Another Time on the ALCAN - 5. Shelby, MT & West Yellowstone

Wednesday, September 30 - 430 Miles Today. We had planned to stay in Edmonton for a second night, but The Glowing Embers was not that appealing, and one day at the Mall was enough. We were on the road before 10AM and drove duel-lane highways most of the day, passing through Calgary about 2PM - moderate traffic and good signage made for a fast and easy transit. We thought of camping near Fort Macleod but found the country to be flat prairie. There was not much to attract us and as it was only 4PM we decided to move on to Lethbridge or even forge on to the border. Lethbridge proved to be problematic: 5PM traffic…missed a turn…got into a tight spot in a parking lot while turning around …finally got straight and kept going toward the border. Stopped for propane and gas a few miles before the border then stopped again at a Duty Free shop at the border. The Canadian money left in Mary’s pocket was burning a hole, so we loaded up with a variety of sundry articles (bottle of gin, beef jerky, nuts, a big Cadbury chocolate bar, etc) and then went through customs. That was the high-lite of our day.

Drove another forty miles before stopping at the Lewis & Clark RV Campground outside Shelby, Montana. An older, grouchy guy checked us in. Lots of rules in this campground and the Internet was accessed by a specific code that allowed a specific amount of time - and only one of us could get on. Night had fallen by then so the old man showed me the site, but it was still hard to get into it - parking a trailer in the dark is a lot more difficult. Couldn’t get cable TV and discovered the next morning that I’d attached the cable to the wrong outlet. The lesson here is to stop before nightfall - makes life easier.


Thursday, October 1 - 287 Miles Today. Left Shelby before 10PM. Drove I-15 through Great Falls and stopped at a truck stop for gas and ate at a buffet - nothing special, and we noticed they had no meat dishes other than tasteless deep-fried fish - not even chicken.

We took a shortcut, Hwy 69, at Boulder where I-15 veers to the west. Came to I-90, and headed east to Bozeman, then south to the Bozeman KOA Park - very nice. There was a hot-spring next door of which the fee was $7.50. The place had seven pools. We went in about 7PM and there were only a few kids there but a number of college students started coming in shortly thereafter. When we left I noticed the bigger outside pool was circled by students sitting around the edge with their feet dipping into the water, and wondered if that was a regular happening?

GO TO: Part 6

Another Time on the ALCAN - 4. Whitecourt & Edmonton

Monday, September 28 - 289 Miles Today. The checkout time at most RV parks is usually 11AM - more rarely at noon. We usually get our money’s worth by leaving at near the posted limit, but made an exception by leaving just after 10AM from the Mile “0” RV Park in Dawson Creek.

I can’t help but think of Dawson Creek as being the start of the civilized grid. The signs begin here. We headed toward Edmonton passing fenced fields, tracing power lines pole to pole, and feeling the sensation of being reconnected. The town of Grande Prairie is the largest. It has an attractive college with beautifully designed campus buildings (smooth curves, no sharp corners), a Costco, etc - all the attributes of a modern town. It is unrecognizable from forty years ago. We left Grande Prairie on a dual highway with traffic getting ever heavier the further south we went.

The radio predicted winds of up to 50 MPH so we decided to stop in Whitecourt instead of driving onto Edmonton. Stayed at Sagitawh RV Park on the outskirts. Made a fire, roasted hotdogs and checked the email. Moonshine made friends with the donkey resident of the Park. There were also two pigs, a goat, a couple sheep, a llama, chickens and geese - all living peacefully in the same area.
Tuesday, September 29 - 104 Miles Today. Dual highway till just outside of Edmonton. We stopped at the Glowing Embers RV Park at the very western edge Edmonton as it was only a few miles from the West Edmonton Mall. We had been stopping there since 1987, right after it opened as the largest in the world. Mary thought she might want to go shopping, and we have always gone to the Water Park. It has a pool that generates waves and numerous waterslides. Mary had a lot of fun in the wave pool the last time we went, but could not get inspired this time. She slid down one of the more gentle slides, I did a couple of the extremes. We decided the Mall no longer has the magnetic attraction for us that it once possessed.

