7e left Dawson City at 9:15 and drove about half a mile to sit in line and wait for an hour and twenty minutes to get on the ferry across the Yukon River. Once on the other side of the road, we only had 80 miles of dirt/gravel road ahead of us before getting to Chicken. We stopped to have lunch beside a mountain stream along the way. Just after I took the picture, the clouds opened up and turned the dirt/gravel to mud/gravel. It wasn't too bad though. They have a carwash at the campground where we're staying tonight. For ten bucks, I can wash the car and the camper, no matter how long it takes. A real deal around these parts!
We stopped in what we thought was Chicken, only to find out that downtown Chicken, where the tavern is, is down the road a bit. Turns out we stopped in the new "suburb." We walked around down town for a few minutes and then went back to the suburb to buy a couple of T-shirts. Marsha liked them better than the downtown models. The road from Dawson to Chicken is called the Top of the World Highway. Beautiful, but 40mph was about tops on the unpaved road.
Then it was on for about 70 miles of mostly paved roads to get into Tok and to the Tundra RV Park. We ate dinner and loaded up three washers (at $3.00 per load) in the laundry. Marsha is down there and I'm in the car outside the campground office using their WiFi.
The plan for tomorrow is to get up, eat breakfast, wash the car and camper, look at a map and decide where to go next. I think we'll head toward Fairbanks and stop at North Pole so Marsha can send the grandkids a card from there.
It's good to be back in the USA where you can buy cheap gasoline ($3.64 per gallon).
See you on down the road!
We got a late start this morning. Left the campground about 8:45 and stopped for some groceries and gas. About an hour after leaving Whitehorse, we stopped at Braeburn Lodge for one of their world famous cinnamon buns. $14.50 for a cinnamon bun and two cartons of milk sounds about right, eh? We'll be eating it for a few days!
All of the tour books said that the drive from Whitehorse to Dawson City is great for seeing wildlife. We talked to several people who saw multiple grizzlies, moose and elk. We saw some birds.
Even with the late start we managed to make the 335 mile trip to Dawson City by 4:10pm. After setting up the camper, we strolled around town for a while before eating dinner and seeing a couple of shows at Diamond Tooth Gertie's.
Tomorrow, it's on down the Top of the World Highway. Wonder where we'll be tomorrow night?!?!
Today was a lousy day for a scenic tour. Rainy, cold, and foggy was the fare for most of the day, but we enjoyed the trip. The photos pretty much tell the story. The bus picked us up at the campground in Whitehorse at 8:30 and took us to Fraser where we boarded the train for Skagway. Got to Skagway at noon, Alaska time, and had lunch at the Red Onion Saloon before walking around town for a while. Got on the bus at 2:00 for the trip back to the campground. Got back about 6:30. A good day, but it would have been more enjoyable if the weather had been a bit nicer. We had to take Larry's (bus driver) word several times for how beautiful a particular vista was because all we could see was fog.
Well, we only pulled the camper 130 miles today. Got to Whitehorse and booked passage on White Pass & Yukon Rout narrow gauge railroad for tomorrow. We'll be gone for the whole day. We take a bus to Fraser, YT and the train from Fraser to Skagway, AK. Then the bus brings us back. After we booked the rail trip we started calling campgrounds at about 1:00 PM and several were booked, so we ended up at the Robert Service Campground. It's supposed to be just for tents, but they let small RV's and trailers in. There are no electrical or water hook-ups, but we can handle that.
We spent umpty-leven Loonies to wash about 2,000 miles worth of dirt, mud and grime off of the car and camper. Unfortunately, that left about 1,500 miles worth of dirt, mud and grime still on the car and camper. They do look better though.
We ran into our new friends from Minnesota, Jim & Bonnie Erickson (again), at the S.S. Klondike, so after the tour we went to dinner at the highly recommended Klondike Rib & Salmon BBQ. Of course, Marsha had the salmon. I had fish & chips. The food was great, as was our evening with Jim & Bonnie.
It's off on the train ride tomorrow, so I'm sure I'll have plenty to post tomorrow night.
