Alaska RV Camping Travelog – Day 7

Lovely morning! Slept well in our wide gravel lot–“something“ walking around our motor home during the night, probably a bird or small animal, but uneventful other than that. The days keep getting longer and longer the further north we go. Sundown last night was 11:08 and sunrise around 3:30…Brian keeps waking up to see what it looks like outside with the weird sun schedule–not me! I love the quiet the solitude affords us here!

Drove an hour before stopping to finish up the last of our ham and eggs. We are trying to use up all our meat and dairy items to avoid any problems crossing the border or a customs inspection of our edibles.

The mountain views in the Kluane National Park are awesome! Alaska will have a hard time surpassing the mountains we’ve seen the past two days along the Alcan. Mount Logan’s elevation is 19,000 feet and we are lucky enough to have a view of it today! 5 of Canada’s highest peaks are in this region and they are all over 16,000 feet!

We spot a black bear and a fox along the road as well as many small lakes! Fisherman would love this area for scenery along with many opportunities for Grayling and other sport fish.

At the Canada/US border there is a sign and plaque. The inscription attests to the peace between our countries as proclaimed by the unfortified border between our nations. A pillar of granite marks the border and on either side going north and south the forest has been cleared of trees and vegetation as far as the eye can see. We take pictures at the Welcome to Alaska sign and then proceed to the border station.!

We arrive at the customs station and the guard asked Brian if we’d bought anything other than food or fuel in British Columbia. He then looked at our driver’s licenses, birth certificates, and pets rabies vaccination records. That was it!!! Away we go!!!! We were amazed!!! After reading and hearing all sorts of things about problems involving crossing the borders with various foods, this was just too easy! Perhaps requirements change about items allowed either way, but we haven’t had any problems at all with any of our “cargo“. Seems we’ve spent a lot of time and effort worrying for nothing…

A few miles up the road we come to a place with a sign proclaiming “Cheapest Gas for 225 Miles”, and who are we not to believe it? There is also a tee-shirt shop and lots of curios but nothing I need. It’s nice to be back in the land of dollars and gallons! We fill up with diesel at $3.099 and figure our mileage from Whitehorse. 910 miles and Gozer has gotten 11.23 mpg! Not bad for our ol’ bus!

We encounter some rain as we arrive in Tok (rhymes with Poke) and we search out a place for lunch. We end up at “Fast Eddies” and it turns out to be an excellent choice! Mom love Halibut and Chips and says this is the best she’s ever had! Brian orders the Ranch Chicken burger, and I get the Teriyaki Chicken burger, both come with fries. The milk shakes in this place are too good to miss so Brian and Helen have one. They have a varied menu and everything we had was very tasty–we plan to remember this place for our trip back through. This is the only town in Alaska you have to go through twice-on the way in and out of Alaska no matter which route you take.

We do some grocery shopping at the Three Bears Market, and find prices in the grocery store are higher than the lower 48 but still less expensive than Canada. We also stop into the Public Lands Information Office, but there isn’t much in the way of US Forest Service Information, and the data consists mostly of a large numbered map and you select brochures on places you are interested in. There is a lot of commercial information provided by various chamber of commerce offices in Valdez, Homer, Anchorage, etc…

Brian and Margie

30 mles or so up the road we make “camp” for the night in a rest area with trash and pit toilets. It‘s very quiet here once the traffic dies down, and we haven‘t seen many other tourists, it‘s mostly 18 wheelers. It rains heavily when we arrive, and Brian goes to turn up the thermostat on the coach furnace so we can get some heat…..nothing happens!!! We start the generator and fire up the electric heater until Brian can trouble shoot our furnace problem. Get lucky this time as it’s just a broken wire. Manage to make a very temporary repair to get it back up and running and will probably need to get this soldered in the future.

The rain stops, but skies are still cloudy and dark. Brian and I get a good walk with Casey and settle in for the night. Temps are forecast to be in the 30’s overnight so glad the furnace is up and running again! Our total mileage today is 244, and bed feels wonderful!

Road Notes: While having the best views continually, the roads in the Yukon are in poor condition. We drive only 30 or 40 mph much of the day and the frost heaves and pot holes shake the motor home constantly. US roads are very good by comparison. (Vow to never complain about the stretch from Bellingham to Seattle on I-5 again!) There are many repairs made to the road surface and we try to keep speed up to 55 but have lots of bottoming out and slams to the motor home body. Traffic is very light except around Tok and consists primarily of RV‘s, a few cars and the occasional truck.

Tomorrow…RV Camping Journal Day 8 – Faribanks to Nenana

Yesterday…RV Camping Journal Day 6 – Kulane Lake and Beyond!