Alaska - Day 18 - The Journey Home

7/20/14

Aboard Delta 1524, En route SEA-JFK

After 18 Days, it is impossible to describe how good it feels to type those last letters of the dateline, and it almost didn’t happen.  It was past 4 AM and starting to get light again when I passed out last night, and I did not set an alarm.  However, I knew myself, and I knew that I would wake up in exactly 90 minutes.  The sun would be rising at at 5:40 AM, and, if I so desired, I would watch the sunrise and then wake Sokol for our drive to Crater Lake.  I did not think it was likely to happen, but I wanted to keep the option open.  I had been looking at the maps, and I saw that there were two other NPS units next to Crater Lake NP.  It would make almost no sense to ever take a trip to just visit those two units, and I had no doubt that I would be able to incorporate all three units as a day trip on some future visit to my brother.  Also, I did not relish the idea of doing 12 hours of driving on our last Day.  The standby plan I had was wake up, spend the afternoon exploring Portland together, have our final pipes, leave at 4 PM to hit Fort Vancouver NPS, and then make our way to SeaTac.  It was a brilliant plan, but it was not definite.  More importantly, it was an easy and relaxing plan, or so I thought.  Plan A was fulfillment.  Plan B was enjoyment, or so I thought.

As predicted, I woke up 90 minutes later, right before sunrise.  I looked out their expansive window, and it was cloudy.  There would be no glorious sunrise.  I opted for Plan B and went back to sleep, waking up 6 hours later.  I was the first one up, and it was past noon.  Actually, Ceal had already woken up, but she was still in the bedroom.  If I was smart, at this point, I should have gotten dressed, headed downstairs, lit up a small cigar, driven the 15 minutes to Fort Vancouver NHS, gotten my stamp, driven back, ditched the cigar, and come upstairs.  I could have done all of that in about an hour, and it took longer than that from the time I woke before everyone was seated at the breakfast table.  Oh, that’s right, I was roped into making breakfast for everything, which I was glad to do, until my brother insisted that I add a cucumber to the eggs.  Instead, I sauted him some peppers on the side.  I was very limited in the ingredients with which I could work in their kitchen, but they had 9 eggs, some vegetarian sandwiches, low carb pita bread, cheese, onions, salt and pepper, and bourbon.  That was all I needed.  I got everything ready to cook.

I knew that from the time I turned on the heat until the time I put food on the plates would be less than five minutes, so I insisted that everyone be sitting down before I started cooking the eggs.  It’s a good thing, too, since it took about 30 minutes from the raw ingredients were ready until the time they all sat down.  It’s a funny thing.  When I am travelling alone, I can plan my schedule to a tee, including about an hour of Dutch time a day, which usually goes to meals, gas, and traffic.  When I am travelling with someone else, I need to include a little more Dutch Time.  When it is a total of four people, one of whom is my brother, who has no sense of urgency, no ability to work in parallel, no desire to keep to a schedule, all planning goes out the window.  I learned that the hard way when we went on our Twilight trip, somehow eating up the 6 hours of Dutch Time I had allowed on the last day and almost causing me to miss my flight.

I suppose I was naïve to think that I would people to spend 2 hours exploring Portland and be on the road by 4 PM.  We did not get out the door until 2:30 PM, which left us just enough time to have our smokes on the waterfront and then say our goodbyes.  We were still doing #NoGPS, which caused me to get a little lost and wind up the wrong side of the river, but the whole thing only cost us 5 minutes.  The Saturday Market, where Ceal assured me I could find souvenirs, was more like a Christmas Market and street fair combined.  I did find a t-shirt, but no keychain, no pins.  It didn’t matter.  I would be back to Portland.  I had brought 6 high-end Italian pipes with me.  5 times Sokol and I had sat down to each smoke one of them.  That meant that each of us had smoked 5 different of the 6 pipes.  The most important thing to me at that point, other than making the flight, was smoking that 6^th pipe.

We found a nice place to sit down and lit up our pipes, me having the Radice, Sokol the Castello.  I gave my brother a cheap cigar, which he smoked for a few puffs before quitting.  While we were smoking, two people came up to us and offered us weed.  We turned them down.  My brother was telling us how Portland is reknowned for its weirdos, and we were at their Mecca.  I cannot see that I saw Portland, but I saw the heart of Portland.  I did the equivalent of going to New York and only seeing Times Square, Seattle and only seeing Pike Place, Boston and only seeing Faneuil Hall, or DC and only seeing the National Mall.  It was enough, and it was the only relaxing part of the day.  After our smokes, it was getting to be that time, and I was feeling rushed.  All enjoyment value escaped me, and I just cared about getting the Sunday paper and getting on the road.  We said our goodbyes, and I did both.

I figured that I could still get the stamp at that point and spend some time at the NPS.  That was until I saw that the entrance to I-5 North was closed.  I just got on southbound and figured that I could turn around at the next exit, which I did, and it meant that I could still probably get the stamp but not see the fort.  Then we hit some traffic.  All hope of the stamp was lost.  It cleared up as soon as we got to the other side of the Columbia River, but it was too late.  Instead, we took our pictures at the Welcome to Washington sign, and I lit up an Undercrown.  With no traffic, it would be just over 2 hours for us to get to the airport, meaning we could stop for lunch and gas and still get to the airport around 7:30 PM, which would leave me plenty of time for a triumphant airport entry.  No dice.  The first kink was when I got pulled over going 81 in a 70.  The officer pretty much balled me out, and I thought that was weird.  He then asked about my driving record, and I told him I had a couple of speeding tickets.  He asked if I knew the fine for the ticket, and I said that I didn’t.  He told me and asked how it would be to pay that.  I said that I could afford it but that it would hurt.  I realized at that point that, if I played his game, I would be getting out of this.  I was right.

We got back on the road, and we hit some traffic right past Olympia.  It was really bad traffic, and I was really hungry and really had to U.  It was looking tight for getting to the airport on time now.  At 7 PM, we stopped for gas and food, opting for Panda Express.  It was a feast, and I ordered far more than I could eat, giving Sokol, who ordered less than I did, a lot of my food.  Uh oh.  There is one time more than ever that I need a cigar, not want a cigar, need a cigar.  That is after eating spicy Chinese food.  We had just cleaned out and aired out the car.  What would I do?  I took my chances and lit up a Davidoff.  It was one of the cheap Davidoffs, and it smoked like shit, but it did the trick, barely.  I gave Sokol a little Davidoff, which he polished off in less than 15 minutes to polish off.  I went back to vigorous calculation mode.  As soon as we were north of Tacoma, the Traffic cleared up.  It’s funny, I know Washington geography almost as well as I know, well, Alaska geography.  From all the trips I have taken there, it just stuck.

I ditched the cigar as soon as we got off of I-5, and we celebrated as soon as we saw the sign for Rental Car Facility.  The trip was a success.  I would do Crater Lake on some future visit.  Next month, when everyone is getting ready in the morning, I will dip up to Fort Vancouver NHS, since I can be back at 10 AM, and I know there is zero chance of everyone being ready by 10 AM.  I would like to say PNW (WA+OR) Complete by the time I turn 30, but that is not even a supplemental goal.  It’s just something that would be fun and should happen since I will probably go to Portland once a year as long as my brother is there.  It took some time making our way through the airport, and I was a little worried about time.  I think the best part of the whole airport experience was that my pants would have fallen down at security if I wasn’t holding them up.  They had fit perfectly without a belt when I bought them it in Iran last November.  Last night, I went into my brother’s bathroom to weigh myself, to see how much weight I had gained during the trip, since I knew that I had been bad on my diet all trip.  I walked out and asked my brother in disbelief, “Is your scale accurate?”  He said that it was.  I had lost 5 pounds since I last weighed myself in Scarsdale, a total of 35 pounds.  Granted, this was after the official Us my brother and I took in his courtyard, which would have really pissed off (pun intended) his posh, uptight neighbors, if they knew how we defiled the plants in the courtyard, but, still, he was only 8 pounds lighter.  It has probably been close to a decade since our weight was that close.

