Fairbanks and Fair Weather Ahead!

We left Tok this morning and drove 4 hours to Fairbanks, Alaska, our northern-most stop on our journey. At 64 degrees, 50 minutes north latitude, we are only about 118 miles south of the Arctic Circle. The sun will be up for 21 hours and 50 minutes tomorrow. We have blackout shades for our bedroom, which have already been necessary on this trip since Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. Although our trip has been fraught lately with cloudy, cool weather and rain, our 5 days here in Fairbanks are predicted to be sunny, mostly clear, and very warm (upper 70s to lower 80s).

Our first stop was just before Delta Junction at the Delta Meat and Sausage Company where they package some wild meats, such as buffalo, elk, and reindeer, as well as pork and beef. We tried various samples and bought some for later dinners.

Our second stop was in Delta Junction, the end of the Alaska highway. We traveled almost all of it. With our side trip to Skagway and then the ferry ride to Haines, we missed the section from White Horse, YT to Haines Junction, YT. At the visitor’s center, Geoff was able to complete his collection of two Alaska highway pins.

When we drove through North Pole, AK, we were going to stop and see the World’s Largest Santa, but when we got off the highway, we spotted a little espresso shack which also sold ice cream (indicated by the ice cream cone on its top). That one out and we opted for milk shakes and skipped the (scary looking, as far as we could tell from the highway) Santa.

When we pulled into the camp grounds, there appeared to be a problem with our reservation. We thought ours was piggy-backed on our friends’ reservation but it turned out not to be the case. We thought we had fallen through the cracks somehow until Ellyn found our reservation email and got things straightened out. As it is, we are here a day early. Day after tomorrow we attend the Midnight Sun Baseball Game here, which starts at 10:30 PM and is played without field lights. We are truly now in the Land of the Midnight Sun, since sunset is not until 12:45 PM!

The internet here at the park seems to be working pretty well, as I was able to upload our blog entries dating back to Haines, AK (3 days ago). Our phone internet also seems to be in pretty good shape, although only at 3G speed. We will survive. At least voice communications have only been interrupted when there was no signal at all and our phone bill seems to reflect the correct charges for our usages and agreement with Verizon. We have cable TV here in our RV park so at least we will be able to get some outside world news. But we are not going to be tied to the TV as there is a lot to see and do here in Fairbanks, Alaska.

A Bumpy Ride Indeed

Today was as exhausting a drive as we have had so far. It wasn’t so much a long one, but over some of the bumpiest road we have encountered so far, even worse than the Ohio Turnpike. Frost heaves and patches and even sections which had been torn up for repaving were the order of the day. From Beaver Creek, Yukon all the way to the US border, we were braking and bumping and accelerating and then braking again. When Geoff finally climbed from the driver’s seat, he felt like he had been run through a ringer, backwards (one of his Mother’s favorite sayings). After entering the US, things got better, although there was still an occasional good reason to be on the binders. I guess the frost heaves are not just relegated to the Yukon.

The weather was a mixed bag. It started out cloudy and rainy, then cleared a bit before turning down-right black and pouring rain on us just before reaching Tok, Alaska, our stop for the night. We are definitely getting up into the northern reaches of our travels. Tonight the sun will not set until 11:45 PM and then it will be right back up again at 3:15 AM. We have our bedroom outfitted with blackout shades on the windows and Jordy’s crate gets covered with a heavy fleece blanket, so we can all get a good night’s sleep. It’s just hard to recognize when it is time to go to bed when the sun is up so late.

Into the Sunshine

Today we headed northwest out of Haines on the Haines Highway on our last leg to Fairbanks and the Summer Solstice. It felt like anything but summer as we left Haines on that cold and rainy morning. The extra day in Haines did not buys us much but a $5.00 salmon dinner. The salmon was very good but the grilling was slow and we were there early. When we left there was still a long line of people waiting to get their food. The feed was at the Southeast State Fairgrounds, a little cluster of buildings within walking distance of our RV park. Earlier in the day a relay bike race had made its way down from Haines Junction into Haines. The bikes rode by near our park and we drove into town to see the finish line. It was a bit anti-climactic and the riders looked all but frozen to their bikes.

