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Sumiki

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  1. Man, if this comes to fruition, my mom will flip out.
  2. Sumiki

    The Last Frontier

    -----We awoke in Whitehorse with a singular goal: reach the Last Frontier. By distance, we had conquered much of the Alaska Highway, but the roughest parts were to come. The Yukon's 511 service, along with the advice proffered by the ladies at the Watson Lake welcome center, told us that the roughest gravel breaks and frost heaves were to be found in permafrost territory north of Destruction Bay. -----Rain—steady but not hard—dominated the first part of the journey, and the mountain peaks were lost in the low-lying clouds, as they had been for much of our time in the Yukon capital. As soon as we got out of the outlying subdivisions of Whitehorse, traffic once again thinned to its barest. The clouds kept us from seeing many of the day's mountain peaks, and though we missed out on some of the highway's greatest scenery en route to Haines Junction, we consoled ourselves with the knowledge that our return journey would take us on the same stretch. -----Haines Junction, like everything else in the Yukon, is an extremely small town. We pulled onto one of the few side roads and went into the Village Bakery, which is small yet sprawling, with a huge front porch tucked away into the forest. It's a hip and happening place for a town of less than 600 people, and it felt like half were at the Bakery. It felt no different from walking into an independent bakery in Portland. They also baked a mean scone, and when push comes to shove, that's what really matters. -----We topped off gas in Haines Junction, having completed roughly a third of the distance from Whitehorse to the Alaska border. Destruction Bay was the next stop, and my parents reminisced about their misadventures in the great northwest nearly thirty years ago. As we rolled through Destruction Bay, they pointed out the place at which they'd stayed. -----As we got ever closer to Alaska, things got bigger. The highway passed over the flat bed of the all-but-dry Slims River and traversed the south side of Kluane Lake, the largest in the Yukon, which kept going ... and going ... and going. Destruction Bay is named for an inlet on Kluane Lake where a storm took out a bunch of equipment during construction of the highway. All along the area—since exiting Haines Junction, really—we were on the north side of Kluane National Park, which contains the largest non-polar ice fields in the world. (While we'd been pronouncing the name as KLOO-ann, it's actually kloo-WAN-ee.) Its shrouded peaks paralleled us all the way to Alaska. -----While many Yukon communities are few and far between, there are not many miles between Destruction Bay and the much earlier settlement in Burwash Landing, site of a small gold rush at the turn of the century. That legacy continues to this day with the massive gold pan—billed as the world's largest—emblazoned with the town name. Of course, while Burwash Landing is large enough to be on maps, it's still a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of place. -----Burwash Landing represented a bit of a rubicon for our travels. We'd encountered hideous roller coaster-like frost heaves and had to endure gravel breaks, but we braced for the worst as we got into permafrost territory. Fortunately, we were spared that which we most feared as we worked our way to Beaver Creek, the westernmost settlement in all of Canada. In the five or so miles up to Beaver Creek, it was nothing but barely-patched potholes, sections of slick resurfacing atop scratchy and gravelly chipsealed pavement, and wavy frost heaves that left us dizzy after the worst sections. -----A respite in Beaver Creek was well-deserved, and in the visitor center, we encountered a lively and friendly 65-year old French Canadian woman who'd lived all over the country and takes multi-month solo RV trips to the States in the winters. She regaled us with stories of fussing at cops in the Florida Keys, accidentally turning into a California penitentiary in a futile search for a campground, and much more. We returned the favor with some advice about hiking in Zion National Park. -----There are thirty miles from Beaver Creek to the Alaska border, and those thirty miles proved to be amongst the worst. Just outside of Beaver Creek is the Canadian customs station, but one has to go past the Alaska border to get to US customs. The thirty miles of road in the aforementioned liminal space is not particularly well-maintained by either side; it was paved (for a certain definition of the word paved), but aside from that, little in the way of complements can be paid. -----Finally, we reached the Alaska border, where there is a pull-out to take a picture with the sign as well as some information panels. The international border, which is kept tree-free by an international commission, stretches far as the eye can see in either direction, running from Mount Saint Elias in the south to the Arctic Ocean in the far, far north. -----But as thrilling as it was to finally make it to the Last Frontier, our day's journey had not yet concluded. We spent some time at the border crossing, but not because it was a long process; we could have been in and out in less than two minutes, but we got talking to the border officer and inquired about the nature of some of the highways we'd be on. As it turns out, the fellow had taken a motorcycle trip all the way up to Prudhoe Bay and splits time between the two road border crossings between Alaska and the Yukon. -----Finally back to miles instead of kilometers, the speed limit now read an unbelievable 65 MPH, a speed which—if reached—would send most travelers airborne on the frost heaves, of which there were more than enough. The further we got on the highway, the better they got, but we dealt with the worst of them amongst the mountains leading out of the border. -----Almost immediately after crossing, we caught a glimpse of the majestic Wrangell Mountains to the south. While the Kluanes were epic, the distant, almost totally snow-covered majesty of the Wrangells just screamed "Alaska." Getting out of the car at a pullout left us with a silence so thorough that walking felt almost like desecration. -----Not too much further down the road lay the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge welcome center. We arrived at 4:30 Alaska time, which was precisely when they closed up shop. We went on the center's immense back porch to catch more beautiful views of the Wrangell Mountains, only to hear a chorus of angry squawking and a small rush of wind above our heads. A horde of cliff swallows came rushing in and rushing out of their mud nests, nestled underneath the roofline of the center. We did not know what species kept screaming at us and buzzing our heads until we happened to come back to the car right as the park ranger was driving away. She rolled down her window and asked us if we had any questions, which is how we learned the name of the species. -----Views of the Wrangells framed the forests, the thousand unnamed ponds, and the Tanana River, which made for an epic drive when we could spare some time from the distorted and mangled road. Yet as we descended towards Tok, it became possible to do the long-signed (but long-insane) 65. Before we knew it, we were in the tiny town of Tok. -----We had dinner at Fast Eddy's, a place where you can seemingly get everything, and their portions are Alaska-sized. I had a massive chicken burger with a side of beer-battered fries, which was the most unique thing on the menu. They were fluffy and crispy, just as all fries should be. My mom had a huge burger—and these are truly epic, half-the-size-of-your-head portions. Mushrooms, tomatoes, lettuce, onion, and the rest of the works topped a perfectly cooked burger that lived up to its name of "the incredible burger." My dad got a personal pizza, with a thick but airy crust. Generous toppings and just the right amount of cheese balanced it all out. -----Our waitress brought out the check, but we were not yet done. Dessert were milkshakes: my dad had a strawberry shake, and I had a Butterfinger shake. It came out so cold and chunky that I couldn't suck it through the straw to save my life, and it wasn't until much later that it began to deliciously emerge. -----Tomorrow: we finish the Alaska Highway at Delta Junction en route to Fairbanks.
  3. Sumiki