Needless to say, we made our flight, and we congratulated each other on a successful trip and going 18 Days without killing each other.  I doubt that I will be able to sleep on this flight, and I know that I will be paying the price in 12 hours.  As soon as we were airborne, I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, along with officially closing the trip.  Next stop: Fire Island and then right back to SeaTac to visit North Cascades NP and say “British Columbia Complete.”

Alaska - Day 17 - Toasted

7/19/14

Portland, Oregon

Utterly and royally toasted.  It seems that that’s what happens every time I hang out with my brother.  Crater Lake NP is looking less and less likely for tomorrow given the potential wisdom of driving 4 hours at 6 AM with a severe hangover and less than 5 hours of sleep.  My brother is convinced that it won’t happen.  I am convinced that it will.  If it doesn’t happen tomorrow, it will probably happen during one of my future trips to Oregon.  I already have two more planned over the next 13 months, but I would prefer to use them to try and say PNW (Washington and Oregon) Complete.  It is doable.  My definition of the PNW is different than that of the NPS, though, so it wouldn’t really be official.  I believe that we are all toasted, excluding Sokol and Ceal, meaning it is just my brother and I are toasted, utterly and royally.  We are barely functional, and we have reached that special place where something as mundane as a blanket seems the funniest thing in the world.

After I closed from Ted Stevens, I got on the plane.  I polished off a Quest bar, and the flight attendant asked me what I wanted to drink.  My mouth was full, so I tried to ask him to hold on, but he thought I said I was good.  After I finished it, I asked for a coffee and a scotch, which he readily brought.  I fell asleep as soon as I was done.  I woke up for breakfast and fell back asleep.  Sokol seemed to have calmed down by the time we landed in SeaTac, but I was still mildly annoyed.  I told Sokol I would meet him at baggage claim, and I picked up some McNuggets for the walk.  My bag was the first one out, and Sokol’s was out before he was.  I realized that I had not received my email from Hertz.  Something was wrong.  It turned out that I had forgotten to make the reservation.  I went up to the reservation desk and told them that I was a Gold Member and had forgotten to make a reservation.  She quoted some outrageous sum for the two days, twice what I usually pay.  I asked about my Gold discount, and she said that there was no such thing.  At that point I almost lost it.  I always have a line item discount, like 5%.  I said that I could show her a previous contract.  She had said that she couldn’t look up my number since it was confidential.  However, my previous contract showed my Gold number and my discount code.  She rang it up, and it was less than half.  I started to walk away when I realized that she had only given me one day, which could really eff things up.  I told her, but the total was still about 20% less than the price she originally quoted.  No discount my ass.  The car was really annoying, but it was modern and advanced.  I could overlook the design deficiencies.

The convention was less than a mile away, and we got settled in.  The place was, for a lack of words, full of nerds.  It was like Comic Con for adults.  Other than kids of attendees, we were the youngest people there.  These people knew their parks.  However, I can say with absolutely certainty that I had more official stamped brochures than anyone else in that room.  Sokol then read my entry from this morning where I called out my behavior from the morning and rightly said that it was unmanly of me to post it on Facebook instead of saying it to his face.  We made up and shook hands.  From then on it, things were better, and the trip was more like I had originally imagined.  The convention was mostly pretty boring, and I spent a lot of time on my phone.  They had said that the club had visited 36 of the 40 stamping locations in Alaska.  During the break, I mentioned that we had been to two more, which brought their total to 38.  I grabbed a burger from the hotel restaurant, which took forever, while Sokol had some cake.  I had more cake than was strictly necessary.  After the break came an interesting talk about “divested” NPS units.

We left early and headed to Klondike Gold Rush NHP, whose superintendent was in attendance.  Driving throughout Alaska with #NoGPS was one thing.  Driving through downtown Seattle was a lot harder.  It was really just a stamp and pin and picture visit, and the stamp tester was more heavily inked than any I had ever seen.  Obviously the club had made their way through.  From there, we walked to Pike Place.  Our plan was to go to the original Starbucks and for me to reload on cigars, though I technically had enough to last me through the trip.  I had lit up a Psyko for my official NPS cigar, and it lasted until we got our dinner, fresh fish (cod and salmon) and chips from Pike Place.  Afterwards, we headed towards the Starbucks on 1^st and Pike.  The line was pretty crazy, and when we were halfway through, Sokol asked if the plan was to just have a cup of coffee at the original Starbucks.  The guy in front of us then said that this wasn’t the original Starbucks.  What the fuck?!?  The original one was on Pike Place, not Pike Street.

We headed to the other one, which had just as long of a line, and I told Sokol to wait on line while I went to the cigar store next door.  They had a great selection, including some really good high-end cigars at very reasonable prices.  I got 12, and he told me that there was a 20% discount if I bought 24.  I figured that they would last, so I did.  By the time he rang me up and I got back, Sokol was next on line.  We got a special brew, which they brew by the cup, exclusive to Pike Place, and I lit up one of my new cigars, a Casa Miranda.  It was only fitting since exactly 10 years ago, not 30 miles away, I fell in love with a camp counselor named Miranda.  My father and I have had discussions about crushes and infatuation and love and the difference among them.  With Miranda, I was 16 years old, and I had no idea what love was.  She was everything I could ever wanted and more.  I just didn’t know it at the time.  I just knew that she was a face I looked forward to seeing every day at camp.  I do not know much about her values or philosophy, but I do know that she was would have been at least a 9 in terms of physical and chemical attraction.  She seemed highly rational and is just as smart as I.  All of that is irrelevant.  She is married now, and I was camper while she was counselor then, not that she was interested anyway.  I still think about her very often, not really her, but the idea of her, that someone so smart, so pretty, so athletic, so perfect could exist.  I have no doubt that, if I knew her better, I would find flaws, but I prefer to believe that this ideal of perfection could exist.  The Casa Miranda cigar and the Pike Place Special Reserve coffee complemented each other perfectly.

I had finished the cigar a little after we were on I-5.  We both had to U pretty badly, but we wanted to wait until we got to the Oregon border to take an official U.  With all the coffee, it was going to be tough.  I lit up a Joya for my next cigar.  With the windows opened, the cigars were smoking very fast, but I was not in the mood for another.  We finally crossed the Columbia River and saw the official Welcome to Oregon sign and took our official Us.  We also ordered the wings at that point, though it would somehow be 3 hours before we started to eat them.  I worried that we ordered too many.  In the end, we didn’t order enough.  My brother had said that he would be “available” after 10 PM, and we were ahead of schedule.  We picked up the wings and got to my brother’s place a little before 10 PM.  I didn’t realize that he lived in a luxury apartment with a doorman and everything.  The doorman couldn’t reach them by cell, so we had to wait for them.  Eventually, I got a call from my brother, telling me to look in the library, so the doorman went there, only for them to walk in the front door.  The doorman then said that my brother was just effing with us, using that exact terminology.

We went up, and I was floored by the deluxe apartment they had with magnificent views.  It was truly a grown-up apartment, and I managed to get lost.  The plan for the evening was for us to get utterly and royally toasted while we recounted the details of our journey.  Somehow it took an hour from the time we finished the tour to the time we were ready to eat, drink, and recount took an hour.  As we got toasteder and toasteder, sillier and sillier things became funnier and funnier.  Crater Lake NP became unlikelier and unlikelier.  It is now past 3 AM, and I am not quite done with this entry.  We would need to leave at 7 AM at the absolute latest to visit Crater Lake NP.  We could sleep in and fully explore Portland.  I will more likely than not visit Portland at least once a year over the next 3 years, so it would be a trade, not a sacrifice.  Somehow the process of putting sheets on the coach seemed hilarious.  During this whole time, I proceeded to write this entry while my brother and I continued another of our Objectivism versus Buddhism debates.  I will now close so that I can figure out how to spend the day tomorrow.

