What should I see parked near the Mendentall Glacier but an ancient Ford pickup with New York plates and the names of small hometown businesses.

Turns out the owner, Doug Hauge, is from Stittville, a village in the catchment area for Whitesboro High School, from which we both graduated.  

He’d driven all the way from New York on back roads along with a bunch of other Model T nuts from around the country.   His has got the original equipment from the tires up, though he did add GPS and a tiny ingenious, fold out camping unit in the back.   

2009 is the centennial of the first cross country road race, won by the Model T, of course.   The group planned their route to coincide with various local events and festivals and received well earned hospitality everywhere they went. 

At the end of that trip, in Seattle, Doug said good bye to the rest of the fleet and continued on to Juneau with his nephew for crew.    Several days later I noticed that The Juneau Empire thought it was a pretty cool story, too. So have a look at their nice write up with more photos (including the one at the right, which I’ve stolen). 

Yet, another good thing about Alaska: It’s a place where folks with large dreams of adventure in very small, unlikely vessels – if they make it – end up to telling their stories.