Tok, round 2

Where we stopped for lunch.

Everything old is new again. We have gone full circle and are back in Tok. We are staying at a different RV park this time, Sourdough Campground. We will stay one night and push onward. We passed the pipeline again today, this time it was a river crossing. Such an amazing engineering feat. I think we have ruled out Taylor/Top of the World Highway. It doesn't save any time and might be longer. It has many 9% grades, winding roads and the roads up here are not asphalt. Most are gravel covered with tar. If we make it to Canada there will be no updates unless we get lucky and find an RV park with WiFi.

Fairbanks, AK

A salmon that was just filleted and hung to dry. More salmon being smoked in a traditional way. The Boucher home along the river. Many dog houses in the background. Susan's husband and her daughter on the dock.

Another web cam location. We look at this cam all the time. It also has comments everyday and a huge following of cam watchers. It is maintained by the Daily News Miner. The paper will put various things on the post such as a little Christmas tree during the season. The background also changes. Today it had an out door lounge from the local bar. In the winter there is an out door skating rink. Was too late to call anybody so we could wave at them live.

We will officially head for home tomorrow. Should be in Tok again tomorrow night. We will then decide if we go back to Haines Junction or use the Taylor Highway/Top of the World. We are still waffling. Either way we might be out of touch while in Canada. There was no service at all last time so don't worry if there are no posts.

Fairbanks, AK

Forget-me-nots, the Alaskan state flower, on the dock. Boat we were on.

Robin, an Athabascan Native, modeling a parka made of skins, it was gorgeous! She is in her final year of nursing and does this in the summer to stay in touch with her heritage.

One of the Boucher sled dogs.

Granite was the lead dog of Susan Boucher for all of her Iditarod wins. He was the runt of the litter and nobody thought he would amount to anything except Susan. He was mauled by a moose during a race and Susan Scratched. He also was very ill and damaged his heart. The vets all said he would never race again, but did and won the race four times. The first during a blinding snow storm when Susan's life and the lives of the entire team depended on Granite leading them along the trail. He lived to be 17.

Fairbanks, AK

A bowl in the making, note the "chunks" of birch to the right.

Another busy day in the smoke filled city. We started the day next door to the campground at Santa Claus House, where it is Christmas every day. Santa is on duty for pictures and four of his reindeer are resting outside. From there we went to a bowl factory. They make bowls out of birch trees. Actually cut a "chunk" of the tree trunk and then put it on a machine to cut out bowls. If the bowls all have the same pattern of rings the bowls become families and are sold as a set only. Many sizes and shapes. From there we went on a paddle wheel boat up the Chena River. Made a couple of stops, watched a ski plane take off and land then at a Athabascan village. Really neat to see three eras of the Natives lives and hear the latest generation talk of their heritage and lives as a modern Native. Also had the dog sled team of the late great Susan Boucher. She won the Iditarod four times, three in succession, and was always in the top ten. She also drove a team up McKinley, the only person to ever do that. She died a couple of year age of leukemia. Her husband and children have continued to raise sled dogs.

Pioneer Park

Re enacting the gold rush find.

What the sun looked like as we were leaving around 8:30. That is heavy smoke not clouds.

Pioneer Park

Dang, pictures are in backwards. Smoke advancing and overtaking the blue skies. A steam wheeler being restored and a couple of pics of the streets in the Park.

Today we spent the day at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks. It is definitely a park but it also contains museums and many buildings original to the area that have been moved to the park. Most have placards telling the original site of the building. Today the locals celebrated Golden Days aka Founders Day at the park. Lots of games for all ages such as pie eating and sawing logs using a two handle saw. Entertainment such a dog and owner look alike contest, bands, dancers and a car show. It started out as a beautiful day but the fires are in the area and the wind shifted so the smoke came and blotted out the sun. Picture a really really big camp fire. That is what it smells like and there was some ash floating around. It is very thick today and makes the throat dry and the eyes water. We ate dinner at the Salmon Bake which is located at the Park. It is a bit pricey but the food was excellent. It is a buffet that features salmon, halibut, cod and prime rib. It also has a salad bar and dessert bar. You could eat outside at picnic tables or inside in a dining hall. It was a fun day even with a bit of house work thrown in for good measure.

Turning Point

Well we've reached our turning point , our northern most point being Wal-Mart in fairbanks,unless we go further to see the pipeLine again. Now we are officially on our way back after this stay at North pole. Our next leg will take over to Chicken, and over the "Top of the world' highway to Dawson. Have had various reports of the highway conditions from bad to good. But that's what we're here for 'Adventure' so we will just have to see for ourselves..

Hope your all enjoying the trip.!!

Later, O & Jo

North Pole, AK

We've been on the road for so long you might have forgotten what we looked like, you might notice a few changes. Life on the road hasn't been good to us :0)

This is an awesome place. We have a picnic table, it is back to being warm and sunny and we could sit outside without getting eaten alive.

Ho Ho Ho greetings from the North Pole. We are 12 miles from Fairbanks at the Santa Land RV Park which is really in North Pole, AK. Haven't had too much of a chance to explore but it is all about Christmas here. Santa's reindeer are parked out back and his elves are here to help Santa relax.

FIRES!!

Polar bear, trout and flying squirrel at the gift shop.

Fires at two separate locations. Two of many in the interior of Alaska. They are issuing smoke warnings for the end of the week in Fairbanks.

We travelled today along some amazingly beautiful roads. Spectacular views marred by the many wild fires that are still burning here in Alaska. We saw three or four in our travels today. We stopped at a gift shop on the way. Quite unique. It had many stuffed local animals with a selection of Alaska gifts and Native art work for sale. A beautiful vegetable garden out front and many flowers all over the place.

Mt McKinley

Best of the wild life photos, these are ptarmigans, the AK state bird. They will be pure white in the winter and have fur right to their toes. This was the stats for the day at one of our rest stops.

The last three are various views of the mountain. Remember we were probably 45 miles away.

We are glad we went to Denali, it is beautiful there but we both prefer Mt Rainier. It is much more accessible and usually visible, of course it isn't as tall and doesn't create its own clouds and storm systems ;-)

Denali National Park

Sort of the same shot from previous day when mountain was shrouded in clouds, today it is smoke.

Us at the entrance sign.

Sign that was recently replaced because the bears eat them. This one is already chewed on the corners. The rangers "spike" the signs with nails to try to keep the sign intact.

Scary roads in the park. Very narrow and winding with steep drop offs. Our bus overheated and we had to sit and let it cool off for a bit. South face of Mt McKinley is on the right while the North face summit is clouded over. It is in the lowest point of the mountains and might be mistaken for clouds if you don't look carefully.

Denali is a rather unique because it is a wilderness park. The rangers do nothing to change what happens in the park. Only park buses are allowed to drive to the end of the road. We went part way (60 miles) into the park. We did see a lot of wild life but not close enough to get a good photo. We saw: ptarmigan, Arctic squirrels (looks like a prairie dog), caribou (reindeer), moose, grizzlies with babies, Dall sheep and the bonus wolves! It was a long day. We ended up on a bus full of tour people. We were the only non tour people. Many of the people were drinking through most of the 8 hour trip so were pretty obnoxious by the end. That part of the trip was bad but the tour itself was good. We did get to see both faces of the mountains. We only got within 30 miles of the mountain itself. Our best pictures were from around 45 miles away. We were very lucky to see as much wild life as we did and to see any of the mountain. Our guide told us that on average the mountain is visible only 7 days a month. Another neat fact, the park only gets around 15 inches of combined rain and snow run off a year. On the other side, where we were camping it gets much more. We had showers at the campground but it was very nice at the park.