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| Teller, north of Nome by 75 miles is one of the destinations this weekend. |
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| 300 miles of road form a pitch fork near Nome. We intend to cover them all. |
Originally, Michael and I were going to ship the mototcycles
up here with us – there are over 300 miles of remote dirt roads to explore
divided into 3 roads (basically a pitchfork). It looked very doable until we
learned the shipping company needed a two week buffer on each end of the trip
for shipping. Add the week we were going to be in town, and suddenly Nome was
going to tie up nearly 5 weeks of short motorcycle season. We opted to not ship
the bikes and instead rent a jeep. Our intention is to still explore the remote
area, take it easy, photograph, and blog. Our plans to camp also altered into a
B and B just outside of town on one of the dirt roads. After a bit of research
and tips from friends, we settled in to a very nice (by Alaskan and Nome standards)
place, the Dredge 7 Inn.
We checked in at the airport and noted the airport
abbreviation for Nome is “OME.” We moved on to security and watched the TSA
scan fishing cooler after fishing cooler, and settled in for the wait. A woman
in front of us had a child that was testing out her lungs to see how many
strangers she could make wince. “Waiting with the wailing” – hmmm there is a
name for a blog, I think. Michael
scanned her carry-ons to determine if she had tags labeled “OME”… she didn’t
(thank god).
Our flight out of Anchorage stopped in Kotzebue. While
waiting at the gate in Anchorage I couldn’t help smile at the folks getting
ready to board the plane. You can definitely pick out the locals from the
tourists. The locals are wearing shorts and rubber boots (sometimes together),
sweats and tee shirts. The tourists looked like Indiana Jones, ready for an
expedition – hats generally included. Either that or they are dressed in
head-to-toe camo, the price tags still dangling.
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| Flying into Kotzebue, Alaska. I am always amazed at how different and gorgeous Alaska can be. |
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| Leaving Kotzebue. |
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| Arriving in Nome, Alaska. |
In Nome, we participated in “combat luggage retrieval” in
baggage claim, my first in Alaska. The Barrow airport made the Nome airport
look bad (but then at least there was a building here)! Very small airport to accommodate
fewer flights, two chutes – luggage pounded into the space, people gathering to
grab in such a small area…. Reminded me of fishing on some of the rivers in
Alaska!
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| "Combat Luggage Retrieval" at the Nome airport. |
We quickly grabbed a couple of seats in one of the cab vans
(there are only a few and once they are filled you might have to wait until
they drop everyone off and return). Our cab filled, we headed out the parking
lot down the wrong way on a one way. This was mitigated by the cab driver
driving off the road to the side – in case right way traffic showed up. Michael
glanced at the dash (he is a mechanic) and noted that every warning light that
could be on was on. Michael was hoping this was not insight into the condition
of the rental vehicle we were picking up in the morning. We got to see the
other lodging options in town as the driver dropped all the passengers off one
by one. We made a great choice!
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| Every light on in the dash.. taxi cabs if Nome. |
The last guy in the van needed chew and asked the taxi
driver to stop so he could fill his pockets. We dropped him off at one of the
mining operations. He lives in Oregon and works in Nome as a mining engineer, 4
weeks here, 2 weeks off in Oregon.
We arrived to our B and B and saw a small herd of Musk Ox
grazing and resting just across the road. A sign greeted us on the door of the
B and B:
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| Beware of Musk Ox. |
We settled in and realized we had no food or worse… beer.
One of the guests in the B and B offered to run us down to get a few items for
the room. We have set a new record for a six pack of beer:
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| Six pack in Nome - $19.00. |
Welcome to Nome.
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