Sunday, September 11, 2011

Manley, Alaska

I woke up the next morning to the sound of gunfire.
Having grown up in Pennsylvania, the sound of guns, especially during hunting season, was not uncommon (my father and brothers were all hunters), so it should not have come as too much of a surprise. But the sounds I was hearing weren't the occasional pop of a rifle; it was an intermittent barrage of semi-automatic weapons, firing as fast as the user could continually pull the trigger. At eight o'clock in the morning, I didn't exactly know how to interpret what that meant in Manley, Alaska, but it certainly wasn't inspiring me to get out of my tent very quickly. I kept a low profile until early afternoon, only getting out to use the outhouse by the river that, true to the area, had deer horns for handles. 


I found myself spending a lot of time laying in the tent, rerunning the events of the other day in my mind, mentally beating myself up over such a foolish mistake that could have been easily avoided. But at some point I knew that this was in no way going to help, and I forced myself to let go, perhaps in a way that I never had before; not only of the mental self-flagellation, but of the possessions I had lost on the road. When I really put into perspective what those things meant to me, I felt the weight of them disappear. I was safe, the motorcycle could still get me where I needed to go, and I was in the middle of one of the adventures of my life. Everything else, regardless of sentimental value or cost, could eventually be replaced.
My desire for something other than a Powerbar and water finally forced me to head over to the Roadhouse for food. To my amazement, the scene was nothing like the evening before, with a friendly woman serving lunch and tending bar. The afternoon light had changed the look of the place, and what had appeared the night before like the set for a teenage slasher movie now looked like a cozy, rustic bar with decades of pioneer history behind it; a sort of Cheers meets Bonanza vibe. When I finally got the courage to bring up my dilemma to the waitress, Dana, a woman in her early 50's with a sweet disposition and kind face, she immediately came to my rescue, promising to put the word out to see if anyone had come across the items I had lost on the road.
The rain was not letting up, and for the next several days, the Roadhouse became my home. The novelty of my presence had come and gone with the locals, eliciting only the occasional "that sucks" when I explained to someone new what had happened on the ride coming in. It was as if I had started blended into the landscape; a chameleon taking on the color of its surroundings. I ate at the bar and talked to fellow diners, and read or typed out blog entries in the front parlor room while drinking coffee. Many times I would simply eavesdrop on the many conversations at the bar, which mostly consisted of the locals explaining at what stage of construction they were at with their house. It seemed like everyone in Manley was either building, rebuilding, or planning to build or rebuild some part of their home. It made me smile, remembering the few houses I had seen on the ride coming in; all of them making me wonder, at the time, if Tyvek was some sort of new decoration fad.

The Manley Roadhouse...

This was my view from the bar for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The rest of the bar...
One day, Dana even slipped me a cellophane-wrapped piece of cake while I was typing in the parlor room, claiming that I didn't need to pay for it because it was part of an "extra" batch that didn't come out quite right and wouldn't be for sale. We both knew that wasn't the truth, and I thanked her profusely, all the more touched by the gesture of her not wanting me to feel as though she was giving me special treatment.
I even managed to take the half mile walk in the rain to the Manley Hot Springs (wearing a makeshift rain poncho made from a garbage bag). The hot springs was one of the reasons for taking the trip to Manley in the first place, so it seemed only right to take advantage of it. The hot springs is privately owned, run by an elderly woman who grows exotic vegetables and plants in a greenhouse with four square-shaped concrete tubs in the center that pumps in natural spring water at various temperatures. For $5 per person, you can reserve the greenhouse for an hour, which is exactly what I did. For that hour I was completely sheltered from the cold and rain, and, with the thermometer of the wall constantly reminding me that it was 85 degrees inside, it felt as though I had been magically transported to an island spa. It was marvelous.

The Manley hot springs from the outside. Not much to look at, but...
...the view from the inside was much better. It was so hot inside, it fogged up the lens of my camera on this shot.
Another view from one of the tubs. Aahhhhhh.....

 By the third day, I knew that I needed to make a plan to move on. I was waiting for the rain to let up, and clearly that wasn't going to happen any time soon. The thought of attempting to navigate the road after several days of rain didn't sit well in my gut, as everyone I talked with was telling me horror stories of just how awful the conditions could be. Plus, not one word had come back about my missing gear, and even though I had resigned myself days before to the fact that I wasn't going to recover any of it, it still presented the added concern of having to replace at least the rain gear, which couldn't happen until I had driven through the bad weather and gotten back, probably soaked, to Fairbanks. I retired early that evening, choosing to read in my tent rather than listen to more stories and gossip at the bar. At around eight in the evening, I heard the sound of a vehicle pull up close to my tent, and soon after a hesitant voice saying "Hello?"

