We have finally made it to Soldotna, Alaska. While not our final destination, the school district and National Guard recruiting office are here so we’ll be here a couple days to take care of details before heading to Homer to load up the barge. After flat tires, detours around flooding, more road construction than I’ve seen in my life combined, a couple horrible hotel and restaurant experiences, and a truck refusing to start we are almost finished!
Inconveniences aside, the trip has gone very well. If those are the worst of our complaints I will call myself very fortunate. We’ve crossed the continental divide and the Yukon river (I have Johnny Horton running through my head), been questioned by immigration services, played leapfrog with cars from Google Maps, survived lakes of death and roads on the sides of mountains, and seen beautiful wildlife and amazing scenery. Words cannot describe the beauty we have seen on this trip. I will be posting pictures soon, but they will never do justice to the amazing scenery we’ve passed along the way. It has been a privilege to get to experience this trip.
The road itself has been an experience. While in Watson Lake we stopped by the Sign Forest which started when a worker building the road put up a sign for his home town. The other workers added their own and people today are still adding signs as they travel through. There are also “rock messages” along the roadside. A swim team in 1990 wrote words along the road with rocks as they were traveling through and people have been adding their own ever since. While most roads reflect the culture and history of the surrounding area, the Alcan is its own living organism creating its own history and culture.
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