Catch up Sunday

We have been on the road for 15 days and 4,000 miles. My computer is working tonight, so I will try to catch you up on what has been happening.

The drive from Dawson City on Frdiay to Chicken was scary. It was drizling, the roads were steep, twisting and a bit slippery. By the time I got to Chicken, I was sure that I had taken the wrong road and was lost. Chicken is a town of 36, and I was SO HAPPY to find it!! From there, the drive to Tok was a piece of cake. We stayed the night in Tok and this is what I wrote while we we there: I went to bed last night in Dawson City at almost midnight. I am not a night person, but it doesn’t get dark until about that time. As soon as we crossed the boarder into Alaska today we changed to the Pacific Time zone, so it ought to get dark around 11 tonight!!

We left the campground at Dawson City at 11am (got my laundry done!) We took a ferry across the Klondike River, and drove the Top Of The World Highway (like a primitive Trail Ridge Road in Colorado) to the town of Chicken, Alaska population 36 to get gas, then on to Tok where we are in an RV park with limited WiFi coverage.

Fortunately Red Fred made friends right away with a retired couple, Betty and Chuck Bailey from Johnstown, Colorado!!! Their rig is parked closer to the WiFi signal & they invited me to their place to check my email!! They are pretty much full-time RV people, but they have a home to spent time with their kids and grandkids. They are very nice people who grew up in IOWA and have lived in Colorado since they were in their 20’s. He is a FISHERMAN!!!

They have spent the last month on the Kenai Peninsula in an RV park in Soldotna, where he caught 76 sockeye salmon!!!!! I got to taste some that he smoked & has his fridge filled with!!!!! He soaks the salmon in water, salt and molasses overnight before he smokes them with alder wood for 6 hours in his electric smoker that he bought from Sportsman’s Warehouse in Loveland!!!! Yum. I got the info on where to fish and who to help me, so I’m set!!! It sounds like I will be fishing for Silvers, because the Sockeye run is over. Hope you all like salmon. Here's a picture of Chucks smoked salmon & an Alaskan beer...yum....

Saturday night we spent near Denali National Park. We had planned to stop an Nenana, but as you can see, the RV park was flooded. It rained and rained & somewhere on my roof we have a leak. We got up this morning and drove thru the 19 miles that we could of the park. No view of Mt McKinley (they say only 25% of the visitors ever see it. Being determined to see the great mountain, we stuck around. I then read some of the materials that I picked up in the visitor center & discovered that many people see McKinley from Talkeetna!!!! That is where we are tonight. Eight years ago when Marty and I came thru here on the train, we were told that this is the town that Northern Exposure (the TV show) was modeled after. So, we plan to look around a bit tomorrow to see what we can see. Already what has surprised me is that there is water every where. This place must be on several rivers & the forests are lush.