by Doreen Orion
On July 5, almost three weeks after we’d boarded our first ferry in Prince Rupert, Canada, we arrived at our final stop on the Marine Highway, Haines. There we spent a delightful few…oh, fine, I really have no idea how long, tasting wine at Great Land Wines, Ltd. The vintner, Dave Menaker, has lived in Haines for fifty years, and greets guests in a heavy pullover work shirt, jeans, and work boots. He also operates a sawmill out back, hopefully not running both businesses at the same time.
Dave’s establishment proved a stark contrast to the wine tastings we did in Napa only a couple of months before, which were complete with waitstaff in formal attire attending to the hordes of tourists. Here, we were the only ones in the joint and the generous samples flowed free and wild—onion, potato, blueberry, raisin, rose petal, and dandelion wines were just a few of the selections, with Triscuits proffered for palate cleansing. The wines weren’t cheap—ten to fifteen dollars for a small bottle—but the fun was well worth it. I was totally blitzed by the time we left. Fortunately, he also offers a carryout service—not for bottles, but spouses.
After we discussed Dave’s past life in the logging industry, we ventured into possibilities for future vintages, including a cat/dog hair variety. I vaguely recall getting started on that when Tim thought “beet” wine was “beef” wine, which somehow led to “Why not make one out of pet hair?” I still think that’s a fabulous idea, especially for crazy old broads like the one I hope to become, who might want to memorialize their dearly departed Flopsies by drinking a most personalized toast on the anniversary of their pet’s death. The bottle’s motto could be “You grow it, we’ll ferment it.” Or perhaps “Equal opportunity fermenter.” Then there’s always “Ferment it now, ask questions later.” I said I was pretty well lubed.
On July 6 we finally saw our first (and only) Alaskan bear—a grizzly, at that. He was fishing on the Chilkat River just a few miles from town. We stood only fifty feet away watching him, but even I was not terribly worried as there were several elderly tourists doing the same who I felt confident we could outrun.
Just before we left Haines, I checked my e-mail. There was one from the Boulder Book Store and another from Denver’s Tattered Cover, both locally owned institutions. I’m a longtime subscriber to their e-mail lists and saw no reason to unsubscribe while we were away, as I enjoyed reading about who was coming to town for book signings and other literary events. But now, as I scanned the August lists, it hit me with a jolt and not a pleasant one; I could actually attend this stuff. Our year was almost at an end.
Leaving Haines, we had to pass through Canada again to catch the Alaska Highway west into the interior. Since I was our travel agent, Tim never felt the need to keep up on our itinerary all that much. But I knew if we were questioned at the border, it would look a tad suspicious when the customs officer asked the driver, “Where are you going?” and “Where have you been?” only to have him snap his head around and shoot me a frantic look. So I made Tim memorize a few town names. Turns out, we were to have trouble of a different kind.
In spite of my attire (perhaps it was the not-so-chicly-coordinated contrast of turquoise slippy socks with my usual pink tracksuit that aroused suspicion), we got boarded by a female Mountie as we left Haines to enter British Columbia. Rather than cite me for a fashion infraction, she wanted to know how much alcohol we had. Since the limit was a bit ridiculous for people living in their vehicles (well, OK, for us living in our vehicle), we underreported a wee bit. When she asked to take a peek, we knew we were screwed. And, indeed, she looked a bit taken aback when she opened our liquor cabinet.
“There’s a lot in here,” she said. I guess, since it took her a full fifteen minutes to catalogue it all. (My explanation that I had all those flavored liqueurs for various martinis, each of which I might only use a few times a year, so therefore really should not count, did not seem to make much of an impression.) We actually got off lucky. She ended up confiscating only two large, but completely innocent, unopened bottles of flavored vodkas (a vanilla and a strawberry) that had never done anybody any harm. I kept my musings about what a male Mountie might have taken to myself, along with my recipe for Strawberry Shortcake Martinis. Her loss.
