After writing the finest literary internet post of my career, suddenly and without warning I was kicked off of Pelican parts BBS for unknown reasons. So here's the short version of what I said;
I did it in 1997, the canadian border mounties tried to shake me down for $500 American.
The Alaskan highway is a very loose term for what you would consider a highway.
I went through eleven tires, each time hitting a railroad spike in the road. Curiously, there was always a freindly person who lived near the road who sold retreads.
Everything costs triple in Alaska. I paid Eight bucks for a beer.
I had the same idea as the guy in the book "Into the Wild" but I had no idea about him and I lived, obviously.
Potholes can be huge.
The Dalton is the scariest place I've ever driven and I've even driven in Italy! Methed out truckdrivers hauling three piggybacked trailers at over one hundred miles an hour sliding all over the road.
It was a whopping 17,500 miles there and back beginning in North Carolina. Alaska is a third of the way around the earth and is way bigger than you think. See a Buckminster Fuller projection of the earth to see what I mean.
I saw twenty eight bears in the wild that summer, every type of whale on the planet breaching, unspoiled wildnerness as far as the mind can see. So go, go now whilst you can still get out of the car and explore. Cross the Harding Ice field on foot.
The Alcan in a 911, yes, the adventure of a lifetime, definitely.
Shine on,
JB
"Go my sons, burn your books, Buy yourself stout shoes. Get away to the mountains, the deserts and the deepest recesses of the earth. In this way and no other will you gain a true knowledge of things and of their properties."
-Seter Severinus, 1571 A.D.
