Alaskan Adventure Day Three - Hitting the Road

Day Three:

I think I may have literally bolted out of bed the next morning. I have not felt that way since I was a kid. Warm clothes: backpacks, showers, Land Rover stuffed to capacity, cooler packed, left over pizza packed, laptop, camera, sunglasses check! There were a few work related errands that had to be accomplished before we could head out. We had to make a trip to the “warehouse” (Leslies other office) so that she could play bookkeeper for a bit. It turned out to be an amazing little side stop because we were able to see the incredible sight of an eagle flying circles overhead and landing on a nearby telephone pole. I took his picture (I am not sure if I should be crediting Leslie for this picture because I grabbed her camera and took pics of him and then she did the same. So I will, just in case!) and he just kept looking down at me and making weird noises. It was very cool. I have never been that close to an eagle without a fence separating us. He was dirty and scraggily and had frost all over him. Why he was there in town hanging out at the warehouse is anyone’s guess. Who knows but I am telling you that instead of looking majestic he looked like he had just crawled out from under a bridge somewhere with a bad hangover. We must have watched him for a good fifteen minutes. A quick stop at Wal-Mart to buy cookies for the store, myself some thermal underwear and five gallons of water, a final trip back to the store and we were finally on our way. WE WERE ON OUR WAY!!! Weeeeeee!!!!

It was a beautiful drive, Sunny cold and lovely. Leslie’s Land Rover has this amazing luxery option: “toasty bun warmer” it was something I had never truly appreciated until now. I would never think it silly again. We were speeding down the highway making great time and I just continue to snap away through the car window and hope for the best. Here is the deal: as much as I wanted to stop every hundred feet and take another picture the sad truth was my camera was getting really cranky in the cold. It was so bitterly cold with the wind that I would start to shiver and shake the camera within seconds. So my pics may not be the best. They may be a little blurry. They all have this amazing blue overcast and I have tried to leave them that way because it is EXACTLY what it looked like out there AND BESIDES at some point Leslie would have gotten annoyed and we would never have gotten to our destination. So I can look back on my pics with wonderful memories but the quality is defiantly lacking in most of them.

Oh I will never forget this! At one point we dropped into this little valley (maybe two or three mils long) that was shaded from all sunlight and was shrouded in the only cloud I had seen since my arrival and the coolest thing happened. The small amount of fog (from my nonstop talking) that was slightly fogging up my side of the vehicle suddenly started crystallizing and the air was SO cold on my arm (about three inches away) that I had to wrap it in a coat because it was almost painful. Ever see that movie “The Day After Tomorrow?” yea, it was like that. Small crackling noises and you could see the ice crystals form and spread. It was just plain eerie. I have a pic from right before it happened. You can see the break were we would come out of the valley and cloud at about the same time. My efforts to get the crystalized window were in vain. It went away as soon as we got out of the valley but I would sure be curious to know how far the temperature had dropped in that little space of time…

We stopped in Wasilla and had some sushi and soup for lunch. Leslie bought us some spiced rum and four bundles of firewood and some kindling. Somewhere in my head was my grandfather shaking his head making tsk tsk noises for buying bundles of wood at a grocery store. We would later come to ponder why we did not buy ten bundles but I will get to that in a bit. The drive was indescribable. Those vast mountains that moved me to tears that I saw on the plain ride over… I was actually in them. Driving though them. I remember specifically looking down out of my airplane window and wishing above all else that I could actually be IN that vast breathtaking beauty. I was suddenly looking up at the snow blowing off of the tips of them. It was an amazingly clear day. We followed the valleys as they wove themselves in and out of the ice-capped peaks. Rivers frozen over with giant cracks laced throughout. Spots of snow looked glacier blue. I was on a vigilant lookout for “THE” moose. That was the one thing that Shad told me to bring back. A picture of a moose (that I had taken) in the wild.

The trees that had been encrusted completely with ice crystals began to thaw as the sun started to break through the trees. The small winding and often windy road that appeared to loosely follow the river suddenly had a three hundred foot death drop with no guard rail. Now for the record, I trust my sisters driving. For the most part anyway. I am a control freak, so no one ever really drives good enough for me. I was of the mind that IF we were to get into an accident we had a great SUV for it. BUT, I am telling you, that side of that road (for a couple hundred feet) was enough to make you pee your pants. Leslie was on the other side of the road driving fine looking at me like I was being paranoid. I didn’t invite her to lean on over and take a look from my perspective. I didn’t want her to take her hands off the wheel and I was too busy hyperventilating. It was windy, the roads were covered in compact snow and ice and the river looked like a little ribbon at the bottom of the steep drop off and it was looming very close to my side of the window. One little snowdrift and then nothing. Endless and Endless space… Finally the trees came back and I wish I had not been a scardy cat and had taken a picture that did the situation justice. It was so cool. Nerve-racking on occasion but Leslie’s driving was adequate and no one died. It was just soooo cool. I found myself leaning forward (once the tree line came back) to see what was around each bend and looking up and out of the windows like crazy. It must have seemed very amusing to my sister. I think I took a hundred pictures through the vehicle glass before we even got halfway there.

