June 29 - in Tok

Hi all from Mosquito Central.  You would think the smoke in the air would discourage them, but it doesn't seem to work that way.

Last night the smoke cleared somewhat and I could see a bit of a sunset. 

Taken in Tok, at 11:30 pm.

Kinda fun truck for the Sourdough Campground

After some Internet research, we found we needed to stay in Tok today if we wanted to go to Church this weekend, or drive 300 miles today to get to the next town with a service.  We stayed.  Worked well for doing laundry and a 20 mile bike ride this afternoon.

We biked this evening to church, which was a Eucharistic Service this weekend.  Apparently they only get a priest twice a month.  The next town down where we thought we would go only gets a priest on the 3rd Sunday of the month.  Rustic looking Church, but nice inside.

Holy Rosary Catholic Church, Tok, AK

David's trying to read the calendar on the bulletin board.

 There were only ten people there, including the reader, the main celebrant (woman), and song leader.  Four were visitors, and they thought it was unusual to have more Tok folk than visitors.  Very friendly people.  We'd met the man below at the visitor center earlier today.

The building was apparently added on to.  The walls in one part are logs while the other half is paneled.  The stain glass windows look like someone colored them with marking pens (& it is wearing off).  Very unique. 

Quilt they are raffling off as a fundraiser.  They are obviously trying to get "outside" money, they said to pay the winter heating bills.  After the service they explained about the raffle and said they ship it to the winner.  Mentioning, that they have shipped quilts all over.  They were happy to sell tickets to people from Arkansas and California.

Sorry for cutting off Santa Claus.  Guess I shouldn't have taken this from the moving bike.  It just seemed a bit unique this time of year.  No other Christmas connection noted

This place wasn't open when we went by, but it again was a unique sign.  Apparently is a local amusement park.

We noticed a sign saying "Incident Base" pointing down this street, so we went for a look.  I was guessing it was an Incident Command Post for the fires.  David didn't think the fires were that close.

 Looks like they took over the Tok School.  Where this trailer is, they took the fencing and one of the basketball backstops.  Hopefully they put it back together when they leave, they weren't to neat in some of the cuts on the posts.

Lots of tents bivouacking on the playing field.

We went to the Visitor Center to check on the fire situation.  They are burning all over the place, but fortunately not burning homes.   Also nice is, they aren't causing problems where we are going (so far).  Tok has a very nice Visitor Center.  We walked around waiting to ask about the fires and so many of the displays had places we've been to already.  I guess that means it is getting time to head for home.

We met a man from San Diego.  He flew to Anchorage and is riding is bicycle around Alaska.  Fun guy to talk with.  Someone else came in looking for campground information at Denali.  The clerk (Jim) said he'd never been there and didn't know.  So shy me, offered the man some suggestions which he seemed to appreciate.

Another interesting thing, we needed a couple of things and found Kirkland products at the local grocery store.  The cereal is twice the price for the Costco size package.  The milk is sold by single gallon (not the two-pack we are used to), but the price is about the same as the two-pack at home.

The cheese is a 2-pak, but $14.09 is a bit higher than home.

They can even buy the Costco electronics.

We saw so many familiar products that we asked the clerk.  She didn't know the connection, but said Costco trucks delivered a few times a week.  Maybe through the "business" stores???

We tried to make reservations on the ferry, but the 800 number doesn't work on the weekend.  I later called Haines to make an RV reservation, worried that around July 4th it would be crowded.  No problem at all.  I told her of our inability to confirm on the ferry, so we didn't know how long we would be staying.  She gave me a local number and said we could call at 9:30am.  So we'll try it tomorrow before we leave.  But, she said no problem if we wanted to stay longer.

So you may not hear from us for a couple of days.  No idea where we'll be stopping tomorrow.  Wish us luck that when we go into Canada they don't decide to hold us up again.  On July 2nd, we plan to be in Haines, AK.  Hopefully we can stay through the 4th and ferry to Skagway on July 5th.  David figured out how to move the mirrors so we can make it under the 108" limit.  They charge 25% extra then, but if we go over it is 50% extra.  The awnings covers may make it too wide, in which case I'll be real happy to not mess with the mirrors.  

If you want to see another travel site, met a guy that rode a Suzuki 650 dual sport (no windshield) bike up as a fundraiser for an organization:  Students International out of Visalia, CA.  Brian teaches 8th grade algebra in his normal life.  http://www.stint.com/  for info on the group or if on FaceBook, check out:  The Great Adventure

June 28a - to Tok

I am sitting at a patio table starting to get cold as the wind has picked up.  I'm hoping that will keep the mosquitoes away for me to finish though.

We walked back out to the fish wheel area this morning and actually saw the fish wheels drop some fish into the bins.  It was more interesting with seeing fish.

The lady in red was about out of rubber boot before she got up on the steps...The water started getting deep there.

We saw these guys haul a couple loads of fish out of this one.

There was only so much room to clean them.  The couple in the orange slickers were taking fish back to a pickup tailgate and doing the cleaning there.  They loaded the guts & bones/etc in the containers to the right in this picture.  On a rack of a Blazer.  They drove them up to the bridge & tossed them over.  They have to dispose of fish cleaning leftovers in the current of the river.

These must be heavy.  She dropped one right after I took this.  She had to go pick it up, then wash it off in the river.

It was entertaining to watch them put boats in the water.  We had just watched the little boat above with the black outboard.  The guy didn't want to put his truck this far into the water, so he tipped the boat back with the trailer rails out of the water.  He almost turned the boat over when the back stuck in the mud & he lifted the front over the side of the trailer.  Then he used an oar to pole the boat over behind the orange boat.   

