Alaska – Page 4 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Day 16 July 21 George Parks Highway to Denali

Our morning plans were simple. Since we weren’t hooked up, all we had to do to depart was to pull in the slide and raise the levelers, hook up the Tracker and we were off. Fairbanks is a great place to stock up on supplies, but I had loaded us up so well before leaving home that we really didn’t need much. We have Fred Meyer stores in Klamath Falls and shop there regularly to get the 10c off per gallon per $100 spent on groceries so we headed back to the big shopping center and the eastern edge of town to get our savings.

But first, it was time to try to get all that grime off the MoHo, so we pulled into the big bay car wash and did our best. The RV bay even had ramps to reach the taller parts of the rig, but it made it harder to actually maneuver in there to get the lower parts. Probably won’t do that again. On to the fuel pumps at Freddy’s, to discover that I had enough points left over from shopping at home to get a whopping 30c off on gas! Hooray! We were at a quarter tank so at 3.59 per gallon for gas, that was great. Cheapest we have paid for gas in a very long time.

After purchasing a few necessities, we were on the road west in the early morning brilliant sunlight, sans GPS. My trusty Garmin Nuvi has been working great, but the cord that connects it to power seems to have bitten the dust. So now we are again traveling as in the olden days, paper maps and no GPS. Should be interesting as we attempt to navigate Anchorage, but there I would imagine that the cell phone will work and I can use google maps. My streets and trips keeps glitching on me as well, saying the file name is incorrect and it won’t save any edits I try to make to our route. Stupid technology glitches that irritate me more than Mo except that my irritation sort of irritates her~ ~

Once we were traveling west out of town on Highway 3, the Parks Highway, once called the Anchorage-Fairbanks Highway, then the George Parks Highway, but now referred to just as the Parks Highway. It was a bit confusing since we were traveling to the “park” at Denali National Park, and then planned to drive the Denali Highway. We had less than 200 miles to Denali, and again according to plan, had made no reservations. We thought we might try to boondock somewhere along Highway 3 if possible and then take the short 15 mile drive into the park after checking out the Visitor Center. Neither of us had any desire to compete with tour buses at the commercial area outside the park to buy Denali trinkets.

Our greatest thrill came very early on our route as we climbed the first hill west of Fairbanks on a sunny morning. Stretched out below us, across the broad expanse of the Tenana Valley, was the massive white Mountain, Denali, Mt McKinley her legal name, but still called “Denali”, “The High One”. The skies were brilliant blue without a cloud to be seen, and the Mountain was revealed in her full, magnificent glory, even though still more than 100 miles away. We stopped and took many photos, amazed at our luck. Mo never once saw the mountain through it’s shroud of clouds when she visited Denali in 74.

We wanted more overlook opportunities, but were surprised to find that most of the turnouts were treed in, or the view was to the north. We never got another view as great as that one on the entire route. While at the first stop, a rig from Pennsylvania stopped in and said, “You are from Oregon, what’s the big deal, you have lots of mountains”. Mo answered, “Yes, but we don’t have Denali”. They seemed unimpressed with what they were seeing. Maybe they didn’t have a clue how lucky they were in that moment. I don’t think they even took a photo!

Continuing south we crossed the Nenana River and passed the historic town of Nenana. I was obviously not doing my navigating job very well, because it was only after we passed that I read about the town and we both wished we had stopped there to visit. I think we were intent on trying to get to the Denali Park Road and try to see the mountain up close before the clouds forming in the southwestern skies beat us there.

Once down the canyon and beyond Denali Village, we turned into the main Visitor Center to get information and maps. I bought my standard National Park “The Rest of the Story” book, ( I do have a big collection of these), and we parked the MoHo and decided to drive the Tracker in to the mile 15 driving limit at Savage River. Still, once more, not an animal in sight, but we did get to see the mountain shrouded in clouds, but showing off the north summit quite well. I was surprised to see that our view was much less dramatic from the park itself than it had been so many miles north.

North summit is visible in the clouds

Denali has the most dramatic rise of any mountain on earth, even those in the Himalayas. From Wonder Lake, at 2,000 feet , you see the full rise of the mountain to over 20,000 feet, the highest in North America. I hope that as we drive south in the next few days we will again have the opportunity to see it, but we definitely aren’t going to spend a whole day on a bus with a bunch of people to get to Wonder Lake, especially when the chances are it will be clouded up anyway.

I read something at the visitor center that struck me. Denali Park isn’t just about the mountain or the animals, either of which you may not see. It is also about the taiga and tundra landscapes, the habitat of the north, and that you will see no matter how cloudy or busy the road may be with traffic. When we got to the Savage River, it was completely full, so we just turned around and took our time returning.

