7/16/17 Just a fast correction… We went through Delta Junction before getting to Tok…and before which we camped on Moon Lake for the night. A long day driving from above the Arctic Circle, through Fairbanks (washed mud off the truck) and resupplied beer. Another correction from last post is I left out Eagle AK. It is a town on the Yukon River north of the Top of the World Highway at the Canadian border.  Eagle is famous for a few things one of which is Jack London stayed here for a number of months writing his stories of the great north. It is a town that saw large population in the gold rush years after being used as a communications line to the northern forts. The area is rich in hardship history. These people, like those that built all the stone walls in New England were hardier than we. 

But I want to go back for the last few days. We have traveled a large number of miles and in doing so have crossed vast areas of wild, rugged country. It has gone from the hundreds of miles of stunted black and white spruce trees (due to saturated soil or frozen tundra) to Large forests and over the mountains to tundra that stretches literally hundreds and hundreds of miles, as is, on either side of where you stand. Finally seeing the Brooks Range, the mountains that run east-west in the Arctic are real mountains… massive and sharp rising out of nowhere. The Atigun pass allows the Dalton Highway, a roller coaster, tire puncturing, pothole riddled minefield, that is just nuts (mind you Bolivia and Peru have similar, but not as a highway with gargantuan trucks carrying other gargantuan trucks…fast…), seeming going on forever. I am carrying 1500 lbs on the truck and maybe a ‘tad’ more and the bounce one gets at 50 mph over a 2 foot “DIP” in the road is something to experience. (once would have been fine but all day for two 8 hour days has one digging the fingernails out of the steering wheel).

The Atigun Pass. It separates two distinct biomes, forest on one side tundra the other. We drove up and over. An insane engineer’s project to get a road and pipeline from one side to the other. Going north was an adventure, following a big, very big tanker truck up and down. We went on for 36 miles into the Tundra to get the feel of the emptiness. We stopped at the Arctic research area… a caribou nestled in the Tundra a few yards off the road. A truck pulled in and we talked to the driver who hauls things to the oil fields in the north. He was gregarious and wanted to talk about the road and how the ‘Ice raid truckers were a bunch of yahoos’ and how the conditions he worked were fine by him. He did talk of things I would not want to do: like chaining up all his drive tires on the truck at minus 40… though he also said the cold and snow smooths out the road…its the thaws and mud season that are the nightmare.  We were still hundreds of miles across the tundra from the Bering Sea. It was not a trip I needed to do  adding nearing 500 miles extra to see the water so to say I ‘swam’ in the Bering sea.  One must stop at the town of Dead Horse and have a 24 hour pre-arranged guided tour thereafter as the Prudhoe Bay. It is an oil town of Temp workers. The lodging is in shipping containers stacked up for a hotel. 

The rig, How is it fairing? Constantly thinking about it…in a good way now that the “proof is in the pudding” run has gone. A month of putting the new truck/camper combo to a rough first trial run. I think the platform overall has been incredible. That is not pride speaking as what I did has faults to be improved but the truck as it was new has done exceptionally well. The mini-max diesel is a keeper. Tons of torque when needed and overall mileage around 22-24 mpg. The Prairie winds did drop the mileage a lot so the overall is low..I think the wind will be at my back on the way home to increase it. 

Most all things made, worked. I brought too much stuff. I could lose a couple hundred pounds. What I did was plan for all contingencies… mathematically stupid. There are things vital in some circumstances with the probability of an occurrence minimal. So the list has been made to reduce the stuff…but there are those things needed to be added. I have really enjoyed the solar shower. Stream water in the pouch and left in the sun for a couple hours makes a fine hot shower, vital to keep spirits high. I have the need to make a lightweight folding aluminum shower holder attached to the jack stand mounts. make a real fridge shelf that won’t bend under the weigh of a 12 pack of beer. 

On the road to Chicken. One has time to ponder things when traveling. A great opportunity to get philosophical as there is time to do so. One thought that has come up a bunch lately is the  retrospection of the years. It seems clear there is a tipping scale in life… when young, you experience new things and personally important people and accumulate much but after a smooth sail of years that seem to come and go without thought of …..wait a minute….. I am mortal…. shit….what?!…. and then the value of things grows greater…the reverse then starts in a slow turn around of the burn engine, like the SpaceX landing.  It then becomes now more the loss of both of those, weathered away bit by bit.. it is how it goes. We come….and we go. I am trying to enjoy each of these stages as best as my ability to adapt continues… that is the fun of it too…. a new challenge to parse out instead of dread and refusal to keep current in the society’s culture. Keep the old but select the new. Stay on the front of the train, not in one of the cars dragged behind.