Alaska 2009 - Day 5

New pictures have been uploaded to here.

I awoke to a pounding on my window. I have to be honest, it scared me. But, it was just my companion waking me up. He was awake because the neighbors woke him up. Plus it was real cold. Heck I was cold. We broke camp quickly and headed out. We wanted to get coffee on the road, so we headed to Beaver Creek, a little spooky lodge\motel. The gas was expensive and so was the coffee, oh well I am on vacation.

We asked for a pen because ours had run out of ink and we needed to update our log. The lady said that she could not give us one and she did not have any to sell. I think that she must have been American because she was not as nice as Canadians have been so far. We used the pen and returned it to her pen hoard collection.
On the road again, Delta Junction is the destination. We hit the city of Tok and decide that we need to supplement our coffee with a little food. Fast Eddy’s is the place. Nifty name and actually a pretty neat place. I have the Alaskan Benedict, I was expecting hollandaise, and got country gravy. It had the ham, but was on a biscuit. Isn’t that just biscuits and gravy? I also ordered a side of reindeer sausage, to try the local cuisine. The sausage was good, but the benedict was boring. My companion had a reindeer omelet. It was also boring. We notice that we have cell coverage so we call home to let people know that we are alive and that LC is doing great. Actually I think that she loves it up here. She looks great with bugs and dirt all over her, like a real safari vehicle.

Delta Junction became a gas stop and trinket shopping. We decided that we can make Fairbanks but we are curious about getting new shocks for LC. We stop at two places in town, there is actually only one place that is still functional, and they cannot get us in today. I call several places in Fairbanks and they cannot fit me in until next week. I guess LC keeps her current shocks. Off to Fairbanks.
As we come into the suburbs of Fairbanks I make the call to take a ferry home. I call and reserve the last spot on a ferry from Haines. It is expensive, but it is something I want to do. Oh well I guess I am on vacation. I did splurge and get a cabin on the boat, my wife actually suggested that I get one. A few minutes after the call we hit the North Pole, the city not the actual pole. There is a big Santa, and some crap shops that we bypass. Now I can say that I have been to the North Pole. But it is not something that I should be proud of.

When we hit Fairbanks we are a little disappointed. It is kind of a hole. We quickly make the decision to head up to the Dalton and make it to the Artic Circle to camp, for the night. Getting to the Dalton is a little confusing but we meander through Fox and Livengood, and finally hit the Dalton. Immediately it is apparent that this drive is going to be rough. It has recently rained up here and the road is muddy. We have been lucky and not seen any rain so far. Besides being muddy the truckers really haul butt down this road. To be safe we pull to the side every time that the truckers pass us. But even this is questionable because the shoulder is really soft and easy to slide down an embankment. LC is tough but it would not be fun to get her out of that mess. The speed limit is 50 mph and I find it hard to drive over 40. The road beats the crap out of us and then we hit a pavement part, and then back to dirt again. I am white knuckling the whole drive.

It is slow going but we make it to the Yukon Junction. The bridge over the Yukon is really cool, and the small town is a double wide and a garage for truckers. This town is a First Nation town, and it is really interesting. The people here are rugged; I meet a man with a bandoleer of bullets and a pistol on his hip. He looks the part of a gold panning expert. There is a woman selling furs, she looks like a trapper. We get gas and some coffee and swallow several bugs as we stand in 2 inches of mud. The bugs are bad here. It must be because we are so close to the mighty Yukon River. I have seen the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Columbia, but this is something special. This huge river is surrounded by big mountains; it is really impressive that a river of this size is in between these mountains.

On the way out we see several other trucks pass us and they all have dead Elk or Moose. There are so many that it kind of makes us sick. I am not against hunting, but this seems like a slaughter. Again, the road is rough and then paved for a little bit but with tons of frost heaves. After awhile we reach the Artic Circle. The three of us (me, my companion and LC) get our picture taken by the sign. Camp is around the corner.

We get to the campground and there is nobody here. Really there is nobody. The campground is not even finished being built, and we have the place to ourselves. It is kind of spooky. We light a fire and eat some food. I then start the file transfers to the portable hard drive. Then bam, it gets really cold. My companion retires to his tent. Right now I am sitting next to the fire by myself and I am freezing. I am thinking of bed, because it will be warmer. I am looking for the Aurora Borealis but it is not here. I guess I should warm myself by the fire and hit the sack. I am thinking that the town of Coldfoot is as far as we will go, but we will figure that out in the morning.