Today is the day we are supposed to arrive in Anchorage, but the drive is taking longer than originally thought on account of lugging a big trailer behind us. Sean's boss graciously has given him an extra day of travel before he has to go back to work. So this morning we wake to the sun coming up over Teslin Lake in the Yukon Territory.
We also visit Whitehorse today, the capital of the Yukon, a bustling metropolis with its population of 25,000 - in comparison to the population of the entire Yukon Territory at 28,000. As the woman serving us coffee at breakfast stated: "It's definitely not crowded."
At every turn of the road we come to another breath-taking view - snow-capped peaks, brilliant fall colors interspersed with evergreen spires of spruce trees, and glass-like reflective lakes.
Soon after our refueling stop at Destruction Bay, we are faced with a 200 km section of the Highway that our guidebook warns us is a little rough due to being built mostly on permafrost. Most of the road is paved - with just a few sections of gravel - but the road is definitely not in prime condition. We come across more of those POUSs (Potholes of Unusual Size), and there are sections of the road which appear to have had strips peeled away by a vegetable peeler. Other sections of the road look in deceptively good condition, but when we drive over them we find out there are series of dips and ridges that would make a roller coaster jealous. Then of course, there are the stretches of a combination of all three: the amusement park dips, vegetable peeler strips, and POUSs.
This road is the ultimate test to my packing skills - we will see how many of our belongings will fall victim to the Alcan Highway.
This road is the ultimate test to my packing skills - we will see how many of our belongings will fall victim to the Alcan Highway. Finally we reach the border, our stomachs rolling, and chat with the very nice Border Patrol Officer. He tells us how his son lives in Asheville and about the book he's currently reading, and then waves us through. A somewhat smoother road and three grazing moose greet us as we enter our new home state.
Our first stop in Alaska is at an overlook in Tetlin Wildlife Refuge, where we discover the first victims of the Alcan: our bikes and bike rack are gone! Somewhere along the Alaskan Highway in the Yukon our bikes are laid to rest, the straps of the bike rack having simply snapped under the stress of the all the jostling. We try to look on the bright side: "At least we didn't lose the car." "Now we get new bikes." And most important of all, "We made it to Alaska!"
We pull into the Snowshoe motel in Tok and I have my first experience viewing the Anchorage news. The top stories tonight: speculating on what will be the amount of the yearly government payment to every Alaskan resident, worries about walruses trampling their calves due to loss of sea ice and overcrowding of the population,and the potential of rising hiking fees to climb Denali/Mt. McKinley. The after-news show consisted of the smoky green aurora borealis we spotted behind our hotel. This is definitely a unique state.
0 comments:
Post a Comment