Perhaps we’ll take the Alaska Marine Highway this time

So we’re starting to put together plans to drive the Alaska Highway again. Last time was a there-and-back again in 2002 that I still remember quite well. It was the second time I had driven it, and the first time with the whole family. I saw bears, beavers, a wolf, glaciers, waterfalls and countless other beautiful sights. And yet, I would just as soon never drive it again.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad I did it. I think everybody should drive it at least once. And once is good enough.

Last time was shortly before we moved from Washington back to Alaska. We pulled out of Washington in late July in a conversion van loaded with kids, coolers, clothes, spare car parts and tools. I still have the videotape. In the beginning, Glenny is filming the family standing in the driveway, early morning, getting ready to load up and head out. The kids are excited, jabbering away about the trip. Baby Portia is grinning in her car seat through the two teeth that she had (then as now, a perpetually happy little girl). I’m cracking jokes and then we all jump in the van. My beautiful, meticulously maintained, dark-blue and silver GMC van with custom wheels.

The next scene was taken later that evening. You can see the sun starting to set through the driver’s side window. I’m in full “cruise-control” mode, staring out the front window until I catch sight of Glenny filming and pester her to turn the camera somewhere else. There’s the boys in the back, singing and dancing while making jokes. You can hear ‘ABBA’ on the stereo (Glenny handled the music and what can I say? The girl likes her old disco. Yeech!)

Day 2 and there I am, standing in a parking lot looking intently on a map as we prepare to take the Stewart-Cassiar Highway (an alternate route that most people don’t take when they drive it.) Glenny makes a joke about me “being lost” (there’s just the one highway babe, kind of hard to get lost!) I’m actually trying to work out distance, converted to miles, likely spots for gas stations etc. Kids are still being silly although a little quieter now. Portia is grinning and there’s ABBA on the CD player. Wow.

Day 3 and we’re driving through the Yukon into Alaska. That evening was our arrival in Wasilla. But for now, Glenny is taking shots of the kids in the back as I drive. They look as though they’ve melted into the seats. Slack-jawed, eyes half closed and dazed, no dancing, no jokes. Portia gives a two-toothed grin at the camera and — oh, my sweet Lord — you can hear “Dancing Queen” on the stereo. How oh how did I make that drive without snapping at Glenny and (ahem) “losing” that CD while she was napping?

Day 4, after getting our first night’s sleep at Mom and Dad’s house. I’m filming this time. You can hear me practically sobbing as I tape my van, now a uniform shade of grey and brown from the road dust and mud. From a side-shot, you can literally gauge the thickness of the dead mosquitos on the grill, bug deflector and hood with a ruler. I’d been gone from Alaska too long, I had forgotten. (When we returned to Washington, it took me a full weekend to get it somewhat back to normal.)

What the video didn’t capture was the stop at a “restaurant” along the Cassiar Highway. Glenny couldn’t stand it anymore and wanted “out of this van now!” No more cooler food! I’m no fool so I pulled over at the first sign I saw that advertised food. She ordered the beef stroganoff and wow…they sure made it fast! After a minute we figured out that I had just shelled out $14 for a plate of Marie Calendar microwave noodles and beef. Mm. Yum. The video also didn’t capture the time I just couldn’t drive any farther and Glenny took the wheel.

This was in the Yukon on the way to Alaska border. I was exhausted and quickly fell into a deep sleep, that feeling of total weightlessness, because as it turned out I was indeed temporarily weightless. Glenny must have hit that frost heave at 60 mph and I was floating up to the ceiling. After bouncing off the headliner and getting shot back down into the seat, I was wide awake and ready to drive again. The kids thought it was great. Yukon roller-coaster ride.

The final ordeal was up the highway by the Matanuska Glacier. It was late, they were doing construction, the road was muddy and they had the whole pilot-car thing going on. As we got in line with several other cars and slowly snaked our way through, the van bounced and swayed over sharp rocks the size of a splitting maul. Which is probably why, after making it all that distance and almost to Wasilla, I shredded a tire. So off went the line of cars, leaving me behind in the mud to change the wheel. My feet sticking out into the road mere feet from the large earth-movers zooming up and down. We barely made it out with the last line of cars they let through that night before shutting down the highway.

We stayed in Alaska for a month. It was Glenny’s second trip to Alaska and the first time my children (except for Austin) had ever set foot here. We had a blast. We stayed long enough to hit the Alaska State Fair; I took the kids all over the Valley and Anchorage. Before our time was up, gears were put in motion to move up. But that drive. Ohhhh that drive. And after our Alaska vacation was over, we had to do it all over again.

Maybe I can talk Glenny into taking the ferry this time.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.