Alaska - Phase 2 - In Review

7/19/14

Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, Alaska (ANC)

It’s funny how things never quite go as expected.  Enough about that.  Right now I’m inclined to say that this trip will not quite crack it into the top 5, which is disappointing.  When people ask me the most beautiful place I have ever visited, I will not hesitate to say Wrangell, The WHS, Alaska, the whole North, even.  There is nothing like the North in summer.  As I was falling asleep, I was thinking what I would miss most when I got back to New York.  24 hours of daylight will be at the top of the list.  The mountains will be second.  I will also miss taking naps in the middle of the day.  I have taken a nap every day during Phase 2, usually on a plane, something that was not possible during Phase 1, during which I drove every day, well, almost every day.  It was supposed to be quite simple.  Phase 1 was about the WHS and points south.  Phase 2 was about Denali and points north.  Due to rescheduling the charter flight, it didn’t quite work out  Phase 1 was about driving from Juneau to Anchorage, stopping someplace different every day, another NP/WHS every day.  It didn’t quite work that way.  Phase 2 was about flying in every which direction, in addition to our drive to and from Deadhorse.  Phase 1 was about the cheaper way of seeing Alaska.  Phase 2 was about going the extra mile, quite literally, taking 7 flights in 7 days.  I enjoyed Phase 1 far more than Phase 2.  Even though I was driving hundreds of miles each day, it was more relaxing.  We still had hope at that point.  I didn’t have hope again until yesterday morning.  It was naïve to think that everything would work out just as planned.  Phase 1 was about rolling with it.  Phase 2 was about making things work.  From the Kotzebue Run to yesterday’s charter flight, we made things happen.  During Phase 1, we were eating fresh fish as much as possible.  During Phase 2, we had burgers or Chinese every day.  At the end of Phase 1, I was exhausted.  At the end of Phase 2, I am more numb.

I want to get back to New York.  This was not the amazing, truly wonderful, life-changing trip that I expected.  It’s tempting to try and blame Sokol’s attitude for it, but, to be honest, it would not have been much different on my own.  The weather is the biggest culprit.  Everything that went wrong, every disappointment, every setback, they were all caused by the rain.  Phase 1 was all about enjoyment value.  Phase 2 was all about fulfillment value.  I got every ounce of fulfillment value from this trip, except maybe the plaque and stamp at Glacier Bay NPP, that I had hoped.  I did not get nearly the amount of enjoyment value that I had expected.  In the end, the trip was a success, and it was fun at times.  I will always remember the WHS and our last day doing the charter flight.  I will not remember a trip with my best friend driving through Alaska, laughing and joking and having the time of our lives.  My trip to Alaska was not what I expected, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.  It will be a top ten trip, but not a top five.  I had been hoping it would be number one.  Alas.

Alaska - Day 16 - "8 for 8"

7/18/14

Anchorage, Alaska

“One Day More!  Another day, another destination” on this never ending road to Complete.  Tomorrow, we will be in Seattle.  This is our last day in Alaska, and the day that will make or break the trip.  The weather is looking nice, and I can see the mountains in the distance that we must cross to get to the last two National Parks.  After I closed last night from Wien Memorial, we boarded our plane that would take us to Anchorage, stopping in Nome, which I kept in insisting on pronouncing in a long, drawn out fashion.  One of the flight attendants was a definite “Oh, yeah” and had the Northern look.  It was a bizarre conundrum, though.  From a 90-degree profile, she was gorgeous.  From a 45-degree angle, she was good-looking.   From 0 degrees, she was just okay-looking.

Sokol slept while I read NFPA 25.  I then messed with my photos and got my blog ready to publish.  When we landed in “Nooooommmmme,” I was starving, and we had a 45-minute layover, so I asked if I could buy one of the snack boxes.  I wound up buying two boxes, giving Sokol most of the carbs.  She joked that she was going to charge me double for coming back during the layover, and I said that was okay.  It would still be cheaper than the prices in Kotzebue.  After my unofficial meal in Nome, I took an official U so that I could say I unofficially visited Nome.  I did not take an unofficial picture, though.  Once we were up in the air, we soon had Wi-Fi, so I was able to upload my Travelogue.  Once we landed, Sokol said that I was acting toasted, and he believed I had something to drink on the plane.  The truth was that I was just so giddy about our last day.  The second to last day of a big trip (I am considering Phase 3 a separate trip, really) is always a special one.  You are in full wind-down mode, and you can finally start to relax.  We stopped at the previous hotel to get our stuff before having the cab take us on the Hilton.  We were laughing and joking the whole evening, something that had been missing to a large degree for the trip.

When we got to the rooms, we had a room facing northwest, which was the exact direction that the sun was setting at 11 PM.  Sokol said that he needed to get rid of his hat, as it was a gift from his ex, so I told him to throw it out the window.  He did.  It landed on the sidewalk in front of someone who looked up.  My head was out the window, so I waved to the guy, who nervously waved back.  Someone from the hotel was helping him with his luggage, and they looked up and pointed at me.  I told Sokol that we couldn’t start smoking, as we would probably be getting a knock on the door in about 5-10 minutes, so I washed my filthy socks in the meantime.  With no knock after about 30 minutes, we lit up the same pipes we had in Copper Center, me opting for the Ser Jacopo this time.  My reservation said that I had requested a smoking room, and they didn’t tell us it was non-smoking, nor were there any signs.  However, there was no ashtray in the room, and there was a smoke detector.  We took all of the usual precautions.   As we sat down, it was such a beautiful vista, that I said, and it was true, “I could live here.”  Never before I have truly said and meant that in any place other than New York.  I don’t know how the winters are, but they’re probably not too brutal, being on the coast.  The only problem would be the short days.  I doubt you can find Chinese at 2 AM in Anchorage.

As we were falling asleep, we joked about all of the crazy adventures of the past two weeks, especially about the angry phone I would get from Go North when they realized that the car had truly been to Hell and Back.  It smelled like smoke, was dirty inside and outside, had low gas, a dead battery, and a blown gear shift module.  I woke up early so that I would have time for breakfast, a smoke, a shower, and this entry.  I was delighted to see the mountains off in the distance, which meant that we would have good visibility.  Breakfast was a buffet, and they called the buffet “The Complete.”  It was a very good sign.  I started off with salmon and fruit, followed by reindeer sausage, eggs, bacons, and a small biscuit with reindeer gravy, along with coffee.  Sokol had a lot of sugar.  After breakfast, we back up to the room, I lit up a Fuente, proceeded to write this entry, and played “One Day More.”

Aboard N52004, En route Brooks Camp to Anchorage – Lake Hood Seaplane Base (PALH)

It is a dateline that speaks for itself, and it means one thing: 8 for 8.  It means we did it.  It means the trip was a success.  It means that I will soon forget everything bad or negative that happened in the past 16 Days.  It means that when I fully reflect on it, this trip will have a chance to vie for a spot in the top five.  I don’t see it displacing Eurotrip as number one, but it will be up there, and it’s not even done.  We still have our final night in Anchorage, along with our weekend in Seattle and Oregon.  I will be happy to get back to New York, to see the people I know, to eat Chinese food made by actual Chinese people, to get new cigars, to wear clean socks, but tonight is about Alaska.  We will be at Ted Stevens in 12 hours, where I will be writing a very triumphant airport entry.  It will be good to fly first class to SeaTac, to go to the convention, to see my brother and his fiancé at their new place, to check off a few boxes in Oregon, but today is about Alaska.

8 for 8 was the very definition of success for the Alaska portion of this trip, and we did it.  8 pins, 8 t-shirts, 8 stamped brochures, 8 Cubans.  There were no irregularities, no exceptions that had to be made, no reasons to have to come back.  I will come back to Alaska.  That is for sure, but not before I’m 30.  In fact, once we cross the 60^th Parallel in about an hour, I will not go north of it west of Greenland until I’m 30.  It feels good to say that, really good.  It was not Alaska Complete, and that was never the goal.  Next time it will be the goal.  This trip had a very specific goal.  8 for 8, and that was what we did.  We also got in the stuff in Canada, midnight sun at Point Barrow (such as it was), the Dalton (such as it was), an NM, and a NPres.

