We begin our story by...leaving
We spent the majority of our last week in Seattle packing, cleaning and contending with various other pre-move activities. Perhaps the worst was taking my motorcycle to the freight forwarders for shipment. I’d ordered a so-called ‘easy-to-assemble’ crate for the bike (and firearms that we couldn’t take through Canada without a massive paperwork boondoggle) and we trucked that down to Fife on Wednesday morning. Thanks to the help of Scott’s dad and sister, we assembled the blasted thing in just shy of 4 hours. Easy to assemble are definitely words to take with a grain of salt. In a minor triumph, I was within 30 pounds of guessing the correct weight of the full crate-I guessed 800 pounds, and the actual weight was 770. A word to the wise, if you’re ever in need of shipping a bike to Alaska, call a freight forwarder. They are significantly cheaper than an official ‘motorcycle shipper’ and are fast, too.
After successfully packing up the Ballard house (it took a bit longer than anticipated and included several last-minute dump runs) we hit the road for points north. Oddly enough, the landlord never showed for the final walk-through, although we waited until 6 pm on Thursday evening. We had a short drive ahead of us, only as far as Bellingham where we stayed with my folks for our last night in the lower 48. They treated us to a fantastic dinner at the Olive Garden. Something about never-ending breadsticks and salads…
We spent the majority of Friday in final preparations for boarding the ferry that afternoon. Scott constructed the Cat Containment Device (CCD for future reference) in the back of the Beetle, and much to the cats’ glee, they had free range instead of being contained in their travel crates. We headed to the ferry dock at about 2:30, and my car boarded almost immediately. The ferry we took, the M/V Columbia, has two car decks and since my car was one of the last vehicles to come off, I had to drive my car onto a car elevator to lift it to the upper deck. Mr. Bean wasn’t entirely thrilled with the elevator-it was noisy, and the feeling of being lifted didn’t sit well with him-he yowled a bit.
Once secure on the upper deck, I unloaded all my shipboard necessities and got our cabin. After ditching the bags (clothes, snacks, portable dvd player and camera bag) in the cabin, I set about finding a way off the boat as Scott was still in the parking lot with the truck. Once off the boat, we waited with my parents in the loading bay for over 3 hours while all the other cars got to load. My mom went to a burger joint and picked up lunch, which we picnicked on in the parking lot. Finally, I had to reboard the ferry (the staff recommended reboarding 15 minutes prior to sailing) and spent the next half hour watching the truck not move from the aft deck. Finally, they boarded the truck, but what I couldn’t see from my vantage point was Scott having to back the truck up…twice…for latecomers.
Scott and I, and our worldly possessions safely aboard, the ship set sail about 10 minutes late and the announcement came that we were now on Alaska time. We watched Bellingham slip away and eventually made our way to the dining room for dinner. We were treated to a full moon shining across the wake as we ate.
Sailing, sailing over the bounding main
Our first full day at sea, with no scheduled stops for the entire day. We sailed approximately from the northern end of Vancouver Island, through Queen Charlotte Sound and by the time night fell, were in Grenville Channel. During our crossings of Queen Charlotte Sound, we encountered the only rough seas of the trip, and the chop was minimal at best. We spent most of our time out on the promenade outside our cabin where you just didn’t notice much of the pitch and roll. It was rainy though, and the wind coming off the water was a bit chilly. The greyness did allow us to spot some wildlife. We saw 3 humpback whales, including one very impressive tail display as well as numerous fish jumping out of the water. One fish jumped an amazing nine times in a row! We passed an abandoned cannery at Butedale and navigated through some narrow channels just bursting with waterfalls.
