Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Apparently my office is surrounded by this great place called Alaska. So I thought I should get out and take a look at it.

My friend, Dennis Zaki, and I have been talking about taking the families on a camping trip for two years now.  Finally I ran out of excuses and we planned to hit the road last Sunday night. Oh boy?

I loaded up the old Durango, made sure my I-Phone was fully charged, and headed off to Sutton, Alaska.


Yep that's Sutton, Alaska on that map. What? You can't get a good idea of what Sutton is like from just looking at a map?

Well here let me show you a picture.

 
What? You would like to see more of Sutton? Well you my friend are out of luck because, besides the fire station where we were standing when we took this picture, this IS Sutton, Alaska.

You see in Alaska the difference between "town" and "smattering of buildings built fairly close together" is virtually non-existent.

I do believe the founding of most towns goes something like this:

"Hey Frank, did you notice that somebody went and built a bait shop next to the gas station/house of ill repute?"

"Yeah I did."

"Well daggumit, I think we got ourselves a town here Frank!  Whatchyou wanna call it?"

"Hell, let's name it something purdy, like Chlamydia."

"Nah, don't be ignorant, that sounds too French!  Let's call it something that will always demand respect, like Wasilla!"

"Perfect!"

(So now you know how Wasilla got its name. Go ahead, look it up!)

From Sutton (Or as I called it, "That building standing all by itself.") we turned left and headed up toward the area where Dennis swore there were tons of fossils to hunt and a breathtaking view of the mountains.

That was the good news.

The bad news is that THIS was the road that led to it.


Yes, in Sutton THAT is considered a "road."

I knew it would be difficult when I passed a mountain goat walking the other way shaking his head and going "Fuck that, I am going back."

But I am an Alaskan dammit. so onward we go.

It really wasn't so bad if you drove three miles and hour and kept your sphincter squeezed shut the entire time. (Here is the link to the video that Dennis shot just in case you think I am exaggerating.) Finally we got past the rough part, and I stopped to stretch my legs and do a little vomiting.


Okay back to the vehicle. (If you are noticing my gray hair I should probably inform you that it was golden brown when I started up that "road.")

On the way to the campsite we stopped to collect fossils. 


 As you can see there were indeed fossils. LOT'S of them. The kids LOVED it!


We also found some petrified wood. (Insert Hugh Hefner Viagra joke here.)


After finding about two dozen fossils, and feeding the local mosquitoes until they were too full to fly and could only stumble drunkenly along the path, we got back into the Durango and headed to the campsite.


Okay you have to admit that IS pretty gorgeous!

Before we built our fire, and burnt ourselves some dinner, we decided to pitch our tents.(You know I have such a juvenile sense of humor that I had to lower my head to hide the smile that spread across my face every time somebody said "pitch a tent." No it is not likely that I will grow up any time soon, but thanks for asking.)


Dennis pitched his tent ("giggle") near the edge of the cliff because he wanted to have the best view of the mountains in the morning. I informed him that where I pitched my tent ("snicker") I had virtually the same view while completely avoiding the risk of stepping out to urinate in the middle of the night and plunging to my death. He was not amused.

After we ate we started talking politics. We talked about Rupert Murdoch's crumbling empire, the insanity of the Teabaggers, and puzzled as to why people were still fooled by Sarah Palin's magically fluctuating breast size.

After we had exhausted those subjects, and many more, we turned in.

Though the view was spectacular, the ground was so hard that I got up several times in the night to check and see if somebody had paved under my sleeping bag when I was not looking.  There was no pavement, but I swear that the ground was so unyielding that I woke up with bruises on my soul.

I was also trying to find a signal for my I-Phone to moderate comments and check e-mails while lying in my tent, which had me flailing my hand around like a lunatic for much of the night. (I did manage to moderate over a 120 comments despite poor service, and shooting pains in my back from lying on the section of petrified earth that was serving as my bed. You're welcome.)

After a fitful night I awoke at 5:30 A.M. (just like every morning) to get my cup of hot coffee and surf the internet, before suddenly realizing there was NO coffee, and there was NO internet. WTF? Who lives like this?

However the view that morning WAS pretty stunning.


After building a fire, and leaning over the cliff to snag a signal in order to moderate more comments, and to make sure my robo-posts posted successfully, I kind of got bored. After all, I am an internet junkie who is always surrounded by multiple electronic devises feeding me information 24 hours a day.

In other words, I was jonesing bad!

I wandered around for about an hour, peed on some bushes, and prepared a blueberry bagel with cream cheese for my breakfast. About that time everybody else started getting up as well, and after all of the others were fed, Dennis and I looked at each other and realized that we had squeezed pretty much all of the entertainment value out of the whole camping thing and needed to get back to our jobs, coffee, and, of course, the internet.

