So here's the plan...

To begin, in short, I have an internship I must fulfill this summer, connected with my Hollings Scholarship received from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I have chosen to do this internship for nine weeks working at the Weather Forecast Office in Anchorage, Alaska. I will be rooming with four other interns up there at the University of Alaska--Anchorage. Because Anchorage is a very spread out city and also because I want to do a little exploring while I'm up there, I've decided to take what has been called a once-in-a-lifetime, thing-to-do-before-you-die adventure and drive up there on the Alaska Highway. After months of planning, I will leave tomorrow. It will take five days of driving an average of 12 hours per day to get up there in time to begin my internship the day after Memorial Day. Here's the breakdown:

Day 1 -- Home in Roscoe, IL to Winnipeg, Manitoba (I will stop and pick up my college friend Joe in Minneapolis to drive with me the rest of the way up.)

Day 2 -- Winnipeg, Manitoba to Edmonton, Alberta (This will cross Saskatchewan and the Canadian Prairies going through the cities of Regina and Saskatoon as well.)

Day 3 -- Edmonton, Alberta to Fort Nelson, British Columbia (We will actually pick up the Alaska Highway on this day in the city of Dawson Creek, BC (which has nothing to do with the TV show).)

Day 4 -- Fort Nelson, British Columbia to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory (We will cross through the Rocky Mountains on this leg and really start being out in the middle of nowhere...)

Day 5 -- Whitehorse, Yukon Territory to Anchorage, Alaska (Yes, you can make it all that way in one leg. We'll cross half the state of Alaska, including the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and round our way into the city of Anchorage by that evening.)

Total trip distance works out to be about 3500 miles. Should be spectacular scenery on the way. Or so I've been told...

The purpose of this blog is to chronicle my journey and my time in Alaska this summer, particularly for all of you who have insisted that I send back lots of pictures and tell you everything I'm doing while I'm up there. I plan to do a lot of exploring, so hopefully you'll get to see a lot of what I will see. Maybe this will help some of you who have been considering planning an Alaskan vacation to see what there is to do and what it's like up there. This blog is intended to serve a wide audience, from all of my college and high school friends to the 50-some aunts, uncles and cousins I have, many of whom have also expected to hear from me. I'll try to post what pictures I can and plan to update this once every other day or so. So, you should be provided with a small bit of entertainment every few days this summer as you read on.

The blog is opened for comments, so feel free to comment on whatever you want. I also welcome you to contact me in whatever manner you want--email, text messages, Facebook, whatever--with any comments or questions or things you want to talk about.

I look forward to hearing from you and look forward to a fantastic summer!