We are indeed back in the US of A's northern frontier. At least I THINK this is the USA. I'm kinda unsure after our first trip to the grocery store where we saw these items on the shelves:
Then, on our first drive out in the countryside around Delta Junction, Alaska we see a church with the sign below in its front yard.
So, yes, we very well may actually be "Back in the USSR."
(Please notice that all of that was said without animus and without reference to the present administrations Stalinification of America.)
So, we left Haines Junction, Yukon to head to Alaska this past Monday morning. This was the BAD part of the Alaska Highway -- it is legendary for its roughness. From Haines Junction to Border Town, AK is about 190 miles. This would typically take about 4 hours on a decent road. To this point the WHOLE of the Alaska highway has been at WORST "decent", at best "very good." It was like a good 2 lane state highway in America. But the Haines Junction to the border section is "good" at best to "OH, MY WORD" at worst. There is one 9 mile section of the "highway" where they are reworking on the surface. They took it down to the dirt below the surface, then graveled it as a base for the road and "THAT'S ALL FOLKS!" as Porky Pig used to say at the end of a Warner Brothers cartoon. So all of these cars and trucks have been over it for at LEAST 2 years with there chains on in the winter. It is TOTALLY WASHBOARD now. You feel like you are being shaken to death even at the 20-30 mph you can even begin to tolerate driving. It is a true vehicle stress test. Especially for a house on wheels. Which reminds me of a joke:
Friend to Motorhome Owner: "What kind of milage do you get while driving that?"
Motorhome Owner: "About 5-7 miles per gallon."
Friend to Motorhome Owner: "That's horrible!"
Motorhome Owner: "It isn't bad for a house!"
Above is a picture of the "Washboard" section of the Alaska Highway near
Destruction Bay (yep that is its ACTUAL name).
Anyway, the drive which if it was on a good road would have taken us 4 or so hours took us 6 1/2 hours. That one stretch of 9 miles took us a single hour to cover. You just sit and imagine yourself being massaged by the road as you are "shaken, not stirred" and putt, putt, putt along. There were also 3 or 4 other sections that were from a couple hundred yards to a couple of miles where the road surface was just dirt with some stone on it and MAYBE had been graded at some point.
We arrived in Border City, Alaska about 2:15 that day. "Border City" is 2 businesses - A Lodge/fuel stop/RV park and a liquor/grocery store, that's it. I think that it exists so Canadians that live close enough to the border can come over and get cheap(er) gas and liquor and then go back home. Canadian fuel was C$ 1.08 per liter. There are 3.85 liters in a gallon. So, that is C$ 4.15 per gallon. The exchange rate while we were in Canada was $1.00 US = $1.25 Canadian. So, the gas at this place really wasn't any cheaper in reality because of the exchange rate. Plus, the gas they get there is trucked in from Canada anyway.
The next morning we left Border Town, AK and drove to Delta Junction. We got here Tuesday afternoon. Here we had to stall our trip. We had hoped to just keep going up to Fairbanks and then down to Denali. What we found though is that none of the RV campgrounds in Fairbanks or Denali open until at LEAST May 15th. It's because they never know when they will have a cold winter that lingers until late April. So, their "season" begins from May 15th to June 1st depending on the RV park. Even here in Delta Junction, though the RV park is "open" the water isn't turned on yet. Sooooo, everyday Irene washes clothes we have have had to disconnect our electric and sewer and drive to the main house to refill our fresh water tank; drive back to our site and reconnect, relevel and put out our slideouts again. It's kinda like a good shampoo - wash, rinse, repeat!
Last night was special - we went "Moose Hunting" and "bagged" two of them (strictly speaking photographically for all you animal rights wackos that just had a coronary).
The top two above are the same moose and the bottom 2 are the 2nd moose we "shot."
We also got to see some Cariboo on the trip from Haines Junction. It was a "nuclear family" - Dad, Mom and kid. Here's a couple of shots of those:
We've also seen more of the awesome grandeur of God's creation. I will close this blog post with a bunch of pictures we've taken:
Joli! Très joli! Bumpy roads are the worst in the North. We know about that! :D
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