Hello.
Where are you all headed?
Valdez.
Where you coming from?
Indiana.
Everybody U.S. citizens?
Yep.
Let me see I.D. from everybody please.
Alright.
Any firearms on board today?
Nope. Noooo....
Go ahead and shut the vehicle off. I want you to come inside
and fill out a customs declaration for me.
Okay.
Leave the keys in the ignition. Come on in. Make sure you
bring your purses and bags.
That guy inside was the most intimidating fucker I ever saw.
I felt guilty. My hands were shaking.
No shit! I thought something in there would pass as pot. He pulled that pin out of my wallet & I thought,
"Oh Shit!" and it wasn't even for drugs! I just had it!
He's good.
They found resin on my knife. The guy knew it was resin, but
he didn't want to push the issue because that's all they found. My heart was racing. That was the best customs officer I've
ever seen! He should get an award. That guy was a hard ass. He was like,
"Grateful Dead...hmmm...You guys have a lot of these..."
But the guys who searched the van were actually pretty nice.
They just moved some stuff around. They probably found that note.
No, I had it crumpled up.
They might have though.
They didn't even look under this tag here.
No! They didn't! We could've brought a bale of dope!
No, they probably ran a dog through here and that was it.
Happy to be here. Let's buy a bag. Inside they were talking to a guy and they go, "I'd
appreciate it if you don't drop or lose anything because you're on
camera". Then the guy's like, "Huh! At least you got the pleasure of
sayin' that"! Some hick asshole.
I'm glad to be out of there! I thought for sure I was sunk.
I felt guilt for no reason. I started thinking stuff like, "OK, I did lick off
those tweezers after I used them for a roach clip, didn't I"?
He didn't give me my knife back! Wait, maybe he did...yes.
The law sucks.
We pulled up and he thought, "I'm gonna get these
guys".
There's resin all over my knife! All Over!! Fuck, I've got
resin on two of the blades that you don't use for anything else but scraping
resin. I didn't even think of that. He said, "You'd better clean or lose that knife".
I planned to say I bought it at a second hand shop in Montana. But we're in
Alaska now! Let's all smoke a cigar! And inhale it! And play Irish
drinking songs!! Yeah!!!!
8:28 pm: We made it through Customs. Fuck 'em. Yes, those are
fucking Grateful Dead tickets, buddy! I was high every day for two days!! And I
dropped acid three times in those twenty days, mother fucker!!! Fuck 'em.
 |
| Welcome to Alaska. |
 |
| Alaskan Moose. |
 |
| Another flat. |
 |
| Mel handling the lug nuts. |
9:25 pm: OK, we have a kind of mechanical mystery for
awhile. Every time we got to 60 miles/hour, it would go,
"brrrbbbb!!!!!" & everything would shake, then we heard a
"Bam!", so we pulled over. I was sitting in the passenger seat,
feeling the vibration, getting a little bit concerned about it & suddenly I
heard this "Boom!" that Todd spoke of and, up through the fender,
right into my leg, shot a projectile of an unknown consistency - but it kind of
hurt. Shot through the vent. So ,the tire is just feeling like dead skin from a
sunburn. It was bad, Van Log, real bad. I've got the lug-nuts loose & this is not going to be a
problem. That's the sound of a lug nut going none too easy.
Can you move your knee? This jack is a bitch. The tire just rolled away. There we
go. Tire in place. Mel's now putting the lug-nuts onto the lug-bolts.
Oh my God, Antifreeze! They were supposed to have fixed
that! It's barely leaking. What did they do? We don't know enough to know if
they did it or not.
Oh! My head's underneath the van & it's on a jack on a
piece of wood! I like it, it's sunny out here. The promised land. We made it. I
say we celebrate with some hacky sackin' once we get this done.
I say we go on to Valdez, but the more physical shit we do,
the more we'll wear off our buzz.
What are you doing!!?? Kicking a van on a jack!!??
Should I lower it?
What do you want for Christmas next year, Todd?
A jack.
Mel shoe-gooed the Mountie over the hole from the bullet
that went through the hole in the van.
...We ate at Pizza Bella and it was great. A feast. We had
garlic bread & pizza and we're looking to get air in the tire, but we're
not finding any. We're mere hours from Valdez & I'm excited.
Day 9, 1:18 am: There's a moose, unconcerned that we just
took a picture of it. It just stood there. Big Ol' Moose. We have to find one
with big antlers yet.
2:45 am: We just saw our first Alaskan porcupine walking down
the road. My concentration is on the tension at the back of my neck and staying
on the road.
3:52 am: I'm still kickin' and trying to get to Valdez. Won't
these guys be surprised when they wake up? 91 miles to Valdez! We're gonna be
in Valdez on the last full moon of May. When we left home, it was barely a
sliver. This is definitely one of the most beautiful nights I've
ever seen. The moon is so bright and distracting that I'm using the sun visor
so I can pay attention to the road. I'm dead tired but I just can't help it,
I've got to keep on truckin'.
4:58 am: 40 miles from Valdez & it's damn cold! We can't
see anything, it's damn foggy. We've told you about fog before, but that was
nothing but talk. This is Fog. This is bullshit! Goin' downhill in the fog on a
mountain. There's a lot of snow. City center of Valdez is 19 miles
from here. Laura's taking us all the way to Valdez, she's been driving for
hours.
Our journey's almost over. Horse Tail Falls! We're now in
Valdez city limits.
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| Valdez Harbor. |
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| Valdez campground. |
We gradually parted ways over the summer, periodically running into each other here & there, in Alaska and elsewhere.
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