The Celebratory and Symbolic Donuts

To celebrate my accomplishment of cycling 800 miles (617 miles the first week and a disappointing 177 the second), I decided to share the glory with four donuts:

But the donut is not just a self-congratulatory treat. It has a more symbolic meaning. The donut (with a bite taken out) just so happens to be the exact shape of my route through Alaska. Coincidence? Hmmm...

And last night after I got back, Bryan and Jenny had dinner waiting for me! And it was a healthy, non-processed, no barcoded foods type of dinner. Fresh green salad straight from their garden and halibut caught two weeks ago! They grow a lot of stuff in their garden, here is their mixed greens area:

SENDING BACK OLD YELLOW: Packaged up my bike and trailer, brought them to the post office this afternoon. Recall that the dimensions of the bike box just barely passed last time from Boulder. If it is more than 108 inches (length plus girth) then they charge $90 extra! Well, the (disgruntled?) USPS employee measured the length (38 inches) and then she measured the girth, and she came up with 70 1/4"! She then looked it up and she knew that 108" was the cutoff. She told me that I was over and that I needed to pay th $89 surcharge. I was flabbergasted, I asked her "Can't you just like give me a half of an inch?"... ... wrong question to ask a USPS employee!! But I demanded a remeasurement and some other measurements along the length and most came in at around 69 7/8" but there was one that continued to be 70 1/4" so I told her I'll squeeze the package a little tighter and retape it, and that worked. Whew! Talk about close! Anyway, I think she just wanted to display her power over me... but in the end it worked out.

Heading back to Colorado late tonight!! It'll be 1:30 am in Colorado when I leave Anchorage. See you all soon, and thanks for tuning in to my journey. I'll undoubtedly have some more miscellaneous stuff posted within the next few days.

Oh, and does anyone want some peaches?!

Here, check out wheelchairdogging in Valdez:

Girdwood and the trip back to Anchorage

Well, woke up this morning to rain (again - I think you'll notice a pattern here) but decided that on my last day on the road I wouldn't let the rain get to me. After all, and as a metaphor for life, everything always dries out, right?! Grabbed coffee (another pattern) in the Hotel Alaska, a beautiful, upper-crust hotel located right below the ski slopes of Mt. Alyeska. Sat there in the nice plump leather sofa chair for a good 30 minutes or so sipping my coffee and enjoying the high life.

But then I decided to run/hike up to the top of the Tramway. This was fantastic. Very steep and snowy but I made it, and it was SO nice to be moving my feet again freely rather than my feet being locked in rotary movement, against their will. I made it to the top and it was cold and foggy, snow everywhere still.

I then bombed downhill like a skier, free like the wind. Grabbed my bike and BOB trailer and was on my way to Anchorage. Miles flew by along the Turnagain Arm. Crazy area. Second highest tidal fluctuations of anyplace in the world (the first is somewhere in Canada). That means that every 6 hours the tide will fluctuate up to 30 feet! Because of this (especially when there are forceful tides like when the Earth, Sun, and the moon are all aligned) there can sometimes be a 6-foot tall "bore" tide that is just a standing wave that propagates along the inlet and moves at 15 miles an hour. Apparently a kayaker tried to surf the bore tide last summer but the forces of the tide stripped off his clothes from the waste down and he had to be rescued by a helicopter. Tragically, his swim trunks were never recovered. Also, the silt deposits in Turnagain Arm are like quick-sand. More than a few people attempting to walk in them have been caught and drowned when the tide came it. Passed by the avalanche slopes that have actually swept snowplows into Turnagain Arm and they have been eaten by the silt deposits. Rumor has it that a plane had to emergency land on the silt when the tide was out. The passengers were rescued but the plane was eaten, still down there in the mud somewhere...

I raced this tram car up the mountain and through the clouds...

... and I won, see!

Mud/silt flats in Turnagain Arm. Snowplows and planes are out there buried somewhere...

I have been to Nowhere - and beyond!

Let's see here... the last post was on Sunday afternoon from the library in Cordova, too rainy to do anything so I sat in the library until they kicked me out of there, shooed to the streets like a stray dog. In the library, I met this guy my age named Steve. He is an interesting character. Got a job offer as a lab tech working "sporadic hours" and doing lots of "field work" for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G). So, like any adventurous young male looking for something cool to do for the summer, he moved up to Cordova and was excited to do some field work and check out the terrain around Cordova. Instead, he ended up with a job slicing the heads off of salmon, working ENTIRELY inside in a smelly cannery, and working huge shifts (for example, he had just worked 52 hours in the last 3 days). I chatted with Steve a bit before being kicked out of the library.

