Week 18

Monday, July 29, 2002

Having accomplished everything that I wanted to accomplish in Seward, and looking forward to my Glacier cruise tomorrow, I left Seward this morning and headed back North on the Seward Highway to Portage and then East on Portage Glacier Road to the Williwaw Campground in the Chugach National Forrest. Without reservations, I was afraid that I would not be able to get a space there, but to my surprise, there were a few available spaces when I arrived shortly after noon. I paid my $12 fee for the night, ate lunch, and then went for a short drive to the Begich, Boggs Visitors Center. This beautiful visitor’s center is named after the two Congressmen who lost their lives here in a plane crash in 1972. It overlooks Portage Lake with icebergs floating from fallen glaciers. It also overlooks the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel. This is a most unusual tunnel and I have been looking forward to driving through it for a long time. The tunnel is the longest vehicular tunnel in North America at 2 ½ miles long and it is only one lane and to make it more interesting, it is shared by cars, trucks, buses and TRAINS. Every 15 minutes, they change from eastbound highway to Eastbound Trains to Westbound trains to westbound highway. There are railroad tracks down the middle of the single lane. This tunnel is the only way to get to the town of Whittier. The U. S. Army built this town during WWII and then abandoned it in the 1960’s. It is really a cool place and it is where I am going to catch the boat for the glacier cruise tomorrow.

Tuesday, July 30, 2002

I awoke this morning to bright sunshine. I couldn’t wait to hit the road. It was only a couple of miles to the tunnel. Actually there were two tunnels. The first was a two lane 450 foot tunnel through one small mountain, and then about a half mile further, I got to the toll plaza for the main event. I didn’t have to wait as I expected to, but entered the tunnel right away. There was no one in front of or behind me. The speed limit through the tunnel is 25 mph and I did not speed. The roadway is only slightly wider than the princess and with railroad tracks running down the middle of it, you wouldn’t want to go any faster. The tunnel is 2.5 miles long, but at 25 mph it takes 10 minutes to drive through. When I exited on the Whittier side, I visually surveyed the town, and then drove around a little. There are two very large buildings that once were the largest buildings in Alaska. One is now abandoned and the other is a condominium apartment building. Most of the rest of the town is run down buildings for the Alaska Railroad and the many boat docks. I parked the princess in a large parking lot, paid $5.00, and then walked through a long pedestrian tunnel under the railroad tracks to the dock where I was to catch the Nunatak, the boat to view the glaciers of Prince William Sound. That’s when I found out that there was free parking at the dock. Also, I looked at the next dock and there was a beautiful Catamaran called the Klondike Express, while my boat appeared to be a run down little thing. However, I was soon satisfied, as I went aboard the boat. It held 135 passengers and it had very comfortable seats in a comfortable cabin and they served a delicious halibut lunch. The cruise lasted for 6 hours and covered something like 80 miles of waterway. We saw lots of different birds, thousands of salmon, one bear, hundreds of sea otters and harbor seals. But the highlight of the trip was when we cruised deep into the ice flows of the glaciers, and snuggled right up to the foot of a huge glacier. Everyone on the boat waited and watched and hoped to see the calving of the glacier. That is when a large chunk of ice breaks off and falls into the water. I few small chunks fell off and crashed into the icy waters, but we were a little disappointed that a larger section had not fallen. After about an hour waiting there in the freezing cold wind, the captain finally had to turn back to maintain his schedule. We arrived back at Whittier at 5:00 and I got in line for the 6:00 westbound vehicular traffic to drive back through the tunnel. I then drove back into Anchorage, about 50 miles, had dinner at the Sourdough Mining Company, a touristy restaurant that I heard about on the boat, then back to the same campground that I stayed at last week when I was in Anchorage, Ship Creek RV Park.

Wednesday, July 31, 2002

This completes four months on the road, with only two more months of this odyssey left. I have traveled almost 12,000 miles so far, and still enjoying every minute of it. I wanted to get my oil changed today and get a haircut and a few other things in Anchorage, but it didn’t quite work out that way. I asked at the campground where would be a good place to go for the oil change, and they recommended one place. I went to it, talked to the attendant, and he didn’t seem too interested. He told me to park in a lot across the street, and said it would be about an hour wait. 30 minutes later he walked over and said that he didn’t think the princess would fit inside of his garage. I thought it would, but I didn’t like his attitude, so I left. I drove all around Anchorage looking for another place, got disgusted and said the hell with it. I figured I would take care of the oil some place else. So I hit the road toward Valdez. Valdez is about 300 miles from Anchorage, so I wasn’t planning on doing it in one day, but I didn’t have a plan for where to stop. I figured I would stop when I felt like it. About 40 miles out of Anchorage, I came to the small town of Palmer. There was a large place there called the Auto Mall, that had signs indicating that they specialized in RV work. I stopped; they took me right away, changed the oil, replaced a headlight and fixed my CD played that hasn’t worked for several weeks. They even had an automatic RV wash there. This is an oversized car wash. It did a great job washing the princess for $25.00. I was on my way and feelin’ good. I traveled the Glenn highway all day through some of the most spectacular scenery yet. The road passed through the Matanuska valley past the Matanuska glacier and lots of ups and downs the whole way. It was an enjoyable day. As I approached Glenallen, I stopped and looked at my guide books and found a place called the Tolsona Wilderness Campground, located three quarters of a mile north of the Glenn Highway. I took a chance on it, and wasn’t disappointed. It is a very nice park with every space backing up to a beautiful clear babbling brook that put me to sleep in no time.