Since there were no port calls all day, the purser announced several pet calls throughout the day when all pet owners could go to the car decks to check their critters. Typically, the pet owners would herd up around the car deck accessways and dash through as soon as the purser gave the go-ahead. Each pet call lasted fifteen minutes, which was more than enough time for folks to walk their dogs, tend their horses or other critters. I’m pretty sure we were the only people who brought cats, and the CCD got all sorts of remarks. Much to our surprise, the cats did not destroy the CCD at all. Mr. Bean spent most of the time sitting on top of the covered litter box, so that he could keep a keen eye on all that went on. Lilith hid in her crate until we called her, at which point she would emerge for as much attention as she could cram in to 15 minutes. Foggy was predictably much less thrilled with the arrangement. She hid behind the cat crates, out of casual view and didn’t come out until the last day, when she and Lilith traded hiding spots. The CCD allowed easy access to food and water, which the cats were eating.
One might think that sailing for a full day with no stops would get monotonous. We found it instead to be incredibly relaxing. In addition to the scenery, a Forest Service ranger was on board our ship and gave several short lectures every day about the areas we were passing through, early exploration, and other topics. Between standing on the deck watching for fish, whales and other critters, the ranger talks were a great way to keep from going stir-crazy. The other convenient thing was a chart and tv that displayed exactly where we were at all times. It was great knowing where we were, and where we were headed next.
Land ho (for the first time, anyways)!
The rain of yesterday broke sometime overnight and we woke up to beautifully sunny skies. Oddly enough, those sunny skies fell over one of the wettest towns in Alaska, Ketchikan. Ketchikan was our first port call, and we lucked out with over 6 hours to explore, due to the tides. There were several cruise ships in port that day as well, which made for a very busy little town. Nevertheless, we made the 2 mile walk into town to see what we could see. We rode a tram up to see some of the totems (Ketchikan is renowned for its totems) and took the Married Man’s Trail back down to the core area. The trail got its name from wilder times, when downtown Ketchikan was filled with bars and brothels. The families settled in the hills above the recklessness, so if the men wanted to indulge, they had to sneak past their neighbors’ prying eyes so their wives wouldn’t find out. We wandered along a river chock full of salmon returning to spawn (and as a result, also chock full of stinky dead salmon) to the city park. Just outside the park, Scott spotted a lynx in the brush. It was so well-camouflaged that I wasn’t able to get a photo of it, but it was most definitely a lynx, not an overgrown housecat. It amazed us both how it just sat there, watching us.
Eventually, we reboarded the ferry and checked in on the cats before we set sail. We started to catch our first glimpses of Alaska’s Coastal Range, complete with snow-covered mountains as we neared Wrangall. Wrangall was the next port call we were able to step off the boat for, although we only had an hour there. Wrangall is home to a garnet ledge, once mined by the town’s women around the turn of the century. They ultimately gave the ledge to the mayor, who gave the ledge to the children of Wrangall. Now, unless you have a permit, only children are allowed to mine the garnets. They set up stands near the ferry dock and sell the garnets to those that pass through. I bought several-they’re a deep purple and they’re quite lovely. Shortly after Wrangall, we had another brief port call in Petersburg before we passed through the Wrangall Narrows.
The Narrows were perhaps the most amazing part of the trip. It’s a 22 mile stretch of insanely narrow water that’s marked by 80 channel markers that takes just over an hour to navigate. At one point, you could see over 25 of them blinking their own individual patterns out to guide ships through the narrows. The M/V Columbia is the largest ship that can safely navigate the narrows, which in places is only 19 feet deep. It was beautiful to see at night, but I’d also love to see it during the day-I’ll bet that during the day, it’s easy to spot wildlife on the shore. The only wildlife we spotted today other than the jumping fish and jellyfish we’d been seeing were several Dall porpoises that cavorted off the bow of the ferry.
The attack of the killer cruise ship passengers
Morning brought another sunny day and our fourth port call, to the state capitol of Juneau. We had several hours in Juneau, however the ferry terminal was a good 12 miles outside of downtown, so we weren’t able to see any of the town. We did spend a good deal of time ashore looking for wildlife, and saw a bald eagle swooping across the water. Shortly after we left Juneau, we saw another bald eagle. Those are beautiful birds! Other wildlife included more humpback whales-they’re especially easy to spot when they spout water. Normally, they spout four or five times before they flip their tail up. Once they flip their tail, they start a long and deep dive and generally won’t resurface for 15 to 20 minutes. We also saw lots more of the Dall porpoises playing.
