08/22/19 - Top of the World Highway, Border Crossing, Dawson City, Yukon

Top of the World Highway in Alaska, before the US/Canada border

The US/Canada border crossing 

Yukon Territory, Canada

The George Black ferry crossing is free of charge provided by the Yukon government. Maximum vehicle length is 83 feet. We had to wait as they loaded up smaller cars and campers. We were the only ones on our crossing. As we were driving up, the hitch snagged on something and again as we were driving off. Other than that, it was a smooth ride; kind of strange going sideways down the river through.

Dawson City also started as a gold rush city with the Klondike Gold Rush in 1896. It only lasted a few years but gold mining is still an economic mainstay in the area. We stopped at the visitor center and then walked around town. The visitor center has some films about the gold rush and a diorama of the old town.  Leaving town there are areas that were dredged and still big piles of ground.

For more pictures of Top of the World Highway and Dawson City, please click here.

08/21/19 - Up to Chicken, Alaska and Top of the World Highway

We wanted to get past the Tok Junction and get that road out of the way. It is the worst road we've driven in Alaska. Lots of frost heaves, pot holes and construction. 

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them. 

The  Top of the World Highway is 175 miles from the Tetlin Junction on the Taylor Highway 5 to Dawson City in the Yukon on Highway 9. It's only open in the summer.  There are 30 miles of Gravel.

The town of Chicken began in 1886 with the discovery of gold, like many Alaska towns. There is gold mining and gold dredges in the area still active.

On our way to the US/Canada border we got pavement back. There were some pretty areas along this way, but we didn't feel it was really worth taking this road so far. Some people said they saw a lot of animals along this road, but we didn't see anything. Maybe in spring there are some.

We stayed  at about MM 4.8 east of Chicken. 

08/20/19 - Starting to head back to the lower 48

On the 19th we spent the day with our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughters in the RV. It was so smoky outside. They took their rental RV back and then spent the evening with his aunt who lives in Anchorage. They flew out the next day. His aunt has some beautiful flowers!

We took off the next morning to see if we could get out of the smoke.

We stopped at a pullout at MM 132.8 where we could finally see without smoke.  It's a huge gravel parking area. I had extended network LTE 2 bar cell service. The low that night was 35 degrees!

08/18/19 - Back to Anchorage

When we woke up on the 18th, it was windy and smoky at Moose Pass. It got a little better as we got to Anchorage, but the next day was bad with smoke. We spent our day at Cabelas inside our RV, mostly playing cards.

As we drove by the Turnagain Arm, there were some Beluga whales. We weren't able to get pictures of the whales, but we did see as they were swimming around.

Our sons and daughter-in-law flew out late that night. 

Cabelas lot was busy. 

08/17/19 - Upper Trail Lake/Moose Pass, AK

We stopped at Primrose Campground, a National Forest campground. We had read that it was a pretty place by the water and people had boondocked in the parking lot if they could't fit in the smaller campsites.The parking lot was so full, we could barely drive through it.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

We decided to go back to Moose Pass where we had camped the end of May, just a few miles away. You can read the first post here.  (We stayed 12 days.)  By evening there were quite a few campers there.  We walked to Moose Pass and stopped at the Moose Drop-In Trading Post, but they weren't open because there was no electricity. As we started going back, we noticed the grocery store was open. They had a generator going, so they had power, and the ice cream was cold.

08/16/19 - Kenai Fjords cruise and a beautiful evening in Seward

Six of our group went on the Kenai Fjords cruise ship at 11. I haven't been on a ship before and it was fun. We saw different birds, including puffins, and also otters, sea lions and whales. We also pulled up near a glacier, and it was really cold and windy there. We were lucky we did it today, the next day was really windy and smoky out.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

On our way back to the camper, we stopped at the Kenai Fjords National Park visitor center. Alaina handed in her junior ranger book and got sworn in as a junior ranger. Some of the kids went to the Alaska Sealife Center later. It was a beautiful evening. We had a campfire, with s'mores, and a cooked peach which was really good.

For more cruise pictures, please click here.  Thanks to our daughter for some of the pics, and also one of our sons for the drone pictures.

Happy birthday to our son, Dean!!

08/15/19 Seward and Kenai Fjords National Park

Leaving the Hope area, we headed south to Seward. We were able to find two campsites beside each other in the Seward Municipal Campground, Resurrection South. The campground was pretty full. The prices are $10 for tents, $20 for RVs with no hookups, $40 with water and electric. We chose no hookups. There is a dump station for $5. Our blog post from the end of May can be read here.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

We also went to Kenai Fjords National Park and hiked to Exit Glacier again. This time one of the trails was closed off due to seeing a bear in the area. Our blog post from when we were here in May can be read here. 

For more pictures, please click here. 

08/14/19 - Hope, AK

Before leaving Anchorage, we stopped at Alaska Wild Berry Products to see their chocolate fountain (and buy chocolate). There is much more than just chocolate there. They have jam, syrups, Alaska clothing, Christmas gifts, etc.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Also Korene and Jason and the girls went to the Alaska Fish and Game Dept and they were able to get fishing poles for the girls to use free for three days.  Two of the bucket list items for the granddaughters was gold panning and fishing, which Hope, Alaska, has.  So we headed there for the day.

Gold Rush Peck started mining when he was 10-years old, taught by his grandfather.  He has a small tent area with soil, water and pans and will show you how to correctly pan for gold. Both of the girls got a glass jar with gold specks.

Right beside Gold Rush Peck is the Sunrise Historical Museum. It was about closing time for their main building, but there's a lot of other buildings that were open to look at.

After that we walked through town (it's small) and found an area for the girls to fish. They caught some that had to be thrown back in, and they each caught a rock! There were a lot of dead salmon and at low tide the smell is quite "fragrant".

We stopped a couple of miles out of town for the night at a pullover spot.

For more pictures, please click here.  Some of these are my daughter's also.

Happy birthday to our daughter-in-law, Valerie!!