On the way back, Mo wondered if it would be possible to camp at Riley Creek rather than continuing down the road searching for a boondock site. I stopped in at the Riley Creek Mercantile around 4 pm and snagged the last available B length site in the campground. It seems the park has reservations, but you can’t reserve a specific site, just a site size. B is for rigs up to 31 feet. We chose a spot in the Wolf Loop and settled in to a lovely warm evening, again not a bug in site. We are in Alaska, we are in Denali, there are no mosquitoes? do you suppose they were taken up in the rapture?

Tomorrow: The Denali Highway East

Miles traveled today: 135

Road conditions: Excellent smooth major highway

The rest of the photos are here

Day 15 July 20 The Discovery

Sometimes popular tourist attractions are popular for a reason. The Riverboat Discovery is just such an attraction. I’m glad we chose it to be one of the extra excursions we would do while in Alaska. I’m going to quote from the Milepost here:

“Owned and operated by the Binkley Family, whose riverboating experience spans four generations and more than 100 years, the Riverboat Discovery tour has been rated on of the top boating attractions in North America. Captain Jim Binkley and his crew of children, grandchildren and native Alaskans take you back to the heyday of sternwheelers, to an era when prospectors, fur traders, and Native people of the Interior relied on rivers as their only link to the outside world”

We drove to the parking lot on the western edge of town along the Chena River, once again inundated with row after row of buses from the cruise lines, mainly Holland America and Princess. I’m not sure how many people could be on the boat, but there were hundreds of people lining up to board and filling the huge gift shop at the entrance. I am glad that I purchased my tickets online last night from the comfort of my motorhome. This is definitely a very big very much tourist attraction. There were very few cars parked in the lot, and most of the passengers were from the cruise buses. We took the 2PM cruise because the 8:45 was booked solid, so I’m just glad we were able to at least get a sailing.

The boat trip was great. We followed blogger advice and took a left side seat on the third deck out in the open. I didn’t have a sweater and the sun was warm even on the river. Even though there are excellent video screens conveniently placed all around the boat, we were on the side of the bush plane take-off and a special highlight, on the side of the visit to Susan Butcher’s kennels where her husband and his daughters brought out the dogs for a sled dog demonstration. It was wonderful to see how happy those sled dogs are and how excited they get when it’s time to pull the sled. He hitched a team up to a non motorized 4 wheeler, and they raced around the roadways and burst back out onto the lawn going full speed before his shouted “Whoa” stopped them instantly. Amazing. I read all the stories about Susan, her strength and love of the dogs, and about her death to cancer. Her name always brought up something inside about what women can do, powerful women. It was a special treat to see her kennels and her husband. Her famous dog, Granite, passed on not long before Susan, but we saw a memorial to him as well in the village later.

After the dogs, the boat went downriver to the confluence with the broad, braided, wide path of the Tanana River, the largest glacially fed river in North America, in fact, I think they said in the world. It was filled with silt and debris and the current looked rough and tricky. I wouldn’t want to put a boat in that river! The boat turned and we pulled alongside the Chena Village, a replica of course, but still a place that felt very special with the young women from the Athabascan tribe telling the stories of what their life was like before the coming of the white man.

It was a lovely place, with a fish camp, and sod roofed cabins, smokehouse, and a cache, in addition to the Susan Butcher cabin and memorial to Granite, who won the Iditarod for her four times. We learned a bit about how the people caught and processed salmon, how they made their clothing, and saw some beautiful examples of parkas, dresses, and even the girls wearing what they referred to as “summer parkas”.

Once back on the boat we continued back toward the landing, passing the home of the Binkleys, where the matriarch of the family came out to wave at the boat which she does every day as it passes. In front of her home is the original Discovery. It was her vision that kept the sternwheeler tradition alive in Fairbanks as this tourist excursion.

Miles driven today in the MoHo: 0

The rest of the photos from this trip are linked here.

Day 15 July 20 Playing in Fairbanks

We woke this morning to gorgeous sunny skies and warm temperatures. I had reserved our tickets for the Discovery the night before online. One nice thing about the paved parking lot at Pioneer Park was free, fast WiFi! I uploaded lots of photos and caught up on previous blog posts with abandon, and for a minute was even ahead of the game. Of course, that wouldn’t last for long and I am actually writing this final catch-up post from our rainy camp in Talkeetna.

Our plans for the morning were to drive the Chena Springs Road and then return to go as far north on the Steese Highway toward the Dalton Highway as we could manage and still make our 2PM boat cruise. The drive was beautiful, and paid off with a leisurely visit with a young bull moose munching away at a river crossing.

We traveled as far as the Chena Hot Springs resort, checked it out a bit and then returned the same way to the Teese Highway. Along the way we stopped along the river Abby play time.

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Once back on the Teese Highway, we marveled at the wonderful views from the ski area north of town and stopped for photos of the Alaska Pipeline.

