This page has notes, sometimes more detailed than you'll care to read, from our drive up to Alaska. Our plan was simple: leave Salida on Monday (10.iv) morning, drive to Salt Lake City, UT, visit with Shelly's family for a few days, get to Bellingham, WA, by Friday (14.iv) at 3pm, get on the ferry, arrive to Haines, AK, on Monday (17.iv), then drive to Anchorage, AK.
Contents
- Packing
- Salida to Salt Lake City, UT
- Salt Lake City, UT
- Salt Lake City to Boise, ID
- Boise to Duvall, WA
- Duvall to Bellingham, WA and the ferry
- Ferry
- Alaskan ports: Ketchikan, Wrangell
- Alaskan ports: Juneau, Haines
- Driving Haines to Tok Junction
- Tok to Anchorage, AK
Packing
Packing the truck with Shelly was a pleasure. Our plan was to leave Salida on Sunday night or Monday morning, and we spent all Saturday in Colorado Springs (the main activity was buying the engagement ring). We returned to Salida very late Saturday night, slept like logs, and got up early Sunday with the idea of getting our personal stuff moved out of the house, the truck packed with what we wanted in Alaska, and the house cleaned spotless. And we had friends to say goodbye to.
So we started by going out for breakfast at the Patio Pancake Place where we did all but discuss the plans for the day. The trip is going to be filled with fun, and so we made a few resolutions:
We will donate 13% of all food purchases to some charity that we find in that country (so all money spent in Yukon will go to some Canadian charity thing).
Every day we'll do something fun -- whether it's seeing some weird roadside attraction, or playing mini-golf, but something fun.
Also every day we'll take an hour to do something that involves exercise -- presumably also walking Eddy.
And every day we'll take one cheesy photograph.
Eddy resolved to lie in the back of the truck on her sleeping back
and shed her coat and get a new one.
Full of plans for the future, we returned home and took the waterfall
approach to packing. Starting with the office and the bathroom we
placed the things we wanted to take with us in the living room, and the
things we didn't want to pack went into the attic. Fairly soon the
front yard was full of bags, kayaks, paddles, duffels, ditty bags, and
just general stuff (coolers, bikes, gear).
At 11:00am we did the rounds saying goodbyes to some of our friends, returned the borrowed avalanche beacons, picked up the Bobak's Polish kielbasa and ham from Doug and Sylvia, and returned home around half past noon.
In another few hours we had all our stuff in the yard -- nothing left in the house. Now it was cleaning time. Sweeping, mopping, dusting, vacuuming, scrubbing -- we wanted to leave the house very clean for Brad who will take care of it during the summer.
Then... we packed the truck. In the bed, on the bottom went the
cases with clothes, the computer stuff box, our kitchen supplies, and
the big cooler with beer and kielbasa. On top of that we placed two
tables, and covered them with a futon. On the futon we layed a trashed
comforter, and on top of that kayak paddles, the guitar, cold weather
clothes, daily clothes, bicycle wheels, and the wine case of CDs. The
cab was filled with truck tools, sleeping gear, a boombox, and a
San-Diego recycling plastic bin with everything else. On top of which
went Eddy's blankie and Eddy.
Although we could have left around 7pm, we decided to enjoy the clean house and spend our last-for-the-next-five-months night there. Dinner with margaritas at the Jackson Hotel, and we turned in around 9pm.
Monday, April 10
We got up at 5am, took the few items we unpacked for the night, threw
them in the truck and left.
The truck handles super well -- it's an incredible beast. We had the first incling of the tank size after we put in 17 gallons and paid over $30 for it. It was a small reality check. We drove to Gunnison where we had breakfast at the Steaming Bean Company, known as The Bean for short. Shelly had $10 cash, and I had $1.02. Coincidentally the price of our breakfast was $11.02. We had a breakfast burrito and crepes with strawberries and whipped cream and granola. It was good. After we got to Montrose, about an hour later, we realized that Shelly lost her fannypack -- by elimination it seems that she left it at The Bean. We called and called but no one had found it and turned it in.
