30 June

On the road in the rain, followed by intermittent teasers of no rain. We crossed the boarder yesterda, which I forgot to mention. We're now in the Yukon Territory, traveling east and south. We stopped early today, because we reached a point of no return as far as going another 3 hours or stopping and finally getting around to doing laundry. Laundry won out, of course.

Our Milepost Guide has written that we could see bear along the stretch of road we traveled today. We saw two different solo young bears at the edge of the road, just eating vegetation. Don't know if they were male or female, because I didn't see them pee and I've learned that this is the easiest way to tell the difference without getting up close and personal. Males just do, whereas females are a lot "daintier" according to our Bear Adventures guide. It's hard to describe, but once you've seen the difference you just know.

We also saw a small herd of wild horses. Moving at a clip that didn't allow them to have their picture taken. To date, we still haven't seen a moose up close enough to get a good picture, just random far away viewings.

Here's a list of animal crossing signs we've seen to date:
Bear
Caribou
Deer
Duck
Elk
Elk
Goat
Horse
Moose
Prairie Dog
Sheep
Turtles

We camped at Yukon Motel and RV in Teslin YK.  Teslin is a little under half way to Watson Lake, or 150 miles from Whitehorse.  The campground was on Nisutlin Bay.  The bridge across the bay is the longest bridge on the Alaskan Highway.  However the bay is inland, and doesn't connect to any major body of water other than the Teslin river and lake that was glacially formed.

I don't know if there'll be a posting tomorrow, since we'll be in the boonies again.  To the point that Dease Lake is the only listing in our Trailer Life directory.  The place at Dease Lake doesn't list Internet.  So 20th century, but don't worry we're headed south and hopefully will be bringing the rain and coolness with us.

28 June and 29 June

Departed Homer for points unknown at time of departure.   Roger was originally thinking stopping east of Anchorage, but it was raining so we decided to ramble on.  We took the Glen Highway east away from Anchorage and got to Glen Allen.  It was still raining off and on, so we took a right turn down the Richardson Highway towards Valdez.  This highway, (like all other highways in Alaska), is listed as scenic.  Sometimes scenic is a euphemism for curvy and hilly.  Anyway a shade under 500 miles from leaving Homer, we stopped for the night.  We entered Wrangell - St Elias National Park, which is the largest National Park in the USA.  It is also one of the least developed.  Our campsite for the night has water, sewer, and electricity.  This will be the first time we’ll be showering in the RV.  I was just happy to find water, because we had run out of fresh water which we hadn’t topped off when we left Homer.  Lesson learned.

The picture is of a dormant volcano on the road from Homer.  This volcano, Iliamina, is across Cook Inlet from Ninilchik and is listed as being 10,016 ft.  When we turned right at the end of the Glen Highway, we saw Mt Drum, which is listed as being 12,010 ft.  Unfortunately the rain prevented a really nice picture.  However it is one big wide mountain, which has a huge base that rises up to its peak.  These two peaks are different with their defined peaks, as oppose to glacially smooth tops which we’ve seen so many of on the Kenai Peninsula.

The Copper River picture is taken inside Wrangell St Elisa NP. 

Me waving, inside the RV, is my attempt at avoiding getting eaten by bugs.  The bugs don’t seem to bite Roger as much, must be older tougher meat.

his morning we left to go to the end of the road at McCarthy and then hike to Kennicut in Wrangler.  Roger took pity on me, as I think he thought my head might explode (fortunately it didn’t).  The road wasn’t paved and is listed as washboard gravel.  Roger thought it might be similar to the Top of the World Highway.  It wasn’t.  It was a whole lot worse with countless more potholes.  The roadbed is an old 1900ish railroad.  Over time gravel has been added, but the washboard effect is still there.  I thought I was going to be vibrated to death.  At the 10 mile point (out of 60 miles one way) Roger turned around.  That was good for me, bad for him, because I really think he wanted to see the old mining town.  Once we got back on paved road and several Advil later, my head calmed down enough to where I started feeling human again.

So we headed north and east to Tok.  Caught the Alaskan Highway east at Tok and ended our day in White River Yukon, about 40 miles from the Canadian border.  The campground we’re at tonight generates its own electricity and showers cost $1 for 2 minutes.  Don’t turn the shower off to try to conserve water, it shuts off the shower completely.  We’ve come to find out that campgrounds charge for showers in an attempt to force folks to conserve water.  Too bad the system doesn’t allow Navy showers for more conservation.  Live and learn.

