Category: Lame Repost

Attention – this is a repost from 2019, though still very, very valid.  Had a mechanical issue to fix around the house (stuff you don’t want to freeze) but that’s all (fingers crossed) fixed.  Regardless, no time for a new post.  Enjoy!

“Good job, isn’t it? Type something will ya, we’re paying for this stuff.” – Ghostbusters

I like guns.  And butter.  Especially cocoa butter.  Admit it – you’ve never enjoyed economics more.

Economics means choices.

One choice presented by Marxist economics professors to hung-over sophomores in college is between “guns or butter.”  This is a classic economic model.  In it, a choice is presented:  produce guns for defense, or food for the people, or another shot of Jägermeister© before Calc 201.  I added the Jägermeister® for the sophomores.  No one should have to learn 3-space vector calculus sober.

The idea is that there is some balance where government can feed people just enough so that they can make guns for beautiful Marxist bikini soldiers to take over the world with love and kindness and AK-47s.  In this fable, once the world chooses peace (that means Marxism), guns will no longer be produced and the glorious workers will now luxuriate in a worker’s paradise.

These are the deep thoughts of a dimwitted socialist like Kamala Harris, or of an overly caring 11 year-old who is earnestly trying to solve the world’s problems.  But I repeat myself.

Don’t be mean to Kamala.  She already enough difficulty explaining to her husband why she’s in the top results for “slept her way to the top” on a Google® image search (this is true).

Just because Marxists were wrong about economics doesn’t mean that economies that there aren’t economic choices to make.  There are.  The biggest actual economic choice to make is whether to spend the output of that economy on building additional productive capacity or on Free Stuff.

Building additional production is investment in the economy.  Sure, Leftists like to use “investment” as just another word for Free Stuff, but investment, by definition, produces a return.  In the case of investment in an economy, after the investment is done the economy produces more than it did before.  Instead of dividing a finite economic pie between guns or butter, the genius of investment is that it creates a bigger pie for everyone.  By definition, that’s a win, because it also means more guns for everyone!

There is a time to tell the truth, and a time to lie.  If she’s holding an AK, it’s time to lie.

This was self-evident in Western Civilization during the Cold War.  We picked the strategy that we invest in our economies so that they became larger, and we’d defeat Communism by out producing them.  In order to do that, we increased freedom of the free market so that instead of handfuls of production bureaucrats and commissars guessing what should be produced, millions of free people experimenting in an open economy would make that choice.  The winners were selected by the market, and even when things like the Hula-Hoop® or Justin Bieber became wildly popular, industrial capacity was increased all across Western Civilization (and Japan, which had largely adopted all of the winning parts of Western Civilization).

I would try to Hula Hoop©, but last time the neighbor called an ambulance because they thought I was having a seizure.

We allowed this to guide our military spending, too.  Multiple companies competed to produce new jet fighters that were more capable, missiles that were more accurate.  The technical prowess of the military came not from a top-down dictate, but from the companies competing to produce better defense products.  Sure, some of them were horrible, but most of our equipment and doctrine was better than the Soviet stuff.  How much better?  Ask Saddam Hussein.

As the focus of our economy was growth, the economy grew.  How big did it grow?  It grew to the point where Reagan could consciously bankrupt the entire guns and butter Soviet economy through pretending that the Star Wars™ missile defense was going to make intercontinental ballistic missiles obsolete.  The economy of Western Civilization was such a potent weapon because it harnessed the ingenuity of everyone through capitalist incentives and rewards.  The system of capitalism was so obviously successful that China®, Inc. decided to copy it for their economy and get rid of the silly Maoist collectivism.  Keep in mind, capitalism does not mean freedom.

Economies still have limits.  There’s a maximum amount of “stuff” that the economy can produce, and certainly there’s a limit based on sheer physics, if nothing else, though we’ve yet to see it.  The real choice isn’t guns or butter, it’s investment versus Free Stuff.  It used to be that money mattered, but that was in the time before Modern Monetary Theory (The Worst Economic Idea Since Socialism, Explained Using Bikini Girl Graphs) fans tossed bottles of Jägermeister© into Congress and told ‘em to spend as much as they wanted.

