The previous post showed my Glennallen window view as melancholy. Fortunately for me, the start of my last ride of this tour looked a bit more upbeat. Sun makes a big difference. OK, maybe it does not make all the difference…

This was mostly a riding day, with a destination celebration at the end. So this post is mostly photos. To Anchorage, 190 miles. A special challenge was to arrive with my tank almost empty. Which is a requirement for shipping the bike.

Road Views

I am separating out photos of just the road. Hopefully they convey a feeling for what riding feels like. Obviously, you want to click on the images to get the full effect.

Along the Road

The road from Glennallen to Anchorage runs along the Wendell-St.Elias National Park. As mentioned earlier, it is the largest US National Park, and about the size of Switzerland.

Notice in the top row, middle image that we see three glaciers emerging.

Well, Anchorage

This is a museum I’d love to see, but will miss. It’s only open Friday and Saturday: The Alaska Law Enforcement Museum. Damn! It’s probably the ‘no sales tax, we’re Libertarians up here!!!’ effect.

But I celebrated my safe arrival after 3,760 miles at a steak house. It was the one with a bunch of dollar signs next to it in the TripAdvisor list. Though, frankly, prices are just kind of like the Bay Area. Which is why I might go to that restaurant again today!

Bad IT, Bad Management—Potent Mix

The Ramada Inn room here in Anchorage is fine. But they advertise free wifi, which is a solar burst of a euphemism. When I arrived I saw a poster: Wi-Fi will be out for 2-4 hours. We apologize.

Feel free to skip this section. I need to write it, though.

By evening, still no wifi. I descend to the reception:

“Oh yeah, they changed the wifi you now use ‘Ramada. wifi’, and you need a code. Here, I’ll staple it to your key card sleeve.”

Bad IT

I’ll spare you the details, but do you see how to enter your code?

If you caress the screen with your finger in the area between Enter Access Code, and Select a Package, a keyboard will appear.

The Login button is still grayed out even after you enter the code. Ah, I need to acknowledge the T&Cs. How to do that?

You see the checkbox where you acknowledge acceptance of the T&Cs? I don’t either. It’s present, yet cleverly camouflaged so the enemy user won’t spot it. But if you feel around with your finger near the prompt, you’ll eventually see a check mark on top of the Alaska map.

It does not take a focus group to recognize that this screen design needs work.

And you know what? When I went through this procedure yesterday, the user interface was entirely different. And just as bad. But I had figured that one out, as did the staff. What you see here is today’s version, and I have not figured that one out, because the Login button is still grayed out.

Bad Management

OK, so they have that access code system now. As mentioned, I successfully connected yesterday. But my code expired at 9pm. I visited the reception again, my nightly appearance there. They understand the problem. And they are trying to reach their manager, because there are no more printed codes.

“Give us an hour.”

I went to sleep instead. Thus, no Bones episode last night. I sleep badly, because watching the show is my nightly ritual during the tour.

This morning, no wifi. Again, me leaning on the reception desk. They explain:

“The folder with the access code is protected in the computer. We can’t even see the codes, let alone print out the slips. The manager says she will be here in four minutes.”

An hour later, she has not arrived.

Oh, and, of course, last night my door key also expired. But they understood at the reception how to fix that.

Unconsummated Assertiveness

Today is museum day, so, around noon I set out. As I get dressed I make a decision:

“If wifi is still not available when I pass the reception in two minutes, I will request a deduction from the night’s price.”

I weigh describing my thought as:

“If wifi is not available when I pass the reception in two minutes, I will demand a deduction from the night’s price.”

But, admittedly, the thought of seeking a price reduction feels so difficult to accomplish that I stay with ‘request’. My problem is that demands never got me anywhere as a child. Anger, and demanding was never a successful strategy. The adults in my life only ever allowed a positive outcome for me if I requested. That early experience has generalized to how I reflexively interact with Ramada Inn reception staff today.

Then there is the question of how much of a discount to request. Is $50 outrageous? Not enough for the irreparable harm I have suffered?

I take the stairs instead of the elevator, to delay the moment of assertiveness a bit longer. But when I hold on to that reception counter, I look the man in the eye, and ask:

“So, did the manager show up?”

“She did not,” he regrets. “What I will do, though, is deduct $75 from your stay tonight.”

What do you do with unconsummated assertiveness? It doesn’t just resorb into one’s psyche. For me, the energy dissolves into grateful stammering:

“Why, that is wonderful. Thank you. The very thing I was thinking too. Really nice of you, for sure. Good God, how nice that is.”

I tear myself away to visit the museum.

To the Anchorage Museum

Here is a store you won’t see in California. Though I admit, the merchandise was beautiful, and felt sublime.

