Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Delta Junction AK - end of the Alaska Hwy


The caravan has breakfast at Rika’s Roadhouse, now a nice state park.  Nearby, we glimpse for the first time the Alaska Pipeline, as it crosses the wide Tanana River on a suspension bridge. 
The oil pipeline crosses the Tanana River.
 Marcia is finally able to get laundry done, although it isn’t easy; 76 dirty caravaners, all vying for the few working machines.  Someone organizes the group and numbers are assigned and order returns.

I spend the day taking advantage of the first good WiFi to update the blog from, I think, a Seattle posting through Watson Lake, our stop on July 18th.  My how time flies.

Monday, July 30, 2012

We leave Chicken, but Barry has a flat.


We leave Chicken in an appropriate cloud of dust.  

Things come to a halt in a couple miles – a sharp rock has pierced one of Barry’s trailer tires.  NorCal closes ranks defending against attack (Bears? Mosquitoes? SoCal?—you never know out here).  We see nothing but other Airstreamers (yes, including SoCal) checking to make sure the situation is under control.

Barry, probably just wishing everyone would go away for awhile, has the tire changed in no time at all. 

Barry and Claudia leading, we leave Chicken.
A mile or so later.
The culprit, in his tread.
The road stays intermittently bad for another 60 miles, but soon clears and offers our first views of the really tall snow-covered peaks south west of Fairbanks, perhaps even Mt. McKinley.  At last, we have returned to good pavement and guardrails. 
McKinley?

CocaCola-financed crop circle?

We stop for a welcome restaurant-style breakfast at Fast Eddy’s and drive on to the town of Delta Junction AK, and the Green Acres RV Park on the Richardson Highway.  Our sites have full hook-ups, our doors open on lawn not dust, our roof TV antennas receive grainy images of the Olympics we wouldn't tolerate at home, and we are happy.  People restock, clean up, and rest; thanks to much better WiFi, e-mails are sent and received, bills paid, and blogs updated.  In the evening each of us is presented with a certificate for completing the Alaska Highway, as Delta Junction is its official northern terminus. 
Delta Junction campground - heaven to us.
Larry presents us with some moose candy, but we remember from Newfoundland his fondness for the real thing and decline.
Dawson Creek YT to Delta Junction AK, the official Alaska Highway is conquered.
...but we can't escape those mosquitoes.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

NorCal has a rump meeting in Chicken

We NorCal Eight are becoming concerned about arriving at Denali without tour reservations, and little information has been available from our leaders.  Martha does some research and we agree on the 8-hour bus option; she makes the reservations and we are good to go.  We hope it works out better than our rumbling endless school bus ride on gravel 10 years ago with Andrew and Kevin.  Unfortunately, access to the park is pretty well limited to the concessionaire buses  and the park's dead-ended road has to be repeated to exit.

Meanwhile in Chicken we take a guided walking tour of the old part of Chicken.  It thrived roughly from the 1920s to about 1960 supporting the dredging operations but was abandoned when the large companies pulled out.  The old-lumber smell of the buildings give me a flashback to the workshop behind my grandfather’s house in Pasadena.  Our guide, a “off-the-grid” twenty-something experimenting with wilderness life, tells us the history, but the 1960s just don’t seem as long ago as it appears to her.  Nor, I guess, does WWII.



School for 10 in this room, including 3 natives, which caused some concern until the teacher pointed out there would be no school funding if attendance fell below 10.


Donna, Marcia, Janine, Karen K
The camp mess hall.
Uneven permafrost melting causes buildings to settle strangely.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Chicken, Alaska (pop 37, maybe)


Mike and Barry play radio.



Claudia and Marcia appreciate good chicken.

Marcia declined to add either her bra or her hat, since service was slow.

The Chicken Poop, in case you missed the sign.
Today is an optional 4.5 hour (one way) drive on roads like we’ve just experienced, for a tour of Eagle.  Most of the group chooses to pass, including us.  Nick, retired from the Foreign Service with postings in Tunisia, Honduras, Belize, and most recently Kazakhstan, says no more dust and dirt for him; he and Alicia leave, saying they will see us when the see us, probably Fairbanks.
Husky pups for sale.


Friday, July 27, 2012

Top of the World Highway to Chicken AK


Today we drive from Dawson City YT in Canada to Chicken AK in the US, via the notorious Top of the World Highway.  On the last caravan part of the road was washed out forcing a 500 mile detour.  On another, taken by unit members Kathy and Larry, mud was the main issue.  We've had very little rain so dust could be our problem.
The free ferry from Dawson City, the only way for many miles to cross the Yukon.
Mike catches the ferry.
At last night’s drivers meeting our leader described how we must catch the ferry across the Yukon to get to the Top of the World Highway, but the numbers just don’t add up:  we have 38 rigs, the single ferry gives priority to locals and commercial vehicles, a crossing takes maybe 20 minutes round trip, and considering the local traffic only a couple rigs will make it across per trip, at best.  It is going to be a long day, much longer than he calculates. 

And it is.  Our Dawson City campground is strange, and departing is hard for all if I don’t get my rig out of the way; I use this as my excuse to leave earlier than the suggested time (others find their own rationale), and our four NorCal rigs head for the river.  

