They traveled down the Yukon from Whitehorse in a canoe. They have been traveling the US and Canada for 4 years and are on the last leg before flying back to England.
While taking pictures at the Bonanza creek gold claim, I dropped my camera in the creek. I retrieved it quickly and removed the battery and card. When we returned to camp that evening, I used the hair dryer to warm it so as to drive any moisture out. To my delight, it worked fine this morning. I'll not want to do that again.
My last entry was my disappointment over leaving Dawson, YT. Dawson was a neat place with all the history about gold mining and the early day of the engines that drove some of the equipment. These old pieces of big iron are still there. I guess we have to move on.
This morning we left Dawson and drove west on the famous "Top of the World Highway" state road #9 that will take us back to the Alcan highway. We will cover 185 miles today and that will take all day long. We left our campground turned west and immediately started an uphill steep accent for about 10 miles. The road is in two parts, Yukon #9 and then a section of the Alaskan Taylor highway #5. The first 65 miles (Yukon) is pavement with a lot of gravel breaks, I guess it to be about one half gravel. The last stretch is very bad, all gravel, potholed, washboarded, very narrow in spots, switchback turns, steep inclines, no guard rails, and only one sometimes working gas station, makes this road a challenge. Most of the way it was second or 3rd but sometimes 1st gear in a few spots. This road will wear you out, and we were worn out when we pulled into Tok, Alaska. The evening before, I had covered the frontal area of the trailer and
car with protective covers. This road known for for broken windows and rock slinging. I wanted to be prepared, so I had packed all the necessary covers with me. It is also known for flat tires not because of speed or heat, it because of the sharp rocks and gravel.. One nice thing about this road is the top of the world panoramic view, we could see hundreds of miles in any direction. It is also is fairly close to the Arctic circle and is built along the peaks of these mountains and not in the valley near the rivers. The road starts at the ferry at Dawson, Yukon Territory and 64 miles later crosses the border into Alaska at a place called Junction. Junction has a population of 2, at least one of them is a border crossing guard. We got through customs and back into the US without any trouble, just had to show the passports and answer a couple of questions. As we left
the boarder we saw two caribou. The leg from the boarder takes us to the town of Chicken, Alaska, and old almost ghost town that was a gold mining boom town in the early 1900s. The population of Chicken stated on the town sign is 37 people. There is an RV campground and a store selling Chicken tee shirts. They will loan you a pan and let you pan for gold in the creek. The store attendant showed off his little amount of gold he had found. The area has no power from a grid, so small diesel generator sets were supplying the RV park and store.We finally arrived at Tok, AK and gassed up at an old station that advertised in the Milepost, "with a fill-up" get free use of their car/RV wash facility and a dump station. We washed the Bigfoot and
the Suburban and dumped the tanks. We were tired so we pulled to the side and spent the night. Gas prices are in the low $3 range. Today's gas mileage was an all time low of 7.4 over 190 miles.
We now have cell phone service, at least in this location. It has been 28 days without a cell phone. We have done just fine with Skype. I gave my buddy Tim, in Lubbock, a call and caught up on some of the news around the old office. At the time I was waiting on Barbara to finish her shopping at the North Pole Santa Store. Yes, we were in North Pole, AK at Santa's workshop.
Google Northpole, AK.
Our stop over tonight will be the WM campground in Fairbanks, AK. We called ahead for reservations. They will keep the light on for us.
We stopped at the Sams here in Fairbanks and purchased groceries. I'm going back to them tomorrow for a tire rotation and balance.
We plan to stay for a few days. Just one more item. The Merrymaid tag team of John and Barbara had to be called. Living in a 10 X 20 for a month makes a lot of mess. We also traveled some very dirty roads and it showed. I took the throw rugs out and mopped the floors. Got everything back together late.
FYI, we woke up to smoke in the air this morning that blocked the sunrise. Lot of forest fires here in Alaska. I am not sure where they are located.
And we have passed into the Alaskan Time Zone, 3 hours different from Lubbock.
John
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