May 27th to 31st - Yukon to Alaska

May 27th - Sun - to Dawson City
We left the Alaska Hwy for the Klondike Hwy to make a loop to Dawson City. Still a good road but had to slow down and watch for frost heaves and gravel patches. The only wildlife that we saw was 2 swans in a small pond. There were some interesting mountains with odd bald patches but otherwise the scenery was not as spectacular as we have seen. The highway climbs to the Miners Range which is, according to the Milepost, “plateau country of the Yukon, an immense wilderness of forested dome-shaped mountains”. The highway starts following the Yukon River after a while.
We are staying in an RV park just out of town so we checked out the town after setting up. Had to pay a short visit to the “casino”! The park advertised cable TV (needed when it is raining!) and wifi. When we got back we discovered that we received 2 TV channels (badly) and no wifi. Surprise - the wifi is only available after June 1st but we did not think to ask when we checked in and they certainly did not let us know.

May 28th - Mon - Dawson City
Started out rainy today so we went into town to wander around. We spent about an hour in the museum. On the way back to the rig for lunch, we drove up a hill called Midnight Dome. It has amazing views of Dawson City, the Yukon River valley and the goldfield areas.
After lunch we stopped by Claim 33 to visit Darlene who is a friend of Cecile & Alan’s. We chatted with her a while and she showed us around the place. Then we continued on to a tour of Dredge #4. It was a great tour of an incredible piece of machinery. We tried a little gold panning at the city’s free claim but the water in the creek was pretty cold and it is hard on the back having to lean over so far to not stand in water so we didn’t last very long at that.
We took in the 8:30 show at Diamond Tooth Gerties. OK but not great. Spent just a few dollars in the slot machines and called it a day. Actually, we could literally “call it a day” for a while - the sun was still up just after 10.

May 29th - Tues - to Tok
We started the day with a ferry ride across the Yukon River. It is part of the Alaska highway system so it is free. It is a very small ferry and made Terry slightly nervous. We ended up being the only rig on the ferry and everything went fine. There is no “dock” on shore. The landing ramp is just set down onto a graded section of the riverbank and off you drive.
Part of the highway that we drove over is called Top of the World Highway and it lives up to it’s name. You drive along the top of a mountain ridge for a long ways and have amazing views on both sides of the road. You cross into Alaska about halfway through and have to clear customs. The agent asked us NOTHING about what food items we had so all my clearing out was for naught.
The road surface got worse after we crossed the border. It was dirt in places, not even gravel. There had been rain so some parts were a little muddy which made both vehicles a mess.
There have been large forest fires along this road. I took a couple of pictures but it is hard to capture miles of entire mountains charred by fire.
We stopped at Chicken, AK for lunch. Funny little place but we had a good lunch. They have no electricity or sewer system but while we waited for lunch to be prepared I checked our emails on a computer in the café.
We finally got cell phone service in Tok but no internet access at our RV site. Could have connected in the laundry room but it was pretty cool in there so figured I’d wait.

May 30th - Wed - to Fairbanks
Not a long drive today so we took our time getting on the road. It was so nice to have cell phone service again that we spent some time on the phones. We stopped at several pullouts to take pictures and have lunch. The Alaska Hwy and the Klondike Hwy both have lots of “large double-ended pullouts” that are identified in the Milepost magazine. The magazine includes information about photo opportunities, trails and amenities at each pullout.
We are staying at a nice RV park - in town but it is wooded and has a river running along one side. It has a wash station with a high boom for RVs so we cleaned up both rigs before parking and setting up. There is a Fred Meyer store nearby so we filled in some of the groceries that we used up before crossing the border. The RV park is associated with a motel which has individual cabins along the river as some of the rooms. When we were taking a walk we ended up talking with a couple from Ohio staying in a cabin and then they walked over a bit later to chat some more.
Wildlife watch: 1 fox

May 31st - Thurs - Fairbanks
It rained overnight and was a little cool this morning. We made the obligatory visit to North Pole, AK but browsing the gift shop that is mostly Christmas ornaments kind of loses it’s appeal when your Christmas tree is a foot high and permanently decorated! We did mail a couple of CD’s from there so they will have the North Pole postmark.
Checked out downtown Fairbanks and tried to get to the visitor center but there was no parking lot beside it and after 2 loops through one-way streets we gave up.
We went on the El Dorado Gold Mine tour in the afternoon. A little train takes you through a “permafrost” tunnel where a guy talks about old mining procedures and shows you a stack of prehistoric bones. Then he demonstrates an old rocker box as you continue through the woods. You end up at the main building where there is a working sluice box lined with benches for the visitors. A couple who have mined in Alaska for 25 years take you through this mining procedure. They run water through a flume, dump a bucket full of dirt & gravel in the hopper and run it down the sluice. Then they pick up a section of the sluice at the top, divide the gravel into 5 gold pans and employees pan out the gold. They all had gold in their pans and one had a very small nugget. Next everyone gets a small bag of paydirt and you move to the panning area where we all got a bit of gold. They weigh your gold and put a current value on it ($13 for both of us) in a large gift shop. They also feed you fresh baked cookies and coffee - went back for seconds! There was a trough of water in front of the gift shop with pans of gravel that you could just pan for free. Most people that we saw were getting nothing but I got 2 more little flakes.
There will be no sunset today! It sets just after midnight, so technically it is setting tomorrow!