If Venezuela had a dollar for every time giving out Free Stuff worked, they’d have zero dollars.  Oh, that’s exactly what Venezuela has.  Never mind.

What Free Stuff do the Leftists want to toss out?

• “Free” Healthcare – for everyone. Including illegal aliens.  You might think that they don’t give it away now – they do.  A pregnant illegal alien show ups to have a baby?  You get to pay for that right now.  I guess the good news is you don’t have to change it’s diaper.
• “Free” Daycare – for everyone. Why?  Because who could be better at raising your children than the state.  They do such a good job at the DMV.
• “Free” College – for everyone.  That kid that sat behind you with his finger up his nose, who talked about how he wanted to ride a tyrannosaurus on Mars?  When he was a senior in high school?  Yeah, he gets free college, too.  Although riding a tyrannosaurus on Mars does sound cool.
• “Free” Income – for everyone.  Why not give everyone $1000 a month for free.  It won’t distort the economy at all.
• “Free” Reparations – not for everyone. People who were never slaves would get paid by people who never had slaves, for the sin of slavery.  Makes about as much sense as the rest of this list.
• “Free” Housing – just not in the gated communities where Congressmen live.

Oh, and don’t forget regulations, since regulations is another way to give Free Stuff.  They take freedom from the economy and create winners and losers.  The Green New Deal is an example of this – the idea of the Green New Deal has nothing to do with the environment – it’s all about creating a socialist economy.  In the words of AOC’s advisor:  “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Saikat Chakrabarti asked. “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

Regulations are used to change the economy.

Take a look at all of the innovation spawned by Communism!

At some point Free Stuff will grow to encompass the entire economy leaving nothing for productive growth.  Ever notice that every Communist economy freezes at the technology level (outside of military technology) that existed when it went Commie?  Cuba is a great example, what with all of the vintage 50’s Ford® and Chevy© rust buckets and fine Soviet cars they have on the streets.  If only they would have waited until the 1970’s to go Communist they could have had Ford© Pintos™.  That would have made driving exciting!

The same thing happened in Venezuela.  PDVSA was a very profitable oil company before Hugo Chavez gutted it to provide Free Stuff to the Venezuelan people.  Now?  PDVSA is deeply in debt and incapable of producing as much oil as it did in 1998, despite having 77.5 billion barrels of reserves.

Yeah.  Free Stuff can make a country bankrupt.

The nice thing about this concept is that it also applies to individuals.  Every day each of us has a choice:  do we work to make ourselves better, or do we goof off?  The choice is an important one.

Do you invest time in increasing your capabilities every day?  Do your work to make yourself better?  I mean, really work?  Take Steve Martin’s advice – “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”  (“Be so good they can’t ignore you.”-Steve Martin Plus? A sniper joke.)

You have the choice.  And time is running out.  And I’m certain you can’t afford Free Stuff.

“They’re coming to get you rent from you, Barbara.” – Johnny, Night of the Living Dead

The child above?  Now 18.  Time flies.  Also, he’s the Earl of Oak Street.

Note:  This is a repost of a 2008 post – I was 1600 words into tonight’s post, and I wasn’t perfectly happy with it, and it was getting close to 3AM.

The Mrs. and I have a standing argument. Actually we have about 457 standing arguments, but who’s counting? Anyhow, this particular argument can’t really be solved by Google®, though Google© does certainly put to rest most of the arguments that we have, such as who played first base for the Los Angeles Dodgers during the 1934 season. Strangely, we couldn’t find any records of that. (Hint: In 1934, the Los Angeles Dodgers started as a group of drunken athletic nuns in Cleveland who eschewed first base on religious reasons, deeming it “a form of idolatry.”)

No, this is an argument that revolves around that great unknowable beast, human nature. I have long argued that the average accountant, after missing three square meals with no prospect of another in the foreseeable future will take off the wing tips, slip the surly bonds of civilization, shave his head into a Mohawk and slip into steel spike-studded-shoulder pads and begin chasing Mel Gibson because he wanted to gnaw on Mel’s spleen. The Mrs. disagrees, and thinks that the average accountant would just be a very hungry (but only slightly less polite) person, still civilized, still able to be polite and share.

