Alaskan Highways

We topped off the tank in Cantwell. We made sure to get a special stamp for every $10 we spent -- collect six stamps and we got $3.00 off the next tank. Wow.

The Denali Highway starts heading east right at the gas station. It is paved for a few miles before it turns into 145 miles of dirt. When we checked out the RV we made sure it was OK for us to drive on the dirt roads. They didn't care at all.

It wasn't too long before we realized that the entire RV was slowly filling with dust. We verified that all the windows were closed and the dust kept coming. We stopped to put some towels over the floor heating vents, but that didn't work. After 20 minutes we had had enough. I had Kelly drive while I searched for the dust leak. I found it eminating from an unobvious grate beneath the stove. We sealed it up using plastic wrap and bungee cord (dang, I wish I had remembered to bring the duct tape!) and drove away once again breathing clean air. But it was too late. The dust was caked everywhere. It had worked its way into some of the cabinets and the bathroom. The bedding and everything else we had lying out was saturated. We would need to do a load of emergency laundry.

The Denali Highway was long and desolate. We made a scenic stop to view the mountain range. There were only 2 or 3 "towns" on the road: a small collection of buildings that you could count on one hand, an obligatory seaplane, and a sign inviting you to lodge there. No thanks.

Later we stopped for lunch and tried to clean up. It was a depressing lunch. Cold, barren land outside, not an animal in sight, only one or two trucks or RVs that passed us, and our RV caked with dirt. We wanted to get off the road soon. This place is probably gorgeous in the summer.

We happened by a half-frozen river and saw a swan floating alone. It was too far away to get a decent picture, but we also noticed another ptarmagin sitting in a bush. We approached slowly and was able to get a good shot without disturbing him. He seemed a bit suspicious, but we turned around to remove the threat before he got agitated. You never want to disturb the wildlife.

Dang, will this highway ever end? After an entire afternoon's eternity we reached the end of the dirt and the start of real road. Hooray! We reached the Richardson Highway!

So we headed down the road some more. We stopped to try and take a picture of another porcupine, but by the time we walked back to where we sighted him, he was gone. A passing oil trucker slowed to warn us about grizzly bears in the area. We drove on.

Two enormous mountains were looming to the southeast. They looked even bigger than McKinley, although the map said they were smaller. We stopped again to take more pictures. The moutains were part of Wrangell St. Elias National Park which we might get an opportunity to see the next day.

We finally found another camground. This one looked brand new. There was almost nobody there, no trees, and no water. We were getting quite tired so we just found the shadiest possible spot and parked it. I walked over to honor-system envelope drop box to deposit the $6.00 fee, and I was so viciously attacked by mosquitos that I left the form only half filled out so that I could escape back to the RV. We washed up the best we could. The water pump lurched and complained loudly every time we tried to squeeze out another splash from the faucet that just barely existed. We went to bed.

The next morning we headed down the Richardson Highway towards Valdez. We had read that the journey would be quite beautiful. We had the whole Tuesday to get there, so we expected to make plenty of detours and stops.

The first stop was at the Glen Allen Visitor Center. The little log cabin on the "busy" intersection of the Richardson and Glen Allen Highways was run by a woman from Wyoming. The walls were covered with brochure holders and a large glass bowl sat on the table by the window filled with small round pellets and a sign which read, "Free moose nuggets."

(After we got home from our trip I thought of a really sick/funny joke to play on that woman. If you happen by the same visitor center, you might want to bring along some Milk Duds. Put a few in your hand, make your interest in the glass bowl obvious and scoop your hand convincingly into the nuggets. Bring it back out and pop a few Milk Duds in your mouth in front of the caretaker. Kiss your sweetheart on the lips for added effect!)

We asked the woman about the ferries from Valdez to Seward since we wanted to take one on Thursday to avoid a whole lot of driving. She told us they only went 3 times a month [Later in Seward we met a man who took the Valdez-Whittier ferry that Thursday; Whittier is just 45 miles away from Seward. We were livid at the misinformation.] That sucks, now we'll have to drive back through Anchorage and add a bunch of miles to the RV. We also asked her about pipeline tours and she told us that they offered them daily at 7:30p. We should be able to make that one.

The road south to Valdez had bits of it under construction. The pavement was chewed up and replaced with gravel, sometimes only on one side. Other parts of the road should have been under construction -- huge dips in the middle of the highway made the RV dip and plunge like a roller coaster. Some of the bumps were just the right size as to produce a resonant rocking of the vehicle that mildly threw us from our seats. Thank goodness for seatbelts.

We continued on the way to Valdez. We took a scenic turnoff that brought you right up next to the Alaskan Pipeline. Mosquitos were everywhere, so we didn't stay long. I couldn't decide whether the pipeline looked larger or smaller than I had pictured it.

Later on the Edgerton Highway we turned off the road to visit Liberty Falls. Our first waterfall on the trip, they were really rushing good. We looked for a path going up and happened by a couple in a camper who appeared that they actually lived there. 2 of their dogs started barking as we approached, but they told us not to worry about them. The couple told us about a path that was on the other side of the river. That path didn't really go too far, so we got back in the RV.

