Report from Anchorage - Alaska - Day 42
Tappet Chatter: Day 42, Around the World, Syd Stelvio
Anchorage
WHAT an agreeable place this is. Alaska is great – a sort of Norway with the streets filled with American pick-up trucks. We look out over a big bay of ultra still water, a large mountain, snow on the upper reaches, lots of trees around, all very green and very welcome, neat wooden houses, bungalows, chalets, log cabins, nothing too big or gross so everything fits into the scale of things.
Only half a million people live in Alaska, and half of them are in Anchorage. The first house was not built until 1915… if you want peace and quiet, and stunning scenery, this place takes a lot of beating.
John Bellefleur is in charge of the American/Canadian section, and we have just had a meeting “handing over the keys” sort of ceremony. He needed to know who the trouble makers might be, who are the whingers, who is going to clean his tests (complete without penalty). John is oh, so mighty confident his tests will sort ‘em.... so, the rest of us are all pretty cool, laid back, and letting him get on with things. The Rally Organisation has a new chief of the sporting matters, we are in John’s hands – he has a team of local marshals and timekeepers, on one day, there are no less than 15 checkpoints – so we are all looking forward to what he has devised.
We have two days of touring to the remote bits, and then the fur will really fly, if that is an expression that is not going to cause confusion here in Alaska.
Dave Whittock has just taken his wife and children up in a small sea-plane to fly around the remoter bits near hear, all the planes have floats to land on water, while some of us had to “work”, like sorting out the shit-fight over hire cars (beefy V8 4x4s) at The Alamo desk back at the airport. Dave is entitled to some time off after the graft he has had to put in coping with the China problems… all of us are really looking forward to getting back to “real rallying” on the next section.
And the Alaska and Canada scenery promises to be really something…
Syd Stelvio