It was a short day today.  We drove south about 125 miles to Talkeetna, which is a small town off the beaten path that is basically a resort community.  In addition, it has an airport where several charter companies run sightseeing flights over the Denali Park.  Jennifer has made reservations for a flight at 11:00 am tomorrow (Saturday), so we checked into an RV park adjacent to the airport at about 4:00 pm.  I'm not sure that Jenn will sleep tonight!  Milepost 5398.

Up early this morning for a date with a tour at Denali.  The tour should have taken us 66 miles into the park, but extensive and persistent rains over the past several days have washed out the road in numerous places beyond the 30 mile marker, so the eight hour tour was trimmed to a little over four.  Never mind, the views are special, there was wildlife to view, and the bus driver was a superb docent, sharing lots of information and great stories.  He, like many of the workers in Alaska, comes here each year for three or four months.  In September, before the first snow, they sensibly evacuate.  In his case home is Arizona, where he claims to play golf all winter long.  Getting back to the main visitor center, we boarded a shuttle bus to the sled dog area, where we got to see a demo with a wheeled sled.  Afterward, we got to get up close and personal with several of the dogs (no treats allowed).  No snow mobiles are permitted in the  Wilderness areas, so the park maintains three teams of sled dogs for transportation of people and equipment into interior areas of the wintertime park.  These dogs have a sled culture in their pack, with the younger dogs learning to pull the sled by watching the older members in action.  Neat trick.

We left Fairbanks mid morning and made the short drive south to the Denali National Park area.  Pretty good highway with just occasional rough spots, all well marked.  The  first half of the drive is pretty ordinary, with the mountains emerging during the second half.  We have reservations for some activities in the park tomorrow,  Tonight, we have reservations at the Cantwell RV Park, where they are able to provide us pet sitting services.  Milepost 5323.

We departed Chicken mid-morning and headed south on Taylor Highway to its junction with the Alaska Highway, about 60 miles to our south.  The Taylor is paved south of chicken, but is broken, with long stretches of gravel and numerous frost heaves.  It is slow going and requires absolute attention to the task.  We reached the Alcan at about 11:30, turned west and stopped at Tok for fuel.  There is a pretty RV park at Tok, but it was still early in the day, so we decided to continue on to Delta Junction.  That's when the fun began.  About thirty miles west of Tok, we decided that the dogs needed a break, so we pulled into a roadside pullout with a path to an overlook where the river below could be seen.  There was a highway truck parked at the pullout, probably there for the purpose of emptying the trash bins.  As we walked down the path, we heard a loud crunch, and instantly realized the the highway truck had backed into the Jeep.  Three expletives later, we were examining the damage, which quickly appeared to be limited to a taillight lens.  We probably would have told the worker, who was a very nice lady named Deb, to "have a nice day, go and sin no more."  However, she had already called her supervisor, so the paperwork began.  Thirty minutes later the Alaska State Patrol arrived, along with a second local police car to examine the damage and file their reports.  Moments later, Deb's supervisor pulled up, obviously in a very foul mood.  Poor Deb.  Processing everything took well over an hour, and seemed to us to be a disproportionate response to a broken taillight lens.  And now, with that paperwork on file, we still have to deal with Geico.   So we headed west toward Delta Junction and an RV park that had a really good looking ad.  Wrong!@#$@!!&*!!  It turned out to be a total dump.  So we got our money back and headed northwest for Fairbanks.  We decided that we'd go to the Riverview RV Park, which is actually in the town of North Pole, on the southwest side of Fairbanks. It had been raining for the past 100 miles, and as always, we were dutifully following the great directions provided by our high-dollar Garmin RV 770 GPS.   The unit is specifically  designed for use in vehicles with limitations inherent in such vehicles, e.g., you can't back up when you have a vehicle in tow. We turned left at the light, as instructed, and promptly found ourselves in between blast fences staring into the eyes of the sentry at the gate to Fort Wainwright!  No way to turn around.  The sentry was understanding, however, and allowed us on base so that we could locate a suitable area to do a U-eee and GTF outta there!  Another left, another half mile down the road, and the park magically appeared.  Whew!  Glad to be off the road.  Milepost 5167. Day 32 we caught up on laundry and rode around Fairbanks a bit.  Not a lot to see.  It looks, at least in the summertime, like a typical lower 49 city with a big military influence.  

Once upon a time, there were a number of villages along the Yukon which existed for the purpose of servicing the ubiquitous river boats with fuel wood and other supplies needed for the trip to Dawson City.  With the post war advent of highways to the area, however, the need for water transport diminished, and with it the boats, which were basically gone from the river by the mid 1950s.  Most of the villages suffered the same fate, with the exception of a couple.  One of the remaining villages is Eagle, which is accessible by air, river or the Taylor Highway, which passes through Chicken on its way north.  We decided that it would be a great idea to have Sunday lunch in Eagle.  So we loaded the dogs and ourselves into the Jeep and off we went.  The trip to Eagle is about 95 miles, and requires back-tracking to jack Wade junction, which is the end of pavement noted in yesterday's blog.  We turned north at Jack Wade and hunkered down for sixty five miles of the most beautiful scenery of the trip so far.  And this is the road less traveled.  Over the next two hours, we only saw about three other vehicles on the road as we passed vast forests, crossed rushing streams, climbed steep grades and descended into narrow valleys.  At the end of the road, the village of Eagle sits on the banks of the Yukon, with magnificent panoramas of the waterway and the mountains.  We ate lunch at the local hotel with the dining room overlooking the river, bought two bags of gummy bears to fortify us for the trip back to Chicken, and set out for home.  The trip home went a bit more quickly, 3:15 up and 2:45 back, as a result of feeling a little more confident about the road.  Surprisingly, we saw not a single wild creature in either direction.  It did rain a bit on the return trip, resulting in the Jeep being encased in mud.  We got back to Chicken about 5:00 pm, ready to kick back and collect ourselves.  Wow, what a day!