    Canada's Idaho

    -----A long-awaited sleeping-in session commenced into the morning hours, and upon awakening at around 10:00 we prepared for a day on the town in the Yukon capital. Our first stop was at the Yukon Transportation Museum, which is adjacent to the Whitehorse airport. It's extremely noticeable for the enormous DC-3 perched outside on a pivot, which is their weathervane. We admired it for a while, despite the biting cold wind, before going to the door of the museum. -----To our surprise, it's not considered late enough in the month of May for them to be open every day, so we though that we had to console ourselves with the outdoor exhibits. We took pictures of ourselves on a rusty old small-gauge railway locomotive used during the early days of transportation infrastructure in the Yukon during the Gold Rush years. Fortunately, when a big truck pulled up, a man got out and told us that we could go into the museum; although technically closed, they still would let tourists in upon a knock. There appeared to be only one employee: a girl who operated the gift shop. She let us in and gave us a few pointers as to where to go first. -----The highlight of the museum are the two epic hangars filled to bursting with cars and trains and historical figures important to getting around in the territory. The rough-hewn nature of its inhabitants struck us as morbidly hilarious, such as sending a tiny rail car with men inside down the treacherous White Pass & Yukon Railway line as a daily condition check. -----Beyond this hangar lay the real hangar, colder due to the open door on the far side, which held more modern bits of equipment whose oldest vehicles dated to the ALCAN and CANOL projects. While the ALCAN is best known for giving birth to the Alaska Highway and changing the nature of the far northwest forever, the CANOL—short for Canadian Oil—was a lesser-known side project that brought in crude oil from Norman Wells in the Northwest Territories down to a Whitehorse refinery. The project was abandoned for being much too costly after World War II ended, but its transportation legacy lives on; the rough "Canol Road" is maintained—barely—by the Yukon government in the summers, and the lessons learned brought new technological innovations to the region. -----We briefly toured the outside exhibits, but the wind chill made things feel just a few degrees above freezing and the overcast weather overhead did not help. Thus, we climbed back in the car and went downhill to the city center of Whitehorse, which is a cute little frontier town whose ordinances dictate nothing over four floors and for whom rugged history is something to embrace. -----We drove through the A&W in town to try their onion rings; we'd seen the stores all over Canada but today would be one of our last chances at actually going by. The reason why is that I'd heard good things about their onion rings, and I agree with the assessment that they're chronically underrated. They were not greasy, which is a fault in most onion rings. -----Our next stop was at the MacBride Museum of Yukon History. While the outside is undergoing construction and renovation, much of the museum is accessible—save for Sam McGee's Cabin, which once belonged to the namesake of the Robert Service poem. Service got the idea for "The Cremation of Sam McGee" from a conversation he'd had with someone else, and then used McGee's name for its poetic cadence. -----While the MacBride Museum ostensibly covers all of Yukon history, the main focus is on the times since the Gold Rush. A gallery of taxidermied northern animals leads the way to a downstairs gallery on the Alaska Highway, while a separate building covers the details of the wild and wacky lives of early settlers and pioneers. You've got to be a little bit off in the head to leave behind everything to go to a desolate and unforgiving place, and indeed the characters about whom we read lived up to every anticipation. Their nicknames alone (such as Soapy Smith) are enough to tell you of the interesting lives these people led. -----The names of the pioneers who came to the land to prospect and survey are forever immortalized in the towns and highways and ferries that dot the landscape. These include George Black, once the Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons who had raised up a regiment from the sparsely populated Yukon to fight in the first World War. His wife Martha abandoned two of her kids and divorced her first husband to travel with her brother to the Yukon. -----After the MacBride Museum, we went to Klondike Rib & Salmon, a quaint little place located in one of the two oldest buildings in Whitehorse, dating from 1900. The place has grown up around it and integrates new construction in a way that makes the whole thing feel like an eclectic cabin. Advertised as a "Taste of the Yukon," their menu does not disappoint; there was everything from halibut dip to falafels. There's even sweet tea, something we've not seen as an option since Tennessee—although we opted for lemonade from their balsa-wood drink menu. -----I got a burger which had a custom patty of bison, elk, and wild boar meats. The taste was something I couldn't quite place, but it was a muted gamey smokiness. The richness was compounded with cheese, bacon, several onion rings, plus strips of pickles, a huge tomato, and more lettuce than I knew what to do with, all on a thick pretzel bun that made for a sandwich that was so large that only half of it could fit in my fully unhinged mouth with a single bite. I was full by the time I finished the burger and had little room left for the delicious (and obviously fresh) fries. -----My dad had the salmon dip while my mom got the halibut dip. Each came with a large buttery hunk of focaccia bread that soaked the excess cream, served in skillets. Artichokes and onions complemented the fish in the cream sauce. -----[side note: I've always sort of felt like the Yukon was Canada's Idaho. Both are a) vaguely triangular, b) in the northwestern quadrant of their respective countries, c) associated with potatoes, and d) mostly completely uninhabited.] -----After a little more rest and relaxation in the room, we struck back out down the hill into town to do a little more sightseeing. We went to Shipyards Park, where we layered up with our hoodies and raincoats for the intermittent precipitation and the biting wind, and were able to see a bit of the Yukon River. After returning to the warmth of the car, we went to Rotary Peace Park, where we were able to walk down to the Yukon River on a bed of smooth rocks. Across from this park was the S.S. Klondike, an old-fashioned steamboat, which—while closed—still struck a striking picture against the distant Whitehorse cliffs. -----Tomorrow: Alaska.
  4. Sumiki

    Getting Territorial

    -----Our alarms went off at 7:00 in the morning, and by eight we were out of our cabin and on the road to the Yukon border. The road out of Toad River led towards more epic mountain peaks, yet somehow the road felt even more desolate than yesterday. We went directly towards the mountain peak that had dominated the sunset last evening and saw ever more incredibly breathtaking vistas as we kept going. -----We dropped down as the road went around Muncho Lake, a mile wide and seven miles across, nestled in amongst the peaks. It was still frozen mostly solid, although along the edges, cracks were forming and liquid water lapped up over the edges. Every time we'd turn a new corner, new snowcapped peaks could be seen. -----After we came out of this gorgeousness, we encountered our first wildlife of the day: a stone sheep, standing majestically alone alongside the road. There was more greenery as we crossed rivers and watched for bison, of which there was great evidence of a herd but only males—alone or in small packs—were seen grazing on the side of the road. Not too much later, we spotted a lone black bear, minding his own business and rooting for food on the side of the road. -----This section of the highway was either fruitful with scenery and wildlife at every turn, or barren and monotonous for scores of miles. Driving meant staying on one's toes the entire time and anticipating the craziest of the few other drivers. The worst drivers are the ones from the lower 48; Canadians were generally the nicer and more reasonable ones. -----The geography teems with waterways, and we went around and across an uncountable number of creeks, lakes, rivers, and streams. Thankfully, few metal grates were to be found, save for the longest bridge on the entire Alaska Highway into Teslin, Yukon. (We also crossed the only suspension bridge on the highway.) -----The most interesting thing about the highway's route is that it zigzags into the Yukon and back out a total of seven times, with the seventh its final entrance into the territory. On the fifth border crossing, the Yukon government places its sign, for the first community in the territory is Watson Lake. Its biggest tourist-y claim to fame is the Signpost Forest, which was started after a lonely GI made up a sign for his hometown and posted it. Now the Signpost Forest has around 80,000 signs, arranged on immense wooden stakes in a roughly concentric pattern, and walking around it is entirely otherworldly. No one really has the time to read every last one of them, and we did not try; we used it as an opportunity to stretch our legs and try to spot signs from places we've been. There were more than a few from North Carolina, and we also saw one from Wausau, Wisconsin—home of trip mascot Yoder the Duck. -----We stopped at the adjoining visitor center, where the two friendliest ladies in the entire territory answered all the questions that we asked (and more than a few that we didn't). We debated lunch; though past noon, none of us were hungry (as we'd snacked in the car), so we topped off the gas tank and hit the road once again for Whitehorse. -----For the last time, the road dipped back in to British Columbia, looping around mountains and going up and down big hills. We'd long been removed from seeing a ton of snowcapped peaks, but once again they appeared in the distance in the form of the Cassiar Mountains. One could see the road miles ahead as it lay atop the terrain, and once we entered the Yukon for good, we realized that the buffer zone that had been cleared on either side of the highway was now gone. The Yukon government works on repairing the road only, and it's a tough enough job without the extra cost of clearing an extra two highways' worth of trees and shrubbery on either side. -----It was in the Yukon that we discovered the full joy of gravel breaks, where the blacktop dropped away to reveal either packed-in dirt (which was dusty but alright) or flat-out loose gravel (as the orange signs warned). The gravel was also only bad if there were oncoming vehicles or nutty Americans attempting to—of all things—pass. These gravel breaks did not last long, but felt like they went on for ages. Since they necessitated a slowing, most of the folks we passed seemed to be on these rough gravel breaks. -----As we traveled further into the Yukon, the roads got rougher. Frost heaves, heretofore few and far between, are now actively sought as we scan the road for treacherousness of all sorts. The potholes are "filled" by a certain definition; since there are so many of them and so few road workers, all they do is just dump in some asphalt and call it a day, leading to half-filled potholes wherein the cure is deadlier than the disease, so to speak. It was a team effort to navigate these minefields at full speed. -----After a pit stop for gas in Teslin, we kept on, where there were yet more gravel breaks and an increase in oncoming traffic from Whitehorse (where the locals apparently go south to various lakes on the weekends). There were also just as many lakes (such as the immense Teslin Lake) and mountains to be seen. Rain came in and out and in again, though never hard, as a steady stream of vehicles came the other way. Clearly, we were nearing Whitehorse. -----Whitehorse is the capital of the Yukon Territory and its largest city by far, though it is spread out a good distance around the Yukon River. While a lot of the Canadians drove pleasantly on the road itself, the Yukon natives hold road courteousness right below cleanliness in the hierarchy of virtues ... and their vehicles are incredibly filthy. (To be fair, so is ours; spotlessness is laughable amidst the dusty patches of the Alaska Highway.) -----After hundreds of miles and a rough day on the road, we arrived safe and sound at our hotel, which is the single weirdest mix of ultra-cheap and ultra-fancy I've ever seen. For instance, the chairs are custom-built, with the hotel logo on the back ... but the upholstery itself is lackluster. The bathroom is upscale, but a note tacked on the thermostat tells us, in so many words, not to touch because the thing doesn't do what you program it to do anyway. But it's clean and functional and the Internet access isn't a dog and pony show, so there's a lot to be said ... even if the modular structure manifests itself in slanted hallways and doors. -----We ate dinner—our first proper meal of the day—at an Asian fusion restaurant. The Yukon is a place one expects ... well, I don't know what kind of food, but Asian fusion isn't the first guess I'd venture. We were hungry enough for the food to be extra-good; after a starting course of miso soup and small salad (with ginger dressing), we all had Udon noodles with varying meats atop. They came out on piping hot iron skillets, a bit like a noodle stir-fry crossbred with a fajita, though all the flavors were distinctly Asian. My chicken was extremely tender and tempura-battered, and the sauce was rich and somewhat spicy. Though appearing to be very little at first, it seemed to multiply on our plates the more we ate, which was a welcome sight to our famished selves. -----My dad and I both got a chocolate mousse for dessert, and it was delicious—although one generally thinks of mousse as light and this one was absolutely frozen solid. You could build a lickable igloo out of the things if you had enough. The tiny, almost baby-size spoons did almost nothing; they could cut through the minuscule topmost layer of chocolate, but not the three layers underneath. I warmed my spoon up in my mouth before attempting to slice off some bits, but this wasn't too effective until things began to melt. My dad, fed up with the same tactic, took one of the metal chopsticks from our meal and skewered the mousse, stuffing it in with both hands and then eating it as if it was ice cream. It turned out to be a highly effective—and really the only—way to eat it. -----Tomorrow: a day off in Whitehorse.
  5. Sumiki

