June 16th

THE DETAILS:

THE WEATHER: Partly sunny and 64 today. The high was only 77. There’s a steady wind.


DISTANCE: We left Northway, AL at 10:30 and arrived Delta Junction around 7:30!! Yah, things have slowed down considerably. We drove 160 miles.


We broke camp and got on our way at a leisurely pace because we are now in Alaska. We want to be able to stop where ever we find something interesting and more importantly begin a new adventure… fishing Alaska!! The first town we got to was Tok. It took about an hour to get there. We had decided to treat ourselves and eat out for lunch. We were pleasantly surprised with a very nice restaurant right in town. The food was excellent… especially the halibut! We have found that the restaurants and gift shops and even gas stations are nicer here on the American side.

From there we went to the post office to pick up the packages Gary had sent to himself by “general delivery”. We now feel more prepared and protected from any rogue wildlife. 2 days ago while in Canada, you’ll remember, Gary & I took a 30 minute hike. While we were there we met a nice Canadian couple who took our picture by a waterfall. They walked back with us and we talked about our trips and where we were from, etc. Well, when we went to walk out of a gift shop in the town of Tok… who walks in? Yep, that same couple. We compared notes on where we had been and what we had seen. They had seen 2 elk and we had seen the herd of wild horses. We were both jealous of each others sightings!

As we continued on down the road we crossed a bridge that spanned the Robertson River. It was interesting that even though much of the river was not flowing there were still large chunks of ice left over from the winter. We also saw a large area of one of the wild fires that burned an area right outside of Tok. While we were in the gift shop they were all excitedly talking about the fire T’s that they were expecting to be delivered tomorrow. I asked what they were and she explained that whenever there are firefighters from the lower 48 and Canada that come to help put out wild fires they design a T-shirt before going home. When they are delivered the store sends them out to the crews that came to help. She said there are some guys that have a hundred shirts! Pretty cool.

We traveled on toward Delta Junction and had 3 fishing spots picked out. The first required a hike in and Gary wasn’t interested in doing that for the first time out so we continued to the next one, Jan Lake. It really wasn’t much of a lake… more like a pond, but it promised trout and there was no one else there so Gary pulled out all the equipment. I decided to let him have a go at it first and I would join him depending on the catch. Besides, I’m the bear spotter so I took my place in the RV overlooking the pond with my 44 close by my side…. Just in case! I had just settled down to work on this blog and I had a book in mind that I wanted to read when I heard Gary yell, “HEY”!! I threw the computer on the chair facing me and jumped up, grabbing the gun and…. Well, the camera! I figured either I’m going to shoot the bear or get a shot of Gary running from the bear. When I got down to the waters edge I found him “fighting” a fish! Hey, dinner! Sure enough he pulled in a little 12 inch rainbow. It did not take long to catch dinner tonight, just 30 minutes. He caught another 10 incher and we left to go have dinner. Fresh trout and salad…. Yum! (and Alaskan beer)

We are at a Good Sam’s campground tonight where a lot of the road workers are staying. They will most likely be up early tomorrow morning and leave. I met another woman from Germany today while I was checking in! Do the Germans vacation (woops, holiday) in Canada & Alaska a lot Rick (or Judy)? We are in a site that lines up all the RV’s but at least there are some trees around and in between us. Not exactly wilderness camping but nice.