Day 9: August 29, 2000
Drive from Glenn Highway to Denali Highway

I woke a little early to find that there was very little water coming out of the faucet, both in the sink and the shower. Walendo got up to check it out and we concluded it was some problem with their water tanks. There were no phones in the rooms, so we decided to get dressed and go to the lodge to have breakfast and ask them about the water. When we got there, the proprieter said he knew about it, he just needed a few minutes to change the water filter, but he was also the one serving breakfast so we could wait a bit for the filter or have breakfast first. We decided to wait, since more people would likely be coming in soon and then he'd never get to the filter. We sat and I had a cup of tea while we waited. After a little while, the guy came by to take our order. A few more groups had filled the tables by then. We split a stack of pancakes and Walendo got some sausages. I asked him if they made eggs any other way than scrambled, since that's all they had on the menu, and he said no. Walendo had figured they must use the pre-scrambled eggs, so I asked, and he said, no, they break them fresh. It seemed odd, so why wouldn't they make them any other way? In any case, the pancakes were yummy. When we got back to the room, the showers were indeed working, so we both took one.

View from Sheep Mountain Lodge

We had to make a few calls for work, so we used the cell phone (no phones in the cabins), and we ended up standing by the picture window to get enough coverage. The funny thing was that every time I tried to call, I got a quick redial, which means the phone couldn't find coverage. Then Walendo would try it and it would work. This happened three or four times. I think technology just likes him better. (Either that or there's more coverage one foot higher up.) Anyway, I couldn't get through to one person, so we figured we'd try later when coverage was better.

Plants along Sheep Mtn trail

Anyway, we decided to do a little hike along a trail around the lodge, since it was such a beautiful area and we had plenty of time to get to our next stop. We had seen a trail map in the room, but it didn't have a scale on it, so it was hard to tell how far things were. I asked a woman in the lobby about it, and she said after breakfast we could look at the map with her and she'd tell us about the distances. It seemed odd, that they wouldn't just put the scale on the map. Then later, when I went in to pay, I asked about the trails, this time to the guy. He said there are lots of trails and suggested we go in one particular direction for better pictures. It had looked like there were some circular routes, rather than out and back, so I asked if the route would be about an hour or two, which is how long we wanted to be out. He said, "Well, if you want a two hour hike, go out an hour and then come back." Well, yes, but again it seemed odd. We were left to figure out our own way.

Leaves on Sheep Mountain trail

Nonetheless, after I had taken some shots from right around the lodge we went off in the direction he'd mentioned. It was just barely drizzling when we left but it stopped pretty soon. Still, the tops of the mountains were in clouds, which looked neat in places where strips of clouds appeared lower than the rest, but it didn't make for the best panoramas. Instead, I took a lot of close-up shots of the bushes, which were in bright fall colors. Walendo for some unfathomable reason didn't bring his camera, but he was pointing out shots for me to take. Instead, he was preoccupied looking for good rocks for the travel fountain. That was good, because it took the pressure off to hurry along. I took about a gazillion rolls of film of every bush, leaf, and berry around and meanwhile, Walendo kept finding rocks in different geometric shapes.

Sheep Mountain trail

He found a pentagonal rock, then a pyramid, and then perfect rhombus. We decided this was actually called Shape Mountain but over the years it became Sheep Mountain. Walendo was also preoccupied with fending off the bears, which apparently live in this area. So he'd be talking loudly to the bears or to me, making sure they heard us. And of course he was preoccupied with his emap, tracking where we were. As it turned out, we found another trail heading perpendicular to the one we were on, so I figured it might be the circle route we'd seen on the map. We took it and eventually it met up with another trail, which the emap showed us was pointing directly back to the cabin. So we were saved from being hopelessly lost by the emap once again. (Of course, we would have taken it because it was going in the right direction anyway.) In all, we walked about 1.5 miles and it took us about 2 hours. But boy did we get pictures and rocks. And we weren't eaten by bears.