    Land of 10,000 Hats

    -----Upon awakening in Fort Saint John, we knew an exciting day of adventure was ahead. Our first full day on the Alaska Highway took us northbound, and once we were clear of the outskirts of Fort Saint John, it was utter wilderness as far as the eye could see. Trees were cleared for many meters around each side of the two-lane blacktop in order to give us a clear sightline towards potential critters. -----As we went ever north, the temperature did not reach above the high 40s in Fahrenheit, and the rain came in small short spurts as we rolled over forested hills. It was still so cold that snow was piled up to half a foot on the banks of the highway. -----The Alaska Highway travels north through the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to Fort Nelson, BC, before turning west and going through the mountains much of the rest of the way. As such, our drive to Fort Nelson was quite monotonous; the driver would adjust for road conditions (which were mostly good) and oncoming trucks (who were almost universally cordial) while the front-seat navigator, Milepost in hand, would track along with the signposts every five kilometers and warn of upcoming road conditions and points of interest. My mom, who manned the backseat, kept us informed of turns ahead. We all watched out for wildlife. -----The only item of considerable interest in the journey to Fort Nelson was our first glimpses of the snowcapped peaks of the Rocky Mountains. They were at such a distance that we could see mountains up and down to the west, and we satisfied ourselves with the knowledge that we’d enter their domain after we reached Fort Nelson. -----Fort Nelson is the last outpost of civilization; beyond its limits, the next time one gets a proper city is Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Territory. It began to rain once again as we rolled into Fort Nelson, and we topped off the gas tank before eating a late lunch at a nearby Tim Horton’s. We’d not been into a proper Tim Horton’s before, though it is a Canadian staple found from coast to coast. The food—sandwiches and wraps—were surprisingly good, but it’s more known as a place for coffee and sweets. We didn’t get any coffee, but were pleased to report that their doughnuts are as good as anything Krispy Kreme has to offer. (Maple glaze with custard filling—need I say more?) -----The drive from Fort Nelson to our day’s stop in Toad River took us on a meandering westward route up and into the Rocky Mountains. We geared down when necessary and took in the stunning vistas that the road offered, as we were now well ensconced amongst the snowcapped peaks and rocky outcroppings that stretched thousands of feet above our heads. The creeks and rivers and lakes and waterfalls were all frozen solid, with only the lower elevations seeing the effects of the thaw. -----Road conditions began to be a bit more on the hairy side, with rougher patches necessitating a lower (but still impossible to attain) speed limit. Our keen wildlife watch, which we’d maintained since the beginning of our journey, came to fruition with the sighting of no less than three massive black bear, minding their own business on the sides of the road. Mostly, the barren road lay at the doorsteps of the snowcapped granite monoliths. Every time the road would curve, a new outcropping or an even whiter mountaintop came into view. -----Summit Lake was the most icy and barren area; all but the road and its immediate surroundings were frosted over. Aside from the bears, seen on the way in, the only wildlife we saw came in the form of a small pack of three deer. The mountain scenery was more than enough to keep us enthralled. -----We wound down out of the mountaintop amidst a random assortment of precipitation that felt like rain but looked like snow flurries. Whether we were snowed on, I know not, but it was a surreal experience, as the temperature remained well above freezing and even wound near 60 Fahrenheit. While we were still surrounded by epic peaks, they were clearly smaller by comparison, as now, only the very tallest poke at the snow line. -----One of the more nerve-wracking things about the Alaska Highway is its propensity for metal-grate-surface bridges, but even these were negated when traversed at slow speeds. Two of them took us to the community of Toad River, which pretty much consists of Toad River Lodge. -----Toad River Lodge has a main office/restaurant, a gas station, an RV Park, and many cabins. Our initial cabin, while nice on the inside, was unfinished on the outside, so my dad inquired about changing cabins to one on the lakefront, which affords a breathtaking expanse of mountains, with snowcapped peaks far afield to the west and ducks aplenty on the lake itself. The cool mountain air only truly becomes cold when the wind blows through. The Lodge staff even wrapped the bases of trees near the water with thick transparent plastic in order to keep off the beavers, who managed to gnaw away at many of them before their covering. -----The Lodge is home to what they espouse to be the world’s single largest collection of hats, and I am fully inclined to believe their claim, as 10,782 hats covered the ceiling and began inching down the walls when passersby ran out of space in which to take their headgear. Most of the hats are beat-up and well-worn, hung up as a final resting place after perhaps several unwashed decades atop some dingy head. We’d taken an unused hat from my high school baseball team and brought it along for the express purpose of adding it to the collection, and when I stood atop a chair and affixed it to an unclaimed territory on the wall, it made for hat 10,783. -----The WiFi connection was all but nonexistent in our cabin, and when we went back to the lodge office to take a picture of our hat with trip mascot Yoder the Duck and to top off on gas before tomorrow, they asked if the connection was good in the new cabins in which we’re staying. We answered in the negative and they directed us to a different network, which worked. However, on the way back, I saw this big meaty thing trotting along the gravel in front of the half-dozen or so lakefront cabins and managed to say “moose!” -----My dad and I followed the bull moose a ways back and we ended up seeing it cross the road away from the lodge area. He also spotted a female caribou on a far hill away from the lodge, and we wandered around the cabin area until around 9:30, when we came back to our cabin—not because it’s dark (because it isn’t,) but because it’s quite cold. -----Tomorrow: the longest drive of the trip to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory.
  6. Sumiki

