I have finally arrived in Alaska. I’m now at my old haunt in Fairbanks volunteering at the Ice Park Campground. I manage the place, check people in, make sure everything works, etc. Got here last Thursday evening after a long 12 hour drive.
The last couple days, I’ve been getting the computer at my desk up and running (they pretty much tear down the office in the off season). Now I have all the software I’ll need to work on the blog installed so in a few days I’ll begin uploading pictures and words here.
Stay tuned!
As far as the trip went, I left Walla Walla in early May, made my way up to Oroville, Washington, then waited 12 days for a storm to pass and the weather to get a little better. I didn’t want to see any snow on the roads up in the north. I shouldn’t have worried about that though since they had record highs earlier in April and nearly all the snow was melted. I did see some snow but not enough to worry about. And none on the roads.
Along the route, I saw 5 black bears, 2 moose, 2 deer that ran out in front of me causing an emergency braking procedure, and an elk. All the animals were pretty healthy looking. I was only able to get a picture of one animal though…a bear. But then I did find a beaver lodge and dam so I got some shots of that. Not quite as good looking as a beaver pond as I saw a couple years ago on my way up, but good enough.
It took me five days to get up to Fairbanks from Oroville and that was with one 10 hour day driving and one 12 hour day. The border crossings were easy again, the Canadians didn’t even bother to put ‘Do not use in Canada’ wrappings on the extra wine I brought into the country. The US border at Alaska was easy too, they didn’t even come into the rig, just asked to see my passport and asked a few questions. Easy breezy. I could have smuggled in 10-12 illegals in the back bedroom and made a bundle.
The roads in Canada had been trouble for 2 days with the frost heaves and road work so when I got into the US I was really happy about finding good roads for miles and miles. The roads started to get better around 20 miles north of the US border. By the time I got to Tok, around 3:30pm, I’d decided to push on to Fairbanks though I’d initially planned on spending the night. I was looking forward to getting to Fairbanks and waiting until the next day didn’t appeal to me.
Around 30 miles out of town there was a guy holding up a $5 bill as I passed so I stopped and picked him up. He’d been in Chicken, Alaska, working at a mine helping a gold miner. They butted heads and didn’t get along so he’d left the job site at midnight and had been hitchhiking for a couple days since. We figured out how far he’d walked on foot and it came out to be around 48 miles. The other one hundred and fifty miles he’d been able to get a ride. Then I stopped for him saving him another 240 miles of walking. Dropped him off in North Pole and ended up visiting my favorite bar in Fairbanks by 7:30pm. After hanging out there and visiting with my friends, I headed off to the RV park, plugged in and off to bed. Nice trip all in all. Not a single thing went wrong with my RV on this leg of the adventure.
Wow, no RV problems all the way up. How’d that happen?
You lucked out twice, Dude… Oregon’s weather for the last month really sucks. Almost ceaseless rain. Been a long time since I’ve seen it so incessant. Making up for the dry March I reckon.
Hope ya have a great summer up there, and wish we were there. Been threatening to take the Beaver coach to Alaska since our month-long stay after the trip up via the cruise ship in 2003. The buscuit burner’s nephew has a B&B at Soldotna/Kenai. He and his missus went on the cruise with us and got hooked, so went back up and bought some land on the river and have been building ever since. Gotta love that Kenai River sockeye run!!
The recession has squeezed our finances to where we’ve considered selling the coach, as we can’t even afford to drive it (been stuck at home since October 2008); so we may never fulfill our dream of taking the rig up, but if we do it will be in 2011 (assuming fuel prices don’t skyrocket). If so, and you’re there then, we’ll try to connect.
Joel and Lee,
Clackamas
That sucks Joel. I saw the economy crash coming six years ago and my neighborhood had become very popular so I had the opportunity to bail. I still have two years to wait ’till I can officially retire and start drawing SS. To be able to last that long without income I have some friends up here that help me out. And I work here at the park for them. I will be here the summer of ’11 since I’ve decided to stay here for two years plus. Come on up and visit!
What sucks is this confounded rain! It usually takes all of June to get 4″ of it, but we got over 3″ in the first 5 days!! Thank goodness a dry spell looms after Thursday. Haven’t even been able to plant the garden – veritable mudhole since April. At least Alaska is cloudy a lot, but not a slogfest like this year in Oregon.
Hope to see ya next year. Hang the sun out for us.
Joel