Day 1: Cleveland, OH to Forest City, IA

Miles traversed:746 miles
States traveled: Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa

On our first day out, we flew out of Cleveland Saturday morning. I pride myself in packing light. My last trip to Europe, I stayed for a month and only carried on my luggage. However, when you add a toddler and baby into the mix, traveling light goes out the window. Trudy, the smallest of our group, and the only non-ticketed passenger, had the largest suitcase, which accommodated her bed. So, with four adults and two children, we had six checked bags and six carry-ons, plus two strollers and two car seats. We had to take two trips to the airport. Fortunately, Cleveland’s airport isn’t too busy, and the security workers and other workers were friendly and helpful with all we had to lug.

Desmond was excited for his first airplane ride, but when it came time to fly, he was scared and worried that the plane was going to fly upside down. There was no convincing him that this wouldn’t happen. I sat next to Desi and nursed Trudy all the way to Chicago.

At Chicago Midway, we were to switch to a flight to Minneapolis. We ate lunch at the airport and got ready to board the plane. Just as we started to wonder why our plane wasn’t at the gate, they announced that we had to switch gates and would be delayed. Bummer. We would still be okay to make our shuttle out of Minneapolis, though, and Desmond had a chance to ride on the people movers a bit longer. He was scared on the flight again, and hid his head in my armpit, but when I started pointing things out the window, he let his imagination get him through the flight. He saw so many things: Busytown, Peter Rabbit Town, Peppa Pig Town, Tickety Town; it was really cute. He also liked the treat of drinking some apple juice and having some peanuts. I was surprised Southwest still serves peanuts. Mmm… honey roasted.

We arrived in Minneapolis and had to gather all of our stuff at baggage claim. We waited at Caribou Coffee at the airport, had a snack, and then ventured out to find the shuttle that would take us to our RV. We had to haul everything to the tram to another terminal and then lug it across the street to our shuttle. At that point, we started running into people who would also be doing the same trip we were.

We found out about 150 people would be renting brand new RVs straight from the Winnebago factory in Forest City, Iowa and driving them up to Anchorage, Alaska for an RV rental company called Great Alaskan Holidays. We noticed that Tommy, the kids, and I were not in the typical demographic of the group. Tommy wondered if they were going to show Cocoon on the bus (haha). The company then rents them to people in Alaska. My parents had rented one a few years ago in Alaska, which is how my dad found out about this and decided to embark on this adventure.  We all boarded coach busses that transported us from the airport to Forest City, a two hour ride. The kids pretty much snoozed the whole trip.

                                                         Our home for the next three weeks

We arrived at the field where our RV was parked and the Great Alaskan people unloaded everyone’s bags. We found everything that belonged to us and moved it to our vehicle. We were hot and sweaty from our travels and the RV was stuffy from being shut up. We had no electric hook up that night, so we opened up the windows to air it out. Then we walked over to the Lodge to eat dinner. This was really our only option; there was no place else to eat in Forest City. At least the dinner tasted good to us hungry travelers and we enjoyed a beer to celebrate our arrival. At the field were some small amusement park rides, which were unfortunately not open; that might have been fun. 

                                                                           The Field

The first night was not a great night of sleep. It was windy and rainy. We heard the high plink, plink of rain on the roof all night long. Trudy didn’t want to sleep in her new bed unless I swaddled her, so it was after 1 a.m. before I fell asleep.