This was our last day on the ferry, so our port calls included trips to check on the cats and reload the car and truck with our stuff. When we were in Haines, I had to move my car back to the lower deck. This involved another trip on the car elevator. Mr. Bean certainly remembered the elevator and was less than happy when we had to go on it. He pitched a yowling, squalling fit complete with hisses and pinning his ears flat against his head while glaring at the ferry workers. Fortunately, the elevator was a quick trip and after that, it was only another hour until we docked in Skagway.
Skagway is the northern terminus of the Alaska Marine Highway’s Inside Passage route, and has quite a history from the gold rush in the late 1890s. It’s a small community of roughly 800 people, so the four cruise ships that were in port today really overwhelmed the place. The cruise ship passengers overwhelmed us as well-while we made our way caravan-style to the motel, one woman darted into the middle of the street in front of our 29 foot long truck to take a picture…of a building that certainly wasn’t going anywhere. Scott flipped her the bird-he’d nearly turned her into a piece of the pavement. Fortunately, we found the motel, the Gold Rush Lodge, without further incident.
If you’re ever in the Skagway area, we highly recommend the Gold Rush Lodge. Not only is the hotel keeper incredibly friendly and helpful, but the rooms are comfortable and each room comes complete with a notebook where you can jot a note for future travelers. As an additional bonus, they had no problems whatsoever with allowing us to bring the cats into the hotel room, because we’d made prior arrangements to do so.
In which we drive blind and torment customs folk with lizards
A land-based day of sightseeing and driving. We could’ve gotten off the ferry in Haines, which provided a slightly more direct route to Whitehorse, but I wanted to play tourist for a day. We walked a little over a mile outside of town to check out the cemetery, the final resting place of countless unknown gold rush hopefuls as well as the town hero, Frank Reid and the town villain, Jefferson “Soapy” Smith, who both died from gunshot wounds sustained in the same confrontation. Frank Reid is buried under a huge marble monument bought by the townsfolk, while Soapy Smith is buried just outside the legal limits of the cemetery underneath a simple wooden marker.
After that, we battled the 16,000 (yes, that’s right, 16,000) cruise ship tourists as we meandered the streets. We noticed right away that if we casually mentioned that we were moving to Alaska, the shopkeepers were more honestly friendly, instead of the forced ‘must-be-nice-to-tourists’ tone the others got. We posed for old-time photos and took the Summit Excursion on the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad, a narrow-gauge railway constructed a century ago at the tail end of the Gold Rush. That was a three hour tour I’d do again and again! We left from sea level in downtown Skagway and climbed to nearly 3000 feet at the crest of White Pass, just on the other side of the Canadian border in about 20 miles of track. The views were absolutely incredible as we traversed the mountains leading to Dead Horse Gulch, where countless horses died during the gold rush. Horse bones and trashed equipment still litter the gulch, and give an added insight into how tough that pass must have been to navigate before the train went through. From the train, we were able to see parts of the South Klondike Highway we’d be traveling soon on our way to Whitehorse.
After the train, we hurried to the car and truck and began to make our way to Whitehorse before it got too dark. We encountered a steep grade immediately out of Skagway that continued until just before Canadian customs, so the first 20 miles or so were a bit slow. The views were phenomenal however, and in places, we could see the train route we’d just gotten off of. I had no problems at customs, however the truck held things up a bit-the customs official wanted to inspect the truck and asked several questions about us owning any guns, regardless of if they were in the truck or not. Scott also had to show the lizards to the customs agent (he took the bearded dragon out and said “See? It’s a lizard!”) before they let us on our merry way. We passed Lake Bennett as the sun was setting and realized we were in for a dark drive. It was right around this point that I realized the one thing we forgot to do before we left was to replace my high beams.
