Day 13

When I started riding, it was in pristine nature. Anchorage, however, is a town of some 250,000 – now that really is a metropolis – compare it to Haines Junction, with its inhabitants of 700 folks! It started getting really ugly. Traffic picked up and the number of strip malls, car dealerships, furniture outlets, drive-ins kept increasing. Having ridden 9 days through such wonderful landscape, after about half the distance, I decided to call it a day – and started hitch-hiking. A car (it was more a truck) stopped, I threw in my bike and now I was on the way to the big city.

Getting there, my first course of action was to find a bike shop – it was not hard. there were at least a dozen of these. One of them agreed to box my bike for (what I think must have been) a reasonable amount – so by the evening, I was hauling a large box and two bike bags.

Knowing myself, I must have found a hotel close to the airport, which is also not all too hard, as it is really close to town.