After Hurricane Ike, The Mrs. claimed that the neighbors banding together and helping each other proved her point. “Nobody even glanced twice at your spleen,” The Mrs. said, “but then again, you’re no Mel Gibson.”

This week, I had a little experience that bolsters my point . . .

I travel on occasion for work, and when I get to my destination I rent a car. It’s much easier than walking. Mostly, picking up a rental car is like attracting a politician using dangling wads of cash as bait – easy. Delay in the airline schedule? Sure. Delay in airport security thanks to TSA? A given. Delay on a rental car? Nope.

This particular day, however, a car rental company whose name rhymes with “Mational” had my reservation. As I checked in for my rental, the clerk said there might be a delay. Oh, sure, I expected that delay might mean five minutes of me standing in the airport parking garage while I paced over chewing-gum encrusted concrete.

No.

I arrived at the lower rental area booth – the one where elite (definition: not me) travelers whisk through the airport, not even stopping (somehow these elites manage to go to the bathroom without stopping on their way – I have this working theory that if you make enough money you never ever have to poop again), nay, merely pausing while the clerk tosses them their keys on the way to their car.

I arrived at a desolate wasteland, a garage meant to be stocked with cars, meant to be filled with people being whisked on their way, even non-elites like me. Now, you might think that from the term “wasteland” that the garage was empty. No. There were throngs of zombie-travelers milling about the counter, bumping into each other, groaning, looking for all the world like they expected the cars to spring from the ground like paparazzi when Obama’s (note: my spell check does not recognize this name) (2018 note:  this was originally written in 2008) thong slips a bit at the beach.

This, I guess, is what you get when you rent virtual cars rather than real cars.

Finally it got uglier than a Hollywood divorce. One customer shook himself awake. “Listen, Miss, I’ve been waiting here an hour.”

The (young) clerk made the first mistake that people under stress make – she clammed up. It did make sense, since she was busy ripping apart the furniture in the rental booth to nail across the windows in case the Living Dead (theoretical) rental customers began to clamor for brains. Or drinking water. Or, heaven forbid, cars.

The previously mentioned and now quite belligerent customer began again, “Miss, I will summon the evil powers of the CEO – you have no idea who I am . . .”

The clerk and the (theoretical) customer began circling each other. Somehow the customer had fashioned his toothbrush into a crude shiv, and the clerk prepared to defend herself with a stapler.

“Listen, mister, I don’t know who you are outside,” she gestured at the streams of sunlight pouring in through the parking garage exit with her stapler, “but you’re in my world now.”

Then a car arrived. Belligerence dropped from the face of the customer as if unexpected doughnuts were available at a corporate meeting.

Funny, but he got that car.

More and more zombies arrived, there were probably about seventeen (theoretical) customers milling about when my car arrived.

So, I stand by my statement. If people get utterly out of sorts when they can’t get a car for an hour, well, we’re about three meals away from kindergarten teachers abandoning their classes and naming themselves “Grongar, Duke Of Elm Street (1400 block).”

I am fearful for my spleen.

“Ward, I’m very worried about the Beaver.” – June Cleaver, “Leave it to Beaver”

I know it doesn’t look especially finger-y, but this is Finger Rock, at Finger Mountain. From another view, it looks much more finger-esque, but that photo wasn’t as good. I know that’s like showing you a picture I took of Mt. Rushmore from inside Lincoln’s nose, but, hey, you get what you pay for.

As we drove farther north, on the right I saw a rock that looked like a finger, jutting proudly out of the ground, as if some gigantic stone megalith man was attempting to free himself from the millions of tons of earth smothering him. It reminded me of what Mel Gibson feels his career is like right now.

We stopped a mile down the road at . . . Finger Mountain. In the rest of the free world, Finger Mountain would be a good excuse to put in a gravel pit, crunch up some rocks, and continue mankind’s attempt to pave the planet. At Finger Mountain, it was a good place to put some bathrooms and a few placards. The first placard described a local herb that grows in the tundra. Said herb makes a tasty tea, with the unfortunate side effect that it contains an incredibly powerful laxative. Where are the junior high kids when you need them?