I zipped open my door, peeking outside to see who it was. There stood a young native kid, short and scrawny with a wispy black mustache and a baseball cap that said "native" across it, standing just on the other side of my bike. He asked me if I had lost anything on the road in the last couple of days, and I told him that I had. In a calm, monotone voice that had a hint of uncertainty that made the last word of every sentence rise a note, he asked "Um, could you describe them?" When I went through the list to his satisfaction, he then said in the same voice, "Um, is there some kind of reward?" Not knowing whether I was now being taken advantage of, I turned the questioning around, asking "What are you looking for?" But instead of demanding some exorbitant sum of money, he said, "I dunno. We were hoping for gas money. We saw you on the road the day we found this stuff, but we were going into Fairbanks so we didn't want to turn around. We're from Minto, so we drove out today figuring that you'd be here." This was the second time that I had been saved by the town of Minto, and it made me want to write to the editors of Lonely Planet to tell them just how wrong they were about the people who lived there. I gladly covered their gas money with a good deal extra thrown in for good karma.

 The next morning I suited up, broke down camp, and said my goodbyes to everyone at the Roadhouse. It was funny to think of how my perception of the place, and Manley in general, had changed over those few days, and what had started as a series of horrible misfortunes had turned into some of the most valued memories of my trip. I had experienced this place in a much different way than most, allowing the vulnerable position I had found myself in to expose a kindness and willingness to help from almost everyone around me. I wasn't going to forget that any time soon.

The road, however, was as horrific as everyone had warned me. The rain had turned the areas with the least gravel to mud, and what first appeared to be clean, safe stretches of road were, in reality, slick patches of gooey soil that felt like riding on grease. The most treacherous parts were where the slick patches appeared on declines, where even downshifting wasn't enough to prevent the bike from sliding, especially given the smooth, nearly treadless tires I had on my bike. I resigned myself to a painfully long morning of driving, and I carefully navigated my way through the trouble zones, feeling surprisingly calm for what should have been a nerve wracking experience.
As I approached the turnoff to Minto, a truck pulled out, turning left on its way to Manley. As I passed it I saw that it was Loyd, and I applied the break to stop, seeing that he was doing the same. Unfortunately, we were on the worst stretch of slick road of the entire 80 mile "highway", and the bike began sliding out of control, until, almost at a complete stop, I dropped the bike on its side.

Loyd got out of the truck, again a look of amusement on his face, and I could see that he was genuinely thrilled to see me. After a heart-felt shaking of hands and helping me pick up the bike, he insisted that he get my phone number. "Yeah", he said, pausing to look my bike over, "I'll give you a call in the winter some time to see how you're doing." I had no reason to doubt the sincerity of his statement, and I wrote down my name and number with a piece of paper and pen his wife had dug out of the truck. They were heading for the hot springs themselves, and I thanked him again for all his help before we parted ways.

The last thing I noticed as I mounted my bike to head out of Manley. The barbed wire frame is a nice touch...
Taking a break on the "highway". Notice how the kickstand sinks into the muck.

A view from the very same spot that I originally lost all my equipment. The smeary splotch on the left is a concentrated rain storm, something I'm starting to get used to in Alaska.

There was a pull-off on the highway on the return trip to Fairbanks that allows you to see the Alaska Pipeline up close and personal.


My last photograph at Billie's hostel before heading south.
 The second half of the road wasn't nearly as dangerous as the first, but I still took it easy in order to ensure that I would make it out in one piece. When I finally reached the end and I made the right turn towards Fairbanks, the feel of pavement underneath my tires was like a kiss from an old lover. I quickly readjusted my mindset back to highway driving, gunning the throttle and smoothly climbing through the gears. As much as I didn't want to do it, the ease of familiarity dictated that I return to Billie's Hostel for one more night, which proved as disappointing as I suspected that it would be. Nearly the same cast of characters were present, some of them in the exact same positions they were when I had left them days before, confirming my suspicions that some of these "travelers" were stuck in a vortex of slack; unwilling or incapable of moving beyond the comfortable confines of the place. One man even told me that he had been living there for four years (he was making plans to build a cabin in the woods and live off the land, which was going to happen any day now...), and another fellow, a thin, weathered character with a mustache and tattoos up and down both arms who I had seen constantly sitting in the back yard with his dog, had been there for almost nine. Time for me to go, I thought to myself, and early the next morning, that's exactly what I did.