Why did we lie? We kept asking ourselves. Well, that’s what you do at customs. We didn’t realize we could just have paid a duty. We thought that whatever was over the limit would be confiscated if we declared it. Tim was humiliated. It’s not like him to lie, or act in any way that isn’t above reproach. I was the one who had encouraged the untruth, and predictably, I was more angry than anything else. Don’t these people have anything better to do? We already paid tax on this stuff in the U.S. I railed on and on about how we should have invaded B.C., not Iraq, to keep our borders duty-free. Tim just wanted to turn around and go home.
Our state of mind didn’t improve once we hit the road again. The Alaska Highway was indeed, shall we say, a bit pockmarked, rutty, dippy, uneven, or any description you choose to denote a road that would strike fear into the heart of a bus phobic. To make matters worse, back in the States, I had purchased a copy of The Milepost, a truly indispensable resource for anyone driving to America’s Last Frontier. The Milepost, which put out its first edition in 1949, is an annual guide taking readers through every road in Alaska that can possibly be driven, providing information ranging from locations of RV parks and gas stations, to lists of all turnouts (including whether they’re paved, gravel, double-ended, or particularly wide or narrow), to where to look out for moose and caribou crossings (even where to look up and see an osprey nest in a tower), to every rut, dip, and frost heave in the road. It was this last bit of information that nearly did me in. For not only could I experience every road imperfection as it occurred, but anticipate each down to the tenth of a mile.
I was not having a good time. At one point, we swerved dangerously close to the edge (there was also no shoulder).
“What was that?” I cried.
“Freak gust of wind,” Tim replied. That was all I needed to get me started.
“Freak gust of w—?” And with that, we hit a big dip. Strangely, I didn’t feel quite so bad anymore.
“Freak gust of wind. Freak gust of wind. Freak gust of wind,” I repeated and kept repeating for the three hundred miles to Tok, the hard consonants again dissipating a good deal of my terror, similar to how that other slice of self-quieting behavior, “Kill me kill me kill me,” had done the trick along the Oregon coast.
We reached Denali National Park in a few days. The town itself was rather underwhelming, but we were there, like most, to see Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America. Only once we got to Denali, we found out that it’s hard to see any of the mountain’s 20,320 feet from within the park, or at least from as far within the park as we were willing to go. Traffic in Denali is strictly regulated and buses (unfortunately not ours) are the only way to get around. (Yeah, bicycles are allowed, but don’t we know each other well enough by now to understand that was not in the cards?) So Tim and I made the mistake of taking a tour in an aging Park Service school bus.
It wasn’t (just) that I was spoiled after spending the year in our luxury Prevost. Packed with forty-nine other people traversing narrow, winding, Park Service–maintained roads over which large animals routinely cross, I was horrified, but that had nothing to do with the bus. The rule on the tour was that anyone could yell STOP for anything at any time: animal sightings, picture opportunities, bloody noses (this really happened. They sent the kid off the bus—to be eaten by a bear, I suppose. Or is that sharks?). Our overly helpful guide/driver even got walkie-talkies for us slobs in back, so that we could more easily communicate our wishes to him on this hell ride. Unfortunately, “Stop the bus. I’ll catch a cab” was not one of the possibilities.
The problem started with the very first animal sighting, a caribou. An older woman across the aisle from us let out a bloodcurdling scream. I thought perhaps the poor animal was being eaten by a bear. Since I had only seen the one Alaskan
bear and there was little I could do to help poor Rudolph anyway, I craned my neck in the caribou’s direction. But, no. He of the mega-antler bling (someone should tell those poor, misguided creatures there is such a thing as overaccessorizing) was placidly grazing in a wide-open meadow, oblivious to the commotion he was causing in our claustrophobic space. He didn’t even flinch when the woman let loose with what appears to be the Tourist Rallying Cry: “WALTER! GET THE CAMERA!” Tim and I hadn’t been on organized tours in quite some time and as we shot each other pained looks, we remembered why.