This plant probably allowed many a native Alaskan to play some wicked practical jokes on explorers. “Tea, sure, we’ve got tea.” Snicker.

The best part about Finger Mountain is that it allowed us to get up and walk around a bit. We had begun to contour our bodies to fit the seats in the vehicle, and getting out and stretching felt good. For a five-year-old who’s normally extraordinarily active to be placed in a car and see . . . yet another batch of scraggly trees, well, Finger Mountain was good for The Boy’s soul. When’s the last time you were so happy you danced?

The distortion field is on again. Did nobody ever tell The Boy to not mix his camo patterns?

Looking north from Finger Mountain, the pipeline and the road stretched off into the distance, toward Prudhoe Bay and the sweet, sweet oil. If you look at the pipeline from the air, you’ll see that as the road curves up and around it again and again it makes endless $ patterns, like the one you see here. It also makes endless $ for Alaskans. I think that maybe a secret cabal designed this. It surely couldn’t be . . . coincidence.

Where money and oil intersect . . . oh, wait, that’s always. These are just road intersections with a pipeline.

As I said before, most of Finger Mountain would be gravel in your state, and, frankly I can’t why that’s not a bad idea here, as well. I think if we keep digging, we’d find that the Earth is made of . . . rocks. Most of ‘em just like these.

That’s the problem with Alaska. Have a random pile of rocks? Make it part of a national park.

As we closed in on the Arctic Circle, lots of things went through my mind, but the continually repeating one is that we were nearly 200 miles from the nearest spare auto parts and wrecker, and I’m driving a car that I maintained. The road continued to be good, and aside from the few times that I hit washboarding so bad that my car was essentially no longer rolling but bouncing from the tops of these (not so good for steering control) I’ve got to say that the road was far better than I’d expected.

Also, there were occasional signs to lighten the mood in the car:

Yeah, the sign really says that. No trees around here, either. Beavers musta got ’em. Either that or Meryl Streep clear cut the tundra.

NEXT: The Arctic Circle and Home Again

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2006

“It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.” – Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark

This one is the standard tourist shot, except for the Bermuda Shorts and black socks.

Up the road we continued, seeing the same pipe and the same tundra for miles and miles. The tundra itself is a very thin layer of usable soil, while underneath is a biological wasteland devoid of life. I imagine this is much like the surface of Keanu Reeves’ brain.

We finally, after traversing Beaver Slide, made it to . . . The Arctic Circle. Inexplicably, the road is again paved at about this point, marking the first paving in about seventy miles of road.

Most tourists take a picture of the front of the sign. We did, too. We also took a picture of the back of the sign. Seems like you should not allow certain people to have spray paint, but, what the heck. They didn’t mess with the front, so we could get a nice picture.

Even the vandals in Alaska are nice.

Most people stopped, got out, took a picture and left. Probably a good idea. I don’t think basking in the circleness of the Arctic makes you smarter or anything, even though the Arctic Circle line is moving about 45 feet (57 meters) a year to the north. It’s really a case of been there, done that. I emptied the gas can that I’d brought into the tank again, lamenting (slightly) that I’d brought a vehicle that had 137,000 some-odd miles on it. I reassured myself that I’d only have to push it halfway home, since each hill has another side, right?

We stopped at the Hot Spot Café on our way back home. Any other place in the world, the Hot Spot would be known as “three construction trailers.” In Alaska, it’s an outpost of civilization.

Think about it . . . the Hot Spot doesn’t have electricity from a utility, there’s no phone, there’s no mail delivery, and the credit card that I used may not be billed for some time, since they used one of those old-time card imprint machines to make the slip.

The Mrs. was looking at buying a shirt. The Hot Spot Café logo is . . . a naked girl in a coffee cup. I didn’t know that The Mrs. would approve of such a purchase, yet here she was buying a shirt with a nude chick on it. Hmm. Here’s what it looks like:

Okay, perhaps I made this out to be bigger than it was. But, women, coffee, and burgers. Is that heaven or what?