GO TO: Part 5

Another Time on the ALCAN - 3. Ft. Nelson & Dawson Creek

Saturday, September 26 - 204 Miles Today. We are very conscious that many Road Houses are closed, some not to open again, so I am reluctant to let the gas tank go much below the half way mark. We stopped at the Northern Rockies Lodge to gas. The place is a high-end hunting and fishing lodge on the shores of Muncho Lake. Well healed tourists are flown in by small float-planes for a week or two, and then carried out the same way - no dusty long road for them. There is a large lodge made of logs and a sprinkling of picturesque chalets along the shore. Gas cost $6 a gallon, the most expensive along the highway, but we had stopped at a couple other places only to discover they had no gasoline, so I wasn’t about to pass the opportunity.
We rolled into Fort Nelson at four in the afternoon looking for a place to stay. We had camped on the west end of town in 2006, but didn’t care much for it, so we thought to try one described in the Milepost that lay five miles on the other side. It was closed, maybe for a year or two, so we turned back to town. Found an RV Park in town hidden behind the Blueberry Motel. It was a fenced, open, graveled lot that we had failed to notice on earlier trips, but it had good Wi-Fi, so we were happy.
Once we unhitched and set up the trailer it was time for dinner. On other trips we had dined at Dixie lee’s, a small, popular place with the locals, so it seemed a logical choice. Dixie Lee’s specialized in deep fried chicken and fish. We noticed there were no customers when we went in, and it was dinner time. Only one other couple came in while we were there - weary travelers from Oklahoma on their way to Alaska . I ordered three pieces of chicken woth fires. I got a small leg, a small wing, and a small thigh - over cooked and dry. The place had probably been sold - new owners, new personnel. Don’t need to go there any more.
Sunday, September 27 - 283 Miles Today. We left Fort Nelson just after 11PM, and arrived in Dawson Creek about 5PM. I spent another paranoid day of driving while watching the gas gauge go toward the half way mark. We stopped at three places in the Pink Mountain area even though I probably had enough gas to get to Fort. St Johns - I wanted insurance. The Buckinghorse River Roadhouse had a sign on the pump, “Sorry no Gas”, so we went across the road to what looked like a large road crew camp. There was a restaurant with gas pumps out front and an RV sitting at them - nobody around. We waited several minutes and then went on into the Provincial Campground for a break. The campground has a large parking area with camp sites along its river side. We have camped there several times and always enjoy stopping. The RV was still there as we left the campground so we drove on again. The gas gauge was slipping under the quarter-tank mark when we were finally able to get gas. GO TO: Part 4

Another Time on the ALCAN - 2, Whitehorse & Liard Hot Springs

Thursday, September 24 - 218 Miles Today. The highway was nice and smooth between Haines Junction and Whitehorse - sped along at a constant 55MPH - no bumps. We arrived in Whitehorse about 3:00pm today, our third on the road. The town lies on the Yukon River, well below the passing highway to the south. There are gas stations, garages, restaurants, hotels, and RV parks scattered along the ALCAN as it parallels the river and city. We descended into town on the main exit, planning to exchange some currency, hoping to grab a bite to eat and checking our email at the Visitor‘s Center - no luck on that one. Stayed at the Caribou RV Resort a few miles south of town. Wi-Fi at the Caribou gave out a weak signal and was slow, but we eventally prevailed.