So we packed up our things, peed one more time on the bushes, and started on the long roller coaster like drive down the mountain. (Just as harrowing the second time as the first time, by the way.)

All in all it WAS a lot of fun.  But after I arrived home I remembered what is always my favorite part of the whole camping experience, and that is the long hot shower I take afterwards.

Oh did THAT feel GOOOOOD!

We are currently in discussion about another overnight camping trip. I have no idea when, or where, we might go, but Dennis just vetoed my first suggestion of camping in my backyard so I can access my Wi-Fi all night and have a hot cup of coffee in the morning.

Some people are SO difficult.

(Here is a panoramic view that Dennis stitched together using several photos, so that you can enjoy the same view we did without having your fillings knocked loose on the way up.) 



49 comments:

  1. Virginia Voter2:16 AM

    What? No wine coolers?

    He, he.

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  2. angela2:19 AM

    Hysterical Gryphen!

    Unlike you--some of us no longer drink coffee while perusing the internet in the morning. Too many jolts to the senses. Also, some mornings there are bloggers who are funny as hell and in true spewing fashion, the old laptop has been drenched enough.

    I love uncomfortable camping stories though; its why hotels are my only campgrounds.

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  3. Anonymous2:30 AM

    Oh, my, the pictures are breathtaking! Glad you survived TWO trips on that impressive 'road!' I amazed that you got any kind of wifi service out there though. Good job!

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  4. ManxMamma2:39 AM

    That panorama is truly gorgeous. But I'm with you Gryphen. I need some creature comforts in my old age. Not that I'm calling you old. Just saying.

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  5. Anonymous2:47 AM

    What a great way to start the day....Thanks again Gryphen for the smile, warm heart, and giggle. So when is the book coming?????? If you don't have one in the works, then I will have to doubt your sanity.

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  6. Anonymous2:48 AM

    Beautiful pictures, thanks for sharing!

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  7. London Bridges2:57 AM

    Ah! I have a propane stove and a Coleman percolator coffee pot. When I camp, I light the stove and boil up some coffee. Heaven on earth in the quiet morning.

    However, the last time I camped, someone stole my propane tank which I had left under the picnic table at my site. Woke up. No coffee that A.M. Bummer. Next day with new tank, the coffee was better than ever.

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  8. HAHAHA!!!
    Oh Gryphen, you crack me UP! I loved this and it wss a great read this early morning. You have such a way with words and I love you for it.
    Fantastic trip. Totally agree about that hot shower after a camping trip. I agree it's the best part! Who knew?

    Love the fossils, by the way. How awesome!

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  9. Beautiful pictures, wonderful narrative....it was at moments just like being there.

    Alaska is breathtaking but since the calendar has complicated my sense of adventure, I thank you for the vicarious camping experience.

    I am so interested in the arrowhead looking mountain in your photo, any history? a name? Reminds me of a smaller, naked version of my favorite Mt McLoughlin here in So Oregon.

    Thx for the little trip and additional thanks for your shared wisdom and spirit appreciated by a whole bunch of internet junkies in search of the truth.

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  10. Warrior893:55 AM

    Very enjoyable read - damn, Gryphen...you are funny!!!

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  11. Thanks for that. You live in a beautiful state.

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  12. Anonymous4:02 AM

    Sounds like my night, but was in my own bed. Coffee just about done and my eyes are open now. At least you didn't have rain all night. Glad I wasn't in a tent or facing that ride down the mountain. Going to be an interesting day. Cheers!

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  13. Anonymous4:05 AM

    Ah Gryph, that area brings back fond memories! We live in FL now, having moved here last year from AK (we lived 20 miles North of Willow,just off the Parks, but that was a fave atv riding area. I can vouch for the roads - whoa! Of course the view is supremo!
    Brett

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  14. Anonymous4:13 AM

    Thank you for the photos and humorous accounting of the outdoor adventure. It's important for dads to do something memorable with the kids.

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  15. Anonymous4:21 AM

    how many empty wine cooler bottles did Bristol leave at camp site?

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  16. Absolutely beautiful! Alaska has been calling my name for years now, even looked at job possibilities. I need to get there while I still can hike!

    The last time I went camping, the ground was merciless and I thought " wow,what happened to nestling into the ground like I used to?" Felt like the Princess and The Pea, every like pebble, twig felt magnified. lol...time for an air mattress or cot.

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  17. I wouldn't have a problem dealing without the internet, but no coffee?
    No fucking way!

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  18. Anonymous4:42 AM

    Thanks so much for your account of the trip and the pictures. This is my first summer in 10 years away from Alaska having moved to Iowa last year. I've been to that spot you went and it brought back a flood of memories.

    I sold my home in the valley, spent thousands of dollars to move and within six months I was trying to figure out how to come back and still am. Love that place, it gets under your skin.