As you can see I bought the hat pin version. The Mrs., after seeing that she would be advertising unclothed women was a bit aghast, and put the shirt back on the shelf, like she had touched a lizard. I noticed that the shirt was stacked right under rack of sling shots with the Hot Spot logo right in the center of some silky material. In actuality, The Mrs. informed me that those weren’t sling shots, but thong underwear. I decided not to buy a pair because I thought they weren’t in my color.

Even bears like the Hot Spot.

I wanted to buy gas at the Hot Spot, but apparently the pump had been broken since Nixon was president, and they sent me down the road a half a mile to where the pumps were working. On the way I mused about what life would be like on the Yukon. The Mrs. indicated that I would die, lacking the Internet.

I bought gas on the banks of the Yukon at $3.79, only $1.00 more than in Fairbanks. The couple in front of us bought 220 gallons for their boat. I remarked that was a lot of gas, but The Mrs. pointed out that running out of gas on the Yukon River might be a bad idea, what with the starving to death and all.

If Indiana Jones had a boat, it would look just like this, and be right where this one is.

On the way home I ran into some folks that had thrown a tire. I stopped to help and saw an acquaintance helping out, so I lent my jack. Turns out my acquaintance had just stopped to help some people he didn’t know. Fairbanks is like that.

Finally, home. Cold beer.

Been there.

Done that.

The mud from the Haul Road covered the Wildermobile in a fine dirt patina, about a quarter-inch thick. If I did this trip a few more times, I could have a really dirty car.

I don’t want to live in a pipe, buttmunch!” – Beavis, Beavis and Butthead

Ho-Hum. More Alaska landscapes. .

During our few, blessed miles of pavement, there was a scenic overlook, complete with those steel thingys that the Committee of Old School Teachers (COST) puts information on that only a school teacher would be interested in, and then, only if it was in their subject. Things like, “Cortez discovered he had hemorrhoids at this location in 1522. Amazing!”

In typical Alaska-fashion, these steel sign holders were blank, the signs either removed to patch a camper shell, or, more likely, were never installed. Well, not entirely blank. Someone named Rachel Lovelace was there on Aug. 29, 2006. Likewise, someone had left very good instructions on the steel surface in pencil:

The other thing about the Haul Road is that there are very few bathrooms. By bathrooms, I mean bathrooms with doors. As to other bathrooms, well, there’s 416 miles of them, 832 if you count both sides of the road.

As you drive up the road, you can’t help but notice that something’s following you. It’s the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. It’s sneaky the way it meanders up and down the hills, sometimes poking underground for a while. I guess that’s okay. Pipe can be sneaky if it wants to be, especially if it’s carrying sweet, sweet oil. But it’s still boring. Pipe is just a fancy hole.

The other things following you are trucks and other rubberneckersexplorers. A group of us got caught by construction on the road and had to wait about twenty minutes for the road to re-open so we could follow the pilot car through. It was there that we encountered the first flat. It wasn’t ours, but rather a fellow gawker explorer. He waved off our offer of help, and continued spinning lug nuts on his Toyota pickup. Since he was in full view while we were waiting for the construction to let us through, I can tell you that NASCAR is not looking for his application, at least based on how long it took for him to change the tire. Watching the Pipe was more exciting.

Driving on the road is a bit of a hammering experience. Tundra, taiga, big rocks, and, well, that’s about it.

Then, finally, Nirvana: something exciting to look at. The Yukon. After looking at scraggly trees for 140 miles, seeing not only a river but a riverwas wonderful.

First glimpse of a new river. I believe I’ll call it Wilder River. Perhaps not, since that sounds like a water park. Maybe I’ll settle on something like John’s River instead. Yeah, that has a ring to it.

The Yukon River is about 2,000 miles (17,000 cubits) long, though I cannot vouch for that personally. It carries 227,000 cubic feet per second (7 liters per minute) as an average annual flow. I strongly suspect that someone just made that last number up. Maybe it was Cortez.

Next: The Bridge and Beyond

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2006

“Captain Picard to the bridge. We’ve got a problem with the warp core or the phase inducers or some other damn thing.” – Geordi, Star Trek TNG

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign. But this one is cool. 

