Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Alaska to California in 82 days

(This is one of two posts I've put up today, please look below to find the one about my Alaskan Summer)

My contract ended a week before David’s did and so I went down to Anchorage to pack up my things and have my car pimped up for the some 4,500 mile journey from Alaska to California.

The trip started in Denali and from there we went to:
Fairbanks, AK
Whitehorse, Yukon Territory Canada
Liard Hot springs, British Columbia Canada
Vancouver, Canada
Bellingham, Washington
Olympic National Park, Washington
Astoria, Seaside, Tillamook, OR
Portland, OR
Eugene, OR
Florence, OR
Crescent City, CA
Redwood area, CA
San Francisco, CA
Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley, CA
Corning, Redding, and Chico, CA
San Diego, CA
Joshua Tree, CA
Los Angeles, CA

(sort of in that order)

As with my drive to Denali to start the summer, my drive back to pick up David was just as amazing and clear. I took my own touristy picture at the south view point again and moved on. There had been a snow storm that hit a few days earlier in the park and it was pretty to see all the trees covered in snow. Even though I had never spent a winter in the park, visiting the housing area and seeing it covered in snow was an oddly familiar feeling of the change in seasons.



I was a bit nervous about having to drive in this kind of weather, it was somewhere between rain and snow. Luckily David’s co-worker met up with us in Fairbanks and we caravanned through most of Canada. On the drive we saw lots of animals on the side of the road, crossing the road, following the road. Buffalo, elk, sheep, once even a black bear. We stopped in a place called Liard Hotsprings just on the border of BC and the Yukon. The night we got there it was dumping heavy snow on us and throughout the night we woke up to sagging tent fabric in our faces and we would have to punch it off from the inside. Our poor friend’s massive tent collapsed a bit and a lot of their things got wet. In the morning we ventured to the hotsprings and got refreshingly warm. We stayed there two days before hitting the road again. We were driving 10 to 12 hour days covering lots of ground to get through Canada and closer to warmth.

The boardwalk to the hot springs

an elk blocking our friend's car

On the way we camped at various places where I didn’t bother remembering the names, and finally we come to Vancouver! We explored the city for a few days, checking out a film festival, getting excited over a building where the A-Team movie was being filmed at the time, watching a filming of Super Natural in a park, and getting a first hand experience with the Canadian health care system. No waiting, it was awesome, and cheap.



In British Columbia, Canada

Almost to Vancouver

Bellingham, WA

Highlights of the trip were definitely the Olympic National Park, Redwoods National Park, Wine tasting in Napa Valley, camping on the beach, attending a global warming event in Portland, exploring San Francisco, and Joshua Tree National Park.

In Olympic National Park we were able to be dazzled by the rainforest, but it wasn’t as moving as the Redwoods. The whole area in northern California was mesmerizing with these gigantic trees that were up to 1000 years old! We did ourselves some tree huggin’ of course.

Ho Rainforest, Olympic National Park in Washington

Redwood National Forest

Told you we got into tree hugging























Beautiful forest

Biking 6 miles in Portland to 350.org event

350.org event

Somewhere in California

One of many amazing sunsets along the way, this one was in California

In San Francisco we did the touristy things like ride the trolley, check out the Painted Ladies (which most people know from the Full House opening), and Alcatraz. Though I started feeling too touristy in San Francisco, it wasn’t as fun as exploring in the woods, despite how much I love Victorian style houses. We headed back north to wine country to visit the vineyards. I learned all about the Coppola family at one vineyard, and about the self sustaining vineyard of Benzinger. The land was gorgeous and the free wine quite tasty, though our salesman at Benzinger was sort of rude to us with our background (road tripping, living out of car, can’t afford cases of wine like other customers he serves, and drilling for oil in Alaska doesn’t harm the wildlife at all sort of thing).

Painted Ladies

Nude Beach



"nooooooooooo"

Isolation

Wine country

Taste testing

Magical place in Redding, CA

Went to Sierra Nevada brewing company in Chico, CA and found an old style box of Point beer in there. Awesome!!!!