Now, imagine the darkest road you know. Then imagine it even darker. That’s probably still a lot brighter than the South Klondike Highway after sunset. It’s a mountain road that has absolutely no streetlights and has very little traffic-I think we saw only five cars in 2 and a half hours. That’s the inky-dark that I was driving through, with no high beams to aid my visibility. Suffice it to say, it was a bit of white-knuckle driving knowing that somewhere in the darkness there was a moose or a bear just waiting outside the reach of my headlights. There really was a moose, too. Scott saw it on the side of the road, and apparently it was a big one. I’m so glad I didn’t see it-I probably would’ve had a heart attack. I also had several incidents of seeing a large, shadowy thing on either side of the road, thinking it was a bear, and then realizing that it was just the shadow of my car in the U-Haul's headlights. Oy.
We did make it to Whitehorse, Yukon Territories, without incident. Once in Whitehorse, however, we got lost and accidentally turned around in their governmental building parking lot. A U-Haul in a governmental parking lot at midnight is as suspicious in Canada as it is in the US, so a security guard quickly came to find out what was going on. I explained that we were lost and were looking for the High Country Inn. He relaxed immediately once he understood we weren’t a threat and pointed us to the hotel. The night clerk at the hotel was a dead ringer for the intern from Six Feet Under, down to the way he said “Oh, drat.” when he ran my credit card for the wrong amount. Spoooky! We collapsed into bed, prepared to get up early for our longest day on the road.
In which we encounter wildlife (forest dwelling and customs station dwelling)
We woke up faced with the prospect of driving just under 400 miles on the Alcan, from Whitehorse to Tok, AK. We were making great time out of the hotel when not 2 blocks away, we got stuck in the opening ceremonies parade for the Senior Olympics. Argh! Do these people not know how far we have to drive?! We were able to skirt around the parade by ducking behind some buildings, no small feat with the truck. Once underway (again) we successfully navigated ourselves to the Alcan and headed for the first town, Haines Junction. We were amazed by a couple of things on the Alcan. One, while the road did have its bumps, frost heaves and gravel sections, it wasn’t as bad as we had been anticipating. Two, there was very little traffic. I wonder how much more traffic there is earlier in the summer. And three, the scenery was stunning. There were several spots where I took pictures while driving (again, a testament to the lack of traffic and the straightness of the road). We passed Kluane Lake (it's part of the breathtaking Kluane National Park, which encompasses the St. Elias Mountains)-it was huge and beautiful. We stopped several times at different lookouts to take pictures of the lake and the fall foliage. Although our copy of the Milepost warned us along several stretches to be on the lookout for grizzlies, moose and caribou, we didn't see any large critters throughout most of the day. A ways past the lake, just outside Bushwar Landing, our luck changed. We saw a wolf just sitting alongside the road. It was huge. It just didn’t look like a domestic dog. It was predominately dark grey, with some black patches. It just sat there, watching the road until something startled it and it dashed off into the trees. It was so quick that I didn’t get a chance to take a picture, but it was absolutely amazing to see. Even in the far north, wolf sightings are rather rare.
After about 300 miles, we came to the US border crossing. We stopped and took the obligatory “Welcome to Alaska” sign pictures, and also marveled at the straight line hewn through the forest marking the international border. Going through customs back into the states was much less painful than getting into Canada-just a couple of the obligatory questions (“How long have you been in Canada? Do you have more than $10,000 in cash? Do you have any animals? Do you have any weapons?”) and we were on the home stretch to Tok. We’d been warned that there had been some forest fire activity near the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge and were prepared for poor visibility and slow travel times, but most of the fire seemed to be mopped up. There were still some good patches where the fire was smoldering, but nothing that impacted our travels substantially. It was a little unnerving, however, to see some flames burning just 20 feet from the road!