As I said when last we were chatting, the view of the bridge over the mighty Yukon (as in, “Yukon, Ho!” which was finally replaced by the more mundane “Life in Alaska” because I didn’t want people to think I ran a string of women with tight parkas and loose morals) was refreshing. After seeing miles and miles of wonderful trees and panoramic mountain vistas, I was really in the mood to see a big hunk of steel sitting on concrete.

The name “Yukon” refers to either “great river” in a native Alaskan language, Gwich’in or the University of Connecticut.” The river’s basketball team sucks, but I still like it better than UConn. I digress. The bridge is known as the E. L. Patton bridge, which makes me think of George C. Scott in a Zorro mask . . . el Patton: “Ah, Señor Rommel, mí casa es sú casa, eh?”

I’m ever so glad that there aren’t termites in Alaska (really, no termites there). The water looked cold. And deep.

The bridge itself is composed of concrete, steel and . . . wood. Now many of you recognize the great affinity that I have for cutting, hauling, and burning wood. As a bridge deck when you’re above a big, deep, cold river? Well, if the trucks can make it, I guessed we could.

The Boy was in a state of excitement. A big river, a big bridge, and lots of trucks. What’s not to like?

Looking east on the Yukon. I think that there are fish in water, which is why I prefer beer.

The biggest settlement we would see all day is on the north side of the Yukon. I’ll give more info on that in a later post. Let’s just say it involves naked women living in champagne glasses. How’s that for a teaser?

Pulling about five miles north of the bridge, there’s Five Mile Airport. It’s owned by Alyeska, the folks that run the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. As far as airports go, this one is unique. Landing a plane requires that the Dalton Highway be shut down. The Dalton runs right by the strip, and I could have gotten all the light bulbs I’d ever need if we had stopped. Unfortunately none of my light fixtures are “airport” rated.

The terrain changes as you go farther north, trees becoming scarcer as the Arctic Circle comes nearer. The terrain has a stark, barren beauty, like New Mexico or Meryl Streep. You can tell that the weather pushes to harsh extremes. You can tell that there’s no beer store close.

If Meryl Streep were a landscape, I think she’d look like this.

Next: Finger Rock and Farther North

Following are some posts for while I’m off on yet another Wilder expedition – our shuttlecraft is stocked with provisions.  These are vintage September, 2006, right before we moved to Houston.  Enjoy!

“He might as well ride along with us; Hell, everybody else is.” – The Outlaw Josey Wales
Yeah, it’s a cool roadsign. Wonder if it would fit in my basement?

As long as I’ve been in Alaska, I’ve wanted to go up beyond the Arctic Circle. The Arctic Circle is the point north of which where (astronomically speaking) there’s a day without the Sun ever crossing the horizon (December 21st). In the summer, it’s the point north of which where the Sun won’t ever go down (June 21st). It’s at 66º33’ North latitude.

My obsession to reach a spot surveyed on a map, as determined by the (more or less) random arrangement of the Sun, Earth, and, for all I know, Keebler Cookies™ led me to state that September 3, 2006 was the day we were going. In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea to start watching The Outlaw Josey Wales at 11:45PM the night before, but, heck, it is Clint Eastwood. As it ended up, I didn’t wrestle The Mrs. for the last beer, I was gracious and ceded it after a spirited Ro-Sham-Bo (Ro-Sham-Bo comes from some French words, so for all I know it could be spelled Reaux-Xchampres-Beau). The Mrs. was up before I, and we (groggily) got the gang ready for transit to the Arctic.

Okay, that’s just a cool sentence, primarily because it’s true. One foot over the Arctic Circle, you’re in the Arctic. On foot behind, you’re not.

To get ready, we packed:

• Four Spare Tires
• Floor Jack
• Jackets
• Food
• Guns (it’s Alaska, okay?)
• Whiskey for Bullet Wounds
• Gas Can (with four gallons gas)

As it is, the only road I know of in Alaska that can get you to the Arctic is the Haul Road, or Dalton Highway, which is of course named for actor Timothy Dalton, who played James Bond. Locals call it the Haul Road, because they’re still irked about Dalton’s portrayal of Bond.