Mike our pilot/guide took these pictures today, from Alaska Bear Adventures.
http://alaskabearadventures.smugmug.com/Bears2012/Bears-6-27-12-am/23833555_TFRmx5#!i=1931844244&k=LvbVL2b

27 June

As I promised Roger for his birthday, we took Alaskan Bear Adventures for an hour long flight out to Katmai National Park to see the brown bears.  The plane was a 6 seater Cessna 206, so it was our pilot and 5 passengers.  Three planes went and we were weight loaded.  I got delegated to the back row and Roger was in the middle where he had the most leg room.  Actually he spent the hour with his elbows on his knees.  I spent the hour wishing I had a booster seat, because it was hard for me to see out of the window.  Regardless it was a picturesque flight.  I’ve opted to only post two picture, during the flight Homer Spit above and a cool snow back below.

You’ll have to bear with me, but we saw a lot of cool bear stuff today.  The first bear we saw was a young male.  (When there's a circular shot, I'm taking the picture through one side of my binoculars.)

The second set was a sow and her cub.  Cubs stay with momma bear until they are 4 years old and then they get the boot.  Usually they’re born in pairs, and the survival rate to breeding maturity is about 25%.  Bear cubs can become victims of larger predatory bears, poor feeding, or drowning.  Once bears learn to swim, they are excellent swimmers.   

Our pilot/guide Mike said that there are about 3500 brown bears in the park.  About 10% of the population grazes in the meadow we were in.  Bears are omnivores and seasonally eat what is available.   Right now there’s oysters and grass.  Goose grass is their favorite grass, since it has 15% protein content when compared to the other grasses.  Bear scat also changes when their diet changes.  It currently resembles horse manure, due to grass consumption.  Later on in the year when fish and berries become available bears gain more weight due to the higher protein content in fish and sugar content in the berries.  Bears generally aren’t fast movers unless threatened or when a female is trying to avoid a randy male.  (Note the last of the trio of above pictures was taken without the binocular method.  This guy came about 25 yards close to us.)

We saw bears eating, sunning, sitting, frolicking, swimming, and mating.  So if you’re offended by any of these bear activities, don’t look at the pictures.

When we got back, we stopped at the local Quilt Shop because we saw it.  Not that we had to go out of the way. 

 Afterwards we then to the Wildlife ocean visitors information center, which had a very interesting movie about sandhill cranes.  This variety of crane nests in Homer.  Their young stay with their parents for 1 year.  Then once the parents migrate back to their nesting site, the young is chased away.  Generally only 1 of the 2 chicks hatch survives the first year.

Tomorrow we'll be leaving the Kenai Peninsula and heading towards eastern Alaska.  I asked our guide about seeing bears eat salmon and was told, it all depends upon whether or not the salmon are running.  We've seen the local news and apparently this year is a bad year for all types of salmon.  Marine biologists don't know why, but it just is.  Right now a lot of the tourist fishing rivers are closed only to subsistance fishing (meaning that only native Alaskans can fish.)  One opinion I heard was perhaps it is the result of the tsunami of March 2011.  There's no good explanation.  The closing of tourist and commercial fishing in certain rivers is to provide the wildlife a fighting chance to get the fish they need.

26 June

The day started off with rain, no great surprise, so we headed off to Homer.  Homer is on the western side of the Kenai Peninsula.  It took us a while longer than it did getting to Seward, because we were got caught in road work, which we didn’t see on the Seward spur.  The road splits and one leg goes east to Seward and the other to Homer. 

 About fifteen minutes before we got to Homer it finally stopped raining.   The wind was still blowing, which helped break up some of the clouds and we actually saw the sun this afternoon.  We checked into our most expensive campsite to date, $50.  Hopefully this will be the most expensive for the entire trip.  We checked another place that wasn’t advertised in our Trailer Life book and it was $55 plus pay showers.  So of course we’ll be staying 2 nights here.  I had promised Roger for his birthday a bear seeing flight trip to Kodiak Island.  So tomorrow we’ll be flying to Kodiak to see the Kodiak grizzly bears. 

We then went to lunch and had the best meal we’ve had all trip-- Halibut bites, delicious fresh caught yesterday.   After lunch we walked the Homer spit and checked out the beach and water temperature.  Then we looked at boats and saw a guy cleaning today’s catch.   We also saw some other halibut from another charter’s catch.

 

We drove up to Bear Winery, as they had wine tasting that one of the campground desk staff recommended.  What was really nice about the spot was the flowers.  The arctic lupines were huge.

Just thought I'd also show you the view from our campsite.  Roger is a "happy camper."

