Seward, AK Pt. II
When I rolled into Seward, it was a gorgeous afternoon. I set up my tent on the last site left and just soaked in the beauty around me. A short while later, the Ranger came around to collect my info and I asked her about the the weather the next day.
"Oh, I hear the rain is supposed to be starting soon and lasting all weekend."
Shit.
"Yeah, we're not supposed to see the sun again until next week."
Shitshitshit. I am not a duck, so I am not inclined to enjoy spending long periods of time outdoors in the rain. Also, while I actually sorta enjoy camping in the rain, breaking camp in the rain sucks. With a car, you just throw your wet gear in the back, hop in, and turn up the heat while you dry off. Naturally, there is no such option with a bike - you end up stuffing your wet tent into a wet bag and then, wearing your wet things, get on the bike and ride away in the rain. Not a HUGE deal, but also not a lot of fun.
When I awoke the next morning, it was pouring. Thankfully my tent was keeping my stuff and me nice and dry, but I couldn't really leave the tent without getting soaked. I decided that I'd take my chances on leaving the next day and stuffed another $8 into the camp check-in box. I then spent the day curled up in my sleeping bag reading my Dad's book and subsisting on the bag of pretzels I had the prescience to buy the day before.
A brief aside here: my Dad's book is essentially his biography. While he hasn't gone skydiving with royalty or built a multi-billion dollar business empire, he's had a pretty interesting life. It has been really cool for me to read about his "macro" journey while I'm on this "micro" journey. Even though it is heartbreaking at times reading about my family's exile from our homeland and flight across Europe with the Soviet Army at their heels (the Soviets would have killed or imprisoned my family for the offense of being peasant German farmers living thousands of miles from Berlin - they had no love for the Nazi regime), it was compelling reading while I was on my admittedly much more serene journey.
During the afternoon, the rain eased up a bit and I headed into town to get supplies. As I took a second look, the town seemed pretty cool and I decided that I'd head back into town later for some dinner, maybe hit one of the taverns and soak up some local color.
In the early evening, I did just that. I stopped at Tony's, a nice neighborhood bar on the main drag. I got into a great conversation (and a pint of Alaska - man, am I gonna miss that stuff!) with a really nice guy named Kent, who was an honest-to-goodness fishing boat captain. It was fascinating to hear about what that lifestyle is like, and we had a really great conversation. However, it was punctuated by a little "disagreement" between two of the patrons.
When I had first arrived at the bar, there was a big, fat unkempt sweaty guy sitting on the last bar stool. He was drinking a frozen strawberry pina colada and rapidly tearing through pull-tab tickets (the Canadian equivalent of our scratch-off instant lottery cards, but without all the damn scratching). He literally must have gone through at least $100 worth of these cards when he said that he had to leave to "go close up shop." (I hope to God he's not a mechanic, I thought). He told the bartender (Jeff, a die-hard Yankees fan, who I became instant friends with) to make sure no one sat in his chair while he was gone.
Well, a short while after the big fat sweaty guy left (let's call him Tiny), another patron came in and sat down in Tiny's chair. When Tiny returned a few minutes later, he was none too pleased about it and told the guy that was his chair. Being no small man himself, he basically told Tiny (in a firm but polite way) that he was sitting here now, so fuck off.
That made Tiny unhappy, and he finally threw a Tiny-sized tantrum that culminated with him throwing his frozen strawberry Pina Colada on the guy (perhaps the guy wasn't so worried about going toe to toe with a guy drinking a frozen strawberry Pina Colada...?). Covered in pina colada, the guy calmly took his top shirt off, wiped the strawberry mixture off his hands, and calmly took a sip of his beer. We all expected bottles to start flying, strawberry pina colada to cover everything, and in general to witness a first-rate bar fight. Alas, Tiny had made his point, the other guy didn't take his bait, and he stormed out muttering something. The bartenders supplied the doused patron with a couple of towels, a couple of shots (gratis), and many apologies ("Tiny gets that way when he drinks and his pull-tabs don't win").
Soon after that little incident, I went down the street to a restaurant for some more halibut. It was heavenly, but there was so much of it I felt like a gorged Sea Otter by the end. I hadn't eaten anything but pretzels that day, however, so I was actually ok with that.
I returned to Tony's after dinner, and a group of wandering bluegrass musicians (guitar, upright bass, banjo and mandolin) had taken up residence where the Strawberry Pina Colada incident had taken place. They were GREAT (I don't even really like bluegrass!) and kept the crowd enthralled for the next hour. Everyone had a great time, and I made a couple more new friends, including the bouncer at a bar up the street, the Yukon. He told me to drop by later, which I did after leaving Tony's.
And the Yukon Bar? Ohmygod - they had another sorta band playing. I guess it is pretty tough getting a drummer up north, so they rely on a lot of drum machines and sequencers. Anyway, the Yukon featured a male-female duo playing your favorite classic rock tunes with electronic accompaniment. They were in the middle of a very spirited version of the Pretenders "Middle of the Road" when I arrived, and they kept rocking out from there. I have never seen tambourine playing like that in my life - she was so into it! He was actually a pretty talented guitarist, and its a shame that these guys couldn't get a whole band together up there.
Anyway, I stumbled back to my tent around 2:00 AM and fell asleep to the rain falling on my tent. When I awoke the next morning, the sun was shining (HURRAY!) and I headed back north towards Anchorage and Wasilla, where I had a new Metzeler Tourance Rear Tire (#2 for this trip) waiting for me.
