Finally, I’m approaching Whitehorse. It’s May 20th, 2010 in this travel saga, and I spend the day not thinking about much of anything. Didn’t bother to get around to taking any pictures since I was getting road weary. I get to the Hi Country RV park in Whitehorse around 5pm. It’s a little chilly, down in the low 50’s F. The weather had been clear most of the day. The RV park is only 3 miles to town, but being so tired, I decided to stay in again. It’s great having your own food and drinks aboard. And a place to pee. Spent a little time zoning out in front of the boob tube, since they had cable and all, and even wandered over to the common room and played a little pool against myself (park wasn’t that crowded). Checked out the facilities, very nice, and bought myself a candy bar for desert at the store.
Parked at the Hi Country RV park in Whitehorse.
That evening, I got on-line and checked the diesel prices around Whitehorse. When I’d arrived, I’d gotten a 1/4 tank of diesel because I thought I’d get a better price up the road 2-3 miles, as I’d done in the past. This was a RV park after all. But when I checked the internet, turned out they had the best price in town. The price was even better then in Tok, Alaska, which I expected to be my next overnight stop. I’d gotten up at around 5:30am, very early for me, but the picture above was taken at 5:42am, so it’s proof I do occasionally get up early. Had to wait for the office to open at 8 so I could get fuel, but I had time to have a nice breakfast and lounge around for a while, and time for checking RV stuff like the tire pressures and oil level. Then with re-fueling out of the way after 8, I was back on the road by 8:30am.
The last time I’d made this trip heading North, in 2007, there was allot of road work taking place and it was difficult to make good time, due to the stops needed but also the poor condition of the road bed. But this time, the road work was pretty much done and the road a pleasure to drive, but only compared to 2007. Not compared to a modern freeway. This is a two lane road in the far North after all. Not to many slow downs due to frost heaved roads either, but there were some. Up here, you have to watch for little vinyl flags on the side of the road. Those point out a frost heave and mean ‘Slow Down’.
I thought the blue sky was pretty cool.
A little bit of broken road being resurfaced. Much less then back in '07.
Haven't seen another vehical for some time...
Closer and closer to those peaks.
Boy, those are fascinating peaks.
And then another hour down the road, these new peaks.
Here's the best picture of the series, I think anyway.
This one ain't so bad either.
Couldn't pass up a picture of this stunning blue sky.
This shot, and several following shots, are of a huge lake you pass to the South of the US border. The road swings left here, then the new, improved portion of the road begins. Then it crosses a bridge over huge mud flats where you can imagine what the glacier that was there must have looked like 7,000 years ago. They’ve been working on the road in this area since the first year I went up to Alaska in ’07. It was a mess back then, lots of gravel, bumps, and stops for one way traffic. But now it’s pretty smooth sailing through this area.
Now heading due west.
Just a couple miles and I need to cross over to that side of the lake.
I’m heading West in the picture and shooting this picture towards NW. If you look carefully center left in the above shot, you can see a tiny white building way off in the distance, that’s where the bridge that crosses the mud flats is. Then the road turns back East and hugs the bottom of that giant hill in the foreground. After it gets around that, it turns North again.
Now back heading almost due North.
Oh, look, ice on the lake.
Can't help but love these remote areas.
Wow, surprising how much ice is still here.
A few miles further North, and I stopped at a small lake that is ice free.
This is at a lake a few miles South of the US/Canada border. It was around lunchtime so I stopped with several other folks to enjoy the lake. I took the photo after waiting around an hour for the parking lot to empty out. There were allot of cars, RVs and trucks when I first stopped, and my rig is so big, I had to move it to where it’s shown here so as not to block to many cars. The lot emptied out quickly though, like a flock of birds.
Thinking about grabbing my fishing pole around this time.
It's really something, isn't it?
Stopped for lunch.
Here I am, enjoying the shirtsleeve weather and the view.
I’ve since lost all that baby fat. I was around 225lbs at the time this shot was taken, I’m now down to a much more comfortable 184lbs.
A couple hours later, I'm up at the border crossing.
This is the most traffic I remember seeing at the border but it didn’t translate into a good year at the RV park where I volunteer. Tourism was down 40-50% in Alaska.
From here, it’s only a couple hours to Tok, Alaska, and I got there so early, 3pm, that I decided to keep on going to Fairbanks. Got there around 7:30pm. And on the way, I picked up a hitchhiker who had abandoned his mining job in Chicken. He and the owner didn’t get along. The guy had hiked around 48 miles. And counting the ride I gave him to North Pole, Alaska, had hitchhiked over 200.
Stopped at my favorite bar in Fairbanks, the Big I, and got the chance to say hi to all my friends. Pulled into the RV park on May 21st at around 9:30pm. Exhausted and ready to go to bed.