In which we see a lot of trees...and a lot of construction
Today marked our final day on the road, and it was a rather long one again. 287 miles from Tok to Wasilla. We traveled primarily on the Glenn Highway, which we found to be worse, condition wise, than the Alcan. Fortunately, there was very little traffic. The Tok Cutoff, from Tok to Glenallen, was remarkably quiet. The most noteworthy thing was the lack of bathroom stops. We’d gotten spoiled yesterday with the ready availability of rest stops roughly every fifty miles or so, so the lack of facilities was frustrating. We drove almost 200 miles before we found a rest stop! That 200 mile stretch included the most grueling road construction section we’d encountered-a ten-mile stretch of road that had been completely torn up. The gravel road that was left clung to the side of mountains while the blasting crew created a new road. We had to wait about 20 minutes for a pilot car and then it took another 20 minutes or so to navigate the gravel road. I think that was the most hairy section of road that we encountered on our entire trip. I’m so glad I was driving the Beetle and not the truck! Shortly after we got through that, we were treated to great views of the Matanuska Glacier. It’s a convenient trip from our house, so since we weren’t able to go all the way to the glacier today, I’m sure we’ll do that soon.
You may be wondering how the cats were holding up. After the ferry, we took down the CCD and kept the cats in their travel crates for safety. I didn’t know how bad the bumps would be, and didn’t want to launch any of the cats if they were running around free. So they spent the days in crates, and the nights exploring new hotel rooms. As you might expect, every day they got a little more difficult to crate up in the morning. Once in the car, however, they settled right down. Except for the occasional meow, they were pretty quiet. The worst was the night we drove to Whitehorse-the cats had spent the whole day in crates in the car while we did touristy things in Skagway, so by the time we were close to Whitehorse, Lilith had taken to clutching the crate door with her claws and shaking it while howling. Poor cat, she really had to hit the litterbox and she refused to do it in her crate!
We made it, entirely without major incident, after a week of traveling to our new place in Wasilla early in the afternoon. Next comes the unpacking and all the other fun that’s assorted with making a move. I can’t wait to get rid of the truck, but Scott’s even more impatient for that than I am. Tomorrow we’ll be heading to Anchorage to pick up my bike-hopefully that’s all in one piece and then we’ll be able to bid farewell to the truck once and for all.
In which we find ourselves stuck in a ditch
We got up early again. This time, however, our task involved unloading the 29 foot truck we'd loaded up a week ago. After the hours and hours it took us to load up, we figured we'd be in for a long haul, especially since everything had to go up a flight of stairs. Amazingly, we'd unloaded the entire thing by 1 in the afternoon. Every single box we took out was covered in dirt and grit from the road. Either our truck was unusually leaky, or the roads were unusually dusty. Ok, they were unusually dusty. Had I known how dusty everything would become, I don't think I'd have bothered to dust everything off as I loaded it.
The next challenge was taking the truck into Anchorage to pick up my bike. I should digress a bit and mention the layout of our driveway. We're up on a hill above the street, in new construction. Everything is gravel, and to complicate matters further, there's a drainage ditch in between the driveway area and the driving area. I was navigating the truck from the passenger side and quickly discovered how crappy visibility in one of those things is. I thought we were on the barest edge of the ditch so I told Scott "Go ahead-you're barely on the ditch and I'm sure you can clear it." Just as I finished my statement, we heard the unmistakable groaning of a truck stuck in a ditch. After much swearing, we got out to see what we'd managed to do.
The back of the truck was wedged in the dirt just at the edge of the ditch and the rear wheel was floating above it. We had nearly high-centered the blasted thing. Our neighbors came running out (apparently they'd been watching the spectacle from the comfort of their home) and helped us dig the back end out, jack it up, and build up a rocky platform across the ditch to drive the truck out. Our other neighbor towed the front end. Amazingly, we got the truck out on the first try, only about ten minutes after getting it stuck. The truck sustained no damage whatsoever. How amazing is it that the only near-disaster we had with the truck was the day before we dropped it off??
Picking up the bike was pretty anti-climactic after all that. The crate was in perfect shape, and much much easier to break down than it was to build. The bike stayed upright, and our assortment of firearms was all present in the same condition we'd packed them in. We turned the truck back in and settled in to the chore of unpacking....and waiting for the DSL to be turned on.