Hopefully, the weather will hold for flight seeing and bear watching tomorrow. 

25 June

With an early pickup to arrive at the boat piers for an 8 o’clock departure, we were off on a 6 hour cruise.  (You can hum Gilligan’s Island theme song if you want.)  We took a Kenai Fjords National Parks commercial cruise through Resurrection Bay and around the Aialik Peninsula to Holgate Glacier, which is on the eastern side of Harris Peninsula.  Both these peninsulas are at the base of the Harris Icefield. 

We saw lots of wildlife.  Humpback whales, horned and tufted puffins, sea otters, bald eagles, a variety of sea gulls, common murre, Steller sea lions (not to be confused with their more populous cousins California sea lions), harbor seals, Dall dolphins and mountain goats.  Unfortunately we don’t carry a camera that requires more than a pointing and shooting, so there aren’t pictures other than the two distant humpback whales.  You’ll just have to trust me when I say we saw them, without photographic verification.

The above 2 pictures are of glaciers from the Harris Icefield.  At one time they were connects.  The one is now landlocked. The ocean glacier is Holgard Glacier.  It's about 1/4 mile wide, and the boat was about 1/4 mile away.  It was doing some minor calving.  The picture below is glacial ice.  Glacial ice is crystal clear because it is formed from meltwater that has no trapped air or bubbles.

 When we got back, it was and is raining.  Seward is considered part of the North Pacific Rainforest region.  It is chilly, 54 degrees, so Roger and I were bundled up because our blood has thinned AND we’re unaccustomed to wet stuff falling from the sky.  Roger did find a large black spruce tree that was more or less dry underneath it, despite the ground out in the open being very wet.  It just shows how efficient the little spruce needles are at capturing rain water and providing water to the tree and not the undergrowth.

Right now we’re reading up on what we’re going to be doing once we leave Seward.  The destination is Homer, but there could be some stops along the way if we (Roger) finds something interesting.  Homer is on the western side of the Kenai Peninsula.   Homer is 173 road miles from Seward and probably 75 as the crow flies. 

24 June

Drat, rain found us again so we decided to forgo outdoor activities and got back on the road.  We continued to head south to the Kenai Peninsula.  Our first stop was to Whittier AK to see if the picturesque city was beyond the gray rain.  No such luck.  So we spent a whole 10 minutes driving through the town and headed back to the tunnel.  The tunnel is a one lane shared with the railroad tunnel, that is 2.5 miles long.  Every 15 minutes the traffic switches directions, with 15 minutes given to any transiting trains.  Alaska railroad is the way almost all inland goods are transported.  Semi-trucks are a rarity on the roads, since the train runs from Anchorage to Fairbanks and throughout the port towns. 

Seward was our ultimate destination for the day.  The town of Seward was named after John Seward, who was instrumental in coordinating the purchase of Alaska, “Seward’s Folly.”  (Secretary of State Seward was also wounded by John Wilkes Booth during the Lincoln assassination.)  Seward is the gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park.  We checked into Seward Military Resort and got ourselves a very nice campsite, at an Army funded RnR site.  The resort has lots of folks in the cabins, but still had plenty of campsites available.  We then headed to town, where the only parking was pay parking for $10, regardless of how short you were going to be parking.  Roger groused and paid, not knowing or being able to figure out if Sunday was a fee day or not.  We walked around Seward and talked with a couple of fishermen.  The first guy we talked to said he caught 4 red salmon in a little over an hour, the limit is 6 per day. 

The second group was off a charter fishing boat and they caught several rock fish and halibut.  They hadn’t weighed their catch and were waiting for the boat skipper to get that done.  We didn’t hang around to find out how much they caught, but it looked to us like a good day.  The same group was going out tomorrow.  The boy I talked with as a member of the group said he had fun fishing, but the halibut were creepy to him.  I didn’t know that their eyes moved to one side of their head as they aged.

We then went to Exit Glacier, which is about 15 miles from Seward.  We did the glacier loop and it was interesting to note the retreat of the glacier.  The drive to the glacier is through what Roger and I have decided is sub-arctic swampland.  The snowmelt is everywhere and the ground plants are submerged with water running off.  It is curious to me how mosquitoes can survive the Alaskan winter, only to be out in full force in the summertime.  This was the first time we have been attacked by fierce mosquitoes.  Fortunately it was chilly, so we had on long pants and shirts.  Roger used Off on his head and I used my Off fan hooked to the back of my neck collar.  Exit Glacier wasn’t as impressive to us as Mendenhal Glacier.  This could have been because the weather was gray and dreary, and when we saw Mendenhal it was sunny.  Regardless the crevices were still the aqua blue color, as a result of light absorption.  It was difficult to get a good picture to give a size context, but there are people in the picture.  The other picture is taken across the Resurrection River and the glacial outwash plain with braided water.

