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ALASKA ROAD RULES PART 1

[4/28/2002 4:59:17 PM | Wonder Blogger]
I promised to share my award winning humor.

:)

I love being able to say that!

Well, here is installment one. More is to come.

ALASKAN ROAD RULES

Alaska is a place where people go to run away from things. People go there to get away, sometimes from the hustle and crowds of dense population, sometimes from the long arm of the law. Alaska attracts the misfits. There are a lot of adults there who cannot read, criminals who are hiding out, and paranoid people who need a lot of extra space to hold their exaggerated fears. Murderers, drug dealers, crazies and zealots from all over the US find their way to the Last Frontier. So where do you go if you are from Alaska?

Growing up in Alaska is like nothing else. I was born there, and being born in Alaska really sets me apart. Most people there are from somewhere else. Because who in their right mind would want to live in Alaska? It's cold, sure, but that's not the main problem. It's the people. Or more specifically, the lack of them. A large crowd has a different meaning there. First of all, it would be hard to find enough people to make a crowd. Second of all, Alaskans are not really joiners of things. Not even crowds. By nature they are separators. They separated themselves from civilization by living in Alaska. Why would they want to be part of civilization in the form a crowd once they've managed to lose those annoying masses from the lower 48 states?

A traffic jam is not exactly unheard of there. But it probably wouldn't be caused by rush hour. Traffic only jams up when the two-lane highway gets blocked because someone hit a moose. And when a moose gets in a car accident, usually the moose and the car fare equally badly. Also, if the moose is killed, it is necessary to call someone to gather up what's left of the moose and save it. That's good eatin'!

Roads, though, are something else entirely. First of all, pavement is a luxury. Most roads are gravel or dirt. State highways are paved, true. But the whole half million square miles of Alaskan land only has three highways. That's enough to get wherever you need to go. In fact, for some people, not having a road leading to their home is a selling point.

Now that I live in California, I have had to learn about roads. Highways and freeways and expressways. Turn lanes, exit lanes and carpool lanes. Roads that are labeled south and north but are actually going east and west. Or roads that you expect to be labeled north or south but are instead labeled by with the names of small towns lying in a northerly or southerly direction. You are just supposed to know which is which.

In Alaska, after it snows in the wintertime, the only way you know which lane is which is by the two wheel tracks in the middle of the snow. Lines--white, yellow or dotted--can't be seen underneath the snow. In California, they might not have lines either. They have bumps that glow in the dark. Which is fine, at night. But during the day, if you don't know what you are looking for, you end up "driving by Braille." It's kind of scary when it first happens. Because you know what an Alaskan driver is thinking?

"Oh my god! I'm hitting a moose!"

PART 2

award winning humor part 1

Posted by murphy at April 28, 2002 01:35 PM