Traveling North

I planned this trip in 4 hours. I’ve never before planned a trip for myself and I planned this one in 4 hours. It is frankly a miracle that I’m still alive.

 

 

Due to some unforeseen circumstances, I was forced to cut my time in Sitka short and return to Seattle for the rest of the summer, but not before getting in one last adventure.

 

When I originally planned on traveling around Alaska I had only one goal: I wanted to see glaciers.

I succeeded.

But more about that in later blog posts. This one is about how I got to Gustavus – the tiny town just outside of Glacier Bay National Park.

My first challenge was getting flights in and out of Glacier Bay. Alaskan Airlines flies in once a day and Alaskan Seaplanes flies in several times a day. Tickets were the same price for both airlines. Guess which one I chose.

 

 

When in doubt (which I wasn’t), always choose the more exciting option. I’d never flown in any small craft before and this adventure did not disappoint.

 

 

It started, as all great trips do, with a flight delay. Because the internet server for ALL OF ALASKA was down and nothing could function any more. No WIFI, no flight plans, no credit card runners, no calls in or out. It didn’t take the population of Alaska long to figure out what was happening, but I probably never would have pieced it together if I hadn’t run into issues in so many different places. The manifests for the planes I was on were literally written by hand on sticky notes. Good times.

But I finally made it on the plane and headed out for Juneau on the first leg of my flight. After driving the same 14 miles of road for a month an a half it felt surreal to see it spread out before me slowly shrinking and fading away into the clouds.

 

 

Most of the rest of the flight was obscured by the low sitting clouds which cover all of S.E. Alaska. But as we landed in Juneau we came out from under the clouds and I caught my first glimpse of a glacier. I was duly impressed.

 

 

I scrambled from one plane, into the airport, rushed back out with the group flying to Gustavus and grabbed my bags off of a cart as they were being wheeled into the airport only to throw them back into the belly of the next plane.

A couple boarded behind me, speaking in heavily accented English. As we all settled into our seats, the man spoke up from the back and said,

“Excuse me. I can, I can sit in the front?”

The twenty-something year-old Alaskan bush pilot in a baseball cap and Extratufs turned around and said,

“Sure buddy, come on up!”

And the man, with the biggest kin-in-a-candy-shop grin, scrambled into the co-pilot seat in the front of the plane, camera in hand, and started strapping himself in.

I just sat there laughing to myself. This is what the post 9/11 world looks like in Alaska? I don’t mind it.

 

 

Finally we touched down in Gustavus, debarked the plane, walked to the other side of a chain-link fence and, ta-da we had arrived.

Which provided me with my next challenge… Ground transportation. The official website fore Gustavus suggests hitch-hiking as a legitimate form of transport. My Airbnb host suggested a taxi. But – as aforementioned, the servers for ALL OF ALASKA were down which meant that standing on a gravel patch in front of the shack which serves as an airport, I had no cell service to call anybody.

Just as this was dawning on me (also the fact that I didn’t actually know how to call a taxi, but how hard could that be) a middle-aged woman in a white mini-van with “Strawberry’s Taxi” printed on the side pulled up. The woman stuck her head out the window and shouted,

“Anyone need a ride?”

It was one of those moments where my brain clicked into “Oh! I know how to do this.” Climb into a stranger’s car no questions asked? I’ve done this a million times. Just not in English.

So I said,  “I do!” And climbed in.

Conveniently for me, my taxi driver – Strawberry – knew my B’n’B hostess and so we set off down one of the two paved roads in town. Strawberry gave me the grand tour as we went. Fireweed Gallery roasts their own coffee and it’s the best, Sunnyside has natural groceries, and Friday’s are chowder nights at the Clovehitch Cafe. The End. That’s town.

Then we turned down a gravel road. Then she proceeded to BACK DOWN another one. Then she stopped in the middle of the road, I piled all my bags outside, and she drove off for her 1:30 hair appointment.

 

 

In about two minutes my hostess pulled up, we introduced ourselves, and she helped me shoulder my bags down a muddy path in the middle of the woods leading to my lodging for the next four days.

 

 

Yes it’s 2017 and yes I rented a yurt in the middle of the woods that I found online. Yes, I know that’s how girls get murdered. But did I mention the Gustavus city website suggests hitchhiking as a legitimate form of transportation?

 

 

Terrible idea or not, my evenings spent alone in a circular room in the middle of nowhere were exactly the antidote to my summer work schedule.

 

 

I read books and spread out on the floor playing solitaire. My boots sat in the corner waiting for the next adventure, which would start tomorrow. It was all things lovely.

 

…

Since I’ve built up quite a back-log of photos from my (now over) time in Alaska, I’m going to continue to post them on Instagram. Follow me at @leeslens for more.

Next week will be my day trek all over the little town of Gustavus, Alaska. Stay tuned!