Monday, July 25 Day 9    I sleep in. I just couldn’t crawl out of the bed. A real bed! Actually, it was like a board in its stiffness but after a week of sleeping on the ground, it felt plenty soft. I sleep in till 9, and shower again just for good measure. It probably sounds silly but a shower really is that much of a luxury lately.    Gathering up my things and packing up, I have chocolate chip cookies for breakfast. Absolutely no nutritional value, yeah, yeah, whatever. While I am uncovering the bike and strapping things down, a fresh boot, probably right from basic training approaches and we start chatting. He has the prototypical Air Force crew cut but kind of long in the bangs. That would last about 30 seconds in the Marine Corps with a haircut like that. I actually chopped all my hair off for this trip. I figure I am wearing a helmet all day everyday for an entire month. It will grow back by the time I get home. My hair is only about a quarter inch on top and the classical Marine Corps haircut.    He is young, maybe eighteen. And he seems impressed by the simple fact that I am an U.S. Marine. For some odd reason, we start talking about Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. He is curious to know if that is what boot camp is really like in the Marine Corps. Two fighter jets behind us take off from the runway. The F-18’s shoot down the runway and then straight up into the low gray clouds. The noise stops all conversation and we watch them take off. I say go see the movie again. Boot camp was exactly like that. He nods and walks off.

The mudflats of Cook Inlet - Turnagain Arm

The Seward Highway from Anchorage to Seward is a 127-mile journey of beauty that I have only read about and seen pictures off. As soon as I leave Anchorage, the road joins up with Cook Inlet. Captain Cook named the inlet, while looking for the Northwest Passage in 1778. The inlet continues to narrow the further inland you go and this he called Turnagain River. Later in 1794, Captain Vancouver appropriately named it Turnagain Arm. It’s kind of wide to be a river.

The tides in the arm are supposed to be quite unique. The up and down motion of the tide is called a diurnal range. The tide can rise and fall more than 33 feet. In the arm, they have what are called bore tides. The bore tide is one where right after low tide, there is an abrupt rise in the water level. This happens so quickly, a wall of water rushing back into the arm may reach a height of 6 feet rushing into the arm. Good for surfing! This 6-foot wall of water can rush in as much as 15 miles per hour engulfing the unsuspecting (and very dumb) tourist. I doubt a tourist could run more than 15 miles per hour. There are signs along the shore that warn not to go onto the mud flats. Some of the mud may even be quicksand.    Jim told me a story of a tourist that went walking out there and started sinking. He sunk up to his waist by the time a helicopter arrived to pull him out. The harness was lowered and strapped on across the man’s chest. Something went wrong as the helicopter attempted to rescue the man and he was ripped in two killing him instantly. Jim told that story on the fifth beer. Kinda morbid. Probably another urban legend.    The road heads to Seward along the base of McHugh Peak. The mountain lies on one side and water on the other trapped within an inlet as the road winds through Chugach State Park. Heading south along the inlet to Portage, I remember studying the 1964 earthquake that hit Anchorage on Good Friday back in that same Geology class. Land here in the Turnagain Arm area sank 6 to 12 feet and the trees close to the bay had their root systems saturated in salt water, killing them. There are numerous skeleton-looking dead spruce trees along the road in this particular area. It all comes together. High tides flooded the area and 50 to 100 people in Portage were forced to abandon their now permanently flooded homes. That earthquake is the largest on the Richter Scale ever to hit North America.    Also in the Chugach National Forest, there is an old military base set up into the mountains. Back in WWII, we thought the Japanese, if they invaded Alaska, would never find it. Jim had mentioned something about this hidden base and said there are several WWII bunkers along the coastline with huge guns pointing out into the Pacific still.    One odd sight along the way is the avalanche gun emplacements along the highway. I suppose that’s where they put the big gun to set off avalanches. I pull into Portage Lake to learn more about the glaciers that I have been seeing everywhere. Here at the lake, there are even icebergs that float around after they fall off the Portage Glacier.    To be a glacier, the built up snow has to be three layers of frozen water. The bottom layer is actually a layer of ice that becomes pliable and like plastic. The middle layer is called neve, and is a combination of ice and snow. The top layer is of course mostly just snow. Huge cracks can form in the glacier called crevasses and can be extremely deep. The cracks can have glass-like solid walls of ice on either side falling straight down into the glacier.    Sometimes, as the glacier makes its way down its glacial valley, the edge of the ice can pull away from the mountain wall and form a crevasse there called a bergschrund. Although when you think of glacier, you think of this mass of ice moving very slowly, some of the glaciers up here can move several hundred feet a day for short periods.    Dark lines can form in the glaciers as two glaciers may join into one and the rocks and dirt scraped along the way may be absorbed into the glacial walls and carried for miles. The glacier as it moves can scoop out valleys that evolve into lakes, create hills called moraines, and leave behind deep U-shaped valleys. Even the run-off may be a unique color because of the finely ground rock that is carried away by glacial rivers.

