U.S. North to South 2015: Anchorage, Alaska

After Barrow and Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, at the extreme north of the United States, we now fly south 620 miles (1,007 km) to Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska but not its capital.

As much as I would have liked to tackle the mighty Dalton Highway, an additional 230 miles and a 14- to 18-hour trip depending on the weather, time and budget constraints meant I had to fly instead, in a semi-cargo plane: the first third of the plane was cargo with the remaining two-thirds for passengers and entry only from the back of the plane. It was the first time I saw such a plane.

On the way, the bonus is sublime panoramas of the former Mt. McKinley, the highest summit in the whole of the United States at 20,320 feet high. Denali, the Indian name for the peak, appropriately means “The Great One”.

Read more
  • AZFelix I have always wondered if the poor ability of Tesla cars in detecting children was due to their using camera only systems. Optical geometry explains that a child half the height of an adult seems to have the same height as that same adult standing twice as far away from the viewer.
  • 28-Cars-Later Actually pretty appealing (apparently I'm doing this now). On a similar note, a friend of mine had a difficult situation with a tenant which led to eviction and apparently the tenant has abandoned a 2007 Jag S-Type with unknown miles in the garage so he called me for an opinion. Before checking I said $2-3 max, low and behold I'm just that good with the 3.0L clocking in at $2,3 on average (oddly the 4.2 V8 version only pulls $2,9ish) and S-Types after MY05 are supposedly decent.
  • DO I have owned a 2012 LR4 since day one and it has been the best vehicle I have ever had the pleasure of having in the garage. I know how easy it is to hate on Land Rover but this LR4 is comfortable, has a ton of storage room and is so versatile. With 110k miles, mine is now relegated to ‘other’ car use but is still the go to for off road adventures and snow runs. Nice to see one featured here - I think they are so underrated.
  • Tane94 I'd be curious to know whether 87 octane is no longer the most popular grade of gasoline by sales volume. My Costco often runs out of Premium grade and I suspect 93 octane might now be the most popular grade of gas. Paying 40-50 cents more per gallon 87 vs 93 octane because of turbo engines is the real story
  • Redapple2 125 large? You re getting into 911 territory.