Why would anybody want to drive to Alaska and back...from NY?

Hi,
     My name is Derek, my wife is Marcella, both retired mathematics professors with four grown children scattered to the far reaches of the earth (two of them in Bangkok for God's sake!) and we plan to drive from New York to Fairbanks, leaving on May 18, 2011 and returning whenever we get the urge...probably arriving back in New York around July 1.  We have two different routes planned...one going and another for the way back.  We are taking our Yorkie, Ernie, who is a wonderful traveling companion and is always anxious to go with us, wherever that might be.  We will be driving a 2010 Mazda CX-7, which is a medium-sized SUV and just barely large enough to lie down and sleep in.  We plan to stay in motels, but my guess is that we'll spend more than one night in our car someplace along the way, tucked into our sleeping bags with Ernie snuggled in down among our feet.  It's amazing how toasty a little five and a half pound dog will keep your toes.
     Actually, this will be our third trip to Alaska.  The first was a two-week cruise in 2005 or thereabouts on board "Empress of the North," a small paddle wheel ship that I understand has since been taken out of service.  The boat held only about two hundred passengers and we were able to go up into fjords and other places that the larger boats couldn't go.  In the harbor, it looked like a bathtub toy when it was parked next to one of those huge cruise ships.  It was a great first experience and piqued our interests sufficiently so that we went to Alaska again last June, this time with ten old-time friends.  Our first week was a cruise with Princess Lines and the second week we all boarded a bus and traveled the Dalton Highway to the oil fields at Prudoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean.  Our driver talked non-stop for all of the three days we were held captive on his bus, but no one minded; he was a retired physics teacher and the most knowledgeable, interesting and humorous person.  By far, that second half of our journey was the most interesting and the most fun.  We saw wildlife that I didn't even know existed.  I guess I must of heard of Musk Oxen, but I never dreamed that I'd ever see any!  That trip awakened our interests even further, to the point where we are now...ready to take the long drive and experience things up close and personal.
     I turned seventy years old last November and I figured that if I'm ever going to take this trip, perhaps best that I get to it.  To be sure, it is an adventure that we are looking forward to with tremendous excitement...I mean Christmas morning excitement that I don't remember feeling since I was a kid. 
     We both love to write and one of our favorite pastimes is participating in a writer's group in our winter quarters in Venice, Florida.  It's my opinion, that of the two of us, Marcella is probably the most talented writer, even though I suppose I have the most experience.  I have written nine nationally published college mathematics text books.  Writing those books taught me the benefit of glue of the seat of my pants...I learned to sit in front of my computer and produce written words...lots of them.  That lack of glue may be the single thing that prevents many would-be writers from being successful.  Marcella wrote much of the ancillary material that accompanied the text books: instructor's manuals, student study guides, and scripts for videos that were tied to the books.  I also self-published an autobiography a couple of years ago, written mostly for the benefit of my children, (so people couldn't tell lies about me after I'm gone!)  It's available on Amazon.com and to my surprise has sold a few copies.  We always take lots of pictures on our trips, although it's pretty clear that we're better writers than we are photographers.  The trick is to take lots and lots and lots of photos and figure that one or two out of a hundred will be a keeper!
     We'll each take our individual laptops on our trip and keep a running account of our travel experiences and goings on, and as soon as we figure out how to use our new Iphone 4's maybe we can use them to some advantage too.  We're not sure how the writing will go...whether we'll each present our own view of what we experience, or perhaps we'll come to some consensus (vernacular for settling the argument) and combine our efforts into one presentation.  We'll see how that goes.
     Our next post will be about how our children feel about their parents going off "at your age" on a journey of this magnitude.  We'll also talk about the unexpected reactions from some of our friends when we told them about our intentions to take this little sojourn.  Of course, we'll be interested in hearing your opinions, all encouraging of course, (please tell us we aren't totally crazy).  In the coming days and weeks we'll also show you our planned routes.  Stay tuned. 
Derek and Marcella