic pitter-patter of rain on the van roof is soothing and provided the perfect background noise for sleep.
It was still raining in the morning as we located our passports and health certificates for Jolene (dog) and Josie (cat). We also discarded a couple items while double-checking that we had no remaining fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs or dairy products, and headed straight north to Canada.
We crossed the Continental Divide, running east-west through North Dakota. Precipitation on one side eventually makes it south to the Gulf of America and north to the Hudson Bay on the other side.
“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things for the first time as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” – Bill Bryson
We approached the international border crossing on Day 7 (May 15th). Two tiny communities, Portal, North Dakota and North Portal, Saskatchewan are separated by the Port of Entry dividing the two countries in a very rural area.
A few questions about where we were headed, how long we would be in Canada, the purpose of our trip and if we had any guns (which we did not as we knew they are not permitted across the border).
Then they asked us to park and enter the lobby. We sat there like kids in the principal’s office wondering what our future held. We sat silently wondering, but also confident we had prepared and researched prohibited items and there was nothing of concern in the van.
They asked a couple quick questions about which states we had lived in. Quite a list for both of us, so they settled with where we spent our childhood. Then they said we had been selected for additional screening. Oh, great!
We drove into an enclosed inspection bay, grabbed Jolene and Josie, and waited nearby. Two Border Services Officers went in our van and briefly looked around. Good to go. Nothing inside appeared to be disturbed and they had obviously only made a cursory search.
Thirty minutes after we arrived at the border, we were once again on our way to Alaska! Headed for Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan!
