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SD and I hit the road the next day, despite a few still ugly road reports in spots. The ride up to DJ was at times delightful, but also mildly terrifying. I’ve been driving in winter snow and ice for about 40 years here in New England. I know how to do it and understand what the dangers are. I know what not to do. One of the things not to do is run at speeds up to 90 mph on roads that have patches of shiny, sketchy looking black ice on the road in between sheets of obvious ice, slush and crunchy snow-covered highway. There were a few dry spots along the way, I’ll admit.

A few times we fishtailed on the road like an aged, drunken hooker on a slippery dance floor. Many places on those mountain passes have spots with no guard rails. Sliding over the edge in some of these places at speed meant probable death. The imaginary passenger side brakes got a workout on that ride. Not so fun at times but we never left the hardtop. How I’ll never know!

We did see a goodly number of vehicles later that wound up off the road in ditches and worse, including a U.S. Army vehicle in a convoy.



For good measure, on the ride up SD shared a tale of a guy who’d gone over the edge on his motorbike some years back. A friend of the missing chap wound up looking for him, figuring he’d gone over the edge somewhere and thought he could possibly find him where authorities hadn’t been able to. The friend finally did find him. His buddy had obviously survived the horrific ordeal of going over the edge and down into a hole in a rugged mountain twisty section but ended up dying of exposure out there. A comforting tale that one wasn’t, told as we hustled along the same road…

The views of the Alaska range were nothing short of spectacular, and SD was knowledgeable about the region and explained the views I often took in with an open-mouthed gaze and my head shaking. I took in scenes of the Chugach and Talkeetna mountains and asked to stop at a couple to take a few shots. Virtually all I saw was stunning and many supremely rugged mountains, with their many white, ragged peaks cutting a magnificent sight against the skyline had me in absolute awe. America? F8CK YEAH!





We were treated to seeing some moose, one ballsy ruffed grouse we left unmolested and some other small wildlife enroute.



After some eight plus hours on the road with reason and maybe some physics defied, we actually made it in one piece.

I’d made reservations at a local inn in ‘downtown’ DJ. Population in DJ hovers at around 1000. When we finally pulled in, we got checked in and got settled. There were two queen beds, a proper shower and a kitchenette with a two-burner range, ‘fridge/small freezer and coffee maker. All set there. Hot breakfasts were included in the cost, so that was nice. We certainly wouldn’t be roughing it on this hunt.