Post #6: Alaska

From Dawson City it was a three day trip along the feared by some Top of the World Highway (TOW). Most of the TOW is not paved. It can be anything from freshly graded smooth gravel a comfortable two lanes wide to a single lane twisting turning rough washboard gravel road which can keep the speed down to well under 20mph. When wet it is a muddy mess no matter where you are on it. We had three days of dry but dusty driving.



First overnight was at a state park about 30 miles inside Alaska. We stopped here in 2008. Again the park was virtually empty.

Next day was a 12 or 15 mile bumpy run to Chicken. This time we stopped in Chicken for the night rather than blasting through like last time. The CG was the site of a gold camp & was interesting mainly because of the old gold dredging equipment scattered around the property.
Chicken has about 50 residents in the summer & only about 15 very hardy souls in the winter. The TOW is closed in the winter so the Alaskan DOT does not even plough the road as far as Chicken.

From Chicken it was on to Tok (pronounced toke) for a good vehicle wash & resupply before the next leg of the trip through settlements barely big enough to support a gas station & a convenience store.

Next stop from Chicken was Delta Junction, the official end of the Alaska Highway & where we leave the main road to Fairbanks & head south for Valdez.

Ron and Sally have been having troubles with their Ford all along. Twenty minutes out of Delta Junction their truck died. They were not in sight when it happened and when they did not catch us when we stopped for some pictures we  knew something had happened. We turned around. Went back and sure enough their truck was Found On the Road, Dead (FORD). No cellphone coverage where it died so we unhitched our trailer, pulled Ronnie's truck out from under their trailer, hitched up our reliable Chevy to their trailer and took it and Sally back to Delta Junction where she arranged for a tow (Cable Guy Towing) to go get Ronnie and the Ford. I then dropped Sally and the trailer at a CG and headed south again to pick up Carolyn and our trailer to continue south. Got back just in time to see the Ford get towed away. All  of this caused us to not get as far as hoped for that day but we did wind up in a lovely state park overlooking a lake.

The next day for us was onward to Valdez on our own. We have been here before but Valdez is well worth a second visit. We staued at the same CG as before overlooking the harbour.

From Valdez the next major area was the Kenai Penninsular, a three day drive at our schedule. One day for most of those with a rental RV tight on time. The weather had another go at us. This time we were holed up in what otherwise is an extremely beautiful CG with a glacier overlooking it. Our weather delay allowed Ronnie and Sally with the yet again repaired Ford to catch up with us.

From Williwaw CG to Homer, a fairly long day to what marked the furthest point from home and near the halfway point milagewise. Homer is a small town of about 4000 with a fishing problem. It is also a very scenic town with most of the activity out on the 3 mile long spit We spent 3 nights here doing some local sightseeing & a fishing trip.