With nothing else to do, I returned to my tent at around 6 pm to wait out the rain until 7 am when I'd go and catch the ferry. But just as I was taking a nap in my tent, Steve pulls up in a "borrowed" ADF&G truck and asks me if I want to go eat dinner, he's grilling up a "rescued" pink salmon - rescued because in the cannery right now they are only processing chum salmon so any contaminating pink salmon they just send to the grinder to be liquified and sent back out to the ocean from whence they came. Anyway, he just couldn't see this pink salmon being ground up so he shoved it in his pocket and now we were going to eat it.

Fantastic! So, I had a great dinner with an interesting character. Then Steve came up with the great idea to "borrow" the ADF&G truck and go out the Copper Valley Highway - towards the Million Dollar Bridge (that they just put $3 million of repairs into, ironically) and the "Road to Nowhere". Apparently he had put in his two weeks with the work gig and was a little irate with his employers so why not "borrow" the truck?! I was ecstatic 'cause I wasn't able to make it out there but was dying to. So, we loaded up the ADF&G truck with gas ("borrowed" because his boss certainly wouldn't let him take the truck out to the bridge if he knew!) and we were on our way. The license plate read "Official Use Only" - we were officially using the truck, right? So shouldn't be any problems.

We drove out the road and it was one of the coolest thing I did while in Alaska. So remote and so wild. There is NOTHING out there for 47 miles until you get to the bridge. And the whole time I couldn't wait to cross the bridge... and see what Nowhere was all about! This is what was at Nowhere:

A huge glacier (the Child's glacier), probably a wall around 100 feet tall! Anyway, on the way back we saw a brown bear in the road that scampered off when he saw us and we ran across a huge pile of bear sh!t. Lots of water too. The road crosses this river delta (the Copper River) and the road just sort of hop-skotches across different chunks of land that are continually being eaten away and deposited by the river - roadwork always in progress. I could see very upclose the powerful forces that shape the river delta. Super cool indeed and for some reason I felt surprisingly vulnerable all the way out there in the middle of nowhere (but close to Nowhere), like if the car broke down or something we'd be stuffed.

River water everywhere on the Copper River delta area! Sort of a scary feeling.

Steve flingin' grizzly poop at the camera.

Well, I took the ferry to Whittier yesterday morning and rode my bike to Girdwood (note for Uncle Max: sounds like, but not to be confused with, "nerd wood").

Miscellaneous Pictures

Where I've been! Began in Anchorage, ended in Valdez on the 4th. But then by ferry to Cordova for two nights then ferry to Whittier then by bike back to Anchorage, stop for a night in Girdwood?

The Irish lads. You'll notice that every one of them has a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Something tells me that this isn't just a unique occasion and they do this every evening!

The Trans Alaskan Pipeline. 1.5 million barrels (!) of crude oil passes by a given point every day. That means in the 15 minutes or so that I was standing there, approximately $2 million worth of oil passed by me! The diameter is 4 feet, which means that the velocity is around 15 or 16 miles per hour in the pipeline.

Here, it is going under the ground. It is above ground where there is permafrost - the frictional heat from the oil going through the pipeline would melt any permafrost and cause the pipeline to move about over time. If there is no permafrost then it is buried underground. Here, it goes under a road that has permafrost underneath and so it is cooled by these heat fins and conduction of heat up from below by the big metal tubes.

Thank God, now I can finally eat!

The pipeline is arranged in a zig-zag fashion to account for thermal expansion/contraction. There are these teflon-coated skid pads that the pipeline can slide across when it heats up or cools down. Pretty ingenious.

The pipeline going underground.

My campsite on the beach near Copper Center. The nation's largest national park (Wrangell-St. Elias NP) is right across the river.

High security at the Valdez ferry terminal - worried about terrorist hijacking the ferries and taking them across the harbor to the Trans Alaskan Pipeline terminal.

Valdez, AK.

Seayaks in Valdez.

