June 20, Friday

   Saw our first moose here in Alaska!!  But very shy and only got her as she was running into the woods.  Hoping to get a few better pics as the trip goes along.

   We did have some time to walk around Fairbanks, eat some of the local cuisine and get a pic of the antler entrance to the park. 

Then drive to the University where they are researching Musk Ox wool from the Musk Ox is 8x more warm than sheep’s wool and I can’t believe how soft it is.  Local natives spin it and knit into scarves and hats.  I would love a scarf, but as it is so soft, it is also sooooo expensive.  But the talent is wonderful.  

June 21, Saturday Summer Solstice

   Well, the “RV aka Revolving Vault” has struck again this am.  Our freezer plug in is not working and we can’t lose all our hard worked for meals…so we are off to the stores to find a plug to keep it all frozen.  We have a small chest freezer in the RV that I made at least enough meals ahead of time to last us thru 3 months on the road.  I don’t like to cook while we are traveling and the made ahead meals take up so much less space in the RV as well as cost.  Canada was beautiful but very expensive at the stores with their taxes.  Alaska not any cheaper!! Didn’t realize how inexpensive Texas is to live in, until you travel a bit.

  Went back to the North Pole also to see Santa and get a quick video to send to my niece, Lori.  Santa was very pleased how good she was and made a special video for her.

  As we head back to the RV, we see all the geese out with their little ones.

  Home and the rain has stopped!! Yeah, its cool but not cold and we have a fire with huge marshmallows that are screaming at me to cook.  We had a wonderful time toast/burning them.   

  Can’t believe it’s the longest day of the year, we are sitting outside at 10:30 at night and it looks like 4pm!!  No dark tonight at all.  

As the Internet is having issues when I am trying to post, I will only post this one day today, and try again tomorrow to post our next few days. 

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!

   Delta Junction is Historical Milepost 1422, the official end of the Alaska Highway. Delta Junction was named after the nearby Delta River, first known as Buffalo Center because of the American bison that were transplanted here in the 1920s.  
                             
 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?

  Got parked at Eielson, AFB FamCamp, with our traveling RV friends Perry and Tanya.  They are loving the military parking as well as our dry camping on roadside parks.   Will probably be here at least til Monday as the other FamCamp closer to Fairbanks doesn’t have openings til then.  Drove around some of Fairbanks and Fort Wainwright to check out the base.  Back to RV for dinner, no fire tonight, too rainy, saving my marshmallows for tomorrow night.Did get time to check Facebook and saw this cute pic of Hanaruth and Jason at their first Yankee game!

 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!!

Last days of Canada

June 13, Friday

  Safe travels today for us, got to the Continental divide as our first stop.  Water draining west from here forms the Swift River, draining to the Yukon River and continuing northwest 2300 miles to the Bering Sea.  Water draining east forms the Rancheria River, onto the Liard and Mackenzie Rivers, flowing north emptying into the Artic Ocean, 2650 miles away. 

Driving into Teslin, Yukon and stopped to see a few museums to learn some of the history of the Tlingit Natives. George Johnston Museum, he took thousands of pics of the Tlinglits so they would be immortalized in history and their history not lost.  Pretty interesting how the natives here were treated very similar to the Indians in US, not well!! 

Didn't get any pics of wildlife today...whine...saw a golden eagle and one black bear, but they were too quick, no time to focus or click.  

Lin and Perry are enjoying the antique tractors at the museum. 

Onto Whitehorse to stay at the Pioneer RV park tonight. 

We made a stop at the Visitor Center, to learn about the town.  I made a quick detour out the side door to check out the close Quilt shop.  Know you are surprised to hear that!!  Nothing I needed to buy, but did enjoy looking over their bear and moose materials. 

 Had a great dinner of salmon at a local restaurant in town.  Will do more exploring of the town tomorrow after resting.  These late nights of the midnight sun are getting long!!  

June 14, Saturday

What a day!  Slow start to moving as we decided to stay in Whitehorse a few days to see the sites, as this is the last large town before the Alaska border.  It’s the capital of the Yukon Province and the book says there are so many things to see.  BUT!.... our heater stopped working.  You would think this would be a crazy thing to worry about, it is June 14!! Summer!!  No, we have been waking up to 25-45 degrees in the am, and wearing at least a jacket, long sleeves every day.  So we spent the day, working (and by “we”, I mean, Lin!) on the furnace.  We have electric heat, but a lot of our nights we are dry camping.  Finally got it working, $225 later for a new circuit board.  We are thinking of a new name for the word RV, “revolving Vault”.  

   So the afternoon was spent, quickly running about town getting last minute groceries and any items needed for the last few days before we go into Alaska.  Still may have a few more days of dry camping.  I did get on the Internet while the guys were working on the furnace and was able to get some of the blog uploaded with the pics, up to day June 6^th so far uploaded.  This evening we are all tired and just wanted to rest after night instead of sitting outside with a fire.  But I do have marshmallows and am waiting to toast them!!

  The only pic we got was this Weather vane they made out of a C- plane, pretty amazing to watch.  I made a short video, but not sure it will upload. 

June 15, Sunday, Father’s Day

  For Father’s Day, Lin gets to drive another 200 miles today!!  Heading out of Whitehorse this am and driving towards Haines Junction, about 120 miles west.  Another day of no wildlife pics, not sure what is going on with the bears, moose, elk and sheep. Even drove thru an area of Dali sheep, but none would stick heads out for pics.

   The Mountain pics will have to suffice for today.  They are again, amazing!!  We didn’t even realize that this area of Canada had some of the tallest peaks in North America in the Kluane NP.  The second Tallest peak, Mt Logan is pic here, only second to Mt McKinley in Denali NP.  

The Da Ku Cultural centre features the Aishihik First Nations exhibits and we learned some other interesting facts on the people that inhabited this land before Europeans invaded.

   The St Elias Mountains are amazing along the road and we had to pull over several times to take pics until we found a spot on the side of the road to spend the night.  We love stopping early in the day, about 3 or 4pm to stop, get our fires going and have dinner by the fire.  We wanted to stop by the Kluane River, but none of the camping sites really were of our quality, which is “free” and with no other campers. Can you imagine going to bed with this as your view, and waking up to this?