Thursday, July 21, 2011

Catching Up From Last Week - Part Three

I need to hurry up and get caught up from last week before ANOTHER week goes by...we left Watson Lake in the Yukon Territory and settled in for a LOOOOONG day of driving as our goal was to leave the YT area and get back in to the US, specifically, to Tok, Alaska (Tok is pronounced like 'poke').
 It was nice to finally be on the Alaska Hwy...
 again, many of the sights we saw reminded us of Austria and Switzerland -
just beautiful everywhere you looked!
 We stopped at the Kluane Lake to stretch our legs and get some photos - beautiful area and the lake was huge!  We saw any number of lakes along the way...and all of them were on the larger side.
 We crossed the border back in to the US at Port Alcan...
 WOO HOO!!  So happy to see this sign!!
 Crossing the border ~ they only asked a few questions, no inspections of the trailer contents, or dog paperwork etc...guess I could have brought all my contraband after all...just kidding ~ :)
We arrived at the Tok Junction around 10:45pm (started out that day around 8:00am).  The fact that it was still light out is truly what enabled us to stay in the car that long...that...and watching (or listening) to episodes of Modern Family on my laptop.

We ended up seeing a wolf, an elk, two bears, and a moose on this trip ~ probably not the most wildlife seen but it was a good representation of the area...our motel in Tok was interesting too...haven't seen dark brown shag carpet like that in a room since the 70's...decided I would keep my flip-flops on at all times just in case :)

From Tok to Anchorage it was 'only' about 330 miles so we were thankful for the shorter day ahead of us.  We were both ready to be out of the car for SURE!

Some final observations / random thoughts from our trip:
1. We've decided that Subway is to Canada what Starbucks is to Seattle...it seemed that no matter what the town size (with a few exceptions) the ONE 'fast food' place we always saw was Subway...even more so than McDonalds

2. There was only ONE point on the trip where I DID wish I had the lovely mosquito nets worn by the ladies in THIS post...and even worse than the mosquitoes were these other disgusting flying bugs that had translucent bodies that you could see filled with blood...a bunch of them got in to the car when we stopped at a rest stop and we were killing them for several miles...and each one we killed left a bloody trail...thank goodness for wet wipes! :)

3. The roads were and weren't as bad as I thought they would be.  I'd been warned by multiple people about the road conditions being in pretty rough shape ~ there definitely were some areas that had seen better days.  There were several areas undergoing construction which will be good in the long-term but in the short-term was pretty lame - only one direction of cars could proceed at a time, following behind a lead vehicle (what a boring job THAT would be, having to drive back and forth over the same stretch of torn up road multiple times a day).  Some sections were so dusty, we felt like we were driving through fog.

4. If you ever take a road trip and/or move and are pulling a trailer, I would suggest covering up EVERYTHING in your trailer with some kind of plastic or putting everything in trash bags.  Everything in my trailer is COVERED with dust.  I never even considered that as a possible issue.  It's not a huge deal as everything wipes off (except for my duvet cover and a quilt which had to be laundered), it's just a minor inconvenience, as everything has to be cleaned before coming in to the house.  So unless you know that you are going to be on paved roads the whole way, I'd definitely suggest doing something to cover up your things.

5. This has got to be one of the most scenic (if not THE most) drives I have ever done ~ I'm not in any big hurry to do it again at the moment :) but if you're looking for some beautiful, remote country to explore...this would be a great route to go!  We overheard one motorcyclist talking at one of our gas stops in Beaver Creek YT ~ he had biked all the way up to Anchorage from Brazil...when we saw him, he was preparing to drive all the way BACK to Brazil on the same motorcycle...talk about a major adventure!!

1 comment:

ashley @ ashley's adventures in alaska said...

What beautiful scenery! I'm so glad the roads were better than you expected- I would love to do the drive sometime to see everything in between here and down south!