This is a day that I will remember the rest of my life.  In contrast to our first day in Kotzebue, which had shitty weather and an apathetic (but highly talented) pilot, I enjoyed myself today.  Day 14 was all about fulfillment value.  Today had plenty of enjoyment value.  I had included two “Dutch Days” in my plans for this trip.  I called them “Rest and Relax” to make it more appealing to Sokol, but I knew that we would neither rest nor relax on those days.  The first one was burned by sleeping in and then running errands around anchorage, including my time at the doctor.  Today was necessary for that last charter flight.  I knew something would go wrong, terribly wrong, at some point during the trip.  I knew that I would need an extra day to accommodate that.  That was what today was about.  Without this extra day, we would not have gone 8 for 8.  Without our crazy drive from Fairbanks to Anchorage, we would not have gone 8 for 8.  Without our highly skilled pilot on Day 14, we would not have gone 8 for 8.  Without the luck of beautiful weather today, we would not have gone 8 for 8.  A lot went wrong during this trip, but I lot could have gone a lot worse.  We went 8 for 8.  That was what mattered.  As I was writing my entry this morning, I got a text from our pilot.  He was getting an early start and would be there to pick us up in 30 minutes.  I would not have time to finish my cigar.  I didn’t care.  It meant that it was a go.  Until I got that text, I did not believe we would go 8 for 8.  I ditched the cigar with about half of it left.  It wasn’t smoking great, anyway.

We headed down, and he was waiting for us.  As soon as we got in his truck, I wrote him a check.  I brought three checks with me to Alaska.  I wound up using all three of them.  The first was to pay a speeding ticket.  That didn’t feel so good.  To write the other two, the first the most expensive thing I ever purchased in my life, felt really good.  To be able to use the wealth I have created with my capacity to think to trade with someone to help achieve one of my desires is every Objectivist’s dream.  Sokol was tagging along.  I had made a trade with him, too.  He cleaned my apartment for me in exchange for a free trip.  The amount that I paid for his transportation (and some meals) was more than worth the clean apartment.  Having that clean apartment changed my lifestyle.  It has made me want to get up early for a morning cigar while I worked from home.  It made has made me want to spend more weekends in the city so that I can do touristy things and come back to a clean apartment instead of a war zone.  We headed to Lake Hood, which is basically the backyard of Ted Stevens.  All throughout the day, people kept telling us that we picked a great day for this.  We didn’t pick today.  It picked us.  I don’t believe in luck.  Aristotle tried to explain, but I didn’t quite understand it.  Basically, it goes like this.  Luck was not the Efficient Cause of the good weather.  Some meteorological events were the Efficient Cause of the good weather.  It was lucky that they aligned, but luck did not cause anything.

The views were so scenic, and maybe southern Alaska has better mountains than northern Alaska because the mountains did not lose any of their grandeur as we overflew them.  Steve showed us some interesting sights along the way, from the duck cabins that hunters set up to the timber forests that was supposed to be the destination of the “Bridge to Nowhere.”  I was so excited.  This was actually happening.  Once we got out of range of ATC, he put on his wife’s iPod.  If I thought that I couldn’t get any happier, I was wrong.  The second song was Taylor Swift, followed by Frozen, followed by Taylor, followed by Reba, followed by ABBA.  It was as if it was my own personal playlist.  Soon enough, we landed at Twin Lake’s, the site of “Dick’s Cabin.”  Richard Proenneke spent 30 years at a cabin he built in the park, and it was all still up.  There were actually some other people around, and the groundskeeper was doing a tour.  That was the last thing I wanted to do.  Instead, I lit up my Fonseca, and we went on a little nature walk, taking our first official Us of the park on the way.

We soon came to a big opening with wonderful views.  After taking some official pictures there, we walked to the lake and back around the beach.  I asked, Sokol if he knew where our plane was in the same way that I might have asked him if he knew where we parked our car.  It was fun to say that.  We got back and then went to the cabin.  They even had a stamp there.  We walked around a little more and found Dick’s official toilet, which looked to still be fully functional.  After I finished my cigar, we got back on the plane to head to the VC in Port Alsworth.  It turns out that there are commercial flights to Port Alsworth, and I could have chartered a plane there.  I also could have taken a commercial flight to King Salmon and a taxi to the park from there.  It would have been a little cheaper to do that, but I would have had to leave Sokol in Anchorage, and it would have been less fun without our own plane.  We headed to the VC, and someone on an ATV offered us a ride, so we hopped on the back for a very fun minute.  The VC had stamps, pins, t-shirts, and a bathroom.  That was pretty much it.  Oh, they had a movie.  They asked if I wanted to watch a movie.  That was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do.  Steve found us at the VC, and we headed to the picnic tables for lunch.  He had some fresh salmon salad that he had made from fish his daughter had caught yesterday.  The only problem was that there was some mustard, just a little.  I am allergic to mustard, but I can handle it in very small, very dilute quantities, sometimes.  I really wanted the salmon, and I knew that it would be my only chance to eat anything other than Quest bars or slow, overpriced food.  This was free.  I went for it.  It was a mistake, but not a big one.  I soon felt the familiar tiredness and general sense of malaise that follows whenever I eat mustard.  Some grapes and a cracker abated most of it.  When we took off for Brooks, the excitement of going 8 for 8 abated more of it, and the nap I took on the plane abated the rest.

When we landed at Brooks, it was a pretty happening dock.  Lots of big charters were there, which includes the traditional Japanese tourists, who will spend untold amounts of money and time to show their friends back in Japan a picture of a bear.  We had a different a goal.  A stamped brochure, a pin, a t-shirt, a Cuban, and a picture with a bear.  We got all of them.  The ranger had a bit of an attitude, and he also said that we had to watch an orientation video.  There was a list of rules for “platform etiquette,” which, sure enough, included no smoking, not that would stop us.  Actually, the no smoking rule only applied to the bear viewing platforms, not the walkways or trails.  We headed towards the platforms, and I lit up my Cohiba along the way.  After I took my official U, and we took our official picture, I announced, for neither the first nor last time, “It’s official.  8 for 8.”

Steve joined us after we crossed the river, and we all took a picture together.  He was part of the team now.  When we got to the holding area, I started walking towards the main platform.  I then heard someone say that the guy with a suit and a cigar had walked through the barricade.  I definitely had to sign in and wait my turn, but they debated whether I was allowed to smoke my cigar.  In the end, they agreed that I could smoke it on the trails on walkways, but not any of the platforms, including the holding area.  They did not fully convey that to me, just saying so smoking on the platform.  I put the cigar down and signed us in.  There was another platform with only a few people, so I grabbed my cigar.  Steve went back to the plane, and Sokol came with me to the platform.

There was a great view of the bears, but we didn’t get the same up close view we would have gotten from the main platform, not that a few bears didn’t venture over.  Soon enough, a ranger told me no smoking on any platforms.  That was fine.  I put the cigar on the railing.  After it was out, I ashed it and put in my shirt pocket.  After a while, we had enough and went back to the holding area.  It was still some time for us to wait, and we gave it about ten minutes before calling it quits and heading back towards our plane.  The ranger at the VC had told us that we should leave at least an hour before we needed to get back to our plane, and I asked him what he meant.  He said something about when our flight was scheduled to leave, and I responded in a very pompous manner that we had our own plane.  It would wait for us.  This was the great thing about today compared to Kotzebue.  Steve is far more relaxed and chill than Jim was, and he really does this as a hobby.  We negotiated a price, a very fair price, and it included all the ground time I wanted.  If I wanted to spend an hour at Brooks or 3 hours that was fine with him.  The only time crunch was our 7:30 PM dinner reservation.  He picked us up at our hotel at 8:30 AM, and when I told him about the reservation, he been thinking we’d want enough ground time to get back to Anchorage at 8 or 9 PM.  With Jim, he presented me a calculated bill at the end based on the hourly rate we had discussed.  He was supposed to charge me for ground time, but since we spent like 30 minutes at each site, he waived it.

