Alaska test. Saying goodbye to my son

[Music] I built this gypsy wagon late last year and didn't get a chance to get it on the road until now what a better place to take it for its initial trip but to Alaska hey why not to get it roadworthy I still had a few more things to finish up on namely I needed to move the trailer lights back so they'd be visible to people behind me [Music] I got some good help from my husband Dave finishing them up the next thing I really needed to figure out was some kind of Shades or curtains for privacy and just for sleeping it was going to be 24 hours of daylight in Alaska I lucked out and found these really cool paper shades lightweight very cheap just had to cut them and install them with double-sided Gorilla Glue tape worked out great in a cheap easy solution I used pillows for the bubble windows for more protection up front I installed these black aluminum plates and made sure my spare tire was good to go the other thing I needed to figure out was protection for that front window I just used a piece of 5 8 plywood rounded it out to fit the window stained it and figured out a way to attach it so it would protect that window foreign system I just need a couple of carabiners and so now I just need to figure out this I think I've got it just uh cutting out my pieces and staining and I'll have this thing whooped so the old Bardo is holding up on this beautiful place to stop take a break Zoom a little [Music] taking this trip with my son and my husband my son who was born there is moving back permanently yes there's Mickey it's a selfie so we just came through some pretty gnarly road construction vardo is holding up okay [Music] really dirty [Music] stepped a little closer I'm gonna take the whole thing yes sir and you know what it is warm and cozy in there on a trip like this you stop wherever you can and you rest and you take breaks at beautiful places too but it is a slog we are at a highway rest stop in Manitoba yeah I hate storms so much I'm glad we're not on the road [Music] my dog moose was with us too [Music] as usual we saw lots of wildlife including the ever-present Bison in British Columbia what are the babies down there let's take one take one let's do it a moose and a bison baby I don't think it'd be too hard to care for a bison baby but I think it'd be awful hurt go grab one and get it in the truck before you get your guts spelled on the Highway by the 10 or 15 big ones the big ones are the ones that are challenging [Music] forever and sometimes you just gotta stop and soak up all that beauty foreign [Music] and some donuts don't hurt either [Music] and when we finally reached Alaska it was a Bittersweet moment welcome to your home state yay so it's been a long long long trip and we're finally in Alaska we're gonna set this boy loose to his property and we'll check in with him later see you tomorrow son so thanks for all the guiding see you guys tomorrow morning love you drive careful love you son [Music] we literally just left and we're already getting stopped by Road instruction this poor kid can't ditch us fast enough [Music] [Music] Lucy is having an absolute ball after being in the car for six days we're in this lovely quiet campsite and it is just it's so nice to be off the road kind of cleaning this thing out we haven't made it to our property yet we decided to just just hang out and camp tonight Mickey went on his own way so I came in and this this was all over the place there was just chaos in here this Shelf his shelf came completely off the wall my speaker cabinet uh broke it's just completely broke speaker speakers on the ground dust just I mean layers of dust everywhere this this thing got so shuffled around of course I had the I had the picture down traveling I mean we went through just like 16 hours of torrential rain this my rug got all wet I'm hoping the floor is okay I had problems with water coming through the door through the uh split door it was an ordeal taking this down the Alaska Highway there's just layers and layers of dust and oh man this whole thing is Dusty little little cracks um you know for the most part it did okay like this one is like doled out like I don't know if it some of the paint got kind of wore off this broke off I had to put that back on you can't tell now but it totally like took the paint off the wheel well that's all bare metal now this this thing took a beating but here we are it's it's uh Still Standing we're it's still comfy and and it didn't fall apart so that's a win you having fun buddy you getting the squirrels you get no beautiful beautiful day oh it was great to get a good night's sleep and just take a leisurely drive to our property today instead of banging out these just hundreds and hundreds of miles we slept so good slept so good this is a pretty great spot it's a great morning [Applause] you go babe thank you honey [Applause] last night when we crossed back into Alaska after 10 miles of road construction our son just took off he's got some friends he's staying with and before he starts building on his land and we've all traveled together the whole trip up here but now he's in Alaska he doesn't doesn't have to worry about breaking down in a foreign country our daughter Bell graduated two years ago Mickey just graduated about