    Milepost Zero

    -----The road so far has constituted what is essentially the first leg of the trip: the journey to Milepost 0 of the Alaska Highway. With today we entered what we called "Milepost territory" in that our entire route was contained within the latest volume of the road map collection that prides itself as "The Bible of North Country Travel." -----8:00 AM saw my dad travel to the dealership in Whitecourt for an oil change and routine inspection that we'd had planned since we were well in the States. By the time he returned around an hour later, he reported that everything with the vehicle was good and that he'd made friends amongst the mechanics, who told him that they get a lot of vehicles from the States passing through en route to Alaska. -----With a clean bill of health for the vehicle, we struck out for British Columbia. Our first stop of the day was over an hour in, when we stopped for a top-off of gas in Valleyview, Alberta, which would enable us to get all the way to our destination without stopping in the larger city of Grande Prairie. -----There is a gas station in Valleyview that touts itself on having an excellent bathroom, which continues a theme throughout the northern slice of the western provinces. They're very proud of their winners and runner-ups in a very competitive yearly event, in which theirs was the 2013 winner—and boy, did it show. The stalls had wooden doors, there were chandeliers, and there was fancy tile and granite. It was a chaise lounge away from charging admission. -----And this wasn't just the inside of any old gas station. It was closer to a general store. In addition to the goodies found in any convenience stop, they sold button-up shirts, novelty socks, NFL hats, a full cafeteria's worth of meats and sandwiches with booths at which to eat their goodies, and much more. Our lunch was a small sampling of their wings, which, while small, were surprisingly good. -----Outside the station, as my dad began to climb into the driver's seat, a man came up to him and began a sales pitch about an all-natural car cleanser. Initially intrigued by the possibility of acquiring some to finish our heretofore pointless squeegee search, he went over to their tent which they'd pitched outside the store and managed to get a deal; we ended up getting two bottles of the stuff (which actually does work and will help on dustier points north) for half of their initially absurd asking price. As it turns out, one of the four entrepreneurs who started the thing had a relative in Raleigh. -----We continued on the road past Valleyview, where we picked up a great many trucks en route to Grande Prairie. But while the direct route would have taken us through the city, the fastest route was a straight shot around as provided by secondary roads. These roads took us over hill and dale, past prairies demarcated for use as ranches, farms, and oil fields, on what must have been one of the straightest roads I've ever seen. The only variation in its path, aside from the constant rolling hills and the ever-increasing bumpiness of the roads themselves, was around one single lake. -----We rejoined Route 34 westbound and found ourselves not far from the British Columbia border. It began to rain as we found ourselves in decidedly more hilly and mountainous country as the fields of the titular Grande Prairie fell away to more lush forests. Yet as we climb north, the nature of the forests change; within a day or so, the last of the skinny deciduous trees will give way to a sea of evergreens. -----Within short order we passed through the village of Pouce Coupe, which is one of the great town names in all of Canada. But our time in its quaint surroundings were short-lived, as we soon made it to Dawson Creek: mile 0 on the Alaska Highway. Two signs mark the beginning; the first, at the actual site of the beginning of construction, welcomes travelers to the world-famous Alaska Highway, while the second—in the middle of an intersection in the small downtown—is a reconstruction of the actual monument at milepost 0 which used to be at the first location before it was destroyed by a drunk driver not too long after the highway opened. -----We exited the car to get pictures and to stretch our legs around the small museum that adjoins the welcome center. Of all things, the previous visitors to log their names in the guest book are also from North Carolina. Much of the information about the construction of the Alaska Highway—known as the "ALCAN" to the military when it was built—was what we already knew, but it was nonetheless still astounding. In eight months, the crew built, logged, blasted, and problem-solved their way over a thousand-plus miles of theretofore barely charted terrain. It stands among the foremost engineering achievements of the twentieth century, and it is a testament to the urgency of their initial mission that the road, though long since built, was only fully paved in the recent decades. -----Dawson Creek also exploded in the 1940s when a fire got into a building that contained improperly stored dynamite. Without a central firefighting system in place, many believed that the entire town would burn. In the aftermath, martial law was declared, and today only one building stands from before the explosion. -----No such eventfulness happened to us during our time in Dawson Creek; we were happy to have made it to such a momentous occasion on the trip, but our day's drive was not yet complete. We struck out north on the Alaska Highway towards our ultimate destination of Fort Saint John, only to find an inordinate number of trucks coming in the opposite direction. The path between the two cities is so well-traveled that the authorities are in the process of making the route between them four lanes. Aside from the nature of the trees, it was indistinguishable from a route in many of the contiguous 48. -----We deftly avoided the few present potholes and gave oncoming trucks as wide a berth as possible, but we soon slowed and presently came to a complete stop. We even turned off the engine as we saw a cavalcade of vehicles coming in the opposite direction. We went forward perhaps half a mile before stopping again, and then finally we were sent forward for good. Road construction—ever-present amidst the forces of nature this far north—made for one-directional travel up and down what is known by locals as Taylor Hill but what reasonable folks like us would call a big freakin' mountain. The grades reached 10% at maximum, but most of the drive wasn't as steep and in many places we could simply coast. The most horrible thing was what awaited us at the bottom of this "hill:" a long bridge, slanted uphill, with metal grates for a driving surface. This was not particularly pleasant, but made the blacktop on the other side feel all the sweeter. Before we knew it, we had come into Fort Saint John. -----One does not realize how clean and neat roads are further south. Dust and grime and dirt are ever-present, as many locals use unpaved roads as a matter of course. How well one drives has no impact on how dirty one's car gets; before long, everything has a layer of grime. The route to our hotel—which is all but right on the Alaska Highway—featured multi-lane roads with no markings as to the differentiation of various lanes. -----Our vehicle, which is of considerable relative size in the contiguous 48, is now dwarfed by the immensity of the trucks with which we find ourselves surrounded. It makes it easier to park because all of the parking lot spaces are built for these enormous trucks—that is, when we can actually see the spaces. -----The ladies at the front desk of our hotel said that Fort Saint John did not have very many local places; indeed, it's of a very industrial nature. We ended up at Original Joe's, which was a bit of a bar-and-grill. It didn't have very many patrons, which allowed us to establish rapport with our gregarious Australian waitress. She admitted that the only reasons anyone ends up in Fort Saint John was for love or money, and in her case it was the former—but the plethora of oil industry jobs in the area mean that many are here for the latter. We discussed the hilarious umpiring of Australian-Rules Football, why they call Taylor Hill a hill and not a mountain, and other timeless subjects of interest. -----I got a massive Caesar salad with a grilled chicken breast and a single garlic breadstick, and all of it was quite good. I've always thought that restaurants could be judged on the quality of their croutons, and I have reason to believe that theirs were made from day-old garlic breadsticks. I wolfed it all down in short order and then finished what my mom didn't want of her bruschetta chicken pasta with a pesto cream sauce, which was quite tender and excellent as well. My dad got what he'd been seeing grazing out in the fields all day: a slice of tender, succulent, perfectly cooked Alberta beef and a skewer of shrimp. On the side, he got cole slaw in lieu of broccolini, and I'm not sure whether this is because of how much he likes cole slaw or because he's not sure what broccolini is. (To be fair, I'm not entirely sure either. It sounds vaguely like a genetic experiment.) -----For dessert, my dad and I split "dirt pie," which is the local equivalent of mud pie. It came in two solid square logs with about an inch of diameter, and it had chocolate ice cream and maple ice cream blocks interleaved with chocolate wafers. I'm not usually a fan of darker chocolates, but in the case of the dirt pie I made a rousing exception. -----It was during this meal that my dad recalled a box of maple cookies that we'd gotten at yesterday's impromptu Wal-Mart run in North Battleford. We'd finished them off in the car that very same day and he'd been talking about them ... well, not constantly, but often enough to be annoying. Thus, after dinner, we went across the road to ... a Wal-Mart. -----We do not eat out often—if at all—at home. Furthermore, I cannot tell you the last time I've been in a Wal-Mart at home. We go to the ends of the continent to do the kinds of things that most people do much more often, which tells you everything you need to know about the nature of the whimsical misadventures that we get up to. -----We avoided piles of broken glass and potholes the size of ATVs to get to the Wal-Mart, where we bought two boxes of these maple cookies and one box of fully cooked, sealed-up, ready-to-eat bacon, partially because we need meaty supplies for points north and partially because we can drag the box all the way to the Arctic Circle for a picture in honor of the fully cooked bacon we hauled around—without consuming—on the first Great American Road Trip. -----Tomorrow: our first full day on the Alaska Highway north to Toad River. We may not have Internet access, but an entry will still be written for posting at a later date should such a situation occur.
  7. -----Our phones, unable to get reception throughout Canada, did not understand that we had effectively entered a different time zone yesterday upon our arrival in Saskatchewan. When setting our alarms for this morning, I remembered to set it an hour ahead of when we actually wanted to get up ... but my mom didn't, and hers went off at half-past six ... so I'm told. (I was still out.) -----What lay ahead of us was one of our longest drives yet, and it began northwest out of Saskatoon. Prairies continued for miles as the terrain once again became the Saskatchewanian nothingness to which we had long since become accustomed. -----Fortunately, this day was replete with the occasional stops we'd sought after yesterday, allowing for stretching and driver switches, and it was not too long until we came to the city of North Battleford. Though the signs say "The Battlefords," only North Battleford is of any size, dwarfing Battleford by comparison. This is not to say that it's a big city by any stretch; it's a population center, and it had what we were looking for: gas station and a Wal-Mart. -----The gas station was unexpectedly full-service and those who worked there seemed to look at us askance for not knowing offhand their Canadian business customs. The thought that we might be from points elsewhere did not occur to them, although the gap between our accents and theirs grow by the kilometer. Foreigners must not roll through the Battlefords very often. After this, we bought a car wash and drove through before going to Wal-Mart. -----Why on Earth, you might ask, were we in a Wal-Mart? Supplies. Cheap supplies for the Alaska Highway needed to be acquired, and we didn't want closer locations to have higher prices. We got bottled water, non-perishable food items, and windshield-wiper fluid, and looked for a squeegee to no avail. Squeegees notwithstanding, we pressed on, as we didn't want to spend any more time in a Wal-Mart than we absolutely had to. -----From North Battleford there were nothing but small farming towns as Trans-Canada Highway 16 led northwest towards Alberta, and as we approached the town of Lloydminster, it became officially the furthest north I've ever been. Lloydminster straddles the border of Saskatchewan and Alberta, and we attempted to get information at the Alberta welcome center outside its borders, but to no avail, as the welcome center doesn't open until Friday. -----We ate lunch at the Canadian Brewhouse in Lloydminster, where we dined on club sandwiches before continuing on the road. The road out took us on a nearly straight shot to Edmonton, where we picked up an increasing amount of traffic as we swung out in a beltway around the distant cluster of skyscrapers that constitute the Edmonton downtown. -----We rejoined Trans-Canada 16 on the other side, stopping for gas in an Edmonton suburb before striking back out for the last hour and a half to Whitecourt. As the last of the suburbs fell away, we approached the interchange with Alberta Route 43, and its sign read, in part, "to Alaska Highway." The first sign is under our belts. -----As Route 43 snaked further up and into the forested wilderness, it soon was just us and a few enterprising truckers on a four-lane highway. Potholes were a minor problem, as was dust kicked up by the aforementioned trucks and the occasional local rancher. Mostly, the drive was pleasant, if a tad monotonous. The sky went on forever as we went ever further north. -----Our northward journey came to a conclusion in Whitecourt. It's mostly an industrial town and thus somewhat rough around the edges, but it's full of classic Canadian friendliness. It's bisected by a hill; half the town lives on top of the hill and half on the bottom, with two road arteries connecting the halves. -----After checking into our hotel, we went back out, up the hill and to Liberty Donair, a prized local hole-in-the-wall specializing in donairs so large that their smalls would pass for larges in the minds of any rational person. We entertained the friendly cashier with our lighthearted demeanor and got three "small" donairs. I got something called the Inferno, which had—atop the slow-roasted meat and sweet sauce found on all donairs—a special spicy sauce as well as hot peppers and banana peppers, all of which contributed to a mild warmth about halfway through. My mom got more of a basic donair, while my dad got one that was basically a gyro in all but sauce and meat spice. -----A particular feature of Liberty Donairs is that they have an extensive and highly versatile milkshake menu where two flavors can be combined ad libitum. This was, of course, a highly exciting revelation, and we settled on my maple caramel, my dad's maple french vanilla (which was to be maple coffee, but they were out of the latter), and my mom's maple coconut. All of them, by our individual assessment, began with the maple flavor that left an aftertaste of the other. -----Tomorrow: we trek across what remains of Alberta and into British Columbia. The Alaska Highway begins.
  8. Sumiki

