Alaska Highway End

7/4  Drove the Richardson Hwy (Rt 2) to Fairbanks; did see a moose and her calf but otherwise a rather uneventful ride. Stopped at Delta Meat & Sausage Co in Delta Junction; the owners, the McCollum family, moved from Montana and started a farm near Delta Junction and now have a USDA certified packing plant.  They produce a variety of meats and sausage so naturally we had to pick up some elk, buffalo and caribou sausages which were and are delicious. We then stopped at the Delta Junction Visitor Center to take a photo of the sign commemorating the northern end of the Alaska Highway. Continued to Fairbanks and camped at Chena River State Recreation Site, a small but nice campground on the outskirts of very smokey Fairbanks.
We then stopped at the Delta Junction Visitor Center to take a photo of the sign commemorating the northern end of the Alaska Highway.

Talk About a Dry River, and Smoke

Mother and Child

7/3   Rain on and off all night so we left the campground early to give extra time to deal with muddy roads. The Alaskan part of the Top Of The World Hwy is much narrower, has many more hairpin turns with sharp drop-offs (some several hundred feet) none of which have guardrails, and the road is in much worse repair. At least the rain has stopped and the sun is beginning to peak through the clouds.

Entering Chicken, AK

Yep, Chicken

Stopped at Chicken (population 23 in summer, 7 in winter) to get a coffee mug – one just has to have a Chicken coffee mug. Chicken got it’s name from the local birds, ptarmigans, which the miners used for food. The problem was that no one could spell ptarmigan so they just called them chickens instead.

Given the road conditions and the many stops for pictures we took close to 4 hours to cover the 78 miles from Chicken to Tok (pronounced “toke”), AK. We camped in Tok at the Tok RV Village; not a super place but they had wifi and a reasonably good do-it-yourself RV wash, and boy did our rig need it.

Think It Needs A Wash?