7/28/19 - Day 30 - Round and Round You Go!

You know sometimes  you just have "those  days"! We haven't had really any of "those" yet on our journey, but today was one for turning around. That is most likely because most of the towns we have traveled in through British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska are relatively small. The "large" ones are maybe eight blocks square.

Today we traveled into Anchorage seeking the magic fluid for diesel trucks, DEF. Our Costco ALWAYS carries it, so we thought that would be the case in Anchorage too. Missed our turn into the parking lot, so at the next interesection Pat made a U-turn in our crew cab, long bed truck... no easy feat! However, did Costco have DEF? Nope. Our next stores of choice for DEF are Fred Meyer or Walmart, but where are they? The last time I had wifi I looked up Costco's address. In this day and age of instant "google" access are there even phone books to actually look up addresses anymore?

So, we drove through Anchorage, straining our necks to look down each street to see if we saw one of these miracle stores. Yes, we saw a FredMeyer! Missed the turn, but after going down another divided road we made it to Freddys. No DEF there. Due to a cement divider, we were forced to turn away from the highway. As we were making the turn to head back toward the highway, we saw Walmart... now behind us. So, down around a few more blocks back to Walmart. Sigh, they are supposed to have it, but didn't. Maybe in Wasilla!

Originally we had taken a bypass road to not have to go through downtown Anchorage. That was fine, however, the interchange to get us back on Glen Highway (they use names, not numbers for their highways in Alaska) was really confusing at 65 MPH. Yep, we missed it. We went off on another road and had to turn around and make a second attempt.

Next, we planned to go to a campground between Anchorage and Wasilla. Well, you guessed it. We took the Eagle River cutoff, but there was no access to the road that the camp is supposed to be on. Down the road we went, eventually ending up in this really nice subdivision with fancy houses... and a cul-de-sac  Back around we went. Maybe we'll find an RV camp in Wasilla!

The book "Milepost" has been our guiding star, as it is for the majority of travelers up here. However, today it just wasn't quite clear enough to get us to the Big Bear RV camp. These are the directions I was reading to Pat as we were navigating unfamiliar roads:
"Trunk Road overpass; use north- and southbound exits to access Mat-Su Regional Medical Center to east. Exit west and follow frontage road north to south Church Street to Big Bear RV Park" Needless to say, we didn't find it. We probably turned east instead of west, or north instead of south. Maybe that was south instead of east or north instead of west. Regardless, a few more turn arounds and we were back on the Park Highway headed north toward Wasilla.

Today's blog has already gotten much longer than I usually try to keep them, but let me ease your mind.  Although there was another series of "turn arounds" in Wasilla, we did find a place to camp. The campground is in a grove of Aspen trees whose leaves are beginning to hint of yellow. While I type this, Pat is peacefully reading while a brown squirrel chatters at us from a nearby trunk, and there is a nice adult beverage in my cupholder. Yep, this was one of "those" days.

PS. We did find the DEF, at the fifth store we stopped at!

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