Berries and groundcover

We finally drove off at about 1pm. Shortly after we left, Walendo saw a sign saying "Abandoned Road" which got him all excited. He has a thing for "old roads." We stopped to see where it went, but we couldn't really get over the ditch to it in our rental car. Instead, as we drove along, he watched for where it was going. It lasted about 4 miles, going parallel to the road. It made Walendo sad that we couldn't drive on it. We continued on along Glenn Highway enjoying the views and listening to Harry Potter. The road ends at Glennallen, and then we headed north on the Richardson Highway. It had been cloudy all day and along here it started to rain. It was too bad, because the trees and the shrubbery were starting to become vivid fall colors and there were interesting green evergreen trees against the reddish ground. I call them "Whoville trees" because they look like the pictures in The Grinch That Stole Christmas of the Whos in Whoville. I tried to get one shot of it, but I'm not sure how well it will come out. Somehwere along here we drove right under a cell tower, so I tried making my business call again. It turned out I couldn't get through to the guy I wanted to talk to via his work number, so I tried his home number. I spoke with his wife (whom I've met several times), who was astonished to be getting a call from me on a cell phone in Alaska, especially since the coverage was really clear. She said a couple of times how it sounded like I was next door. It was funny. Anyway, I asked her to give him the message. That done, I forgot about work again.

'Whoville Trees' along Richardson Highway

Eventually, as we were getting driving along, we came to a town that had a reasonably large grocery store, so we stocked up on some drinks and Walendo got lunch. I got a hot chocolate made from their espresso machine, which it turned out cost $3.50. Things are expensive around here. Walendo pointed out later that it seems odd that you see signs for Espresso in these backwoods areas of Alaska. You'd expect to see "hearty cuppa" or "manly coffe" or something, not "espresso." I'm just glad they have them, though, cuz it means they have hot chocolate too. Anyway, about 15 miles later, we came to Paxson, which is where the east end of the Denali Highway Ts into Richardson Highway. It seemed to consist of a gas station and a couple of shacks. We turned west, and drove the 20 miles that is still paved. The rest of it is gravel. It was raining heavily now and the whole area was in clouds, which was really a shame since we could see the landscape around us was a stunning display of fall colors with small lakes and big mountains in the background. It was so frustrating to not be able to see it well or take ictures. I kept hoping all evening that the weather would clear up for the next day's drive.

Right after the road turned to gravel, we saw the Tangle Lakes Lodge, where we'd made a reservation for $85. Walendo noticed the ATV in the parking area, which he's been lusting after ever since we got here. We checked in and the gravel-voiced owner asked us if we wanted our towels now. We were a little confused but said, sure and he handed us two sets. Then he walked over to the windows and pointed to a small cabin that he said was ours. Then he went into an explanation of how to turn on the propane for the heating and how to light the lamp with a match. Hmm. Last he pointed around the corner and said the bathrooms were over there, across the lot from the cabins. I see. We thanked him and went out to check out our cabin. The cabin was maybe a 15 x 20 foot room with a double bed and two bunk beds, a table and two chairs. You could say it was rustic. We immediately went to turn on the heater, reading through the instructions. Walendo had some trouble finding where the look for the pilot light, and when we couldn't hear anything, he went outside to see if the propane was on, which it wasn't. He turned it on and came back in, and I found the pilot light, which was down at the very bottom. I had to get on my knees and squat down to look up to see if it was on. He'd light it, hold the button down, and then eventually release it hoping it would stay on, but it kept going out. We tried this a bunch of times and it didn't work. Finally, he went back outside and turned the propane on higher and that seemed to work. Once the pilot stayed on, he turned on the heater and we saw flames along the whole bottom. What a relief. He had no trouble turning on the lamp, although it was pretty dim even at its strongest. We looked at each other and decided this would be an adventure. We snuggled on the bed for a while, reading by the dim lamp and the light from outside. Walendo kept insisting that it was getting warmer, but it hadn't reached my detection threshold. Finally at around 6pm we went back to the lodge for dinner.

