Day
18 – 5-29-15 Friday We departed the CG at 8:15AM and stopped at a
nearby fuel stop to fill up. We try to start out every travel day
with a full tank. The drive out of Tok toward Fairbanks was an easy
drive. We passed one area where there had been a forest fire probably
a few years ago. We came through an area on Wednesday after crossing
into Alaska that had recently burned. In fact we could still smell
the burnt trees and some of the fire fighting personnel were still on
scene with their equipment. Yesterday on the way to Chicken we saw a
large area that had burned probably years ago. It takes a long time
for the trees to replenish due to the permafrost and harsh climate.
We read that most of the fires here are started by lightning strikes.
We
came up on three Moose grazing on the left side of the road. There
was no traffic so I stopped and opened the side window and got a
photo of them. They had crossed the road right at the Moose Crossing
warning sign on the side of the road. And who says Moose can't read.
We
stopped at the Delta Meat and Sausage Company. They are a family run
business, raising their own livestock and have one of only three
approved meat processing plant in Alaska. We got some Reindeer Summer
sausage, Elk Summer Sausage, really nice meaty bacon and reindeer
breakfast sausage links. They set out samples to try of several of
their products.
Nine
miles later we stopped in Delta Junction the official end of the
Alaska Highway. The lady at the Visitor's Center took our picture in
front of the end of highway sign with our camera. We checked out the
visitor's center and then walked across the street to Sullivan
Roadhouse Historic Museum. The roadhouse was moved to this location
to preserve it. Most of it is still original. The guide was very
knowledgeable about the history of the roadhouse and had slept in it
in the late '80's before it was moved to Delta Junction. It was a
very interesting place.
Not
long after leaving Delta Junction we stopped at Rika's Roadhouse.
This roadhouse is original and is two story. Rika ran this roadhouse
for many years raising her own livestock, hay, gardens, etc, with
very little help. There are several original outbuildings. This is
also a very interesting stop. It sits on the banks of the Tanana
River and the Alaska Pipeline runs between it and the highway. This
was our first sight of the pipeline. There is a large parking lot
that has 23 spots for overnight RV parking for $5. After touring
everything we went back to the MH and ate some of the Summer sausage
we had just purchased at Delta Meat and Sausage along with some
smoked Gouda we had in the refrigerator. Nice lunch.
We
drove on to our next stop a few miles past North Pole Alaska. We
checked into the Riverside RV Park for 4 nights about 2:30PM. The
Chena River runs down the side of the RV park. As we came through
North Pole we saw a glass repair business so I called them about
fixing the 3 rock cracks in our windshield. They will be out Tuesday
morning to fix them. I had already called the insurance company so I
followed up with them to finalize the process.
After
setting up the MH, Lena sliced the bacon, made some hamburger
patties and I grilled them on the Weber grill. The bacon on the
hamburgers was delicious. We have plans to do several things in North
Pole and Fairbanks so we may be here more than 4 nights.
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