"Oh, I hear the rain is supposed to be starting soon and lasting all weekend."
Shit.
"Yeah, we're not supposed to see the sun again until next week."
Shitshitshit. I am not a duck, so I am not inclined to enjoy spending long periods of time outdoors in the rain. Also, while I actually sorta enjoy camping in the rain, breaking camp in the rain sucks. With a car, you just throw your wet gear in the back, hop in, and turn up the heat while you dry off. Naturally, there is no such option with a bike - you end up stuffing your wet tent into a wet bag and then, wearing your wet things, get on the bike and ride away in the rain. Not a HUGE deal, but also not a lot of fun.
When I awoke the next morning, it was pouring. Thankfully my tent was keeping my stuff and me nice and dry, but I couldn't really leave the tent without getting soaked. I decided that I'd take my chances on leaving the next day and stuffed another $8 into the camp check-in box. I then spent the day curled up in my sleeping bag reading my Dad's book and subsisting on the bag of pretzels I had the prescience to buy the day before.
A brief aside here: my Dad's book is essentially his biography. While he hasn't gone skydiving with royalty or built a multi-billion dollar business empire, he's had a pretty interesting life. It has been really cool for me to read about his "macro" journey while I'm on this "micro" journey. Even though it is heartbreaking at times reading about my family's exile from our homeland and flight across Europe with the Soviet Army at their heels (the Soviets would have killed or imprisoned my family for the offense of being peasant German farmers living thousands of miles from Berlin - they had no love for the Nazi regime), it was compelling reading while I was on my admittedly much more serene journey.
During the afternoon, the rain eased up a bit and I headed into town to get supplies. As I took a second look, the town seemed pretty cool and I decided that I'd head back into town later for some dinner, maybe hit one of the taverns and soak up some local color.
In the early evening, I did just that. I stopped at Tony's, a nice neighborhood bar on the main drag. I got into a great conversation (and a pint of Alaska - man, am I gonna miss that stuff!) with a really nice guy named Kent, who was an honest-to-goodness fishing boat captain. It was fascinating to hear about what that lifestyle is like, and we had a really great conversation. However, it was punctuated by a little "disagreement" between two of the patrons.
When I had first arrived at the bar, there was a big, fat unkempt sweaty guy sitting on the last bar stool. He was drinking a frozen strawberry pina colada and rapidly tearing through pull-tab tickets (the Canadian equivalent of our scratch-off instant lottery cards, but without all the damn scratching). He literally must have gone through at least $100 worth of these cards when he said that he had to leave to "go close up shop." (I hope to God he's not a mechanic, I thought). He told the bartender (Jeff, a die-hard Yankees fan, who I became instant friends with) to make sure no one sat in his chair while he was gone.
Well, a short while after the big fat sweaty guy left (let's call him Tiny), another patron came in and sat down in Tiny's chair. When Tiny returned a few minutes later, he was none too pleased about it and told the guy that was his chair. Being no small man himself, he basically told Tiny (in a firm but polite way) that he was sitting here now, so fuck off.
That made Tiny unhappy, and he finally threw a Tiny-sized tantrum that culminated with him throwing his frozen strawberry Pina Colada on the guy (perhaps the guy wasn't so worried about going toe to toe with a guy drinking a frozen strawberry Pina Colada...?). Covered in pina colada, the guy calmly took his top shirt off, wiped the strawberry mixture off his hands, and calmly took a sip of his beer. We all expected bottles to start flying, strawberry pina colada to cover everything, and in general to witness a first-rate bar fight. Alas, Tiny had made his point, the other guy didn't take his bait, and he stormed out muttering something. The bartenders supplied the doused patron with a couple of towels, a couple of shots (gratis), and many apologies ("Tiny gets that way when he drinks and his pull-tabs don't win").
Soon after that little incident, I went down the street to a restaurant for some more halibut. It was heavenly, but there was so much of it I felt like a gorged Sea Otter by the end. I hadn't eaten anything but pretzels that day, however, so I was actually ok with that.
I returned to Tony's after dinner, and a group of wandering bluegrass musicians (guitar, upright bass, banjo and mandolin) had taken up residence where the Strawberry Pina Colada incident had taken place. They were GREAT (I don't even really like bluegrass!) and kept the crowd enthralled for the next hour. Everyone had a great time, and I made a couple more new friends, including the bouncer at a bar up the street, the Yukon. He told me to drop by later, which I did after leaving Tony's.
And the Yukon Bar? Ohmygod - they had another sorta band playing. I guess it is pretty tough getting a drummer up north, so they rely on a lot of drum machines and sequencers. Anyway, the Yukon featured a male-female duo playing your favorite classic rock tunes with electronic accompaniment. They were in the middle of a very spirited version of the Pretenders "Middle of the Road" when I arrived, and they kept rocking out from there. I have never seen tambourine playing like that in my life - she was so into it! He was actually a pretty talented guitarist, and its a shame that these guys couldn't get a whole band together up there.
Anyway, I stumbled back to my tent around 2:00 AM and fell asleep to the rain falling on my tent. When I awoke the next morning, the sun was shining (HURRAY!) and I headed back north towards Anchorage and Wasilla, where I had a new Metzeler Tourance Rear Tire (#2 for this trip) waiting for me.
posted by Mathew Elsner at 1:15 PM
3 Comments:
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