The Haul Road is the road that they used to build the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. It’s the road still used to get mail, pipe, PEZ™ dispensers, and whatever else you couldn’t to put on a boat during the fifteen or so minutes a year when you can take a boat up to Prudhoe Bay. Prudhoe Bay is, of course, the place where the sweet, sweet oil comes from.

Primarily, the road is intended for truckers, not cool-headed Arctic Explorers in Ford Explorers® heading up to rubberneck collect scientific data.

This is a sign on the road. No counties, no boroughs, just a mining district. I guess that means that only mining law is in effect, and so technically The Mrs. is a claim. Works okay. You know what happens to claim jumpers.

Just getting to the haul road from Fairbanks requires driving up the Steese Highway (named for Wilberforce Steese, inventor of the Floo-Bee®) to a mining down named Fox, followed by a trip up the Elliot Highway (named for Sam Elliot, star of Road House) to the start of the Haul Road. Just outside Fox the first sign shows up saying that the next services are 118 miles away. That’s the sort of sign that you don’t see everywhere, except in desolate godforsaken locations like Wyoming, northern Canada, or Oakland.

Next: Start of the Haul Road

 (You don’t have to wait days to read part II  – it’s right below!!)

“I honestly don’t think we’re going to find the Grand Canyon on this road.” –  Vacation

Pretty early on in the trip I saw this truck. My immediate concern was that we were driving into some post-apocalyptic Mad-Max scenario, and I had left my midget and steel-spiked shoulder pads at home.

We made it to the Haul Road. The first I ever heard of the Haul Road was during my first visit to Fairbanks. Over the Hertz® counter there’s a sign that says your rental car will immediately burst into flame if you go on the Haul Road. Beyond that, Hertz™ then lays claim to your soul and any EverQuest stuff you have. The warnings were strong.

If you noted from my earlier post, I said I took four spare tires for the trip. Actually, that’s wrong. I took five spare tires, because the one that comes with the car was packed between the tires under the axle. An aside: you’re just got a flat. You’re irritated. Some goofball in Detroit then puts the spare so you have to crawl under the car to access it. Does that make sense to anyone? You’re in trouble, so we’ll torture you by design for a while? It’s like credit card companies designed that part of the car.

I digress. The speed limit sign is one of the first things you see on the Haul Road. It indicates that the speed limit is 50 MPH (342km/s) for the next 416 miles. I thought about that, and it made sense. If you have a road that has exactly one way in, and exactly one way out, why would you need more than one speed limit sign? It’s not like you could seriously make an argument that you didn’t know the speed limit because you just got on the road.

Missing was the sign that said, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” or, “Here be dragons,” or “Hertz® now owns your soul, keep it clean.”

The next nineteen miles were rough road. By rough, whenever we went up an incline, the stereo would vibrate out of the cavity that holds it, as if it were attempting to break out of its cocoon and become an I-Pod®. The Mrs. and I took turns holding it in place. Inexplicably, nineteen miles up the haul road, the rough, washboard dirt road turns into (fairly) smooth asphalt.

Immediately I began wondering. Was the whole “rough Haul Road” thing a ruse? Do we just tell stories to scare people away?

Here’s the road at mile 19. Look, Ma, no dirt.

No. The paved section (complete with road signs) disappeared a few miles after it started. It was, essentially, a tease. I was like the AKDOT said, “Hey, guys, we could pave this if we really wanted, but, no, we really don’t. Well, now you know what the road could be like.”

It was about this point that I saved The Boy’s life. I had mentioned the day before that we were going up the Dalton Highway. I did this because The Boy must know the name of any road we find ourselves on. Immediately, the little meat microprocessor (his term, really) interpreted “Dalton Highway” as “Dolphin Highway.” I guess he doesn’t like Timothy Dalton, either.

I saved his life by having him stop saying “Dolphin Highway” after he’d done it about 332 times. That’s about the limit The Mrs. has. Fortunately, he never said, “Are we there yet?”