We were the only ones there at first and the other owner took some time coming out but eventually he took our orders. We both got cheeseburgers. While we waited, we looked at the Milepost book that I'd noticed on the counter. The woman at the Harborview Inn in Seward had pointed it out to us and then we had seen it in a gift shop. It's a big catalog-like book that tells you what is at every inch of highway all through Alaska and I think the Yukon. You look up a road and it tells you about every turnout, the trialheads, areas to fish, lodges and so on. They let restaurants and lodges put in their own text to describe them (labeled advertisement), and the Tangle Lakes Lodge said that "people say" they have the best cooking in the area. The burgers were perfectly fine but nothing special, so I suppose the people who say it are the two owners. :-) We looked along the Denali Highway and read about different areas where there are supposedly lots of moose, caribou, bears, and various birds. Then Walendo noticed an ad for something in the Arctic Circle with a map showing where it was. It looked like it was just north of Fairbanks, so Walendo got it in his head that we should drive up to the Arctic Circle to get a rock for the travel fountain. He spent the next 10 minutes tracking down the information that would tell us exactly how far north of Fairbanks it is. (We learned that the Arctic Circle is defined as the lowest latitude where the sun never sets at the summer solstice and never rises at the winter solstice.) Fairbanks is probably about 200 miles north of where we were and then he learned that the arctic circle is another 200 miles north of that, so we'd have to drive something like 700 miles to get up there and back to our next stop. Walendo was very sad. Maybe next trip.

Anyway, after we'd eaten, Walendo put the book back and on his way back to the table he said hello to the couple at the next table. They were also planning to drive the Denali HIghway the next day, and they were staying at a little hotel in Paxson but had come here for dinner. We chatted about where we'd been and they said they'd also gone to Homer then Seward but then they took the ferry from Whittier to Valdez, drove into the St. Elias area, which they said was gorgeous. They'd be going into Denali for a few nights after this. They mentioned that they were from the Northern California, so we asked where and it turns out they were from Menlo Park (a few towns away from us). But then they said they were originally from New York, which really got us laughing. Debbie had grown up in Manhattan, Gil in Westchester. We ended up having a fairly long conversation, talking about differences between California and New York and finding out about what they did. It's been a while for us, so I'd forgotten about differences, but then Debbie said how people in California are friendly and polite, but they won't say what they mean, so she finds it harder to have real connections with people. I remember having that reaction too when I came out here. It's interesting that most of our friends aren't originally from California, though some are. Anyway, Gil told us he works at a startup called Velocity which provides map data for GPSes and PCS phones and such. Debbie's a recruiter and she also does "motion therapy" to help people with RSI and other aches. They were interested in what we do, too. We really seemed to hit it off. Debbie reached into her bag and gave us her card, which was nice. After a little while, Walendo was concerned that they weren't eating so he wanted to leave them so they could enjoy their meal. I got the feeling they'd enjoy talking more and I would have, but it was fine to leave too. When we got back to the room, I got my card and wrote Walendo's info on the back and brought it back to them. They thanked me and I left. Who knows what'll become of that. But it was nice to meet some friendly people and have an interesting conversation.

When we got back to the room, it was nice and toasty, which was a big relief. First we read for a bit more, and it was kind of cosy hearing the rain on the roof and feeling all warm and snug. After it got too dark, we settled in to listen to Harry Potter on our dual-headphoned tape deck. What a good idea that turned out to be. Not much else we could have done for the evening. I held off as long as I could before going to the bathroom and washing up, since I knew it would be a big drag if I had to pee in the middle of the night. It was still raining and it was quite cold, so going out meant bundling up in layers and put on my rain poncho and then trudging across the gravel lot, avoiding puddles. After listening to Harry's adventures until 10:30 or so, we went to sleep. Of course, since I knew it was going to be a drag to pee, I woke up around 5am having to pee. I had been dreaming about it for quite a while, so I must have had to pee earlier. So in the middle of the night, I threw a bunch of layers on me and trudged out the bathroom. It wasn't raining anymore, so that was a bonus. It was also a hopeful sign for the next day's weather.

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