Friday, September 25 - 394 Miles Today - our maximum mileage considering Moonshine gets cranky and commences a constant flow of whinny barking after the onset of early evening. Watson Lake was to be our destination, but the "SignPost Village" was having a tough time economically. We have noticed this trend all along the Alcan. Many roadhouses and gas stations are closed, either early in the season or permanently. The financial mess going on in the world has reached the Far North. Even the restaurant we planned to dine at was closed - so we moved on to Laird Hot Springs, another ninety miles. The land is undergoing the fall color change and yellows dominate - sometimes providing a green and yellow checkerboard design. We passed a herd of Buffalo that grazes along the highway between Watson Lake and Laird. They are dispersed in groups of 20 to 30 along the highway. We passed three or four groups and a couple of lone bulls. Moonshine sat quietly during this passage as she studied the strange, large headed beasts.
Mary is like a cat that cannot find a corner in a round barn in which to pee, so we circled the campground at Laird two times before picking the most perfect site. The campground had more campers than we had expected, but there were plenty of sites available near the end of the loop. It seems that most campers take the first available, so the sites fill in that order.
We parked and walked Moonshine over to the boardwalk, a half mile total, and were returning to get our bathing gear when we met Armand, the camp host. He was a jovial guy, in his sixties, friendly and talkative. It was close to the end of the season so he was giving everyone a deal, half price - $10 for the night. He said he didn’t like to go to Watson Lake any more, area is too depressed, and when he did, he got his supplies and booze and took off back to Laird without lingering.
Moonshine stayed n the trailer while Mary and I walked out the boardwalk to the spring. By then it was very dark so each of us carried a flashlight. Mary had been looking forward to the springs, but she found them too hot to get into, and the sulfur smell was stronger than we remembered, so she stayed on the boardwalk while I took a fifteen minute dip. We had left our cloths at the far end of the facility. No one was near, and the night was pitch black, so I decided I would quickly slip off my wet swimsuit, dry off quickly, and then, quickly, put on the dry sweat pants I had brought. I was no sooner nude when a trail of flashlights appeared from the boardwalk at the other end. I was dancing around trying to get my shorts on. Mary was trying to hide my naked body from the sight of the eight or ten new arrivals, mostly children, while I, with a foot stuck in the wrong leg, was dancing a jig on the other. I finally managed to slip the shorts on backward and hurriedly don the sweatpants.

To complete the comedy, Mary tripped and fell in the boardwalk. She was carrying the big lantern, but not paying attention to where she was aiming it, so the beam would flash up to the tree tops and then slice downward across our path lighting the vegetation at the side, but never lighting the boardwalk - so Mary didn't see the raised board she tripped over.
GO TO: Part 3

Another Time on The ALCAN - 1. Gakona Lodge & Kluane Lake

Tuesday, September 22 - The first snow blanketed the Chugach Mountains as we rolled out of Anchorage at 2:30pm. There wasn’t much chance of making the 328 miles to Tok Junction by evening - our planned destination. We drove through light rain and then a heavy snow fall as we passed the Matanuska Glacier about 85 miles out. Nothing stuck, the ground was too warm.

Glennallen was our default stopping place, but we didn’t find anything we liked and moved on, finally stopping at the Gakona Lodge, an old historic roadhouse that served horseback travelers more than a hundred years ago. We were able to park in front for free, and we got the bonus of WI-FI. I got our small generator out and started it up. We warmed up some lasagna and played on the Internet the rest of the night.

Wednesday, September 23 - On the road by 9:30am. Some travelers are up and gone shortly after daybreak, but that has never been our practice - 9:30am is timely for us. Ran through another heavy snowstorm before reaching Tok, but the early falling flakes soon melted. Stopped in Tok for gas and a few groceries. Crossed the border 90 miles later. The Canadian Immigration seized Mary’s pepper spray. We neglected to mention the two bear spray canisters carried in our back packs or they would, no doubt, have taken them too. The hundred and forty miles from the Canadian border to Kluane Lake is the worse. You cannot drive more than a mile on good, smooth pavement, before you come to a red flagged "frost heave" where the road is buckled and distorted - very jarring if you cross it at more than thirty MPH, and it can scramble the contents in the travel trailer. Camped at Burwash Landing on Kluane Lake (thirty miles long). Parked the trailer so the rear window looked out onto the lake.
GO TO: Part 2

Leaving For the "Outside"!

