The Tonsina River Lodge is a rambling, shambling, gravel-covered spread, with weatherbeaten buildings. The historic hotel is an orange, three story Army barracks with a red tin roof. It once was a brothel. The lodge is at the end of an airplane runway. The lodge sits in the foothills of several towering, snow-capped mountain ranges, next to a stream. In 2006, the flooding from the stream took out the two-lane concrete bridge that crosses the stream. Connecting Valdez to Anchorage, the Richardson Highway bridge was repaired in two weeks.