26 May 2016 - Anchorage or bust
T - We worked out that we had about 400kms to Anchorage. We really didn’t want to keep doing these long days like this. So we figured on camping about halfway tonight and then continuing on all the way tomorrow.
C – Oh my goodness, what a wonderful night's sleep! Heating and arctic blankets... I was oh so warm!!!
T - We sat around with Jay and Deb for a nice hot coffee in their shop and had a great chat about life in Alaska. It doesn’t sound like they do it easy up this way!
C – We really encourage anyone who is travelling this way to stop at Midway Services and say hi. Jay and Deb are lovely people with such interesting stories to tell about the highs and lows of living in Alaska.
T - Once we had packed our gear away we bought a few snacks and said goodbye and pointed our front wheels towards Anchorage. It was quite overcast looking and both of us were expecting to get rained on pretty shortly.
Thankfully the rain stayed away and we soon pulled into the junction of Glenallen. From here we could continue to Anchorage in the west or Fairbanks in the north. Fairbanks would have to wait.
C – We stopped to give Rosie and Mabel a well deserved drink here. We normally refill our water bottles at service stations, when we get ‘gas’. This station in Glenallen was the first one in the trip to not let us fill our water bottles – odd!
T - The idea that Alaska was a tough place was cemented for us by the sight of so many abandoned homes and businesses. Many abandoned homes slowly collapsing in on themselves and yards filled with broken and rotting machinery of all types.
The scenery wasn’t as drastic here as in Canada. But every now and then we would get a glimpse of some far distant snowy peak. Apparently 19 of the USA’s 20 largest peaks all reside here in Alaska.
We ended up riding straight into a set of these massive mountains. They were a nice break from the monotonous highway. There is basically 1 road in 1 road out up here and we have no option but to stick to the highway. It sucks.
We cruised over some gorgeous passes. The traffic getting thicker and thicker. We hugged the edge of the road, getting off onto the shoulder as far as we could. With the mountains behind us the sun suddenly came out and the clouds all cleared away, leaving us with bright blue skies. We decided to ride on a little more, noticing that many free camp areas were full of campers.
We ended up about 60 km’s out of Anchorage. All of a sudden the highway was 4 lanes wide and full of racing traffic. Man the drivers were crazy! All of a sudden we were in the throngs of aggressive drivers. So different from our experience so far. At times we were forced onto the road when we had to cross bridges or skirt exits and even though it was a dual and even triple lane road Chantelle would have a car sitting inches (no exaggeration!) from her rear end. We had one guy come flying up behind us, then swerve at the last second sitting beside us in the lane and then zooming away, all without slowing down. He must have nearly swiped both bikes he was so close. There were two other lanes next to us that were both empty of traffic. Stupidity seemed king here and we lost count of the near misses we saw amongst the other traffic also. People tailgating at high speed. Changing lanes at the last minute and nearly running into another slower car. What bloody morons. I for one can’t wait to get away from this place already.
We pulled into Anchorage and found an RV park for the night. At $19 including free wifi and hot showers it was a bargain compared to the $20+ that State campgrounds with no services wanted.
We set up our camp and cooked up a feast of Tuna Mornay before hitting the sack.
Tomorrow we shall have a look around the city before heading south towards a place called Homer.