Leaving Alaska - Day One- September 20th, 2010

Waking up on the freezing inflatable mattress wasn’t exactly the start that I was hoping for. The bedroom was filled with a slight chill; only small beams of light crept into the room through the brown blanket which hung over the already closed blinds. The room was bare, only an inflatable bed, two small suitcases and a miscellaneous purple sock lay on the floor. I rubbed my eyes and sat up. Dennis, as usual, was ready to go in a flash and began throwing suitcases in the car. Before I knew it the time had come for us to leave. I did a quick once-over to make sure that we hadn’t forgotten anything, and headed towards my shoes. I looked down at my favorite pair of Danskos, and then I looked at my feet, back at my shoes and grunted like a dying cow. My feet were bare and my Danskos required socks!

“Dennis!” I yelled out the front door. He grunted at me and replied “What?”
“Never mind” I grumbled as I put my shoes on with NO SOCKS! I moseyed over to the car to dig through the piles of drinks, suitcases, a BBQ and the gasoline. Finally I found a pair of socks and jumped in the passenger seat. We were starting our first mile of an almost 5,000 mile journey.

The first stop of the day was Carrs Safeway in Palmer. Dennis had to have his favorite sandwich for the last time as we headed out. So trailer in tow we pulled into the parking lot. As we entered Carrs there were two men outside the sliding doors acting oddly and staring at me as we entered. I am not used to being around people of this caliber so I clung tightly onto Dennis’ arm for protection. We ordered our sandwiches, got our two bags of ice and headed back out to the truck, the men were gone. I was still nervous, so I walked close to Dennis and jumped quickly in the car.
We headed north, the sun was shining brighter than I had seen in a while and the mountains were beautiful shades of yellow and green. I don’t think I had ever appreciated the beauty of Alaska as much as I did in the moment. Every corner that we came around presented me with something new that I had never seen, or maybe I had seen it but never really appreciated it. So often there are things that we see but don’t understand or appreciate. But this time, knowing it could possibly be my last, I absorbed every color, I took a breath and enjoyed every scene that we passed by. The Alaska that I had lived in for my entire life was teasing me with its beauty.

Our fuel was getting low and the next stop was coming up soon, Glenn Allen. As far as I can remember I had never been up to this part of Alaska. After our 5 minute stop I knew why I had never made it to this section of Alaska. Dennis pulled into the only gas station that appeared to be open and began to fill the tank. I ran inside to use the restroom, but to my surprise I couldn’t find it! I ended up asking the old man which sat in a reclining chair that was missing a majority of the fabric that had once made it a chair. I guess now you could call it a reclining metal chair mess! His directions were brief and his fingers were long and boney, similar to Jaffars off of Aladin, as they pointed the correct direction. I walked back around the counter to find that there was a door that was so narrow I almost had to turn sideways to enter. I entered the door and found a single stall bathroom. AHHH YES! I had made it to the bathroom. I hustled into the stall dropped my drawers and began to hover over the dirty toilet. WAIT!!! There was a sign on the door, “OUT OF ORDER”. What am I supposed to do? I am already here, the pressure is already building. I started to think… what is out of order? The door? The toilet? The Handicap handles on the wall? Aw screw it! I had to go! So finally I relieved myself in the brown and yellow stained toilet, washed my hands and headed back to the car.

Dennis had already made some new friends at the gas station. A nice father and daughter had driven up to Glenn Allen for the day and were now headed back to Anchorage. I began talking to them about The Milepost, while Dennis dug out some drinks and finished filling up the gas tank. Finally we were on the road again. Not even 100 yards down the road and Dennis slammed on the breaks.
“Shit” Dennis hooted as he looked in the rear view mirror. “What?” I asked in a very concerned manner. We had had our truck in the shop multiple times the week prior to today. I was worried that something had seriously gone wrong and we would be stuck in GLENN ALLEN!
“The barbecue” he laughed as I opened the door to see what he was talking about. Apparently when he was looking for drinks he set the barbecue on the tongue of the trailer and didn’t put it back. I hopped out of the car and began to run toward the barbecue. The closer I got the more it didn’t look like a barbecue. The handles were gone and the metal legs were now bent multiple times. I picked up the pieces as the father that we had been talking to jumped out of his car to pick up another handle that had been lost. At first I was a little angry, but then it was really funny. Our second stop of the day and we ran over our brand new barbecue? REALLY? This was going to be an adventure and a half!

We continued on, not stopping until we reached Tok. We already had a reservation at one of the last hotel/motel/inns left open. The Golden Bear Motel was our home for the night. We parked the truck, and headed to our room. As we opened the door a musty odor filled our noses. I was thoroughly grossed out by the smell alone, not to mention that the fabric curtains reminded me of something that you see in extremely old movies. The general condition of the room was Yuck. But this is what we were given and we were sure we would see much worse on the trip.

Food was not easy to come by in the small town of Tok. The only restaurant open year round was Fast Eddy’s. A relatively large business with a nice old time feel. Walking in I saw multiple men with a similar appearance to Santa Clause and a random young girl that was forced to work there due to the fact that the employment opportunities are slim. NOTHING else is open in the winter. There was a group of men, about 10, all wearing trucker hats and passing around a video camera as each of them talked. Dennis and I took turns trying to figure out what they were trying to do. Start their own Alaska TV series about living in Tok? Maybe they were the next Ice Road Truckers guys. I guess we will never know. We sat down and ate our meal; to our surprise the meal was really good.

After dinner we ventured the 2 mile highway back towards our hotel/motel. We attempted to find our next meal at a small grocery store. We were greeted by multiple shaggy men that had perched themselves at the entrance of the small grocery store. After making our way through the cigarette smoke and stink of sweat, we weaved through the isles in search of pop tarts that hadn’t expired or something that resembled a doughnut. After seeing the prices and the limited selections we walked out empty handed. The drive back to the hotel took less than thirty seconds. We greased the trailer axel and headed inside. It was going to be an early morning, and sleep was a necessity. Dennis checked the bed for bed bugs and we hopped in.