Into the Wild

My last post said something about me letting everyone know how Alaska went as long as it wasn’t a big pile of boredom. I guess since it was only a small pile of boredom I'll see if there is enough interesting stuff to ramble about. I'll start with the mostly boring background info and then move on to my almost interesting Alaskan adventures in the wilds. Be warned. This was not the most exciting trip ever!

My last post ended with me getting buckled into my satanic camp chair as we got ready to land at Eielson AFB in Alaska. On the way down all I saw was trees and lakes. There might have been a road but if so I missed it. Touching the ground actually surprised me because I saw no sign of civilization before we landed. Then I was beginning to think we landed in Anchorage and were taxiing up to Fairbanks because that was the absolute longest taxi I've ever done in an airplane. I heard we missed our parking spot and took a scenic loop to get back to it. Eielson has a ridiculously long flight line so that took a while. We finally parked at the end of the flight line in a corner surrounded by trees and bused on into the Eielson PAX terminal (for you civilian folk PAX is military speak for "passenger" I get the "PA" part but I'm not sure what the X is for). Weather-wise it was hot: 88 degrees and very humid. I was not pleased. I didn't fly 1500 miles north from hot Spokane to jump into a sauna. So I was hot, tired, and sweaty and just wanted to get to my room. That lasted right up until I actually got to my room. I've been in the Air Force for nineteen years now and this was hands down the absolute worst billeting I've ever been in. They call the building a "contingency dorm." I've been to the middle-east and spent time in real "contingency dorms." They were all nicer than this dump. I think it might be safe to say that outside of a tent city these could be the worst Air Force dorms in existence. So anyhow I got settled into my tiny prison cell styled room with my two cell mates and made my bed, unpacked a bit, changed into some civilian type clothes, and quickly escaped to the "day room" where the fans tried hard to cool us down. Alaska does not seem to believe in the concept of air conditioning. I did not find one air conditioned building anywhere that I went. Fortunately the weather changed pretty quickly and for most of the trip the high temps were in the 60's and 70's.

As you can see there was not much to blog about since you're getting weather reports and dorm descriptions. Work was not much more interesting. We got our hands on a government truck to get to work and back. This truck was my work office most of the day. We Fairchild guys all worked from 3pm to midnight and my job was "expeditor." The POL expeditor is basically just a more experienced and higher ranking guy who drives around the flight line anytime there are fueling operations in progress. The purpose is to have someone there to help the airmen if there is an emergency, procedural disagreement with the aircraft crew, equipment problem, etc… What this ultimately meant is I spent 6-8 hours per day driving a Chevy pick-up around the flight line flattening out my butt. But at least the truck had air conditioning. There were a couple times where I earned my pay but they weren't really any more exciting than the weather and the prison dorms so I'll spare you the extra reading.




So that leaves my great Alaskan adventures. We had plenty of down time because this exercise is all about pilots training to fight. As seen in Top Gun, Pilots like to fly fast for a while then run off and party. Things were no different here. There was no night flying and no weekend flying. I had two full weekends to burn. Our GOV (government truck) was allowed off base but we were told to limit it to the local Fairbanks area so our touring options were a bit limited. We were supposed to only use it to go to meals or do basic shopping and such. It was not to be taken to bars, out fishing, to hiking trailheads, or four wheeling. Truck abuse could result in losing the right to use the truck. We sorta kinda followed that guidance. The first Saturday was mostly a scouting trip. We visited North Pole where we visited Santa's house and sat on his lap, said hi to his reindeer, took some pictures, and shopped a bit. The only interesting note there was that we found out Santa is actually a Vietnam War vet…who knew?? Then we drove the thirty miles into Fairbanks and planned the rest of our days off.




Sunday was a bit more fun. We went panning for gold! We stopped at Big Ray's Classic Alaskan Trading Company and traded some cash for some gold panning pans and headed into the hills. We had been told there was a very good restaurant up past Fox Alaska near the Eldorado Gold Mine. There is also a place called Dredge No 8 near Fox where you can pan for gold for free. This did not seem much like truck abuse since the ultimate goal was food! Well Dredge No 8 was closed so we drove further up the road to another free gold panning area on Nome Creek in the White Mountains National Recreation Area. Somehow we missed the restaurant because we ended up fifty miles into the middle of nowhere. Alaska is big so I guess fifty miles is still the "local area." This local area was amazingly huge and empty. You could see for miles without a power pole or antenna anywhere to be found. Nor was there any gold anywhere to be found. Mosquitoes were much more easily found so at least something got lunch! Anyway gold panning ended up being kind of fun but a total waste of time. All I brought out of the hills was a dirty gold pan, shoes full of river grit, and an excess of itchy mosquito bite bumps. Back in Fairbanks we finally found a restaurant, had some dinner, and headed back to Eielson.