    Hopefully by the time I come back the Wasilla grifter will have high tailed it out of there taking up residence in AZ. Then AK will no longer have Palin stains all over it. Thanks again for letting me live a bit vicariously through your account of the trip and the pictures. Loved it!

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  19. Anonymous4:53 AM

    One of your funniest posts ever. Enjoyed it. Glad you went out "into the wild," even if it were with a truck. How about camping on the Kuskokwim or Yukon Rivers sometime?

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  20. lwtjb5:08 AM

    Thank you for sharing this trip. It was great. It was also nostalgia for me. I've been there. It was an active coal mine then. What does that tell you about how old I am?

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  21. LoveAndKnishesFromBrooklyn5:10 AM

    I LOVED this! Gryphen, you're a hoot. I viewed this very early while I was still choking down the caffeine, and did have a "spew moment" when learning all about the christening of Wasilla. Loved the road (it has a name??) and reminded me of the beach access road to Breezy Point here, with the same kidney-rattling ruts and bumps. With the extra added attraction of almost always getting stuck behind someone with a pseudo SUV who thought they could "make it" and had to wait for someone with chains to pull them out. At least you can get a cell phone signal there.

    Thanks for sharing and glad you got back with some fossils (and not one with glasses, fake boobs and a bumpit).

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  22. Thanks for the great blow by blow, Gryphen. As an avid camper and photo blogger, I tend to have a running commentary in my head now when I camp. I've found that camping is even more fun when I relive it via photo blogging. Yours made me feel like I was tagging along. Thanks!

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  23. Beldar Skeeter Conehead5:28 AM

    Thats quite an adventure. You make it sound fun and beautiful and luke a place i'd want to visit again. Basically the opposite reaction to what i felt when hearing about the unreality show that was Screechy Wretch's Alaska. The Alaska tourism council thanks you!

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  24. Anonymous5:29 AM

    Your state looks beautiful. Hubby has been there, but I never had the opportunity.

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  25. Funny stuff! Going camping is the only time I can say I have ever truly had penis envy.

    Peeing in the bushes reminded me of this video. http://animalsbeingdicks.com/page/14

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  26. Anonymous5:38 AM

    Brought back memories of driving home with the kids in the Suburban - before our road was paved and maintained. The kids would sing "Bumpy Road, take me home, to the place I belong" to John Denver's Country Road song. (This was in Homer, AK)

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  27. Anonymous6:25 AM

    Thank you for that humorous, extremely well written, from-the-heart posting. I've never been to Alaska; nor, at this stage of my life, do I think I'll be able to ever go there. But when you write a little piece like this, it helps me envision it and, more importantly, FEEL it.

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  28. Anonymous6:28 AM

    What an adventure, especially being around the 50 age mark. You must still have it! Those roads would have hurt the asteroids and various joint and muscle aches of any 50-plus person, (especially hyper bladder types) with endless stops to "pee" and pulling out a few meds to take at appropriate times, like "it's time to eat and take my pill".

    What I can't figure is how teenagers, with no showers, bathrooms, no way to freshen up go camping and do the "Levi and Bristol" thing.

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  29. How could you go camping without a coffee kit!! Crazy!! Ours fits in a paper grocery sack: old [30-40 yrs] Coleman Sportster 1-burner, crappy aluminum pot from Goodwill, coffee cone, paper cone filters, pre-ground coffee, some kind of receptacle=heavenly mornings on a mountain side/riverbank/forest clearing, etc. We even keep an electric version of the coffee kit in case we're forced to sleep in crummy motels because of weather. Dang. No coffee in the morning at camp. That's too much roughing it for me.

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  30. Entertaining post and beautiful pictures!!

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  31. Anonymous7:06 AM

    Gryph, you are too funny! Loved your travelogue. Sometimes I wish you were able to do more of these types of posts because you're so goddamned hilarious and since you usually cover so many dark, depressing subjects, you don't get to be quite as light-hearted and silly. I have it all figured out now: you're really a goofball at heart, just one who happens to have an incisive and brilliant take on life. Goofball + smartypants = goodness.

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  32. Anonymous7:16 AM

    All work no play.....

    Glad you took some time to recharge.

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  33. Laughing out loud with coffee coming out nose!!!! THERMAREST, my friend!!!! Must have!
    I LOVE fossils! Care to share where this magical place in Sutton is? Or should I just look for that outrageous "road"?!

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  34. Anonymous7:38 AM

    And today I am thankful for morning coffee and the Internet, because wonderful Gryphen lives there. You're a treasure!

    ~Pogo

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  35. Anonymous7:49 AM

    Gorgeous view and love the post. I had to stifle giggles here at work.

    Personally I get a case of giggles anytime someone works in a comment about sphincters (thank you!) and colostomy bags. I'm almost 50 and I guess I'm not going to stop being immature anytime soon. It will probably be my fate that I will have a colostomy bag and then I won't think it's so funny.

