Margaret found a park

So we're driving around town looking for a place to go for a run when Margaret and I stumble across a park with some nice trails. Getting a closer look, the park's name was Margaret! Naturally, we had to stop and check it out. Turns out that the trail links up with the Coastal trail I found on my first weekend in Anchorage. It has been nothing but nice weather since I've been here - I could get use to this.

Finally a day off!

The forecast called for rain but it was nothing but sunshine heading to Whittier for my first sea kayaking trip. Accompanied by Doug, Jessica (the boss' daughter) and Brock (my roomie), we left town at 6am, started paddling by 8am and rolled back into port around 4pm. Talk about an AWESOME day on the water. With the exception of some wakes from boats passing by, the water was pretty smooth and easy sailing. We kayaked among sea otters and even spotted a whale! Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of the whale because he was right under Doug, nor the sea otter because I dropped my camera in the water (which is now ruined - oh well, a good excuse to buy a new camera). These pictures are actually from Brock's camera.

Just me and the mountains. Not bad...not bad.

Man, it's a shame we don't get any good scenery up here...lol.

Jess and I felt like ballerinas in our tutu kayaking skirts

There were so many seagulls here it was ridiculous - we were dodging flying poo left and right.

Waterfalls!

Watch out bears, here I come!

One of the requirements of working for 3PPI is going through a gun safety class - qualifying to carry a gun in the field is optional. Why carry a weapon out in the field? Bears! While not all bears are aggressive, there is a chance that one of them could become aggressive and it's up to us to decide how we want to handle the situation. We are required to carry bear spray but carrying a weapon is optional. I figured I might as well qualify but I've pretty much decided that using the gun is going to be my last resort. If a bear is charging at me, I will probably reach for the pepper spray first, but if my partner is being attacked, I would reach for the gun because I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I could have done something to prevent it and I didn't. I really don't care if I die from a bear attacking me, I mean, I'd rather not die, but if it's my time to go and the bear is really that hungry, well then dig in.

This was our angry bear target - we positioned the bear at 5 yards, 7 yards, and 10 yards. If a bear were to charge at us, we're supposed to wait until the 5-7 yard range before we shoot. A bear can run up to 35mph; 5-7 yards doesn't buy a whole lot of time if you need to aim to kill and fire accurately.

Ready, aim, FIRE!

5 yards - 44 Smith & Wesson Special revolver

7 yards - 44 Smith & Wesson Magnum revolver - this baby has some kick!!

10 yards - Smith & Wesson 44 Magnum revolver

Oh yeah, I'm here to work!

Work, it's such a funny thing. Most people when they think of work, think of rows of cubicles and little people sitting in cubes typing away at a computer doing who knows what. You clock in in the morning, clock out at night and call it a day. Let me describe my day of "work" today. I got up at 6am, went for a run, went to the office, sat in front of a computer and made up some invasive plant ID sheets, hopped into a van, drove for an hour through the mountains, put on a dry suit, and rafted down a river. Ahhh...another rough day in the office. That's right, today I was paid (very well) to go rafting.

This is obviously not a normal day occurrence but this is one of the many cool things about the company I'm working for this summer/fall in Alaska. They treat their employees very well. For the two weeks I'm in (paid) training, they've put myself and another coworker in a kick ass hotel room and are paying for all of our meals. Oh and they paid for the equivalent of a one-way plane ticket plus eight hours of my time to get up here. We do work long days (this week I put in nearly 55 hours) but I'm being paid overtime and the people I work with are AWESOME. I've worked with some pretty cool people in the past but I don't think I've ever worked for a company where everyone is as open and friendly as the group I'm working with now. They are already becoming like family and it's only a week into my employment with the company.

My roommate (and coworker) cracks me up. She's the youngest person in the company (23 years old) and comes across as being raised as a wholesome good natured child who would never wrong her parents. She is always on her best behavior, doesn't drink, doesn't tell crude/nasty jokes like the rest of the group, and has the most enthusiasm I have ever seen (I also think she reads the Bible at night, but haven't been able to confirm it yet). We were in soil training for the first three days and it was pretty frickin' cool to dig a pit and look at soil all day, but my level of enthusiasm was no where near hers. "Oh my GOSH!" She'd say. "This soil is SO COOL! Look at all the colors!" I can only imagine when the day comes when we've worked for 10 days straight in the rain and are being eaten alive by the state bird (noted by the locals as the mosquito), that she'd be the only one to exclaim, "Oh my GOSH! These mosquitoes are SO cool! Look at how much blood they can suck out of my arm! LOOK! It's like the rain is trying to drown them but they keep coming back. I LOVE MOSQUITOES! Oh I wish it would rain again tomorrow!!" I can't help but laugh just thinking about it.

