Top of the World Highway, Chicken and to Fairbanks

Ok, let me start at the end and then go back to the beginning. You are probably wondering what the intrepid international traveler is doing. Housecleaning and laundry!! Between the Dempster Highway and the Top of the World Highway I did 250-300 miles of gravel roads (think dust!). There must be a small opening somewhere around each wheel that allowed gravel dust into the camper. It hasn't been a problem on paved roads but after all the miles on gravel roads, I have a fine dirt and dust powder over everything inside my camper. I spent about 4 hours at least yesterday washing everything in the camper. The floors were covered in this dust and I had to clean out all of the drawers and wash all of the dishes etc.. Still doing a little more today plus I have my laundry in the dryer. I only got to downtown Fairbanks for a few minutes yesterday. I will spend a lot more time there today. I can hear Marne saying that she has trouble getting me to put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher at home. But I can spend all of these hours cleaning the camper. C'est la vie I guess.

Ok, back to the start. Immediately upon leaving Dawson City you have to take a ferry across the river. There is no bridge. That was fun.

                                    

 

I don't have much in the way of photos for the Top of the World Highway. Instead of going through a river valley like most other roads around here, this road goes across the crests of the mountains with a lot of mountain passes. The road is narrow, especially on the American side of the border, and there are no scenic rest stops. You had to be careful when passing an oncoming vehicle. It wasn't "white knuckle" driving at all but it definitely kept you focused on the road. Really some awesome scenery, high up and looking down into the valleys but you would just take a quick glance and then watch the road again.

 

The first town on the American side is Chicken. The original settlors were going to name it after another common area bird but they couldn't spell it (Ptarmigan) so they called it Chicken instead. It was an old gold mining camp. Winter population about 50.

 

 

  

I had read about this place. And even though it looks kind of funky on the outside, I had a very good lunch here. I had one of the daily specials, grilled chicken. They also bake their desserts there and I had a piece of apple pie. Mmmm...

 

There are a number of these gold dredges around. There was one in Dawson City. The Fairbanks newspaper had an article about a fire on their local dredge. The miners would flood an area and float these monsters through to mine for the gold. Left behind were long, 15 foot high mounds of processed rock. The long piles are still all over the area. Once the dredge moved on no one did anything with the processed rock.

Notice the chicken on the left.

 

I hooked up with the Alaskan highway again about 70 miles after Chicken. I was going to camp that night at a state campground west of Tok but when I got there it was partially under water. The river had risen higher than the park builders envisioned.

 

 

 

I had been driving for 11 hours and it was getting late (although still very light out). I knew that there was a rest stop 50 miles up the road so I decided to spend the night there. And it was terrific (and free). It was a wooded area right next to a major river. I had a very nice evening there.

 

 

The Black Veterans Memorial Bridge

This is not a volcano. It was raining over that mountain top creating a rainbow effect. That is all river in the foreground.

 

 

The drive from my rest stop through Delta Junction and into Fairbanks was uneventful. Mostly river valley country. Fairbanks is a large metropolitan city. I think I read that the population is 32,000 (earlier I had posted 300,000---hey, I was close!) Think McDonalds, Taco Bell, KFC. I'm still hunting for a Taco Johns. I went shopping at a Fred Meyer's store. It's like a Walmart Superstore. (I purchased a small handheld vacuum for the camper.) I will visit downtown later today and that will be the subject of my next entry

The Alaska Range



 

 

.