Dispatch From the Alaska Hwy. Day 2

Dispatch from the Alaska Hwy: Day 2

You will have to excuse some of the grammar from Day 1, typed after 12 hours of driving and wanting to get the details down before they were lost to sleep. So if yesterday was Days of Thunder, today would have to be Cannon Ball Run or Rat Race for you younger people. I retired to the bed of my truck last night in the church parking lot of Watson Creek, YT. As I am climbing over the tailgate, I can feel someone walking towards me, I turn around to see a hitch-hiker that I had passed earlier that day. He is a young guy, turns out he is German and has been hitching from Argentina. He left July 2007 and is wondering until he needs to be somewhere else. He asks me, “Do you know who runs the church?” I assume he is thinking there might be a hostel there or at least is friendly to travelers as many are along bike routes, hiking trails, etc. As for the Yukon I cannot say. He is trying to get to Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Territory, I offer a ride if he is ready by 6:30 am. I am thinking that he could play Dom DeLouise to my Burt Reynolds or Sammy Davis Jr. to my Dean Martin on the last leg of the Alaska Hwy version of Cannon Ball Run.

I say this could be the Cannon Ball because of all the personalities that I have passed all headed for the same place. Couples in RVs, redneck Canuks, families in mini-vans, young couples in Subaru’s, the locals, etc. However, the prize is not the money of a Sheik or underground fame like in the movie, but the Final Frontier, Alaska . . . I mean the Last Frontier, don’t want to offend the Trekkies! I am up around 5 am, since the sun rises between 4-5am. Get my sleeping roll put away and the truck bed organized. Where is Sammy? Looks like the German will be thumbing a ride later in the mourning, oh well. I get some gas and wash the windows, all these towns are filled with dust from the “slag” put down throughout the winter. The day is overcast and the not as cold as the last few nights. Today is going to be 600 miles into Haines, AK where I will be working for the summer. I originally planned on taking the Alaska Marine Hwy from Skagway to Haines, but early season does not have a ferry leaving until Monday at 4:30 pm and I need to start punching the clock. Besides what is another 250 miles when you have drove 3700+.

The Hwy winds through the Canadian Rockies in and out of the Yukon and BC. The mountains are huge and snow-covered. My camera hardly does them justice, as I am stopping frequently to get some pictures and take in the views, unlike yesterday. There are very few people heading north, maybe 10-15 vehicles pass all day. I am after mile marker 985, Haines Junction, YT where the Haines Road will take me into Alaska. All day long I am waiting for the scantily clad women driving the color-change Ferrari from Cannon Ball to whip by me or the Christie Brinkley character from National Lampoon’s Vacation series, but to no avail, just Maud and Wilber “Local” of the Yukon. The farther north I drive, the rivers and lakes of which there are countless numbers are all frozen with snowmobile tracks crossing them.

Wanting to talk with friends and family, but without cell reception, I bust into laughter thinking of the show Arrested Development and the “surrogate Dad” where the father has a stand in man with a camera mounted to his head and a mic in the ear so he can talk through the “surrogate” and see what the stand in is looking at while he sits in prison. That is exactly what I need, one in Asheville and one in Marietta, oh the calamity that would ensue. But I digress.

I am starting the climb into the Haines range, from where I will drop into the Valley of the Eagle and into Alaska. The fog has set in and the sun and snow combination make the glare intense. No contacts, not vehicles on the road, so the glasses come off and sunglasses on. The mountains are socked in so there is nothing to see, I will have to drive back out that way, I am sure to have missed some amazing sights. I reach the US/Canadian border. Now for those of you, who do not already know, at the Canadian/North Dakota border my vehicle was tossed and a dog sent into smell for drugs and guns. No other vehicles were asked to pull into the garage doors, just the guy who was planning on driving through half of Canada in 3- 4 days to work as a “mountain guide” for the summer, maybe random selection, more likely I was profiled as a pot smoking/meth taking wilderness instructor who may or may not be transporting firearms into Canada. So this time around, the US customs guy asks for my passport and license, where I am from and where I was born (the pieces they get from the license and passport to attempt to catch people who are traveling under false documentation without memorizing the info). “No I do not have over 10,000 US with me, no, I am not carrying anything for someone else, etc”, I am back in the US, where miles are not km, gallons of gas instead of liters, no “ehh”, and most of all I am in ALASKA! The goal is accomplished, 40 miles to Haines and I am home for the summer.

The Town of Haines is small. Main St. with 3-4 Avenues and a waterfront road. The town is tucked in a fjord, with steep, snow-covered mountains on all sides. The drizzle, fog and slight breeze remind me of the opening shots of Goonies, if this town has a metaphorical “buried treasure” I intend to find it. Seagulls fly overhead, while I am making a collect call to Mom and Dad assuring them I made it safely. They did not get the Dispatch Day 1 yet. Into the “Fogcutter Bar” for a couple of High Life’s and food, NASCAR highlights, and some rousting by the salty locals for being a Georgia boy who drove to Alaska to take tourists into the mountains. The characters are already coming out of the woodwork. Northern Exposure this will not be.

I might not have won the Cannon Ball Run, but I started another adventure, which of late has been crucial to my understanding of myself and who I am. I am starting to feel comfortable with the fact that I have this “wanderlust” as my Mom calls it. Some say that I can not hold a job, have no direction, refuse to grow up, etc. To that I say I have a job, there is a universal known called the Cardinal directions and I intend on exploring them in my life, and age is just a number. To my friends and family, thank you for your continued support you are all missed. All of life’s experiences are nothing without people to share them with and hopefully by living my dreams, other people I meet will be compelled to get out and attempt their own.

More to follow

All the best, Mike