We headed north still back up just north of Arcata to visit a place called the Gold Coast and Fern Canyon. We went on a 5 star, 10 mile, 6 hour hike through Fern Canyon, which was basically a narrow passage carved out by water where the walls were straight up and down and covered in ferns. Park of the second Jurassic Park had been filmed there, and no wonder, we felt like we were in a different world in there. The second day we biked along the park’s “bike trail” which was muddy, narrow, full of weird obstacles I was surprised it was considered a bike trail. We were on search of a waterfall, which we completely missed on the way in, but on the trail we were surprised to come across an elk herd gazing right on our bike path. We stopped and ate and hoped they’d leave, but they didn’t. Some of the big boys had some pretty impressive racks, but they seemed so docile and indifferent to our presence that we decided to push through anyway. A few looked up at us from their grazing and before we were even pasted them they went back to eating. I enjoyed that experience very much for some reason.

Beautiful elk

Sunset on the Gold Coast beach, CA

The Gold Coast, being in a State and National Park, is where we learned that sadly funding for parks had been cut and costs to camp and enter had spiked enormously. It was $35/night to just tent. In other parks if you had a RV it was up to $50/night. If I were traveling alone, I would be better off in a hostel for those prices. This would affect our camping drastically. We decided we’ve played enough in the woods and headed to San Diego to visit David’s brother and be rent free for a bit. We still needed places to stay on the way and somewhere between LA and San Diego we went through a bunch of parks where the prices were so high we were discouraged. Camping is so hard now, just finding a spot to throw up a tent for free in the woods is nearly impossible. There is no more un-owned land! Even sleeping in your car is illegal (which we found out the hard way). We had been plotting all the way down ways to cheat the system like getting in late and leaving early before the rangers patrol (we failed once), or writing bad checks (which were cashed anyway). Times are rough for everyone, so we were just trying to get by.

Luckily that night, on an explorative turn, we found ourselves a horse campground that was empty. The signs were unclear who and how to pay so we figured that meant it’s free. Also luckily, that night was one of the peak nights of the Leonid Meteor Shower, and it was a clear night and the eastern sky was unblocked by trees. So we laid on the picnic tables wrapped in our sleeping bags and watched falling stars, wishing we knew a bit more about the constellations since so many were visible, along with the Milky Way.

The weeks following we spent our time between San Diego and Los Angeles, saving money until our departure for Florida where we are to spend Christmas and New Year’s. LA was never a city I cared to visit but my time spent there was really nice. David’s friends took us around and I saw those cemented names, feet, and hands of famous people, the Hollywood sign, and various studios. No famous people though.



Free tickets to a Safari thing in San Diego, cute kitties.

For a weekend after Thanksgiving a group of five of us headed to Joshua Tree National Park. It was the first time I was in a desert that felt like a desert… but that was while it wasn’t hailing/snowing/raining on us. The first night we attempted to camp in some serious windy area where we were afraid we’d fly away in the tent. The next day it hailed on us in the park and I felt like it was a bit weird to look at a cactus covered in snow. It did clear up and the night time in the park was beautiful, more stars and beautiful scenery.

Gettin' snowed on in Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree

I really do think I made it move



It was cold but so beautiful

So now I’m headed to Miami for my first Christmas away from Wisconsin. I’m excited for the new experience, but do miss my family and the family get togethers. Happy Holidays to everyone!

My Alaskan Summer 2009


It has been a long time since I last wrote and t may be nearing Christmas time, but I am going to flash back to this summer. I’m skipping the last chunk of my trip to South America because it’s been nine months and I have probably shared in person with you all the stories that came from it.

I was back in Alaska for the summer. I flew in mid April and after hearing the stories of how Mt. Redoubt erupted again was graced with a view of her smoking as my plane headed towards Anchorage. The first few days were wonderful with the light sticking with us till late in the evening illuminating the mountains. I wonder if folks who grow up there get as kiddy over the magical feeling the land brings as summer creeps forward.

