Do you see the Indian face on the mountain?
One of my favorite things to do while we're traveling
 is to find faces in the mountains!

 July 27:     It's been a nice visit to Denali, but now it's time to get moving again.  Our plans are to go to Fairbanks for a couple of days. This will be the farthest north we will be going, so from Fairbanks on it will be a slow trek towards home. Oh my goodness, did I mention home?  I think both Rich & I have become overloaded by the expanse and majesty of what we have experienced all around us. From the grandeur of the mountains to the tiniest things like the colorful lichens that cover the forest floor. We have enjoyed every minute.  Going back home does sound rather nice, but not just yet. We have a few more miles and a few places we still want to visit before we make that final turn in the road that brings us back to Michigan.

Rich & I standing by our sign!!

Alaska's giant sized cabbage

July 28:  We arrived in Fairbanks in the late afternoon yesterday and got a campsite in River's Edge RV Resort.  Our idea today was to take a ride on the Dalton Hwy. that goes north out of Fairbanks up to Prudhoe Bay by Deadhorse.  After starting down the road, we discovered that out of Fairbanks you have to go another 64 miles to even get to the start of the Dalton Hwy.!  (That is the road the Iceroad Truckers drive)  We decided that gas cost too much to just take a drive up to the Dalton just to say we drove on the Dalton!! We paid $4.28 today for mid-grade gas.   What we did discover was a place where you can stop and have a get-up-close experience with the Trans-Alaska pipeline. We stopped there and took some pictures and had a good look at it. Oh, we even had our picture taken at this spot.

A place that beckons you to come sit awhile.

 
We also took time to go to the botanical gardens at the University of Alaska. It is an area that is still developing, with a lot of studying being done on Alaskan plants and trees.  There is always beauty in a garden of flowers no matter how well groomed they are (or maybe not quite as neat and tidy as I imagined the gardens were going to be).
















July 29:  We went for a riverboat ride today on the paddlewheel boat Discovery.  It was the most beautiful sunny, low 70s day. The boat cruises down the Chena River up to the Tanana River. It used to also go on the Tanana River, but that river is too shallow now for the boat to go on.  






We were treated to a demonstration by a bush pilot with info on just how they are such a necessary part of the Alaskan life. 

Just down the river a bit, we got to see Susan Butcher's Iditarod champion dog sled team perform. They are such a great team of dogs to watch. They sure get excited when they are hitched up for a practice run. Susan Butcher won the Iditarod four times, but in her early 50s, she passed away from cancer. Her husband and family have kept the dog kennels going since then.


There was also a place where we got to get off the boat and walk through an authentic  Athabaskan Indian village and fish camp and hear how things were done by the natives in the past. We find it pretty interesting to hear how things were done and possibly are done somewhat today.  This girl is modeling a coat made of many different furs for us. It is a beautiful coat and a lovely girl.  




Tomorrow we will be starting out for Tok. We have been there before on our trip, but to go anywhere in Alaska you have to go through Tok. That is unless you travel by the inland marine boat system, which we won't be doing.  That is another way of traveling that a lot of people choose to do. I hear it is a beautiful trip. We are on the lookout for some animals that seem to have not been around when we traveled in that direction early. I need to get my bear eyes on!!

July 4: The fourth of July usually means a lot of fireworks in Allendale with neighbors sharing the fun of shooting off fireworks over our small lake. We really missed that fun this year. We were still in Whitehorse, YK, so there wasn't any fireworks there for the day. Instead, we enjoyed watching the concert and fireworks taking place in Washington D.C. We are just plain proud to hear the songs that celebrate our country's history and see our flag. We are still proud to be Americans!

July 5, 6 & 7: Traveling on the Alaska Highway has been accomplished by many travelers. There is so much history along the way of men who “punched” the road through in a matter of ten months in the early 1940s. We have read a book on just how that was accomplished by some pretty rugged individuals. It was built in order to help with getting supplies and equipment to Alaska during WWII by the United States and Canada because of the fear of the invasion of Japan. It is a very interesting piece of history to check into. The Alaskan Highway between Burwash Landing and Beaver Creek, YK, is still in constant repair with many frost heaves and potholes, which makes for a very rough and slow ride. We were very happy to see the U.S. Border! One of the most exciting things to look forward to is that we have to take that road back home in a few weeks!

We did stay at a couple of great campgrounds on the way up over the highway. One was located along the shores of Kluane Lake at the Cottonwood Campground. We have been running into a lot of rain over the past week with very low hanging clouds. This always makes for a neat surprise when the clouds clear a little and we get to see the beauty surrounding us with awesome mountains. 

On July 7, we got to stay at the Discovery Yukon Campground near Beaver Creek, YK. We had gotten a site with full hookup. Two hours after we arrived, our electric went off. We found out that the generator that provides electric for the whole campground had quit. The owner had a fella from Whitehorse fly by helicopter up to the campground to see what was the problem. It costs a lot of money for people in this area to run a campground. We had a fun stay here. After supper, some of the campers gathered around a campfire and a fella gave some of us (who braved it) a ride on a 1941 army vehicle. What a hoot!! Throughout the back area of the campground, there were a few old relics that had belonged to the Army just “laying around” getting older and rustier.

July 8: Tok, Alaska, here we come! We have officially arrived in Alaska! The rough road smoothed out some after getting into Alaska, but Rich was happy to take a break from watching for dips, potholes and the white dippy line on the side of the road indicating another rolly polly spot! As I've said before, we have ideas on how a town or area is going to look, but usually it doesn't come close to what we're thinking. The towns in most areas that we have been traveling are either small or are “have-been” towns. Tok is a nice place, just not very big. It has everything you need. We stayed in the Sourdough Campground, which was nice. We ended up having their chili served in a sourdough bread bowl and apple pie with ice cream. Oh so good!

July 9: It is time to go meet the CHICKEN! We have tossed the idea around so many times as to whether or not we wanted to take our truck and trailer over the “Top of the World” highway. After talking with many of those “in the know” as to how the road was this year, we decided to leave our trailer in Tok at the Sourdough Campground and just drive the truck from Tok to Chicken. Now, those of you who have braved the ride from Dawson City all the way to Tok will laugh at us, but that's ok – WE'RE CHICKEN – and very happy we didn't ☺!! The drive to Chicken was good. There had been a fire in 1990 that burned more than 100,000 acres, including the area just outside of Tok. They say a “miracle wind” diverted the fire away from town. I had a hard time seeing past this “ugly” scenery. I have such a love for green trees and flowers, so this devastation makes it difficult to look at. The truth of the matter is that these fires are a blessing for many reasons. When we got to Chicken, we had so much fun “poking” around the very little old gold mining town. They still are actively mining for gold in this area. 

 We had some terrific chicken soup at the cafe and enjoyed checking out the old Pedro Dredge #4, which operated on Chicken Creek from 1959 to 1967. Before being moved to the Chicken Creek location, it had been used outside of Fairbanks from 1938 until 1959. In 1998, it was moved to Chicken for a tourist attraction.

There is a chicken statue standing proudly on a hill in town that was built of recycled lockers from a high school in Homer! Most of the time we were visiting Chicken, it was raining. 

We decided to just go a few miles out of town on the “Top of the Road” just to see if it was as bad as we were told. Let's just say, our Dodge truck has never seen so much mud. It was washed as soon as we got back to Tok.

Our next adventure is to go to Valdez for a few days. I'll let you know about Valdez in my next post.