Arriving to The Last Frontier - ALASKA (Sunday 5/19)

In planning for this great adventure, it was difficult to really know what the best utilization of time would be.  While we had booked the campervan for 18 days, Pam only had 14 to spend on the trip.  As I commented on an earlier post, getting through the lower 48 quickly was a priority, so as to have a maximum amount of time for Canada & Alaska . . . but with the biggest effort to get in as much as possible with Pam in Alaska.  I think we did a great job navigating through Canada, enjoying the sights and views, while allowing ourselves a full week for Alaska.

Our arrival on Sunday afternoon was a full day and a half later than we had initially planned for, making it impossible to include the drive north of Fairbanks to the Arctic Circle.  We had started discussing that as a possibility on Friday, so when it was time to punt, we were both prepared to maximize our time enjoying Fairbanks before we were scheduled to arrive at Denali National Park and our TEK campground on Tuesday afternoon.

Because we didn't know what day we would be arriving to Fairbanks, we did not make campground reservations.  We had also initially planned on camping on BLM land up on the Yukon River if we had made the trip to the Arctic Circle.  So arriving into Alaska, one of our first priorities was finding a campsite.  This proved to be a bit more challenging and frustrating, but I'll talk more about that shortly.

As expected the Alcan Hwy from the Canadian border to Tok, AK was under construction.  We experienced roughly an hour delay in the one-lane pilot car led procession.  It wasn't terrible . . . just slow.  It's good that they do the best they can to repair the road before their real summer season of tourist traffic begins after Memorial Day.  As you can see here, there were plenty of vacationers already on the road heading to the great north.

At Tok we stopped for "cheap gas" ($4.38/gallon), when you consider gas in Canada averaged just over $5.00/gallon (adjusted from liters to gallons and CD$ to US$)

Across the street from the gas station, we saw 5 of the GAH/SAP Minnie Winnies arrive at the TOK RV Village.  It was cool to cross paths with them several times throughout our journey as we had seen them all stopped in Beaver Creek, YT earlier in the morning . . . and would see them again a couple of days later at a Talkeetna RV park.

At Tok, we opted to take the longer route up to Fairbanks, as in my opinion the Richardson Highway from Glennallen up to Delta Junction is one of the most beautiful drives in all of Alaska.  So we dropped down onto the "Tok Cutoff" adding roughly 90-100 minutes to our drive time.  We knew cloudy weather was in the forecast, which would make viewing the beautiful glaciated area, including the Gulkana and Black River Glaciers, questionable.  What we didn't consider was that snow might be possible, especially in higher altitudes and across the mountain passes.  It was beautiful though, and we enjoyed driving in a winter snow globe throughout the afternoon!

As evening approached, we stopped at the Meier's Lake Roadhouse . . . an oasis on the landscape where Pam couldn't wait to get a fresh cup of coffee! We spent about an hour there, enjoying conversation with the owner hearing about the history of the area, including her roadhouse and the church across the street.  She invited us to go inside the church, which was very interesting.

A bit further up the road, the massive Alaska Pipeline made its appearance along the highway.  In spite of the cold and snow, we stopped to take a look and a few photos.  I assured Pam we would have better opportunities to see the pipeline up close in Fairbanks so we rolled on up the road.

Every stop we made this evening was in spite of the chilly winter weather.  Even a stop in Delta Junction . . . the end of the Alcan Highway . . . was brief for this reason.  But we did not let the weather deter us from doing our thing and take photos!

 

 

 

 

Check out the lovely sunset @ 10:30pm just north of Delta Junction!  The skies were trying to clear as we made our way closer to Fairbanks.

Earlier in the day we had made a campsite reservation at the RV park located at the Fairbanks fairgrounds.  While we were told their showers were not operating yet, we were led to believe there were functional toilets available to guests.  When we arrived around 11:30pm, however, we found the toilets locked and we did not have the access code to use them.  With the camp hosts in bed and asleep, there was nobody around to help us . . . so we opted to move on and find somewhere else to stay.

After driving around town looking at a couple of sketchy places found online, we decided to bite the bullet and pay a premium price at an RV resort that had full amenities including running water (toilets and showers).  While I hated paying $72/night (which included a 10% Good Sam's discount), we felt we didn't have much of a choice.   That said, the Rivers Edge RV Park was safe, clean and convenient to our day's activities on Tuesday . . . so no regrets in booking there for two nights (Sunday & Monday).

TO BE CONTINUED - FAIRBANKS!