    North of the Border

    -----Though Minot is remote, our day's journey was to take us even further afield. Our first stop of the day, after a brief currency exchange, was to the Scandinavian Heritage Park. The Minot area was settled by many Scandinavians, and the park contains statues and buildings erected to honor them. In front of the welcome center—shaped like a large log cabin—was a marble design sprawled across the landscape, showing the five Scandinavian countries and their capitals. Statues of Hans Christian Andersen, Leif Erikson, and several famous skiing champions led the way to a massive replica Norwegian church which looked more or less like a pagoda when glimpsed from afar. Behind this church was a wooden horse, painted a bright red and standing thirty feet tall. This was a Dala horse, a recognizable Swedish symbol. -----A park such as that is not something that one would expect in many places, but much less so when in the middle of nowhere like Minot. The only unfortunate thing about it was that it proved to be the only get-out-and-walk-around part of our day's journey, something that ideally would be evenly spread throughout. -----We topped off the tank in Minot and then left the city northbound on US-52, which took us over hills and prairies all the way up to Portal, North Dakota, a town situated around the border crossing. (We were later to learn that many of the border patrol agents do not live in Portal, but rather commute up from Minot or points further south.) Our journey across the border—marking our fourth time in Canada—was a bit more complicated given the road work at the crossing and the need to stop by U.S. Customs first so as to get a shotgun approved. Since we are traveling to extremely remote areas in Alaska, we had decided to procure one should we break down and subsequently are accosted by a bear. The agent came by the car and soon thereafter we were approved. -----The second step was to actually go through Canadian customs, which would have taken about five minutes had not the shotgun thrown a wrinkle into things. Declaring it involved parking and going inside the border office, where a fellow asked us basic questions and had my dad fill out a form. One $25 (Canadian) fee later, and all that was left was for a Canadian agent to actually see the shotgun. -----The quiet man who was assisting us got a phone call, and so a lady came by and took over the process. She said that she needed to see the shotgun while we watched from the building, but we explained that it was hidden very well and the only way she'd find it would be a brute-force method of expunging the car of its Tetris-esque packed contents. She asked, somewhat warily, of how much we actually had in the car. Once we said "we're driving from North Carolina to Alaska and back," she understood the trepidation that an entire re-packing would involve, and promptly had us go to something called the Exam Bay. -----The Exam Bay sounds a lot more official than it is. It was like a large car wash, with two industrial-strength garage doors at either end and tables for travelers to wait at. The tables are replete with taped-on papers in a plethora of languages exhorting those at said tables to stay calm and to cooperate with authorities. Throughout the process, we got her to loosen up from the super-serious attitude that plagues many border patrol officers. We described, in brief detail, our misadventures and exploits from past trips and assured her of our preparation, most notably when my dad mentioned our upcoming oil-changing appointments in points still farther afield. -----Though nothing was fully unpacked, it still took us a while to get everything situated again, but when we did, we rolled north into Canada. The hour we'd gained by entering a province exempt from the misnamed and irritating tyranny of Daylight Savings had been negated by the hour spent at the border, making for a very Newtonian equal and opposite reaction. -----The road north led to Regina, and the barrenness was nothing less than profound. The last of the North Dakotan hills fell away and led to utter flatness for miles and miles in any direction you'd care to look, although the terrain still exhibited that curious, constantly uphill tilt. The entire province, I'm convinced, is slanted; our journeys westward and northward have exhibited the same phenomenon. Either the terrain defies the laws of physics and goes uphill in every direction, or everything in the province rolls inexorably to the southeast. -----The clouds overhead began to intermittently drizzle, and the toughest part of the drive—aside from the psychological adjustment to kilometers—was in adjusting the windshield wipers to accommodate the ever-changing precipitation. Towns whose populations had to have been in the low double digits and whose main claims to fame were their slowly decaying grain elevators dotted the northwesterly route at extremely regular intervals, occasionally necessitating a slowing. Aside from these, we stayed at 100 KM/H, which equates to a little over 60 MPH. -----We had planned to fill our half-empty gas tank and our entirely empty stomachs in Regina, a full two and a half hours south of our ultimate destination in Saskatoon. Yet as we scanned around for a suitable location, before we knew it, we were out of the city heading north. I'd been driving since Minot and was eager to switch off at the first opportunity, and such an opportunity presented itself in the form of a small town at the bottom of a large hill: Lumsden. We peeled off at a gas station, where we learned that the penny was rounded down, and we got a full two-dollar coin—known as a "toonie"—in change. -----The road from Regina to Saskatoon was a full four lanes most of the way, although traffic was still as barren as ever despite being on the main artery between the two largest cities in the province. The sky became of such a vast expanse that one could see entire storm systems rumbling in the distance, lending weight to Saskatchewan's tourist motto as the "Land of Living Skies." We attempted to reconstruct, from memory, as much as we could about the routes of our first four trips, which was an activity that took us all the way to Saskatoon, the largest city in the province. -----My mom, when not driving, fulfills the crucial role of primary route navigator, juggling maps, printouts, and her phone, and she does an admirable job of it save for the times when what she reads has no bearing on what can be seen from the driver's perspective. We'd nibbled on snacks in the car throughout the day and neglected a formal lunch entirely, and though hunger gnawed at us, the closer we came to a hearty Saskatonian dinner, the more we decided to press on. This is when her navigational ability struck a mighty discord: she attempted to get us to a Canadian Brewhouse—a regional chain seen only in large cities across the Canadian prairies—only to put us on a road that did not have anything but houses after the promised half-kilometer. We turned around and went back to the main intersection, doubled back around, pulled several U-turns, and even went down the road the other direction in an attempt to find it by street address, but all to no avail. Frustration ran high. -----Though distraught at Google taking us astray, we still had directions to our hotel, and though we had no confidence in their accuracy, we nonetheless still attempted to get there by going much further down along the very same street. Just as we crossed over the highway and all hope seemed lost ... there lay the Canadian Brewhouse. We decided to eat and orient ourselves towards our hotel as best we could. -----The Canadian Brewhouse, simply put, is a cross between the dark, sports TV-dominated lighting of a Buffalo Wild Wings and the general waitressing aesthetic of a Hooter's. Neither of those chains seem to have a foothold in the Great North, and if they ever did, they'd find themselves sorely beaten to the punch. Their food is also quite good, although its flavor may have been augmented by how famished our stomachs were. -----My dad got a stir-fry with a thick and savory sauce, with chunky vegetables and an ideal rice ratio. He also reported tender beef chunks. My mom and I, in remembrance of the third Great American Road Trip, felt as if we had to go for a donair, which came wrapped in a pita much like a gyro. The only difference between their donair and a gyro was a special, slightly spicy donair sauce (as opposed to the tart tzatziki found on gyros) and the melted cheese that helped bind the meat and vegetables—few and far between as they were—together. It's one of those things that is only in Canada now, but we can only wonder when it'll make its way to the States. They always seem to be on the cutting edge of things above the 49th parallel. -----I wolfed down my donair in short order, even taking out the cucumbers in my side salad and downing two lemonades in quick succession. We were re-introduced to the uniquely Canuck practice of bringing a small credit card machine to the table, and while that process was ongoing, we asked our waitress about the possible location of our hotel, which we felt just had to be nearby after all we'd been through. She knew immediately that we'd used Google; apparently, the location of their shopping center tricks the algorithms into thinking it's somewhere else. -----While we braced for the possibility that our hotel would also go through a magical and mysterious technological vanishing act, no such thing occurred; we found where we were spending the night within five minutes. -----Tomorrow: Whitecourt, Alberta, the furthest north I will have ever theretofore been.
  9. Sumiki