So needless to say, work has been awesome. This week we have helicopter safety training (did I mention that I'm going to get paid to fly around in helicopters every day?), bear training (did I mention that they hired a bear guard to sit and protect us while we work in the field?), gun safety (yep, get to carry a firearm too!), CPR training (get to update my first aid/CPR card for free!) and a good old fashioned BBQ. I could get use to this.

Training in a wetland

This is what a typical soil pit will look like. We dig a hole 24" deep and describe the layers of soil to help us determine if it's a wetland or not.

A view from the highway on our way to go rafting. Another rough day at the office.

It's good to have you back Margaret!!!

I am convinced that Margaret is the only air cooled VW in the state of Alaska. She definitely gets a lot of looks and I'm not quite sure what to make of them - I can't tell if people are thinking "Man, what a cool bus!" or "How the hell did that thing make it all the way up here from Oregon and what's it still doing on the road?" They are both legitimate reactions - she is dead sexy and it's a miracle she made it up here in one piece. But she does leak more oil than usual now so it was time to take her in.

It probably won't come as a surprise that I was a little shocked to see that there is an aircooled VW mechanic in town and a good one at that. I dropped the van off on Monday and had them look at a variety of things - an oil leak, squeaky brakes, issues shifting into 2nd gear, etc. The next day I give them a call to check in on her and the guy says, "Yep, we already fixed your problems, she's good to go." I was afraid to see the bill - the last time I brought her in to fix an oil leak they ended up having to drop the engine. Thank goodness they didn't need to drop it to fix it this time and the bill was well within reason, even for a mechanic that often charges as much as a Doctor. Woo-hoo! Margaret is road worthy again!!!!!

Bike lane? Yeah right!

So, as you all know, there are these things called bike lanes and sidewalks. People generally walk on sidewalks and bike in bike lanes, right? Well, not in Alaska. So I decide to go for a little ride (1mi) to get some dinner and started out on the right side of the road as I would back home. I get no more than 100 yards down the street and someone yells, "Get on the sidewalk!" I looked directly at them with a confused look as they drove by. "Sidewalk? Bike on the sidewalk? The road is plenty wide for me to bike on." So I proceeded well to the right of the road in what I would term "the bike lane". No more than 30 seconds later someone else yells, "Get the *uck out of the road! USE THE SIDEWALK!" Displaying his manhood, he pressed on the accelerator in his ridiculously high truck as hard as he could, letting out a plume of smoke right in front of me. Dude, seriously? It's times like these when I wish I was an undercover cop. How cool would it be if he ended up having to stop at a red light and I strolled up to him, flashed my badge and said, "We don't tolerate pricks in the State of Alaska. License and registration please."

Last day of freedom - time to play!

Well, since I start work tomorrow and who knows how much free time I'll have, I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and go for a three hour bike ride in Kincaid Park which parallels the Cook Inlet. I ended up following the trail all the way into downtown and then taking the same trail back with it being mostly downhill on the way in and of course uphill all the way back. Needless to say I was starving when I got back and have been eating everything in sight which doesn't amount to much since I haven't bought a whole lot of food. I did manage to cruise by a little outside market while in downtown which reminded me a lot of the Saturday market in Portland.

After getting back from the bike ride and eating lunch, I looked at the clock and it was 3pm. What to do, what to do?!?! There's so much daylight! I debated reading a book, watching the tube, or going for a walk but then I got to thinking - Doug mentioned something about being able to drive to the base of a glacier not too far from here. So I hopped in Margaret, turned the key and prepared to take off but she wouldn't start. Turning the key again, the engine was turning over but nothing was happening. No spark? I fiddled with the spark plug wires and gave it a go again, this time giving her some gas to get her old bones moving again. She started but with resistance. I know what she was saying, "PLEASE, not again, let me rest!!" The poor thing is tired! Can't say that I blame her - tomorrow I'm taking her in for a tune up and hopefully to get that oil leak fixed. We made it to and from the Portage Glacier with no problems - she started right up every time I stopped to take a picture (and there were a lot of pictures). I did get some fuel additive so hopefully that will give her the juice she needs to get up in the morning to go to the doctor.

The Portage Glacier is pretty cool - it use to be a lot bigger but like most glaciers has been receeding over the years. As you can tell from the background, it wasn't the best weather for viewing - just gives me a good excuse to go back when Graham is in town.

Day 6 - We made it!

2,700 miles, 1 tire, 1 quart of oil, and a million splattered bug guts on the windshield later and we arrived in Anchorage!

I awoke to a cloudy drizzly morning but by 10am the clouds cleared revealing the most impressive mountain ranges I have ever seen in my life. Driving through Glacier Park I was blown away at how close I was to an actual Glacier - sad thing is that with Global Warming, people 50 years from now may not get a chance to see it.

