Trip to Alaska
I think it was about 22 hours of daylight up there. What I noticed was that when you get busy doing something in the lower 48, it eventually gets dark and you realized you lost track of time. Up there when you lose track of time there is no back up. You realize you have to find a place to eat and spend the night. Wow, I was exhausted when I got home.
Wednesday (June 9th, 2010)
Was at the airport to catch my 4:45 flight to Memphis. I had 30 min in Menphis to catch a flight to Salt Lake City. I got to Memphis on time. The plane leaving there was running about 45 mintes late, so I caught it easily. However, I originally only had 30 minutes to catch the plane to Anchorage in Salt Lake City. Thus already i was going to miss my next connection by 15 minutes.
There was nothing out Memphis until late the next morning, so I went on to Salt Lake City. When the plane finally left, it was about 55 minutes late. I thought I was doomed. Normally the flight time was 2 hours and 25 mintes. We made it in less than 2 hours and was just hoping the next plane was just a little late. Some other Alaskans were on the plane and one woman said her baggage was checked (mine was gate checked and would have to wait until they brough it up) and she would make a run to the next plane and hold it till we got there. When I got my bag I looked at the board. I was at A99 and the next plane was B99. I saw that it said it was still boarding and rushed for all I was worth. Sure enough when I got there the lady was telling them there was one more coming.
The plane again left late but did make up some time. I got to Anchorage a few minutes after midnight. Alan, my brotheri-in-law was already there. He flew Alaskan Airline and I flew Delta. Brian, our friend in Alaska, was there within a few minutes. We did some riding around to get an initial look at Anchorage. When we got to his house we talked for awhile and he showed us sleeping options. I took a top bunk and just climbed up there and went to sleep.
Thursday (June10th, 2010)
It was early that thursday morning and the bikes were supposed to be available at 9:00. We were a bit late, but the people at the Harley dealership were super friendly and helpful. I got a blue Road King and Alan got a pretty turquoise and cream colored Heritage Soft Tail Classic. In about an hour we were on the road.
We headed south out of town. We stopped at a park. There was a glacier there with an ice berg in a lake. The ice berg was a pretty blue. Then we headed south to Kenai. They were having a HOG rally out at the Diamond M Ranch. Even though Brian had a GOld Wing he was very proud of (I think it does everything but serve coffee), we decided to go have a look see. Out at the rally we didn't see anything that was very interesting. Somehow Brian managed to dump that Gold Wing right in the midst of all those Harleys. Alan was trying to get a picture but those Harley guys were quick. Had him picked up and was consoling him in seconds. They didn't even care that it was a Jap bike. After that we headed back to Kenai or Soldotna, not sure which city.
We stopped in Kenai at Sal's Klondike lunch. had raindeer sausage soup and something else. They put a little piece of green indoor/outdoor carpet out the fron door. Whatever you do, don't park your motorcycle on it. Otherswise the girls in there are friendly and helpful.
We then went on down to the Homer Spit. What a neat little fishing/ villiage/ tourist trap place. It is just cute. People were parked there just watching boats or fishermen on the banks.
After a while we headed back towards Kenai. When we got there I was feeling tired and hungry. We ate dinner there. I decided I couldn't go on, so we started looking for a place to stay. We wound up staying in a place behind Sal's on the river. The hotel cost $100 for the three of us.
The bar was closing when we got there but she said she would make us two drinks each and we could sit there and enjoy the scenery, the river. We started talking to the locals that were about to leave. Next thing I knew the bar was reopening. The were short on margarita mix and long on alcohol. About halfway through that second margarity body parts were shutting down. I was hoping I could make it to the room. I said I was going to bed and left. I walked to the room and showered and actually felt pretty good. Then I noticed the doorway looked slightly narrower than it should and was a little wavy. I decided to lay down for a bit. Next thing I knew there was a camera flash and the guys were telling me to finish getting in bed. Actually, I was in bed and had the foot on the floor for comfort.
Friday (June 11, 2010)
The next morning I was dressed about 7am, felt pretty good. We waslked over the Sal's and had salmon sausage and eggs and stuff. Salmon sausage for breakfast doesn't go real well. I don't recommend it.
We mounted the bikes and headed to Seward. Seward is a neat little port. There are misellaneous things to see along the way. We checked in to the Breeze Hotel when we got there. We went to Gene Thorns Showcase Louge for dinner. We went to a couple of bars then went back to the hotel. Somewhere in there I remember looking at my cell phone and it was 10:30.
