Notes From The Last Frontier
As I type this, it is 11:06 pm and still daylight. That really messes with me. I have excess pillows, towels, and robes blocking the windows to make it dark.
On the plane, I sat next to a woman from NBC. I asked her what she was doing and she said “covering Sarah Palin”. I said “Oh, are you stalking her and planning on moving in next door?” and she said that she was actually there to do a story on the crazy stalker guy who bought the house next to her write his book on her. She even said that he was a crazy stalker guy.
No one in Alaska is in a hurry. This also, unfortunately, applies in traffic.
Everyone is very, very polite. I say that as a Tennessean. When folks from Tennessee think you’re very, very polite then you’re really polite
Speaking of Palin, the town of Wasilla looks like any small or midsized town in the US. Quite clean, SuperTarget, and strip malls. Not the podunk, hick town I was expecting from the press.
Free public ranges! Well, OK. One. I saw it on the drive.
When you reserve a compact car (because it’s all that’s available), they actually give you a four door F150.
In AK, iPhone beats Droid because I have no data plan that works without roaming.
Despite rumors, I did not kill a grizzly bear in a national park, re-igniting the park carry debate. Wasn’t me
In downtown Anchorage, I saw a vehicle with the ar15.com logo sticker on it. Small world, made smaller by the internet.
The city that Northern Exposure’s Cicily was patterned after looks nothing like it. And Talkeetna is fun to say.
In some of the smaller towns, there are no street numbers in addresses. You just hope to be observant.
Related, your GPS won’t work. You need a special Alaska GPS. Sounds like a scam to me.
The scenery is quite breathtaking. Took a plane ride to a glacier. How often do you get to stand on top of 5,000 feet of solid ice? Or land on it in a plane?
In the off season, sled dogs practice with wheeled carts and I got to ride one.
Tomorrow, I must work.
June 1st, 2010 at 9:13 am
1. Black out curtains. Why don’t you have black out curtains with you? How can you travel and not have them???
2. Palin’s stalker. Nothing chases away liberals (especially a Massachusetts liberal, I mean those people wet themselves over the mention of firearms) as quickly as guns.
If I were the Palins there would be daily and nightly shooting practice. Every man, woman and child would be armed.
Putting up a fence is fine, but if you start shooting in your backyard, he will leave as soon as he can pry himself out of the fetal position.
June 1st, 2010 at 9:28 am
Except when they give you a F150 and you don’t frickin want one, because it uses three times as much gas and doesn’t fit into parking spaces the compact does.
June 1st, 2010 at 10:17 am
Let’s see whether NBC refers to Joe McGinnis as a creepy stalker on its story.
My bet is that it refers to him as a journalist (which is a creepy stalker to most of us) or a biographer.
June 1st, 2010 at 10:22 am
With Robert on the F150 thing.
How much is gas up there?
June 1st, 2010 at 10:53 am
Sounds like a good trip. I did get to stand on 1,000 feet of solid ice, but we rode a giant, specially-made bus up onto it rather than taking a plane. The plane sounds much cooler.
Who’s got the kids? SayGramma?
June 1st, 2010 at 11:20 am
Hunh. Wasilla’s grown up. When I was there, once and over twenty years ago, it was pretty podunk.
June 1st, 2010 at 11:54 am
Homer and Seward are two places you should check out, if you’re not “working” the whole time you’re there.
June 1st, 2010 at 12:53 pm
blackout curtains don’t quite cover it all
June 1st, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Gas in ANC is around 3.30. It gets more expensive the further away from ANC you get.
June 1st, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Oh, and if you want some halibut, Uncle, I’m trying to clear out the freezer before my next fishing trip. 😉
June 1st, 2010 at 2:25 pm
As for GPS not working, that high up on the sphere we call “Earth”, satellites are on different orbits in order to keep from, uhh, plummeting down in a fiery blaze. They need to maintain a certain speed just below escape velocity, so as their sphere of orbit becomes smaller and smaller, they lose speed more quickly, and it becomes easier for them to fly off into space if they go too fast. So, in order to maintain speed, they have a different orbit. Also the satellites you know and love and use at home are below the horizon, and your GPS won’t work unless it’s calibrated to the different orbits and speeds (it will be looking in the wrong places in the sky).
June 1st, 2010 at 10:11 pm
I have a ‘kinda step cousin that lives somewhere up there, only met him once, MANY years ago. Retired Air Force, and last I heard he still liked to poke at those big, brown, Kodiak thingies with sharp sticks.(Bow hunter.) I don’t think I could do that. Yes, your right. When it comes to not being bear food, I fall into the really big pussy side of the equation. I can live with it.
June 1st, 2010 at 11:19 pm
Unc, could ya bring us back some moose jerky?
Um, or pictures.
June 2nd, 2010 at 10:08 pm
@ Matt Groom
The GPS satellites are all in polar orbits, so he should get good coverage. I’m guessing that he does not have the map in his GPS for Alaska (it being a third the size of the rest of the 48, so including the AK map would be a waste for most people).
June 4th, 2010 at 4:53 am
@Matt Groom:
GPS sats orbit at 20000km+. A GPS at those latitudes may have lower resolution because of fewer birds overhead at any one time (you only need three for location and four for elevation) as opposed to lower latitudes. It’s probably a map thing. My TomTom has the EU maps (I am there right now) and it recently worked in Norway when I lent it to a friend on a trip. Oslo is at 59N. ANC is at 61N.