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.

June 15th

THE DETAILS:

WEATHER: Woke up to beautiful blue skies and sun! The temp was 47 to start out this morning and would climb to 80 before it was all over with. There were a lot of clouds in the afternoon… as usual. We’re getting use to the afternoon cloud cover and sometimes showers. No rain today though!


DISTANCE: We left Whitehorse at 10:00 am. And arrived in Northway, Alaska at 6:30. We drove 343 miles today and 8 and a 1/2 hours. Can you tell we were anxious to get back onto American soil??


The drive today has been varied. Just outside of Whitehorse it was about 100 miles of prairie. There were lots of signs of elk everywhere but we never saw one. We did come across a herd of wild horses which were beautiful. I’ve never seen horses get spooked before because of a car stopping. These did. The beauty of today’s trip were in the Kluane mountains near Haines Junction, YT. They loomed ahead of us with snow capped peaks and clouds that hung around their midsection like a belt. It is the most impressive mountain range we’ve seen yet. They are Canada’s highest and the world’s largest non-polar alpine ice field. We followed them for quite awhile. The Alaskan Highway wraps around these huge giants. On the east side of the road was the huge Kluane Lake, which is Yukon’s largest lake. The colors were absolutely beautiful. It went from a turquoise green on one end of the lake to a deep blue on the other end.

The last 100 miles or so of Canada was horrendous road conditions. They are repairing parts of the road which means construction and unpaved roadways, but where they hadn’t gotten to the repairs, it was like being in one of those jumping houses for kids. Up and down and up and down and….. Yeah, for 100 miles! It’s a good thing we had Bert weld on that hitch. It got a work out today. We had been told by other campers who were going in the opposite direction than us that the roads in the Yukon are unforgiving. Now we know what they mean and we agree. Unfortunately, it’s the only way out of here so we’ll be doing it again in another month or so.

It was actually exciting to cross the border into America again. There’s just something about seeing your own countries flag flying high that makes you feel welcomed. Everything was once again familiar; The road signs were in miles, not kilometers. The gas was in gallons rather than liters, and measurements were in feet rather than! Ahhhh, home sweet home. Crossing into Alaska also crossed our last time zone change. We are now 4 hours behind you. It is 10:30 here, as I type this and 2:30 am there!! Can you imagine staying up until 2:30 in the morning! Ridiculous!

So the road got better and we are now looking at another mountain range that is bigger than life out in the distance. I’ll probably learn more about them tomorrow as I read my way through the Milepost magazine. When we stopped for a campsite in Northway we were surprised when we went into the campground that there was no one else there. I mean NO ONE!! We are the only RV parked in this pretty large parking lot. We’re not too far off the road and the state troopers headquarters is across the street, but I have to say, it’s a little creepy. But there’s some unfinished business that Gary & I had to attend to this evening. When Adam went to Israel 4 years ago he had brought back gifts for many of us. He had brought us a bottle of wine. Kim knew about it and had taken it out of Adam’s bags when they arrived and hid it from us until our anniversary that year. We discussed when we would open it; maybe our 25 anniversary, maybe his one year anniversary of moving to heaven. We decided that when we arrived in Alaska that would be the appropriate time. The trip that he wanted his father to take so badly, we would open it and toast to our son. So here we are, four years later, fulfilling Gary’s dream of visiting Alaska and Adam’s desire for him to do it.
I made spaghetti with meat sauce, a salad and to Michael W. Smith playing in the background Gary opened the bottle of wine and we toasted to Adam and the inspiration for our trip. We cried all the way through dinner. Thank you Lord for a campground that is empty, a campsite all to ourselves to reflect and grieve.
Gary decided that we would finish the bottle this Sunday….. Father’s Day.