In Alaska often you're a long way from a AAA rescue. One gray very cold late fall afternoon, Anne and I were driving along the Parks Highway when a bump in the road crashed the back truck window into the bed, unbroken. We continued along, slowly freezing, with the best efforts of the truck heater feeble against the Alaskan weather and wind from the speed of our driving, until we came to a road house/grocery store. We bought a lovely breakfast of six Snickers bars, coffee and a roll of duct tape.
Many people walked past us in the parking lot as we worked with very cold hands to tape the window back into the truck. That's not to say a request for help would have been denied, but Alaska women are known to be very independent. A man might get his head bitten off for offering a hand!
A clean window might have been easier to work with, but the old blue Dodge truck hadn't seen a wash in years. Filling up the dual gas tanks cost $60 back then. A ton of money! Changing a tire could be a nightmare and there were six of them! A giant Tonka toy but very reliable.
Summer tourists know the Parks Highway as a paved route to Denali Park and Fairbanks. Wide enough but often crowded with traffic. Off season, the crowd long gone, you can drive for a long time before seeing a light in a store or a passing truck. Lucky for us the Road House was open. An hour of fiddling and we packed up to continue on our way to meet our husbands and son Brian at the end of a rafting trip on the Talkeetna River. Rafting trip! Why? Their theory was that it was a good time to make one last trip of the year before winter set in hard. The mosquitoes were dead and the bears should all be denned up. Wives that we are the idea that they might fall into the river and freeze to death had passed our minds. The guys were wearing heavy wet suits and boots such as divers wear absolutely promised to float. They had two survival packs, food, a good tent and a lot of vodka. We called their raft Queen Mary. After the drowning death of my cousin on a rafting trip in British Columbia the guys had installed a rowing frame. A bush pilot flew them out to start their trip at a lake nearly covered with trumpeter swans. A very noisy night with little sleep before they began rafting.
We worried and felt stiff as frozen fish when we arrived at the planned pickup point, under a bridge on the Parks Highway. We pulled the truck off the road and set up to watch the river, much higher and wilder than we'd expected. Our hearts felt cold dread when we saw the Talkeetna rescue 'copter head upriver. We made a lunch out of candy bars and finished the coffee. Neither of us said a word for hours.
The men arrived a many hours late, tired and cold and stinking from days spent in the wet suits. Kiss me! Yes as we were so glad to see them again and alive. We helped haul the soggy raft and gear out of the river and loaded it into the truck bed that had 'caught' our rear window. The husbands weren't the least concerned about the quality of our repair, and we drove the 200 miles or so back down to home in the Chugach mountains above Anchorage to put the guys in hot showers as we made a big, hot dinner.
That truck rolled another 20,000 miles before being sold with the window still duct-taped in. Obviously I recommend having a roll of duct tape at hand if you're going to out driving around Alaska. That and a good supply of Snickers bars is sure a good idea also.
For those of you who wonder about the validity of my 'duct-taped window' and '14 1/2 feet of snow' stories about Alaska, I have a witness/reference who lives out in the Chugach Mountains southeast of Anchorage. She knows an awful lot about Alaska as she's been there since before the Big State got famous and important. Her son Brian is one of the best known wilderness guides in Alaska. (E-mail me if you want his web site address.) I've known that fella since I could carry him around. Now he can carry me, my husband and our dog. He's grown up to be a fine fella, and we're very proud of him!