Great Alaskan Roadtrip

[talisman]

See that little dot on the far left of the map, where the roads intersect? It says Castle Rock. That's where I was when it erupted.

Damn dude. That's crazy.

[EW]

I moved to Spokane in May 1980 after the blast. We drove up through the west from Kali and everything in Washington was covered in gray ash. Our new neighbors had buckets of the stuff. I still have a 35mm film canister full of ash.

Thanks for the posts Eric.

[talisman]

I wake up after 4 hours of marginal sleep, and it is around 6 am. I get out of the Buick and take a piss, noticing that the parking lot I’m fertilizing has 5 or 6 Ford Escapes. Which for some reason creeps me out. I procure coffee and an apple pie, and get on the highway, being very close to the Canadian border. Half a mile from where I turned off, there is a rest stop. God fucking damn it. At least I didn’t get harassed sleeping in the parking lot. It’s still cold and rainy, but starts to clear up as I get to the border. This is the first time I’ve done a border crossing by myself, and the first time since I was 13 I’ve been across one without the benefit of air travel being involved. I raised the Canadians eyebrows when I told her I didn’t know how long I’d be in the country, but she passed me on with no problems.





In no time I was in Vancouver. The architecture was pretty rad. I drove down Hastings, allegedly the worst Skid Row in Northern America. As I turn onto the street, I see a strung out crack head stumbling down the side walk immediately. Wow. Okay. Get a little further, and there are probably 30 degenerates clogging one area, haggling everyone who tries to walk by. Well, I’m not walking through that bullshit. , I wouldn’t even have pants left on me. Steering clear of the dense miscreant population, I find a place to park and look around for a few minutes, my shoes making audible Velcro sounds as they detach from the sticky sidewalks with every step. It’s still early Sunday morning, and everything seems to be closed.

[talisman]

I dig around on my phone for a bit trying to find anything to do, and decide I’m going to go ahead and push all the way to Prince George by way of the Sea to Sky Highway through Whistler. Wow. Just a staggeringly beautiful drive. A lot of people would argue the Pacific Coast Highway as being the pinnacle of road tripping nirvana. Yeah, the PCH compared to Sea to Sky is like a base hit in the middle of the season compared to a Grand Slam in the bottom of the 9th in the 7th game of the World Series. Words don’t do it justice, and the pictures probably don’t either.















Windows down and sunroof open, I pull over and throw on some shorts and flip flops in the back of the Buick. It’s gorgeous out. I was expecting to be in heavy clothes and a coat in Canada, but I’ve certainly got no complaints at this juncture.





Bicyclists are fucking everywhere.

[talisman]

lolz



I pull off in Whistler looking for a sushi joint, and by accident, stumble into the Olympic Park. It’s really cool, and there are tons of gorgeous women everywhere. Don’t find any sushi, but grab a slice at Avalanche Pizza. Superb.

[talisman]

I get back on the road, and let me tell you, the first half of Highway 99 From Vancouver to Whistler is beautiful. However, the second half that leads to 97, the Caribou highway, is the best drivers road I have ever been on in my life. Elevations changes, steep grades, mountain passes, and switchbacks and corkscrews straight out of Laguna Seca. I have Hunter S. Thompsons famous quote whispering in my ear over and over, “Faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death.” I’m passing everyone, and the further I get into it, the more intense it becomes and the bigger risks I start taking, drifting around corners, fighting understeer with the tall tires, until I almost plow into a barricade after untold miles and miles of becoming completely consumed by the adrenaline and speed and freedom. That, and the fact that most of the mountain passes lacked any type of barrier whatsoever. I haven’t seen a cop since leaving Vancouver, and the meaningless kilometer per hour suggestion signs that try to tell me my limitations are left in the dust, along with 99.99% of every Canadian driver responsibly and mundanely driving with utmost prudence and lack of speed. In the opposite direction, I did see some old 70s cars like original Mini Coopers and 280Zs dressed in full rally race regalia, and they were certainly on the right road for it.













I then get to Highway 97, the Caribou Highway, and the scenery disappears into boringness. I’m still blasting by everyone, and spot my first cop, already with someone pulled over. I decide to get some dinner, and pull into… The Alamo? I go in, sit down, place an order for my drink. Wait over ten minutes, drink isn’t forthcoming(there are maybe 2 other tables with customers), get up and leave. Grab a sandwich at a gas station and get on my way. Finally get to Prince George and my hotel. There are guys hanging out in the courtyard smoking pot. Take a shower and crash out, after only 9 hours of sleep in the last 3 days.