Clouds touching the treetops.

There was no place for me to park, but David got out to take pictures of people net fishing.

David ran ahead so he could watch me drive through the "narrows".

Somehow it seemed wider today than yesterday, going through the first time.

Sorry for bad picture.  There was a moose cow and baby, but I had cars coming and going.  It was this quick snap or nothing.  As you can see, I get a lot of glare on that side window.

The navigator on duty. 

 The young couple we met yesterday were very happy to see us tonight.  They said having David help them figure out what was wrong with the car helped a lot.  They ended up having it towed to the Napa store in Valdez.  Bought the part and a tool and still made it home last night.  (keep in mind, we didn't have car trouble and it still took us two days to get here).  They serve reindeer chili for dinner here, and they gave us free dinners and deserts as a thank you.

After dinner was the pancake toss, to win a free pancake breakfast in the morning.  We didn't win.  :-)

They had a tray of actual pancakes to toss into the "buckit"

They normally have campfires too, but there are fires burning about 20 miles away (can smell the smoke) and with the high fire danger, they passed on the fire.  First place that has gotten people in a group like this though.  Funny a man was watching & when the host tried to get him to come toss some pancakes, he said no, he was from Germany.  Then a woman sitting with us starts rattling off in German.  It was really neat (the guy didn't win breakfast either though).

I'd be tempted to stay another night, but having to use this outside isn't wonderful.  They tell you not to upload pictures or do streaming video on the shared internet, but since everyone else out here left, I thought I'd give it a try.  Easy to see who is "on" the party line here.  David wasn't to keen on the smoke too.  He did get some new project ideas:

We will be heading into Canada again tomorrow, so I'll be shutting the phone off.  We don't have our "stops" set yet.  But we may have a few more days without anything posted.

June 27 - to Chitina (& Copper River)

David spied an eagle’s nest last night.  He took a couple pictures, but you can see much more than a couple small white dots (heads).  Yes, a better telephoto would have been nice, but it would have been limited to when we were close to the mh.  Way too much for us to be bothered carrying.

We hadn’t gone far after leaving Valdez when I took advantage of a turn-out to let a couple of cars go by.  David thought I was stopping for a historical marker.  That wasn’t the original plan, but what the heck.  We stopped.  The history was a remnant of an old railroad tunnel.  We have dug enough ditches/footings to know hand tools don’t go very far in rock.  I can’t imagine digging a tunnel in this rock with hand tools.

We noticed a couple working under the hood of a mini-van when we pulled up.  When they were still there after we took our pictures and read the sign, David asked if they needed some help.  The man asked if we had a crescent wrench.   While Dave helped the guy, I checked in with the young woman.  I was concerned they had kids in the car & I couldn’t see in the tinted windows. They were celebrating their anniversary and no kids.

 

 

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It was an interesting stop.  David ended up pulling out more tools to get the van’s serpentine belt back on.  When it immediately popped off again, David figured out some pulley to keep tension on the belt was froze up.  They were going to head back to Valdez, not far and mostly downhill.  Home for them was in Tok (over 200 miles away).  Hopefully they can get the parts.  We offered to follow them back to Valdez, to make sure it made it, but they declined.  It would be much more satisfying to “help” and be successful getting them back on the road.  Hopefully by the time we get to Tok, they will be there already.  Turns out, their family owns the campground we were planning to stay in there.

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We took the Chitina turn-off and drove 30+ miles on a very wavy road surface.  Kind of like a roller coaster for kids.  It was paved, and it is considered the “good” road.  We talked to the on duty ranger, who wasn’t really a ranger but was running the shop while the ranger was in training.  She is a long time resident of Chitina.  She said people have told her the McCarthy Road was the best condition they had ever seen it; and no one would stop us if we wanted to drive it; but, they don’t recommend it for RV’s over 24’ .   It was tempting, but considering the good road wasn’t so good….

We did drive in a couple of miles to the bridge and to a campground the pseudo ranger told us about.  We wanted to see people fishing with a net or fish wheel.   The first section of the road was really narrow.  But the rest was a typical two way street.  The wind was blowing when we started, but it continued to pick up velocity.  I had to hold on to my hat as we walked to watch the fish wheel operations from closer range.   We didn’t see any people using nets from a close enough range to really see what they were doing.

This felt very narrow...we are fairly wide at the mirrors.

This was a great space until someone came in on the left in the picture and parked right in front of us.  I thought I'd have an easy drive forward out, but fortunately it was an easy back out spot too.

This starts the road they didn't think we should try.  Narrow and high risk for tire damage due to it being built on a former railroad track (with nails still working their way to the surface.

more on McCarthy Road.  I walked up a bit of it.

Fishwheels on the Copper River

Cleaning fish

 

There were a couple of men cleaning fish, but we missed when they took the fish from the wheel.  The Copper River area on the north side was a bit of a mess.  Remnants of old fish wheels littered the area, as well as the wind blowing trash out from a dumpster.

Cars were driving through this, but I wouldn't.

Welcome to the Copper River.  The wind and dust was fierce.

Can you see us back there?

We didn't have any "services" back in this campground, not even cell service.  The dust got everywhere.  We had to close up all the windows and vents.  Even with our nice cover on the bathroom vent, the dust was so bad I had to wash the counter, toilet & floor.

But it was a fairly quiet night, and with no tv or wifi, I went to bed early.