Sleepless in Alaska

Traveling to Alaska in summer we were prepared for one thing above all – the daylight. Knowing it does not get dark; however, is not the same as experiencing it. There is something eerie about a twilight sky at 2:30 in the morning. Plus it doesn’t help with jet lag – especially if your body, like mine, runs by the sun.

The sunset at 11:30 - even waking at 3:30 most mornings, it was never fully dark.

But the land of the never ending sun was not the only thing to screw with our sleep. So, here are the top 4 reasons I felt like I was in a country version of My Cousin Vinny.

4) The guy yelling in the RV lot the first night that he couldn’t find his car. Dude – next time don’t drink so much on the plane that you can’t read your own name on the windshield placard. This was night one and seemed to set the pace for an interrupted sleep trip.

3) The sound of trains passing and whistling in Seward in the wee hours of “my mind says get up my body says no damn way.” Having no trains in Sunnyville and being years from living in the city – this acted like an alarm. If you want to avoid this – stay outside of town, but the benefits of walking ½ mile to the main strip make losing a bit of sleep worthwhile.

2) The low battery alarm that beeps every 30 seconds when the RV battery is low… Hard to keep it charged when you’re hiking during generator hours, but this is a must unless you can sleep through the alarm clock insistence of the detector (which the girls could) or fake it until your sister gets up and turns the engine on (which I did 3 times in one night – hey, did I mention it was COLD?).

1) This is the sure to make you jump your butt out of bed and wonder if the sleeping hours of your trip are a funniest video reel – the CO2 alarm which sounds much like the school fire alarm blasting you to your feet at 1:30 am. And jump we did, though we had no idea what to do and fumbled about in the dark until we found the quiet switch and realized we had left the hot water heater on… Oops! Be sure to turn off propane operated appliances before sleeping.

So, sleep has been hard to come by, especially since things like the like the low battery alarm were a repeat activity. Happily we did not come here to sleep, but it would be nice to catch some shut eye… Maybe tonight.