The.. Alamo.. lol

[talisman]

I leave out of Prince George early and head up to Highway 37. If Route 50 in Nevada is the Loneliest Road in America, then this is the loneliest road in North America. An hour before I even got to it, my cell service vanished. I’m driving for hours on this road with no gas stations, and not seeing other motorists going the same direction as I. Livestock and Landslide signs issuing warnings, as here and there I will pass a bicyclist a hundred miles from anything.















Houston?



Worlds largest rod and reel. I love that the roadside attraction is alive and well in the world.

[talisman]

After driving for 3 hours without seeing a gas station I was a bit concerned as the needle dipped below ¼. I pull over to a rest stop that has a big map. I’m about to start walking over to it, and a guy pulls up in a work truck. I ask him if there is a service station any where nearby, and he says about 5 kilometers up the road. I thank him and he says “Oh yeah, be careful, there is a black bear right over there” and he vaguely waves in no particular direction. I’m thinking “I bet you say that to all the tourists, asshole,” and I wander over to the map. I’m moving SLIGHTLY faster than normal, you know, just in case. I start ambling back to the car, and what do I see strolling up the highway? Holy shit. I get in the car and drive up to try and get a closer picture, and he hears the gravel crunch under the tires and goes crashing into the woods before I can snap a better one.

[talisman]

I get to the service station and as I’m filling up a helicopter decides to set down next door, blowing ungodly amounts of dirt and shit all over the place, much to the irritation of the station owner who had all the windows open and had just dusted. LOL Apparently they are not supposed to approach from that direction. Bug genocide on the front of my car. The road starts to deteriorate the further north I get. Gravel and poorly repaired washouts, gravel corkscrews with 18 wheelers barreling up the other side, and a motorcycles that looked terrified doing about 20 mph in the opposite direction.















I was trying to get a picture of the huge dust storm left in my wake and almost lost it. Whoops!

[talisman]

Finally I get to Yukon. Still no cell signal, 12 hours after I lost it. This is some beautiful country, aside from the huge forest fire that is still smoldering. I’m driving and driving, and he sun finally sets completely at 10 pm. I get to Whitehorse, the northern most point I’ve ever been on the globe. I get a hotel room in a old downtown hotel, and there is a loud bar next door. A man and woman are outside throwing every single bad drunken cliché you can imagine at each other, straight out of the Hayes Carll song Another Like You. I close to the window in my room to drown it out, sort out my credit card company thinking my card is stolen, and book my dogsled glacier tour for 2 days from now in Juneau, Alaska.

[talisman]

Door at the hotel room in Whitehorse. Confidence inspiring. LOL

[Chili]

Damn dude. That's crazy.

Yeah, I was only 5 at the time, so my memories from that day and the days following aren't the most coherent, but I do have several specific memories. Our house sat a little lower than the Toutle River level, we were behind a decent sized dike. We had to evacuate and ended up at my Great Aunt and Uncles a couple miles up the road (higher elevation). The river flooded, and wiped out the fairgrounds on the opposite side of the river, but didn't breach our side of the dike.

Afterwards, because it was mostly mud in the river, the ground level at the fairgrounds ended up being 5+ feet higher than they used to be. There used to be an old A frame house up river that the new ground level was at the second story, and they excavated the interior of the house so you could go in and check it out.

You passed within about a 1/2 mile of an aunt and uncle of mine.

I moved to Spokane in May 1980 after the blast. We drove up through the west from Kali and everything in Washington was covered in gray ash. Our new neighbors had buckets of the stuff. I still have a 35mm film canister full of ash.

Thanks for the posts Eric.

Yeah, our house / property was under a good inch of it. I was young, as I said, so my 3 older brothers had to clean it up. They saved a bunch, and when we moved back to Cali a couple months later, they sold labeled baggies of it in front of my grandmas house.

My mom still has an entire 2 liter Coke bottle full.

It was crazy.. The two main memories I have is of it getting as black as night by noon that day.. And we drove down by the river and the whole river was steaming from the super heated water and mud that came down it.

[Chili]

My mom, dad and I were on our way to church when the eruption started. My dad raced back to the house to get my 3 brothers who were still sleeping, and to grab some necessities, in order to get across the bridge to my great aunt and uncle's before the bridge was closed. When we went across they were only allowing a handful of cars across at a time.

My mom has some great photos of the ash plume from up there. It was pretty incredible.

[Chas_svo]

Nice pics and stories Eric. Keep them coming.

If that one pic of the grey house is Vancouver, it is strange. Most of the houses there have "green" fences, not rock. I found that very neat.

[HUNCH]

Love the pics and the stories man. I'm getting married in May and was planning on traveling to the Virgin Islands for a honeymoon, but all of these pics are making my second guess myself and want to plan something like this. The country up there looks amazing.