 
Tomorrow we’re going to take a 6.5 hour cruise in Kenai National Park.  Unfortunately the weather is predicted to be 80% chance of rain, with a high of 59.  We’re not complaining, as it can’t be any worse than Doubtful Sound in New Zealand. 

We left Healy AK, 12 miles north of Denali NP and headed south towards Anchorage.  Anchorage is a little over 325 miles from Denali, so it was a short day for us.  At milepost 169 and then again 134 we stopped to try to get some pictures of Mt McKinley aka as Denali.  I’ve included pictures from both.  There’s a book Milepost Alaska that we have that tells you all sorts of interesting stops, things to see etc at the various mileposts along the major Alaskan highways.  That’s how I knew to stop at 169 and 134.  At 134, Roger got out his spotting scope and I played with our little camera some more.  At this stop there was a lady who had a Timothy-like camera that was kind enough to share a grey filter that helped with my snapshot.  All in all, Roger and I had a successful mountain viewing day going south.  We also drove through Houston on our way to Anchorage.

 Milepost had a quilt shop listed in Wasalla, but it’s no longer open.  This was only 1.6 miles out of the way, but who’s counting--- Roger.  Roger was successful at his stop at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts and picked up our second replacement plug for the Igloo plug in ice chest.  So far the original and first replacement part have failed.  We’ve no idea why the part keeps failing, but considering that the O’Reilly part was less than $3 we’ll take such expenses.  Hopefully this one will work and we’ll have our drinks cold again.

We got to Anchorage about 2 and checked in at the RV park.  It was a smart thing to do, because when we came back this evening the park is full.   After we got our space for the night,  we headed downtown.  I had originally planned on going to the Visitor Center, but the RV office had all the information that I was after, so we went straight to the Summertime Weekend Festival.  The festival is a bunch of vendors downtown in about a 3 block area.  Lots of tourist stuff and we noticed that Alaska is very proud of being a lot bigger than Texas.   

I bought a caribou polish hotdog and shared it with Roger.  It must have been good, because Roger’s half was gone before I could return with the napkins.  Of course Roger didn’t want one when I said I wanted one.  He helps me in so many ways.

The festival wasn’t crowded at all.  I guess that was good for us, and bad for the vendors.  In fact one of the ladies we talked to in Chicken said her business has declined from 20% from May 2010 and May 2010 was her best month in 2010.   It’s amazing how the economic woes have such an overall national impact, as we’ve seen business closed everywhere we’ve been.  But I digressed.  After the festival we walked to Sheep Creek to the salmon viewing place, that is talked about in Milepost as something very worthwhile to do in Anchorage.  We didn’t see any salmon. 

We then started walking back and saw a guy fishing, so we stopped and talked with him.  He told us that the salmon don’t run upstream until they have the use of low tide coming in.  He also told us that the best place to see the salmon was closer to the mouth of Sheep Creek.  So we walked downstream a little over a mile towards its mouth.  There we then came upon an Army couple, who were there getting ready to salmon fish.  They told us all about salmon fishing on Sheep Creek, but that right now the snow melt has been too fast so the creek is way too muddy to see the salmon even if they were running up stream. We were about an hour too early for the change in the tide.  I think tomorrow we’ll go to the salmon viewing place about 7:30 pm just to see if we can see any jumping up the salmon jump.

Tomorrow we plan on bike riding.  The weather was really nice today and tomorrow is predicted to be the same.  Then the rain returns on Monday. 

Today we made it to Denali National Park and Preserve.  We got a peak of Mt. McKinley and if you look very closely you can see it in the picture sort of 1/3 of the way from the left with clouds around it.  Elevation is over 20,000 ft.  There’s a north and south peak, the highest point in the North American continent.  We could barely see it off in the distance.  We took a 6 hour, butt numbing school bus-like shuttle through the park up to Eieslen station.  This is the best way to see the park, as all private vehicles are restricted after 12 miles into the park.  The road goes down to one lane and you have to be a very skilled driver to drive the buses around.  Roger was very impressed.  The drive gave Roger time to look around and admire the scenery.  To me, after a while it all started to get overwhelming.  However it was fascinating to see that the Spruce firs go away at only about 2500 feet and after that it’s scrub brush and tundra.  Today was a gold star bear watching day, we saw 9. 

