Alaska 18. Road Warriors July 27

It spit rain most of the night but it had stopped by morning. In fact, the weather was quite nice! Breakfast was served at 8:30 in the “great room” — another building with a big space upstairs. We had an egg bake, freshly made croissants, a pear ginger olive oil cake, OJ and other assortments, along with some very good coffee. It was super interesting to hear about their life in Alaska. Interestingly, Audie and Jenny, along with their six year old son Gus are researching spots in Minnesota to spend winters. Which is actually funny: Alaskans coming to Minnesota to escape Alaska winters. That should give you something to think about.

Jenny actually grew up in Jackson, Minnesota, so there is a connection — but it’s a pretty thin one, as she left during high school and has no family there anymore. Instead, they are mostly attracted to Minnesota for the superior public school system. They asked us all about our opinions regarding Minnetonka, Orono, and Eden Prairie districts. Right now, they are most enamored of a spot they’ve seen on Zillow in Maple Plain — some of which is in the Orono district. What are the flippin’ chances of running into someone in rural Alaska looking at property in flippin’ MAPLE PLAIN? What a crazy world.

They gave us some encouragement (or rather they gave ME some backing) about our route home. In my *distaste* for backtracking, I have been lobbying for going the north route via the “Top of the World” highway. I have a very special letter I am carrying to the North Pole for a very special girl and that route takes us through there. Dave has repeatedly asked me if I am serious. (I am.) Audie and Jenny said the highway is “not to be missed” and so now at least I have some backing.

What’s a little more driving?

Seriously. This is hard to explain, but I will try: 

After so much driving — or maybe because of it — the CAR feels more like home than anywhere else. More than hiking. More than fishing. The camper = dinner and sleep and blankies. All good. But as I sit in the camper in the morning (usually in the rain), I’m thinking not about a hike or seeing some particular sights, but I’m looking forward to getting in the car and driving. What is with that?? As far as camping goes, I have always longed to “stay put” and “pick a spot and stay there”. Mostly, I think, because we never do that — with the exception of a trip to Yoho in Banff with the kids years ago, and I remember loving it. 

But NOW, it feels weird. I’m like, “Let’s go!” I keep thinking, “When we get to ______ (fill in the blank) THEN we’ll find a place and stay there a few days.” But it hasn’t happened yet. I’m not complaining. I just find it curious. Maybe if we had PLANNED more? As is literally ALWAYS the case with us, we don’t plan. Then we find we have no internet. So we are just basically driving around reading our books and figuring it out on the fly. Again, not complaining at all. Just observing. And wondering if I would like it better or worse to have a plan. 

The jury is out. I guess because I haven’t experienced a planned camping trip. I HAVE experienced a planned trip to Europe when Morgan was a senior and I, frankly, didn’t like it. So maybe that should tell me something…

Anyway, we left our delightful hosts at The Denali Highway Cabins and set out across the Denali Highway, which cuts across from Paxson to Cantwell, just south of Denali National Park. The forecast is GRIM. But, as I mentioned earlier, we chose to come up here now because it DID show the two least rainy days for the next seven days as being today and tomorrow. It’s our deepest desire to be able to actually SEE Denali — only 30% of summertime visitors do. It’s over 20,000 feet tall and obscured most of the time. As we have recently learned, July is Alaska’s rainiest month. 

The Denali Highway is 134 miles long. I don’t think it was ever on our “to do” list for Alaska, but here we are. So we pulled out our “Milepost” and proceeded to read about the awful gravel rutted and pot holed road we were about to embark on — “made worse by any recent rains…”

Ugh. 

But, for once, The Milepost was completely wrong. The road was 80% paved. It wasn’t bad at all. And it was STUNNING. We were fortunate to be able to actually see it. As is the case everywhere in Alaska, your experience and ultimate opinion of a particular place is largely determined by the damn weather. As in: were you able to see it? 

I talked to some guys in the laundromat a couple days later and they had been on the Denali Highway the day before us (the day we drove from Valdez and it rained the whole day) and they saw exactly nothing. It will be probably in my top three experiences in Alaska and it won’t even register on theirs. 

We wanted to get close enough to the Denali side of the highway so that we could get an early-ish start if the weather was good, so we went to mile 94 (funny, how all we talk about now is mileposts) and camped by Seattle Creek. We fished for a couple hours and caught several grayling. 

They bite much like trout. And they are strong. But that’s where the similarity ends. They are the DUMBEST fish. They don’t seem to spook easily. They don’t hook easily. But they. hit the dry fly and when the miss it, they continue to go for it. Over and over and over again. Even fishing with a smaller hook, I only catch one every 10 takes or so. But I DO see them grab the fly and swim to the bottom and hold it in their mouth before finally letting it go. At this point, they MUST KNOW it’s foam and fuzz. It is NOT a tasty bug. But this same fish will go for that same fly for ten casts until I eventually hook it, drag it in and release it. Then that fish will sit in the water next to my feet…. And yes, it will go for the same fly that just put a hook in its mouth. 

I’m not sure why I thought grayling were like “the ultimate” fish to catch in Alaska, but I don’t think that any longer! And the books say that Dolly Varden are the dumbest. I can’t wait to meet one of THOSE!

We had a dinner of stir-fried pork with pac choi and celery with a sauce I conjured up from the strange list of random ingredients I had: sriracha, soy, garlic, coriander, sesame oil and rice vinegar. It was actually not bad.

We took a walk up an ATV trail behind us, Dave made a fire… and then it started to rain again so we went to bed.

It’s so crazy to go to bed when it’s so light out. But if we wanted to wait until it was dark we’d be up past midnight. So I am getting used to it — Dave has NEVER had a problem in this department.