Long Rifle Lodge was not as rugged and impressive as the name may have inspired visions of. It reminded me of a little faded yellow hotel with a restraunt and bar beside it that could have been in any little dusty back road town in America but I loved it. They had every manner of stuffed critter in there and of course Leslie and I took pictures of them all. You could look out the back windows of the lodge, or sit at your table even, and look out across the valley into the massive glacier. I will insert some links here later. We picked up our key and drove a mile back down the mountain, passed the locked gate, up a steep little snow covered hill, around a corner and into our own private winter paradise. Believe me, this is not for the faint of heart. There were no other cabins near us. Just us in the woods! We had electricity for a light and a small microwave but the outhouse was a good fifteen to twenty steps away from the cabin and in -30 degree weather with a bitter wind and no heat in the potty it was a cold trek with cold bottoms. AND I LOVED IT. The little cabin was picturesque. We didn’t exactly get to utilize the back or front deck but it had a nice bed and a few cabinets and a little freestanding fireplace and it was home for the next twenty-four hours. Leslie and I decided that taking our left over pizza with us was probably more appropriate than trying to roast weenies considering the weather. I was even able to plug in my laptop and continue to download pictures. Man that makes me sound yuppyish but it worked out so well. We got the fire going immediately and you have NEVER seen two girls strip off clothes to get thermals on and every piece of clothing in their backpacks so fast. It was actually comical. I felt like a three year old dressed by their nana to play in the snow. Arms held out from your sides by all the layers of warmth. We had a good giggle over that and the fact that wearing three pairs of pants at the same time did nothing for your booty in pictures. Those are pics you will not be seeing. Leslie threw all the gear into the cabin and immediately went into nesting mode. I helped make the bed but then I sat back and let her go. We are a lot a like in some ways and polar opposites in others. She was playing the role that I normally did in this instance. I was glad to let her have it. I just kept braving the cold for a few minutes at a time to take more pictures. You will notice that there are no little macro pics of nature this time, as is my norm. It simply was not possible. In the time it would have taken to get those pictures right in the wind I would have had frostbite even though I had on three pairs of pants, five shirts, gloves, scarves, hats and three pairs of socks. Even with all those clothes on it was still cold. AND I LOVED IT!!! It took a number of hours to warm the cabin in those kinds of conditions but we played rummy, had tea, looked at pictures and chatted and remained our goofy sisterly selves. Rum seemed to warm the body and spirit better than anything…. Many pictures of blowing visible breath and Michelin man inspired clothing moments demanded recording. We looked outrageously silly; we acted like we were twelve. Actually Leslie is so use to this weather and has done this so many times that her little REI look was pretty cute and stylish. I on the other hand took whatever clothing option I had and started piling it on. I didn’t even know that there was room in my jeans for three other pairs of pants but I did it. I was warm, it was funny, and we were having a really good time. You have never seen Medusa hair until you pull off a wool hat that you have had on your head for ten hours strait. YIKES!!! And of course Leslie miraculously whipped out a disposable camera for that exact moment.

At some point in the night we realized just how cold it was and just how inefficient our little stove was. Contrary to what you are suppose to do we ended up opening the door of the fireplace to let more heat into the cabin and slow down the wood consumption. Leslie and I started counting and deducting just how many logs we had and how many hours were left until we were leaving…. This is the point where ten bundles instead of four would have been the smarter option. At some point Leslie looked a little worried. At some point I was grateful that a previous tenant had stuffed all the little cracks in the log cabin with newsprint. We had cleaned out the garage of all manor of cardboard boxes and phone books and such and those would burn for a couple of hours. We were not going to die huddled together in the artic rated sleeping bags but we would be uncomfortable if we were not careful. It was fine. We slept very little. We had to feed the fireplace about every half an hour. Catnaps were the order of the evening. We got tired. We got rummy tired. We got giggly tired. We got silly tired. Many pictures that should never be seen were taken of funny hair and funny faces and snuggling down into the sleeping bags like little caterpillars in a crystalis poking little eyes and noses out. Most of those pictures, I pray, will never been seen by anyone but us. Well OK, I will share one...

The wind had started to blow, really blow and the sound was haunting and cool. I heard a wolf howl and it was one of the neatest and eeriest things I have ever heard. At three in the morning the aurora borealis spread a faint green bubble over the back of the mountains. No big fingers of radiating lights and wild colors but more of an impending alien abduction. I have one picture. I braved the body pounding wind and frigid temperature to take it then bolted back inside and then hunkered back down next to my faintly snoring sis trying to warm back up. Leslie was all snuggled down and finally sleeping. I listened to the little cabin creak and groan while firelight flickered on all the walls and the smell of pizza heating on tin foil on top of the fireplace tempted me out of my warm cocoon. We actually made nice little breakfast sandwiches out of a jalapeno roll, turkey and dill havarti wrapped in tin foil. I think I put them on the top of the fireplace about ten at night and at six the next morning they were crispy and heated and oozing gooey yummy havarti. They sat on top of the fireplace for almost eight hours and did not burn…. Yes, it was THAT cold.


End Of Day Three