Monday, September 21, 2009. Rain today, and there was more prep to be done...so it's another day before we leave for the "Outside". That term,"Outside", is an idiom in the Alaskan vernacular referring to anywhere outside of the state. I expect it derives from the isolation felt by early settlers. Living up here, fifty years ago, and even today, creates the impression that one is existing within a cocoon - the rest of the world, remote and far away.

Little was known about the interior Alaska by the Western world until the 1890's Klondike Gold Rush. The photo of minors forming a long line ascending the mountain barrier is haunting. Now we have a road that connects us, and airliners arrive and depart by the hour. Much of that sense of isolation is therefore illusionary - but not entirely. That barrier still exists in the Alaskan psych. Two thousand miles of the drive is mainly through a buffer - a no-man's-land of wilderness.

GO TO: Part 1

Another Time on the ALCAN

Well, here we go again. My wife, Mary, our dog, Moonshine, and I are heading down the Alaskan Highway one more time. We are going to be snowbirds searching for warm, sunny days. After more than forty years (winters) in Alaska, it will be nice to do something other than shovel snow for six months.

I find Alaska to be limiting in these, my vintage years - especially during long winters. Anchorage is a nice city - as cities go - with lots of activities for a town of its size. There is more big name entertainment coming up here than in most towns comparible (population: quarter-million), and there is a an unlimited choice of winter sports.

But most of Alaska freezes up during the winter. Towns like Seward, and Homer, places on the ocean, are bustling durng long summer days, but they sleep through the winter, along with hibernating bears. But I've done all the Alaskan adventures, and now I am ready for another type of experience - something warmer.

Its about a 2,400 mile drive before you reach the US border again, and if you wait to leave here til after the first of October you may run into snow - which stays into April. If you're driving a fifty-five foot long rig (truck and travel trailer), then its not prudent to wait any longer than that. So, we are heading out tomorrow (Monday September 21, 2009) ...or maybe Tuesday.

Ironically, you have to go 328 miles north before you can head south. Tok is at the Junction of the Glenn and Alaskan Highways. It is our distination on the first day. We hope to make Whitehorse on the second, and Laird Hit Springs on the third. After that its mostly speculation as to where we will stop for the nighjt. I will try to post our progress, but am uncertain how much time I will get to write and where we might find Internet access - its all tenative.

GO TO: Leaving for the "Outside"

Driving the Alcan, Part 5 - Things & Places

"There is some of the most beautiful mountain country I have ever seen between Mileposts 350 and 450 - mountain streams, rivers and two of the clearest emerald green lakes - Summit and Muncho.” That is how I started my journal on June 26, 1967. I went on to say, “…a man at a gas station by the lake said Muncho was 800 feet deep.” That hundred miles is still one of my favorite.

Milepost 477 is a must stop - Liard Hot Springs. When I passed in 1967 my face was still tender and I did not possess a positive attitude toward adventure - being I was yet operating in security mode. There is a nice camp ground at Liard and a parking area at the trailhead. A boardwalk weaves its way across a warm water swamp ending at the Hot Spring. There is a dressing room and several sets of stairs into the pool - very relaxing.

That night I camped at Milepost 632, just east of Watson Lake. “My camp site tonight is another government one. This is a large, open area with tables and fire pits distributed around the edge. There is an indoor cooking house in the center… A small stream runs by the camp with very clear water. I made up my mind that I was going to wash and shave - no matter what. The dust was bad today. My face was no longer sore, but with a three-day beard, peeling skin, and the dust, I couldn’t stand myself any longer. After I ate, I put a pan of water on to heat, and with a sudden thought, grabbed a bar of soap, went down to the stream and washed my hands and arms. It felt so good that, after shaving, I went back, took off my boots and waded about in the clear cool stream. Now I feel like a new man.”

I stayed at Milepost 968 on June 27th, about 50 miles past Whitehorse. From that point it was 250 miles to the border and paved road thereafter. The highway on the Alaskan side was smooth, like gliding on a magic carpet, and so refreshing I couldn’t stop.

