Dream Trip To Yukon and Alaska By Road, To Anywhere Else By Any Means At All

August 23, 2006...from Tok
...to Fairbanks...

August 23, 2006

Hi All!

Well, tomorrow, Thursday, is the day. I leave beautiful Fairbanks Alaska (beautiful if you think the Newark docks are beautiful, that is) for Coldfoot, Alaska, about 75 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

60% of the way is paved, the rest isn’t. We’ll see what happens.

Today was not the most scenic of drives.

In fact, a good part of the traveling was on the main Fairbanks-Anchorage highway – one lane each way but in tip-top shape, and with more traffic – though light by our standards – than I’ve seen in many days.

I did stop often, though, because the history of these tiny towns more than makes up for the scrub pine, low rolling hills scenery.

Delta Junction, where I stopped at the IGA (see one of the photos) is especially so – it was the northern terminus for the original Alcan (now: Alaska) Highway and has many really neat historical exhibits.

That includes the “Sullivan Roadhouse” dating from 1902. There's an interior shot photo. There are other photos of the Rika Roadhouse, about 20 miles further north; more about all this when I get back.

These are really hardy folks here in Fairbanks. My waitress, Diane, at the Player’s Grill in downtown Fairbanks (5’ tall, maybe 4.5 feet around) was a hoot. She left Santa Cruz , CA for here a long time ago, also left her teeth somewhere along the way, but she sure has a personality – as do a lot of the people around here.

She couldn’t believe I drove all the way from Washington DC, even when I told her – after she told me the bartender was late and they couldn’t serve me beer – that I drove all the way here just to have a beer at Players tonight. She gave me a free diet coke…

After dinner, I drove past Lowes, Home Depot, Jiffy Lube, Office Max, Old Navy, Michael’s (yes, even

Michael’s for you artsy craftsy types) and plenty of other places like that.

I'm sure you’ve probably never heard of any of these pure Alaska enterprises!

I also got to shop at a supermarket called Safeway to pick up food for the next two days’ trek. Did I say I was in Fairbanks? Am I? And did I say that my Safeway card worked here so I got my discount? Guess where I'm stopping tomorrow morning for my Starbucks latte!

I do hope that there’s internet at Coldfoot Camp, where, tomorrow, I’ll probably be sleeping near the sled dogs. It would be neat to send you an email from there.

Finally, though there’s not much to photograph here in Fairbanks, I HAVE attached some shots taken along the way today. The file names speak for themselves, I hope.

More later…

Your Friend, "Diane-Says-I’m-As-Looney-As-Anyone-Else-Here Cliff Brody"