Finally! North to Alaska (Part 1 of 2)

Latitude 63.3367° N

To a truck driver, the Haul Road to the Arctic Ocean is North America’s final frontier. But since I’m a not-really-trucking kind of truck driver, crossing the Yukon into Alaska is mine.

The best office window in the world is in my tractor. We spent the night in a pullout and woke up to this scene — Matanuska Glacier.

Only the bold drive the lonely, two-lane Alaska-Canadian Highway, known to the world as the Alaska Highway. Here, cellphones flash No Service for hours, there are 290 moose to every one elk wandering the muskeg and the boreal forest of coniferous trees and almost no people.

Exploring Texas Hill Country

Gruene, Texas

Mostly empty as far as the eye can see, driving across Texas is an intense experience.

Desolate and monochromatic, the vast emptiness is dotted by millions of grazing cattle, thousands of genuflecting oil derricks, wild boar hurtling across the Interstate , abandoned, re-imagined and rejuvenated towns, and magically, from the rolling hills and steep plateaus both gleaming cities and industrial monoliths appear like Oz.

Early morning on Gruene’s main corner. The mercantile building is to the left and the Gristmill is the former Cotton Gin now a restaurant with 11 distinct dining areas.

Since the early 1700s, Mexicans, Europeans, most notably Germans, and Americans have been staking claims in this too-cold-and-too-hot barren and brutal landscape.