Usually it wouldn't be a huge deal, but with our plans of driving through Canada in a week it was a bummer -- her driving license was in that pack. We decided to abandon the search for the pack, and instead concentrate on getting a replacement license. And so, while I drove, Shelly spoke to a host of Colorado DMV representatives and managed to arrange a copy to be issued. Our friend Loralie graciously offered to pick the license up at the DMV office and overnight express mail it to Nick's house in Washington.
One hour activity: a hike/walk in Rabbit Valley, where there is a dinosaur excavation site. We saw some very cool vertebrae fossils in the rocks.
Cheesy picture: Shelly took a picture of me sitting in a funky structure looking at some fossils.
We arrived to Green River a few minutes before 1pm, visited with Kelly and Opie (whom I met on the Desolation-Gray Canyon kayaking trip). Lunch at Ray's Tavern where we had the world-famous cheeseburger with fries and fry sauce (a mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise, sometimes with a splash of mustard). WHOO-WHOO FOR FRY SAUCE! IT'S GOOD TO BE IN UTAH!
And then we drove to Salt Lake City (SLC). We stopped on the way for a short walk with Eddy. We arrived to SLC around 6pm, met Shelly's Mom Terrie who's very attractive and looks like Shelly's only-slightly-older sister. We got along splendidly.
Tuesday, April 11
We got up early to meet Shelly's Dad Cliff for breakfast. We drove over to his house, met his new blue heeler dog Dingo II, discussed the intricacies of Laura Croft jumping her motorcycle our of the ditch, and went to Carl's for breakfast.
The latter morning we went downtown. Shelly got quaffed at the beautician's salon while the ring was being sized at the nearby jeweler. I took care of some faxes to the DMV, and walked around the downtown Salt Lake City. The Temple Square was full of flowers and everyone was very friendly. I spent half an hour talking to a young Mormon missionary about her faith, The Book of Mormon, the organization of the church, the missions, and other Mormon-related things. It was very educational. I particularly enjoyed the exhibition at the Tabernacle (home of the famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir). It is a huge hall (over 60 meters long) and the exhibition demonstrated the incredible acoustics -- from 30 meters away we could hear the missionary sister tearing newspaper and dropping pins.
Lunch at The Oasis Cafe. Foofie, but honestly really good. I met there with Keith, a buddy from the Rising Star program. We visited for a while, and Shelly joined us around 3pm. Lunch was really good -- pepper-encrusted albacore tuna sandwich, tempeh gyro, juices. A well spent 13% for charity.
Then home, on the way to which we picked up the resized ring. From there we drove to Denny's house to meet Shelly's grandparents, I met more of the family, and we got back to town minutes before 7pm, just in time for the family picture. It had possibilities for being overwhelming -- Shelly's parents, 4 brothers, their wives, their 14 kids, and two sets of grandparents. Oh, and me. It was a pleasure to meet them, the picture taking wasn't too painful, and Shelly's and my portrait fullfilled the cheesy picture of the day. From there we went home and had a good party.
Wednesday, April 12
Up at 6:45am and soon walking to Marie Callender's for breakfast. It was a 15 minute walk, fulfilling half of our day's exercise. We met Shannon and her two daughters Taylor and Tanner -- both kids were very cute and energetic. They enjoyed playing with Eddy.
After that we walked home, where I sat in the sun writing some work-related Java code, while Shelly went out to run some errands (wash the truck, get some misc items, a brush for Sheddy-Eddy). Around lunch we drove to Port O'Call to say goodbye to Terrie, then lunch at cousin Asha's house, and by 3pm we were on the road again.