Saturday (June 12th, 2010)
We got up pretty early the next morning because we had a ferry to catch at Whittier. There was an alternating direction tunnel we had to go through also. We headed out but decided to stop at the Exit Glacier at the edge of town. This thing had signs where it was about 1899 up through to the present. Where it ends now is quite a hike up the hill. It willprobably melt too far for me to see it again, but a very cool sight.
After getting back down the hill it was a race to catch the feery to Valdez. We moved right along.
Going back through Kenai / Soldotna we stopped at the Harley Shop. I bought a T-shirt and a ticket to win a bottom-of-the-line Sportster. If I win it that is a sign the road gods think I should ride from Alaska to home in Louisiana. Everyone agrees. Drawing is July 4th.
In time we got to the Whittier Tunnel. It is actually a train tunnel. They put cement in the middle and on the outside of the tracks so vehicles can go through. Motorcycles go down the middle and go last. It seems quite a few motorcycles have gone down in there slipping in the tracks and it stops everybody. We went last and had no trouble. However, they did warns us about a ton of stuff including huge air fans that did wobble us a bit.
At Whittier we were about 1 and a half hours early. You have to sign in at least an hour ahead of time. When we got our tickets and they put us in the gate at the parking lot I though we were checked in (we weren't). Thinking we were checked in, we went and had lunch at one of the local cafe's. There was a huge cruise ship there that was interesting. When done we went walking around and noticed they were loading cars. THus we hurried over to get loaded. That ol' girl taking tickets chewed our butts out royal for not checking in an hour before departure. We tried to tell her we thought we had but she loudly explained that you are not checked in until you are checked in with the boat crew. Wow. Then we had to tie down our bikes ourselves when we got aboard. Brian was pretty clever, he had ratchet straps which worked much better than the ropes they gave Alan and I.
The ferry eventually got going and we toured all over the ship. Then I found a comfortable chair inside a viewing window with a warm sunbeam. I was out like a light. When I woke up I went looking for the others. I found Alan and asked if he saw anything interesting. He had seen some porpoises and, this is great, a piece of ice in the water. A little while later we went around a curve and there were icebergs across the water like an asteroid belt. The ferry slowed to a slow walk and started through. The ferry picked the path of the smallest ice bergs (about the size of a wheel barrow). You could hear them hitting the hull; clunk, thunk, clunk. There were all kinds of otters in amongst the floating ice. Ice bergs are a pretty blue and very dangerous, even the small ones (what appear to be small).
The ferry docked and we went down to the hold where the bikes were located. When Brian strapped his bike down he had put the kickstand down. However, during the trip apparently it had popped back up again and he did not notice. He unstrapped the opposite side and down went the Gold Wing again! And the boat crew rushed to the rescue setting it upright. It sure is hard getting a picture of a dumped Gold Wing.
We then did a scounting trip of Valdez, not even a street light. We then went to a hotel restaurant (Totem) for dinner. They had all kinds of stuffed animals in there. We then went over to the Eagles Rest RV park and rented a cabin (about $170). We asked about a live band in town and the PIpeline was the only place. I was feeling tired and vowed to be out of there and in bed by 11:00pm. We were still there at 2 am (Alan claims we were there at least until 3 am), after at least 5 pitchers of beer and 1 bar room fight. The band was good, really reminded me of our hometown local motley band in Saint Francisville. The female lead singer came over and talked to us a bit during breaks. After the fight some girls showed up and convinced us everything was ok and there was no danger. Cathy would come over once in a while to fill us in on local information.
There were an awful lot of good looking women in that remote outpost bar, makes me think a young man could get into a lot of trouble there, note the fight was over a female. i remember Susan was the lead singer's name. Cathy worked at the convenience store gas station next to the RV Park and her favorite song was Harvest Moon. Alan, being a one time dance instructor, danced that song with her (the only dance of the nite). Most of the guys we talked to were with the oil and some were building contractors. everybody was quite friendly. The oil guys were discussing the offer of $750 a day to go to Louisiana for the oil clean up there.
We finally got back to the cabin. Brian jumped in a top bunk and set a record I couldn't touch for falling asleep. Alan and I had quite a laugh.
Sunday (June 13th, 2010)
I found out the next morning that Susan was the Pipeline Bar Owner's wife. I asked what was the closing time of the bar and the response was what time did the last person leave.