The marker of where the Exon Valdez ran aground in March of 1989 - don't get too close, Captain! On March 24, 1964 (Good Friday) there was a HUGE tsunami in the southeast Alaska region, lots of landslides and mudslides and 31 people alone in Valdez died. They decided to move the town of Valdez actually 5 miles after that date. Then, on March 27, 1989 (Good Friday, exactly 25 years after the tsunami) as most of you can remember the Exon Valdez oil tanker spilled a bunch of oil on Blithe Reef (shown in picture). Apparently it was marked well since 1912 (when another ship ran aground) so it was well marked but the Captain of the Valdez did not see it.

So, the moral of the story: if I were any smart Alaskan I would not want to be around on Good Friday of 2014!!

Cordova, AK.

Self portrait near Thompson Pass.

Staple + bike tire = recipe for disaster

Ferry Ride, Weird Bugs, and the Road to Nowhere

Hello - Well, I have finally secured myself a 1-hour time slot here at the library in Cordova on the internet. Maybe longer if there aren't any other tourons like myself trying to check their email, etc. The one thing I have discovered is that there is wireless internet available even out in the boonies. But only if you have your own computer, obviously. Not biking weather for the moment, rainy out (no surprises there).

The ferry ride yesterday was fantastic! I think I was the only one who enjoyed the novelty of it, I couldn't sit down and went from front to back, side to side looking at the scenery. Nice ship, I'll try to put up some pictures of it. Pretty cool to ride in a ferry like that, especially for a landlocked Colorado boy like myself.

Landed in Cordova and was off the ferry on my bike. The plan was to ride out the "Road to Nowhere". It is 50 miles so my plan was pretty ambitious since I landed at around 7pm, but I wanted to go at least somewhere. Apparently they were at one point going to make the highway go from Cordova and then up the Copper River delta and Copper River up to Glennallen (the Copper River was the one that I froze my nuts off at the top of Isabelle Pass that one night - I was at the headwaters of the Copper River and it is world renowned for it's tasty salmon). But then I guess they ran out of money. Purportedly there is a bridge across a chasm that just ends... sort of like "Where the Sidewalk Ends". But I was unable to confirm or deny that the road went to Nowhere. I was sort of looking forward to seeing Nowhere, but that'll have to wait for some other time.

Crazy weird bugs here. These 6-inch long, shiny black slugs everywhere on the trails, gotta watch where you step. Other small bugs I've never seen before. And the mosquitoes here have green heads! Yikes!

Well, that's it for me, I've got lots of pictures to share below. I'm mighty excited actually to dry out 'cause I'm sick of smelling like a wet goose, my down sleeping bag doesn't seem to want to dry out!

Update: 7/5/08 - Headed to the Sea!

Hello friends/family:

Well, I am now in Valdez. Been here since yesterday morning. Let's see, since the last post...

Monday - Biked up to Isabelle Pass between Delta Junction and Glennallen. Got stuck in some of the coldest, wettest conditions EVER. Was borderline hypothermic (high point of the trip at 3500 ft) and hopped into my tent shivering then when the rain stopped (I was still shivering and couldn't warm up) a family invited me into their RV! Sun came out (still cold) and they made me dinner and coffee! Warmed up, was reluctant to get out of their rig but finally they had to kick me out.

Tuesday - Biked to Glennallen. Started getting some stomach problems. Had no energy climbing hills. Rained on me, which didn't help things but very beautiful country. A spoke broke on my rear tire, luckily I was prepared and brought spare spokes (and nipples - not the paired things that come in one or more pairs on the chests of mammals, but the things that the spokes connect to on the rim). Went to the grocery store and got a bunch of cookies. Overheard an old lady asking loudly 'Where are the Depends?'. Camped beside the highway in someone's land just outside Glennallen.

Wednesday - Woke up with some digestive issues (more details - let's just say the can of peaches I ate for breakfast came out the other end undigested, yes that's right I could can them back up and sell them, within 2 hours of consuming them). Because of my issues and the fact that I also woke up with a slightly sore throat, I decided that Wednesday would be a rest day, I just biked over to Copper Center (10 miles) and hung out there, camped beside a river. I literally sat there staring at the beautiful river for hours. Crazy how campfires and rivers you can just sit and watch for long periods of time...