It's Saturday, and time to head for Chicken over the Top of the World Highway.  The trip begins by crossing the Yukon River on a small ferry.  On the other side of the river, you immediately begin climbing above the timber line on a relatively good chip-sealed paved road.  After a few miles, however, the road changes to gravel and remains that way for the next sixty or so miles. Never mind the condition of the road, however, because the sights are absolutely spectacular!  There are unobstructed views of ranges of mountains on both sides, and hillsides plunging into the river valleys below.  The highway provides plenty of pull-off areas where one can stop and absorb the beauty of the landscape or just take a break.  It had rained the night before, so the highway was somewhat muddy in a few areas, but this morning the clouds where high and the sun shone for most of the trip.  And then you're at the Alaska border!  We passed through customs in just a few minutes with no difficulty, and proceeded on a newly paved two lane highway.  For the next eight miles the traveling was smooth and comfortable, and then the end of pavement.  For the next forty miles, the Top of the World/Taylor Highway is dirt and gravel, narrow in most places with heavy grades and switchback curves.  Often there are sheer drop-offs on one side of the road or the other with soft-to-no shoulders or guard rails.  While the DOT focuses on grading the road, there is considerable commercial mining traffic on the road, so there is plenty of washboarding to make your teeth rattle.  The views continued to be spectacular, even if progress was slow and the driver didn't get to see much other than the road ahead.  When the Community of Chicken appeared below us, there were high fives and sighs of relief!  We checked into the RV park in late afternoon.  The park has a store and a small restaurant, and the special tonight was wood fired pizza.  The house special with smoked salmon was ordered, and we went to bed early.  We were NOT required to use the outhouse on skis.  Milepost 4889.

The trip from Carmacks to Dawson was a bit long, but otherwise uneventful  The main feature of this stretch of the Klondike Highway is the frequency of frost heaves, which are low spots in the road caused by temperature change.  You have to watch closely!  Dawson City is almost like a movie set, with dirt streets, wood sidewalks and buildings with those typical western town facades.  We spent a day here to take in the sights, which included the riverfront, the Han People cultural center, several museums that portray live in the Klondike during the gold rush years, the history of the city itself and more.  We drove to the top of the mountain behind the town and viewed the panorama of the Yukon River valley and its confluence with the Klondike river, and later ate dinned at Kate's Klondike Restaurant, which was 3.5 stars plus.  This is the point at which we'll cross the Yukon by ferry on Saturday and take the so-called Top of the World Highway to Chicken, Alaska.  Milepost 4779.

We headed out of Whitehorse this morning, stopped for fuel, and turned left on the Kl;ondike Highway, on our way to Dawson City.  Surprisingly, the countryside became agricultural for the first 50 or so miles, before turning once again to lakes and forest.  We decided to call it a short day, and stopped at the Carmake Hotel and RV Resort.  When the highway was built between Whitehorse and Dawson City, a number of communities along the Yukon that had grown as a result of river steamship traffic became most towns.  Carmake survives, however, because of its location on the highway.  It's a great stopover, with a well stocked general store, a hotel/
RV park, a restaurant and a mile-long riverfront boardwalk. .  Our site was on the river with a full view.  Sunset now is 10:30 pm, and twilight does not go away, even in the wee hours.  Milepost 4556.

On Monday we spent  the morning visiting native Teslin exhibits and the interpretive center, a most interesting experience.  In the afternoon we drove the remaining short distance to Whitehorse, arriving at about 4:00.  We decide on the Hi Country RV Park. which is the closest to the city center.  It's a nice park, although we were only able to get 20 amp electric service, which has its limitations.  Fortunately, there has been no need for air conditioning in this part of the world.  In fact, nights are fairly chilly.  We drove downtown and bought a pizza to bring back for dinner (Boston Pizza - it was a good one),  We decided that we would stay over, do laundry and catch some of the sights.  On Tuesday, we drove into Whitehorse and visited some of the sights.   The riverboat SS Klondike is on display high and dry on the banks of the Yukon for all to visit.  There are several museums, including the Old Church Museum, once visited by Queen Elizabeth, the Yukon Transportation Museum, with planes and many other items, and the  MacBride Museum, which capsulizes the history of the region.  The MadBride collection includes the original cabin in which Sam McGee lived.  Apparently, McGee lived his life out in typical fashion.  Robert Service and Sam were business associates, and Service simply took Sam's name for the character in his poem.  There's lots more to see in Whitehorse, which is home to almost three-quarters of the Yukon's entire population, but the mission is North to Alaska.  We decided that we might stop there again on our return  trip. Milepost 4445.  

We're up early this morning, with plans to visit a couple of tourist attractions.  The first was the Watson Sign Farm, a collection of well over 85,000 signs from home towns all around the world.  We also visited the local interpretive center, where they have photos and models of the construction of the Alaska Highway during WWII.  We fueled and got underway sometime after 11 am.  We made one extended stop at the Rancheria Falls Recreation Area, and an additional stop for Lunch at the Continental Divide Lodge.  The highways passes back into British Columbia for a few miles, weaves around some mountains, and returns to Yukon for the final time.  We ended the day at Teslin, at the Yukon Motel and RV Park.  Our site tonight has a wonderful view of Nisutlin Bay.  Milepost 4337.