As soon as we started walking back to our plane, it started to rain.  I realized that one thing was missing from my official trip to Alaska: something for my dresser.  I figured that a bear would be perfect, and this would be the perfect place to get it.  Sure enough, the Trading Post had a great selection of carved bears, and I got two.  Sokol had said he would meet me by the gear cache where I had left my bag, which was next to the food cache where I had left my Quest bars.  I had taken the beach route, and I saw Sokol there.  I started to walk towards Sokol when a ranger came out practically screaming for everyone to get down to the beach, and Sokol ran into the VC.  About a minute later, I saw a big bear walk right in front of the VC.  After it was all clear, I told Sokol that I wanted to take a picture in front the official sign.  I did not want to carry my bag in the picture.  We had been told during orientation to never leave out anything with food.  Then Sokol did something that really irked me, not a minor quirk that irritated me, something that actually irked me.  I’m sure we did plenty of stuff to irritate each other during the trip, but this was different.  He grabbed my computer bag and the Quest bars.  What was I supposed to do with the bag now?  A fucking bear had just walked by, and he brought food out, expecting me to leave it on the ground.  He told me to quickly hide the Quest bars in the bag before a ranger saw it.  I wasn’t concerned about a ranger seeing the food.  I was concerned about the bear smelling it!  I did it anyway, and we very quickly took our official pictures.  I then retrieved my bag, and we headed to our plane.  A few minutes later, we were off with plenty of other planes trying to escape the weather.  I proceeded to write my entry as soon as we were airborne, and it has been very bumpy due to the weather, but it looks to be clearing up ahead, and we are making great time.

Throughout the day, I have been thinking about how much my mother would have loved the sites we saw today, except that there was no way in hell she could have handled this small plane, especially this bumpy ride without yakking for days.  Steve put on his wife’s iPod again, but I offered my phone instead with my Best of Avril playlist to play while I typed.  I will now close so that I can reclaim my phone and take some pictures of the gorgeous view that we are now having.

Anchorage, Alaska

It’s funny how things never work out quite the way you plan.  Well, some things work out that way, while others don’t.  I did a very good job this trip planning for the unexpected, and it paid off.  Some of the highlights of the trip were supposed to be my stamp and plaque at Glacier Bay NPP, glacier hiking, midnight sun at Point Barrow, and the Dalton Highway.  Glacier Bay NPP had neither an official stamp nor plaque, the days for the glacier hikes were cold and rainy, the sun was not visible at Point Barrow, and the Dalton was a disaster.  When we first found that gift card, I told Sokol we would use it for a celebratory dinner tonight.  Instead, we spent it on our first few meals and, while we did have the dinner tonight, it didn’t feel celebratory.  Sure, part of it had to do with the meal.  They tried too hard.  It was fresh, Alaska fish.  You grill it and put it on a plate with some sides.  Anything else you could do to it diminishes it.  The beers were good, though.  We were going to have a pair of Opus X, but we had them in McCarthy instead, and I smoked the one I had been saving for the final drive on Sunday while Sokol passed out.  I never smoked my Dunhill or Brebbia pipes.  The place I went to reload on cigars in Anchorage had a shitty selection.  The things that we will remember will not be the highlights of the trip that I had been touting when we were planning.  Instead, it will be me being chased by a bear in The Yukon and our crazy Kotzebue Run.

I also thought that having him along with me would make it even more epic.  If I had done it alone, and I could have, not much would have been different.  I don’t know if I would have gotten stuck in the mud, but that would the only game changer.  It was fun being with him, but we also argued a lot.  Trying to find a way to insult me, he called me selfish, not realizing that I take great pride in being selfish.   He said that I treat people poorly, not realizing that I treat people with the respect that they earn, with the love that they earn, not out of any social contract.  I make no secret of the fact that I don’t give two shits about strangers.  He is not like that, but it is not the big things that drive two people crazy who have known each other for so long.  Those things are discovered very quickly and either accepted or rejected, ending the relationship.  A friendship, a romance, it’s the same, and it’s always the little things.  Sokol has a right to privacy, so it would be beyond this scope to list the little things that annoyed me, and I’m sure he would have a list of his own.

Suffice it to say, it was not what I expected, 18 Days of us laughing and joking and pulling pranks.  Sure, there was plenty of that, but there was also plenty of time where we drove each other crazy.  When we got back, I uploaded my photos and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can upload it, pack, and get to sleep before our early flight.  As I smoke my last cigar in Alaska, I can finally relax.  It is celebratory, and we still have two more Days in Seattle and Oregon.  Maybe when we get to my brothers place, we will have our true celebration, but is not tonight, not on the day that said “8 for 8.”

Alaska - Day 15 - The North

7/17/14

Kotzebue, Alaska

“You should have gotten here two days ago, the weather was beautiful.”  It seems to be a common theme, not the first time we’ve heard similar words.  Alaskan weather is, for the most part, for the lack of a better word, shitty.  Granted, we have really gotten the brunt of it.  So many places we have visited have had terrible weather for the day of our activity, only for it to be beautiful the day before or after.  It has really fucked up some elements of our trip.  Starting with the hurricane that chased us out of New York, almost cancelling our outbound flight, this trip has singularly been about the weather.  It rained twice during my Eurotrip.  Both times were when I was driving very early in the morning, and it cleared up by the time I got to my first stop.  We would have no such luck on this trip.  During our July 4^th boatride, which was supposed to be the highlight of our trip, the thing that was going to set the tone for the whole trip, miserable rain turned it from something that could have had a very high enjoyment value to something that was pure fulfillment value.  The next three days, while we explored the land based portion of The WHS, we actually had some really good weather.  In fact, it was the only time we had good weather during the whole trip.

I didn’t mind getting wet a little, though it may very well have contributed to my foot injury.  I quickly learned that wearing shorts and sandals would not be an option, the weather being too unpredictable for that, even though I did get one nice day out of that outfit, the one bad day practically cancelled it out.  Then came the day for our charter flight, what was supposed to be the triumphant conclusion to Phase 1.  Cancelled on account of weather.  The days before and after had nice weather, and the weather was actually good in Homer during the afternoon, but there was no way to fly through the mountains, and seasoned pilots were grounding all of their flights.  I suppose that was what broke me, what turned the enjoyment of The WHS into a trip that would be mostly about fulfillment value, collecting what enjoyment I could.  When we flew to Barrow, the weather was so bad we almost couldn’t land.  It was a fucking tundra!  How could they have rain?  In fact, the weather was so bad they had been cancelling flights all week.  We were very fortunate to make it through.  When we got there, they told us that the weather would be really nice on Sunday.  We were leaving on Saturday.

Then came Denali.  A clear day would mean magnificent views of Mount McKinley.  The forecasts varied among clear, cloudy, and rainy.  We got cloudy, which meant that we could do our nature walks but that we couldn’t see McKinley.  The clouds started to part just as we left.  Next was the Dalton.  We got hit by the worst rain they had in years, decades maybe.  That was the day we chose to drive, and that was the day we got stuck in the mud and fucked up our car.  When we finally made it Kotzebue, the weather was shitty here again, but we somehow managed to do our first day of flying, and the second day is looking good, even if slightly delayed.  We made all of our landings on the first day but had to take some circuitous routes to do it.  We were told that the weather two days ago, the day we drove the Dalton, was beautiful.  Oh, the irony.

