7/13/14
En route, Wonder Lake Shuttle, Park Road, Alaska (Denali National Park
& Preserve)
I am the type of person who likes to be in control. Of everything. Especially when I travel. The idea of a guided tour where someone else
makes all the arrangements may seem the perfect vacation for some people. For me, it is my personal idea of hell. If only 10% of the things the tour covers are
on my list, then it means I wasted 9 out of 10 days of the trip. There are no tours where more than 50% of the
things would be on my list. That is why
I don’t do cruises, and I don’t do organized tours. I will hire a private tour guide or charter a
boat, but I will never do one with a pre-arranged schedule, not if I can help
it. My trip this winter will be an
obvious exception, but both cost and remoteness require it to be done the way
it will be done. If I could, I would
want to control the weather and the traffic.
This is how I live my personal life, as well. To me, everything is about my own
choice. From employment to relationships
to my meals, I make a conscious choice in staying at a firm where I respect the
management, dating a girl I find meets my values, or eating at a place where I
enjoy the food. I would never work
someone I didn’t respect, date a girl I couldn’t stand, or eat food I don’t
enjoy, just because someone else wanted me to do so. I need to be in complete control of my own
life. Of course, there are things I
cannot control. I cannot control the
weather or the traffic, both of which have the potential to eff my travel plans
more than anything else. Here, sitting
on this bus today, I am not in control, and I hate it. The only option I had in this case was to either not see the bulk of
the park or to take one of these buses.
Private cars are not allowed past a certain distance, and I wanted to
get #EveryStamp in the park boundaries.
Well, if private cars were allowed on a road like this, the Park Road
would be worse than Fifth Avenue during rush hour. If it weren’t that crowded or they built
another road, we could have easily gotten #EveryStamp, including the one
outside the park boundary. As it is, we
will not get that, and I might have to take a pass on trying for one that may
or may not be available at Wonder Lake.
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| Once of the many wildlife sightings of the day. |
Every time we stop on this bus from hell because someone sees a bear or
a moose, all the tourists on this bus, flock to the windows, screeching in a
half dozen languages. Then the kids
start crying, then the bus driver says we are going to scare away the
wildlife. Then everyone starts loudly
shushing one another.
 |
| The scenery I actually wanted to see. |
I just want to get
my stamps and enjoy the scenary as we drive.
The mountains are the real draw to me.
It’s called Denali National Park & Preserve, not See a Bear National
Park & Preserve. It is too slow
going for me, and the only thing that keeps me sane is just how beautiful it
is. I will now pause as we reach another
rest stop for the collected masses to take their Us.
 |
| Polychrome, the most scenic vista of the day. |
It was actually not a U stop.
It was a scenic vista, one of the most beautiful of my life. I would have spent an hour there on my
own. As it was, we only had 15 minutes,
including unloading and loading. It
would have been the perfect place for my official National Park Cuban, but we
didn’t have time. That said, it easily
forces me to revise my list. Wrangell
(and The WHS) first, Denali second, Grand Canyon third, all other National
Parks tied for fourth. I suppose there
are worst ways to be spending the day than staring out the window at beautiful
vistas, even if I am not in control.
That said, I did not fully explore the importance of control to me. When I travel, I am willing to go the extra
mile, pay the extra dollar, so that I can be in control of all situations. I leave margins for error for Dutch Time, the
things out of my control. The issue is
when I travel with someone else. In
fact, travelling with anyone other than my mother, who understands how I travel
more than anyone else in the world and is willing to accommodate me so long as
we include activities we enjoy, leads to a lack of control.
The alternative is for me to brunt the entire
cost of the trip and invite someone to tag along, which is what I wind up
doing. Then, for that very reason, I can
claim the right of control, to control everything from the agenda, to where and
when we eat, to the music in the car, to the temperature of the room. In those scenarios, the person chose to
partake in the trip I planned, a trip that I will control. I have taken trips like that, trips where all
costs were evenly split, and trips where I just paid for the “common” costs
(hotels and ground transportation). It
is a quite simple concept, if I am paying for a hotel room, I control the
temperature. If we are splitting all
costs 50/50, we should split control of everything 50/50. The problem with the latter is that the lost
money in vacation time and having to spend more time on the trip outweighs any
potential savings. If I need a week to
do what I could do in 3 days, there is no savings, even if the costs are all
split 50/50. I am paying the exact same
amount as everyone on this bus. I have
no control. I hate that. That said, I will pretty much get everything
I want out of this trip. I just want be
able to smoke cigars en route, nor will I have as much time for activities at
different stops, and it will take a lot longer, but it will work out. Nothing can detract how beautiful this drive
is and how fortunate we were with the weather.
En route, Eielson Shuttle, Park Road, Alaska (Denali National Park
& Preserve)
As annoying as it was to in the bus, so too was it wonderful to be
back in control at Eielson. It was the
last stamp within park boundaries, the other one at Wonder Lake not being an
official stamp. As I was stamping,
someone thought I was being too slow and went for the stamp as I was laying out
my brochure. I firmly told him that I
was not done using it. He sharply told me
to get on with it. I ignored him and
made sure to take my time and get the stamps perfect. After I put the stamper back, he asked me if
I was done, and I told him that I was.