We drove and we drove and we drove and we drove and eventually we reached Idaho! It wasn't getting dark yet, but we were already excited to sample those exquisit famous potatoes, and imagined that there is a restaurant called The Mighty Spud. With some stops along the way we eventually arrived to Boise. Tonight we decided not to camp, but rather have a nice dinner and sleep in a bed. After looping twice through downtown Boise we pulled in front of a Vietnamese restaurant and checked the yellow pages. But before we got too far into it, a passerby stopped to pet Eddy and suggested a bunch of restaurants that we might like. One of them was an Egyptian restaurant in the same complex, and that's where we ate. Excellent hummus, shishkebabs, and mutton stew.
After dinner we drove west looking for a hotel, and found one about 20-30 miles west of Boise: it was called The Sundowner Motel. We left the truck parked on the street, as the hotel was built on a sort of bridge over a river, and the bridge wasn't rated for heavier vehicles.
Thursday, April 13
Mostly a day of driving. Rain, lots of rain. Breakfast at Cowboy Cappucino somewhere in Oregon (Ontario?). I had a travel mug that I didn't particularly like -- rather narrow, pretty small. We tried leaving it behind at the cafe, and almost succeeded -- but the froth woman ran out after us waving it in the air. We're stuck with it, I guess.
Oregon had the most expensive gasoline we bought this trip. And a full-service attendant to put it in, but full service apparently only included sticking the dispenser into the tank.
And it rained all day. We decided to make it to Nick's house in Duvall, WA, where he invited us to spend the night. It's about 80 miles south of Bellingham.
On the way we stopped at the Snoqualmish waterfalls -- beautiful water, ripping down, a big drop. Very pretty. Eddy didn't like it too much -- the water was strong enough to make the entire observation deck vibrate. But she liked pooping on the flowers in the no-pets-allowed area.
A few other stops on the way, we particularly enjoyed Highway 202 and 203 that runs north towards Duvall. Lush fields, lots of moss in the forest, drizzly rain. After buying a few bottles of wine, we made it to Nick and Kay's house around 7pm. They prepared a feast of a dinner -- grilled Alaskan Halibut, and pan-seared Ahi with wasabi, and a Caesar salad.
Friday, April 14
The ferry day. We slept in, with me and Eddy getting up around 7am and going out for a walk. We got back, and everyone agreed to me making fluffy omelets -- so Eddy and I went out to buy some eggs and spinach. Afer breakfast Nick and I worked a bit, and by 11am we were on the road again. Nick's sons wanted to come with us, even if they'd have to sit on the roof of the car and hold onto our kayaks. But we decided to send them some postcards instead. And I gave my precious coffee mug to Ryan, hoping that it wouldn't be waiting for us in the mail in Anchorage.
The drive up to Bellingham was uneventful. Rain rain rain. In Bellingham we scoped out the ferry, parked the truck in the ferry line (we were the 2nd), and went to town to have something to eat. And to run a few errands. Coffee at The Doggy Diner, where Eddy was allowed as long as she kept us on the leash. She was invited to join the Birthday Pooch club, and while we enjoyed our lattes, she had some water and a Scooby Snack cookie. In the grocery store Shelly found me a great new coffee mug -- the SEHOME 200 celebration mug from this years graduation of the local High School.
Back at the terminal, Shelly went to get us some sleeping spots in
the solarium, while Eddy and I drove the truck into the cargo hold. Eddy
was going to remain in the truck for the duration of the trip --
although we got to take her for a walk around the car deck three times a
day.
The solarium was a great spot to be. We setup our pads and sleeping
bags on the reclining chairs, under one of the heat lamps. The solarium
is located on the stern side of the bridge (highest) deck. The side
walls have lots of windows with yellow glass, and so does the ceiling.
There is no stern wall -- it's open to the sea, letting in fresh air.
And allowing us to be either inside, or outside, or on the edge,
depending on the sun, wind, rain, etc. Over the few days we were there
we met a bunch of great people: Jeremy who was moving from Seattle to
spend the summer guiding on the Chilkat, Darrell and Betsy who were on
their honeymoon trip, Jeff and Amber who were moving to Juneau to work
at the newspaper, George who comes here every year from New York and
travels for a month on buses and trains.