Thursday - Treated myself to a HUGE breakfast at the Copper River Roadhouse (I was informed that the owners are rather large people and that is why the portions are so big!). Then biked 70-75 miles up to near Thompson Pass near Valdez. Met a couple who in March of 2002 (!) left Arizona on their bikes and have been traveling the world since then. They just flew from New Zealand to Anchorage and are just now heading back to Arizona to end their trip. They had quite a bit of fat on themselves, I was actually jealous of all that fuel and wish I had fat like them to burn! Lucky bastards. Had a flat tire - bad one 'cause it was the trailer tire which is a Schrader valve and my pump (so I thought) was only Presta. Was prepared to double up a 26-inch tube but then realized my pump adapts to Schrader so just a quick patch job.

Friday (Happy Birthday Dana!) - Biked down from Thompson Pass, awesome! Went through literally gardens of lupine lining the edges of the roads and then through one of the most beautiful river canyons with waterfalls cascading down everywhere. Then a clear, sunny day in Valdez. Watched people pull salmon after salmon out of the ocean. One guy offered me one but I couldn't envision myself with a salmon strapped to my trailer!

Today - the plan is to head to the sea!! I'm a little burned out on cycling so the plan is to take a ferry from Valdez to Cordova (a little fishing community only accessible by boat) and then on Monday take the ferry from Cordova up to Whittier. Then I'll have to hitch-hike my bike and myself through the tunnel (they don't allow bikes through the tunnel) and then I'll head to Girdwood on Monday/Tuesday to finally do some running or something on my feet (I'm a hiker/runner not a biker!) and then back to Anchorvegas on Tuesday night.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Can't upload any photos, will post them later. Gotta go, the librarian Nazis are kicking me off the computer... oww, that's my ear!

Update - 6/30/08

6-30-08, 10:00 am: Well, I finally found access to the interwebs here in Delta Junction. There is a huge mothership storm cloud to the south of me so I'm waiting here to see what happens. At least I am warm and dry. I've decided to stay as warm/dry as I can since my experience on Saturday. On Saturday I biked 120+ miles from Denali NP to Fairbanks, most of it in a downpour and in 45-50 degree temperatures. I wouldn't have been wetter if I jumped in a swimming pool. On the bright side, I didn't need to take a shower for a few more days 'cause I just dumped a little soap on my helmet and let the water streaming off my front tire just slowly trickle down my body, washing every part of it with the soap and finishing with a nice 3-hour long rinse. And, I didn't need to stop for water 'cause I could do the same and open my mouth to get a fountain of water from my front tire whenever I was thirsty!

Luckily I found a nice little roadside restaurant halfway through my ride and had a burger and sat with a Canadian dude doing the same thing as me, biking across Alaska in the rain. He was coming from the opposite direction so he gave me some insight into what to expect over towards the Tok area. Camped Saturday night in the center of Fairbanks in a little state park.

Yesterday I biked ~100 miles from Fairbanks to Delta Junction. Last night I shared a campsite with a bunch of Irish lads. They are biking from Prudhoe Bay down to Tierra del Fuego in Argentina over 8-9 months. They just graduated from college and the 7 of them wanted a trip to remember. What a great time to do such a trip! They cooked me a delicious dinner last night with beer; a better meal than I even make at home!

Right now I've almost earned my 500-Mile patch (I'm at 460 miles). The plan right now is to cut back on mileage to around 60-65 per day. My plan is to go to Glennallen (get there tomorrow night) then to Valdez on Thursday night. Back to Glennallen on Saturday night and then the last three days make it back to Anchorage. I'm in the mountains now so no more of the flat riding; it's going to be tough but I'll only be traveling 60 miles per day and can relax and enjoy the area a bit more. If I calculated everything correctly, by the time I arrive in Anchorage I will have earned a 1000-Mile patch! (Actually 1028 miles.)

Oh, Happy 11 year Anniversary (on Saturday), Dana and Curtis!!

Here are a few miscellaneous photos from the road:

The camp towel on the seat - a recipe to end rear end pain (sort of).

The Nanana River by Denali NP.

Entrance to Denali NP. I had to stop for about an hour or so to remove my ammunitions from my weapons.

Me on a clear day, that's Denali in the background.

An old "igloo" hotel that is now boarded up and run down.

I love to see these signs! (But they are usually proceeded by a huge uphill!)

Self portrait

Can't miss an opportunity for a Nestle Tollhouse Ice Cream sandwich!