Mike gets across about 9 AM having to wait for only one ferry cycle, and we cross on the 3rd or 4th; then the delays start building.  Mike doesn’t wait on the other side, so Marcia and I also go on (yes, a bad excuse), and as the others cross our small pod becomes spread miles apart and usually our of radio contact.  This can be a concern because the road is horrible, with alternating stretches of dusty gravel and pot-holed asphalt that has seen little maintenance.   The climb to the top is without relief, which can be a major concern particularly to the gas vehicles.  There are no services or any population for over a hundred miles.  Trucks are coming at us at high speed.  Worse are RVrs coming from Alaska that make no effort to share the narrow road, forcing us dangerously close to the soft edge (there is no real shoulder) and precipitous drop-off.

But what a view!  We could see this road from the Dome yesterday and I expect to have a view back to Dawson City, but this is impossible because the road takes so much attention.  But once to the top the views are almost without end, both to the left and right, uninterrupted by fire lookouts, fire roads, microwave towers, grazing cattle, or any sign of people impact - just, occasionally, a glimpse of our road in the distance.  







Eventually we come to the border crossing and I say good morning to a stern U.S. agent that responds with one word: passports.  But after a few questions and no chat we are again on our way, wondering what he did in Anchorage that led him to be assigned to this remote outpost.




We arrive in our camp at Chicken, Alaska, a little after noon.  The final three rigs arrive about 8:30 PM.  Our trailer and truck are filthy inside, and the trailer looks ransacked, but no damage. 

A caravan parker watches with envy as my personal parker does it right.

What a mess!


Our drinking water hose.

Patti deals with her dust.
I speak with Jim5, one of the last to arrive in Chicken.  Jim abandoned his first trip to the ferry because of lines and went into Dawson for coffee and more sightseeing, a reasonable sounding strategy; but when he came back he had to wait over 5 hours to cross the Yukon.   Worse, he and Debbie left a trailer vent open and fan running, and failed to shut off their water pump.  The road jiggled a faucet on and a stopper into place, and gallons of water pumped and sloshed to the floor, mixing with dust pulled in through his ceiling vents.

The problems of dust and potholes are just part of the game.  The delays at the ferry could have been diminished, for the locals and us, with better planning and coordination, ideally limiting the caravan to 25-30 rigs.  We are finding 38 is just too many, even if Wally did his caravans with 100-200.

Jim5 and the other two late rigs ended up scrambling for dinner in Chicken.  For the rest of us, we have time to leisurely enjoy a camp provided dinner of—chicken.

After dinner a twenty-something girl with twin two-and-a-half year old daughters running marginally in control does an excellent job describing her life in the nearby town of Eagle, raising huskies (and her kids) off-the-grid, save for a couple of solar panels.  Oh, and Internet access allowing her to Skype her family.  She and her carpenter boyfriend also conduct sled adventures in the winter for well-to-do tourists.  She seems happy but thankful for Skype, and will soon move to 100 even more remote acres they bought from a First Nations person.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

A doctor cliff-jumps above Dawson City.


Another cool night and bright, sunny morning – perfect for small repairs, and restocking for tomorrow’s trip on the Top of the World Highway.   We take a mid-day break by driving to the Dome for a picnic.

As we sit at the lone picnic table a small car brakes to a halt and two people emerge, quickly pulling mounds of nylon and rip-stop from the back seat.  They are friendly but hurried, and we soon realize the girl is going to jump from the edge and paraglide to the Dawson City waterfront; the guy is a friend and/or instructor, and is not jumping.

Her first jump fails when she doesn't get enough lift to get off the ground.  Her second goes well, and we watch her sail with grace over the town, landing nicely on a strip of grass at the river’s edge.  Her friend drives down to pick her up.

Turns out she is a doctor on lunch hour with maybe 15 paragliding experiences, now 3 from this dome.  After work she plans to jump again, and coincidentally we are in town about 6:30 PM and see her on the lawn repacking her gear, another safe landing.  (In another coincidence, one of our caravan mates was seen by her at a local health clinic earlier in the day.  We know in Skagway AK we were told the nearest doctor is in Whitehorse YT, and this town seems smaller than Whitehorse.  We hope she takes care of herself.  Her flight is beautiful to watch and we are impressed with her ambition, but we all agree it isn't on our bucket list.)

Dredges progressed up-river depositing hedgerows of tailings.
The Klondike and Yukon merge at Dawson City.





Dinner for eight at the Drunken Goat.
Dawson City is one of our favorite places.  Tourist dependent but still an active economy based on its traditions of gold digging.  Unpaved streets, architecture and many buildings dating to 1899.  For the first time, significant young people, at least as visitors; backpackers, hikers, hitchhikers, families.  Our waitress at the Drunken Goat loves living here year-round, something we can’t imagine but we feel we could make good use of a summer here.
Marcia vamps at one of Ruby's cribs, which stayed open until ordered closed in the 1960s.

Leaning buildings are a sign of the permafrost melting unevenly, probably because of a stove in one room.

Debbie and Jim5 - fulltimers.
Soon we will replace these caravaners on the bench.


Brie the cat basks in the window as Martha gets ready for a GAM--a get-acquainted gathering.