Jun 23, 2012 - Heading Past Tok

6-23 Heading Past Tok Am Sunny and 71 Degrees 5 PM, Sunny and 83 Degrees Traveled From Chicken to Tok, on to Delta Junction, and on to Quartz Lake Stayed at Quartz Lake State Recreation Area First, a PS from yesterday. I mentioned that there was no cell service or phone service and limited mail. There is also no public electricity! Any electricity in the town is provided by generator. We had electric of sorts in the campground, but the more people who came in, the more the voltage dropped. We finally gave up on the air conditioner and...

Jun 23, 2012 - Tok

A nice day in Tok, Alaska – cloudy with a breeze but warm. Last night was my first night in Alaska. Since April 25, 2005 I have now spent at least one night in my RV in every state in the good old USA except Hawaii. This morning I did a load of wash and then went in to Tok for lunch. I had a burger and fries at the White Bear Café located on the Tok cutoff south towards Glennallen, Alaska. There is not much to Tok but you have to go through Tok when entering and leaving Alaska by ground transportation. I drove out to Mukluk Land 3 miles...

Jun 22, 2012 - Tok, Alaska

I left my site at 06:55AM hoping to wash my RV prior to leaving. However, the RV wash only took $1 Canadian coins and all I had were the two dollar coins and no place to exchange them so I hooked up the SUV and headed to the George Black Ferry leaving the campground at 07:10AM. I arrived at the George Black Ferry at 07:15AM. The ferry was just leaving as I pulled up. I was first in the RV line but a bus, a car, and a couple of motorcycles were ahead of me in the other lanes. They loaded and left at 07:32AM. I loaded at 07:50AM along with...

Jun 18, 2012 - riding a bucking bronco

The drive from Destruction Bay to Tok is known to be one of the roughest stretches of the AlCan these days. It crosses large swaths of permafrost, easily identified whenever you see stunted fir trees at lower elevations and wavy lines in the road. The poor trees can’t get their roots very far into the ground before they hit ice. There never seems to be a shortage of road to straighten, culverts to fix, bridges to replace, or surfaces to level out. The soil in this area is glacial and unsuitable for road embankments. Anything that causes the...

Jun 15, 2012 - Day 25 Snow River Campground to Tok, Alaska!

Day 25 Snow River to Tok, Alaska. We left early today (8am) so we could stop at Buckshot Betty's cafe and bakery in Beaver Creek. Thick sliced fried potatoes, homemade texas toast and thick cut bacon, oh, it was delicious! It was only the second meal we've eaten out, the other being in Stewart. It's very expensive to eat out, so I'm glad we stocked the refrigerator and freezer before we left. Next, I went on a hike to Hidden Lake. It was one mile through a spruce bog. I thought I'd see wildlife for sure, but all I glimpsed was a robin. The...

Jun 14, 2012 - Tok, AK

Still here in Tok. Was a rainy cold day. Went to the Visitor's Center and got alot of good info and then went to the gift shop and did a good bit of damage. It was a huge gift shop for the size of the town (pop 1500). The sun came out for a brief period and John walked down to the store, again. Had a big rain early afternoon. Pretty dull day whenAll you can do is give a blow by blow description of the weather. Did some trailer chores and that's it. Tomorrow is a short drive of 100 miles to Delta Junction - the official end of the AK Hwy. No...

Jun 13, 2012 - Tok, AK

Tok RV Park. Well, we left this morning in the rain. We're learning how to close up in the rain - John does it while I stay inside. Anyway, we drove a big 76 miles of which 67 were on dirt. It felt wierd to get back on a relatively smooth surface road on the AK Hwy. Tok is a town of about 1500 people. They have no town government, no laws, no elected officials, no taxes and no lawyers. Also no skunks, termites, roaches - only grizzlies and mosquitos. When we got to the campground we immediately washed the truck and trailer to get off that...

May 28, 2012 - Top of the World to Alaska

Part of our drive yesterday was spectacular and part of it was torture! We arrived at the ferry across the Yukon River fairly early and there was just one motorhome ahead of us but they were using a grader to build up the “launch pad” so we ended up having to wait one and a half hours to cross. The Top of the World Highway was awesome with snow along the roadside and beautiful views of the far mountains. The road was pretty good except in a few spots where it was gravel. Once we had to take a detour that took us down a dirt road almost to...

May 27, 2012 - May 27

May 27Th Been in Tok since Friday, just relaxing. The drive from Whitehorse was the worst. It was so bad. Had to take time to put the bikes back on the carrier as they came off. Jack saw it happen on the camera and we were able to stop and fix them. UGH. We had some minor things to fix when we got here. That's how rough the road was. We rested, he got his fishing license and went fishing and today we went to Chicken, an old gold mining town. We saw the damage that fire can do to an area as there was a fire in 2004 that destroyed 1.4 million...

May 26, 2012 - Tok, AK

Sat, 26 May: Tok Alaska!!! Back in the U.S.A. after almost three weeks in Canada. It's good to be home, even though it's currently raining buckets. Today's run was our most grueling yet. Not in terms of distance, we only added 198 miles to the odometer. Rather, the roads were full of frost heaves and deteriorating pavement that slowed our progress. Our overall average was just a tad above 40 miles per hour for the day. We slept well in our cozy beds in the wilderness of the northern Yukon. Traffic on the Alaska Highway slackened somewhat,...

May 24, 2012 - Day 30, to Tok, Alaska

Thursday, May 24, 2012 It was sunny and warm (relatively) this morning. It didn’t take long to reach the border. We stopped for pictures by the “Welcome to Alaska” sign and got in line for customs. Several of the Washington rigs were in front of us along with a tour bus and a commercial truck. It took a while to get through. It was a short drive today, about 120 miles, to Tok, Alaska. As we pulled into the campground, we realized all the Washington people were stopping here too. They have a wash station so we paid to wash the car and bus....

May 23, 2012 - back in the USA

OK, what’s wrong with yesterday’s photo of the moose and elk? They aren’t real! I had to take a double take. But before I walked towards them I remembered that they don’t have antlers this early in the year, right? And, I was having some real problems with the internet connection last night so you may not have been able to view the sign forest photos. Up early, knew we had a long day but we’ve arrived in Tok, Alaska. We gained another hour and now are in the Alaska Time Zone (four hours difference from home). And now we’re looking at 20...