After arriving in Anchorage around noon, I was dying to get on my feet and do something. My friend, Doug, and I went for a run around a lake and later in the evening went to a bar where I drank my calories back with best Porter ever. Yum.

Day 5 - Goodbye Adam

After picking up and installing my new tire, I said farewell to Adam and made my way towards Anchorage. it was a little lonely at first taking the long drive solo but the scenery did a good job at keeping me company.

Probably the most breathtaking part of the trip was approaching and leaving Haines Junction and driving past Wrangell - St. Elias National Park/Preserve after entering Alaska. The dominant peak I could see was only 16,000ft tall but it looked massive - I can't wait to see Denali National Park where the mountains tower over 20,000ft!

After all these rumors of the Alaskan Highway being in horrible condition and seeing very few unmaintained sections, I began to wonder what these people were smoking until I got about 100 miles from the Alaska border. I have never seen so many dips and grooves in the pavement in my life. The side of the road is marked with orange flags to warn motor vehiclists of approaching dangers in the road, sort of a way of telling people to slow the heck down or risk bring thrown through the roof of your car or breaking an axle. They might as well have lined the whole darn highway with orange flagging because most of it was pretty bad. The road is two lanes but there is so few traffic that I did a good job of taking my lane right down the middle and did plenty of swerving back and forth. The good news is that Margaret and I made it through in one piece! The bad news is that this is my last night of the trip - tomorrow I will be in Anchorage.

It's technically 10pm Alaska time (11pm Pacific Standard Time) but it's so bright outside that it might as well be 6pm. And the sun starts rising by 4am - I need to get a blindfold for my eyes if I'm going to get any sleep this summer.

I was a little diappointed that I didn't see any wildlife today, other than a handful of white swans. But as I started looking for a place to camp around 7pm, low and behold there were two moose wandering on the side of the road. Like the moose we saw a couple days ago, my squeaky breaks scared them back into the woods.

Tonight I'm camping at a rest area nest to a creek with a view of what I think is Mt. Blackburn at 16,000ft. What a sight! Margaret is still running like a champ - she's still using a little oil but it hasn't gotten as bad as I thought it might get. As much as I'd rather not drive towards the city, I'm looking forward to getting her the car she needs so that we can go on more roadtrips this summer.

Day 4 - There's a hole in the tire Dear Liza

Well, today we blew a tire. I'm looking out of my sideview mirror and all of a sudden I see chunks of rubber flying in the air. Certainly this can't be normal so I pulled over. Sure enough, the tire was completely shredded but have no fear, I had a spare, TWO jacks, and an air compressor. Using the scissor jack first, the ground was so soft that it started to slide out from underneath it. So I used jack #2 which is the original jack that came with the van. The jack worked great until I went to put the shredded tire on the front and the van slid downhill about a foot (did I mention that we were parked on an incline getting ready to climb a hill?), jamming the jack at a 45 degree angle beneath it. The problem with both jacks is that is that if you put them too far underneath the bus you won't be able to crank the arm. Oh yeah, and the air compressor stopped working so we were forced to use my emergency bike pump - it actually worked pretty well believe it or not. Bumming a jack off of someone else, we were able to make it to Whitehorse (about 100 miles away) where thankfully they have a population of more than 10 and a few tire shops to pick from.

We dropped off the tire in the evening, checked out the local fish hatchery (which supposedly has the longest fish ladder in the world), grabbed a beer at the bar, and drove up a dirt road to find a place to camp. We ended up finding an awesome view of the city with mountains as the backdrop - another great ending to a good day on the road.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, we saw several heards of bison, not to mention several more bears along the way! Margaret is still leaking a little oil but it doesn't look too bad.

Day 3 - Wolves, caribou, and bears - OH MY!

The scenary was pretty monotonous until about 2pm and then BAM! Mountain after mountain, not to mention a ton of wildlife, including several bears, a wolf, several caribou and deer. We also think we saw two moose but my squeaky brakes scared them off in a hurry.

Margaret definitely struggled on the hills today but I really couldn't blame her, there was a LOT of climbing and a horrible headwind. That thing is like a wall when it comes to battling the wind. When it got to be about 6pm we were approaching Muncho Lake, a beautiful body of water covered with ice and entirely surrounded by mountains covered in snow. The gate to the campground was closed for the season but some nimcumpoop didn't lock the gate so we made ourselves at home. Muncho lake is probably the best car camping I have ever had, not to mention it was entirely free! Definitely my kind of camping.

