Back when I was a young man a friend of mine (Jerry) and I hoisted several
beers and talked about everything under the sun. Eventually we talked about
past adventures and potential new adventures. Some time during the beers
and the talking we somehow got the idea in our heads that Alaska would be
a great place to visit.
Why wait we thought we weren't getting any younger so we decided that night
to hitch hike to Alaska . It would be a great! We would have a great adventure!
Neither of us forgot about it when we woke up the next day so we started making
plans. I borrowed a backpack and began packing what I thought I might need.
The day before we left my friends father died. He wouldn't be able to go. So
what's a guy like me to do in such as predicament? I had this great adventure
planned so I did what any normal guy would do.
That's right, I convinced another friend of mine that we should
walk hitch
hike to Alaska. He already had a backpack and sleeping bag so off we went. It
took us two days to get to Seattle Washington and try as we may we couldn't
get a ride any further North.
Naturally we couldn't let a little problem like being 2,263 miles away stop us so
I bought a car for $300.00. This was back in the early 1980's and even back
then a $300.00 car wasn't the best most reliable car in the world so wisely
I bought 2 adjustable wrenches and two screwdrivers and drove the over
2,263 miles (3642KM) to Anchorage Alaska .
In case you are wondering we encountered a few mechanical problems.
We broke an A frame, a shock absorber, rebuilt the carburetor (I had to pay
for this because it was beyond my mechanical ability and tools) we had so
many flat tires that I couldn't even guess as to the amount. We broke out a
head light and a tail light, the drive shaft fell out when the u joint broke, but
besides those problems we kept driving.
While we were driving we kept getting closer and closer to this huge mountain
range. I looked on the Canadian map and they listed the peaks at 3000 to 4000.
Being an American I could not believe that these huge mountains were only 4000
feet tall. It was because they were not 3-4 thousand feet tall they were 3-4 thousand
meters tall! Canadian maps list everything in Meters.
We continued driving towards them until they completely filled the windshield
and I could see no way the road could go through them. That's because the
road could not go through them instead it made a very sharp right hand turn
and went nearly 500 miles (800KM) around them.
When I arrived in Anchorage we had almost no money, knew no people
and had no jobs or prospects for jobs. The next day we drove to construction
sites and with in hours we both had jobs. I had a job carrying sheet rock up
a ladder all day which is fairly physically demanding work. I was in excellent
condition since I was a college basketball player. As a team we worked out 4
hours a day 6 days a week. I could run any normal construction worker into
the ground.
When lunch time came I didn't have money for lunch so I told them I would
work through lunch because I didn't bring a lunch with me. They were so
impressed that they bought me lunch and later dinner and paid me at the end
of the day.
Many of you know this but In Alaska the weather is so cold that they can
only build during the summer so they work every day. I took one day off
the entire summer.
I camped in a park (which was not allowed) and took showers at a KOA RV
park. It cost a dime to take a shower but it really took two dimes to get soaped
up and rinsed off. You couldn't put two dimes in at the same time, you had to
wait until the hot water turned off and the water would shoot on you at slightly
above absolute zero, then walk around the stall and put in another dime then
get back in the shower.
My friend slept in the car but I was too tall to sleep in the car and the mosquitoes
were famously called the Alaskan State bird and it was daylight over 20 hours a
day. I slept with 2 sleeping bags one I pulled up to my arm pits and another I
pulled over my head. Otherwise it was impossible to sleep in the day light with
the mosquitoes and their never ending attacks. We saw bears, moose, mountain
sheep all sorts of other wildlife.
We worked all summer long and then one morning I woke up with frost covering
the front of my sleeping bag so we quit our jobs and went home. With enough
stories to keep us going until the next summer.
When next summer rolled around my friend (whose father died) decided that
missing out on the adventure was so painful that after feeding me a dozen beers
we decided to that we would head off to Alaska for summer. He did have a much
more reliable car but I took the two adjustable wrenches and screw drivers
anyway.
One thing about Alaska is that there are virtually no women. Even the fat ugly
ones with missing teeth were surrounded by men. I did not have a single date
or even a prospect of a single date my entire time that I was there. I think the
incredibly long harsh Alaskan winters that keep women from going or at least
staying there.
My Aunt later lived in Two Rivers Alaska for several years. It had weeks at a
time where the temperature never got above -70 F (-57C) and it was in total
darkness for months. She said that she had pick of the men there but was
uninterested in the vast majority of them because they drank too much,
smelled too bad or had other antisocial problems.
On the second trip I got a temporary job unloading 50 gallon (190 liter) drums
onto pallets. The drums weighed over 400 pounds (190 kilos). If I pushed them
very hard they would tip on the edge and I would roll them balancing on the
edge. It is very hard to do this at first since the container had liquid in it. It
would slosh and the balancing point would change and I fought to keep it from
tipping over.
There were supposed to be two of us doing this but I was the only one
who showed up to work to do it. I did learn to find the balance point and
I impressed my boss who was surprised that I could do it by myself. At the
end of the day I was done unloading the semi trailer and he offered me a job
which I worked every day for the rest of the summer for his brother's asphalt
sealing company. It was very difficult dirty smelly work but not nearly as hard
as unloading those barrels.
Towards the end of the summer after work my friend told me that he wasn't
feeling well. He went to sleep in the car and I went to sleep in the park. He
came out in the middle of the night and asked if I wanted to go to the hospital.
I was half asleep and asked him if he thought we could meet some cute nurses.
After all we had not even seen a cute unmarried woman in almost 2 months
and we were single men in our early 20's.
He told me he was in serious pain so I drove him to the hospital. As it turned
out he needed an emergency appendectomy. He stayed in the hospital for
about a week because they did not want him sleeping in a car. I went to see
him every day and did not see a cute unmarried nurse on any of my visits.
He claimed to have seen one but he was on morphine for pain at the time
so I doubt that he did. When he got out I drove him back to the lower 48
I think that going to Alaska was a small adventure compared to pursuing a
woman from the FSU half way around the world
Udachi!
Bill
