Wandering and Wondering - My little road trip.

Mayor. If u get a text from a 907 area code it's me.

 

Dude, this is a pretty epic trip. I thought my few thousand mile trips this summer up to Wyo and MT were epic . . . you win.

 

Just wait there's a lot more to come in the next month and I have a few more trips planned for the next year or ten. Haha

 

So I'm sitting in Anchorage after meeting up with the very awesome benbacher and picking up my new front end lights. I got the pencil beams on but the 2nd set are spliced in and I have to pick up a wiring kit to install the second pair. Basically I am moving the 4 diffused fog lights to the bedrack to be used as ditch/camp lights and getting a bit more illumination distance/width up front. Hitting the two deer on my last road trip and almost t-boning an elk made my mind up for me.

I will try to post some pics tonight and tomorrow to catch up with some of the stuff from my summer working in Kodiak, but I am headed to Denali for a few days of clean air and bear spray, so if you guys don't hear from me by saaaaaaaaay Saturday (should be hitting Fairbanks around then) check for my PLB/EPIRB signal and call in the Marines.

 

20 lb halibut


icicle cannery at dusk (aka 11pm)


rocky point. if you ever want to feel small, come to alaska


monkey rock, telrod cove, spiridon bay


2 10 lb reds i caught in telrod


cod was so big it snapped my rod. in this case revenge was best served as fish tacos


our boat sitting in black cape


beach seiners


telrod cove waterfall


fishing


40 inch 34 lb halibut

 

i have a build thread, but in typical houston bs fashion it got thread jacked.

 

You act like you don't like it...... tease.

 

check your pms

 

whoops


sunrise courtesy of disney

sunset


double rainbow at veikoda bay on our last day


pink salmon (humpy). yes i snagged it, yes i released it. it's not even good to eat.


last trip to saltrey


my truck WAS black before saltrey


i caved and bought an emergency locator beacon, just in case.


tee hee


salmon, halibut and coffee


beer collection so far. wonder how long it will last......

 

Left anchorage this morning after a stop at great harvest bakery and I blinked and saw this....



Southern boundary of Denali and Mt McKinley.

 

Bump this thread again for people who havent read it. Do another road trip dude!

 

Working on it my friend. Camping in Denali right now and drove the Denali highway for shits and gigs. Sitting at panorama pizza pub punching and swerving with some Alaska beer and great pizza.

 

Found a few hiccups in my truck today. One of my battery tie downs had something better to do and disappeared leaving me to reposition my battery cover every stop versus it taking one of the battery clamps off. The little panel under my drivers side headlight would have vamoosed had it not been zip tied from the front bumper install. I'm really thinking my frame is bent now. I have a few places where the paint is gone down to bare metal. Once I'm done drinking (aka tomorrow morning) I'll take some pics of the things I'm seeing. One of the bolts holding my bed rack on rattled loose and my afrotech university cb antenna mount is well, frankly, I'm about to gorilla tape it upright, but it's more sturdy than the famous fab thru tailgate one I had so I'm OK with it having aka bout gangster lean.

 

Much envy of this trip! Thanks for your service.

Saw your fishing pics... you're not Flash Gordon. This is bogus.

I will definitely have to do something like this at some point in life.

 

It's only getting better......

I made a small (ish) pit stop yesterday and today, and by that, I mean it was an 18 hour drive round trip... I'm working on uploading the pics now, but here's a sneak peak.

 

Looks awesome, I'm jealous.

 

So it seems I've developed a severe case of shit falling off my truck thanks to the bumps. Fortunately, I've caught all but one, and it just happened to be one of my battery tie down bolts. Fun fun. Ran into a few TW members on the Prudhoe Bay run. One was bear hunting with a long bow (who also happens to be cbi famous - http://www.cbioffroadfab.com/2014-tacoma-gets-worked-over.html), and the other was hunting caribou. Lucky bastards.

There is a mercantile at Deadhorse for fluids/car repair items, and definitely bring your own food. The camps are really expensive (kinda a given considering where they are) and the food isn't worth it. Except the boston creme pie at Coldfoot camp.... That and they have a small selection of Silver Gulch beer and a few major beers for enjoyment during lunch/dinner and the two hostesses are pretty cute and friendly.

Everyone I met was very affable and for the most part willing to talk for a bit with little provocation.

There is a lot of road repair going on to be aware of, and lots of flaggers where they are smoothing over the road. Definitely be aware of the big rigs, while they have right of way, are generally pretty easy to talk into letting you pass, unless you get the Pork Chop Express who fly through faster than the posted speed limit.

CB - definitely
extra gas - off season definitely, tourism/hunting season meh
spare tire - duh

It's impossible to get to the Arctic Ocean on this route as the oil fields own the beach front property.T hey offer a 60$ tour of a man made lake where they show you some wildlife, but it's still an amazing drive. The only word that I could use to really describe it is stupefying -as in I literally just said "wow"

There are plenty of places to camp overnight for free if you don't mind primitive camping and waking up next to a river on an arctic tundra with no real sounds outside of the occasional big rig tear assing down the road with 6 lightforce light blaring the dark into submission. and on that note, he bitched at me for my rigid hyperspots and 20 inch light bar.

Now for the fun stuff.

 

Sitting in kendall Toyota in Fairbanks and I've had awesome service so far for this oil change.

After about an hour at a car wash cleaning off the mud from wheels/brakes/undercarriage, I'm thinking about putting some new tires on while I'm here since I found a few gouges in my sidewalls and big chunks missing from my tread. I don't know if paying Alaska prices is worth it just for the "short" highway drive back to the lower 48 and get cheaper prices and better selection.

 

Alright I'm due to post now that I have a few minutes and cell phone reception/wifi....

 

Easiest prank on the nieces and nephew ever....



Pick Axe lake in western Yukon





SS Klondike in Whitehorse.






Signpost forest in Watson Lake



"Buffalo next 100km"



Coming into liard river area.







Ended up camping at liard hot springs for the night which wasn't bad. Packed but it was good to soak in the hot water to break up the monotonous drive and loosen up the kinks from camping.


Muncho lake. Gas was like $2/litre.




Wasn't much better in Fort Nelson.





Celebration for the end of "expensive" gas



At this point I opted to avoid the highway life and hoped a right on 40 out of Dawson Creek to be rewarded with an absolutely majestic drive through Jasper and Banff national parks.