The group pictured was probably 150 yards away.

Of particular pleasure for some on the bus were two different sows with their respective twin cubs.  Our driver estimated that the cubs were spring cubs and less than 6 months old.  (Can you hear all the cooing in the background, “oh how precious”.  Of course I’m thinking yeah right, until you cross momma bear.)  We saw several caribou, a herd of Dall Sheep way off in the distance, and a red fox off in the distance.

Fortunately we had our binoculars, so we could make the sheep and the fox was on the move, so he was easier to spot with his very fluffy tail, that looked as long as his body.

Because my biggest Blog fan was asking where the pictures were of the wildflowers, Roger made a special stop to take a picture of Firefox.  I don’t know the name of the white flower.  The bluebells are out right now, and the state flower forget-me-not isn’t in bloom yet this far north.   For those bluebonnet fans, I learned today that in Alaska they aren’t called bluebonnets, that up here the wildflower is known as Arctic Lupine, not to be confused with their puny cousins down in that little state of Texas.

Denali is a little disappointing in that there aren’t the standard hiking trails that we’ve come to enjoy in the “lower 48.”  Instead you can go tramping anywhere in the park, at your own risk.  I’m just not comfortable wandering that far off the beaten path, and Roger has concerns about me stepping some place I shouldn’t while looking at something, that we elected not to do any tramping.  I did wander off the gravel road just far enough away to feel the tundra under my hikers.  It’s like an extremely plush carpet with a lot of extra padding.  Amazingly soft feeling, when you think that this ground was frozen less than 2 months ago.

Tomorrow we’re headed to Anchorage.  Roger is going to be looking into some day hikes that we can take in Chugach State Park.

We spent the day in Fairbanks.  In fact we didn’t move the RV today!  We signed up for a river boat cruise that took us down the Chena River.  It was interesting listening to the history of the area and the cruise included:  i) a sea plane demonstration with take off and water landing, ii) off shore visit of a famous dog sledge racing training and raising farm, iii) and a stop at a Chena Village, that has been moved to its present location for the benefit of tourists. 

The Chena River has changed its course and merger with Tanana River and a sand bar has formed.  For the benefit of the tourist a recreation of the former Chena Village is now in a place where folks can go ashore.  On land we saw Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Midnight Snack.  These are 4 reindeer or caribou that are on display to show what they look like up close.  We were also informed that caribou is delicious, as is moose.  Moose are also very territorial and are solitary creatures that only associate with each other during mating season.  This explains why we’ve seen small groups of caribou on the road side, but only a couple of individual moose along the way.  There are more caribou than people in Alaska.  There are also more moose in Alaska than people.  At the village, we also saw a salmon wheel, smoke house, and furs on display.   The natives claim a semi-subsistence, by stating that their meat is hunted and the rest of the diet is paid for.

 When we got back to the RV park, we decided it was the perfect day for a bike ride.  We rode into downtown Fairbanks, nothing to write home about, as there’s nothing quaint to the center of the city, for the second largest city in Alaska.  It will be interesting to see how Anchorage compares.  Fairbanks is working on being a bicycle friendly town, and in several places bikes have to ride on sidewalks and are prohibited from street use.  We stopped at the Alaskan Raw Fur Store, which was fascinating to apply our newly learned knowledge on the different types and warmth values of furs.  The most expensive fur was an extra large ranch raised silver fox selling for $675. 

The least expensive fur I saw was a $40 skunk pelt.  We then rode over to the Alaskan Bowl Factory.  There they turn amazing birch wood bowls, only during the summer time because it’s too cold in the winter time.  The locals only talk in terms of summer and winter.  Summer is from May to September.  At least that’s what our cruise guide told us.  He also told us that today there will be 21 hours, 40 minutes of daylight, one second shorter than yesterday.  We rode about 10 miles today, off and on, nothing too taxing.  Fairbanks is relatively flat, however the mountains rise up quickly.  In the winter time, the Chena River freezes over and airplanes with skis can land, snowmobiles ride over the river, dog sled teams mush down the river, and cross country skiing is also done all on the river.  Right now, there’s all sorts of boats, rafts, kayaks, canoes and general water toys at play.  The Chena River is a slow current river, compared to the Yukon.  It’s also not all that deep, but I couldn’t tell you how warm the water is.  Not very, based on all the screams of temperature shock we heard from people who got wet.  The bike trail is along the river in several places.