The mountains to my left simply lift into the sky, which is still low and gray. The road follows the circular edge of the inlet past Portage and then heads off into the mountains joining up with Granite Creek. Mountains extend upwards on either side of the road as I head toward Tern Lake Junction through the Kenai Mountains.    Riding through Moose Pass near Upper Trail Lake, this mountain village of 150 people was once a construction camp for the railroad built here in 1912. The story goes that the town got its name from a mail carrier driving a team of dogs who ran into a moose in this area. In the summers, they have their annual Moose Pass Summer Festival. Every town has its claim.

A few miles outside of Moose Pass, I stop for a moment along the road at a turnout with other picture taking tourist in campers and loaded down station wagons. Kenai Lake in the distance is covered in low clouds. Like most lakes in this area, this 24-mile long lake is fed with glacier melt water giving it a very distinctive color    All the way to Seward, mountains are covered in green and moist vegetation abounds. Other times they’re covered in green grass supplied by the endless snow that lines the tops of the mountains. The bike and I ride through Divide, Lawning, and Woodrow. At one turn, multitudes of earth moving machines race against the permafrost which forever wreaks havoc on the roads here in Alaska. One minute you are cruising along, then a huge bulge or bump appears in the road. Sometimes the road is just gravel for a short bit.

The road joins a mountainous stream that heads out to sea. Rounding a corner, a sight off a postcard greets me. Fishermen line the shore, knee-deep in the river, all along the shore. They are practically shoulder to shoulder, all casting their lines into the rushing waters. Cars, campers, and trucks are parked everywhere lining both sides of the road. There are people everywhere, and they all have fishing poles in their hands. Several walk in a hurried sort of manner as if the fish are like leaving on vacation or something.  The rest of the drive strikes me in awe.

At times I crane my neck upward as I tool along. The V-shaped valley that holds the road is like no other road I have every traveled. Mountain tops loom into the gray sky and the air is very moist. I must be getting close to the end.

I ride over the Resurrection River, past the airport, past the small boat harbor filled with fishing boats and into downtown Seward. The bike hums quietly straight through town on Main Street directly for the ocean. I park at the edge of Resurrection Bay, which leads into the Gulf of Alaska. Another ocean mine eyes have laid eyes on. It begins to rain and I stick my tongue out to taste what Alaskan rain tastes like. It tastes wet.

The end of the road... I've made it!

Resurrection Bay got its name when a Russian fur trader, Alexander Baranof, took refuge in the bay from a sudden storm while sailing from Kodiak to Yakutat. It was the Russian Sunday of the Resurrection and I suppose he thought that was rather appropriate for a name.  "I’m in Alaska and I am looking at the ocean," I say to myself aloud. I really have reached my destination, and I am still in awe at being in Alaska. I just can’t get used to the idea.