Nearing the end of the road we passed 3 Mile Lake, which didn't even look a mile long. Right after 3 Mile Lake we saw 2 Mile Lake, and after that... you guessed it, 1 Mile Lake. They must have been named after the mile markers on the road because they all looked about the same size -- less than a mile.

We ended up in a quaint town called Chitina before the road turned into dirt for another 60 miles. We'd had enough of dirt roads for a while and we wouldn't make it to Valdez before the pipeline terminal tour if we started down it, so we put $20 worth of gas in the camper and turned around. Enticing as the name made it sound, we elected not to eat at "It'll Do Cafe."

We could see the pipeline come up from the ground and temporarily disappear into one of the large buildings. Another sign explained that people man the station in shifts -- 12 hour days for seven days in a row. Then they get 7 days off. That makes 4 shifts of workers at the pump station.

The Richardson Highway started gaining elevation after the pump station (probably explains why they had the station there in the first place) and we were soon driving through more snow-covered mountains. The roads were quite clear, but it looked really cold outside. Avalanche danger signs were quite prominent. Right after the pass, Kelly spotted our first bald eagle soaring high above. We quickly stopped the RV and confirmed the sighting. Cool. Hope we get to see more of them in Valdez!

On the way down the snow disappeared and the trees returned. Something new peppered the landscape -- waterfalls. They were everywhere. If you didn't know you were in Alaska you would have thought you were on some tropical island somewhere. More road construction temporarily stopped us on the road where we had a better chance to view the scenery. The flag-person let us through and we soon found a huge waterfall.

Bridal Veil Falls raged on the east side of the street. A convenient turnout was packed with cars all vying for a picture. Traffic was light so I set up the camera on the tripod, walked across the highway, and got a nice picture of the two of us. It seems like every state has a waterfall called Bridal Veil?

We were back in the RV for about 200 yards and 2 curves when we encountered Horse Tail falls. Almost as big as Bridal Veil, we were compelled to take another picture! We reboarded the RV and finally made it to Valdez....

On the Glen Allen highway we found another porcupine. We stopped and finally got a couple of pictures that just barely turned out. It was getting late and we picked a dirt road kind of at random to go find a place to camp for the night. We picked a good one, little lakes everywhere on along all sorts of dirt roads and not a sole in sight. We found a nice quiet spot and holed up. Here we noticed that the closet door hinge was broken and the door was falling off.

The next morning we wandered back out the way we came and found a moose with her two calves along the shores of one of the lakes. Pictures didn't turn out because the water was too bright and she was too dark. A spectacular glacier was in the background on the other side of the highway, and that made for a good snapshot.

On our way to Anchorage, we stopped numerous times to marvel at numerous views. We passed a huge moose crossing a river and turned around to try and get a shot. While maneuvering down the embankment I slipped on the river rock and landed on my 400mm lens damaging the focus mechanism. Great, we still had to see Seward. Luckily the lens was still perfectly functional in autofocus mode while the manual mode seemed to be notched from the fall. We'll see how the rest of the pictures turn out.

We stopped in Palmer to get gas and to call the sightseeing house in Seward about getting on their wildlife boat trip. They had plenty of openings this time of year; we picked the longest boat trip clocking in at 9 1/2 hours. If the weather was poor and the trip needed to be cut short, we'd be charged for a shorter trip.

In anchorage we stopped at the visitors center downtown to get an idea of what we were going to do on our last day of vacation. The RV needed to be turned in before 11:00a, and we had the entire day to goof off before our flight left late that evening (technically dark and early the next morning at 1:45a). We picked up some literature and headed towards Seward.

We headed up a mountain pass and ate lunch at an outhouse-only rest area. It rained as we ate and the view from our window was a lot of dismal looking snow. We hoped Seward had better weather.

We stopped at the junction where you can turn off to visit Homer. There was a medium-sized lake there with a boardwalk and signs telling you what animals you might be lucky to see at this micro-ecosystem site. The sign corroborated what our guidebook was telling us about there being beavers there. We didn't see any. Plenty of mewgulls and a few terns, but nothing else. The sign also informed us that Alaska had 27 species of mosquitos. Wow, whose job was it to catalog that and how do I make sure I never ever get a job like that?

We continued to another boardwalk that looked out over a grassy marsh. It looked precisely like the kind of place you would expect to see a moose, and sure enough there was one at the distant edge of the grass. I set up the tripod to try and get a few shots. A few other tourists also stopped and I offered for them to look through the zoom lens. Astonishingly, one person wasn't interested. The marsh area had a few lily pads, and Kelly got an excellent shot here.

We drove on past some more construction. It looked like the were widening the road because the sides were all freshly devoid of trees. Seven miles outside of Seward is the turnoff to Exit Glacier, the only stretch of road that enters the Kenai Fjords National Park. The rest of the park is accessible only by boat, plane, or foot....