Book: Motorcycle Alaska - Mentasta Lake to Anchorage on the Glenn Highway

Sunday, July 24 - Day 8

I head southwest for Anchorage and watch the mountain peaks go by. The mountains stick up into the low gray clouds. The first clouds I have seen in a week. The weather has been clear sky all the way here.

Occasionally the sun will peak through the low clouds and I drink in the most beautiful of scenes. Mostly though, the ride down to Anchorage is very cloudy.

Headed for Anchorage on the Glenn Highway

There are several airstrips that pass by. I understand that small aircraft is the means that a majority of Alaskans, like Mark and Katie, use to travel from place to place. Some of the lodges and restaurants have adjacent airstrips near them for the small planes to land. One of them makes me chuckle- Duffy's Tavern Airstrip. Just saying the oxymoronic words makes me laugh, like that goes together.

Mount Sanford and Mount Drum stand off in the distance and extend to 16,000 and 12,000 feet. I have never seen a 16,000-foot mountain before, and probably not many people have either. The clouds obscure its peak.

Between the road and the mountain in the distance is a vibrant green valley of lush grasses surrounded by pools of clear water. I have never seen such green grass. Glennallen passes by and I stop a short while later at the summit in the road. 3322 feet is the highest point in the Glenn Highway. 3300 feet in these parts is near the timberline, which I find very neat.

I have ridden through the Sierra Mountains above Sacramento many times and through the Rockies above Denver and the comparison in the tree line is quite different from place to place. I can see south at the cloud shrouded Chugach Mountains, and to the northeast are the opposing peaks of the Talkeetnas Mountains. From here at the summit, the road falls into a valley between the two mountain ranges for the rest of the way to Anchorage.

When I leave the summit, a few miles later, there is a peculiar looking mountain top in front of me. It looks sort of like a notch at the top. While checking the maps, it shows it to be Gunsight Mountain at a modest 6441 feet. Nice name. Then I spot the kicker for the day. A huge glacier near the road. A real live moving ever-present glacier pouring forth. The Nelchina Glacier winds downward from between mountain peaks. This drive from Glennallen to Anchorage is very unique in all of North America for all the glaciers that can be seen along the drive. I have been to Glacier National Park but it was years ago. I do not remember much other than the pictures that a 12-year-old boy has in his photo album.

Several miles later, the Matanuska Glacier just sits there extending down the mountain into the valley and emptying into the Long River. It's white ice contrasts against the grayish mountainous backdrop and the lush green valley it gives life to. The glacier is about 2 miles wide in most places. At its terminus, it is 4 miles wide.

About 18,000 years ago, the glacier extended all the way to Palmer, about 60 miles away. Seventy-five percent of all the water on earth is in glaciers. I wonder who or how they came up with that number. Another odd thing about glaciers is even though they all look white and are kind of dirty looking from all the dirt in the ice, they absorb every color of the spectrum except blue. That I actually remember from an old geology exam. The road winds through a beautiful valley with the greenest grass I have ever. Its wide bottom must be several miles wide. Lazy streams fed by all the glaciers almost make it seem like a swamp. No rushing mountain streams here, just standing water and green, green grass. Beyond the valley bottoms are the pines extending up the mountainsides until the timberline.

I follow alongside the Matanuska River and finally reach Palmer. Palmer in 1935 was a place where a sort of experiment took place. Then it was called the Matanuska Valley Colony. Franklin Roosevelt in his very first year in office created something known as the New Deal. I first learned about that in a freshman history class with Mr. Menchow. He was a really big, but short man who used to rant and rave about how all the answers to society's ills could be found in history. If only we would learn from our mistakes was the whole premise of the class.

    Anyway, FDR's Federal Relief Administration intended to create an agricultural colony in this valley. Social workers picked 203 families in the midst of the Great Depression in the hopes of a utopian success in the midst of the dust bowl. Families from Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota were sent to have a go. The upper Midwest was the logical place to find Scandinavians during 1935. They were thought at the time to have a greater adaptability to the climate and conditions than other nationalities.