The official end of the Alcan is Fairbanks, thou construction started from Delta Junction, about 100 miles east. The Parks Highway, which connects Fairbanks to Anchorage, did not exist in 1967. One had to take the more circuitous route via the Richardson Highway out of Delta Junction . I turned south toward Anchorage at Tok Junction on the Glenn Highway. The Glenn crosses the Richardson at Glennallen and goes on into Anchorage. I didn’t stop until I got there.

It was raining when I entered Anchorage at 11:00pm on June 28th. I was tired and miserable so I spent thirteen precious dollars for a hotel room on Gambell street. I had $92 in my pocket the next day. I rented a room and went job hunting.

GO TO: Another Time on the ALCAN

Driving the Alcan, Part 4 - Hazards

I once heard a joke about a carpenter who boasted of having a hammer that belonged to his great grandfather. He bragged that it was a hundred years old and had only two new handles over the years… but he did have to replace the head once. The story reminds me of the changing Alcan. It’s paved all the way now. Many sections have been drastically improved, others abandoned entirely. It’s not the same road anymore, but still an adventure - though I’m a bit jaded after so many times over it.

So, what advice can I offer a modern day adventurer? I was warned about flat tires and broken windshields, so I carried my spare tire on the roof for fast access, but never needed it. I felt somewhat complacent having completed the trip without even a small crack in the windshield only to have it smashed in Anchorage a week after arriving.

Those particular hazards are not much of a threat now-a-days. In 1983 Mary and I were returning at summer‘s end, and as we passed through Beaver Creek, the last Canadian town before the border, I thought about filling the gas tank. I didn’t have enough Canadian money to pay for the gas, didn’t feel like using a credit card, and knew there was a station in Alaska, about twenty miles further.

Evening approached as we crossed the border and headed on west. When we got to the station it was closed, its parking lot filled with road graders and bulldozers. The old guy who run it for years had died during the summer. I had an eighth of a tank of gas, and the caretaker informed us it was about twenty miles to the next station - either way. It wasn’t a puzzler to figure our options.

Twilight and drizzling rain fell as we pulled onto the highway, still heading west. I slowed to thirty MPH to conserve fuel as we drove into the night. The headlamps lit a glistening blacktop that blended with the darkness on each side. We shared a mile-by-mile silence, eyes fixed on the road ahead, looking for salvation. The gauge went to empty and then fell below the mark.

We were climbing a long wide curve when the engine sputtered. I switched tanks, hoping there might be a teaspoon or two left in the other empty tank. The engine caught; we topped the hill and started down the other side. The lights of the station, like a beacon in a stormy sea, shown ahead and guided us into the driveway. The engine sputtered again and the truck came to a stop about twenty feet from the pump. We were overjoyed with relief. I never let the tank go below the half-way mark after that.

GO TO: Part 5

Driving the Alcan, Part 3

Over the years the Alcan has been continually improved and shortened. I’ve crossed it over a dozen times since that first trip, and have seen new sections laid down and old ones abandoned.


I remember driving up a hog-back ridge of the original highway in 1972, and seeing a new section being laid across the valley below - a straight-arrow as far as the eye could see. It cut off nearly thirty miles of old road. Some cut-off sections form loops and are still maintained; others have been abandoned, leaving spectral images - grass covered swaths wandering off to nowhere.

A new edition of the Milepost will often give two numbers for a location. The second one will be denoted as the “Historic Milepost”, the mileage number of the original road. The numbers I wrote in my journal will thus not correspond to present day Milepost markers, and my memory is not sufficient to provide anything more than a general stab at to where those markers were placed forty-two years ago.

