We got up early in the morning fueled up, and headed off on the Denali Highway for a long day of driving. Kaeli's plumber in Omaha had lived in Alaska and recommended the drive, and it sounded pretty cool. It's a pretty remote highway that travels 134 miles east from the Parks Highway, along the Alaska Range, and ends up on the Richardson Highway near the Tok cutoff. It was another gloomy, cloudy day, so while there probably were some incredible views on a sunny day, we couldn't see much:
Caribou herd:
We were about 80 miles in when my car alarm light came on, and the sensors showed I had a flat tire. The road wasn't filled with cars by any means- there were a few cars here and there passing through, but there were no signs of civilization, and no cell-phone coverage. We pulled over and started getting out the tools to change the tire. I had never changed one on this car, so even figuring out how to get the spare out from under the car took some time. A wonderful fisherman pulled over and helped talk us through the process. He said, "I'm not going to do it for you, but I'll help show you how", which was pretty awesome. We got the spare on (a doughnut, not a full-size spare) and started driving, really slowly to get to the end of the highway and near people again. I was pretty nervous- if a rock could slice through my big tires, what would this road do to the doughnut? And we still had 50 miles to go with no cell phone coverage or services. I was really worried about what would happen if the spare blew. Also, we had a big pass we needed to climb- according to the books, it was Alaska's second highest pass at over 4,000 feet, and we were climbing it on a rugged gravel road with a spare. Not ideal. We stopped at a little fishing hole where there were bathrooms, and a man from Soldotna saw I was on a doughnut, and warned me to get it changed as soon as possible, that it could wreck my gears because it was a different size than my tires. That didn't help. This was truly my worst-case scenario.
The views at the east end of the highway were incredible- glaciers and the Wrangell mountains were amazing, but we were white-knuckling it through, so Kaeli shot some pics from the window.
We finally made it the last 50 miles (which took a while at 30 mph) and stopped at the Paxson Lodge, the only building in Paxson. After trying to find a garage through AAA with no luck (they kept giving me area codes that were not Alaskan), I went into the lodge and asked the man if he knew any nearby place to get a tire plugged and filled, he said, "that would be me, but I need to make 20 burgers first and then I'm all yours". A tour bus had just pulled up. Kaeli and I had BLTs (double-decker, no less) and I called and set up an appointment at the Honda dealership in Anchorage, and then this fabulous man came and plugged the tire and filled it up, put it back on the car, and we were on our way.
We drove the Richardson highway down to the Glenn Highway, and headed back west. The clouds started clearing as we drove. This part of the Glenn highway was my favorite of the whole drive to Alaska, so I was excited for Kaeli to get to see the mountains here- it was pretty clear for her.
Tazlina Glacier:
We stayed in Sheep's Mountain Lodge- we had our own cabin. It was fabulous. Clean and really nice, with beautiful views, incredible dinner (smoked salmon pesto pasta), and hiking trails behind the lodge up the mountain:
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