We also met John who works as a cook on other Alaskan ferries and who
was on his way back from skiing the winter in Montana. And other people
from Juneau who also skied in Montana. There was music -- Jeremy had a
travel dulcimer with banjo strings, Jeff and John had guitars. They
jammed every day, very well. I played with them one afternoon, but they
were undoubtedly better without me :) Walt and his 14-year old daughter
Nora were going back to Ketchikan where she was born but didn't grow up
-- she was very excited to see what it was like. Mark was going to
spend the summer working a restaurant in Denali National Park. Annette
came from Australia and was going to spend a few weeks traveling south
from Haines. A commercial diver and his son from Florida were going to
Fairbanks.
The ship, Matanuska, had a cafeteria which was on the expensive side, where we ate once every day. Chowders and salads. The fish & chips weren't interesting. But we got hot water for tea there. There are a few lounges, and we found that the people who hung out there made a pretty different climate from those we met in the solarium.
There was also a bar, which had another sort of crowd yet. Drinking was prohibited outside of the bar, but most of us in the solarium had a little stash of beer. Only once did our neighbours get caught and they had to take their beer down to the car deck and lock it in their car. We were all more careful after that. Shelly and I played Scrabble daily, while drinking gin & tonic's from our travel coffee mugs. I even managed to win the game twice -- how very unusual, since usually Shelly whips my butt! My winning move was putting "QUIZ" in the corner triple-score spot.
The observation deck over the bow was very nice, with swivel chairs and a child-playing area. We sat there while we sailed through the Wrangell Narrows -- a fairly narrow corridor of water with lots of route markers.
Saturday, April 15
Sailed all day, past Prince Rupert, Port Hardy (where I went with my father 5-6 years ago). The ship is moving fast -- we estimated it was about 12 knots. Betsy's GPS confirmed it, we seemed to be taking roughly 5 hours for every degree of latitude.
Eddy is getting used to walking on the deck -- although the ferry is super stable, it does vibrate and slightly roll from side to side sometimes. Apparently P&P (i.e. pee-and-pooping) is a big concern for animals -- someone in the past had brought a piece of turf for their dog. So those animals that do, they relieve themselves on the car deck and their companions clean up after them.
Sunday, April 16
First port: Ketchikan -- The Gateway to Alaska. Eddy was happy to get off the ship and run around. We stopped there for about 4.5 hours, had breakfast, and spent the rest of the time walking up and down. It's a fairly small town, in very pretty location. I took almost an hour to do a job interview over the cell phone. It didn't rain once!
We stopped at a bunch of ports later -- Wrangell and Petersburg. Both stops were for only 45 minutes, giving us only about 15 minutes on land. Wrangell was pretty, and void of kids selling garnets. Apparently there are lots of them in the summer. And we sailed into Petersburg after dark, which was a pity -- I read it's a beautiful town and was curious to see all the Russian Orthodox churches.
The day was like a dream -- no rain, blue skies, and sun! Quite opposite from what we were told to expect. Lots of sunbathers on the deck, we read, played Scrabble. I finished my nerdy book of the trip: Java Servlets by O'Reilly.
Monday, April 17
We started the day by arriving to Juneau. We were going to be there for about 3 hours, and so we shared a cab with Jeremy, Darrell, Betsy and Annette to go downtown. It was misty, rainy, and before 7am. We got to walk around the downtown part, but didn't really see the glacier next to the university.
We were sad that it was our last day on the ferry. We've come to enjoy hanging out all day, reading, talking with fun people, watching the incredible great scenery go by, most of it from the comfort of our sleeping bags. The day was rainy and cold, and we did spend most it in the bags.