Aboard Northwestern Aviation N4557F, En route to Kotzebue (PAOT)

While we did not get to see Bering Land Bridge NPres, my time in Kotzebue did give us what we needed to say, “North American Mainland Arctic Complete.”  I couldn’t think of a way to include my Northern Canada Compete into that mix, so I had to settle for something that effectively just meant officially visiting every NPS north of the Arctic Circle.  The reason that we couldn’t include Bering Land Bridge NPres was actually not the weather, but rather Dutch Time.  Jim had to push everything back because of the weather, yes, but it took another hour after that from the time he got back to the office to the time we were in the air.  We woke up early, and I took my shower.  I knew that Sokol would never be ready in time, so I headed down to breakfast while Sokol took his.  He would wind up trading breakfast for that extra sleep.  It was a perfectly decent buffet at a reasonable price, especially for Northern prices.  After breakfast, as I was getting ready, I tried to call the office, but no dice.  Then the phone rang.  Sokol and I looked at each other in a panic.  When I had walked into the room, there was still a hint of smoke smell.  Had they figured it out?  No, it was Linda telling us we had the morning off.  Weather was holding us up, and we should check in again with her at 12:30 PM.  I wrote my morning entry, read my emails, did whatever I might do to kill time, reading the news, checking Facebook.  We needed to check out by 11 AM, so we did that and then headed next door for lunch.  Sokol had napped the whole time, so it was really breakfast for him.  The meal was really good, more Chinese food for me, a steak sandwich for Sokol.  We then headed to the office, but Linda said we needed to wait until Jim got back in two hours.  It was fine.  We would still have time for Cape Krusterstern NM, and we could try for Bering Land Bridge NPres if we had time.

We spent an hour or so walking around town, smoking cigars (a Gurkha for me, a Cheap Bastard for Sokol), and looking for souvenirs.  Our first stop was the general store, and Sokol just asked someone, “Do you know where the store is?”  “It’s just down the road on the left.”  And so it was.  They had t-shirts and a cheap, windproof lighter, which has been a real boon.  No keychains.  We stopped at four different places, the first three of which pointed us to another store.  The last one, the NPS VC, told us no dice.  Long done with our cigars, we headed back to the office, and Jim was just getting there.  By the time Jim had gassed up the plane, and we were ready to go, I knew that to try for Bering Land Bridge NPres would be a fool’s errand.  I wasn’t going for Alaska Complete, nor was I even going for USA/CAN north of the 60^th Parallel Complete.  It was just another NPS.

We needed to wear high boots to trudge through the swamp to the float plane, and the boots were a boon once we got off the plane at the NM.  Cape Krusterstern is an ancient native hunting ground, for thousands of years, they would set up camp along the waterfronts to hunt for marine mammals.  They still do, and we saw plenty of cabins on route.

Once we landed, it was desolate wasteland as far as the eye could see, just empty tundra.  I lit up my Davidoff, while Sokol had a fake Cohiba.  We took our first official Us of the NM into the swamp and then walked around for a bit.  Sokol commented that the ground felt like a bouncy castle and challenged me to a jumping contest.  My foot was not fully recovered, so I had to turn him down.  I wanted to get some rocks, but, remembering the sand dunes, I tested it with the boot first.  No dice.  They were “fake rocks.”  In the end, I found some real rocks.  After the cigars, we got back on the plane, Sokol dropping his sunglasses into the swamp (he found them), and I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, as we are making our approach to the airport lagoon.

Ralph Wien Memorial Airport, Alaska (OTZ)

I have written about the outrageous food prices here in Northern communities, and one of the best examples is the outrageous price of soup at the Chinese restaurant.  I don’t know if the soups are fuller or bigger like a whole or if they are just an overpriced cup of soup.  I could get a whole gallon of egg drop soup from Hop Won for the same price.  In all my visits to these communities, I have not once ordered soup.  As we were walking from the office to the Alaska Airlines terminal, I told Sokol that, the next time I was in one of these communities, I would order the soup just to see what it was.  As soon as I said that, I realized that it might be a very long time before I venture above the 60^th Parallel west of Greenland again.  All that remains to me in Canada is below the 60^th Parallel, and there will be nothing left for me in Alaska for quite some time if tomorrow goes well.  I suppose that Greenland will have similar prices, but do they serve Chinese food in Greenland?

As we prepare to get on the flight that will take us back to Anchorage, I cannot help but be saddened by this concept.  In all of travels, no place has given me more of a culture shock than these communities.  I have now taken 4 trips and visited seven of these communities, maybe more.  Before I arrived in Fort Simpson, I had seen Native Americans before, but I always thought of them as localized to the Southwest, in small reservations, never once considering that there would be whole cities, whole regions, that had a majority of a native population.  In fact, probably most of the geographic area of North America still has a predominantly native population.  There are a lot of negative things to be said about this population, but I will not include that.  To me, it is a part of a place I love too much to criticize its population.  I love the North.  There is nothing like in the world.  From the desolate tundra, to the soaring mountains, to the expansive forests, every bit of it is wonderful.  The cold preserves.

Alaska is like Seattle on steroids.  The coastal regions only paling in comparison in beauty to the mountainous interior.  Even the boring parts have their own beauty.  It is a way of living that would appeal to me if I were not so devoted to the city.  In McCarthy, they only had locks on the bathroom doors, and I’m quite sure a vacant/occupied hanging sign would have worked just as well, except people would forget to turn it.  In Iqaluit, people would leave their cars running while they went in to the grocery store, and I’m sure it is the same in many other parts of the North during the winter.

I love the idea of places so remote, so untouched, that they are only connected by air.  In each of these places the hotel has been the biggest building in the city, and everyone knew where everything was.  Everyone knows what time “the jet” or “the evening jet” lands and leaves.  The airport terminal just has the one gate.  You can easily walk from the airport to the hotel in some of them, while others require a short drive.  Sokol asked me how people here afford the high food prices, and I answered quite simply.  Rent is probably practically nothing here.  In New York, people might spend 50-75% of their net salary on rent.  That is very atypical for human civilization.  Ever since the invention of money, food was the single biggest expense of the working class.  Here, in a place where not much has changed, that, too, remains the same.   Sure, they can’t grow or raise any food here.  The natives and the locals hunt their own meat, which helps a lot, but the white folk need to buy meat, and they all need to buy produce.  What they save on rent they put back into food.  I do not imagine people here have much disposal income.  I saw a listing how the poorest places tend to have the highest costs of living for outsiders.  With the hotel and food prices here, that is quite true of the North.

My father and I both agree that Nordic women tend to be the most beautiful women in the world, and I go one step further, including what I call “the Northern look,” which means descendants of Scandinavian immigrants, maybe mixed a little with some continental ancestors.  I think that I like that look better because I love the North more than I love Germany and Denmark, though I have not seen much of Scandinavia.  The next time I venture above the 60^th Parallel will be a 9-day journey to try and say “Finno-Scandinavia Complete,” and I have no doubt I will love it as much as I love North America above the 60^th Parallel.  After that, I will still have Iceland and Greenland, which I suspect I might love even more than anywhere else in the North, especially since the way I have it planned will be one of the most relaxing extended trips I take.  Some people like the Caribbean or Florida or California coast.  To me, the most beautiful nature in the world is, and always will be, the North.

Alaska - Day 14 - Kotzebue

7/16/14

Aboard Alaska 158, En route ANC-OTZ

We made it!  It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t pretty, but we made it!  First they were called Mole Runs, then they were called Munich Runs, but I suppose the new name has to be Kotzebue Runs.  Nothing could ever compare to this epic race from Coldfoot to Ted Stevens.  I suppose the only reason that it might not be considered quite as epic as the original Munich Run was that I was only behind the wheel for about an hour of it.  6 hours in a tow truck, 4.5 hours with Sokol driving, a shuttle to the airport, and then racing through the airport.  From the time we left Coldfoot to the time we got on the plane was 12 hours, but the other 11 hours don’t really count.  I slept sporadically on the plane, constantly calculating what time we would arrive in Fairbanks.  We arrived right at midnight.  I figured we could do the drive in 5 hours if we punched it.  It somehow took us half an hour to transfer stuff from the Jeep to our new Dodge pickup.  It was a big puppy

I told Sokol to punch it once we got out of town, knowing that we needed to maintain an average of 72 mph to get to Anchorage by 5:30 PM.  I wanted to allow time for gas and plenty of time to get to the airport, along with Dutch Time.  Sokol really punched it, and we were making great time.  Then, we hit the construction.  We had to wait for a pilot car.  That whole process set us back 20 minutes.  We did not have 20 minutes to spare, and Sokol made it up by driving over 90 for most the time, even breaking 100 at some points.  I went back to sleep.