Before heading north to the park I spent time with some couchsurfers hiking and exploring in Anchorage and Homer. There are some amazing lakes and rivers in Alaska, with varying blue colors. I then found a ride share to head to the park with and we were blessed with a clear day. The mountain was out and as we took our typical touristy photos with it I told myself it was a sign the summer will turn out great.
Somewhere in the Kenai Penisula

touristy photo with Denali

This summer I worked inside the park for a company that runs the tour buses. I sold the tickets and gave out information. Not as glamorous a job as last year, but it felt like a good move having a dining hall to provide food as opposed to driving two hours to Fairbanks to shop, and being inside the park instead of 11 miles north of it.

Me pointing at dinosaur fossils in Denali


In the four months I was there I explored the park more, hiked and went into the backcountry a bunch, found dinosaur fossils, enjoyed a mock wedding of my co-workers, went scootering, and went on a three day road trip to Cordova.









The route of the roadtrip to Cordova and back

Just after we got off work on our 10 hour day, five of us pilled our friend’s car and drove until we couldn’t drive no more. We drove along the Old Denali Highway which I had given the history of in last summer’s blog of Alaska. Given that at this time in the season it didn’t get dark, we still had light when we set up our tents. The next morning we got up early and found our way to the Old Richardson Highway and headed south. We were dazzled by so many glaciers, near and far. We finally made it to Valdez where we took a ferry to Cordova, which is on an island. The first night it rained and we found ourselves in a tiny hotel room, two beds for five people. I stayed up late listening to my friend trade off the guitar with a local as they shared various songs until the bar closed.

Hanging out in the Chugach State Park

The second day we made our way to Child’s Glacier. It was amazing. We were just across a river from this massive blue chunk of ice and we sat for hours listening to the gun shot sounds of the ice cracking as it moved hoping to be watching the right spot when a chunk would fall off into the water. Serena, the only other girl on the trip, and I decided to spend part of the day sea kayaking while the boys stayed behind and battled mosquitoes. I loved being out on the sea! We would chase sea otters that would peak up above the surface of the water curiously at us. We came pretty close to a beautiful eagle enjoying massive fish on a rock. We also spotted a massive orange jellyfish gracefully moving in the frigid water.

In front of Child's Glacier

When we returned to the glacier where we planned to camp, the campground host gave us wood and fresh salmon they caught that day. I spent the night listening to the glacier, just across the river, move and crack so loud the sounds would echo. Our last day we awoke and said bye to our beloved glacier and took a ferry to Whittier and drove back to Denali stopping in Girdwood and Anchorage to see friends and pick up groceries. We got back early enough to get a good rest before starting another ten hour day of work the next day.

This summer I also enjoyed some of the most amazing sunsets of my life time. There was one particular night I went for drive 15 miles into the park near the end of the season where it was just starting to get dark again, but not quite. On the ride into the park we were dazzled by blazing orange, pink, blue, red clouds and the distant McKinley purple in Alpenglow. We walked around a creek out there and watched the sky turn colors. It would be dark blue at one part of the sky while the other was still light blue and lit up by the sun. Over time the park that was dark became light again and the light part dark. We saw the first star that night, a very bright one I still see now and was renamed after me and my friend in the discovery. Finally, at 4am we went to bed.



Other nights the whole sky would be raging purple pink, everywhere, and last for quite a while. I started spending time at a nearby train trestle to watch the sky. Later yet in the season I went out to that trestle to watch the Northern Lights dance across the sky for a long time. Three different areas of the sky had their own show going on.

During the summer I also became very close with a friend I had met the previous year. We decided that it would be best to drive out of Alaska together to California and so the next blog will cover that adventure.

Friends looking at the Muldrow glacier in Denali



Car for sale, Needs some work


View of the backyard from inside our tent

In the backcountry


A day of scootering


















red tundra in the fall


Old Denali Hwy in the fall


me and a friend demonstrating rutting with caribou antlers


Denali "The Great One"