'Top of The World' The Carpenters
Well, the 'Top of the World Highway' in any event.
Critter Count:
Zilch, zero, nothing.
Actually, we could hardly see the road in front of us as we set off good and early in driving rain and were in thick cloud with almost no visibility for nearly the whole way to Tok, Alaska, our home for the night.
In Dawson City we had long discussions about going up the 'Dalton Highway' to Inuvik, North West Territories, and then up to the Arctic Ocean. We LOVED the idea of it but the road is gravel all the way, not a problem for us, but it is a thousand miles, a slow round trip and would have taken us 5 days. So, Alaska for my birthday or NWT? I chose Alaska. As thrilling a place as I can imagine to spend the 56th anniversary of my birth.
We set off on the free ferry over the Yukon river and started mile 1 of the 'Top of the World Highway', alas we did not have top of the world views, as I have already said. This extremely desolate road is in very poor condition with washboards, very steep drop offs, potholes and endless, endless mud. Visibility was so poor that the going was extremely slow, but exciting nevertheless. We were reminded of driving across Mongolia, a happy memory.
Near Chicken (pop. 10) we even saw a real live gold panner. In fact, there is still plenty of gold being found around here, mostly from dredging.
We crossed into the USA with minimal formalities apart from the border guard disappearing with my passport for a long time. The immigration officer at JFK, when we arrived for this adventure, had put my entrance stamp on my Lao visa, but it turned out to be not a problem, eventually. The border guard was actually very friendly and even allowed me to take photographs.
The weather eventually cleared and an absolutely filthy Land Rover found its way to Tok on The Alaska Highway. It is not an entirely happening place but, who cares, we are here, in Alaska after a drive of nearly 8,000 miles. Not bad. There is even the prospect of a birthday dinner in 'Fast Eddies Diner'. Does it come any better?
Critter Count:
Zilch, zero, nothing.
Actually, we could hardly see the road in front of us as we set off good and early in driving rain and were in thick cloud with almost no visibility for nearly the whole way to Tok, Alaska, our home for the night.
In Dawson City we had long discussions about going up the 'Dalton Highway' to Inuvik, North West Territories, and then up to the Arctic Ocean. We LOVED the idea of it but the road is gravel all the way, not a problem for us, but it is a thousand miles, a slow round trip and would have taken us 5 days. So, Alaska for my birthday or NWT? I chose Alaska. As thrilling a place as I can imagine to spend the 56th anniversary of my birth.
We set off on the free ferry over the Yukon river and started mile 1 of the 'Top of the World Highway', alas we did not have top of the world views, as I have already said. This extremely desolate road is in very poor condition with washboards, very steep drop offs, potholes and endless, endless mud. Visibility was so poor that the going was extremely slow, but exciting nevertheless. We were reminded of driving across Mongolia, a happy memory.
Near Chicken (pop. 10) we even saw a real live gold panner. In fact, there is still plenty of gold being found around here, mostly from dredging.
We crossed into the USA with minimal formalities apart from the border guard disappearing with my passport for a long time. The immigration officer at JFK, when we arrived for this adventure, had put my entrance stamp on my Lao visa, but it turned out to be not a problem, eventually. The border guard was actually very friendly and even allowed me to take photographs.
The weather eventually cleared and an absolutely filthy Land Rover found its way to Tok on The Alaska Highway. It is not an entirely happening place but, who cares, we are here, in Alaska after a drive of nearly 8,000 miles. Not bad. There is even the prospect of a birthday dinner in 'Fast Eddies Diner'. Does it come any better?
Chicken, Alaska, has an interesting story--the early settlers wanted to call it Ptarmigan, after the bird which is so prevalent there. But after several tries, they realized that they did not know how to spell it, so they called it Chicken instead!
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