Sokol had said that we probably shouldn’t smoke in this car.  It was bad enough that we couldn’t clean the Jeep, which was filthy inside and out and smelled like cigars, the last cigar I had being the Cuesta Ray that I had before the incident with the mud Monday night.  I have had no desire to smoke since then.  I agreed with him.  All of my clothes were filthy, and I had changed in the parking lot, but my shoes were still filthy and wet, which I knew would be disastrous for my limited sock supply.  We stopped for gas when there was a quarter of a tank left.  Needless to say, I spent every waking moment vigorously calculating our expected arrival time.  It was better to sleep.  Sokol prays and makes statements that express desires.  I calculate and make statements that express facts.  Him telling me, “Don’t worry.  We’ll make it.” Is a lot less comforting to me than my brain telling me, “If we average 80 mph, we’ll be at Go North at 5:30 AM.”  I like facts.  I’m rational.

After we gassed up, which was outrageously expensive, having used over 24 gallons to go 290 miles.  I didn’t care.  I just cared about making the flight to Kotzebue.  I told Sokol we now needed to average 80 mph.  He really punched it, breaking 110.  I saw some lights up ahead, and he slowed down.  It was a cop car pulling someone over.  Sokol rightly commented that if we hadn’t stopped for gas, he would have been in cuffs in the back of a cop car.  I didn’t disagree.  He was starting to get tired, so I finished changing into my suit and took the wheel.  I had never driven a pickup before.  It was quite a different experience.  We were starting to hit traffic and towns at this point, so it was a much more technically difficult drive, especially to do at the maximum safe speed.  I kept calculating.  I then saw the turnoff for the Seward highway, the one we had missed on the way to Seward.  I took it, only to get off at the wrong exit.  “Fuck!” I exclaimed.  Fortunately, we just went a little too far, and it only set us back a couple of minutes.  Right at 6 AM, we were at the Go North place.

We ditched the car, forgetting to turn off the headlights.  I didn’t care.  We raced across to the hotel where we would leave our bags and catch the shuttle.  Would we have enough time?  I figured that we would need to be at the gate by 6:50 AM, meaning we needed to be at the airport by 6:30 AM.  We should be fine.  The shuttle driver was very understanding, and we got to the airport right at 6:20 AM.  We printed our boarding passes, and I asked an agent when the boarding cutoff time was?  2 minutes.  Can you do anything to help us?  We have our boarding passes.  Run to your gate, then.  And, run, we did.  We breezed through security and sprinted to the gate.  I had changed back into my sneakers, and it seems that whatever healing the boot did to my foot was undone by that run.  The gate agent saw us running.  Are you on the Kotzebue flight?  We were.  She pointed to our gate and told us that we were fine.  We walked down the staircase and towards the plane.  Sokol wanted to slap five, but I repeated what I had previously told him.  I’ll relax when we’re sitting on the plane.  Once we got on the plane, I relaxed, and we did slap five.  As soon as we took off, I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can have something that resembles breakfast.

Aboard Northwestern Aviation N756AH, En route to Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve

We are finally in the air, almost 4 hours after we landed in Kotzebue.  The weather was dicey when we landed, and I wasn’t sure if we would be able to do the flight today.  I had gotten my Gates of the Arctic NPP stamp in Coldfoot, and I knew there was a stamp to be had for Kobuk Valley NP here.  That meant that we just needed to land somewhere, anywhere in National Park land to make those two parks official.  I first went to the National Park office, which was not fully opened yet, so I had to wait to get my pins and t-shirt, which were sold by an adorable girl who did not have the Northern look.  What is the Northern look?  Well, I’ll let my reader ponder that one.  In the meantime, I uploaded my entry and did my stamping.  To my disappointment, Kobuk Valley NP did not have its own brochure, instead sharing a general “Western Arctic Parklands” brochure, but, that was what they had, so it counts as being official.

After the stamping, we headed over to Northwestern Aviation where I spoke with the pilot, Jim.  I told him my priorities, and we considered the weather.  He said that the weather was decent enough to make those two things happen, and we could even try for the Anaktuvuk Pass RS.  That was good.  However, the plane was not going to be there for another hour, so Linda gave us a ride to get breakfast.  The service was awful, the coffee worse, and I still had no appetite.  I opted for just getting two fried eggs, along with Sokol’s bacon.  I pretty much forced myself to eat it.  I twice asked for water, and she never brought any.  Our hotel was next door, so we went to check in.  My debit card was still not working right, and I haven’t had a chance to call Citibank.  I suppose I will need to do that tonight, though Jim said I could just write him a check.  No one in New York would take a check from a total stranger for even 10% of the amount I will be paying him, maybe not even for 1% of the amount.  People in Alaska are just more honest and more trusting here, except for the Inuits, who seem to be less so of either.  It could be that they are very trusting of one another, but it seems not so much with white folk.

Jim and I kept discussing and replanning our day, in the end, with the weather clearing up some, goi

ng back to our original plan.  About an hour after that, we were in the plane, and we took off another half an hour so, but Jim said that we should be fine to get to Anaktuvuk Pass before the RS closes at 5:30 PM.  It will officially be the most I have ever paid for a stamp, but it will make me the envy of the convention, this being one of the Most Wanted stamps.  Sokol fell asleep as soon as we were airborne, but there is no visibility, only clouds as far as the eye can see.  The weather does break here and there, which affords some rather nice views.  The views are getting better, much better, now, but I don’t want to wake Sokol.  He needs his sleep after that marathon day so that he can properly enjoy the day.  I, on the other hand, will close so that I can watch the views.

Aboard Northerwestern Aviation N756AH, En route to Anaktuvuk Pass (PAKP)

The list needs to be revised again.  Whenever I used to speak of the list, it was always about the most beautiful women I have ever seen.  To me, that was what beauty was.  As I explored in my Japan entries, aesthetics is about more than simply female, human, physical beauty.  Now, the list refers to the most beautiful places.  First is, and may always be, The WHS.  Second is now all other Alaskan National Parks tied, followed by the Grand Canyon and all other National Parks tied after that.  Is it fair to put Hot Springs at the same level with Acadia or Theodore Roosevelt?  To equate Cuyahoga Valley with Yosemite?  Dry Tortugas with the Redwoods?  Probably not, but it doesn’t matter.  The National Parks as a whole, representing the entire beauty of our nation, are what matters.  Each one has their own unique charm.  I belive in the well ordering of any ranking.  If I really sat down, the way I did when I made The List, I could probably rank all 59 (or the 40 that I visited), but it would not be fair to do that.  Yosemite is meaningless without Kings Canyon also taken into account.  Shenandoah meaningless without Great Smokies.  In order to consider a National Park, each and every one of the 59 National Parks must be considered.

Our first stop was to land at Noatak NPres.  As soon as we got out of the plane, I was floored.  It was pristine wilderness as far as the eye could see.  While we probably were not the first humans to set foot there, the gravel runway putting pay to that theory, it certainly seemed that way.  After dousing myself with deet, I lit up one of my tiny Davidoffs while Sokol opted for a fake Cohiba.  We took our first official Us in the Noatak River, and it was clear that the deet was not doing its job.  Jim had a sandwich he had packed for the road, and Sokol and I walked around, joking with each other.  I had designed this trip so that it was doable on my own, but it was much easier with Sokol sharing the driving, and it was a lot more fun to have him around.  He also got me out of a couple of jams, and I would have been a lot more panicked if he wasn’t there.  For whatever we’ve gotten on each other’s nerves, the enjoyment value of having him along far exceeds it.  Not to mention that I got a clean apartment out of the mix.