    An Uphill Battle

    -----Sleeping in in St. Cloud was a great help, and we got up at 8:00 and left by 10:00. We took I-94 westbound and traveled to the Fargo metropolitan area. Our return to Fargo was marked with a return to a Jimmy John's at which we'd eaten on our second trip in 2013. It was not raining this time, which made for an easier journey, and we were able to go the speed limit, which was a whopping 75 MPH. -----We continued on I-94 due west until we reached the city of Jamestown, where we split north on US-52. There was a slow rise throughout this journey; regardless of whether we traveled north, west, or northwest, we were always going up—although sometimes imperceptibly so. Sometimes it was by just a degree or two, but it was always uphill. -----This went on for hundreds of miles as we traversed US-52's two-lane blacktop, working our way past derelict towns with unusual names that seemed deserted for everything but the fact that there were some people still living there. The terrain was also surprisingly hilly; one tends to think of the plains as being ... well, plains, but these are not. Low-lying areas are oftentimes filled with standing water. -----After passing such quasi-quaint villages, we made it to the southern outskirts of Minot, and I cannot say with a straight face that it's particularly pleasant-looking on a Sunday evening. We took one look at the deserted buildings and graffitied dumpsters and went through a mess of abandoned downtown road construction areas on the way to the northern end of town. Sunday evening meant that most stores were closed and the whole place had the aura of a ghost town; I'm sure we'd have a different opinion of the place had we come in the middle of the week. -----Fortunately, a Jimmy John's was within our sights. We parked next to a large truck with its windows down and its engine on ... but with no driver. Once we exited the Jimmy John's armed with some sandwiches, we noticed the Jimmy John's delivery sign affixed to the truck's roof. Apparently, turning the engine over before delivering a "Freaky Fast" sandwich would simply take too long. -----Tomorrow: we cross the border and travel to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
  10. -----The weekend meant that the Beloit Snappers were closed, which eliminated our first stop of the day before we even got up. In the course of our drive, Illinois soon gave way to Wisconsin, where the drivers were an extra helping of nuts. -----It wasn't just that the drivers drove with impunity towards life and property, but the real surprise was in that there were simply so many of them. There is nothing of note for long stretches; not even occasional small towns with highway-side gas stations were present to break the monotony. -----After the border town of Beloit and its near-suburb of Janesville, there was nothing but farmland until Wisconsin Dells, which prides itself on being the water-slide capital of the world. We did not stop, but we could see enough from the highway to know that they're not kidding. It has all the makings of a town that wants to position itself as some kind of family-friendly Las Vegas of the upper Midwest. It's a testament to the monotony that even the locals throng to tourist traps. -----We had gotten several pieces of literature from the Wisconsin welcome center, not the least of which was an illustrated map showing where all the local cheese factories were. Not wanting to miss out on some local dairy goodness, we stopped in at a storefront for the Carr Valley Cheese Company in Mauston. The shop was small, but packed to nearly bursting with most any cheese you'd care to name, along with such dubious delicacies as pickled garlic. The samples we had were incredible as well, and we did purchase a few sample packages of 2-year-old cheddar and a white goat cheese called Marisa, but we would have bought more had we packed any sort of industrial-strength cooler. -----Because Mauston is a very small town, we decided to eat at the local Culver's after getting gas. In an attempt to create new and heretofore unrecorded flavors in the annals of human gastronomy, my dad smuggled our cheese samples in and ate them with our meal. -----The drive from Mauston to the border increased in traffic, but it was overall a much calmer drive than our morning experience. We skirted Eau Claire and then took the beltway around the Twin Cities before heading due northwest once again on a road whose right lane was far bumpier than it needed to be. -----Tomorrow: Minot, North Dakota.
  11. Sumiki