Another border crossing today back into Canada. It was not too difficult. They asked mostly about where we had been and how we had gotten into Canada and Alaska and where we were off to next. As we went through the mountain passes, the clouds clung tight to the tops and rain drizzled on us off and on. However, as we approached Haines Junction, and a rejoining to the Alaska Highway, some spots of blue sky started showing through and sunlight shown on some of the flanks of the mountains ahead of us. When we stopped in Haines Junction for lunch, the sun was warm on our backs and the heavy jackets had been left in the rigs.

From Haines Junction we drove about 50 miles to Kluane Lake (clue-ah’-nee). There we stopped at a primitive campground right on the lake side and found a couple of nice campsites with views of the lake. It looked like the start of a nice evening and we even planned for a campfire, but rain moved in from the northwest shortly after dinner.

Haines, Alaska = Cloudy, Rain

Our trip here from Skagway was the easiest so far. Although it would have taken us all day and 350 miles to get here by road, we loaded the RVs and cars onto the ferry in Skagway about 4:00 PM and were in Haines by 5:30. Only about 6 miles of driving was involved. The RV Park knew we were coming because when we pulled in, there was someone there to direct us right to our parking spots. Our rig had a problem right away; the leveling system would not work. It came on but would not start dumping the air bags or lowering the jacks. Geoff started taking it apart to see what the problem was and it magically started working again. That one will probably come back to haunt us again.

After we got plugged in and set up, we jumped in our car and drove to a restaurant down by the harbor. Nice place, good food, but there was only one waitress and the cook there, so the food was kind of slow coming out. This place is “Eagle Central”. You can usually see a bald eagle just about everywhere you look near the water. They are either flying over the water looking for fish, in a tree near the water, looking for fish, or eating a fish.

Ken had to move to another spot so he could try to get his satellite dish aligned properly. He was able to get a TV signal but the dish looks funny because it is nearly straight up and down. Internet access is pretty good in the park here, although I am still having problems uploading stuff. I hope this blog entry goes ok. Perhaps if I do not attach too many photos it will.

Our first full day here we went to the Chilkat State Park and Chilkoot State Recreation Area. In the first, there was a great overlook of Chilkat Inlet, which is west of the peninsula where Haines is. There was one eagle out there fishing and a big flock of Surf Scooters, which would all dive under at once in search of food. From our distance it would appear the flock would get smaller and then suddenly larger again when they would all surface. With our spotting scope it was much easier to see what was going on. Across the inlet, there were a couple of big glaciers we could see. The crevasses of the glaciers were very noticeably blue colored.

In Chilkoot State Recreation Area, we were right on the Lukat River which flows out of Chilkoot Lake, and there are many eagles along that river which fish it. We also saw human fishers there and a fish counting station, which indicated there had been thousands if fish passing up that river this year, but recently very few, probably because it is quite cool out now. We are waiting for summer to catch up with us. Later in the evening we came back and were able to also see bears in this area. These were our first Grizzly Bear spottings. Previously, in the Yukon, we only saw Black Bears.

So far in Alaska, the weather has not been conducive to taking scenic photos. Too bad because the scenery here is probably spectacular. On our third day here we were in touch with a flight sight seeing pilot who Ken had contacted and had told that we were interested in a flight if we could be assured of some clear weather to be able to see glaciers, mountains, etc. He had a flight in the early PM but said, if the weather looked like we would have good viewing, he would call us and we would go out around 5:00 PM. Well, no such luck, so we went out and drowned our sorrows in dinner. We are writing this on Saturday morning and things do not look much better for today.

We extended our stay here for an extra day because there is a bicycle race into town this afternoon and then a free salmon bake and entertainment in the evening. Also, we have 4 extra days before we are due in Fairbanks and only about 640 miles to go to get there. So using an extra day here to be able to get some free salmon and entertainment sounded like a good deal. It looks like much better weather in Fairbanks, but about the same as we have been seeing here until then.