Chapter 6: Unlimited Doesn’t Mean Unlimited
Somewhere along the way, my cell phone chirped at me with an urgent text message. When I had a moment to check it, the message said that I had reached the end of my free data and would now be limited for the rest of the billing period.
Huh. That’s weird. I thought I had an unlimited data plan.
This is not helpful when you’re relying on your phone running Google Maps while you drive long distances in an unfamiliar place. Suddenly I was without any technological help.
We thought about using Julie’s phone or one of the kids’, but later on in the trip they were getting the same message. As it turned out, those big ads trumpeting NATIONWIDE 5G SERVICE AND UNLIMITED DATA COAST TO COAST aren’t entirely accurate. It’s true for the most part in the lower 48 states, save for those remote areas with no cell service. But Alaska seems to be the wild west in terms of the cell network. Our carrier didn’t own its own coverage there—they lease it from whoever owns the cell towers. And so that means that our coverage wasn’t unlimited, it was whatever our carrier negotiated for that region. Which I guess wasn’t very much.
So, for the rest of the trip I was suddenly going to be living several years in the past, when I had an iPod Touch and prayed any place I visited had free wi-fi. And I used (the horror!) paper maps.
Good thing Alaska only has 10 major roads or so.
In the morning, we had breakfast at the hotel in Fairbanks, and then drove just a few miles north on the Steese Highway (State Route 2) until we reached a small turnoff at milepoint 8.4. This is the Alaska Pipeline Viewing Point, where visitors can park and take a brief walk to see the oil pipeline, running parallel to the highway here.
The
Trans-Alaska Pipeline is an enormous engineering achievement. It carries oil from the fields in Prudhoe Bay, at the very northern edge of Alaska, down across the state to the port town of Valdez, where we had stayed the previous night. According to the facts and figures I can find online, it’s roughly 800 miles long and carries an average of 1.8 million barrels of oil a day (which is much lower than its actual capacity as the demand for oil has decreased over the decades). It was built between 1975 and 1977 by the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, which was itself a conglomerate of several oil companies with a vested interest in tapping the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. This was built in response to the oil crisis of 1973 when supplies from other countries were cut off or drastically reduced. Basically, the response was: “Fine, we’ll get our own oil.”
The first oil started flowing on June 20, 1977.
For such a valuable asset, it’s a bit surprising that you can just walk right up underneath it and touch it.
You can see that the pipeline is built on “stilts”, keeping it several feet off the ground. It alternates between this construction and other areas where it does actually run underground. This was designed to make sure it did not disturb areas of permafrost, where the ground is permanently frozen year-round. Disturbing this ground (or warming it) would cause major structural problems as well as damage the fragile ecosystem (which is already being endangered by climate change). There were even displays showing how this structural system allowed the ground to vent any heat generated by the pipeline.
If you look closely at the photo, you can see an additional aspect of the design: the pipe itself is sitting on a little support structure that slides on a rail. This was added along with a zig-zag design in order to make the pipeline as earthquake-proof as possible. It allows some flexibility in case, you know, the ground starts moving.
Nearby was a display of two “pigs”, both the original design and the one currently in use. These are cylinders that are sent down the pipe with the purpose of cleaning the sludge that builds up along the walls. This is one pipe where you really, really don’t want a clog.
They’re called pigs because the sound they make scraping the walls while traveling the length of the pipeline resembles the squeal of a pig.
Ok, fine, I made that up. I have no idea.
This was as far north as we got. The Steese Highway eventually turns into the
Dalton Highway if you continue north, where it becomes a 414-mile long dirt/gravel road to Prudhoe Bay. This is the road made famous by Ice Road Truckers. From the viewpoint, we were less than 200 miles from the Arctic Circle. All it would have taken is violating the rental car agreement and subjecting ourselves to a remote road with no services and no rescue and constant showers of gravel from trucks going 70 mph as they passed us.
I’d looked into it, of course. I had found
various tour groups that would take us not only up to the Arctic Circle, but into some of the most remote, inaccessible national parks such as Gates of the Arctic National Park—one of several with no roads whatsoever. But the tours were either wildly expensive (by air) or time-consuming (by road). The drives have to go slow due to the nature of the road, so it ends up taking 16-17 hours or so to go to the Arctic Circle and back. We didn’t think there was any way Drew was going to last that long cooped up in a van with so many other people (not to mention COVID issues).
So, chalk up another experience for a return trip someday.
