Text 28254, 81 rader
Skriven 2012-08-15 17:23:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Alaska 117
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Then our expedition to Teller, said to be the westernmost
town in the United States reachable by ordinary auto, from
which one might on a specially clear day be able to see the
former Soviet Union, only this day it was misty and grayish.

Bob and Chris L were our fearless leaders again as we rode
through the tundra in search of scenery and wildlife; of the
former there was much, but of the latter next to none.
Teller itself is atmospheric in a spare sort of way, the
town dominated by a hill topped with a graveyard for people
plus one for late lamented Sno-Cats and Skidoos. I think
once in a lifetime will do it, though.

On the way we stopped to aid a family that had had a flat;
there were plenty of them, and we could not add much but
confusion to the proceedings. What we could do was give a
native mother and her adorable little baby a ride into town.

After two hours on a pitted, bumpy road, what do two dozen
hard-drinking tourists do? Make a beeline for a public toilet
is what. We found it in the Native Store, where some of the
merchandise was grossly expensive, whereas things that could
be trucked in unpadded and unrefrigerated tended to be
reasonably priced, no big surprise. We all got knickknacks,
candy bars, stuff like that, to make up for having clogged
the potty (it was actually kind of clogged anyway and was
in fact just a hole in the ground with a toilet seat).

We were chugging merrily along when our luck caught up
to us, and we got a flat of our own, about a day's walk
from town. And it was determined, after substantial effort
on our part, that the van's spare wouldn't fit! All the
prying and hammering that half a dozen able-bodied men
could do didn't change the fact that the wheel was totally
incompatible; we spent an hour and change dithering around
in the mosquito-ridden tundra, during which the sole came
off my shoe, only a modest tragedy as glue is cheap, and
various of us lost considerable amounts of blood to the
gigantic insects that swarmed us whenever the blest breeze
let up. All this time only one car came by; we negotiated
with its driver, a military woman who had driven her
teen-aged daughter to Teller to visit friends, to take the
relatively harmless-looking Other Bob back to Nome to get aid.

Eventually the Chris van came by and rescued us - we tried
its spare tire as well, and it too wouldn't fit, so we
doubled up on the seating, making a very cozy ride indeed
and abandoned the defective by the side of the road, where
it was eventually inspected and then presumably rescued by
a mechanic who was more than delighted to be called in, as
he was getting overtime.

Despite a short detour and delay for chasing down a trio of
musk oxen, our only wildlife sighting of the entire day, we
we actually made our dinner reservation at the Husky, which
despite its name is run by a family of I think Koreans. Its
menu is extensive, with a large selection of various Asian
things, a large selection of grilled things, and a large
selection of fried things, of which I had one of the cheaper
offerings, the halibut and chips (decent but by no means
stellar, and a rather modest portion) and a couple Alaska
ambers: $40.

Back to the Casa Bob suite for a wine tasting/guzzling.
Both a Bryan Carter blend and the Dunham Trutina 06
were fruit bombs and blew away the Columbia Red Willow
Cab 07, a wine of which I am fond, which must have gone
deaf or dumb or dead or something. bdnyc noted that on
the teevee there was a report of a fairly big earthquake
in Kamchatka (the nearest landmass west of us). As we
were in a two-story building overlooking the water, more
sensible people might have been concerned. We continued to
refill our glasses and kept an eye on the tube just in case.
After I'd tasted everything and after determining that we
were in no great danger of a tsunami, I sneaked into the
room and slipped into my cot without disturbing anyone (my
station being right by the door).

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