The Forbidden Store

The stickers on the store door were a bit disconcerting. But oh well:

Subversive Murals

The Anchorage Museum

Anchorage has several museums. I contemplate the Alaska Museum of Science and Nature. In part because of this image, which headlines the museum’s Web site section on Donating and Supporting:

This image, I’m sure without justification, reminds me of a teacher explaining:

“This is what happens to children who don’t…”

Unfortunately, the museum is open only Thursday to Saturday. Today is Wednesday. Likely another unacknowledged consequence of:

“No sales or income tax up here, you socialist lower 48s”

So I decide for the sizable Anchorage Museum.

Jungian Connection Between Indians and Germans

In the museum planetarium’s Above Alaska show I learn all about the Aurora Borealis. I get to witness the phenomenon all around me in the room’s dark dome.

The important background I learn from the introductory speaker:

“The Vikings thought the green nebulae were traces of mythical creatures that accompany fallen warriors to Valhalla.”

Reasonable explanation, to a point.

The Indians thought the apparitions were manifestations of the ancestors. And to their children those Indians explained:

“Whenever you see these green veils, you must whistle. Otherwise the spirits come down, rip off your head, and play soccer with it.”

Now, that’s the spirit of German child raising. An archetypal bridge from the Inuit to Krauts. You see how my issues around demanding discounts from Ramada Inn receptionists come about?

Smithsonian Arctic Exhibit

In a beautifully created collaboration with the Smithsonian the showcases below are organized South to North, As you move along, you see artifacts from tribes of those regions:

A native person, who identified as Eskimo, delivered a great guided tour through this collection. He co-designed the exhibit, and added some background for us:

He began by apologizing for him explaining all the display cases, that is details about all the respective tribes, rather than just the Eskimo display, which he lived as a child.

“These cultures are so different, it is as if a Norwegian explained to you the cultures of Sicily, Hungary, and Spain, in addition to his native Norway.”

Remember the Tlingit [pronounced Klingit] native people with whom I interacted in the Yukon? They are the same tribe as the population here around Anchorage. The inland Tlingit moved to the Yukon in the early 18th C., and the two populations share a language, which is entirely different from the more prevalent Athabaskan language groups, which share similarities with tribes all the way down to Navajos and Apaches.

What I did not know is that the coastal group were quite the warriors. Our guide told of an old Tlingit tribe elder, who showed him the two bladed dagger the tribe used when things got hostile:

“He was quite an old man, and moved slowly. But when he picked up this dagger, the years fell away from him. He went through fast, continuous fluid motions that covered all the area around him.”

Our guide explained:

“When this knife came out, it only returned to its sheath when all enemies had run, or were down on the ground.”

Our guide smiled:

“Whenever you are in meetings with Tlingits today, it won’t take long before one of them calls out: ‘Tlingits!!! Never defeated.’

And then we all say ‘yeeees, we know…’”

In fact, the Russians tried to subdue the Coastal Tlingits in the 19th C., and failed. They thought they’d enslaved the tribe, not knowing that what they thought of as slaves, were selected warriors, the woman and children safely spirited away to inland areas.

The Russians had these ‘slave’ Tlingits construct a fort, which they did. But they included a tunnel to the inside, about which the Russians did not know. Various battles ensued. Whenever Russians prevailed, they were picked off in the forests where they needed to find food.

Sick of the consequent starvation, the Russians entered into a treaty with the Tlingits. Equal parties. This treaty worked great, until the Russians sold the entire area to the Americans, without telling the Tlingits.

My guide was clearly ridiculing white science a couple of times.

“We knew that Bowhead whales lived a long time. We kept telling the white scientists for years, and they discounted our stories as legend.

Until we found a whale with a stone arrow embedded in the blubber. We left that in, and called in those scientists.

They were all excited about what they had discovered. They wrote their papers about it…”

One more tidbit: one exhibit in the Eskimo section was an ice scraper. Seals lie on the ice, with half a brain asleep. They periodically lift their head to listen for danger. If they detect none, the head goes down again, and the seal makes a scraping sound on the ice, which assures other seals that all is well.

The Eskimos used their scraper to imitate that all clear scraping sound. They truly needed to understand seal behavior. To see a seal hunt with ice scraper, check out this movie , advancing to 9:30.

And yes, he said ‘Eskimo.’ I asked why the word seems to be forbidden in California. He thinks it’s a generational thing.

Return to the Hotel

Back at the Ramada Inn I approach the counter.

“Was the wifi issue resolved?”

Exactly, word for word like last night when I approached the evening shift I get:

“I don’t know anything. Whatever it was, it was before I got here.”

But boy am I ready. With a voice loud enough for others to hear:

“Oh, then, let me fill you in. The manager this morning promised to be here within four minutes, …”

“Let me check in the back,” my evening receptionist interrupts.

