Denali

 We packed up the RV today to move south. We stopped in the town of Healy for lunch at the 49th State Brewery. We had burgers, fries and tried their baked blonde beer, very good. In their front courtyard, they have the bus that was used in the movie Into The Wild.

 

Today we went to the Denali National Park and State Park. Absolutely beautiful even though it was a cloudy day, we will try to come back on a sunnier day to see it all more clearly.  We stopped at a rest stop to sleep for the night, mile A 213.8 Parks Highway. Another lovely treed area with colorful wild flowers and fire weed.

Arctic Circle

Today we decided to go into the Arctic Circle. It is over 400 miles round-trip, we took the Dalton Highway and the roads were mostly dirt and gravel. When we made it to the Yukon River we were thinking we may not make it to the Arctic Circle because we were at a 1/2 tank of gas and we may need to turn around. We pulled into the Yukon River Camp right after passing the river and were delighted to find they sell gas, we knew we can continue the trip. Actually, it was a was a great stop, they took care of all of our needs: fuel, restroom, and we ate great burgers with incredible steak fries.  With our gas tank full and our tummies full we where back on the road headed north. The Dalton Highway runs parallel with the Alaskan Pipeline. we saw a lot of pipeline today. About 15 miles south of the circle the environment changes, there are fewer trees, they call it the Arctic Tundra. A little drive further and we made it! 

We walked around, there is a campground up a gravel road.

On the way home we saw moose!  

Gold Panning & Salmon Bake

Since we had so much fun panning for gold yesterday, today we decided to go to a place Louise and Birdie told us about where we can pan for gold creek-side, Nome Creek in the White Mountains National Recreation Area. It was fun to prospect and mine in the foothills. We also stopped off at Felix Pedro Creek to do a little more panning. Lots of fun even though we found much more fools gold than anything else.

We went to the Fairbanks Salmon Bake at Pioneer Park for dinner, the salmon was perfectly cooked over an open fire. John enjoyed the prime rib which was smoked all day. Great place for a delicious dinner!

Pipeline & Gold Dredge No. 8

Today was both educational and entertaining we started at the Alaskan pipeline and learned a lot there and then took a train-ride out to the Gold Dredge 8.   The train ride, with a singing conductor, was fun as it took us to the spot where Dredge 8 is located on a small pond. This is where we panned for gold, our big gold claim was worth $28 and loads of fun. We boarded the dredge and visited the different levels. We thoroughly enjoyed this tour and the opportunity to see and learn how gold was extracted from the ground. Before we re-boarded the train we enjoyed hot chocolate and cookies and we had our gold flakes placed into a small locket which made a nice souvenir.

North Pole, Alaska

Outdoor Wood Burning Pizza Oven

We explored the Fairbanks area today.



Picked up fresh veggies and ate fire oven pizza at the Tanana Valley Farmers Market, so good.

Stopped by the town of North Pole. We fed and walked around with Santa's reindeer, gorgeous animals.

Later we met up with Louise and Birdie at the RV park. We sprayed on some mosquito repellent (the locals jokingly call the mosquito the state bird) and sat at a picnic table talking and laughing with them for hours; good Alaskan outdoors, good people, good time. Before we knew it was 10:30 PM, the sun doesn't set until close to midnight so we never noticed the time flying.

Just about every place in North Pole keep the Christmas theme,

very cute. This is the local welding shop.

Scrub-a-dub-dub

After our day trip to Chicken yesterday, we washed the jeep and had dinner at Fast Eddies. If you find yourself in the town of Tok, stop by Fast Eddies for a great meal. 

Washing the RV

Tok is known as the 'Vehicle Washing Capital of the United States.'  The Tesoro fuel station located in Tok offers a free use of their wash equipment with each fill-up. Today we filled up the RV at Tesoro and washed it using their wash area. 

We checked into Eielson AFB FamCamp, the young lady at the rec center told us we could look at the open sites and let her know what we selected. We found a nice pull-thru with water & 50 amp hook-up. As we were setting up we saw a lady that was working with her gold panning kit. I had just bought one in Chicken but have not panned with it yet. We went over to say hello, so glad we did. We met Louise and Birdie, what a great, fun loving couple!

The Town of Chicken, Alaska

                       

Giant Chicken made out of recycled school lockers

We were up and out early, disconnected the tow and took the jeep north on the Klondike

Loop headed to the town of Chicken. Happy we left the RV behind, the gravel road had a lot of muddy pot holes. It was worth the hour drive, the little town has a lot of character, as did the locals we met. It was an old mining town that has become an nice summer stop. 

Yukon

The Yukon was colder today, about 55 degrees (f).  It is a beautiful drive with lots of rivers,

lakes and mountains. We stopped a few times to take in the scenery, at one lakeside stop we met a nice couple from New York who were traveling with their daughter, a college student on summer break. They just left Alaska and told us about some places not to be missed, especially for good fishing. John explained that he does not like fish; not to catch fish or eat fish, but I do. They gave me a home-made fishing lure and said they used the same kind to catch lots of fish. They wished us good luck with fishing and we were on our way.

We entered Alaska, once again boarder patrol was quick and easy. We parked the RV at a rest stop about 12 miles before the town of Tok and settled in for the night.

Sign Post Forest at Lake Watson

View of camping along Laird River

When we woke-up this morning we went outside and we were greeted by that one lone buffalo we saw yesterday, he had walked 15 km (at least we think it was the same buff). We strolled along with him for a while, we were on one side of the road and him on the other.

