Tei and Tomi in Alyeska, July 4 - August 3, 2005

mount mckinley in the background

Shower is the greatest invention of the mankind --- after the wheel, or should I say the cycle. After covering oneself in 48spf sunscreen, dipping in DEET and riding 60 miles on loose gravel, exposed to excruciating sunshine, and eventually hitting pouring rain for the last few miles, I can't think of anything better than having a shower. And then a beer.

And then some food. I don't know how many burgers we ate in Alaska. As far as I remember we ate nothing but burgers. We expected to have fresh fish in all of its creative forms, but mostly we just found breaded and deep fried halibut in a bun. Not too imaginative.

on top of mt healy (denali park)

The burger to remember was at Cantwell Lodge in Cantwell. I am not a burger person, but that one was probably the best burger I've ever had. The chef himself served us and asked how I want my burger cooked --- medium rare and that's how it came out. Purrfect!

ma johnson's hotel (mccarthy)

At most of the places they did not even ask how I want my burger cooked or just ignored the request. The only exception was at Chili's at the Anchorage Airport when we were about to leave Alaska; the server/bartender informed us that medium well/well is as good as they can do. Still we both got sick. Tomi was nauseous for the whole flight.

tundra (denali hwy)

sun

Alaska is an interesting place. In some respects it resembles Eastern Europe in the end of 80's. Alaskans, who most likely are asocial escapees from the "lower 48", do not want to have tourists (or environmentalists at the least) around. But tourists keep coming to this Great Land. So, what can Alaskans do about it? Well, make money by providing "services", such as lodging and food, and asking sky-high prices for them. Alaska is the most expensive place in the USA I've been so far --- including NYC --- and the most unfriendly, too.

This year we shipped our bikes beforehand by FedEx. It cost $100 per bike, but that is not much more expensive than flying with them. Actually, for some unknown reason, shipping bikes from Indiana to Alaska is twice as expensive as shipping them back from Alaska to Indiana. Since shipping ground by FedEx requires a destination home address, we shipped the bikes to the hostel we planned to stay for the first night, 26 Street International Hostel.

root glacier (kennicot)

Ok, now we are in Anchorage with two boxes of bikes and four boxes of all the other stuff. Let's start our story here.

cook inlet (kenai)