Today was a LONG day!
Today we logged miles driving from Destruction Bay, Yukon to Fairbanks, Alaska. That’s not really that many miles by lower 48 standards but is something to be proud of in these parts. The first 130 miles were like driving in a third world country. The road was mostly trashed from winter frost heaves and extreme weather. Pot holes were huge and there were long stretches that were dirt or destroyed pavement. None of this came as a surprise to us. I’ve been reading about this notorious stretch of road in the Milepost and the RV to Alaska Facebook page for a year. It lived up to it’s reputation. We were limited to about 15-20 mph on much of that stretch. I’ve been to several countries in Africa where the “roads” were like driving in two-track. Today was very similar. It was rough travel!
There was a lot of construction on that stretch of road too. Workers were trying to flatten out the worst parts to make them semi-drivable. Several times today, the road was a single lane and we had to wait for a pilot vehicle to guide us through. I guess that reigns in the NASCAR drivers.
None of the pictures I took today were that spectacular because it rained most of the day. That’s a bummer too because I really wanted you to see what we experienced. It was quite the drive!
We crossed the border into Alaska about 90 miles east of Tok. We stopped at Fast Eddy’s Restaurant in Tok for lunch. I had read a lot about it online. We both ordered pizzas and thought they were pretty good. We decided over lunch to keep moving toward Fairbanks since the weather was mostly crappy. The RV was completely covered in mud from the first 130 miles of the trip but the rain washed most of it off.
We saw 5 moose today. Most of them darted across the road before we could get a picture. Greg was able to get one picture that’s sort of in focus. It’s the best we could do.
We are staying the night at the Rivers Edge RV Park on the Chena River in Fairbanks. We will load up on supplies and groceries tomorrow and drive down to Denali National Park. Fortunately, that’s only a two hour drive. We will spend the next three days there. I’ll post about that leg of our trip in the next day or two. Hopefully I get better pictures than I did today.
The Alaska Range off in the distance. I’m really hoping it will be clear enough to get some good pictures of Denali tomorrow.
An unpaved section of road behind a pilot vehicle.
Welcome to Alaska sign in the pouring rain.
The ripples in the white line up ahead are major frost heaves. We saw them the entire drive today. That kept us dialed in on the road ahead.
