2013: Alaska to Ohio

Pixels 6 Minutes

I’ve driven between the midwest and Alaska a total of 6 times:

And I’ve got some photos from these epic 4,000-mile journeys. This post is the fifth and final post in the series.

July 2013: Anchorage, Alaska to Toledo, Ohio

By 2013 I had accomplished about everything I wanted to accomplish, career-wise, in Anchorage. While there were (and are) viable jobs on the Last Frontier, there wasn’t really a career path available. Plus, as my parents were entering their later years, I wanted to be closer to home. We’d lived though the passing of both my wife’s parents—we were in Alaska, and they were in upstate New York—and that long-distance experience was tough on everyone. Add to that a grim economic forecast for Alaska as the oil dried up, a major new natural gas pipeline proposal kept receding into the distance, and the corrupt politicians in Juneau failed to develop the State’s future… it was time to go.

While we had discussed living in the desert southwest, as a contrast to Alaska, and explored Bend, Oregon, too, we knew we needed to be closer to family in Ohio, not just anywhere in the Lower 48. And in Ohio, the only destination we considered was Columbus.

Scouting the move

To prepare, and possibly to find a job, I flew down to Columbus in June 2013. I met with potential employers and re-acquainted myself with a city I hadn’t lived in for 17 years. I would discover a lot had changed. The June trip included two events that cemented the feeling that Columbus would be a great destination, because it was dynamic and growing and full of new experiences.

While this wasn’t part of the drive down, it was part of the preparation: attending a Columbus Crew game. I had never attended a Major League Soccer game (or any soccer game) in my life, so this was a revelation. These days we watch the Crew on the MLS streaming service on Apple TV+ every week.
While re-exploring Columbus in June 2013 I also took in a Columbus Clippers game in the new Huntington Park stadium, a classic open-air stadium design that we love visiting to this day. Indeed, I was there earlier this week. PRO TIP: Avoid Dime-a-Dog night because the food lines are unbearably long and slow.
In the nearly 2 decades away, downtown Columbus created the Scioto Mile, moved COSI, and built new buildings around a revamped urban core. It had semi-trendy food spots, too (a trend that has grown over the past 10 years).

Getting a job meant quitting a job

Despite meeting with a few potential employers that were generally interested in hiring me, no one would offer me a job. Nobody believed someone would accept an offer, turn around, and move 4,000+ miles from Alaska. Or even if they did, it wouldn’t be quick. Plus, with local candidates readily available, why take the risk on the unknown?

Once I figured this out, the plan was clear: I would have to quit my job in Alaska, move south on my own (a second time), find a job, get an apartment to get settled, and then arrange for my wife to follow.

So that’s what I did. It was a little nerve-wracking. But the financial crisis of 2008 was largely over and jobs in white-collar Columbus were on the mend. It was as good a time as any time make the attempt.

I gave a month’s notice and Anchorage, wrapped things up, and made plans to leave at the end of July 2013.

Leaving the Last Frontier for the Last Time

On July 27, 2013 I headed out of Anchorage in a moderately-packed tiny car, planning to take at least a week on the road, winding my way down through Canada into Montana, through Yellowstone into Wyoming, then east to South Dakota and on to Minnesota and points southeast from there.

I would have loved to have some company.

But the solitary open road has been a “Camino” of mine several times, delineating the end of one life and the start of another. Days and days of 12, 14, and even 16 hours of driving alone can be a revelation. Especially when more than half of it winds through the rockies and the high plains.

Yep—I drove my Scion iQ from Alaska to Ohio. This tiny city car made the trip, no problem. And I kept driving it in Ohio for a couple more years after this. Here I’m parked in front of our final apartment in Alaska, with the car packed up and ready to go. This was actually a sad day for several reasons. I was leaving Alaska for the last time, leaving behind my wife, and leaving behind our beloved dog Angus, a Cairn Terrier we brought with us to Alaska in 2001, and who was only a couple weeks away from the end of his life. My wife would join me in Ohio about 2.5 months later.
The Chugach Mountains northeast of Anchorage gave me a proper Alaskan send-off, with fireweed in full bloom. Southcentral Alaskan summers were always short, intense, and often lovely like this.
One final view of the Matanuska Glacier, on the north side of the Chugach Mountains.
It’s been 11 years this summer since I crossed the border out there on the frontier. Perhaps one day I’ll see this unique international crossing on the Alaska Highway again.
A rainbow crossed my path driving out of Destruction Bay, on the south end of Kluane Lake, headed to Haines Junction and on to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.
Crossing through the Canadian Rockies in northern BC is a treat any time of year. Luckily I had beautiful weather for this summer drive.
Back in the United States I drove south into Montana, headed toward Yellowstone, just to drive through and see the gigantic caldera for myself, for the first time. Sadly, I didn’t take a lot of photos or even spend that much time in the National Park. With the crush of tourists and the traffic, I didn’t feel like hanging out.
I was greeted by a bison of the stuffed variety in my hotel room in Cody, Wyoming. Cute! But $22 even in 2013? No, thanks.
Driving east out of Cody I got to experience some classic western landscapes I’d never seen before. There are places there that seem unknown. Despite it being early August there just wasn’t evidence of tourism. I wonder if it’s still as pristine today.
A tiny car in a big landscape.
On my extended trip back to Ohio I stopped off to see the Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota. This was my first visit to this Native American answer to Mount Rushmore. I just wish it was funded well enough to be completed.
I had also never visited the Badlands in South Dakota, but this time I made the side trip. A stunning landscape to be sure.
Alaska plates in the Lower 48 will often get second looks. But Alaska plates on an unusually tiny car gets all the second looks at a rest area in southeastern Wisconsin.
Once back in Ohio, I was greeted—perhaps not so welcomingly—by Noah, my parents’ cat.

Back in Ohio

Once back in Ohio, in Toledo, I took a brief break and then started the job search again, heading down to Columbus to stay in hotels and even in a former colleague’s home as a house sitter and cat sitter. It only took a couple weeks to land a contract-to-hire role and a couple more weeks to nail down an apartment. By September was was moved into an apartment. In October my wife was ready to head south herself, with our Alaskan cat Ophelia in tow.

We’ve been in the Columbus area ever since, buying a home less than a year after arriving and settling in.

Would you move back?

Alaska is a truly unique place. It is a land of extremes in every sense. Anchorage was a city where everyone made new friends all the time because it’s a town of transients. And we made a lot of friends in 12.5 years.

Columbus and Ohio are… not nearly as interesting. No one asks you about Ohio when you check into a hotel across the country or if you travel overseas. Making friends is harder. But life, in general, is easier. Better healthcare. More food options. Lower cost of living. More career opportunities. And of course all our family is closer now. In the set of trade-offs we made, it was the right call to move south.

Still, 10 years later, we couldn’t resist. So in January 2024, we went back to Alaska. Just for a visit. Yes, we actually talked semi-seriously for a few days about moving back to Anchorage, to the midnight sun, to the Last Frontier and the snow and ice and fireweed and earthquakes. But the trade-offs just don’t work for us anymore.

It’s a good thing we lived there when we did.

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