Posted in on Mar 23rd, 2012 No Comments »
March 4 Barbara’s flight home was scheduled for 1:50 AM on Sunday. The good news was that the hotel had a shuttle. The bad news was that she was leaving. We had had a wonderful trip together. There were disappointments – we didn’t get to drive the MacKenzie River and we didn’t see the Northern [...]
Posted in on Mar 20th, 2012 No Comments »
March 3 Among other reasons, since this year’s Alcan was ending in Anchorage, the rally was timed to end the day before the start of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race. The Iditarod is the famous dogsled race that honors the rescue of the residents of the town of Nome, Alaska during a diphtheria outbreak in [...]
Posted in on Mar 20th, 2012 No Comments »
March 2 Today is the last day of the rally. A TSD here in Valdez. A transit to Wasilla. A TSD in Wasilla. A transit to the hotel in Anchorage. Check in at the MTC. Done. Of course, it wasn’t that easy. First there’s the TSD in Valdez and the snow. We have a TSD [...]
Posted in on Mar 16th, 2012 No Comments »
Here’s a link to the Spot Messenger Satellite Tracking data for the Alcan: http://rallyroadie.org/downloads/Alcan5000_2012.kml Click on this link, save the KML file and open it with Google Earth or any other mapping software that understands KML files. Enjoy. Obi-wan
Posted in on Mar 16th, 2012 No Comments »
March 1 The extraordinary amount of snow that Valdez has gotten this winter has made the scheduled ice race impossible. (Hmmm, where have we heard that before?) The lake where we were to have the race hasn’t been plowed by the town because they have literally exhausted their snow removal budget. They actually spent the [...]
Posted in on Mar 16th, 2012 No Comments »
March 1 During the night, the motel started to fill with snow mobilers (or as the Palin Snarky Dictionary calls them – “snow machine operators”). They’re arriving for a trip that starts on Friday to ride to Dawson City over the Taylor and Top of the World highways. The distance to Dawson City is about [...]
Posted in on Mar 8th, 2012 No Comments »
February 29 Whitehorse to Tok The schedule calls for us to redo the two TSDs and then move on to Tok in Alaska. The first TSD is the Long Lake TSD which starts in the Steamboat parking lot. I remember from 2008 that the trick with this TSD is to leave early because, unlike the [...]
Posted in on Mar 7th, 2012 No Comments »
February 28 An easy day with nothing to do but drive to Whitehorse. We left late, about 9, and just loafed our way to Whitehorse. Lunch at Carmacks again on the way back. Check in to the Westmark and take it easy. I suggest that we find a good pizza restaurant for whomever might want [...]
Posted in on Mar 7th, 2012 No Comments »
February 27 We’re up early and ready to go at 6:30. The plan was to leave earlier but the lack of fuel availability and yesterday’s excitement have necessitated a later start. The first problem is fuel. There’s a new gas station just a couple of blocks from the hotel and it has automatic pumps that [...]
Posted in on Mar 2nd, 2012 1 Comment »
February 26 The edge of the road has a small berm left from the plows which is frozen into ice crystals. On the road side of that berm is another berm of soft snow. As we’ve been weaving along, we’ve been in and out of the soft snow berm and occasionally bumped the harder ice [...]