Thursday, August 1, 2002

I woke up this morning to brilliant sunshine. I hated to leave the wilderness campground, but I do have a schedule to keep. Back to the Glenn Highway and into the small town of Glenallen, then I picked up the Richardson Highway for the drive to Valdez. I stopped in Glenallen for some milk, and then stopped at a beautiful overlook for breakfast, with the Chugach State park on one side and the Wrangell- St Elias National Park on the other side. The scenery just doesn’t get any better than this. While I was having breakfast, a couple came over to me and started telling me that they had an Airstream just like mine before they traded up to a newer and bigger diesel. He was from Oklahoma and she was from Winnipeg. We talked for a couple of hours and they gave me some good tips on Valdez. They had just come from Valdez. It was nearly noon by the time I left that overlook, but I still stopped at Thompson Pass and Worthington Glacier on my way to Valdez. When I got to Valdez, I followed the couple’s directions to the Sea Otter RV Park and got a space right on the water’s edge looking across the Prince William Sound to the area where the tankers are loaded from the Alaska Pipeline. I then went back into town to get some gas and propane. The kid who went to fill me with propane said that my valve was damaged and he could not fill it. I figured he just didn’t know what he was doing, so I went to another station and the kid there said the same thing. This had me worried. I rented a movie and went back to the RV park and watched Oceans Eleven.

Friday, August 2, 2002

I got up this morning and figured I better get this propane tank valve taken care of, so I went back to the first gas station. They said they could not handle it, but referred me to Northern Pacific Fuels. I went there and I was greeted with a knowledgeable and courteous staff who said there was nothing wrong with my valve and they filled my tank with no problem. That done, I took my video back to Safeway, and then went to the Valdez library to get on their very slow internet (with Windows 95). From there I went to the Valdez Museum and saw a pretty good exhibit all about old Valdez and about the 1964 earthquake. Then I took a drive over to the pipeline terminal. Since 9/11, security has been extremely tight around the terminal, and they no longer have the tours that I was planning to take. I heard some stories about some of the people here at the park being challenged at gunpoint as they tried to get near the place. I went just to the No trespassing sign, then turned around and backtracked to a fish hatchery that I was told about. It was very interesting to see the salmon swimming back up stream to spawn. You could see thousands of salmon, each about two feet long just climbing over each other to get up the fish ladders back to the fish hatchery. I took a few pictures, and then headed back to the RV Park. I will be leaving in the morning for a 250 mile drive back to Tok.

Saturday, August 03, 2002

I left Valdez around 9:30 this morning and drove up the Richardson Highway retracing my route back to Glenallen, about 100 miles, then into new territory on the Glenn Highway from Glenallen to Tok. I stopped at a rest area just east of the junction for lunch, and then followed the route around the Wrangell-St Elias National Park for more mountainous scenery, although not quite as spectacular as the route to Valdez. I think I would have to say that the road to Valdez was the best in Alaska. Now that I’m back in Tok, I’ve come full circle. I’ve traveled 1733 miles since I crossed the Yukon/Alaska border on July 16. Tomorrow morning I will leave here and head east for 93 miles to the Canadian Border, then on to Haines Jct, BC. On Monday I will cross the border again back into Alaska for a few days in Haines, AK. I hate to see the Alaska portion of this trip come to an end, but I will be back again some day. I really have enjoyed the past couple of weeks.

Sunday, August 04, 2002

I spent the day today driving back down the Alaska Highway from Tok, Alaska to Haines Junction, Yukon Territory, a distance of about 300 miles. Nearly 100 miles of that was road construction. I heard someone a couple of weeks ago refer to this stretch of highway as the “Road from Hell”. When I left the Alaska Highway at Whitehorse and took the Klondike Highway to Dawson City, and the “Top of the World Highway” to enter Alaska, on July 13, I was worried about the Top of The World highway. I had heard that this was very rough road. It was several miles of dirt road, but no where near as bad as the road today. It took 9 hours to drive the 300 miles. The only consolation was Canada’s Kluane National Park. Fantastic scenery! When I crossed the border, there was an unusual situation. The U.S customs station is located at the boundary, but the Canadian Customs is 20 miles into Canada. No explanation for this. And so I finish week 18 at Kluane RV Kampground at Haines Junction in the Yukon Territory. Tomorrow, I will drive the 145 miles back across the border again to Haines, Alaska. This will complete about 2300 miles of Alaska driving. On 8/8 I will take the ferry out of Alaska stopping at Juneau, but not much more driving until I arrive in Prince Rupert, Canada on 8/12.