After our cigars were done, we got back in the plane, and Jim tried to start it.  I say tried.  He kept pressing a button, and there was a clicking sound.  The propeller wouldn’t start.  My first thought was not that we might be stranded in the middle of nowhere.  My first thought was that I would not be able to check off the two National Parks, that I might not get that Anaktuvuk Pass stamp.  Sokol was in the co-pilot seat, so Jim gave him some instructions on what to do while he manually tried to crank the propeller.  He tried this a few times.  No dice.  At first I was jealous that it was Sokol that got to help with the plane, but then I realized that I would not fully trust myself with the controls, and I was glad he was doing it instead.  Finally, he got it going really good, but Sokol didn’t press the right button.  Jim came running over, telling Sokol to move over, and we were set.

A short, scenic flight later, and we landed inside the official National Park wilderness within Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve.  As soon as we landed, Jim turned off the plane and did the exact same thing that I would have done.  He tested the starter.  It was a little shaky, but it worked.  Phew!  We got out, and I sprayed myself again with deet, but it was not necessary with the wind.  My hands were full of deet, and I probably should have washed them before lighting my Montecristo.  The cigar had a bit of a taste of deet.  It didn’t matter.  That cigar was about fulfillment value, not enjoyment value.  It didn’t matter that I had trouble lighting it in the wind, which made it burn unevenly and take half the time it should have taken.  All that mattered was that I smoked my official Cuban in the National Park.

After we were done, and I took my first official U in the park (Sokol didn’t have it in him), I asked Jim if he thought we could still make it to the Anaktuvuk Pass.  He said it wasn’t certain, but that we could give it a try.  We would know about halfway through, which is the point we are now at, and it is pretty cloudy, but he is showing no indication of turning around or hesitation.  He’s been doing this practically forever, so I trust his judgment, and I really, really want this stamp.

As we are flying over these mountains, the mountains that make Alaska the most beautiful place in the world, well, they look different.  Flying above the mountains, they lose their majesty, their grandeur.  The draw of the mountains is that they are so big and look larger than life.  Flying on top of them, that is no longer the case.  After we land in Anaktuvuk, we will head back towards Kotzebue, stopping at Kobuk Valley NP.  That will complete the 30 Goals portion of my time in Kotzebue, though we will try for the two sites to the west tomorrow.  After that, we have the day that will determine whether this trip will be considered a success or a failure, whether or not I will need to return to Alaska.  If Friday works out, the entire trip will be a success, all the disappointments of the past two weeks rendered irrelevant.  If not, then the trip will be considered a failure, though nothing could take away my lasting memory of The WHS.  It is the difference between this being firmly planted as the greatest trip of my life or just a long, overhyped, overrated, overpriced vacation.

Aboard Northwestern Aviation N756AH, En route to Kotzebue (PAOT)

Mission Complete!  I have checked off two more National Parks.  The only thing that that weather did was extend the flight time by about an hour and thereby increase the price accordingly, but it doesn’t matter!  I got the two parks, along with the one of the National Preserves.  Tomorrow, we will go for the two ones off to the west.  If that is successful, I believe I will be able to say “North America above the 60^th Parallel Complete,” which is no small thing to say.  Ah, not quite, I did not get Yukon-Charley Rivers NPres.  Oh well.  My first sign of success was when I heard Jim radioing air traffic control at Anaktuvuk Pass, which was actually a real airport.  Well, maybe not a real airport, but it was an airport with air traffic control and a runway.  It was also a real Native American town.

I found out where the Ranger Station was, and I walked right there.  They had the stamp sitting right out, and I introduce myself to Albert Smith (the irony not being lost) as the guy who had been calling for the past couple of weeks.  I asked if people ever fly out here for just the stamp.  He said that they don’t do it from Kotzebue but that some people take the commercial flight from Fairbanks.  That might have worked out with better planning, but I doubt it would have been much cheaper.  Actually, it would have been cheaper, but it would have been harder to audible.  I didn’t care.  I got the stamp.  I just realized that would have been a Plan B option.  I could have flown from Fairbanks to Anaktuvuk Pass this morning and then had Jim pick me up there and take me back to Kotzebue that way.

Sokol suggested that we check the general store for t-shirts and keychains.  I thought that he was joking, but they actually had sweatshirts, not that I was interested.  I sat in the co-pilot seat on the way to Kobuk Valley NP, a 2-hour flight due to headwinds.  With the clouds blocking any chance of a view, I fell asleep.  It was too cramped, and I couldn’t really stretch out without risking inadvertently hitting some important control.  Soon enough, we were approaching the sand dunes.

It was weird because there were also trees around.  When you think of sand dunes, you usually think of a desert, not a forest with sand dunes on the other side of a river.  We got out, and I lit up my Romeo y Julieta, using Sokol’s hat to block the wind.  We walked up to the top of the dunes where we took our first official Us of the park and carved our name in the sand.  After taking some pictures and a sip of water, that was that.  Another park off the list.  Sokol suggested that I just clip the cigar, but he knows me well enough to know that the park would not be official unless I smoked the whole cigar.  We walked towards the top of the dune on the other side of the runway, and I saw something that looked like a nice rock.  It was not.  It was some kind of dropping.  That was pretty gross.  I did find some tiny rocks, along with some bigger ones that formed part of the runway.

After I finished the cigar, we got back in the plane, me insisting that Sokol again take the co-pilot seat.  We will soon be back in Kotzebue, where we will have overpriced Chinese for dinner, as has become my tradition in these northern Inuit communities.  There is a great story that I like to tell about Amsterdam and Fort Simpson.  During my Eurotrip, when I was checking into my hotel in Amsterdam, such as it was, I asked how late the souvenir shops would be open?  Well, it was Sunday, so they would close early.  What did she call early?  Maybe 8 PM.  Six weeks later, it’s a Sunday in Fort Simpson.  I ask at the hotel where I can get dinner?  Well, the Chinese restaurant is the only place that stays open late on Sunday.  What did she call late?  Maybe 8 PM.  It’s always overpriced, since they need to fly/ship/truck everything in, and they also always serve a variety of American food, like burgers and pizza, but the food is always good.  I am very much looking forward to having dinner there when we get back to Kotzebue.  I will now close so that I can enjoy the rest of the flight.

Kotzebue, Alaska

It has now been 2 weeks since we left Kennedy.  For the travelling, by plane, by smaller plane, by boat, by cars, by taxis, by shuttles, by trucks, by foot, it would seem that spending 9 hours exploring the arctic parklands by charter plane would be a perfectly relaxing and wonderful way to spend a day.  It was wonderful.  It was not relaxing.  We spent a lot of the time sleeping, and seeing Ralph Wien Memorial was such a welcome sight at 9 PM.  Linda drove us over to the Chinese restaurant, and, as has been our tradition, we ordered a beef dish and a chicken dish to share.  The sesame chicken was so good.  Sokol even thought it was better than Chopstix.  I disagreed.

Our plan was to sit on the bench outside the hotel and enjoy our Avos, but the rain put pay to that.  Instead, we decided to figure out how to have them in the room.  Sokol covered the smoke detector with a shower cap, and I put a towel under the door and opened the window.  I then looked around and found it.  An exhaust vent.  If we lit up at that point, surely we would stink up the whole hotel.  I closed the vent and put a towel over it for good measure.  Then we lit up the cigars.  The only problem is that the room was negative pressure, so the air flow was coming into the room from the window, but it will eventually exhaust into the bathroom.  We might have some trouble airing out the room, but I’m not too worried.  After we lit up, I uploaded some photos and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close.  Tomorrow we do what will hopefully be Day 2 of 3 Days of charter flights.  Tomorrow is really a bonus day, but Friday is what will truly make or break the trip.