After another fun week of crappy billeting, mediocre food, and boring work, weekend number two rolled around. We planned a little better this time and Saturday we traded our GOV for one of the rental cars that were provided to a lucky few folks for the exercise. Those lucky enough to get their hands on the rare rental car could go most anywhere as rentals do not have the same restrictions as GOV's. Some maintenance guys had to work Saturday so they had no problems giving up their little unrestricted rental for a nice big shiny GOV pickup. We decided we needed to take advantage of our one day of transportation freedom and headed out early for Denali National Park. Denali is about 150 miles south of Eielson and is the home of Mt McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America. This trip was a lot of fun but for blogging purposes there just isn’t much to say. We drove for two hours through some beautiful empty wilderness and arrived at a tourist trap outside the front gates of Denali. Private cars are generally not allowed past the 15 mile mark on the one road into the park, so we drove as far as we could and turned around. Denali is mostly seen via tour buses that drive anywhere from 6-13 hours round trip into the park and we didn't have time for that so our trip was a bit limited. The highlights were three big caribou (caribous?) and a view of Mt McKinley. The caribou are pretty common but Mt McKinley is hidden by clouds more than 80% of the time so I guess we were pretty lucky to see it. Then we visited the row of tourist traps outside the park for some trinkets and headed back to Eielson.

Along the way home we saw some of Alaska's less famous sights such as the large beige couch on the side of the highway at least fifty miles from any civilization The couch was up on a hill overlooking the highway and was completely covered in stuffed animals, care bears, fuzzy dragons, and a unicorn or two. It was bizarre. Also a bit closer to Fairbanks but a good thirty miles from any visible landing strip was the Alaskan version of the "car on blocks" redneck lawn ornament. Just off the highway sitting in front of a rustic mountain trailer home was a large jet airliner on blocks with the wings removed and an old rusty "air stair" truck pulled up next to it. They say everything is bigger in Alaska and I was impressed. And lastly was the classic roadhouse café "Skinny Dicks: Halfway Inn." This charming place is halfway between Nenana and Fairbanks (hence the name "halfway Inn"). And I'm guessing some skinny guy name Richard might have owned it?? Yep that's enough said about that dive…




Sunday of the last weekend left us back with our GOV and nowhere to go so we decided to go on a moose hunt. We'd been hearing since we got to Alaska about all the moose crawling over the place. So far the only moose I saw was in the mirror of the community bathroom in the prison dorms and I was determined to see a wild one. So the two of us who were not afraid to get up before sunrise loaded up the GOV and headed out to find some moose sausage for breakfast. In Alaska in mid-August the sun sets around 11:00, dusk lasts until 02:00 when it is replaced by dawn which last until 05:00, and then the sun rises. So we were out early. After a few minutes of driving we had the most amazing sunrise I've ever seen. From when the sky turned bloody crimson until the sun actually got above the light clouds took about two hours. It was during that time that we saw the most wild moose. We saw seven before the sun was up and three more after. That kept us busy until the sleepy kids woke up and then we headed off for some more exploring.

Since we were limited by the GOV we headed toward the big pointy mountains south of Eielson. We knew that there is a big Army base down that way somewhere and they must have food so technically we were good to go! The mountains were a ways off and could only be seen on a clear day and Sunday was as clear as they got. We researched from the iPhone on the way down and learned we were heading toward Mt Hayes in the Alaska Range. At 14,000 feet it's no Mt McKinley but it is one of the highest peaks in the US in terms of height relative to the local terrain (prominence). Mt Hayes has 11,500 feet of prominence which puts it in the top 75 in the world. That's still no Mt McKinley which is number three in the world with 20,000 feet of prominence but it still looks pretty damn impressive. Anyway that's enough geography. We just needed somewhere to go and those mountains looked cool. So we climbed into the GOV and headed southeast. The closer we go the more impressive the mountains became. Once we got to Ft Greely (iPhone told us that's where we were going) we were pretty close to the mountains. A little ways past the main gate there was a dirt road heading off towards the peaks and it looked like it should have some sort of GOV authorized food establishment on it…or not… anyway we took the road and headed into the wilderness. About a quarter of a mile in I saw one of the more interesting items on this trip. We had reached an open gate that had a big old military warning sign next to it. It was one of those "Warning all who enter will be shot, water boarded, and eaten by military working dogs" type signs. This one said it was an open military target range and blah blah blah. It also said access on weekends was permitted. Now that's all standard and boring stuff. The interesting thing was the big old sign right next to it that was all in Russian. Now I'm used to everything being translated into Spanish but not so much Russian. I mean is there really a big Russian illegal alien problem in Alaska? Was this sign put up in the free love of the Cold War era 60's so screaming invading commie hordes could be careful to avoid the live range and not get hurt on their way to global domination? Seriously who ever heard of a US Army Base putting up warning signs in English and Russian? Sooo I took a photo and we blazed on into the wilderness. That pretty much ends the interesting part of the trip. I got some nifty pictures of the mountain but we never found a good restaurant and headed back to Eielson hungry.

