East Dubuque Illinois, the start of our Northern Adventure
It was around noon on a pleasantly warm mid-morning spring day that was highlighted by a gentle breeze whispering off the Mississippi River as we arrived in Dubuque Iowa from our home in Alaska. East Dubuque, our destination, is located across the river in Illinois from the Dubuque Iowa.
I was searching the internet looking for a relatively specific motorhome when we ran across one at a Chevrolet Dealer in Iowa. The listing was about as close to what we were looking for as we had found, a chevy chassis powered by the powerhouse 8.1 liter V-8 in a 29 or 31 foot Class-C motorhome. We chose this particular layout for it's semi rugged functionality and it's excellent ability to pull a boat over long distances of winding hilly road. Alaska can and does take here toll on recreational vehicles so we were looking for something that was easy to maintain and didn't cost us an arm and a leg in the initial purchase.
The search on Google for just such a vehicle came up with just two choices that fit all our criteria. The first was in Illinois and an identical one in Florida. Both had very low mileage, around 20,000, but the Illinois one had very few hours on the generator as well. Seeing that the asking prices were similar, we next looked at the maintenance histories as well as the logistics of driving the motorhome back to Alaska. As the Illinois unit belonged to the service manager at Runde Chevrolet, we felt that it would be in excellent mechanical condition. This assumption has proved to be pretty close to correct. The items that needed attention were caused by sitting and not through abuse or neglect. We had to have the rear axle seals replaced as well as the brakes from being totally soaked with axle lube. This did not show up until we were in British Columbia, some 2500 miles into the meandering return trip of a vagabond tourist.
Runde Auto Group 
We made the decision to purchase the Illinois unit after speaking to the salesman at Runde Chevrolet in East Dubuque Illinois. OK, laugh if you will but the salesman at Runde seemed honest and truthful. He was up front with information and didn't seem to be trying to convenience me to purchase the unit but rather just stuck with the facts. My gut feeling was proven correct as when we picked up the motorhome, all was exactly as described and in some instances even better. I have nothing but praise for the entire staff at Runde Chevrolet and wish to tell everyone that the pride of the heartland is alive and well at Runde Chevrolet.
So now it's off to see how this thing performs on a zigzag course that will lead us to the Alaska Highway far to the north of our current location.
At about 5pm we dropped off the rental car at the Avis car rental in the Dubuque Iowa airport. The folks at Runde were kind enough to deliver the motorhome to us here and thus is the beginning of the return Drive to Alaska.
This first day was fairly uneventful as I was still getting the feel of driving a 29 foot RV in traffic and through some smaller towns. We took highway 61 south as we headed for Interstate 80 that would take us to see grandpa and grandma in Loveland Colorado. Highway 61 ended up being a good choice for getting use to driving the motorhome as the traffic was light on this well maintained 4 lane divided highway.