Later in the evening, after our boat ride on the Discovery (a separate post) we visited the Aurora Ice Museum in downtown Fairbanks for the digital wide screen photo symphony of the northern lights, produced by LeRoy Zimmerman. Before the show we saw amazing ice sculptures lit by colorful lights and had a few moments to watch an ice sculptor in action. It was definitely a bit of touristy action but the photos were beautiful and even though they were still images, the transitions gave the feeling of movement and the lights looked very much like what I have seen in the night skies above Edmonton, and even from my hot tub in Rocky Point. The photos were presented accompanied by lovely classical music. Try staying awake after a day like ours in a dark theater listening to Leibestraum!

The rest of the photos of our explorations around Fairbanks are linked here

Miles traveled in the MoHo today: 0

Miles traveled in the Tracker: 102

Road condition: Another great two lane paved highway with joints and an occasional frost heave

Day 14 July 19 Delta Junction to Fairbanks

When we left Delta Junction this morning, it was raining hard, but within minutes of getting on the road, we were treated to our first moose of the trip. She was running along the road, but then conveniently stopped for me to take her photo. Along this part of the highway, moose are a constant problem, or I should says cars are the problem, with hundreds of moose killed every year by motorists.

Our drive to Fairbanks was short, and we arrived in time to spend the afternoon visiting two places on our list of must-see sights. The Fairbanks Visitor Center is at the Morris Thompson Cultural Center in downtown Fairbanks along the Chena River. The display gardens are wonderful, filled with the huge flowers and vegetables that thrive in the long daylight. The center itself is filled with interesting and lovely displays, including painted dioramas and artifacts from the area. We really enjoyed it.

We then traveled across town to the northwestern hill above the river to the dramatic Museum of the North at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This university is in the perfect place for studying polar climates, and for materials testing in climatic extremes. The Museum itself is fantastic, with a controversial architecture that represents the landscapes of the north, tremendous displays from all the regions of Alaska, and a gallery dedicated to Alaskan art. There are hourly movies scheduled, one that we are sorry we missed was called “Dynamic Aurora”. These cost an extra $5, but it was more the time than the money that kept us from attending. We also knew that we were going to see another aurora presentation at the Ice Museum in town, so thought we could skip this one.

We spent enough time there to get “museum fatigue”, with our eyes and brains overloaded with tons of information and our legs and feet tired from all the standing around reading rather than actually moving. I loved seeing “Blue Babe”, the steppe bison killed by something with teeth that may have been a lion and then preserved in the cold climate with skin and hair that could be studied by scientists for clues about his existence.

We had already decided to stay at Pioneer Park in their pavement parking lot for $12 no hookups, but with a nice row of shade trees behind us. It seems we managed to arrive in Fairbanks during their Gold Rush Days and the parking lot was full. I still laugh at the fact that we never managed to actually go inside the park to see all the stuff there that was drawing the crowds. It was a noisy place, and for the first time on the trip, I used my ear plugs to sleep. Once the shades were drawn and the ear plugs were in, we could have been anywhere!

After a bit more exploration of Fairbanks we found out that we could have joined the many RV’s at the east side WalMart for free and had access to shopping and probably less noise. Also, just up the block from where we were parked was a lovely, quiet state park, with access to the river and hookups for a bit more money. Still, it was kinda fun being in the parking lot directly across from the famous Salmon Bake.

This is supposedly another great thing to do in Fairbanks, and I had my heart set on doing it. Mo agreed to the spendy $32 per person, but she wasn’t in the mood to do the ‘all you can eat’ thing and was going just for the ambience since I didn’t want to do it alone. After our museum visits, we came back home and I decided to go read the blogs and then checked in with TripAdvisor about the bake. I am sooo glad that I did. Even though some folks may have enjoyed it, the reviews were less than stellar, and we decided to skip it. Lots of money saved on that one, I think, and we won’t have to try to walk off all the unneeded calories.

While we watched the cruise buses and Salmon Bake blue bus shuttles started rolling in, one after the other, unloading people by the dozens. The bake is offered from 5 to 8 and there must have been hundreds of people in that place. No wonder the food is reputed to be cold and the service non-existent. Remember, this observation is rumor only and not my personal experience.

I also can’t believe that I never took a single photo of our parking lot campsite or the mine entrance to the Salmon Bake. I guess that may have been because it was actually pretty warm out there, and there were so many people that we would quickly retreat to the safety of the MoHo when we arrived.

