Sunday 7-22
During the last couple of days, we decided to change our planned route. Instead of rejoining the Alaska Highway and going more or less counterclockwise through Fairbanks, Denali, Anchorage, etc., we’re going clockwise. We think this will more effectively intersperse civilization and wilderness experiences. So today, after finishing the last 20 miles or so of the “Taylor Highway”, and rejoining the actual “Alaska Highway” for about 20 westbound miles, we headed south on the “Glenn Highway”. All of these highways we’re traveling also have numbers, but locally everybody talks about their names not their numbers. It occurs to me that this represents a great, untapped revenue source for the state. Since everybody’s going to use the names, not the numbers, why not sell the naming rights? Sure, today we’re traveling on the “Glenn Highway”, but it could be the “NIKE Highway”, “BUD LIGHT Highway”, or “HAIR CLUB FOR MEN Highway”. Alaska would pick up some extra money, and we wouldn’t be wondering for which “Taylor” or “Glenn” this highway had been named.
This afternoon, when we briefly rejoined the Alaska Highway near Tok, AK, we also rediscovered civilization. Discovering things is often good; gold, electricity, the new world, Haagen Dazs, etc. But discoveries can also be bad; small pox, ice crevasses, Britney, etc. Our rediscovery was a little of both. The good? We had a very tasteful portrait taken in Tok (toke). The bad? There are lots of people, and cars, and RVs, and buildings, and signs, and litter, and pets in civilization. In Tok we also met an Info Center person who had lost her voice—a VERY serious disability for a person who must effectively communicate (I have personal experience with this affliction). As a result, when she weakly rasped that I should get my fishing license at “Bull Shooters”, I asked incredulously, “Bull Sh__ters”?
Once this was straightened out, with fishing license in hand, we headed south on the newly renamed, “DEPENDS Highway”. It rained off and on. Soon tall mountains became visible on the horizon. These are the mountains of the Wrangell/St. Elias National Park. This park is huge—over 13 million acres—which brings us to our math logic problem of the day:
A cataclysmic earthquake causes Rhode Island (600k acres) to shift to the eastern edgeof the Wrangell/St. Elias National Park. If the governor of Rhode Island leaves Pawtucket and travels west at 50 miles per hour, how long will he wait at the border to meet the governor of Alaska, if the Alaskan governor travels east through Wrangell/St. Elias at the same speed?
In addition to being huge, Wrangell/St. Elias includes 9 of the 16 tallest mountains in the US so it’s very dramatic. Tonight we’re parked at a roadside pullout near the beginning of one of the two roads that penetrate the park. We’re high on a hill overlooking a whitewater river and broad valley that fades into the horizon between the Mentasa and Wrangell Mountain ranges. We’ve had a short driving day and we’ve seen no cool animals—until 10:44 PM when I step out of the Admiral to make sure everything’s locked, look up and see a moose crossing the road in the distance.
No moose in the morning,
No moose in the evening,
No moose at suppertime,
But a moose near midnight, makes the whole day fine.
(sing to tune of “Sugar Time”)
PS: Even though we’re getting some nighttime darkness as we move south, notice how light it still is in this picture at almost 11PM.