“This is going to be a very long trip,” we said in unison. What does Walter’s wife do when she needs to get his attention for something really important? Like, say she’s being strangled by a stranger, which I can assure you, nearly occurred several times during the nearly eight-hour ordeal. Then there were the Dall sheep. Someone would shout, “STOP THE BUS!” and we would…for dots of white on a hill, which we were told were frigging sheep. OK. Our guide didn’t really say “frigging” sheep. Being a naturalist named (what else?) River, he called them Dall sheep. Was there really anyone on that entire bus who had never been to a farm?
“But they’re mountain sheep,” Tim protested the first time I made this quite excellent observation. By the sixth, he delighted in spotting the frigging sheep himself, only to withhold the information from the rest of our wool-crazed herd. At one point, River even stopped the bus on his own, struck a pose, and in a misguided effort at channeling Marlin Perkins, announced he was going to scan the mountain ridge with his binoculars for the, thus far, elusive bear. I rolled my eyes at Tim.
“If they’re that far away, who gives a shit?” I asked. To which Tim replied, already half out of his seat, “Let me get the walkie-talkie for you.”
The eight hours crawled by slower than I’ve often prayed Tim would take highway exit ramps. The boxed lunch didn’t help. In fact, as we were exiting the bus, I left a soda can on my seat. Tim went back for it, chastising me with “This isn’t an airplane.” To which I responded, “Really? Couldn’t tell from the lunch.” But Denali had one more indignity in store. As we disembused, River (whose name while working in the Lower 48 during the off-season is probably Bernie, Tim observed) apologized for the paucity of animal sightings.
“I think what’s important to take away from today,” he asserted, “even more than what we did see, is what we didn’t: strip malls and coffee shops and restaurants and…” The rest of his words were drowned out by rousing applause from the entire load—except us. Like Walter and Edna could survive more than a day without any of that stuff.
Yet, at some point during the interminable trip, I realized I had not been afraid. Not once. How could that be? Compared to our Prevost, the Park Service bus was a nightmare, even without Walter and Edna. So, what was it? The ride was certainly rougher in the school bus. With all the talking from the other passengers, it was much noisier, as well. Only…the noise was different. There was no…I suddenly realized that there was more to my yearlong bus phobia than gnashed teeth and bitten nails. It was never about careening off the road, about life and death, but about the potential loss of things. That every time something bumped, clacked, or clanged on our bus, it reminded me of all we had put into it. But I had lost sight of the most important “thing” of all it carried: us.
The fire and armed robbery both made me realize how all-important things had become in my life. Spending nearly 24/7 for a year with Tim, then seeing all those dear friends we lost touch with underscored what the important things truly should be. Once I understood I had only been fearful on our bus and only because of the trappings it held, I was able to put everything into perspective: It’s fine to like stuff (after all, who’s going to give it all up and live like a monk? I’m sure even Richard Gere has a nice house) as long as one doesn’t lose sight of placing feelings and experiences, family, friends, and self first, ahead of things.
Living on our bus allowed me to see how few things I really needed and, ultimately, what I actually valued. I truly hadn’t appreciated how important my belongings had become, until I shed most of them and put the rest at risk—on the bus. And risk itself turned out to be exactly what I needed. While going with the crowd feels safer (even on a rickety old school bus), it’s much more rewarding to take to the open road on your own, to determine your own course and have your own experiences.
I’d never realized how crucial it is to keep stretching and challenging oneself. My work, my life had become rote, routine, albeit comfortable. I thought I had all I ever wanted. That’s why I had railed against the bus thing to begin with. But in 340 square feet of living space, especially as it brought trials and tests I survived and even thrived on with my beloved husband and my adored pets, I was happier than I had ever been.
Two days later, we left Denali and made the nearly five-hour trip to Anchorage. Since I was no longer placing such a premium on material possessions, my bus phobia was gone.
Chapter Twelve
CORONATION
* * *
Jubilee
1 bottle white wine
1/2 cup peach schnapps
1/4 cup sugar
2 sliced peaches
1/2 cup raspberries
1 sliced orange
1/2 liter ginger ale
Combine all ingredients except last and chill. Just before celebration, add ginger ale. Sip daintily so as not to disturb tiara. Survey kingdom. Toss tiara away and dance your butt off.