According to my journal I left Edmonton at 1pm Saturday the 24th of June. The repair shop at the Oldsmobile dealership took an amazingly short three days to replace my engine - they did a fine job. I drove from there to Dawson Creek and on to Milepost 52 before stopping for the night - about 450 miles. I groused about paying $2 for “a campsite which turned out to be nothing more than a small piece of lumpy ground to pitch my tent - no table, no fire-pit“. Milepost 52 would have placed me 5 miles beyond Fort St. John. I don’t remember anything about the town from those days, it was petite, but is now the second largest along the Alcan (mining and oil) at 18,000+ citizens.

The camp-site would have been close to where the Hudson’s Hope Loop leads west and south, following the Peace River. It’s a beautiful drive, a bit steep and winding at the north end but passable. I pulled a 30 foot trailer over it in 2005 so it can be done. It connects with the town of Chetwynd, cutting off a few miles if you’re going that way. Chetwynd is on Highway 97 which heads south, going through St. George, following the Fraser River Valley toward Vancouver, BC.

Only five places on the Alcan qualified as towns in 1967. They were: Dawson Creek (Milepost 0), Fort St. Johns (MP 47), Fort Nelson (MP300), Watson Lake (MP635), and Whitehorse (MP 917). Today they possess a size and sophistication that is in marked contrast to the frontier character of forty years ago. I don’t remember much at all about those towns of 1967, and I drove through them again in 68’, 69’, and twice in 72’. They did not change much in those years.

I remember the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake. A G.I. started it in 1943. He made a mileage sign with an arrow pointing in the direction to his hometown. Others followed his lead and are still doing so to this day. Its worth a stop to wander through the forest and look at all variety of items - mostly license plates and town signs, but entertaining oddities can be found throughout.

Mary and I contributed our bookstore sign in 2005. It was a nice onewith a "town cryer" on top We thought the Forest would be a good place to leave it as we had given up the book business. We stopped by on our return in 2006 and found that some jack-ass had stolen it.

Another thing I remember from the first trip is that ten or twenty miles of the Alcan was paved on each side of Whitehorse - a welcome relief from the bumpy gravel.

GO TO: Part 4

Driving the Alcan, Part 2

A week after my engine burn-out, Denver, the mechanic said the car was ready, but it might run a little hot - so keep an eye on it. I drove on toward the Alcan stopping near White Court to check it. I opened the hood and stood looking at the engine. All seemed well, and then, for some unknown reason, I reached over and opened the radiator cap. Hot water hit me directly in the face and eyes - what a dumb, damn thing to do??

I stopped a few miles further and the kind people at a filling station gave me some salve to put on my burned face. My eyes were OK but my face stung for several hours. I suffered the equivalent of a moderate sunburn the rest of the trip.

Dawson Creek, B.C. is the official start of the Alaskan Highway. Construction really started 10 miles west of the town in 1942 because a dirt road already reached that far. Dawson Creek is a northern agricultural region and the town is surrounded in late summer with beautiful yellow fields of canola. The population, at about 12,000, hasn’t changed since I first drove though. The main point of interest is the monument standing in the middle of town to mark “Mile 0” of the Alaska highway.

I kept a journal of the trip, but stashed it away, never looking at it again until recently. It is fortunate I dug it out as I find I have been giving misinformation about my maiden trek over the Alcan. For instance, I’ve told people for years that I crossed into Alaska and continued driving all the way to Anchorage on the 19th day of June, 1967. According to my journal it was the 28th of June. I’ve been celebrating my Alaskan debut on the wrong day for nearly forty years - that’s on par with having a 4th of July Parade on Bastille Day.

I was disappointed that gravel did not start at Dawson Creek's city limits, and remembered the first thirty miles out of Dawson Creek as being paved. My old journal informs me that the first eighty or ninety miles was paved.

I might have gotten some facts wrong, but my lingering impressions possess a certain credibility. There was a paved road and it looked much like the miles I had just covered, but heck, I was on the Alcan. I was supposed to be struggling through primitive country, not seeing farm houses or cultivated fields. I had expected to leave civilization at town’s edge. This is the impression remaining with me all these years, and I remember feeling a sense of disillusionment …but I remember, it didn’t last long.

