Lost with the Leroy’s

Yesterday I was going to a local cabinet shop and on the way there saw a vehicle stopped on the side of the road and the guy was standing beside the vehicle looking around.  When he saw me he started waving at me to stop and talk with him.  He was lost and looking for an area close-by but was having a hard time finding it. 

I used my trusty phone application; Wave and put in the location he wanted and shortly it brought up on my phone the directions how to get there.  It is an amazing app that works well and I have used it since leaving Alaska over a year ago.  It works off the phones GPS and even if you lose the signal it will continue to guide you along the way. 

Talking with the man, his name was Leroy and he had relocated his family from a busy city in Florida to live in the foothills of the Appalachia Mountains.  He was looking for the place he was going to be working and told me about his family who was excited to make the move north.  He was somewhat embarrassed by being lost but I told him that years ago I was somewhat lost in Alaska when I first got there too.

Not really lost just slightly disoriented.  Alaska is a really big place.  Sometimes you forget just how big it is until you fly somewhere or take a drive on one of the few main roads.

To give you some perspective, traveling in Alaska is like traveling no other place on earth.  Alaska covers 570,373 square miles of land, plus an additional 45,000 square miles of water.  It's the biggest state in the country.  Alaska is 2.3 times the size of Texas, 10 times the size of Georgia or Florida; and 499.7 times the size of frequent comparison victim Rhode Island.  Alaska covers 20 percent of the total U.S. area.  Alaska stretches across 57 degrees, 34 minutes of longitude between 52 and 54 degrees latitude.  It’s BIG! 

The funny thing is there are only 4 major roads here, No interstate highways as we have no other state to connect with, only Canada.  There are 5 other “main” roads but they only connect from the main “highway” into remote areas or villages and usually are gravel or only open during the summer months.  Looking at a Alaska map the road system is on the right side in that 1/3 quadrant of the map.  2/3 of the state to the west is traveled by plane, boat, snow machine, or 4-wheel ATV.

I went on a fishing trip in one of my early years living there to an area that I was not familiar with and was excited to be going to a new place for some great fishing.  I was meeting people who had drove down before me and would meet me there.  The directions given were somewhat similar to ones that we would give when I lived in Georgia so I figured I would have no trouble finding the spot.

After a few turns I find the right place and spend the day with everyone fishing.  A few times I had taken my dogs but this trip I was solo and after a great day fishing was planning to drive back home that “night”.  It was in the time of the year where there is light all of the time so I would leave and drive back before the “twilight” period set in.    

As I leave the fishing area, I try to retrace my route back home.  This was before the GPS came out and I screw up immediately by turning left instead of right.  When that road runs out, I make another left and go to the end of that road and realize . . . I'm lost.  Well not totally lost but slightly disoriented.  I turn around heading back like I came and made another turn and drove for a little while.  Now it is sinking in to me that Omigawd! (This is a Southern expression) I'm lost in the wilds of Alaska!

Wait a minute; I'm close to Moose Pass (real name) so I know if I can find my way back there I can ask one of the locals for directions back to Anchorage.  Moose Pass consists of one old style gas station with a small store and a lodge with a restaurant.  Think of the 1970's version of a 7-11 store.  I get out of my rig (Alaskan for truck) to walk inside and about that time someone walks out.  I was turned around and didn’t know which way was Seward or Anchorage.

Me: Excuse me, could you tell me how to get to Alaska 1?

Him:(Scratching head) 1?

Me: How about 9?

Him: To get to 9, you go back down that road until you come to a little bridge. Turn Left on that road which will take you over the mountain, and that will run right into 1, turn right and you’re there.

Me: Cool. Thanks.

Him: Oh, one more thing. You'll see a topped out tree right before the bridge it was damaged by the high winds last winter.

Me: Thank you sir.

(By the way, real southerners are usually very polite, so I continue to be even though I was no longer in the South.  It's a habit that is hard to break after all of these years.  I usually don’t get riled up unless I deal with stupidity and then it makes me go nuts.)

Back down the road I go and look for the topped out tree.  I didn't see it and while looking, I cross the little bridge (and was it little) and missed the turn.  Go another half mile and think, was that a little bridge I crossed?  Didn't look like much of a bridge but it was.  I go back to the little bridge, turn on the road, and go over the mountain and get to 1 and start my drive back to Anchorage.  The trip started out uneventful.

I make it to Portage Glacier and my check engine light comes on.  This can't be a good thing as I don’t work on vehicles.  I look at the temperature gauge and it's pegged.  This can't be a good thing either.  Better pull over to the side of the road, which I do and then I hear a Popping sound!  Water sprays out in and steam is coming from under the hood.  I know now this really can't be a good thing.  Crap!