* * *
As we were leaving Denali for Anchorage along the narrow, two-lane George Parks Highway, an oncoming truck flaunted its “wide load” sign, smugly daring all vehicles not to scurry aside. I sat in the buddy seat, trying to make sense of the map, an always futile endeavor that nevertheless appears to be my lot in this bus life.
“You’re not going to want to look at this,” Tim said. Without thinking, I did just that. And even as I saw the indeed very wide load a-comin’, it didn’t bother me. Not one bit. Nor did the tight turns, the moose warning signs (which, in a perverse twist on the notion of constructive criticism, announce how many have been hit on Alaskan roads thus far in the year), nor…anything. I even encouraged Tim to pull over into the turnouts multiple times so we could get various views of Mount McKinley, since due to weather patterns I did not understand (another of my many crosses to bear), like most visitors to Denali National Park, we hadn’t been able to see it while there. For the first time since the meltdown cruise, but under decidedly different circumstances (i.e., the door wasn’t flying open and I was in no danger of getting sucked out), I stood in the stairwell, craning my neck to discern if the wide spots whizzing by were worth a stop. When the dishwasher drawer slid open on a turn, causing all the plates and glasses to clink and clack, I calmly went back to shut it. When Tim passed a caravan of large, lumbering RVs, I coolly made myself a counter egg.
“What’s with you?” Tim wondered. “You’re doing amazingly well.”
“It’s the Prevost Kool-Aid, babe. I’ve finally drunk it.”
Anchorage itself was like any big city—any big city with incredible views. We stayed a few days and sampled various brew pub fare, exploring the only place we’d been to in the state with a modern feel. Then we headed for the Kenai Peninsula, driving along the scenic Turnagain Arm, a stygian fjord which separates the Chugach Mountains from the peninsula proper.
The Kenai Peninsula juts into the Gulf of Alaska just south of Anchorage. With glaciers, various mountain ranges, ice fields, fjords, rivers, and lakes, it is one of the most beautiful areas of the state accessible by car. Because of its mild coastal climate, it also happens to be one of the few places in this part of the world with an adequate growing season. We were headed down the Sterling Highway, one of only two on the nearly 26,000-square-mile peninsula, this one going to the southwest corner, dead-ending at Homer.
Homer (pop. 5,000) marks the end of the paved highway system in North America and is pretty much what you’d expect from an end-of-the-roa
d kinda place, especially one that’s known as “the cosmic hamlet by the sea.” Or, as Tim’s favorite T-shirt of the trip proclaimed, “Homer—A quaint little drinking town with a fishing problem.” It didn’t even have any traffic lights (although it would get its first within a year of our visit).
Homer reminded us very much of Boulder: funky, artsy, laissez-faire but with a blue-collar overlay, instead of Boulder’s Yuppie one. We stayed at an RV park near the entrance to town and not at the more popular Homer Spit, a four-mile gravel protrusion into the windy Kachemak Bay, which along with the harbor, houses, bars, restaurants, and souvenir shops. I was glad we were parked in the more out-of-the-way spot, especially after I saw all the tsunami warning signs along the Spit. During the Great Alaska Earthquake forty years earlier, the resulting enormous waves from this, the most powerful quake in U.S. history (a 9.2), caused deaths and destruction as far away as California. Back in Homer, the tsunami destroyed much of the Spit, leaving it devoid of vegetation.
Our RV park was on a different part of the bay, and during low tide, we took Miles and walked along the vast expanse of beach. The view of glaciers from our rig was so spectacular, I even caught Morty sticking his head out the ticket window to take a peek. Although I suppose he could have been more interested in the smells emanating from this, the “halibut fishing capital of the world.”
One day, we took the Jeep and drove the thirteen miles to the end of East End Road, counting eight glaciers along the bay. Then we stopped for lunch at a fish-and-chips joint on the Spit to try some of the halibut Morty had been hankering for. Quite the nose on that cat: The difference between this and the usual frozen stuff we were used to was astonishing.