A few miles further I came onto the Peace River, and descend into the valley below. Ninety miles out would have put me several miles past Fort St. Johns. That is when the road narrowed becoming as rough and rutty as any I’d seen. I began to wondered what I had got myself into. The next twenty miles were probably the worse I encountered. I navigated around deep ruts cut into the edge of the road. Some pot holes where deep enough to bottom-out, and my top speed was reduced to a creeping fifteen miles-an-hour. I decided I wasn’t going to punish myself or my lemon-yellow Oldsmobile. I was in no hurry, and I didn’t want to leave a trail of wasted tires streaming out behind me, so I covered much of the gravel at a modest 30 mph... or slower.

GO TO: Part 3

Driving the Alcan, Part 1

The first time I drove the Alaskan Highway it offered great adventure. The Alcan twisted and turned its way through eleven hundred miles of gravel, following much the same route that was hastily cut through the wilderness at the beginning of World War II.

The Army Corp of Engineers completed the road in just over eight months. It was a dusty, rutted, sometimes narrow lane, that followed the contours of the land. Sometimes a passing vehicles would create bellowing clouds of dust so thick that cars prudently stopped until the air cleared. Vehicles reaching pavement at the other end came out painted a shade of yellow ochre, and half of them sported broken windshields because oncoming trucks and cars propelled rocks at them.

The road climbed over majestic mountains and snaked its way through pristine wilderness - no fences, electric poles, or buildings. It passed an occasional roadhouse, or hunting lodge - otherwise nothing marked human presence. For a young man who grew up in Indiana it was like going back in time, like visiting the far reaches of the earth.

I bought an Alaskan Milepost, a yearly publication describing, mile-by-mile, the 1522 miles between Dawson Creek Canada, and Fairbanks, Alaska. There are, literally, mileposts all along that great distance, and with the guidebook, one knows what to expect around the next bend in the road. My 1967 edition was more the size of a large paperback novel. The latest Milepost edition is 8 by 11 inches, and packed with 800 pages of information - a must for anyone thinking of making the trip.

I spent a week in Kokomo getting ready. I traded cars, buying a 1965 six-cylinder Oldsmobile hardtop. It had a black top and was painted lemon-yellow on bottom. (The color proved to be prophetic.) People told me I should expect at least one flat tire on the trip, so I got a car-top carrier and put the spare tire and camping equipment on it. The camping equipment consisted of a Coleman stove, a folding aluminum table and an old army pup tent made of heavy canvas.

I stopped off in Skokie to say good-bye to brother Don, his wife, Barbara, and my nephew, Lee. We looked at a map as I showed them my proposed route. Don shook his head as we spoke of the nearly 4500 mile distance to Anchorage. It was such a long way. I wondered if he thought I might never come back, and I remember saying something about the fact that the road went in both directions.

I headed for Alaska in early June of 1967. I had enough money in my pocket to get there, and a cashiers check for something like $757.65. I no longer remember the exact amount but $757.65 is about right.

I was fifty miles east of Edmonton, Alberta when I noticed a black cloud of smoke bellowing out behind me. It soon became evident that it was emanating from by tail pipe. I pulled over to check things out and could not get the car started again.

I spent a week at a modest hotel while a mechanic named Denver worked on rebuilding the engine of my 1965 lemon-colored Oldsmobile. He didn’t mind that I hung around talking and handing him tools, so the days were not a total loss. I got a mini-course in engine replacement. When the job was done I took the bill and my cashiers check for $757.65 and walked across the street to the bank. I don’t remember what the bill amounted to or what the exchange rate was at the time, but once I paid it there was less than a dollar in change. It was like they knew.

I was near the point-of-no-return. Edmonton was about half-way between Kokomo and Anchorage. There was enough money to go either way. Dad and Mom had given me their Shell gas credit card when I left Kokomo in case something happened, so I thought, “Eh, what the hell”, and headed on toward Alaska.
GO TO: Part 2