    What is unique about the Alaskan summers is for a short 80 to 110 days of the year, there is almost constant sunshine. This makes for a growing season a bit different than the upper Midwestern summer. The colonists arrived in 1935 and although not all succeeded, many who still live in the area today are descendents of these original colonists.

    I finally arrive in Anchorage. As soon as I hit the city, it seems somewhat out of place with its wide boulevards, streetlights, freeways and 300,000 people in this rugged environment. I run out of gas. 197 miles to a 5.3-gallon tank which at 37 miles per gallon fully loaded; this is not too bad. I coast to a stop and fill up the tank with one of the spare 2.5 gallon gas cans and start right back up again.

    I spot the sign for Elmendorf Air Force Base and head right on in. I ask the gate guard where billeting is and follow his directions to the Air Force Inn. The equivalent of a hotel, the place is even nicer than I expected. It reminds me of a Holiday Inn. It costs an entire 8 dollars for the room, with a roommate though.

    All I can think about is a shower. The room feels military and sparsely adorned. I like it. After sleeping on the ground and in ditches for the last few days, this is kind of a treat. A TV and even cable- neato. I shower the longest of showers. It's my first in a week. The warm water washes away thousands of miles of grime. I wash my clothes in the laundry and relax watching some Alaskan TV. My mind wanders while glancing out the window, maybe a moose will go walking by. Probably not. I am surrounded in barbwire and jet aircraft. The runway is right behind the hotel. When the fighter planes take off, the noise is deafening, even inside the walls shake and the windows rattle.

    I cruise across the base and gas up the bike. I haven't cleaned a single bug off the front of the motorcycle and it is plastered in bug guts. Think of it as a badge, a trophy if you will. I hold the nozzle as the gas pours into my hungry tank and look up at the overcast skies. I am in Alaska, I think to myself. This is amazing. I am standing here plain as day and getting gas in Anchorage, Alaska. This is so cool! I kill time with no particular thought on what my next move is. I don't have any plans, don't even know what there is to see around here. I haven't really even thought about it. Just the thought of being in Alaska is exciting enough to me. I suppose I'm sort of playing the anti-tourist.

    I want to give my physical body a little time to relax. To feel what it's like to be clean, fed, and in clean clothes seems to be my only goal. I buy some junkfood with absolutely no nutritional value at the little shoppette. Hey, I'm on vacation.

    That evening I walk over to the base theater and see the movie for three bucks. It's The Crow with Brandon Lee. It's very gothic style of filmmaking. There are guns and bullets flying everywhere. Oh, and the good guy wins and the bad guys get there's. Surprise, surprise. The movie ends and it is only 9 o'clock. I feel like the days when I was on active duty and you are stuck on the base with nothing to do. I walk back to the room and discover Jim, my roommate for the night.

    Jim weaves a tale of intrigue and story upon story mount up as we converse into the evening. He fought in Vietnam and has been awarded the Purple Heart three times. He was shot several times in combat. He did an entire tour, got shot, healed up, then signed up for another tour. He has a six pack of beer with him and after a couple, he doesn't stop talking. He kind of reminds me of Grizzly Adams, a TV show I watched as a kid. He has this rough sort of look to him.

    His kids are all grown and his wife passed away some time ago. Now he lives in this little room on his military pension and cleans fish in the fish markets in Anchorage. He flew up to Anchorage to escape the rest of world. He has no ties to the life he used to live down in the lower 48. You might call him homeless, he even sort of looks it, but it's apparent this guy doesn't have a care in the world.

    After the fourth beer, he describes in great detail how to gut a fish and how quickly he can accomplish this task and move on to the next one. He has even worked on some of the fishing boats along the coast. I am very curious as to his plans for the future. He says he has none. He just lives day to day. He left his job, sold his home, his car, and all his possessions and moves around Alaska from time to time, where ever the work is. The base is his favorite though because the accommodations are so nice at our little hotel here. He mentions that he invested all the money from selling all his stuff and doesn't touch it. Although he could be mistaken for a bum walking down the sidewalk, he says he has a half million dollars spread across several different investments. It's for his son. Money really isn't important to him anymore. He has already lived that life. He says the military will take care of him the rest of his life because of his pension and because he fought in Vietnam. Up here, he doesn't have a care in the world.

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