Day 2: Tok to Haines

So I think Haines might be a beautiful place.  If it was day time and I didn't have such an overwhelming feeling that it does not want me to be here at all.  

Today started off pretty well.  I got up nice and early (I was proud of myself) and showered (the shower head was really weird, I got more misted than showered, but oh well.  I got clean and it was warm so I was happy) and used my spiffy new hair straightener (which specifically says to not use while sleeping... uh, I'll try not to).  And I packed and started T Rex, who despite a slow turn over, started right up.  I took some stuff out and loaded it up and came back to grab a few more things and discovered I had locked myself out.  So I wander through the gusts of wind and subzero temperatures to the office and wake up the lady who works there (the one I impressed with my intelligence so much yesterday) "Uhhhh I locked myself out"  And got a new key.  I finally left around 8 am.  I stopped by Fast Eddy's and had breakfast (yum) and hit the road.  Upon hitting the road, I was instantly reminded that I had failed to fix my roadtrip playlist that I had annoyed me all day yesterday.  Somehow, the majority of my playlist was mash ups.  I distinctly remember choosing to not put mash ups on my playlist.  I mean mash ups are great, but I probably had 2 mash ups for every normal song that came on.  Mash ups have their own playlist.  They don't need to ruin my roadtrip playlist that was specifically created not to have them on it. I was irked by that, and the ceaseless rattling caused by all the ice all over poor T Rex.

Other than the music issue, the Alaskan part of the Alaska highway was great.  The road was well maintained and I saw a heard of caribou.  I got gas in Alaska so I wouldn't have to stop in Canada and passed through the Canadian border with no problems. The sun came out and I saw a wolf, a fox, and a moose along the way.  The road has has some serious frost heaving issues.  I might have been speeding (just a little), but I think I may have managed to make T Rex fly.  And might have bottomed out the shocks a time or two.  He took it well and I felt like I was driving a Ford Raptor. I got to the Haines cutoff feeling pretty good.  A little over 100 miles left and what I thought was going to potentially be the most dangerous part of my trip was behind me without major or life threatening mishaps.

So there I am cruising down the Haines Cutoff (still not speeding of course) and notice the light is a little flat.  I think about getting my contrast enhancing ski goggles out to wear but decide that is a little weird and unnecessary. It wasn't that bad.  It starts to flurry a little.  No big deal.  I'm am Alaskan, pffttt a little snow.  I see a snow plow coming toward me. Oh, nice to see they maintain the road so well here.  It starts to snow a little harder and the visibility drops.  I then catch up to a snowplow with two cars behind it.  It is going slow and is ruining the awesome time I was making so I of course become annoyed.  It stops and pulls over to the side.  I have seen a few snowplows do this in the past two days and they seem to just be polite so I can get by.  The other two cars don't go around. I do.  I am not waiting for no snow plow.  I instantly regret it. (this is about 90 miles out of Haines.  I have not eaten all day, and I ran out of water before I got into Canada) The wind has blown the snow into incredibly irregular drifts on my side of the road. I get pulled all over the road in a dangerous manner and the visibility continues to drop.  I slow down and decide that it is safer to drive on the wrong side of the road since it has just been plowed. After all, I had only seen one car and a snow plow using that lane anyway. So I drive like this for probably about 20 miles.  During this 20 miles, the situation is further complicated by the onset of nightfall.  I am really happy that someone decided to put reflective markers every 100ish feet along the road.  At some points, I am driving based solely on those.

After that, the area opened up. (I did have mountains close on either side, now, I was in a sort of wide valley) This was good and bad.  I could drive on my side of the road since the wind had blown the road clean.  However, as the wind picked up, and visibility further decreased. This was some serious wind too.  And then the snow picked up too, making for whiteout conditions.  Looking out the side windows was creepy; I couldn't see a thing. I could see just enough of the road in front of me that I could keep going.  (I figured stopping could potentially cause someone to hit me). This continued for a really really long time, probably 20 of the slowest miles of my life.  By the time that the visibility got better, I was so disoriented that upon seeing actual contrast on the mountain beside me, I thought that there was an avalanche.  I was moving at such a speed that it looked like the rocks were moving down the mountain. I did actually stop to make sure it was just me going crazy and that there was not an actual avalanche. Somewhere in this time, I decided maybe I should check the radio for weather reports.  No reception at all on AM or FM.  So I put my Ipod back to Lady Gaga, the afore mentioned offending mash ups, and the rest of my road trip artists. I really just wanted to make it to the US border alive (and not in a ditch or stuck in the snow somewhere).  So I crept along and finally it starts to clear up and I enter snow tunnel land.

Apparently, there is a 15 mile stretch where it snows a lot and they plow a "tunnel" through it.  My thought when I entered it was "sweet, at least if I go off the road I will have something softish to catch me"  Shortly after, the snow let up.  It then began to torrentialy downpour.  I have never seen it rain this hard in Alaska before.  I guess it is the southeast.  The formerly snowy roads are now soaked and it is insanely slippery.  However, I finally made it to the US border in one piece.  They decide to let me back into the country. (yay) Also, the roads got less icy so I was pretty happy again.  As I neared Haines, it got really really windy.  And for some reason the roads again became icy. And that is my first impression of Haines: Dark, icy, rainy as hell, windy, and has a road that doesn't want people to see where they are going leading to it. 

I found a place to stay and then got a cheeseburger.  It was awesome.  I am now happily blogging and fixing my stupid playlist. 

Tomorrow, I get on the Ferry at 10:30 pm.  So I will entertain myself being a tourist in Haines.  Hopefully, it will be more cooperative than it was yesterday. I don't know what kind of connectivity I will have on the ferry or if anything worth talking about will even happy.  Soooo it could be a few days before I update this.

Anddd Pictures!!

A couple of caribou wanted to cross the road.  They didn't because they were scared of T Rex. So I missed my photo opportunity :(

Nice blue skis in Canada

Can you see the road?  I barely can.

Snow Tunnel!!!

For reference... T Rex in the snow tunnel! (yes I stopped in the middle of it and got out to take pictures... it was a straight stretch so I could see what was coming)