Rick & Carol's Journey (DL)

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This installment covers Sunday (July 27) through Wednesday (July 30).

Sunday was a short driving day from Tok to Chicken. We left Tok about 11:00 a.m. and arrived in Chicken just before 2:00 p.m. It was cloudy this morning, but the sun came out and it warmed to the low 70s by mid-afternoon. We joined the four other couples with whom we are traveling for lunch in New Old Chicken. We then visited the three gift shops in town before taking a long afternoon nap and eating supper in the RV.


Monday was a drizzly, foggy, muddy driving day over the Top of the World Highway from Chicken to Dawson City. The 100 mile trip took just over 4 hours. We left in a group at 6:00 a.m. so that we would arrive at Canadian Customs close to its 8:00 a.m. opening time. This ensured that we had no oncoming traffic for the trip to the Canadian border, since U.S. customs opens at the same time.

After taking the ferry across the Yukon River into Dawson City, we checked in to the Gold Rush Campground. Carol and I then took our car to the local do-it-yourself car wash and ate lunch downtown at Sourdough Joe’s.

This evening we went to the Palace Grand Theater to see a performance of Fiddle Rush Too. This was a musical play set in a Dawson City graveyard, where people who died during the gold rush of 1898 came to life 100 years later to tell their stories. It featured piano playing, guitar, singing, clogging, and five fiddlers, including one 5-year old boy. Carol and I sat in the balcony and it turned out to be a very entertaining show. No photos were allowed during the show.

Tuesday was a nice, sunny, warm sightseeing day. Carol and I started the morning with a walking tour of 1st and 2nd Avenues. We visited the small Firefighters Museum and saw a line of Airstream trailers waiting to cross the ferry to the Top of the World Highway. Since the ferry takes two or three trailers at a time, and the day started with a total group of over 30, some of them had a long wait.


We stopped at the Visitor Center and window shopped at souvenir, grocery, and drug stores. The troupe from last night’s show was entertaining on a downtown street corner, so we were able to get some photos today.


After lunch we drove out of town for a tour of Gold Dredge #4. This dredge was in operation on and off from the early 1900s to 1959. Basically the dredge sits in a man-made pond and moves by dredging ore in front of itself and depositing tailings behind.



We also visited the site of the Discovery Claim, the first gold mining claim on the Yukon River.

On our way back to town we drove up Dome Road to a high peak overlooking the town and the Yukon River.


In the evening we had dinner with several other couples at Klondike Kate’s Restaurant, then visited Diamond Tooth Gertie’s casino for some gambling and a show. I played Blackjack at $2 and $3 tables for a little over and hour, and finished down $20.



It rained Wednesday morning, so Carol and I stayed in the RV. Carol sewed and I planned out our trip home from Prince George to Tallahassee. Since we have good WiFi service, I made a lot of ferry and campground reservations. We had lunch out at Sourdough Joe’s again – the Greek restaurant we wanted to try was closed today.

It cleared up this afternoon, but we continued our activities in the RV. Our group – which has expanded to include two additional couples – had a pot luck supper in the campground featuring fish tacos with halibut from the fishing trips in Homer.

I returned to the casino this evening, where I played blackjack for an hour and 45 minutes and broke even. My goal was to win back last night’s $20 loss – and although I was slightly ahead much of the evening, I never got that far up.

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This installment covers Tuesday (July 22) through Saturday (July 26). Note that this is the second post today, so be sure to read the blog entry below this one as well.

Tuesday was a short, sunny driving day from Denali to Fairbanks. En route we stopped at Nenana where we had lunch, visited the small railroad museum, and visited the small native museum. Nenana is the home of the annual lottery to pick the exact date and time that ice will break up in the Nenana River. A tower is erected on the river with a cable from its top attached to a clock on shore. When the ice breaks and the tower moves, the clock stops. The breakup is usually in April or May, and there may be 20 or more people who have selected the exact minute of the breakup and share the cash pool.


This evening our group went to a salmon bake at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks. The dinner included all-you-can-eat salad, prime rib, salmon, halibut and cod. After dinner we toured the park, including the aircraft museum. We then saw a show on Fairbanks history at the Palace Saloon in the park.



On Wednesday morning we took a short bus tour of the city, then went to the El Dorado Gold Mile for a train ride, a presentation on the history of mining, a demonstration of panning for gold, and an opportunity to pan ourselves in a stream of warm water with a guarantee of at least eight flakes of gold. I got about 9 flakes, with a total market value (at $920 an ounce) of $3.


We skipped the afternoon bus trip to the Museum of the North, and spent afternoon running errands.

Thursday was a free day. After having a leaky valve stem replaced on one of our tires, Carol and I went shopping. At the Alaska Bowl Store, we saw workers mass producing bowls from Alaskan Birch.


We then visited the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska. The museum has displays on the five different geographic areas in Alaska as well as an art gallery featuring both traditional and contemporary art.


Later in the afternoon we went to see the new movie, Get Smart.

