Thursday. June 27

Haven't done much today. We did move to a different campground only about 15 miles north of Fairbanks.  We want to drive up the Dalton Hwy (haul road that the ice road truckers use) tomorrow and this is on our way.  If we can, we want to try and make it to to Cold foot, or  at least to the Arctic circle. That's a 115 miles, but we are not sure about the road. 

One of the reasons that we haven't done much today is because we are waiting for a locksmith to come out and unlock our truck.   Kind of scary as we are kind of out in the boonies.  We got the RV parked and when we got out, somehow the truck got locked.  Buck did have his cell phone in his pocket but we only have 1 bar.  He tried to use a wire for at least an hour.  Then tried calling Good Sam, after several tries of calls being dropped he was finally able to communicate enough for them to find out where we are and send a locksmith out.  In fact he just got here.    What a relief!! I bet we won't do that again. We're not sure which one of us did it, so we couldn't even yell at each other.

We are parked by a lake that has been stocked with fish, so Buck is going to do some fishing now that he is able to get his new fishing hooks out of the truck.  Haha

He is making us a extra key!!! 

This is our campsite

Buck was fishing earlier but didn't catch anything 

I love the reflection in the water

Wednesday June 27

Another very warn day in Fairbanks.  It got up to 91again, but the humidity is only 28 percent so that does help.  

We stopped at a farmers market this morning and ran into a couple that we met a couple of days ago at a stop along the road.  They had seen our MN plates and ask where we were from, found out they had lived only about 5 miles from us for several years.  Small world!!

We went for a drive up to Chena Hot Springs this afternoon.  It was about a 100 mile round trip. 

Saw lots of moose.  I was just reading that eat up to 50 - 60 pounds of food a day. No wonder they are so big 

The pics that I am posting are all from that trip

 Wild iris along the road, they are all over.  I think they are so pretty

Ugly, aren't they

He is busy eating

This is the pond that he was in

This one is a Bull, you can see the antlers growing back

He is a big guy

This is taken from the hot springs

They had such beautiful flowers 

The hot spring pool, they did have one inside too. We didn't have our suits so couldn't go in

I thought this grass roof was really cool

This is the last one, you all are probably tired of moose by now.  He almost ran in front of us so I just rolled down the window and got his pic.

Tuesday June 25

We only drove about a 100 miles today and stopped at a state recreation area.  The campsites are in amongst the trees, which is what we like much better than a big RV park.  Plus they are less expensive ,and we don't need hook-ups.  We have 3 solar panels on the roof and that supplies enough electricity for us.  Tho Buck did start the generator now just to run the air conditioner.  It got up to 90 here today so it feels really hot.   There is a lake here too so Buck plans on doing some fishing tomorrow.

We are about 15 miles outside of Fairbanks so we drove in there today and went to SAMs and got stocked up on a few groceries.  There prices didn't seem much more then what they are at home.

Fairbanks is Alaska's 2nd largest city. The population is 32,000 but with surrounding area it is 84,000

I am posting a couple of pics of the Alaskan pipeline and there are a couple of the Mts.  It is very hard to see but there are high snow covered mountains in the background.  Looks kind of like clouds.

Monday, June 24th

 We left Tok this morning heading north, only drove a little over a hundred miles to Delta  Junction.  

We decided to stop at Clearwater Lake, it's a small recreational park outside of town.   The town is about 1500 population .

We got unhooked and setup.  We went back into town and looked through some gift shops, and Buck got a fishing license. ( that makes you happy doesn't it, Brad)  he is down fishing right now.  There is a path right behind the RV to the lake and that is where I took the pics.  

I was only down there about 10 minutes and the Mosquitos chased me out. I am surprised he hasn't come up after the mosquito spray, they were awful!!  

Tomorrow we plan on being in Fairbanks, it's only a 100 miles.  We will probably stay around there a few days.  

Sunday June 23

We are still in Tok.  Have spent some of the day doing chores, like scrubbing the floor, cleaning the bathroom and vacuuming, all of those fun things that have to be done.  I think we will do some laundry later on.  

We plan on heading up toward Fairbanks tomorrow.

Yesterday we drove over to Chicken, it's a old mining town and I believe they still do some mining around there.  It's interesting how the town got its name, The old timers wanted to name it "ptarmigan " but could not agree on the spelling so they named it chicken.  The ptarmigan is a wild bird that looks a lot like a chicken around the size of a grouse.

The weather has been really nice, warm in the 70s.  

I have just a couple of "downtown" pictures of Chicken that I will post.  

I hope that I can get the posts to publish, have had a little trouble with our hot spot, so may have to go down to the gift shop.  They have wi-fi.   Will try that

Thursday. June 20

Well here we are again at another campsite.  We are right beside a river in the middle of pines.

We got a fire going and enjoying being outside.  

It was another day of driving and beautiful scenery.   We did stop at Haines Junction and went to a bakery and had coffee n rolls .  Suppose to have the best sourdough bread around and baked fresh daily.  We did get a loaf of cheese basil and had some tonight and it is delicious.  But it should be for 7$ a loaf.  Can't do that very often.  

Kind of like paying 8$ a gallon for diesel which we had to do a couple of days ago.  We have been paying around 6 or 7 $ a gallon most of the time in northern Canada.  

June 19th

We are spending the night tonight a few miles out of Whitehorse in a provincial park.  We drove about 275 miles today.  It's a beautiful park with tall pines and a creek running through it.  

We ran into Whitehorse tonight and had something to eat and got a few groceries at Walmart.  The population is around 25,000 and is the capital of the Yukon Territories.  The population of the entire Yukon Territory is 35,000.  And is 186,272 square miles in size.  Whitehorse Looked like a nice city and is I am guessing the biggest we will see until we get to Fairbanks.  

It was a nice day today with temps in the mid 70s and sunny. I loved it!!

I did see 2 brown bears along the road, not sure if they were grizzly or brown, but they were big.

I saw them to late to get a picture.

It stays light so late here.  There is 21 hours of daylight today.  The summer solstice is Friday and sounds like they celebrate it. We were told that the campgrounds are going to busy all weekend.  I guess if I only had 5 hours of daylight in the winter I would be celebrating too!!

Friday June 21

We did it!!  We are in Tok, Alaska.  It's a town of about 1500 people and 90 miles from the border.

We plan on staying here for a couple of days and leave the RV parked and do some day trips.

Makes it easier and we get into a lot smaller places with just the truck.

Yukon

Was another day of sightseeing of beautiful scenery and wildlife.  We had to stop a couple of times and wait for the Bison to get off the road.   We made it a short day and stopped at a RV park in Watson Lake.  It's a small town of about 1500 people, which is pretty big for this country.  It is in the Yukon.

I'm going to post some of photos that I took today.  Some were taken from the truck when moving so not quite as good.  Great day!!

British Columbia, Canada

 We got in to Dawson Creek, BC yesterday and on the Alaskan highway.  We have only 1200 miles left and we will be in Alaska.  Today we drove 325 and are stopped at a provincial park for tonight.  They are like our state parks.   We have a beautiful spot right on a lake with mountains all around us.

We saw some wildlife today,  bears...a mommy with her 2cubs, moose and deer.