The road to Seward

I promised a big catch up post now that we have internet again.  So here we go!  Still in Anchorage, I was able to get together with my friend Keith again and spent some time over at the airport looking over a bunch of planes. He had been asked by a friend of his to do a once over on a plane he was interested in buying.  Kind of a throw back to a different time for me.  I haven't spent much time around little aircraft for years and years.  Pretty cool.  And I'll tell you aircraft in Alaska is amazing!  They represent transportation here.  There are few roads, so air is the only way to get most anywhere.  There are private aircraft seemingly around every corner, charter land and seaplanes buzzing every which way all the time.  Hard to describe, but you will be going down some little dirt road in the sticks, come around the bend, and there is a Supercub on tundra tires tied down in somebody's front yard, and if you look real careful you can make out where on the road he lands and takes off.  Keith took me by Earthquake Park, a memorial where an entire neighborhood slid into the Cook Inlet during the terrible 1964 earthquake.  The earthquake affected most coastal towns here in Alaska, it was a 9.2 earthquake that produced a tsunami.  It killed 131 people in Alaska.  It is the second largest earthquake ever.  After I got back, Jan and I went back to walk around the park, interesting to see where the entire hillside slid away.  

The next morning started off with a mess, reminiscent of Robin William's RV movie.  We had been letting our tanks fill in anticipation of draining them so we would be ready to boondock for 3 days after Anchorage, so dump time had arrived.  I hooked up to the sewer pipe in the ground, started dumping the black tank (the bad stuff), and the hose popped out of the ground spewing %$&%# all over the place until I could get it stopped!  What the hell?  The pipe is overflowing!  Over to the office to tell them, so they say to hook up to the adjacent site and dump there, so we get out our extension, hookup the hose, start dumping, and now the %&&%$$ comes pouring out the original sewer outlet!  That's it!!!  A mess, so now we wait until the sewer repair people come.  Turned out the pipe was plugged, so after a little roto rooter all is well.  About this time a hair salon that Jan and Karen had called when we got into town called back, they had given up on getting an appointment, and had two appointments available, so the thoughts of leaving town went away.  Jan and I were able to go to a fantastic vietnamese restaurant for lunch, Ray's Place and had wonderful Pho and Banh Mi before her appointment.  

So the next day comes and we are ready to leave the city behind and go to our boondock spot in Portage.  Our little caravan moves out and about a mile down the road, right in traffic and in front of the hospital comes this tremendous bang and rushing air sound right behind the dash right in front of me!  It is loud.  I notice I am losing half my air system and realize very shortly, whether I like it or not, my brakes are going to come on.  Where to go, the entrance to the hospital emergency room is right there, which might be a good thing since this gave me a heart attack, but I manage to get a little further and pull into the hospital main parking lot, but it is really narrow, so I holler to Karen to NOT follow me in, keep going.  Jan meantime is reaching under the dash figuring some air line has popped out and maybe she can stick it back in, I'm wondering what the hell would an air line be doing behind the dash anyway, yes a bit hectic.  And we come to halt, shut down, and listen to the air go from screaming to a bare hiss, then nothing.  We look at each other and wonder, now what?  We can't see up under the dash to see what is happening, so we tear out the instrument panel and we find an air fitting that goes into the back of the instruments has disintegrated.  We figure out that the fitting is screwed into a circuit board and all I can think is there is no way we will be able to find this part, so already I'm trying to figure out a workaround.  Unhook the truck and off to NAPA I go, and of course they don't have anything for me, but they are very nice and send me to a truck place, but he doesn't have the fitting I need either, so I get a coupling and a short piece of airline and think I will be able to at least cap off the line so we can move.  It works after a fashion but all the logic in the circuit board and instrument panel rely on a air input, so even as I know we are building air, none of the gauges are reading right, and the alarm is blaring, so this is not going to work except in an emergency.  Onto the internet and I find a Peterbuilt shop, call him and he recognizes the part I need, but he doesn't have it, then he suggests I call another place in town, and they think they have it!!  Off I go, now the nice thing about Anchorage is about everywhere to everywhere is about 15 minutes.  I find some very helpful people at Alaska Rubber, he looks at my damaged part and disappears for about 10 minutes, comes back with a little tiny fitting that matches one end, the threaded end, but won't work directly.  I explain that I am stuck on the side of the road and is there anyway we can jury-rig this to work?  Off he goes for 10 more minutes and comes back with several fittings and some little tiny airline, and sure enough with the fittings fastened together and by using the little airline, we will be able to make it work.  Hallelujah!  Back to the motorhome I go, oh by the way, he even gives me the part number for the exact part I need, so I call Karen, knowing she'll be on the internet waiting on us, and ask her to google the part and order a couple, which she ended up doing.  Get back, hook it all up, and, oh yeah, we are good to go.  So all is well, and the best thing is, we are only going 50 miles or so anyway.

So enough of that, off we go along the Cook Inlet, and once again we are blown away with the scenery.

We go by Girdwood to where we will return the next night, and turn in towards Whittier to our peaceful campground, Williwaw.

Our pretty campsite

And of course after our hectic day, we had to solve all the world's problems

The next day we headed into Whittier which is accessible through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel.  It is quite something, it is a dual use tunnel, used by trains and vehicles.  It is the longest dual use tunnel in North America at 13,300', a little over 2 1/2 miles!  Originally constructed in 1943 for the railroad to service the ice free port of Whittier, and was converted to dual use in 2001.  The town of Whittier does look like a town that was exclusively a cargo port, so has very little housing, but obviously a very industrious cargo, ferry, and cruise ship port, from where many tour buses take passengers into mainland Alaska.

Small iceberg in the lake on the way to the tunnel

The tunnel entrance, able to withstand avalanches

The end is near!

Whittier in 1943 became the entrance port for US soldiers into Alaska and the Army was active there until 1960.  They built the two large buildings for housing troops, the 14 story Hodge building which is being turned into condos, and the largest building in Alaska at its time, the Buckner building, completed in 1953, referred to as "city under one roof" which is now abandoned and derelict.

"city under one roof"

Watching the massive forklifts load containers on a barge captured our attention for quite some time.

We never did figure out what they do with the room
under the supports on the barge

Then, of course, lunch.  We read, thank you trip advisor, about a seafood place, Swiftwater Seafood Cafe which was wonderful.  Great home made red chowder, and halibut fish and chips, all served and made by the friendly and gregarious, Margaret.

Inside at the order window

Waiting for our food

The delicious red chowder

Fish and chips

As we were eating the forecast rain started so we decided to head back to the campground, there really isn't much to see or do in Whittier:-)  We were early for the passage through the tunnel so took advantage of cell phone coverage to make a few calls while we waited.

The port of Whittier with a cruise ship to the right and a ferry to the left

That night, I should say late afternoon, we headed into Girdwood, a ski town back towards Anchorage to go to the much touted Double Musky for dinner.  Now Karen had been there and said it was a must do.  She also told us it would be necessary to be there when they opened at 5pm to avoid some of the crowds.  We were wondering a bit about crowds on a rainy evening, way out in Girdwood at a little place at 5 pm?  We arrived at about 5:05 and were about 30 in line!  We slowly moved in and got seated and proceeded to have an excellent dinner surrounded by some real Alaska ambiance!

The eclectic interior

Busy, busy

The bar

The very famous pepper steak

My "little" prime rib

A good time was had by all!

I warned you this post would be long, and I'll have another coming out soon to include our most recent travails.