Tomorrow we’re headed off to Denali National Park.  I just hope the weather holds and the sky stays clear enough we can see Mt. McKinley.

Had a partly cloudy drive from Watson Lake to Dawson City.  Dawson was very important in the Yukon, so there are several areas that bear some form of his name.  We only got sprinkled on the road, which was a pleasant change of pace.  The drive goes through a lot of the Canadian Northern Rockies, which are more like the Appalachians in appearance, sort of.  They are tree covered with more rounding and less rocks and cliffs as further south.  The altitude isn’t as dramatic in the Yukon River valley and we eventually ended up on the Yukon Plateau, after seeing lots of rain showers around us and partial rainbows.  We finally crossed the continental divide, which is much further west than in the continental US.  Now all the rivers eventually get to the Pacific Ocean.  Watson Lake is about 3000 miles inland up the Yukon River and Chinook salmon make the 2 month migration to spawn in this area.  It’s hard to fathom the instinct of fish to make a 3000 mile journey upstream to spawn.  Needless to say, the fish are spent by the time they lay their eggs.

There’s not much to Dawson City.  We rode our bikes from the campground to “town”, about 2 miles from the campground.  There’s only one paved street, which is the Alaskan highway.  The side streets are all compact gravel, from years of being beaten down and the pot holes are filled with fresh gravel.  The strip down town is trying to maintain a Gold Rush feel circa 1890s, but it just seems “hokey” and very tourist targeted.  You have to pay for every sight in DC.  We stopped by Jack London’s museum, and for $5 you could see some pictures and such from Jack London.  There’s a replica of his cabin that used some of the original wood from his cabin, as well as a replica of his stilted storage shack. Generally moose don’t fight to the death, but in this case the horns got locked and both ended up dying, without mating I guess.  Is this Darwinism?  Roger did enjoy the DC Fire Museum.  The fire service was established in 1897, because the town kept burning down from hotel fires.  This fire department was originally a volunteer service.  They had two old steam fire trucks, which Roger found interesting.

We went to the oldest casino in Canada, Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Gambling Hall to see the Can-Can girls perform and listen to Diamond Tooth Gertie sing.  Gertie was called Diamond Tooth, because she had a diamond between her two front teeth.

 Tomorrow, we’ll be taking the ferry across the Yukon.  The Alaskan Highway ends on this side right into a mountain.  The ferry runs every 7 minutes or so, just as often as it takes to load up, cross and unload and repeat.  Right now the Yukon is moving at a good clip, and the current looks really strong.

 The campground advertises free internet, but the speed is slow and we had problems getting connected.  The thing that isn’t free is a shower.  $1 for 3 minutes, which I hoped meant that the water was hot at the get go, HA!  The water was barely tepid, so much for a relaxing wash off.  We got a little grungy riding back from DC, since the rain had just made the road sloppy and passing cars were slinging road slop.

Since summer is almost here, yesterday we looked up sunrise and sunset in Dawson City.  Sunrise is around 4:30 am and sunset is 11:30 pm.  It really doesn’t get completely dark right now, and is more like twilight when the sun is down.  The RV doesn’t get really dark, but Roger has no problem sleeping.  I’m wearing a dark mask and trying to make adjustments.  Today was the nicest day we’ve had to date, which means a pleasant 74 degrees, a breeze and more sunshine than rain and clouds.  

We left after sunrise, in fact were on the road by 6.  Neither of us sleep very long in the land of the midnight sun.  We had to wait about 45 minutes for the ferry across the Yukon, since that’s the road north to Alaska.  Roger had us driving on the scenic “Top of the World” highway. 

The highway is built mostly on a mountain ridge and has some lovely views, that our pocket camera doesn’t do justice.  Since we left Dawson City early, we ended up having to wait for the US border to open in Poker Creek AK, the most northern land border entry into the US, population was listed at 2. 

The next stop we made was in Chicken AK, which is a mining town that sees its population triple in the summer time, due to miners coming in search of gold. 

There are several active gold camps in the area.  We saw one group of guys working a claim along a creek on the side of the road.  Sort of like fishing with all the gear and playing in the extremely cold water.  From Chicken we went to Tok, nothing to talk about, then on to Fairbanks.  Once we passed Tok, the roads finally got paved again and although 2 laned,  have passing lanes and allow speeds greater than 30 mph.  Yippee!  We got our first glimpse of the Alaskan Rockies off in the distance and they are impressive.  Keep your fingers crossed that we get to see Mt McKinley, as our luck hasn’t been all the great weather wise.