We arrived to Haines at 2pm, and started off by giving Jeremy a ride to the guiding company he was going to work for. Since they had moved, we got to see quite a bit of the town. Then clam chowder at Grizzly Greg's, on Darrell and Betsy's recommendation. It was deliciously thick -- and full of clam strips. Then we found a hotel (name sounded like Haselbladstrum or Hollandslund), tossed our stuff there, and went for a walk. I hung out at the port -- mostly fishing vessels, but there were three sailboats too. The day was gloomy and rainy, and we couldn't see the mountains behind town. Somewhere we read they're about 7000 ft high -- so we were seeing only their lower parts. Shelly and Eddy went elsewhere, and Eddy found a great stinky pile of salmon guts to roll in. She ate some rotten fish and threw up. By the time that we met up Shelly was ready to give her away to anyone who'd take her.
In the evening we met up with Darrell, Betsy, and Annette again for chowder. And some Halibut & Chips -- delicious. More walking around, and we turned in early after giving Eddy a shower in the hotel.
Tuesday, April 18
Another gloomy morning in Haines! We packed the truck, had some breakfast at the hotel. I saw Shelly stuffing packets of cream cheese into her pants -- and thought to myself "Why didn't I think of that?" I was surprised she'd be stealing them, since we had an entire container in the car. Later it turned out she was merely warming them up so that the cream cheese would spread easily on the bagel!
The Bold Eagle Preserve is north of town, before the Canadian border. We saw lots of them -- flying around, sitting on branches. Beautiful birds. Shelly pointed out the differences between the mature and the baby eagles. I'm getting more and more excited about birding -- we'll have to get a decent pair of binoculars and a bird book.
The road was mostly dry, until we hit British Columbia and got over a 1000 ft elevation. Six feet of snow on either side of the road, and then some snowpack on the road itself. But... it was great. We passed the Tatshenshini-Alsek park, saw the Kluane lake, and Klushu, a tribal fishing village, with explanations of how salmon was caught and dried. Most of the pullouts, all camping areas, etc, were closed and snowed over. We stopped a lotf where we could, walked around, enjoyed the scenery. In Yukon the traffic started getting bad -- we saw over 6 cars in an hour!
Eddy keeps giving me wet-willies by licking my ears from her part of the cab. I politely tell her to go sit back, but she listens better to Shelly. We agreed that it was the tone of voice, not the words -- so now I say "Eddy, go clean the oven!" and she goes back and lays down :)
At the Rock Glacier, Eddy and I walked into the deep snow, only to find two huge piles of bear scat and large tracks in the snow. No paw prints unfortunately, but Eddy was reminded that up here she's part of the food chain.
The mighty evergreens of Yukon slowly gave way to what Shelly termed
the Dr Seuss Forest. The trees are small, very thin, and look like
asparagus. On top of that the forest is whacked out within 30 meters
from the road -- looking pretty ugly. Some of it seemed to burn down,
but the rest just looks whacked.
Later on we saw a pair of foxes -- right by the road, large and
bushy-tailed. No bears or moose today -- we hoped to see some. But
perhaps it's still too early for the bears. We had a beer instead. We
saw two owls, more bald eagles, and a couple camp-robbers.
Although we stopped a lot, we also covered over 450 miles today.
From Haines to Haines Junction, through British Columbia and Yukon. In
Haines Junction we jumped onto the Alaska (AlCan) Highway and took it
all the way to Tok.
Tok Junction is where we take the turn towards Anchorage, off the Alcan. We filled up on gasoline, and decided to stay and dine at Fast Eddy's Restaurant. Eddy liked the name. We took a walk around Tok, had dinner, and I fell asleep while it was still light outside. The sun comes up around 5am, and doesn't go down until about 9:30pm. Long days...
Wednesday, April 19
Breakfast at Fast Eddy's, and we hit the road. Sun on the horizon, no rain. Clouds to the west, which is where we're going.
No moose today. We saw lots of eagles, the drive went through more developed areas. One of the highlights of the day was the Matanuska Glacier, after which our ferry was named. And the mountains -- just breathtaking! We arrived to Anchorage in the late afternoon, found our new house, and unpacked some of the gear. The house is nice, and the neighborhood reminds us of Denver's Colfax Ave. The Glacier Brewery downtown was a good place to start off with.
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