    Normally Corny

    -----A requisite 7:00 wakeup meant we got out of the door at 9:00. We exited Kentucky and entered Indiana for approximately a mile before going back into Ohio, then finally going into Indiana for good. -----While on the way, we contacted the office of the Indianapolis Indians and inquired about the possibility of purchasing a pennant. Although they sell them, they were currently out of stock, which was alright by our itinerary. The traffic around Indianapolis was bad enough; downtown was not a relished thought. The number of trucks was outstanding, especially dump trucks, who threw up gravel whenever they hit one of the approximately 7.3 million potholes in the greater Indianapolis area. We were stuck behind a convoy of three dump trucks en route to Crawfordsville. -----Crawfordsville is a sleepy small town of 15,000, and our exit there a little before noon was for the purpose of seeing the Lew Wallace Museum and Study. Wallace, as we would come to learn, was a Renaissance man who was as known for his exploits as a Union General in the Civil War as he was for writing Ben-Hur. After nabbing the last location in the infinitesimally small parking lot, we went into the one-room museum and paid a nominal fee for a guided tour into Wallace's study room. -----The study is a self-contained building whose main purpose was as a private and secluded area for Wallace in his older years when he was known around the region as a public figure. In it, he indulged in his many passions: writing, reading, sculpting, inventing, violin making, and fishing—just to name a few. Bookshelves full of priceless tomes line the walls, with stained-glass windows and a skylight whose windows could be opened to pump in cool air from the basement. -----Wallace was a troublemaker and truant in his early years who loved to read and learn and go on adventures but could not stand school. As the son of the Indiana governor, his exploits did not go unrecorded, and as a child he'd regularly forage his way 80+ miles north with traveling loggers (eating squirrels along the way) or attempt to steal a boat to float to the Gulf of Mexico. When he was 16, his father abandoned the idea of schooling him—a cause to which he'd committed vast and ultimately fruitless sums—and turned him loose on the world. (On one occasion, he distracted public attention from a debate opponent by playing tunes on a violin, which led to a fistfight—only to have him and his opponent take the same stagecoach to the next town.) -----He attempted to become an attorney, but hated it, and ended up serving in the military. He organized absurd numbers of men and became their Colonel in the Civil War, and he ended up becoming the youngest General. His negligence for the chain of command and his tendency to think of orders as guidelines as opposed to rules may have changed the course of history when he—without orders—diverted his men to fight Confederate forces led by Jubal Early outside Washington. Though he lost the battle, he sapped enough men from Early's ranks to initiate a Confederate retreat, and when the two men met years later, Early remarked that he won the battle, but Wallace the war. -----Wallace would later become an attorney, and he still hated it, but had to keep up appearances. He was the first governor of New Mexico to be fluent in Spanish (which he taught himself as a boy.) He unsuccessfully ran for Senate and ended up becoming best known for his novel Ben-Hur, a story which emerged after a chance encounter with Robert Ingersoll. Wallace's research led him to form the story that would become Ben-Hur. Its sudden and enduring success startled Wallace, but he was able to use the money to construct the study. -----The study remains as Wallace left it, down to the deep red brick that haven't faded since it was built, as he was extremely attentive to detail. It's a beautiful structure with thousands of details, from the curtains on the bookshelves to the interior arch which frames a recessed seating area to the handles on the doors, angled just so to the point that not only does one not have to bend one's wrist to open it, but one can do so with just a single finger. -----After leaving the museum area, we found a local Culver's and ordered some burgers to tide us over to dinner in Rockford. The girl who took our order was entirely dull and boring and slightly screwed it up, but they were still good. We trekked on to Illinois, where we gained an hour. -----Gaining an hour turned out to be quite necessary, as we promptly lost it going through probably the worst-signed road work in the civilized world. Traffic was backed up to a standstill for about five miles, to the point where many locals simply peeled off, went over the grassy median, and drove back from whence they came. But we had no such option. At the end of this tedious process, we found that they'd closed only one of the two lanes, meaning that there was actually no reason for anyone to be stopped! Those of us in the left lane did not know it was closed until too late, and drivers in the right lane were trepidatious when it came to altruistic behavior. In the end, selfishness is what slowed us for so long. -----We made tracks to the Bloomington area, which we skirted, and then we exited in Normal, the home of the independent-league Normal CornBelters. We inquired about the pennant in their ticket office and were escorted into the stadium—which was in use by two terrible community college teams facing off against each other—where we got the pennant. The lady who procured it from the locked team shop asked us where we were from and where we were headed, and her eyes got extremely wide when she was informed of our ultimate destination. -----You've not seen corn-themed until you've seen the Corn Crib (and yes, their stadium is called that.) The stairs up? Their fronts are painted with a corn mural only seen from a distance. Their memorabilia? All yellow and green. Their mascots? All bad corn puns. Truly a-maize-ing. -----We got out of Normal and began the long and straight drive up to Rockford. Our goal was dinner at 15th and Chris in Rockford, and it's tiny—one of the tiniest places I've been to. The entire building was little more than the size of a hotel room and the actual space for customers to walk in and order was perhaps the size of a bathroom. But the smell alone is enough to drive one to pangs of hunger. -----As we approached the front of the line, we began to be filmed by a fellow who was making a documentary about the revitalization of Rockford, of which the establishment is an integral part. The head chef was ringing up orders at the cash register at that point, for the staff operation seems inspired by musical chairs. My dad got to talking to him about how we'd seen reviews for how good his place was, and when we told him of our North Carolinian origins, it resulted in him whipping out his driver's license to prove it. In a place dominated by locals, he seemed genuinely touched by the fact that we went out of our way to eat there. -----After placing our orders, we went back outside, where various tables are located, and the fellow with the camera followed us out. He explained his mission and asked us about our travels and how we came to find out about 15th and Chris. We explained our process of scouting out cheap local eateries to avoid national chains as much as possible. -----As it turned out, the last shot he got was one of me taking out about a fifth of my burger in one fell swoop of a bite. We all got the same thing: "the Wrecker." Grilled mushrooms, onions, lettuce, tomato, an unidentified spiciness, and blue cheese topped it off, and somehow the bun stayed on. The fries were also tremendous, salted and spiced in-house for a potato that could hold its own against dominating flavors. (The fries also gained a following amongst the local bird population, whom my dad fed on a few occasions just to see how excited they got. Fries are apparently some kind of ornithological delicacy.) -----The filmmaker had told us that Rockford was a big manufacturing hub, and although many of such jobs have since left the country, there were enough for it to still be a significant chunk of the economy. Their survival has been due to extreme specialization; every gear on the Mars rover Curiosity was crafted in Rockford. He also said that, while the city lacked a minor league presence (apparently a sore spot for local sports fans), Beyer Stadium—once home to the Rockford Peaches (of A League of Their Own fame)—was a few blocks away. -----After polishing off our burgers, we drove down to Beyer Stadium's adjoining school parking lot and walked on the field. All that remains of the original structure is the ticket booth, but the field surface itself is intact and maintained and entirely playable. Plaques honoring the field's unique history led the way to the field, where my mom attempted to get a picture of her "floating" on the base paths. Unfortunately, the rapid-fire picture-taking of our old camera is not on the new, and so to compensate she ran around the bases while I tracked her in a high-definition video. -----Tomorrow: St. Cloud, Minnesota.
  12. sumiki's dad requires nothing less
  13. -----Our phone alarms went off at seven o'clock in the morning, and after a requisite five minute snooze, coffee was acquired and the day began. We managed to leave Knoxville at 9:00, bearing north for the Kentucky border. -----Our goal was to get to Cincinnati a little after lunchtime, and the drive was uneventful until we got to the Cincinnati metropolitan area. Our first stop was lunch at Taste of Belgium, an establishment that prides itself on its waffles. It's extremely European; flatscreen televisions flash quotes from cyclists with unpronounceable names interleaved with their list of 40+ draft beers. -----Most oddly, this location—one of a handful in the Cincinnati area—has these bizarre looping animations that are projected onto the walls. A pair of immense disembodied lips painted the colors of the Belgian flag is the first to greet you once you can get your eyes off their fist-sized scones. The one that truly scarred us was one that I don't think I can describe on BZPower, but suffice it to say that it was outside the bathrooms. Let your mind fill in the blank. -----While its location in a more businesslike, upscale district subtly clashed with our basic attire of t-shirt and jeans, the food itself did not disappoint. I got the Waffles and Chicken, which is their spin on the classic. The money they spent to get their custom waffle iron shows; it was like a crunchy cake and it went very will with the hot sauce-infused chicken. (At least, they said there was hot sauce in it; all I tasted was the syrup.) Alongside, a small salad featured hidden blue cheese crumbles. -----My dad got a spin on the famous Louisville Hot Brown, where they somehow stuffed a waffle in amidst the cheese and turkey and bacon and tomato. (What amazes me is that such a thing is not called "the cardiologist's nightmare.") My mom got a sandwich where the bread was—you guessed it—a waffle! Ham, brie cheese, apple slices, and an unidentified pesto rounded out its contents. Overall, we got perfectly sized proportions. -----It had been an ordeal to properly parallel park outside Taste of Belgium, but once situated, we were primed for our second stop as well: Great American Ball Park, home of the Cincinnati Reds. With no game, much of the park was closed, but we were able to walk up to the main gates and peer into the park. On the way out, we meandered by the team store, where we got a pennant for the collection and a big floppy hat with a distressingly large Mr. Redleg on the side, replete with his handlebar mustache and soulless, gaping eyes. (Rest assured that this hat will be seen in this year's Hatpile.) We even got a few lunch recommendations from locals who were unaware of our current state of waffle-induced gastrointestinal contentment. -----There were a number of people selling things outside the main gate, where a bronze bust of Johnny Bench mid-throw greets fans. My mom, in front of this oblivious crowd, did her fake-kiss routine to the larger-than-life statue. After stopping by the Reds Hall of Fame and learning that we didn't have enough time to properly tour it, we went back towards the statue where my mom decided that one picture was not enough, and so we re-enacted the unusual scene a grand total of three more times. Fortunately for us, the assembled throng was entirely inattentive. -----Cincinnati is not a city one hears much about, and it truly surprises. It's very hilly, approaching San Francisco in spots, and though it is a Big City in every sense, it's got a great sense of small-town about it. They've gone to great lengths to revitalize a lot of the area, and the result is a town that feels much smaller than it is, with unusual architecture, actual parking spaces, and an aura of friendliness and walkability. -----We were close to the waterfront and our next stop took us around the city towards the northern suburbs to the William Howard Taft National Historic Site. While Taft is best known to the American public for the apocryphal story of getting stuck in the White House bathtub, his career as a diplomat and public servant shaped the country in many ways. His greatest career accomplishment, by his own estimation, was as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and to this day he is the only person to have been both Chief Justice and President. He was seen as a keen diplomat who kept Washington operating when President Roosevelt was out of town. He broke up more trusts than Teddy did and refused to take corporate money, although his less than fiery rhetoric on the campaign trail drove a wedge between the two, who had previously been close friends. Before Taft's term, Teddy believed that he could be one of the greatest presidents; by the end, Teddy was running as a third party because he found Taft ineffective. -----The site, nestled into the hills around Cincinnati (constituting its first suburb), was somewhat difficult to get into and out of (as there are a grand total of six parking spaces), but we got out and wormed our way back into the downtown area through an area most generously described as "artsy." Our goal was an early supper at Senate Pub, little more than a hole in the wall and known for their local ingredients in utterly unique hot dogs. We arrived when it opened and got three dogs: a classic Chicago, one called a "Trailer Park dog," which featured slaw and crushed-up (local-brand) potato chips, and one called the "Shia LaBeouf," formerly known as the "Lindsay Lohan," which is basically an arugula salad with balsamic vinegar and goat cheese atop the dog. Each hot dog was a whopping half-pound of beef, grilled to smoky perfection, and each was on a locally baked brioche bun. We split each in three and shared, and while I loved each one, the Shia LaBeouf was by far my favorite because I just love goat cheese that much. -----Our side? Duck fat fries served with harissa aioli. No fry can compete. My dad sampled their version of tea, but alas, we are not in the South were "tea" means "leaf-flavored sugar water." It was good enough for me to dump what remained of his sample into my freshly squeezed lemonade, and it made for a top-notch Arnold Palmer. -----On the way out, we talked to a fellow I can only assume to be the manager, who described in some detail their process of using local ingredients. -----Tomorrow: Rockford, Illinois.
  14. Sumiki