We went back into Fairbanks and stopped at the
Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitor Center, built downtown along the banks of the Chena River. It’s a free information center with some
small exhibits on Alaska and information on the various attractions in the area. It didn’t take long to walk through, but we all thought the exhibits were really well done. Terrific for a free information center—it felt like they put real time and effort into making them informative and attractive.
Of course, I didn’t take any photos.
We moved on and drove to the northwest corner of the city, home to the campus of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, where you can’t possibly end up going to school by accident. David is in the middle of the college application process at the moment, so we offered to try and give him the tour, but he seemed content with seeing it from the car. Kids these days. Where’s the ambition?
The campus is also home to the
Museum of the North, which had come recommended by my parents as a worthy stop. So we did, and we walked through the doors late in the morning and forked over the admission. It’s definitely a very striking building.
Inside are various exhibits about the history of Alaska, mostly the ancient history—dinosaur fossils, primitive creatures, and early natives.
One thing you need to know about my parents: they are hardcore history nerds. There is not a single book, article, plaque, exhibit featuring the tiniest, most obscure historical fact that wouldn’t interest them. That commercial about the people turning into their parents where the guy gets excited over a historical marker at a rest stop and shouts, “Oh, look, a plaque!” and then immediately starts reading it out loud? That’s my mom.
One thing you need to know about me: I prefer my history to be more of the “big picture” variety. Unless it’s a really great story, just give me the broad overview. Who won the battle? Why was it important? I don’t really care who the brigadier general in charge of the 8th cavalry was at the time.
The exhibits at the museum appeared to not have been updated since the early 1970’s. Old, faded displays gave great detail in tiny print about the ancient animals that roamed the land, their skeletons and diets and lifespans, the early natives that settled it, the tools they used and how they cooked their meals and made tents and canoes, etc.
I can totally see why this appealed to my parents. They’d eat this stuff up. I found it dry. If you want to say I’m uncultured and have no appreciation for historical detail, that’s totally fair. For me, it felt like a hundred other similar historical displays I’d seen before. I felt the exhibits in the free Morris Thompson Center were better.
I did appreciate the attention to detail in this one, though.
The museum did have an impressive humpback whale skeleton on display in the lobby.
And there was a view to the south. On a clear day, you’re supposed to be able to see the mountains of the Alaska Range from here (including Denali).
Upstairs, they had a gallery of work from local artists. I liked this painting of Denali quite a bit.
And what art gallery wouldn’t be complete without its own lavishly decorated outhouse?
That was about all the museum had to offer. I’d call it a once-and-done for us.
We ate our PB&J for lunch in the parking lot and then hit the road to head south. After about 2 hours’ drive on the Parks Highway (State Route 3), we reached one of the big items on our to-do list:
Denali National Park.
Here’s what the entrance sign looks like when it’s not cut off.
We weren’t going to be touring the park until the next day, but we had time to at least stop by the visitor center and get oriented.
So that’s what we did. We got our park maps and passport stamps, found the bus depot so we knew where the tour would depart from, and browsed the gift shop. We even got to see the Alaska Railroad arrive with tourists from Anchorage. Dave, Andrew and I went down to check it out, mostly because we can’t resist the siren call of watching trains.
When we got back to the parking lot, we were starting to get hungry for dinner. So was this squirrel, apparently, since he was making a meal of all the bug guts on the front of our rental.
You might have heard horror stories about the mosquitoes and other bugs in Alaska, but I can say we generally didn’t find them too bad. Now, that was probably because we almost always had a breeze of some kind throughout the day, but I can only remember one instance when the bugs really became irritating.
We drove 10 miles back north to the town of Healy and checked into our hotel, the Aurora Denali Lodge. Lodging near Denali NP was interesting. There are no big chain hotels anywhere near it, which is not what you’d expect given that it’s one of the biggest tourist attractions in Alaska. There are several hotels just outside the park entrance, but they are either independent or owned by the major cruise lines. I’d looked into many of them but some of the cruise hotels were closed for the summer due to COVID shutting down the cruises. The other places wanted well over $300/night for a room.
After doing some research, I’d found this mom-and-pop hotel through Trip Advisor. It didn’t look like much but it was $100 cheaper and had really good reviews online. They even offered a free breakfast…ish.
After having spent two nights there, it was perfectly adequate. We got clean beds and a bathroom, which is all we ever need and I suspect is the same thing you get at the more expensive places. Breakfast was some fruit, yogurt, and a hard-boiled egg placed in our fridge the night before. We supplemented that with our own Pop Tarts from our snack stash, and it worked out ok. I’d say the only downside was the 10-mile drive away from the park, but for the price it was worth the trade-off.