Miles traveled today: 95

Road condition: excellent paved highway

The rest of the photos for this day are linked here

Day 13 July 18 Boundary Boondock to Delta Junction

Once again I have been awake since 2 or so, unable to sleep even with the shades drawn and the MoHo dark in spite of the light. It has been raining all night, even with the predictions of sunny skies in Fairbanks to come. I hope they are right and this rain is going to leave us. Folks at the visitor centers are complaining about the lack of summer this year, with rain and cold temperatures in an area usually blessed with warm sunny skies. I expected dreary, chilly, rainy days on this trip, tried to prepare myself mentally for that possibility, but looking outside at the socked in skies still isn’t any fun.

We settled in last night at the Smith’s Green Acres RV Park just north of Delta Junction. The owner is an interesting sort, but I think most folks around here tend to be interesting. We got a nice long pull through site with shade, just what we need. No cable tv but one channel comes in on the antenna. Probably irrelevant, since tv hasn’t been any kind of priority lately. I do have internet, but with an irritating glitch in the setup that requires me to repeatedly go back to the park owner’s advertising page and log in. Happens in the midst of uploads which doesn’t make me very happy! This park has a Good Sam discount and none other, and after considerable bantering and conversation, we got a ten percent discount for Mo’s retired military status. Still cost 37.50 for one night of hookups.

We originally planned to stay at the Family Camp at Eilson AFB, but decided that maybe we wanted to spend our two Fairbanks nights closer to town. Thanks to CoolRV’rs on the road, we are now going to check into the City Park and dry camp right on the river close to town. There are a ton of folks traveling through Alaska right now, and the biggest group headed up by Dennis and his huge 500 lens, may be passing us or already has passed us. I have followed their blogs and learned a lot from their recommendations. They were in Fairbanks a couple of days ago. The owner at the park here said that many folks are actually heading out of Alaska right now, as it starts to get a bit darker and the temperatures cool off.

At this junction marking the official end of the Alaska Highway, we have yet to mark the halfway point of our trip, with just under 3,000 miles so far and another 4,000 to go. Our costs are running close to $175 per day, but hopefully that will decrease a bit as we spend a bit more time at each stop.

Our travels yesterday took us from our boondock site near the eastern Alaska boundary, through the historical Chicken Creek mining district and the town of Chicken. We stopped in for a look at all the chicken related memorabilia and were amazed at how many RV parks had popped up around the original one building town. It’s beautiful around here, and gold still brings in prospectors hoping to find that magical pay dirt. We saw another caravan of 20 RV’s parked in the lot with a sign proclaiming the leaving time. I have no idea whether they were going east or west, but we sure were glad we missed them on the road. I am not quite sure why someone would choose to drive this gorgeous, wild, open land in a pack, but I suppose it must work for some. Not for us! We are a couple of independent women who really want to run our own timetable!

As we continued south and west from Chicken, we were alone on the road, the very rough, potholed, wet road. The rain came and went, the views opened up in some areas, made more open by the huge Taylor Fire Complex that burned 1.5 million acres in 2004. Judy said she was here during those fires. I can’t imagine how awful that must have been! In spite of sporadic rain, we have been blessed with gorgeous, fresh, clear air throughout this entire trip. No smoky fire haze obscuring the vistas, no smog, no pollution from anything at all. I think that may be one of my most favorite things so far. Air. Pure. Clean. Air. It is one of the reasons I love living at Rocky Point.

Still, in spite of the guidebooks, the signs, the warnings, we didn’t see one single animal. In the wildest part of our trip, through the Forty Mile Wilderness, home of the biggest herd of Caribou in Alaska, filled with bear and moose, fox and lynx, we didn’t see anything at all. So be it. According to all the photos on the blogs, there are moose just about everywhere from here on out.

Arriving in Tok, we stopped at the very wonderful visitor center to pick up a big pile of Alaska brochures for all the places we planned to travel. This park was highly recommended by a very nice woman at the center, so we set our sights for Delta Junction. After cooking some burgers on the grill, we drove back to town to take the obligatory photos of the Highway end post, and found a car wash so that we could see out the windows of the Tracker. Before going home, we drove a bit north to check out Rika’s Roadhouse at the Big Delta State Historical Park.

The park had one of the most lovely displays of historical buildings that we have seen thus far. The Roadhouse was initially developed in 1904 but it wasn’t until 1917 that John Hajdukovich from Yugoslavia hired Swedish born Rika Wallen to run his business. Rika made the roadhouse something different than ordinary, with lush gardens, cows, sheep, and poultry, allowing her to serve fresh vegetables, eggs, milk, and meat to her customers.

The Roadhouse was also a center of communications, and pivotal as a transportation hub for prospectors traveling along the Tanana River to Fairbanks. With the completion of the Alaska Highway in the 40’s, the population of Big Delta moved to the junction of the Alcan and Richardson highways, signaling the end of an era. Rika’s closed soon after that. Walking the beautiful grounds and gardens was a lovely way to end our first day in Alaska.

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The rest of the photos for this day are here