We got up early, about 7 am. We packed up and headed for the Totem for breakfast. It wasa cold, wet, and raining miserable. I was actually able to eat 2 of those huge pancakes.
As we left Valdez we headed up a deep canjon. There were waterfalls all over the place, what a beautiful place. Then we saw a black bear. Very pretty bear with a shiny coat. Tried to get Alan to run over to it so I could get a picture of him with the bear, but he wouldn't bite.
As we headed up the hill my goggles started fogging pretty bad, just having all kinds of trouble keeping them clear. Then they just fogged over and I couldn't see anything. I stopped and took them off only to discover I still couldn't see anything. We had come up into a low flying dense cloud. I changed glasses andproceeded pretty slow until we got on the other side. It was very cold and wet as we proceeded.
I was in the lead and was looking for a gas stop they had told us about in Valdez. i knew we were only a few miles when I passed a lodge. I looked in my mirror and notice no one was following. I turned around and found the other bikes and we headed for the lodge. Wow it was warm in there. Alan asked, "If you start singing when you are really cold does that mean you are approaching hypothermia?" What were ya singing? "Down we go into the valley where it will be warmer, over the next hill where it will be warmer." I said I don't know those songs. OF course I had been really cold too, but had not started shivering. We ate a ton of food there too.
Back on the road again it seemed it had warmed up a bit. We headed back to Anchorage to Brian's house. When we got there it was night time. Night time defined as tired, cold, sleepy, not because the sun is down. We talked a bit, ate dinner, and went off to bed.
Monday (June 14th, 2010)
Monday morning we were up again and headed north out of Anchorage. We saw three moose not far after we left Brian's House. One only had one antler and limped. Thought this one must have been hit by a car.
We rode through construction and eventually wound up in a little tourist trap town. We tried out some MRE's we had bought. Really not bad. Then we went sightseeing. We went to a microbrewery and did some sampling and had French Fries.
Brian's wife was leaving for the lower 48 on a business trip and he wanted to get back to take her to the air port so he headed out after Alan and I convinced him we could find our way back. After he left Alan and I sort of drifted back towards Anchorage.
On the way back we came across a guy hand peeling some logs for a log house. We stopped to check this out. The building of a log house was pretty interesting. Alan has built one before and explained it to me. A machine can peel one of those logs in seconds but people prefer the hand peeled look. Definitely adds cost doing it by hand.
We came across a Salvation Army Store and stopped. Alan found a warm pullover with a blue stripe for $5. I found one with no blue stripe but had pockets for $2.50. Wow, much warmer. We told Brian we would meet him at Hooters in town (if we got lost getting directions to Hooters would be easy) so we headed for Hooter's after leaving the Slavation Army Store. However, we found out that Hooter's had closed and removed all markings, thus we overrun it a few times. Then we asked someone close to where they had been who explained to us they had shut down.
We then found the Billiard's Palace, where we stopped for dinner. The tables in there are old but re-felted and re-leveled every year. After dinner we headed to Brian's only to find out he had been napping on us.
Tuesday (June 15th, 2010)
It was again cold, wet, and rainy. We were pretty slow getting out the door. Brian took us riding downtown Anchorage. People had planes in their backyards all over the place. There were planes in lakes everywhere. Tides can be 29 feet and it was out. We saw tugboats and barges high and dry. We stopped and had a late lunch at the Moose's Tooth pizza Parlor. We did a little more riding and decided we had enough of the cold wet and slipping on the pavement so we headed for the Harley dealership.
After dropping off the bikes we went to Brian's and packed up. Brian took me to the air port.
I checked my schedule and noted I had 1 1/2 hours to make my connection. Wow, much better than the 30 minutes I had between planes coming up. Shouldn't be any problem making it.
At the airport the plane was on time and actually left the gate right on time. We taxied out to the runway and I could only see one plane ahead of us. I settled in to try to take a nap then an announcement came that we had a mechanical problem and were returning to the gate. Two hours later we were on our way. Crap, would surely miss my connection now. You just can't win. The plane did make up time and I was hoping the connection was a little late. Sure enough, it was 30 minutes late and I just got on.
The flight was supposed to be about 7 hours, but I can only remember the first 30 minutes or so. Then I remember the approach to Atlanta.
When I got to Baton Rouge that 95 degrees felt ssssoooooooo good. It only took me about 4 days to fully recover.