In 1941, Carl Lindsey, a homesick G.I., added a sign for his hometown of Danville, IL while he was repairing a directional sign-post at Watson Lake. This started the Sign Forest, visitors have added signs ever since; there are close to 100,000 unique signs now. Yes, John and I added a sign too.

Behind the Sign Forest, is the Alaska Highway Interpretive Centre, a good quick stop. We watched a short movie about how the Alaska Highway was an engineering marvel of World War II.       

We checked into Caribou RV Park for the night. Once we were setup, we could not take off in the jeep until we washed it. Lucky for us the RV park has a car and RV wash. As soon as it was clean we were off to explore the town of Whitehorse. Nice town, not too small. We were going to try one of the local steak restaurants but they had lines of people out the doors. We ended up at Boston Pizza for salads and pizza; very good!

John next to the sign he placed in the Sign Post Forest

Laird River Hotsprings Provincial Park

Today we drove through the Canadian Rocky Mountains, this is were we ran into quite a bit of road work. And this is where we saw our first wild black bear! We were very excited. We were both hoping this is just the first of many.

 

I have been looking forward to this ever since I had read about it six month ago. The Laird hot springs! We parked at a rest stop directly across from the Laird River Hotsprings Provincial Park. We walked to the park entry gate and paid $10 for the two of us and then we walked on a long boardwalk out to the natural hot-springs. This was incredible! it is a beautiful place to relax and take your time; enjoy the great outdoors. I dipped my toes in the spring pond which was way too hot, so we slowly entered the river area where it is not so intensely hot - we could swim around this area and that is what we did for a while. Then we sat under the falls, this was much warmer and felt like an amazing back massage. Finally we moved to the spring pond, intensively hot but this time I could handle it, very relaxing.  I loved this! Mother nature is marvelous in all she has to offer.

We saw another black bear and then later we saw a baby bear run out of the woods and turn around as another cub ran after it, they both stood up on their hind legs and started to wrestle; so cute!  Right before we stopped for the evening, we saw a small group of buffalo kicking-back, laying in the grass by the road and one lone buffalo was headed in our direction strolling along the road. We pulled over at a rest stop to break for the night (812 km  on highway 97 West).  Our rest area overlooked the Laird River, absolutely gorgeous!

Alaska Highway

This morning, we showered, ate breakfast and we were back on the road by 8:30 AM.

We took highway 216 West (from 604 km on highway 2). It brought us by the West Edmonton Mall, looks huge from the road. Then took highway 16 West to highway 43 North. Once again the roads are terrific, smooth no potholes.

We pulled over to rest for the night (358.6 km on highway 97 West). I made a big

batch of jalapeño poppers, it was my first attempt. We both enjoyed them so much that we called it dinner and settled in for a movie and a good nights sleep.

Entering Canada

When we were getting ready to get back on the road, Priscilla came over with dinner wrapped up for us. That was so sweet. 

We filled up with fuel at the Pilot station in Shelby and then headed to the boarder patrol on I-15. Friendly, professional, and efficient is how I would describe our boarder patrol officer. He looked at our passports, asked a few questions about our RV and a few about our trip and then he welcomed us to Canada.

Later we stopped and enjoyed Priscilla's dinner, pork chops with rice and beans - delicious!  And a little spicy, just the way we like it. Thanks Priscilla!

So far, the Canadian roads have been great. We took highways 4, 3, and 2.

Wednesday night, about 9 PM, we parked in Mayfield Rest Area (at 542 km on highway 2) next to the town of Wetaskiwin. Four big trucks were there; we just pulled-in between them. Ate a light dinner, turned security on and settled in for the night.

One night in Great Falls

First, I should let you know, that our three nights of dry camping at Big Sky was a breeze; plenty of water for showers and everything else. We are now ready to do multi-night dry camping out in the rest of the world.

We were not requiring much from the FamCamp at Malmstorm AFB, we just needed a place to get our laundry done, empty gray & black tanks and fill the fresh water tank. But we were pleasantly surprised. We got a great pull-thru site and the laundry room was nice and clean. No one else was using it so we had all of our laundry, to include towels and sheets folded and put away within two hours.  Also, we had the pleasure of meeting Gus and Priscilla from Louisiana. We enjoyed talking with them, they have been RVing for nine years; we learned a lot from them.

Entegra SummerFest Day 3

Met a few new people at breakfast and then joined our group up to the Lone Peak Expedition. It took a chairlift, a 4-wheel-drive-truck ride and a gondola ride to make it to the top, we found all three modes of transportation fun, going both up and down. The view from the top of Lone Peak is outstanding! This was exhilarating and lots of fun. There was still a little snow up there, it was kind of crazy to throw snowballs in July. When we made it down from the mountain, it was time for lunch, followed by two good presentations and Q&A sessions from Aqua-Hot and Spartan.

At sunset, everyone, dressed in cowboy boots and

hats, gathered in a huge party tent on the resort lawn for a delicious BBQ dinner and a fun evening of dancing. We sat with our good friends Marie and Gary and met a couple of their friends Penny and Robert. Everyone at our dinner table danced all night, we had a blast! What a fun group.

And what a fun time this SummerFest has been. We delayed our trip to Alaska three weeks to be here and so glad we did, Entegra always knows how to show a good time. We look forward to getting together with everyone in Las Vegas for OctoberFest.