May 30 - Dawson to the border

Hopefully we are leaving this fitful Internet behind for something better.  Alaska is the land of opportunity, isn't it?

It is time to put this away, although I hate to leave it when the Internet is working.  But we are in a neighborhood and the dogs are barking.  The first night they were really loud.  Last night was fine, but I won't mind leaving them.  I think everyone in Dawson has dogs.  David has seen two with only 3 legs walking around.  The boy dogs all seem to have their parts, so I guess controlling the number isn't an issue here.  We had more sightseeing to do.  The  park wasn't busy, so we packed up, closed up, and unhooked, then left it parked until well past check out time (with permission).

We toured the Keno.  It was the last paddle wheeler to run on the Yukon.  The last trip was in 1955 when it was taken from storage in a tattered but made usable state to make the trip to Dawson.  This was the smallest of the paddle-wheel boats, used generally on the smaller rivers.

This is the common area with "staterooms" in the little rooms.

Somehow, I don't think the grandkids would like bedrooms of this size.  Fortunately people only used these rooms for short trips.  They generally made it between Whitehorse and Dawson with the current in 3-5 days.  Going back took about 10-14 days, although they discussed one trip when the water was getting low taking 22 days. 

Good view from the passenger deck, but I had to many pictures.  Either show the view or David.  You can see what I chose. 

Typical residential street in Dawson.  The scar on the mountain is called the Mooseskin Landslide.  It was the landmark used to identify Dawson.  The actual landslide occurred before recorded history in the area.  BTW, we stopped in the grocery store this morning.  They said they had a bakery, but not much there by the time we stopped.  The soda pop caught my eye.  A 12-pack of can drinks was $11.06.  In Whitehorse, when I paid for fuel, I noticed they sold individual "sodas" for $2.29 each.  I have been out of root beer over a week.  First I haven't seen any in the bottles; and 2nd I won't pay that much. 

Time to get on board the George Black Ferry.  The motorhome ahead of us in line is also staying at the same place in Chicken, but they are in the dry sites across the creek.  Not to get ahead of myself, but we are the only one in the regular RV sites, which have power (only).  Well, power and by some miracle, Wifi. 

The ferry isn't looking very large about now.

Vehicles wait in line until directed to load.  We only dragged a little getting on, which was ok as the lift support only hit dirt.

They put one more truck on to our right before leaving shore.  Note the bike has some black, chrome, & tan colors.  By the end of the day it was all one color.

And yes, I was being very careful trying not to hit anything.  I had to pull alongside the other motorhome.   They stopped me just behind, so our mirrors (which would have been very close) didn't cross.

David stayed out of the mh so he could take pictures.  I realized he had my camera, so I had to grab my phone so we could take pictures of each other.

Good bye to Dawson City

Hello to West Dawson

Success.  Made it to land and didn't even scrape.  Note the proximity of the bull dozer.  I don't know how many times a day they need to groom the landing pads, but each day we saw it, it was a bid different.  They were continually bringing trucks of dirt/gravel in on the city side.

We are now on the Top of the World Highway and it is hard to decide which pictures to share.  These are our last glimpses of Dawson.

 The road had varied surfaces.  It started smooth, packed gravel.  We were generally driving at 15-25 mph.  A couple short stretches we got up to 30 mph and I was able to use the cruise control.  Very short stretches.  Other vehicles went much faster.

 There was so much variety in the landscape

This was at the "Good bye and Thanks for Visiting Dawson" rest stop.  Think the bike is dirty now?  At one stop, I couldn't even read "cruiserlift.com".

Poor abused bike.  We have used it two times in the last month.

We didn't see a lot of cars, but they did raise the dust.

I was more than happy to pull over and let the dust settle before continuing.  The road was wide here.  On the US side, we met a pilot car/truck for a passenger bus.  Even pulling over to wait for them, it seemed very close when the bus passed.

Something special for all our "grands".  Grandma Joyce and Papa Dave love you all.

Pretty good reasons for them to call this the Top of the World Highway.

Yep, that snow is taller than our mh.

Here we are approaching the border check.

We made it across the border without incident.  No search this time; no delay.  Today was the first day of operation for them for 2013.  This is one isolated outpost.

On the US side, the road was dirt and got narrower.

The shoulder was soft, so I couldn't move to far over, but I did stop and let the bus go by.

Look in my side window and you can see the bus passing us.

The water was eroding into the dirt road.  Some of the areas were marked with flags.

There were some places the road just dropped away on one side or both.

Here we are coming into Chicken, AK  It is raining and I'm glad to get off this muddy road.

 Not enough rain to wash the motorcycle off, but enough to make it a muddy walk back to the office

The person checking us in said we wouldn't get wifi in the RV lot, but said it would be on for me to come up to the patio.  I did try it with my phone, but it was a messy walk.  Just enough to discourage my exploration of the area, but not enough for me to go get my rubber boots out from underneath the coach.  Lucky for us, we are getting the wifi with my laptop in the RV.  Much better.

This bridge is supposed to connect some of the cabins and the dry sites to the rest of the complex, but it seemed to have lost its footing on the far side this winter.