I've gotten in the habit of checking Margaret's oil since I figured it would probably consume some along this long trip. The first two days were great but this time it was a little low - not too bad, but enough to make me look under the engine. Sure enough, she sprung a leak somewhere. I just hope she can make it all the way to Anchorage - I have a friend who said there's a great air cooled VW guy in the area that has done wonders on his beetle. PLEASE Margaret - you can do it!!!!

Day 2 - Uh Oh Margaret

It's amazing how quickly the scenery changes on this trip. One minute we're camping in the desert, then cruising through the mountains, and the next minute we're surrounded by forests in the lowlands and there isn't a mountain in sight.

The highlight of the trip today - we saw three bears! That just leaves moose, bison, wolves, caribou and elk left to see!

About halfway through the trip we lost the radio - the whole CD player that I just had installed was shorting out. At the same time, our auxilary battery went completely dead - I had a feeling it had something to do with the solinoid I just put in before the trip so we stopped to have a VW mechanic take a look at it. Yeah, would you believe there was actually a VW dealer out here? And that one of them was old enough to know something about air cooled VW's? We definitely got lucky. Apparently the solinoid wasn't grounded properly - a new wire was added and it works beautifully! And we got the CD player back. Man, I can only imagine how long of a ride it would be without some tunes. Tonight we're camping about 10 miles North/East of Chetwyld in a place that Adam has named "Death Camp" due to the fact that there are animal hides everywhere - the fur looks just like bear, some sort of cat or wolf, and who knows what else. I went for a short run to explore the area but then got to thinking - if there are this many dead animals out here, I'm sure there are just as many lives ones just waiting to take a little nibble out of a runner.

Day 1 - The Adventure Begins!

This morning I left the house around 6:45am and made my way into Portland to pick up Adam, a super cool hippie guy who was on his way up to Juneau to work on a farm. I was a little skeptical at first sharing the ride with a complete stranger but we made a point to meet up twice before the trip to dismiss any feelings of "creepyness". My gut was telling me that Adam was a safe bet but I brought some pepper spray along just in case (sorry Adam...).

The day started off rainy and wet but I didn't really care - I'd driven through Washington several times and already knew the scenery. We logged about 500 miles today where we met sunshine passing over the Canadian border late in the afternoon. I'd known that British Columbia had a lot of mountains but what I didn't know is that there's also a lot of desert. We camped at a rest area along the highway (can you believe that it's LEGAL to pull over and camp ANYWHERE?) where we were greeted with a guy and his parrot. Our first wildlife of the trip! Not exactly what I was expecting to see but it was cool none the less... Margaret's first day on the road and she was a champ! No issues to report (so far).

Alaska here we come!

So as you all are probably well aware, Graham and I bought a 78 VW van this past summer and decided to rebuild the engine ourselves. Over the course of two months, we slaved on the engine, bugging every air cooled VW mechanic in town for their expertise on how to do it. Most of the time they were really helpful but the question was always asked, "Why don't you guys just bring it in and we'll save you the trouble and rebuild it for you?!?" Needless to say, I think they were getting a little frustrated with our questions. On several occasions, I tried to be an anonymous caller but as soon as I said I was working on a 78 VW they'd say, "Is this Greta??" They outsmarted us. To make a long story short, we successfully rebuilt the engine and it has been on the road for a couple months now. "It" has now been named Margaret by a stranger we met on our first trip in the van.

We've only ventured as far as Smith Rocks State Park in Central Oregon; Tacoma, WA; and the beach so naturally I felt it was time that she be subjected to the ultimate test - an epic road trip. I'm not talking about driving the Oregon Coast, or taking her to the mountain a couple times, I'm talking about something that would test not only her mechanical abilities but her camping and leisure abilities as well. About the time I was rolling around road trip ideas in my head, I was made an offer for a job up in Anchorage Alaska. I would spend the summer out in remote field stations deliniating wetlands working 2-3 weeks straight and having a week off at a time. Hmmm, what to do with my time off? I could rent a car, bum a ride off of someone in Anchorage, stay inside and watch TV all day, or...TAKE MARGARET! The Gods have spoken, it was time - she was going to Alaska!

The days leading up to the trip I ran about frantically trying to resolve all of Margaret's quirks, like how when you fill up the gas tank it only shows 3/4 full or doesn't register all together. I didn't feel like having a guessing game with the gas gauge so I pulled one from a junk yard and put it in. The gas gauge now works! Driving to Beaverton the next day, Graham points out, "Ahh...why doesn't your speedometer work anymore?" Dude, seriously? This is the game I have played with Margaret since we bought her - you fix one thing and another breaks. With the speedometer now fixed, she was ready to roll.

On a whim, I posted a message on Craigslist looking for a riding partner up to Alaska and came across a guy who was interested in going to Whitehorse, about 700 miles from my final destination. Perfect!