I end up on the ‘Ramada Employees’ wifi, which works great. Rather than assertion, shaming seems to have worked great!

11pm Surprise

Same evening. A sharp metallic clang at the door. A deep voiced maile has successfully unlocked the door, and is struggling against the metal security latch. I slam the door shut, yell at him, and call the reception. They assure me they’ll take care of it.

Next, at midnight, for an hour, someone in the next room seems to rearrange every piece of heavy furniture. Running into the shared wall, rolling across the floor.

I understand the need for Feng Shui, but after midnight?

Dropping off the Motorcycle

My appointment is 3pm at a warehouse and light industrial part of town. Nobody is usually there, therefore the appointment with Mike.

Above left, my date venue; on the right, a view across the street. Just under the clouds, a steady threesome of fighter planes banking at angles I did not dare try on my Bumblebee motorccyle.

I’m forty minutes early, because I did not trust the 6 minutes to destination from hotel to date venue prediction of Google maps. The ride was six minutes. I disrobe in the street to execute a complicated packing procedure of items I had to wear for those six minutes, but don’t want on the plane home. Boots, heavily armored pants. I did remember wearing bicycle shorts underneath, rather than my paper underwear. But nobody in this area of town would have cared. Had there been anyone.

When it starts raining I take refuge next door: the Alaska Fuel Systems Inc.

The guy inside explains what they do. They install, maintain, and fix fuel pumps across the State. They fly to remote villages to fix their pumps. More interestingly, they fly into the middle of nowhere, deep in the mountains to maintain FAA fuel facilities that run generators 24/7 for air traffic control signaling equipment.

We get into motor cycle talk. He and his buddy tell me about all the incredible rides I missed along the way. I try to think of all the beauty that I did see, so as not to sink in self recrimination.

No Mike at 3:15pm. I leave a message and he calls back. He was inside the entire time. Really? Might he have opened that gate as a sign? Here is why he did not:

The FBI and State police contract with Classic Motion—Vehicle Storage—Motorcycle Crating and Transport to store impounded vehicles. That’s why the gate must remain closed. So, my Bumblebee is in great vehicular company. Vicariously brushing up against crime.

The bike will show up in San Jose at some point. First carried by barge, then by one of the trucks of which I have seen so many on this trip. I’ll be responsible for the uncreating. Therefore my relief that I won’t deal with a wooden contraption as on the right.

The Schachnovelle Enacted

In the 60s I saw a German film adaptation of Stefan Zweig’s Die Schachnovelle. The film’s impression on me has lasted all my life. I don’t know whether the movie would still affect me today. I don’t even know whether I remember the details correctly. The reason for the deep impression on me is that I have since wondered whether I could withstand brainwashing attempts.

The plot’s important part for me is a man locked by Nazi forces into a nice hotel room, but without outside contact, or stimulation, other than an accidentally available book on past master chess games. The only intentional auditory stimulation he is afforded is a slowly dripping water faucet. The goal of the Nazi captors is to force the man through psychological torture to reveal secrets.

The man slowly loses his mind as per the captors’ design, except for the book, which he memorizes and reproduces with chess figures fashioned from food crumbs. Soon, he no longer needs the physical manifestations; the games obsessively play out in his brain.

The dripping faucet, innocuous at first, turns out to be a brutal assault on the man’s mind over time.

Well, my Ramada Inn room has just such a faucet.

Around Town

On my way to the tour pickup in downtown Anchorage:

And yet, looking at the store below, the arts community feels a bit, I don’t know, defensive? Half-hearted? Overly introverted?

Manly, but Incomplete

I love stores like the one below. It’s for contractors, construction workers, maybe firemen. The store specializes on outfitting eye candy guys for woman:

And yet…no condoms at the cash register! Where is their marketing guy? Maybe he’s too gay for the owner to employ. But fortunes could be made. It’s like the diminutive merchant selling shovels to gold miners.

Last Day in Anchorage

This section will be fast, because I had both, a Merlot, and a Margarita, and because I need to get up for my flight tomorrow. I took a tour that bussed us first to a large-animal rescue center. It holds wolves, bears, musk ox, wood bison, and more.

The second part was a boat ride on a glacier lake that was formed by the Portage Glacier, one of 29 birthed from an ice field.

The driver and guide is married to a native, and has done tours for, I think 30 years. His presentation through the 5.5hrs was rich, clearly well informed, and massively extroverted. He was very likable, and clearly dedicated to delivering a lasting experience. Given that he does this every day, including Winter, I don’t know where he takes the genuine, wild river stream like enthusiasm.

I felt bludgeoned by his extroversion and information flow. I would recommend the tour, but maybe work up to it after spending 1.5 months on a solitary motorcycle tour.

Just a quick mix of videos and images.