two weeks ago and that's it for us both of our kids are out of school and uh fittingly we spent our first night with the kids all all grown and moved on a campground Dave and I will be married 25 years this year in our first date it was camping hello we've just arrived at Mickey's land he's already seen it but we haven't seen it yet just so excited for him this place has so much potential it's just amazing mountains and bison that way mountain and bison this way it's unbelievable wow what a score then you come out to a bison Farm fence and a beautiful view of the mountains what's your first impressions first impressions well I had my first impressions this morning but yeah the more I look at it the more I'm getting excited to clear it out mostly I'm very very much looking forward to getting something in here amazing wow just awesome so we just got back from checking out Mickey's piece of property we're just honestly a little jealous it's fantastic it is amazing um ordering a bison farm with a Mountain View uh that alone is great but the land turned out to be so much nicer than we had hoped um we knew the area but that turned out to be wonderful so a lot of really thick black Spruce on that road so your thought is maybe it's going to be you know it was sight unseen so maybe it's going to be going to be pretty nasty a lot of Popple on that property it's nice and it's not overgrown the floor is a bit overgrown though just amazing and there's some events between the view of the mountains and the mountains but there's that's it that's the beautiful view of the mountains in Buffalo on the other side Basin Farms so yeah we're super excited for him and we just need to leave him alone we're like ah do try this do that think about that or soon to walk away we just need to you know the stuff we've done our whole lives and we just want to share so much we really just need to leave them alone yeah like working with raw land and dialing it in and building a little cabin is yeah that is our lane so the fact that he's he's in that situation and we can't tell him anything and he's like I know I know let me figure it out oh it's kind of driving us nuts yeah so we'll just see we're going to get ice cream it's a really hot day yeah we're just super excited super excited for Mickey it's always interesting returning back to our cabin in Alaska that's good for the paint job you wonder how things made it through the winter there's any trees down if there's any damage somehow vandalism if anybody stole something you just never know it's always a little bit of a tense moment yo your bike's down no it sucks yeah yeah we got chimney's down too chimney folded right over it's always a little stressful getting back after being gone to see if there's trees oh I I put it there just like it has some dry wood oh okay but Dave's Bike is down wow the chimney is just completely folded in half it's got ripped right off these trees came down in a storm right before we left dead battery actually I probably undid the battery terminal oh you did I remember all right oh the blueberry looks all right red truck looks good y remember this place buddy now we'll see if this one starts don't hear nothing on that one it's leaning towards the building could have been a lot of snow or something foreign look okay got oil that's good all right let's go check out the cabin totally got ripped off and freaking squirrels have been in here making a mess of things oh my goodness what the heck this place is so dirty what in the world happened in here laughs looks good otherwise it is like super super dirty in these freaking oh the squirrels are just nasty dirty in here really get that I left it really really clean and um hmm it's kind of a mystery go take a look upstairs this looks all right we have to finish the upstairs yet obviously it doesn't look too bad no real issues up here oh this is just kind of baffling why it's so so dirty and what that's from turds in here foreign [Music] what a mess shouldn't have left anything what was I thinking well about the normal squirrels and weather damage it's about to be expected [Music] so this is uh the campsite I've been clearing it out and getting it all nice and opened up I just did some laundry so I'm drying my clothes but the vardo she came through like a champ she's really dirty and I've got some caulking to kind of uh tidy up that's really important as this wood has shrunk and dried uh I need to tidy this up so you know that's just one of the common things with any kind of a an RV or anything you got to keep up with the caulk you got to keep it really nice and solid but she's so dirty right now she just got pummeled but I got this really nice little campsite here and we've been enjoying the heck out of it there's the truck and right back there is the survival bunker I'll show you that in a minute but it's really great to have a screen tent because wow Skeeters are bad he wants in there right now he's got his bone in here what's playing there he found a moose leg bone so he's been working on that and uh that's good stuff we sit in here out of the bugs and really enjoy just not giving blood to the Skeeters you're gonna sit in there a minute all right buddy I'm going back out I've got my flower boxes out now so that's kind of nice to