Slowly I pop the hood and get out of my rig.  Looking under the hood and not being an auto mechanic know I am in big trouble.  I can see water spraying from the hose on the radiator.  I know from my past troubles working on vehicles that this is really not a good thing.  I have my cell phone.  For some reason, I have a weak signal here but I'm able to get a call through to AAA for a tow truck.  I am right in front of one of those roadside tourist food shacks so I walk over and grab a quick bite to eat while I wait for the engine to cool down and the tow truck to arrive.  Now I can see why so many tourists stop at this little mom and pop stand along Turnagain Arm.  The food was quite good.

The AAA person said he'd try to have the tow truck there in less than an hour and in about 35 minutes the tow truck shows up and I tell the driver we need to go to Anchorage to the dealership.

Him: Ankerage?

Me: Anchorage. (Thinking to myself, another Southerner, my people here to help me)

Him: All the way ta Ankerage is gonna cost ya a bit.

Me: (biting the bullet) Yep. But I don't really have a choice unless ya know someone who can replace a radiator hose on a Sunday afternoon in Portage Alaska.

Him: Don't reckon ah know no one who ken do that.

So Leroy gets my rig on his truck and off we go to “Ankerage”.  I know his name is Leroy because it's written on his shirt.  Leroy is missing half of his front teeth.  This is Alaska after all.  We start a conversation and since the truck is loud there are a lot of 'do what's'.  For those of you who do not speak Southern, when someone doesn't hear you he usually says either 'do what' or 'say what'?

It turns out Leroy is a retired long haul truck driver from Alabama.  He started work at eighteen and worked driving big rigs for over forty years.  For the last four years he's been a tow truck driver here in Alaska.  He told me some neat stories about his forty years on the road.  He drove loads and different cargo to every one of the contiguous 48 states.  By the time we got to Anchorage, I was calling it Ankerage.

* About now some of you are probably saying ‘you elitist s**t head’.  How dare you make fun of this Alabama good ol' boy.'  This is the way it works.  Everyone in or from Georgia makes fun of Alabama.  Alabama probably makes fun of Mississippi or Tennessee and Mississippi probably makes fun of Arkansas or Texas.  Anyway, I wasn't gonna do any ranting, but here goes.

I like Leroy.  Remember the map of the 2000 election?  Ya know the blue and the red one?  Leroy is one of the people in the red.  He worked hard for forty years.  He's 63 years old and is still working.  He is one of the people who have made this country great.  He lives in a small Alaska town called Girdwood.  I'll bet he doesn't have to lock the doors in his house.  He grew up on a farm and helped his 'daddy' on the farm until he was eighteen and then got a job as a truck driver.  He's hard working, honest, and never took a dime of government aid.  We need a lot more Leroys in this country.

There are lots of Leroys in this country.  Right now whole big bunches of young Leroys are enlisting in the Army to fight our war against terror.  During Desert Storm, a lot of Leroys joined up to serve our country in the military.  I met a lot of Leroys when I was in the Army in the late '60's and early 70’s.  Leroys are very patriotic.  They are also very polite with lots of yes sirs and yes mams.  Their mommas and daddies slapped the crap out of 'em if they smarted off and back then no one called the cops for child abuse when people were disciplining their children.  As a result, children were better behaved.  They were all country boys.  I always liked to be around Leroys.  I still do.  What you see is what you get.  *Rant off now.

OK, back to this story. We make it to Anchorage. He unloads the rig at Worthington Ford in the beautiful mid town of Anchorage.  I don’t have to pay him as my insurance covers the trip.  I thank him.  He thanks me.  I shake his hand and thank him for the nice stories and as he turns to leave I give him a nice tip for getting me back to town.  I do not feel poorer for the money given him, but far richer for having met this hardworking son of the South.  We’ve all met Leroys in our lives.  We have all grown up with 'em and went to school with 'em.  I would probably go out together for a few beers and swap more stories with Leroy and feel honored to do so.

So now I'm stuck.  After a couple too many Jim Beam & Cokes now I have wandered from where I started out this post with meeting a lost Leroy and was reminded of another Leroy I met years ago and about an amazing fishing weekend, how nice it was to fish a new area and I ended up talking about an Alabama redneck.  How do I end my tale?  I don't have a good ending line like I usually do (or at least try to).  It’s late, still raining and after my Beam & Coke I will say, how about this?

This country will stay great as long as we have people like Leroy in it.

Ice