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Dec. 8th, 2003 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elizillaLast night the weather sites were saying that as much as 30 inches of snow fell in the Boston area. I work from home here in Michigan, but almost everyone else on the tech support hotline works from the office in Chelmsford, MA. They were going to have a tough commute today. So I set my alarm, and a little before 8am I logged on to see how things were going. Near as I could tell, no one else made it in for our 8am opening, but no one was calling the support hotline either. By 9am my coworkers had started to make it in, so I went back to bed at 9:30 having taken no calls. I got a couple more hours sleep, dosed myself with Dayquil and came back on a little after noon to be here for my normal west coast shift. Only moderately busy this afternoon, and no calls at all for the last hour, until three minutes before close, when of course someone called and wanted to keep me on the phone forever. Such is life in tech support.
Got a new issue of Motorcycle Consumer News in the mail today. There's an article by Dr. Gregory W. Frazier on riding to Alaska. I've now read a number of articles by this guy, and I tell you I'm not nearly as impressed with Dr. Frazier as Dr. Frazier is. He thinks he's so hard core.
He says you will ride 5000 to 10,000 miles depending on where in the lower 48 you start, that you should plan on three weeks, and that it costs between $6000 and $10,000 to do this trip, even if you camp part of the time. Snort. He talks about taking the ferry from Bellingham to Haines, that it costs $650 even if you sleep on deck (horrors) and takes four nights. He says things are expensive there, which is true, and then he talks about how the Holiday Inn in Anchorage is $200 a night, and a burger and chips may cost $8. He says you probably won't see bears unless you go looking for them.
I did that trip two years ago, stood next the very same Arctic Circle sign that's in the first picture in the article. Yes, things are expensive up there; the Econolodge in Anchorage was $80/night and I don't think I had a meal under $8 anywhere north of Dawson Creek. Even so, my whole trip cost me less than $2500, including gas, food, lodging, a ferry ticket, and a set of tires in Edmonton. I was unemployed so I didn't splurge on a bunch of souvenirs or anything, but I didn't feel particularly deprived at any point. I was out for a month and rode 12,000 miles. The ferry trip takes three nights, not four, and I found sleeping on the ferry deck to be one of the highlights of my trip. As for the bears, I don't know what Alaska he visited; I saw bears almost every day.
Got a new issue of Motorcycle Consumer News in the mail today. There's an article by Dr. Gregory W. Frazier on riding to Alaska. I've now read a number of articles by this guy, and I tell you I'm not nearly as impressed with Dr. Frazier as Dr. Frazier is. He thinks he's so hard core.
He says you will ride 5000 to 10,000 miles depending on where in the lower 48 you start, that you should plan on three weeks, and that it costs between $6000 and $10,000 to do this trip, even if you camp part of the time. Snort. He talks about taking the ferry from Bellingham to Haines, that it costs $650 even if you sleep on deck (horrors) and takes four nights. He says things are expensive there, which is true, and then he talks about how the Holiday Inn in Anchorage is $200 a night, and a burger and chips may cost $8. He says you probably won't see bears unless you go looking for them.
I did that trip two years ago, stood next the very same Arctic Circle sign that's in the first picture in the article. Yes, things are expensive up there; the Econolodge in Anchorage was $80/night and I don't think I had a meal under $8 anywhere north of Dawson Creek. Even so, my whole trip cost me less than $2500, including gas, food, lodging, a ferry ticket, and a set of tires in Edmonton. I was unemployed so I didn't splurge on a bunch of souvenirs or anything, but I didn't feel particularly deprived at any point. I was out for a month and rode 12,000 miles. The ferry trip takes three nights, not four, and I found sleeping on the ferry deck to be one of the highlights of my trip. As for the bears, I don't know what Alaska he visited; I saw bears almost every day.
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Date: 2003-12-10 06:18 pm (UTC)