have I mean this thing is just encrusted with dirt it was so so nice to have somewhere to sleep oh I came up with this let me show you but um yeah it just it traveled wonderfully and we got some really good sleep there's mooses I call it his little he's my little cupcake when I'm in here alone he sleeps in his bed in his little round bed this little cupcake but it was just so it was just so nice so what I ended up doing is I just cut this piece of screen and it's got pieces of velcro around the edge and I just pinch it up there nice really at night so you can get some cross ventilation and that's in place you can just open that up and you've got screen so that's worked out really good I mean you can't just really use the door really great with it but it's really more for when you're just in here stationary and uh you can get that cross Breeze between this window and that one so just the vardo was wonderful it was absolutely a joy to have with us so I ended up um really I took this table down just for ease of use while we were traveling and just have more room and that worked out really good so I haven't really used the table a lot but yeah there's the Bardo I'm cold enough I've had to use my little buddy heater in the mornings take the chill off and of course Skeeters are bad I've got my thermocell but uh yeah she did good we didn't lose any of the artwork and everything just no flat tires no issues at all with the trailer um it's worked out really good that worked out really great having that down to protect the window lift it up and that worked out really good to protect the window while we traveled this thing is just covered with bugs this property is just dense Spruce on this side and I just come in here got a little Trail and I've had a I've got a nice little spot here for the vardo so yeah making it look like a little Park here except for the uh the laundry hanging and moose has been having a ball chasing the squirrels there's just no windy squirrels right squirrels yeah he's got one now so let me take you to the survival bunker that got to air out all winter long I still have these piles of lumber to deal with they're just rotted just nasty you guys remember this place I sure do got this pile to deal with it's very dry right now so there's no burning of anything there she is she has aired out for about uh six months or so seven months I still smell a little bit of the you know fuel oil smell from what was spilled in here but uh it is so much better than it was like it's really dried out and um you know stop holding water or anything so I'll take you on through the backyard oh did you find a squirrel buddy is there one up there yeah is there a squirrel up there those were the treasures a couple of tarps that wood stove is gonna be okay maybe sun can use that Lantern tidy whities bags of bags there's that typewriter and peanuts hey guys peanuts so that is just as I left it and I don't know what I'm gonna do with it oh there's some bags there that somehow got left out here's the view from above you know so it's just that was filled I don't know if concrete this side top is empty but you know it would need new top plates you'd have to read reimagine this whole place I think it's about 14 by 14 in size um it's it would be a lot of work to do anything with this I'm just not sure I have it in me so the dilemma I have with this place is do I want to put the time and effort to do anything with it when this really isn't the place I want to be on the property and to reimagine what this might turn into you know it's gonna it's gonna take a lot just driving him nuts it's just going from tree to tree just not tall enough buddy huh just taunting you and is this where I want to be on the property not really this is like the the least nice part of the land do I want to be in a concrete building even if it was to be redone I don't know you you're stuck with the windows where they are and the size they are you'd have to cut these out you'd have to cut these out somehow um because I mean you don't want this there's just so much to think about and really you know there's a lot more to it than just fixing it up it's a lot of time and effort for a place I don't really want to be I don't really like the feel of it so I don't know maybe maybe a storage shed sometime someday sometimes I don't know if I have the I don't know if I got the energy for it right now there's nicer places on this land so there it is what to do with it maybe do nothing it is cleaned up and that's what needed to happen for sure but I still need to clean up this stuff you need to get this gas I'm going to take the propane up to our our other cabin that'll that'll be fine other than that you know got the vardo here it's a cozy spot to be we're having a good time biggest thing is that we got here safely Mickey got here safely he's on his land he's building this cabin making plans so it's just really exciting to see that but I hope you enjoyed the video and the update we'll see in the next one scroll in the woods she gone [Music] don't forget to get outside it happened [Music]

Channel: Girl in the Woods

Views: 298,099

Keywords: alaska road trip, gypsy wagon, road trip

Id: KCltrv_ncWA

Length: 26min 37sec (1597 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 25 2023