Friday was a sunny day. In the morning we went on the Riverboat Discovery tour in a sternwheeler up the Chena River. This is a very choreographed tour which has changed little since 2002, but it was still very entertaining. We watched a float plane take off and land by the side of the boat, saw a brief sled dog presentation, saw a number of nice riverfront homes, saw a fish smoking demonstration, and spent an hour on-shore where we saw a talk by a musher and brief presentations on three aspects of Athabascan culture.



We also saw a campaign barge sailed up and down Alaska's river many years ago by a candidate for Governor.



After the boat trip, Carol and I headed to North Pole, Alaska – about 15 miles south – for a little Christmas shopping. This evening we had a social hour and a farewell dinner at a restaurant adjacent to the RV park. After breakfast tomorrow, the caravan will be over and we will all head our separate ways.

The caravan ended Saturday morning with a full breakfast at a restaurant adjacent to the RV park. Many of the caravaners are returning via the Top of the World Highway and some of those (including us) will continue on the Cassiair Highway. We are traveling for the first part of the trip with four other couples who are planning short driving days and longer campground stays.

It was a pretty driving day – mostly sunny with a high in the low 70s for the second day in a row. We saw a couple of moose en route, and stopped for photos in Delta Junction, the official “end” of the Alaska Highway.


We also got photos of the Alaska Pipeline where it has its own bridge across a river.


We stopped for the night in Tok, staying at the same campground as we did on the way up. We had a social hour this evening with our traveling companions, and another caravan couple who drove a shorter day than they had planned. After dinner we went to an hour long singing show in the campground recreation hall. We enjoyed the singer, and bought his set of 3 CDs.

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This installment covers Friday (July 18) through Monday (July 21).

Friday was a free day; unfortunately, it rained all day which caused us to cancel plans to visit the Independence Gold Mine State Park. Instead we drove to Wascilla for shopping, lunch at a Mexican restaurant, a visit to the Friday open air (and rainy) market in Palmer, and a theater to see the new movie, Hancock.

Saturday was a driving day from Palmer to Denali. The sun was out for most of the trip – it was the prettiest day in over a week. Carol and I signed off the caravan today so that we could make a side trip into Talkeetna. On arrival, we signed up for a 75 minute flightseeing tour of Denali in an 10-passenger Cessna aircraft. The top of Denali was above the clouds, and we made a couple of circles around and between the North and South peaks. On the return flight, we flew over the top of the Ruth Glacier, following it from its source in the mountain ice fields until it melted and formed a small, braided river outside Talkeetna.





After the flight we had lunch at an Oriental restaurant in Talkeetna, then walked around the town and visited its small museum.



Our RV site in Denali overlooks the river and we periodically see rafters from the front of our coach.


Sunday was our bus tour of Denali National Park. Our bus left the campground at 6:40 this morning. We rode about 62 miles into the park and then returned. It was a chilly, overcast day, and we saw only a smattering of wildlife – two distant grizzly bears (or one bear twice), a couple of golden eagles, four Dall sheep, a family of ptarmigan, and one distant moose cow. All were too far from the bus for us to get decent photos. Our bus overheated about 15 miles from the park entrance on the return trip and we waited about half an hour for a rescue bus to come pick us up.


Monday morning we visited the Husky Homestead, home and dog raising site of Jeff King, four-time Iditarod champion. We started with a puppy holding session. This is designed to socialize the dogs and accustom them to noise crowds; it also appears designed to help sell souvenir photos. We heard two interesting presentations on raising, breeding and training sled dogs, and on running the Iditarod. The latter was given by Jeff’s 16-year old daughter, who finished 32nd in last year’s race with a team of young dogs who were being familiarized with the race. This was a very good tour, and is one that Carol and I would likely never have seen if we were travelling alone, rather than on a caravan.




This evening was a family-style dinner and after-dinner show. A kiss from Kitty went for $1.00, and several members of our group (including me) left with lipstick on their cheeks or heads. The show featured some singing, some storytelling, and the acting out of Robert Service’s The Ballad of Dan McGrew with some audience participation.

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This installment covers Sunday (July 13) through Thursday (July 17).

Sunday was an overcast driving day from Seward to Homer. En route we stopped at a woodcarving shop and got photos of some large scale carvings.



Others on our caravan also stopped, but it looked like everyone was taking photos and no-one was doing much buying. While stopped, we had a good barbeque lunch from a small lunch stand.

Our campsite in Homer is located on the Homer spit and has a waterfront view.




This evening our caravan carpooled to the end of the spit where we had a social hour and a halibut dinner at the Lands End Restaurant.

Monday was a free day. This morning was overcast and we got poor photos of town when we drove up Hill Drive to the ridgeline overlooking the area. We did see a moose cow with two calves and Carol was able to get a couple of good photos.


Back in town, we visited the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center. In addition to the exhibits, we saw a short movie on the activities in the reserve. Carol and I had a quick lunch, then drove up Hill Drive again and, with a little afternoon sun, got a couple of better overview photos of the town and the spit.


Nine members of our caravan went halibut fishing today. This evening we had pot luck dinner at the campground with their successful catch as the main course.

Tuesday was a driving day, backtracking up the Kenai Peninsula to the Beluga Overlook RV Park in Kenai. Our campground had a good view of the beach below, where the season just opened for Alaska residents to dip net for red salmon.