The goal has always been to see what is over the next hill, around the next bend in the road. And above all, to see what’s at the end of the road. And here I stand, looking out into the glass calm waters, the sky gently falling upon me. At the end of the road.    I walk some of the touristy shops and buy some postcards to actually prove I was here. I eye some sweatshirts with Alaska logos on them, but I can’t break away from my thrifty self. This whole trip is happening on a shoestring budget. I read in the shops that Seward is known as the Gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park. The park is known for the Harding Icefield covering a staggering 700 square miles of terrain. Seward has a much milder climate than the northern Alaskan communities also. With an average snowfall of 80 inches and average winter temperature of 18 degrees, the harbor never freezes and is open year round. Being near the ocean keeps the temperature from dropping to such extremes as the interior.    As most things up here are railroad based, Seward was created in 1903 as the railroad surveyors arrived and determined this was the place. The railroad starts right at the water’s edge and connects the rest of Alaska to the coast. The railroad was finally completed in 1923.    There is a brochure in one of the shops for the Mount Marathon Race. Above the town is Mount Marathon, it is practically right outside the window. The race was only a few days ago on July 4th. It got its start in 1909 when two guys were probably arguing how fast they could run up the mountain. The first race was in 1912. They run up, then run down. The fastest time is just 43 minutes. Sounds like a lot of work but I suppose it’s really fun.    In 1964, the entire town of Seward was destroyed in the earthquake. As tectonic plates moved up and down offshore, a 30-foot wall of water raced toward the town. The towns people had little warning when the wave struck the town. As it hit the fuel storage tanks, it ripped the tops off spilling thousands of gallons of fuel into the water. The fuel ignited setting the town on fire. As the water poured back into the sea pulling the town with it, multitudes of little fires lit the sea up.    On one of the nearby islands, a similar scenario took place destroying an Eskimo village. They were given minutes to evacuate the town to higher ground when the 30 foot wall of water struck the seaside fishing village. Two waves struck, one after the other. The townspeople, realizing help may be some time in coming sent several of the men into the village to retrieve flashlights and blankets. It was then the third wave struck and completely decimated what was left of the town. The men perished except for three who saw the wave coming, took cover in a small boat, and somehow survived as the wall of water crashed into the town. The waves always come in threes.    The rain starts up again as I walk through the shops. People dash for doors and awnings to wait out the downpour. I wonder why I am here in Seward and what there is to do for me. I feel a little out of place as the leather clad lone traveler. Families and retired folks cram the shops and sidewalks. Little kids clings to their parents pant legs and grandma’s buy knick-knacks to adorn shelves. Anything and everything that can be labeled or stamped can be found in these shops with the word Alaska on it.    A short distance away, a ferry in the harbor is loading and unloading its passengers and cars despite the rain. Although I have met quite a few people along the way, I still feel a tinge of loneliness walking around. The only time I forget about that is when I am riding.    I look longingly at the shirts and sweatshirts hanging on the wall and the multitudes of knick-knacks and souvenirs for sale. I don’t have much money. I have enough to keep the bike gassed up and to eat one meal a day. I have plenty of MRE’s left and have been collecting them for months from my weekend drills in preparation for this trip. Other than that, there are no vacation funds. I think this college mentality follows me everywhere I go, even up here.

I head north. When I reach the Tern Lake Junction, I turn westward and start heading toward Soldotna and Homer. I ride for awhile wondering if I will see anything different than Seward. The road is a dead end at Homer, and then it would be back the way I came to Anchorage. The biggest attraction of Homer is the Homer Spit. This very thin strip of land sticks out into the sea.  It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to go on. The afternoon is wearing and I can’t come up with a decent reason to continue. The thought of taking a ferry once I reach Homer so I don’t have to backtrack never even enters my mind. I think because it would cost money to do something like that.

As the evening approaches, I calculate the distances and decide to head back for the air base. I can probably crash with Jim and get another night with a roof over my head. Heading north, I finally ride out of the rain along the coast and ride up the same way I came down. The ride is relaxing and pleasant. The temperature is probably in the high fifties and the bike just purrs beneath me. It travels straight as an arrow and has performed flawlessly. I have only owned this bike for six months but other than its heft, I am very pleased with the Venture. It’s really top heavy though. If I’m not careful while maneuvering at slow speeds, I dump the thing. It falls over on its crash bars and just sits there at an angle until I grunt it up. Other than that, this is a great bike.    I reach the air base and pull right into the back parking lot behind the hotel. Jim is a little surprised to see me but gladly invites me in as if he has known me his entire life. He picks right up where he left off the night before with his stories and they lull me to sleep. About midnight, the guy who actually paid to be in the room shows up. He doesn’t seem to mind that I am in the room and seems more concerned with getting to sleep. I give up the bed and run out to the bike and grab my sleeping bag. Somehow, the flat hard floor feels just fine to me. Must be that I have a roof over my head.