    Thanks for a great post. I agree that you should write a book. You have really found your voice.

    R in NC

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  36. Anonymous8:05 AM

    I love your sense of humor and your love for the outdoors! That Zaki video made ME want some dramamine!

    Loving Geology and Earh Science, seeing the fossils made me recall the good times in school learning archeological techniques.

    Glad to see the real beauty of Alaska, as opposed to the fake beauty TLC tried to foist on us.

    Love the wine cooler comment by Virginia Voter.

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  37. Anonymous8:20 AM

    I loved reading about your camping trip! It reminded me that I need to go camping! And it is so fun to do in Alaska except for two things: no seem 'ems and sun on the tent at 2 a.m.

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  38. Anonymous10:10 AM

    LOL! Nice description - you should actually take up writing a book! (But, on the other hand: You CAN have your coffee while camping - just make the fire, and boil some water in a can (or a pot if you took one with you), and add some ground coffee (or instant one, if you need to...). Let the ground coffee settle to the bottom, and enjoy! (That is actually how they make coffee (no filters!) in some other, not-so-well-developed countries, like Indonesia, and the coffee is DELICIOUS!)

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  39. Anonymous10:39 AM

    awesome!

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  40. Anonymous10:50 AM

    Your bed for the night reminds me of the first and ONLY tent camping I've done in AK - up the Richardson Hwy and across the Denali Hwy. That was on a vacation, before I moved here. I thought I hated AK, but found after some soul searching that it was tent camping I hate. $P's RV would be just right for camping, IMO.

    BTW, are you aware that Wasilla spelled backward is All I Saw?

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  41. Anonymous11:08 AM

    great post, and beautiful photos!

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  42. Anonymous11:33 AM

    Outstanding photos! Like your gray hair too!

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  43. emrysa1:50 PM

    enjoyed the pics and the story, gryphen!

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  44. Anonymous2:54 PM

    Gryphen I have a 3ft tall by about 35ft long rock wall we built on our property that has these fossil rocks in it we went there and collected a bunch of them it looks real nice and was allot of work but was well worth it. They made some pretty landscaping.

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  45. Anonymous2:59 PM

    Do you realize that Alaska is likely the only state in the Union (maybe some places in Hawaii) that has air clean enough to still have "purple" mountain majesties, the way God made them?

    And that Sarah is Hell bend on reducing the number to zero states, because she thinks that is what God wants her to do?

    I read a few pages of Bailey's book every night.

    Since I quickly became addicted to Mud Flats and have read many other Alaskan blogs for the last two years, nothing surprising as come up.

    You guys were right on in just about every fact and evaluation, even to the brainwashed minions who fawn on her. And the body count as well.

    And she cheats in the pollings, reader's comments and probably a lot else as well.

    Congrats to you all for speaking truth even when the repercussions had to have hurt. Confirmation from inside her camp must be Sweeeeeet.

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  46. Anonymous5:01 PM

    Beautiful! Did your daughter and partner go along too? What a memory to have shared,if so. I know what you mean about the internet. My hard drive crashed and I was without regular internet availability for about 2-1/2 weeks. Argh. Caught a little on my new smartphone and ipad, but the signal was spotty. Anyway, congrats on the trip - I'm sure there's much more to see in your great state and we'll be waiting for the photographic evidence.
    ~physicsmom

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  47. Nice picture of your backside Gryphen. Mind if I have it printed in life size?

    That is some beautiful scenery. When my financial circumstances get better, number one on my to-do list is to go camping. Probably down in the Great Smokies so I can enjoy some mountains in the morning.

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  48. The place you camped is called Coyote Lake. We used to take the kids there a lot, when they were young, to look for fossils. Coyote Lake is one of the many local scars from the coal mining era there.

    I was taken aback by your disparaging description of Sutton, where a lot of my friends live. Maybe if you spent some time there, you'd be able to see it as a community, rather than as a caricature.

    Sutton was originally named Sutton Siding in 1918, by the Alaska Railroad. Early in the century, there were coal mines there and upriver at Chickaloon, which was the biggest Native village in the Matanuska River uplands, and still is. Both Sutton and Chickaloon have a healthy community of progressives, especially Chickaloon. The name of Sutton Siding was changed to Sutton in 1948, when a US post office was put in there. It was at community meetings in Sutton, back in 2005, that the coal bed methane scam was killed, largely through the efforts of a coalition of progressives, greens, libertarians and others from all over the political spectrum.

    Any time you and Dennis want a real tour of Sutton, give me a call.

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  49. Anonymous8:54 AM

    Oh that was hilarious.

    "which had me flailing my hand around like a lunatic for much of the night."

    was that another pitch tent joke?

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