text: My first trip over the Alcan was back in 1962. We drove a '46 Dodge pickup and pulled a 2-wheeled trailer. 35 mph was a good speed and it took two weeks. Up the mountains, stop and let the engine cool down then down the mountains, stop and let the brakes cool down. Flat tires, mud, rough corduroy, rocks, holes, washouts and DUST. Stops at the Lodges for gas and potty. The people at the lodges were usually nice but a few seemed to wish we would just keep on going. It was a long, miserable, hot trip for a ten year-old couped up day after day in the rough old pickup. We had to leave our cat and her kitten, they couldn't take the heat in the pickup. But at night we stopped, pitched our tent, built a campfire and cooked. I'd play awhile along some new lake or stream with kids that always seemed to hit the same campground as we did  before unrolling the sleeping bags and conking out for the night.That was a trip of a life time. Headed for a whole new world called Alaska.