Day 8: Fairbanks AK

There is an old Norwegian joke which goes something like this:  A bloke goes on holiday to Bergen.  It rains all day, every day.  On his way back to the station he meets a small boy.  "Hey, kid" he says, "does it ever stop raining in Bergen?"  Replies the lad "How should I know?  I'm only eight!".  This morning an early morning snoutcast who both looked and sounded disturbingly like Mick Belker out of "Hill Street Blues" said to me "Does it ever stop raining in Alaska?"  You set 'em up, mate, and I'll kick 'em into Row Z...

So I went back in for breakfast.  The TV in the breakfast room was showing a shitvert.  The background music to which being Boney M's "Sunny".  Irony may be turning into a lost art in the Lower 48, but it seems in rude health up here.  Must be the Canadian influence - they are, after all, the people who refer to the stretch of seashore north of Vancouver as "The Sunshine Coast".

After the shitvert the distascope went back to showing old episodes of "Deadliest Catch", which is from the same stable as "Ice Road Truckers", and doubtless mostly a load of old nonse too.  The somewhat tenuous link being that series 3-6 of "Ice Road Truckers" took place, at least in part, on the Dalton Highway.  And if you don't do your homework, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Dalton starts immediately after the weighbridge on the outskirts of Fairbanks rather than 130 km up the tarmac of the Elliott Highway.  And that the Dalton is all dirt, which it isn't.

In order to prevent myself from doing something stupid, like for eg driving up the Dalton to the Yukon River bridge or the Arctic Cirle, I cunningly decided to not refuel That Shitbox Dodge, as it appeared to have enough motor-spirit left in the tank to take me to the start of the Dalton and back, but no great distance further.  This plan failed.  The Elliott is lumpy enough that the two ends of the string did not match up and I would perforce have to walk a Several of kilometres to the nearest source of motor-spirit on the way back.  So I had to fillup anyway.  The Elliott goes through a lot of this:

Alaska, Tuesday

and not much else.  Eventually you reach a junction.  The Elliott turn into a dirt road which carries on another 125 km to Manley Hot Springs; the Dalton heads 670 km north to Deadhorse and the oil Stuffs at Prudhoe Bay, parallel to the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline of which we spoke yesterday.

Trans-Alaska Pipeline in its (un)natural environment

There is a sign about 2 km on:

This is as far as I was prepared to go, as That Shitbox Dodge has a can of gloop instead of a spare wheel, it wouldn't be insured and it felt a bit odd at 80 km/h on the mud.  No thanks.  There are one or two companies in Fairbanks who actually rent vehicles specifically for the Dalton, thereby giving me a reason to come back.  In the meantime, That Shitbox Dodge ended up looking like this:

Hurrah for Mudde!

It remains to be seen whether Alaskan Mud has the adhesive properties of Colorado Mud or whether it will turn out to be a feeble brew that washes off in the first half-decent shower, like Canadian Mud, but Nice Man Georges at Hertz reckons that if it's still white when I bring it back than I haven't been having enough fun.  I have, however, bought a sponge to keep the lights, number plate and mirrors clean, because I'm growing responsible in my dotage.  A bit.  It's about 600 km to Anchorage and only 4,800 from there to Battle Mountain...