    The Only Ten I See

    -----Though many bags were packed and many items checked off many lists at the close of Tuesday, the final steps towards getting out the door still lingered as all items of importance were verified in triplicate. All said, our journey began a little before noon, and we took the road north to Wytheville, Virginia. -----But we had, since 2013, made a vow to ourselves not to go through the treacherous mountain roads of West Virginia unless absolutely necessary. It was in Wytheville that we turned southwest, bound for Knoxville—but, more importantly, for Bristol. For driving to Knoxville is a matter of simply utilizing the great corridor of Interstate 40; Bristol offered something far different. -----Our first stop was intended to be the home field of the Bristol Pirates, a small outfit in the lowest tier of the affiliated professional leagues. But as my mom followed the directions we'd printed, it seemed to take us in a big circle and we ended up in front of the downtown establishment at which we intended to partake of lunch: Burger Bar. The Burger Bar is a local institution and is little more than a hole in the wall—and yes, there is an actual bar, though we chose a table. -----The highlights were—oddly enough—not the titular burgers, as the french fries were tender and fluffy and salted just enough. The milkshakes—of which there were more options than burgers—were phenomenal; my dad had a peanut butter and banana while I opted for peanut butter and chocolate. Together, they made one Elvis milkshake, although both of us were too protective of our precious sips to attempt what was doubtless a magnificent combination. -----Bristol prides itself as being the birthplace of country music and the Burger Bar promotes itself in part on being the last place that Hank Williams Sr. was seen alive. It's got the classic down-home diner feel that makes you feel like you stepped right back into 1950. Outside, State Street—one of the main corridors through town—hugs the border between Virginia and Tennessee, with the flags on either side of the downtown area denoting which state you're in. It's these kinds of interesting locations that convince us to reroute our trip, although I couldn't shake the feeling that taxes and voter registration would be especially difficult given the border situation. -----After lunching, we went with renewed vigor towards the Bristol Pirates, and we simply completed the loop we had begun earlier as we found the park. We soon realized that the Pirates were not in town; instead, it appeared as if the municipal field had been rented by a high school team. We did learn that the field was the site of the greatest pitching performance in history, where a minor leaguer once struck out all 27 batters of the opposing side. -----We put the pedal to the metal bound for Knoxville, where it seemed as if we had an outside chance at getting to the stadium of the Double-A Tennessee Smokies, but despite our overall optimism, we misjudged the location of the delineation between the Eastern and Central time zones. By the time we got to the exit, they had been closed up nearly half an hour, and the traffic had increased to such an astounding level that we likely couldn't have gotten off if we'd tried. -----Our hunger, sated since Bristol, began to return, and we had our eyes set on an interesting establishment in the form of Full Service Barbecue. There's no interior; rather, it's a former drive-in. Patrons walk to the window, where you place your order and sit down at one of the outdoor wooden picnic tables and await someone to exit the building hawking your name while holding plastic bags up. -----We ordered pork and chicken sliders with sides of baked beans and cole slaw. The chicken sliders were decent, but the pork was where the smoky flavor and sauce really shone. The pork was cooked in a slightly decrepit steamer out in the front of the building which continually belched smoke into the twilight sky, but we had no need to search for such poetry beyond what was in our mouths. After savoring the sliders, we moved on to the sides, which were also good—especially the baked beans, where you could really taste the richness of the sauce in which they'd long been stewing. -----We had asked the fellow who had taken our order for his preference between the pecan pie and the banana pudding, and his response was that he liked to combine them. Never ones to turn down an unusual combination, we got one of each and decided to dig in, and it was easily one of the best desserts from any trip. The sweet crunch of the pie balanced out well with the more tart and savory pudding, which contained what appeared to be—and what tasted as—banana cake batter. Whatever it was, it worked very well with the rest of the expected banana pudding ingredients. Apart, they were good, but together, they were positively unstoppable. -----Tomorrow, the journey continues north.
  15. Wednesday: the journey to the Arctic Circle begins. It's the Great Alaskan Road Trip. http://www.bzpower.com/board/blog/530/entry-137331-the-great-alaskan-road-trip/

  16. -----Alaska has always been a very romanticized place in my mind, as there are very few places in the world that are like it. I've been fascinated by it since I knew of its existence, although at first I just thought it was cool because it was on the same continent as the 48 contiguous states but remained staunchly separate from its kin. Both Alaska's scale and ostensible nothingness intrigued me, especially when I first saw it overlaid on the familiar US outline. It seemed almost too good to be true, in a way; too ideal and pristine a landscape for me to consider it reality. -----Today, Alaska is still the ultimate wilderness, the ultimate destination and about as remote as you can get on the entire North American continent. It is a fantastical playground, full of untamed wilds and days that last for months. The culture of Alaska was another attraction, as its landscape and scale have contributed to the formation of an entire subculture of Americana. The Wild West may have long since been tamed, but its spirit is alive and well in the Last Frontier. -----All of which brings me to this: the ultimate road trip. Due to my college schedule and the possibility of summer internships and programs and festivals, this may very well be the last Great American Road Trip—at least for a while. A trip to Alaska is certainly the trip of a lifetime, and one that I feel honored to take simply because very few people have had even an opportunity to do so. -----I have been in each every one of the 48 contiguous United States, and I have been in nine of the ten Canadian provinces. In four years of Great American Road Trips and the Toronto trip preceding it, we’ve been over 30,000 miles. We’ve flown over the Grand Canyon, broken down in an Acadian village, witnessed my dad rubbing his beard on a reserved parking sign, and eaten more than our fair share of incredible food. The walls of our basement are adorned with pennants marking our visits to professional baseball stadiums and our Christmas tree is adorned with little else but trinkets of commemoration. -----The 49th state admitted will be the 49th state that I will have been in. We'll take the Alaska Marine Highway on the return journey, but our travel into the state will adhere to the Alaska Highway, an over-1,000-mile long strip of asphalt that has inspired legends and fueled the mystique of generations that have looked north to the future. While not as perilous as it once was—for one, it's entirely paved, which could not be said a mere thirty years ago—the "Alcan" is still no laughing matter, and myriad dangers still abound along its meandering route. The return journey will see us go across the northernmost land border crossing in the world when we take the Top of the World Highway to Dawson City. -----I've said before—both in these trip preamble entries and to members I've been fortunate enough to meet along the way—that these road trips exemplify my long-held belief that it really isn't the destination that matters. There's never been an ultimate goal for any of these trips. In essence, we've done due diligence to turn a continent into a backyard. Naming a single destination for any of these trips would be as impossible, as it would oppose their essential philosophy. -----Taken from this perspective, a trip to Alaska is fundamentally different. Our itinerary is meticulously planned and serves as the culminating point of years of research. On top of this, we have a single northernmost destination, the topmost item—in more ways than one—in my bucket list for longer than I can remember. -----I'm talking, of course, about the Arctic Circle. -----Well beyond the borders of nowhere, the Arctic Circle is the invisible line that crosses perpetually frozen tundra, delineating the true Land of the Midnight Sun from the mere Land of a Whole Lot of Sun. Getting to a place only accessible by two roads—one Alaskan, one Canadian, and neither fully paved—is daunting and more than slightly terrifying. But all that's left now is the drive itself; everything that had to be thought through has been thought through. We've got enough supplies to turn our vehicle into a mobile command post should the need arise. As my dad has said, this is a military operation in the guise of a civilian vacation. -----There are few places that remain mostly untouched by human activities and affairs, and Alaska is one of the few. It is a privilege to have the chance to drive this route, seeing wonders and experiencing life on the asphalt (and occasional gravel) far better than the sterilized pseudo-comfort that air travel affords. So much is special about Alaska and the journey there that words could not begin to describe the anticipation I feel. It's not going to be easy, but I haven't the slightest doubt that it'll be worth it. -----Wednesday—tomorrow—we leave. By the time we get back, we'll have traversed well over 10,000 miles, making this trip the most ambitious yet. -----Buckle up, BZPower. It's gonna be a whole lot of fun.
  17. If you know anything about, like, proper swordfighting techniques, all Star Wars fights suck and pretty much all movie fights suck. They're best watched with an extra suspension of disbelief for that reason.
  18. I, for one, welcome our new Dr. Akano overlord.
  19. Does anyone actually remember anything about Avatar? It has no memorable plot nor memorable quotes. It exists merely for the sake of looking pretty and showing off what was then cutting-edge visual effects. I know of no one who has ever watched it on their own time outside of a theatre setting.
  20. Sumiki

    Rogue One

    By Star Wars prequel standards?
  21. It's probably the most Disney-sounding title of any Star Wars film yet. Not judging a book by its cover, though; we've still got pretty much the entire year 'til it comes out.
  22. Sumiki

    im 23 now

    SLAPPY BIRTHDAY XAE
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