College Professor Plans Road Trip to the Arctic Ocean

Besides Wylie Coyote for his unending resilience, a hero of mine has always been Barney Fife. The Don Knott’s character from the Andy Griffith Show made frequent judgments about others sometimes affirming, “He’s a nut!” The real “nut” on the program was Fife himself. He was always doing crazy things from which extrication was only via help from Andy and other friends. Shifting gears just slightly from the small to the big screen, a favorite film of mine is the Jimmy Stewart biography of Charles Lindberg’s solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in the Spirit of St. Louis. While other pilots were pairing up to make the perilous never-before-attained flight over more than 3,000 miles of frigid water, Lindy chose to go it alone...though a fly seemed to accompany him part of the way through Canada (at least in the movie).
So call me a nut…I am driving the Alaska Highway (the ALCAN) from Columbia, Tennessee, to Alaska with my ultimate goal of sticking my hand into the Arctic Ocean just north of Deadhorse (no, I’m not nuts enough to jump bodily into those freezing waters). Though I hope to keep all four car tires firmly wheeling on Mother Earth, I will be making the 4,500-mile trek Charles Lindberg style…solo.
So why would any 62-year-old professor contemplate this type of undertaking (not to be confused with undertaker whose services I hope not to need during this journey)? In a word, ADVENTURE! Ever since my wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary with an 11-day Alaska Inside Passage cruise, I have dreamed of exploring the mainland of that last-frontier state by driving the Alaska Highway from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to its culmination in Fairbanks, Alaska. That cruise was 15 years ago, and I’m not getting any younger. During the last year I have read from numerous Internet Websites and The Milepost: the Bible of North Country Travel, all about the amazing scenery and wildlife that stand ready to be photographed in our nation’s northernmost state. I’ve heard that the large critters (bears of all colors and kinds, caribou, moose, musk ox, elk, big horn sheep, mountain goats, eagles, whales, and salmon the size of whales) take turns posing by the roadside allowing tourists like me to get up close and personal with a zoom lens from the safety of a mobile metal shell-on-wheels. The animals must have a union much like they do in Yellowstone and Teton National Parks and Custer State Park, three places where the large mammals are obviously organized to offer photo opportunities.

In addition to superlative scenery and majestic wildlife, some of the highlights of my trip, The Milepost assures me, will include a Prince William Sound day cruise, a Resurrection Bay kayak experience, a Dalton Highway (ice truckers’ haul road) Yukon River crossing, a Prudhoe Bay oil fields tour, and experiencing Native American attractions in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and numerous smaller Alaskan communities.
I hope to blog, Facebook, and even submit articles for publication in the Daily Herald. In addition to my favorite travel snacks, I will be road tripping with my laptop, GPS, and digital camera (with video capabilities, of course). When I choose to sleep, I will be doing that in the back seat of my Nissan Sentra or in the many much-cheaper-than-motels hostels along the way. I may even wind up emulating Robert Frost’s famous challenge, “Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by…and that has made all the difference.” We’ll see…sigh!

The Dump Method

I feel a little bit loony to write anything about cooking. Cooking? I know I just lost the three male friends who thought this was about roughing it when hunting and fishing in the great outdoors. Sorry if I mislead you…those of you still reading, allow me to share part of my indoor adventure into meal preparation.

First, let me admit that I have an amazing teacher. My cooking coach is my wife of 40+ years. Delores was fortunate to grow up with an incredible mother who, among other wonders, was a remarkable cook. She directed a public school cafeteria with nutritional, tasty cuisine that the kids actually ate. During courtship and the first two years of marriage, I enjoyed making the two-hour trip from Arkansas to Missouri many weekends to enjoy my mother-in-law’s table. Fortunately her daughter learned well. Unfortunately I enjoyed my wife’s cooking “weigh” too much in those first years of marital bliss gaining about 25 pounds. This wasn’t too bad since I had been a 165-pound bean pole standing over six feet tall when we got hitched. Over the next 30+ years I ballooned to 250+ pounds and into an unhealthy routine of taking daily medications for high blood pressure and diabetes. About the only time I went into the kitchen was for to snack, sample, or occasionally clean-up. In those days I would’ve had difficulty boiling water. I’ve come a long way, baby.

Nearly two years ago we began living a healthy lifestyle of eating organic, natural foods almost exclusively to detoxify our bodies. The food tasted delicious! I may have tasted it for the first time. As we made the shift from the SAD (Standard American Diet) USDA Food Pyramid to the Healing Foods Diet (nuts and seeds, organic vegetables, fruits, meats, and beans), I lost weight, got off all medications, and began to spend more time in the kitchen interested in how to prepare, not just clean up after, those delicacies. My ulterior motive was to eat some of my favorite foods whenever I wished without waiting for Delores to fix them. At the top of my list was creamed eggs. I only know a few earthlings who like this.

Understand one thing…I am a Type A, highly organized, near perfectionist; so when I learn something new, the ducks should line up. I write it down, so I can repeat it with similar results. I have a quote on my office wall, “If it isn’t in writing, it doesn’t exist.” I teach that to my college students. Imagine my chagrin when I’d ask my wife how much of a certain spice or condiment to add, and her reply was something like, “I’m not sure; I just use the dump method.” I quickly came to discover that the dump method really does work…most of the time. I also learned that you dump slowly at first and taste your dumpage results as you go. It is sooooo much easier to add seasoning than it is to remove it. Some of my recent endeavors as chef include fried chicken (in coconut oil, rolled in flax seed meal, egg, herbs, and brown rice flour); almond eggs (creamed eggs with almond milk and brown rice flour); bison, vegetable, bean soup; meatloaf made with lamb; and banana coconut chocolate drop cookies. Yes, I still am pretty good about cleaning up after myself; and no, I don’t always dump the same amounts. The mystery is part of the adventure.