`The sun finally came out of hiding, and we had some beautiful views. It got us pretty excited to go backpacking! This is along the Richardson Highway from Fairbanks to Valdez. The highways on the eastern side of the state's highway system are even more remote than the ones on the west. There are very few towns. I feel fairly safe in asserting that once you leave Fairbanks and "suburbs" (it has a bit of a sprawl problem, even with fewer than 100,000 people), there isn't a WalMart or McDonald's or really any chain store. Period. There's not a town big enough to warrant a grocery store for the whole 8 hour drive. The pipeline is your only company most of the way to Valdez.
While trying to find a place where I could make phone calls for work, we discovered how isolated sections of Alaska can be, even when they're right on the "highway." Most (but not all) businesses have phones (for their own use), and surprisingly often internet access, but there are only occasional payphones, and outside of sizeable towns, it's rare and pricey to find lodging with a phone in your room. That makes it very difficult to find someplace quiet and private to make or receive phone calls. We spent a good portion of one morning stopping at every lodging establishment along the road, trying to find a room with a private phone.
Cell phones are not exactly uncommon, but people don't seem to use them in public much at all. Some of this is that the reception outside of the biggest towns is not so great, so people can't make any calls, much less public ones. Mostly, though, I think that cell phones haven't become so ubiquitous in Alaska that phone calls don't seem private anymore.
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