It was great to be back in control again. We could have spent 5 minutes or 5 hours
there. It was our choice. We then lit up a couple of cigars, me
choosing an Hoyo as my official Cuban of the NP, and I gave Sokol an awful
cigar called a “Cheap Bastard.” It was
practically unsmokeable. There was a
trail we could take that would be about 30 minutes, but, since the whole area
was wilderness, we could walk to wherever we chose to walk, go off trail,
explore. We were in control, not subject
to a tour group’s plans.
 |
| Wilderness as far as the eye can see. |
We did just
that and found a wonderful spot with a great vista to take our official Us of
the park. It was pristine wilderness as
far as the eye could see, and the rain had come out. Unfortunately, it was still too cloudy to see
Denali (Mt. McKinley), but we got #EveryStamp, took official Us, and I had a
Cuban during my hike, all despite my foot injury. Things were picking up again. I assigned a full day for this park, as is
necessary. While I did not get to
control it all, I got to do what I wanted to do, what I needed to do. All that remains is a 3 hour ride back to the
entrance with a group that is a lot calmer and more docile than the group from
the rest of the bus. After that, we make
our way to hell and back.
The ride back being pretty much identical to the ride in, I took some
time to nap, so that I could be better equipped to do more of the driving over
the next 24 hours. Sokol is perfectly
willing to split the driving with me 50/50, but I choose to do most of the
driving because I want to be in control.
It’s nice to be able to relax every once in a while, and it will be a
necessity during the drive on the Dalton, but I much preferred doing all of the
driving on Phase 1. To finish up this
theme of control and tie it into my fear and pain entry, I want to return to
the Eowny quote. It’s not just a
line. My biggest fear is neither death
nor pain. It is a cage. To no longer be able to control my own life
would be a fate worst than death. As
much as I engage in risky behavior or bend some lines here and there, I am
careful to avoid any behavior that could land me in prison. That is my single biggest fear. To be in jail is the ultimate loss of
control.
Ignorant people often ask about
the morals of atheists and Objectivists.
Why don’t we engage in immoral behavior if we are not afraid of eternal
damnation? Why do we not commit crimes
if we are entirely selfish? The answer
is quite simple. You do not need a god
to develop morals. The best response to
the question of “How do you know what is right and wrong without god?” is “Does
that mean you will start raping and killing people if you lose your
faith?” Morals are morals. Faith is entirely different. Objectivism goes one step further says that
initiating force or fraud to obtain profit is a self-destructive behavior. It destroys your self-esteem to the point
that it is not worth the profit.
However, even considering a Nihilist philosophy, the fear of being
caught, the fear of going to prison, the fear of losing control over your own
life, is enough to instill moral behavior.
We are almost back at the entrance, so I will close. After we leave the park, we will make our way
to Fairbanks, where I will treat the non-bus portion of the day in its
entirety.
Fairbanks, Alaska
After we left the hotel in the morning, right at 4 AM, I gave Sokol
the keys and asked him to wake me up when there was a quarter of a tank of gas
left. It should have been a four-hour
drive, allowing us to stop for gas and a quick stop and get to the VC right at
8 AM. When he woke me, it was 6:30 AM,
pouring rain, and we were 30 miles from the park. What had happened? Could I have so seriously miscalculated? What would we do in the meantime? We stopped at the first place we could find
for gas, but the other services there were closed.
 |
| View from our breakfast place. |
With plenty of time on our hands, we stopped
for breakfast at a crowded little motel diner.
The food was delicious, the vista amazing, and the waitress
adorable. After breakfast, we headed
into the park, stopping for official pictures along the way at the two official
NPS park signs. We got to the VC right
at 8 AM, well-fed, so I was happy. It
was going to be a long day. I got my
brochure and my first official stamp and found out where to find
#EveryStamp. She told us, but there was
some uncertainty about Wonder Lake. In
the end, I paid to go all the way to Wonder Lake, but we turned around at
Eielson instead. It didn’t matter. It was a small price to pay for
#EveryStamp. I might even get the last
stamp outside the park on the way back Tuesday.
I also go my official NPS pin. I
texted Kayla a picture of the official NPS sign, along with a joke about the
Denali Coven from Twilight. She
instantly replied. To say that she was
jealous would be an understatement. I
guess her tour of Alaska last summer did not include Denali. I tried to make a joke to Sokol about the
vampires, but, not having read/seen the later Twilight books/movies, he thought
I really believed that there were vampires in the park.
We got the stamps in VC area and snuck onto
an earlier bus, which was a boon, both because it would allow us to finish our
tour by 6 PM, and because the bus driver was great, offering narration above
and beyond what was promised. After the
tour, which I have already covered, we went to a seafood place for a
scrumptious meal. We then headed
straight to our hotel in Fairbanks, the soundtrack for the day being Norah
Jones’s album “Come Away with Me.” We
gassed up right before we got to town, and I got some supplies for the ride to
Hell and Back, including a regular lighter to replace the torch lighters I
bought in Anchorage, neither of which are working. When were a block away from the hotel, I saw
a yellow light turning red. I could have
made it, but I hesitated a moment too long before going for it. Then I saw a cop car on the other corner and
screeched on the breaks. I stopped in
time. Sokol and I both cracked up about
that close call. We checked in, and I
proceeded to right this entry, which I will now close so that I can get in 3
full sleep cycles before we journey to Hell and Back.
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