So that's pretty much the trip. I worked one more boring week and headed on home to Spokane on Friday. I hope Europe is more interesting or this blog is going to die pretty fast. Until next time: Goodbye and das vidaniya…..

North to Alaska

Today I thought I'd try something new. Instead of blogging about planning to travel I thought I'd blog about actual travel. Fascinating I know! So most of you know by now that I am heading to Alaska. In fact I'm writing this from the boom pod of a KC135 right now (I'm a bit bored). How all this started is the active duty at Fairchild was tasked with five people for a Red Flag Exercise. They could only send three people and asked the Guard if we could help with the other two. My boss quickly volunteered to cover it and found four people (none of them being me) willing to go. As the trip got closer and closer the volunteers seemed to fade away and dwindled down to one (still not me). Here is where I came in. Since it looks really bad when a unit volunteers to pick up a manning shortfall and then can't cover it, I made the mistake of saying "well if no one else can go I will cancel my vacation and cover it for you." Oops! At this point the search for a volunteer screeched to a halt and I magically became the only possible option. Surprise surprise. So here I am.
Now this is not all bad because I've always wanted to visit Alaska and getting paid to go is a very affordable way to do it. This deployment however became a very big pain in the butt very quickly. For starters I only found out I was going six days before I was told I was supposed to get there. This instigated the scramble to get me orders in time for the trip. Then the date changed, re-changed, unchanged, re-changed some more and finally settled on today two days ago. Then the show-up time drama began. No one could seem to figure out when our plane would leave. Finally yesterday afternoon someone just randomly decided 07:00 was a good time to show up. So at 06:45 Cheryl dropped me off at Fairchild and the entertaining wait began. We all sat around for about three hours pretending to pretend we were busy. Then at 10:00 we loaded up a bus drove out to a KC135 and took off around 11:00.
Fortunately I really don't mind flying on a KC135. For starters there is no TSA. You bring your checked luggage to a pallet and pile it on. Once you get to your destination they unload the pallet and off you go. They is generally no limit to the number of bags and they are all checked for free. What a bargain. Carry-on is even better. The basic rule is if you can carry it up the stairs without getting a hernia and it contains no weapons or dangerous chemicals you are probably good to go. This trip people seem to have brought a large number of fishing poles. Some with tackle attached.
The not so good thing is the seating. The standard "jump" seat in a KC135 is basically a poorly designed fold up camp chair. Then they take about fifty of these camp chairs, attach them in a long row and then bolt them to the curved side of the airplane. About half of them have a bar right under the crack of your butt and due to the curve of the jet fuselage there is absolutely no back support. It's neat. So those who have some good KC135 experience and enough rank to not be shy about moving around scramble for the few good seats as soon at the plane is done taking off. That’s what brought me to the boom pod.
For those of you not familiar with the KC135, it is basically a craptastic 1960's era flying gas can. Its main purpose in life is to perform IFR's (In Flight Refueling). Its secondary mission is cargo movement. Passenger movement and comfort is not high on its list (hence the satanic camp chair seating). To perform its primary mission the KC135 uses a "boom." The boom is really just an extendable fuel straw stuck inside a metal tube with wings that is attached to the bottom of the tail of the jet. When a plane needing fuel comes along, he lines up right behind and below the KC135 (within 15-20 feet….it's crazy close). The fuel straw is then flown by a "boomer" with a computer game style joystick. He lines it up, extends the straw, attaches it to the customer's fuel port, and pumps gas like mad. To do this the boomer lays down in the "boom pod" which is in the very bottom back part of the fuselage right below the tail. He has a nice cushioned contoured pad to lay on with a bank of nice clear windows to look out of. There are also two cozy comfortable cushioned pads for two other people to join the boomer for training or naps. When no in flight refueling is going on it's a darn cozy place to hang out. I spent the first couple hours laying on one of the pads taking a pile of pictures of British Columbia and Southern Alaska from 35,000 feet before the clouds rolled in and I got bored. That led me to this. But now I feel us beginning to descend so I better get strapped back into my camp chair and get ready to land. Fun. If the rest of this trip is not a big nasty pile of boredom I'll let you know how it goes. Until then good by, see ya...or whatever it is they say up here in Alaska.