Bad Luck Bullwinkle

Day 19 -- It happened.


We had hoped it would. Anticipated it. Wished for it. Lamented the hours that went by without it. But, at precisely two hours and fifteen minutes into the drive from Fairbanks to Valdez, it finally happened. A moose appeared without warning from the trees on the left and did a 40-yard dash across the road right in between us and an approaching school bus. She wasn't close enough for us or the bus to have to slam on the brakes, but she was too close and too fast for Cindy to grab her camera in time to shoot a picture of her. It was so cool. Surreal. But it also turned out to be a bad luck bummer. Right after she streaked passed us, our luck took a 180 degree turn.  My GPS mysteriously quit working and, just as we were looking at the camera to see if we did capture her, we missed the only turn on the 350 mile route. We didn't realize we had missed it for ten miles. Back on course, an hour later we hit a nasty section of highway that didn't survive last winter's frosts and thaws very well, and the rocking motion knocked my latte maker off the counter.  It was in the same position it was in during the worst of the Alcan, but, post moose sighting, it flopped off the counter and was dangling by the cord two inches above the floor.  Of course the pint or more of water that was in it did make it to the floor.  And to the carpet.  We stopped as soon as we could and began mopping and soaking.  Since it didn't actually crash onto the floor, I thought it would be okay. Wrong. It's toast. Won't turn on, even after disassembling it and tinkering with it for an hour. Getting back to the mysterious GPS malfunction, all of the other aps on the Ipod Touch quit working also. Tried a hard reset. No luck. Reset to factory defaults. Nope. All locked up. Too many things going wrong all at once to be a coinkydink. It has to be related to the moose. Our only hope is to see another one, avoid hitting it, and have it break the curse of the first one.

That was the biggie for the day. But the trip did generate some other experiences worth sharing. The first came just a few miles from Fairbanks when we passed through the town of North Pole, AK. Of course we turned onto Santa Clause Lane, and then onto St. Nicholas Drive in route to Santa Clause House.

Santa said he would mail a post card back to our grandsons, Kyle and Colby, if we left it in the mailbox.

Of course, we had to purchase a few items that the elves made.

Remember when I talked about Canadian mosquitos? Well, you should see them here in Alaska. This one was titled "Alasquito"

Quite a nice roadside stop, with lots of sculptures from local burl wood trees.

The trans-Alaska pipeline paralleled our route the entire 350 miles from Fairbanks to Valdez. For much of our trip, it was visible above ground.

Glaciers pound the soil into a fine silt. You can see it on the sides of the mountains and in the ditches. It was prevalent all through Denali park, as well as on the drives to and from Fairbanks.

This silt is carried by melting snow and rainwater to the creek beds below, and it looks like concrete soup.

Here's a pretty lake that we passed

With a new subdivision overlooking it.

It's not Mt. McKinley, but impressive mountain peaks were there to be seen.

We didn't make it all the way to Valdez. At 8:00 in the afternoon, we decided to stop for the night in Glennallen.

Day 20 -- I wonder how Prince William Sounds

You might remember Glennallen. It was one of the first towns I went through on my first day in Alaska.  It was where I took the picture of the frumpy Radio Shack; and where I poked a little fun at the espresso stop. Well, biting my tongue, we're now in line at that same espresso stop, waiting to get a morning caffeine fix due to the fact that the moose destroyed my cappuccino machine.

I'm going to let Alaska speak for itself in the next few pictures.

A few miles out of Valdez we got the chance to get up close and personal with a glacier, specifically Worthington Glacier.

"Nevermind that, Cindy". C'mon. It'll be a walk in the park"

"It's like baseball, Cindy. There's no crying in glacier hiking"

I made it. I'm standing on the edge of Worthington Glacier. And believe me, it is very slippery.

Just then, the ground sounded like a piece caved in. It scared the begeebers out of both of us. I had to plead with Cindy for at least ten minutes to continue the last 10 feet and stand on the glacier. Finally, she worked up the nerve.

and made it

There's not much to see in Valdez. The town is basically four or five blocks with a bank, a couple of restaurants, a post office, two museums and a heck of a pier where anglers were fishing for silver salmon. For the first few hours, you could definitely smell the odor of oil in the air. You get used to it, and it becomes unnoticeable after a few hours in town.

Finally, we're going to see a salmon being caught.

Woops, it was a star fish. And the longer it was being handled, the more legs it was losing. Bet this one is saying to himself, "I sure hope that whole regeneration rumor is true."

I did see five silvers caught and hauled up to the dock with nets at the end of ropes. This particular salmon was not having a good day.  Apparently, a few hours earlier, before being caught, hauled out of its environment onto a pier, and whacked to death with a rock, it had narrowly escaped being lunch for a seal.

The town is amuck with RV's.  Obviously, they belong to tourists here for the fishing.  We're spending the night at one of the four huge RV parks located right in the center of the town. 

We toured the town by motorcycle and stopped at a local joint for grilled halibut sandwiches and cole slaw for dinner.  When we got back to the RV park, Cindy had just commented that she had a hankerin for something sweet, when we heard the calliope music emanating from Peggy's ice cream wagon.  Peggy turned out to be a hoot and a half.

Though it's not much of a town, Valdez, AK is an important port. It marks the termination of the great trans-Alaska pipeline, and is where tankers load daily the crude oil that has flowed from far up north. It plays a vital role in our lives.

One final thing about the town. It has a ferry that takes passengers and their vehicles across the Prince William Sound to Whittier, which is little south of Anchorage. Tomorrow, it will be taking a couple of Tennesseans on that voyage.