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Valdez, Boise State and the Orange Hat

Marshall and I poked around Valdez, walking the streets and visiting the docks....and decided to have a beer before returning to our campground, which was about twenty miles from the city. We stopped in the bar of a restaurant that overlooked the harbor - and the Boise State - Virginia Tech football game happened to be on....


I overheard a guy at the table next to us, talking about the game - and he was clearly a Boise State fan. I asked him if that was the case, and he enthusiastically asserted that was the case, as he was attending school there (although originally from Cordova, AK).

He told me that he thought I might be a fan - because of my orange hat.....which is actually from the Sun Valley Gun Club, which is no longer in existence - I picked it up for a buck at one of the thrift stores....(For those of you who don't know, Boise State's colors are blue and orange - they're the football team with the blue astro turf at home...Matthew Barney, married to Bjork, grew up in Boise and used the stadium in one of his films.)


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Toad River Lodge, Saturday 28 August - POSTSCRIPT

A A collection of over 6,800 hats stapled to the ceiling throughout the restaurant....and growing. One of the stories associated with the place is the origin of the name....The Alaska highway was constructed in 10 months, 1942-43. One version of "Toad River" is that the engineers had to tow supplies and materials across at that particular point, and it somehow got bastardized from "towed" to "toad." There are many such strange stories and origins to the naming of places in Alaska.              (I mean, why was Denali originally called McKinley? (other than his recent assassination....he never visited the place.)