June 16, Monday
Woke up early to a beautiful moon in the sky,
even though the sun has been up for hours.
Only dark about 12p-4am. The plan
is to head to Beaver Creek, the last town before the Alaska border, then try to
get to Tok depending on the roads. They say these are the worst roads on the
highway.
Lin wanted to make sure we could see out our window tonight when we stop!
Our last few stops to see the mountains are not disappointing, Donjek River Valley and the Icefield Ranges of the St Elias Mountains. The only wildlife we saw were swans on the lakes, but looking forward to seeing more in Alaska.
The last stop was Beaver Creek, what a lovely
town for our last few pics of Canada.
Crossed the Alaska Border!! Yeah...had to stop, rest and take more pics of the Alaska-Canada border, welcome back to the US!! 
Crossing the Border!!
And a glance back to Canada to say goodbye for few weeks while we enjoy the Alaska frontier. Northbound to Tok!
Arrived in Tok, Alaska...We will stay a few days here to fuel, rest and
make plans for the Alaska portion of our trip.
June 17, Tuesday
Spent the day in Tok, it is raining off and
on here and cold, so no one really wants to do much. The guys decided to clean the RVs and Trucks
as they say we can’t go into Fairbanks with these dirty vehicles!!
We did the Visitor Center again and watched a few more videos on things to do in the lower portion of Alaska. Getting excited to see more of the state.
June 18, Wednesday
Leaving Tok this am in the rain, drizzling and raining the whole way to Fairbanks. Made a few stops on the way, of course we had to get the last milepost pic of the highway!
With all those bison, you would have thought we could have gotten a pic, but the only picture was the crazy huge Mosquitos in Alaska!!
Saw the first pics of the Alaskan Pipeline. This is a 1200 foot section of the pipeline across the Tanana River. This one is the second longest of the 13 major bridges along the pipelines 800-mile length. There were information panels here, but the rain was too much to get out and take more pics of this.
Did I say we were drove thru a whole day of rain? Do I sound whinny?
June 19, Thursday
Wow, you can really tell it is almost the summer solstice. I work up almost every hour last night and looked out the bedroom window and never saw any dark at all.
Eielson AFB FamCamp exploring this am. It is the farthest north Full-up Fighter wing it the US AF and we can tell as they are flying all the time. It is 60,000 square miles of military training air space, largest in the country. It also served as a storage site for aircraft en route to the Soviet Union under WWII-Lend Lease program. Renamed Eielson AFB after Carl Eielson, the first man to fly from Alaska over the North Pole to Greenland.
Speaking of the North Pole, we decided to head there today to see Santa!! It is just prior to Fairbanks, was began in 1944 by Bon V and Bernice Davis and bought out, named North Pole to attract toy manufacturers. It didn’t pan out, but instead is the theme city, “where the spirit of Christmas lives year round”. It does, as everything is wrapped in candy canes and Christmas lights are hung year round.
Got a few quick pics with Santa and told him we were being good!
Wanted to see Santa’s reindeer, but they were eating and more interested in eating than getting their pics taken. Got a few of the yearlings, not sure were Rudolph was? Only Comet, Cupid and Donner were out and about. I asked what the difference was in Reindeer vs Caribou? I thought reindeer fly and caribou don’t, but she said no, they actually were smaller than the Caribou and more domesticated. They also calf later so the calves don’t have to walk over snow with the herds like the Caribou do. Wow, learn something new every day.
This camper was in the parking lot of North Pole and just thought it was neat!
Well, we'll try again tonight to have a fire as it looks like the sun is trying to peek out of the rain clouds!! If so, I want marshmallows!!
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