Ah, the road in or out ……….

Posted in Uncategorized by drivindave on September 19, 2011

If you haven’t heard, the only road in or out of the Stewart/ Hyder area was wiped out by flood just 2 days into my epic journey, the 49in7 Drivin’ for the Kids. I got word that the road would be closed for a long time and that it may be months before it would be fixed. Well, that was a shock to my drive for sure. So now what? I had to make a few decisions beginning with my final destination, Alaska. There was another state left I could go to, that was Hawaii.

A few years ago someone said why don’t you do all 50 states. Well mainly the hard part is getting the car over to Hawaii and then back to the mainland. Air transport is the only fast way to do this. I never really looked into it so I had no info or experience with doing this. Now the idea was becoming a last-minute choice that would have to happen fast. I had about 3 days to get things ready and hope I could catch a plane at SeaTac to take me to the Islands and back.

Now how’s he going to do that?? That was the same question I had. I had an idea but needed the right people to help make it work. I made a call to Roy Brizio and told him my idea. I knew that the famous drag racer Conrad “Connie” Kalitta owned a cargo and transport company, Kalitta Air, that flew all over the world. If I could get hold of Mr. Kalitta and explain what I was doing it might happen. It was a long shot at best, but Roy said he would make a few calls and see what happens. His first call was to Drag Racer buddy Ron Capps. Capps went to work trying to find the right guy in the Kalitta camp that could help make things happen. Meanwhile, I was hauling across the states, 10 at a time. As the days and hours passed, the news was filtering out of Hyder. They had a bridge in place, the road was still closed, but they may have single lane open once a day. It looked like there was hope the road may open. But I needed to have a sure thing. Capps was still hard at work making calls and doing what he could to get the right guy. Another day passes and now I’m getting ready to do the southwest, and I need to make a choice. Take the drive to Hyder and hope for the best, or head for SeaTac and hope I have a ride. I hadn’t heard anything from Roy and I knew this was a real long shot. Just the logistics of getting a plane there, to load the roadster, fly to Hawaii, unload the roadster for the drive off and back on the plane, and fly back to the mainland. It seemed so overwhelming and yet I still had to drive to Alaska to find out if I had a way into Hyder at all. Then the word came from B. C., the road will open on the 16th with limited travel in and out of Stewart/ Hyder a few times a day. This of course was subject to change. I had to go with the drive to Hyder and take my chances. I made a call to Roy which got cut off, so I sent him a text message and told him I was off to Hyder and asked him to thank Capps for all he did. I was bummed that Capps worked all day to try to make this work for me. I owe him bunches !!

Now I have a clear plan and I am headed for B.C. in the morning. I had gotten word that a pilot car would be there at the road closure to guide me across the bad spots and into town. That didn’t happen. I had to wait for hours until I was finally let through. Seems there was a lot more going on at the road construction site and I was not part of the deal. So I arrived in Hyder 7 days, 14 hours and 21 minutes from when I left Kittery, Maine on the 10th of September.

Now if you want to leave, you have 3 choices of departure times. The first is at a bone chilling 6 AM in the morning. The next is at 11 AM and the last time out is a 6 PM. This of course is subject to change at any minute. I chose to leave at 11 AM after a nice breakfast in Stewart at the King George Hotel. I did a little shopping in Hyder and looked around Stewart and headed out to the line where the pilot car would come to guide you out. Believe it or not, I fired up the Roadster at 11 AM on the dot and the line began to move. It was a slow ceremonial crawl out-of-town and into the damaged area. Work was still going 24/7 and it even looked like they had made some strides to get the damage under control. They were still watching the 10,000 foot hill-side that had been raining rock on the roadway for days. The river was not the torrent that it was a week before, but rain was in the forecast for the next weeks to come. Soon it will be winter in Hyder, the temps drop into the minus 40’s, and everything will go into hibernation.

Check back tomorrow

Dave