On the road with a tour – Dawson to Fairbanks
I had no Internet access in Tok on Friday night, and the party went on too long for blogging last night 🙂 so I’m a couple of days behind. As I write this, my Web site server is down so I can’t upload it – that’s a very rare occurance, so apparently Murphy’s Laws of Travel and the Web Gremlin are working together today.
It was cloudy in Dawson City on Friday morning, but was clearing nicely as we left at 11:00. It took a few minutes to It was cloudy in Dawson City on Friday morning, but was clearing nicely as we left at 11:00. It took a few minutes to get on the ferry across the Yukon River – last night we heard of 3 hour waits for RVs yesterday (due to the fact that they insist on all leaving town within a few minutes of each other – duh!). We stopped for a last look at the town and headed up the Top of the World Highway.
At the summit of the highway, just before dropping down to US Customs to cross into Alaska, there’s a pull-out where you can always find lots of wildflowers as well as a fabulous view. Across the road is a hill that’s about 50 feet higher (roughly 4,600 feet), and most of the group hiked up it. It’s one of those things that seems to just take one person to start, then everybody thinks it’s a good idea. The visibility today was excellent – while I don’t like rain, I sure like having no forest fires!
As usual, the border crossing was quick and pleasant. After the official part of the process, I took everybody’s passport in to the office and added the great “Poker Creek, Alaska” caribou stamp to each.
I had planned to stop at the “Welcome to Alaska” sign for a group photo, but it was jammed with RVs and we could neither get into the parking lot nor near the sign for a photo, so we continued on to our afternoon tea-and-sweets stop at Chicken. If there was ever any question about which place in Chicken is the best for groups to stop at, the beautiful new deck at The Chicken Gold Camp should provide the answer. What a great spot to get together to enjoy the sunshine. As you can see in the background, there are a lot of RVs on the road right now – this was one of the busiest days I’ve ever seen on this road.
As we sat there on the deck in Chicken, we could see (and hear) a massive storm approaching from the west, and a mile down the road we got hit by torrential rains and some hail. It only lasted a few minutes, but the noise of the rain/hail hitting the coach was deafening. We passed by some incredible fields of fireweed in the 2003-2004 forest fire areas today, but were never able to stop due to either the rain or having no place to get the coach off the road.
We stayed at the Golden Bear Lodge in Tok tonight. It’s pretty basic, but provides a really nice spot to get together for a drink before dinner. While most of us partied, Doc was 100 feet away cleaning the coach. I am so pleased to have him with us – he’s proven over and over again that he’ll do whatever it takes to make this a great trip. While my new position has its own set of challenges, I love it, though having a driver instead of being a driver is an odd feeling that I can’t yet find words for – not a bad feeling at all, just an odd one.
It started raining heavily about 3:00 this morning, and continued coming down in buckets through breakfast and for 100 miles or so up the Alaska Highway. Although the rain lessened, it continued for most of the day, finally quitting just before we reached North Pole. If we have to get a day of rain, this was the one we wanted it to happen on, as it’s the one that has the fewest views and activities that are affected by it. Doc has a good selection of DVDs and music on the coach, and a film about the Alaska Highway followed by some “easy listening” music made the day pass easily.
Once in Fairbanks at the Wedgwood Resort, I invited everybody up to my huge room for drinks (there’s easily room for the 20 of us), then we all went out for an excellent dinner at the hotel restaurant. It’s wonderful when a group “gels” like this – what could have been a dull day turned out to be a lot of fun.
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