Just a mile away was the
49th State Brewing Company restaurant, where we had a reservation for dinner. Word to the wise: make sure you make a reservation here if you want to go. It’s the only place around for miles, and it’s good—so it’s extremely popular. We saw buses dropping off tour groups here.
The place was jam-packed. I even had to invent a parking space outside, and we were eating fairly early (somewhere around 5:30 p.m.). I checked in and they told me they’d send me a text when our table was ready. We hung out in a beer garden outside. They had a little homage to Into The Wild set up outside the restaurant.
You can see on the left that they also had games available, including cornhole. For a while, Drew and I contented ourselves with tossing beanbags back and forth. But then a slightly inebriated couple from California came over with their friend, wanting a 4th to play a game. I teamed up with the friend against the couple. Hey, I had nothing better to do.
I don’t want to brag, but we absolutely destroyed them. I don’t know if it was the fact that they’d already visited the bar earlier or if my one and only gift in this world is tossing a bean bag with a repetitive motion, but it was over within five minutes. We shook hands. They didn’t ask for a re-match. I did get a high-five from Drew.
After a while, we began to wonder what was taking so long. I went back to the desk to ask about our table, and they said they’d sent the text 15 minutes ago. By now, they’d given the table away.
I pulled out my phone and saw no text message. But then I saw the problem—No Service.
That might be a flaw in the whole text message system. Or maybe my cell carrier had struck again.
In any case, the restaurant staff understood and made sure to give us the next available table after that. it wasn’t anybody’s fault, so I appreciated them working with us.
I went for the Mt. Magnificent burger, which featured bacon, cheese, smashed potatoes, crispy onions and BBQ sauce. It proved to be an excellent choice. Extra points for the mini Alaska flag.
Scott and Sarah got a skllet of mac and cheese (with steak and bacon) to share. Also a good call.
Dave got the King Crabby grilled cheese, which was a grilled cheese sandwich featuring crab meat. He loved it.
And Julie got the Savage River flatbread, which featured pulled pork, pineapple, cheese, and crispy onions. She found it disappointing, so she wasn’t as high on the restaurant as the rest of us. So for that reason I can’t quite give it a Homer award, but I would absolutely go back for that burger.
The other reason I can’t quite give a Homer award has to do with the dessert. Maybe it was the beer I had, but I was feeling generous, so we ordered two. First was the chocolate mousse pie.
That was very tasty. Good stuff. The other was the chocolate-peanut butter pie, in keeping with our peanut butter pie tour of Alaska.
I’m sorry…but that is not a pie. That is quite clearly a cake.
I even asked the server if there had been a mistake, but no, that was the chocolate peanut butter “pie”.
The kids thought it was great. Maybe their favorite dessert of the trip. But I couldn’t get over the fact that I had been promised a pie. In my world, pie is superior to cake in every way.
If you were drafting players for a sports team, you talk about their “ceilings” and “floors”. It’s the expected range of outcomes. A player might have incredible athletic talent but need some refinement on his game. So you’d say he has a “high ceiling”, meaning that if he reached the peak of his potential he could be an elite player. But he has a “low floor” because he could also bomb out. Whereas someone who has good fundamentals but less overall talent would be a “high floor” but “low ceiling” player, where you can get good, solid production and a fairly guaranteed return, but probably not a superstar.
In the world of dessert, cake is the classic “high floor, low ceiling” dessert. You pretty much know what you’re going to get. Spongy cake, a little dry, tasting vaguely of either chocolate or vanilla or lemon, with heaps of goopy icing. Very little variance. It’s fine. A solid 10-year career, maybe a playoff win or two, mostly mediocre results.
Pie is “high ceiling, low floor”. The worst pies are flaming disasters. Sweet potato, coconut, banana cream. These are abominations. Draft day busts. Someone who never even makes it out of training camp.
But the best of the best—apple, peach, key lime, chocolate cream, and yes, peanut butter—are perennial all stars. Perennial all stars that raise the level of every player around them. The MVP’s. Every meal is instantly better.
So when I think I’m getting Patrick Mahomes and I end up with Kirk Cousins, yeah…I’m going to be a little disappointed.
Still…the burger was very good.
We’ll shake it off tomorrow.
Coming Up Next: An 8-hour tour. An 8-hour tour.
I miss that comic.
Glad I don't FB at sll.
Doc! Thanks for jumping in. Still plenty left to cover.