Carol and I walked down to the beach, which was littered with fish heads and flush with sea gulls.



After a group dinner, Carol and I drove to see a nest with two young eagles near the city boat docks. We also drove to viewing areas in hopes of seeing caribou and moose, but the animals were not cooperating.

Wednesday was another overcast driving day from Kenai to Palmer, about 40 miles west of Anchorage. Carol and I signed off the caravan this morning, because we had to visit the Winnebago dealer to get our new windshield wiper switch and sewer door latch installed. En route, we stopped at the Alaska Big Game Wildlife Center, where large animals are rehabilitated. We got our first view of bull moose and grizzly bears, and got some good photos of each.



Thursday was another a rainy day. Thanks to the Anchorage Winnebago dealer the leak around our windshield is finally fixed – we did not collect any water overnight in the pot we have been using to capture rainwater. This morning our group took a short bus tour of the Mat-Su valley area. Palmer was one of the new communities created by FDR during the depression; it was populated in 1935 by families relocated from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. The tour included one of the original ‘colony houses’ and a local museum with some exhibits from that early farming era.

We had lunch at the local inn, then toured the musk ox farm. The musk ox (which are neither musky nor oxen) are raised here exclusively for their underhair, or quivuit, which is many times lighter and warmer than wool, and proportionately more expensive. A knitted scarf goes for about $225. We got photos of both full grown musk ox and of a couple of calves.



This evening our caravan had an early chili / clam chowder dinner in the campground’s recreation hall.

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This installment covers Sunday (July 6) through Saturday (July 12).

It rained all day Sunday on our free day in Valdez. We skipped outdoor sightseeing, and instead went grocery, liquor and souvenir shopping. The souvenir store showed a free film on the building of the Alaska pipeline.

Monday was a driving day from Valdez to Mendeltna. On the first part of the highway out of Valdez, Carol and I stopped for photos of Horseshoe Falls and Bridal Veil Falls.


We also stopped at Worthington Glacier where we walked across the mud flats and about 3/4 of the way up a rock gully toward the face of the glacier.



We stopped for lunch at the Copper Creek Lodge in Copper Creek – a nice place that we ate at twice on our last Alaska trip. We also toured the small, free historical museum adjacent to the lodge.


After we left Copper Creek the rain began and continued all day and all night. Dinner was a group pizza and salad dinner in the small lodge building at the campground.

Tuesday was a short driving day from Mendeltna to Anchorage. We began with a group continental breakfast at the campground. The rain continued almost all the way to Anchorage, and we had some heavy fog for about 15 miles in the morning. Our windshield wipers started to act up again, so we disconnected the power to them and relied on a new treatment of Rainex to get us through the day.

Because of the poor weather, we did not get to see much of the landscape – what little bit we did see looked beautiful. We did have a moose cross the road in front of us, but too quick for any pictures.

In Anchorage we ran some errands and stopped at the local Winnebago dealer to finagle an appointment tomorrow morning to fix the windshield wipers, a broken compartment door latch, and a new roof leak that developed last night around the skylight in the bathroom.

Carol and I got up early Wednesday morning to take the Winnebago to the local dealer for some minor repairs. We then joined our caravan on a bus tour of Anchorage. The highlight of the tour was the Alaska State Museum.


We had a huge lunch at the Sourdough Restaurant and concluded with souvenir shopping at Alaska Wildberry. The latter store features a two story chocolate fountain.


We picked up the Winnebago with 1-1/2 of the three problems fixed; the dealer is ordering parts and we will stop in on our return trip through Anchorage next week to get a new wiper switch and compartment door latch installed.

Thursday was a free day during which we visited the Alaska Heritage Museum. In addition to a traditional museum, the facility contains replicas of the types of houses used by the five major native groups in Alaska. There is a native interpreter in each house to talk about the culture of their people.



There are also a number of dance and other performances throughout the day. On the way out of the museum parking lot we saw a moose cow near the side of the road.


Friday was an overcast driving day from Anchorage to Seward. The first part of the drive is along Turnagain Arm. Tide was low this morning, so there were extensive exposed mud flats. When the tide comes in, there can be up to a six foot tidal bore. We stopped en route at a jade shop, where we bought a couple of Christmas presents, and then had breakfast for lunch at the nearby Bake Shop.

The trip continued along the side of the water until the highway split – left going to Seward and right going to Homer. The road then narrowed and twisted through some foothills until we reached Seward. Our RV campground is a waterfront city park.

Saturday was a sunny, clear free day. We got some photos from both the RV park and downtown of what the mountains look like when the sky is blue instead of grey



Carol and I visited Exit Glacier where we took a loop trail to a viewpoint close to the face of the glacier.



We did not try to walk to the lower face – the mud flats had too many wide streams that would have been difficult to navigate across. After lunch, we toured the Alaska Sea Life Center. This facility has aquariums, sea birds, sea lions, harbor seals, and other displays. In the bird area, we got several good pictures of puffins.


After the Sea Life Center, we made a photo stop at the site where the original 1910 Iditerod race began.