Tuesday on the road to and in Valdez

Musk ox farm

In the afternoon on Monday we stopped at a Musk Ox farm just outside of Palmer. It was great for Scottie as there were hands on exhibits and she was able to feed one of the babies.  We are about 40 miles from  Glenallen at the Grandview RVPark. I think it is one of our best camp sites.  

The young couple in the tent next to us are on there honeymoon.  They are from Israel. The Guys name is Alone. It was like an Abbot and Costelo routine trying to explain that to Scottie.   

Fred:  "The man is Alone"

Scottie: "No he's not the lady is with him."

This went on several minutes.  

We are not sure where we will travel to today. So many options.  

The Wedding

We had a great time in Girdwood. The wedding was beautiful and it was great to have the families together. Girdwood is an interesting town. People are very friendly and the resort is spectacular.  We have decided that instead of heading north from here we are going to head back toward Haines.  The troops are getting tired of the driving and by heading  back we take a few days to get there. Sorry Aunt Bot! Here are a few pictures from the wedding taken by Scottie. Also our lunch at the Golden Corral and Scottie's first cotton Candy.

  

IHOP Friday morning

Catch up not to be confused with catsup

Time to try and play catch up on the blog. I will try to be brief and only give the highlights on the adventures of getting the new tire.  

A man named Shawn who owns a construction company in Whitehorse stopped in our pull out to use his radio. I walked over and struck up a conversation wih him and he offered me a ride to Dawson.  I put the tire on the back of his flatbed and we drove the 25 miles to town.  He dropped me off at the Napa/ tire shop.  They told me they would have my tire by he following Thursday. I carried my tire a couple of blocks across the street to a full service campground conviniance store tire shop etc.   it was a mini version of Fred Meyers. The old German man who owns the place said he could have the tire to us by late morning the following day. I gave him a deposit of $100.00 and armed only with a bottle of 100% Deet headed out the road on foot. It took me a couple of hours and 4 rides to get back to our pull out. Shortly after I made it back to our camp Shawn came back to check on Dayna and the family and see if I had made I back. What a nice guy I can't say enough about how nice he was and how he went out of his way to help us. To take it one step further he said he would drive us to town in the afternoon if we wanted to camp there.  We took him up on it and a couple of hours latter he drove us to the campground the tire was at.  He would not take anything for the help so we gave him what smoked salmon we had n our cooler. 

We set up camp and then walked a mile to town and ate at Klondike Kate's the food was worth the drive alone.  We went back to our camp and had a pleasant nights sleep vin the morning Dayna met a couple from New Zeland  who were traveling with a friend. I walked over and joined in the conversation. While we were talking the tire guy rode his bike to us and said the tire was ready to go. Van ( one of the kiwis) offered us a ride to our vehicle, which we took.  Zane and I fixed the tire and we were on the road again. 

The drive to Chicken was slow and took nearly 4 hours to travel the 108 miles.  With the construction and just  plain torn up roads it was a slow crawl.  

Our plans were to stay in Glenallen. We had talked to the hotel In the morning and they said they had around 16 rooms and should have plenty when we arrived. We arrived around midnight and saw they were full. Dayna talked to the front desk and was told the town was full. We drove until 3 am and then pulled off to the side of the road near Gleen Allen. We took a cat nap and Dayna then drove us to anchorage for a wonderful breakfast at IHOP.   

The morning was spent finding me a pair of pants for the wedding and then off to the hotel for a catnap. After the nap we went to a laundrymat did what little we had and then hit Taco Bell and Dairy Queen.  For hotel review see the loft in Anchorage at tripadvisor.com. 

It is Saturday and we are getting ready to leave for  Girdwood. 

Tok is a junction

Did you know that Tok is a junction? 

: junc·tion 

Pronunciation: \ˈjəŋ(k)-shən\

Function: noun

Etymology: Latin junction-, junctio,from jungere to join — more at yoke

Date: 1711

1 : an act of joining : the state of being joined 2 a : a place or point of meeting b : an intersection of roads especially where one terminates 

So there we are driving through Tok, enjoying the sites,and continuing down the road. There is smoke in the distance from what we believe is a forest fire. Fred is still distracted by the purple mountain (hills sides covered in fireweed). I'm excited to see my email . Did I mention that Tok is junction? Well it took us 40 mile to realize that we should not be heading toward Delta Junction, granted it was the first sign. So now here we are heading back to Tok to make the turn to Anchorage. "Should of made a left at Albuquerque "   Just checking out the road for when we come back on it from Fairbanks after the wedding. Oh the place you will go. At least we aren't in the waiting place anymore. 

Day 5 photos

I

We have made it to Tok. We are on our way to Glenallen or farther possibly.  We have cell service for the first time in awhile but it will be gone soon, so here are some pics to get you through until we can have time for more tales. Pics are from Dawson to Chicken.