Great Alaskan Roadtrip

[talisman]

I get up and get my shit together at about 3 in the morning. I’m the first person to disembark that isn’t crew, and I realize that the airport where my Buick is parked is on the opposite side of town. Luckily it’s a small town. It is kind of creepy walking though this abandoned place with my luggage at 3am. Two days ago it was crawling with tourists like cockroaches on an overturned Twinkie truck.



Make it to the car and head out of town and the fog hits. I’ve never seen fog like this. At times you literally couldn’t see 2 feet past the hood. At one point I realized the centerline was on the right side of the car.. This is in mountains, where sometimes you have guardrails, and other times you don’t.. Make it through the border again and connect back up with the AlCan. Pass the cool bridge at Teslin, and it is 48 degrees and raining.







I’m back in Yukon and this is going to be the actual entire AlCan drive. Before I’ve even made it out of the area I already know, I come around a moderate turn and immediately noticed the skid marks of someone who tried taking it too far. Following the lines with my eyes, I’m greeted with the sight of a mini van laying on its roof in the opposing ditch. I slam on the brakes and turn around. It wasn’t there 2 days ago. I get out of the car, and I know I’m in the middle of fucking no where with no phone signal, and the nearest gas station around 100 miles away. What if they are dead? Fuck, what if they are ALIVE? I’m trodding slowly up to this thing wondering if I’m about to be thrust into something I’ll know how to handle, but there is no one in it. In fact, it looked like they had to camp out in it for awhile before being rescued. Several blankets and flashlights are scattered inside the van on the roof above the drivers seat. It was creepy as all hell putting the puzzle pieces together of what they must have gone through. Hope they were all okay.







Keep on trucking, and get to Watson Lake, home of the “Sign Forest.” Pretty cool! Always good to see the roadside attraction alive and well, especially since I always kind of thought it was more of an American thing.

[talisman]

I start seeing huge piles of poop in the road, and end up driving through a heard of Bison that are chillaxing on both sides of the AlCan. I then come across this F-150 all smashed to shit. Looks like it hit a large animal, but there is no dead animal, and no debris from where it hit something. Odd. I see a strange turn off and realize I’m looking at an older bypassed section of the highway. I drive it and find its deterioration fascinating. The foliage is slowly trying to reclaim the road and encroaching on both sides.





Say What? LOL

[talisman]

I finally have to turn back around, and after a few miles I see a big dead Bison with an F-150 headlight laying next to it. That mystery is solved. I’m coming across abandoned gas stations all over the place. There had to be a dozen. And a forest fire. Also coming across obvious washouts that have been quickly and poorly repaired. This is where I realize that at some point a rock smashed into the passenger side front window on a curve and cracked it. Great. If any of you are ever considering driving the AlCan, do NOT do it in a car that you care anything about at all.

This is fire, not cloud cover in the first pic:

[talisman]

This is my favorite picture from the entire trip and possibly the best picture I've ever taken:

[talisman]

I take a quick detour to see the Historic Kiskatinaw curved wooden bridge, and apparently someone was not a fan of Fort Nelson. The bridge was pretty cool though. Finally, I make it to Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek, British Columbia. The Beatles Help! is appropriately playing, reminding me of the cross-country bus trip in The Electric Kool-Aide Acid Test. I look around for Katie Holms, but don’t see her. Head south past Bjoux Falls and back to Prince George. Almost hit a black bear that is crossing the road just under a hill I’m cresting. I’m still pushing and decide I’m just going to sleep in the car again.

[talisman]

Cracked window you can barely see.

[talisman]

Trip of a lifetime.

[talisman]

Six hours later I feel sort of like hammered shit, but the gas on the AlCan was about $8 a gallon, and the hotels were all much more expensive (throughout the entire trip) than I was anticipating, so it saved me around $150. I’m not doing The Sea to Sky Highway back, so the alternate route has a lot of long tunnels. Pretty different from what you’d ever see around DFW. I was planning on hitting Vancouver again, but once again it is too early in the morning to do anything there, so I decide to ease back over into the states at The Peace Arch. I was in line for a long time.

[Rotortrash]

Can one of you guys that is good with planes identify what this was I was in?

Piper Cherokee 6.

Looks like it was a fun trip! Great pictures!

[talisman]

Head back to Seattle and start looking for Kurt Cobains old residence. The street it is on is very long and has several variations with West and East and other BS added in. I finally get it right and find it. Beautiful marina with Mt Rainer I believe off in the distance almost across the street. Next to the house is a park where people have written messages to Kurt all over the benches. Really took me back to 1994. I wasn’t a huge Nirvana fan, but I liked them and had a couple of their CDs when I came home from high school, turned on MTV before work, and saw the news. And I still remember Courtney Love’s voice cracking as she read the note through sobs. It was an odd experience for me, but a small pilgrimage I’d always wanted to make.
















As I’m driving off the Hole song Malibu is playing of its own volition, and I’m reminded that I always thought this song was a direct response to Kurt’s suicide. I keep heading south and make it back to Portland. Can;t believe this guy has the balls to be driving an old Merkur around.




Visit a store I spent a week at doing a systems conversion for my company back in 2010, but it’s closed for the night. The next morning I hop on my flight back and resume rowing with the rest of the slaves. It was an interesting trip. Driving the AlCan has been on my list of things I’ve wanted to do since the 90s. It might well have been the oldest thing on that list in fact. I learned a lot about myself, had time to think, and get accustomed to being in a foreign country for a long length of time, though it is still a decent amount like this one. It was a good test before jumping seriously international, solo, or with a friend. I also earned enough airline miles for a free round trip to Europe. I guess you guys know where I’ll be heading next. Thanks for reading.

[talisman]

Oh yes, almost forgot. When I picked up the Buick it had 6560 miles. When I turned it in it was at 10,744. Put 4148 miles on it in 9 days. lol. And nearly two of those days it was parked at an airport in Skagway. I bet the rental company hates seeing my name.

[talisman]

Piper Cherokee 6.

Looks like it was a fun trip! Great pictures!

Thanks!

[Hmbre97]

tl;dr

[CJ]

Sweet shit man, sounds like it was an adventure alright! You have to fly in a small plane in Alaska, it's mandatory! Looks like it would be an awesome place to go hunt or fish for a few weeks. Planning on doing that after Moab next year.

[lowthreeohz]

Excellent writeup Eric.