June
23, 2013
Pouch for carrying their babies on the front or the back.
We headed to the Kluane Museum of Natural History first thing this morning. It was another great museum of the region. Another place Sharon could have stayed longer than anybody else. Great exhibits of animals of the region, the destruction of forest fires, native peoples lives through tools, clothing and items of daily living, and, of course, more information about the building of the Alaskan Highway. But, to tell you the truth, we really haven’t had any duplication of displays or videos. There is just so much information
.
We
had been warned yesterday at the Da Ku Centre that we were getting to the worst
part of the road. Boy, were they not
kidding!!! It’s an area of permafrost
through which the road engineers have not been able to stabilize the roadway
and it heaves and cracks and falls off to the sides. We saw two different areas where they are
experimenting with venting cold air down under the road bed, but the jury is
still out on whether than will work or not. We were pitching and rolling!!
Don and Joy are actually in that dust bowl ahead of us!!
And
still along the way was great scenery!!
The
international boundary marker between Canada and the US made you really stop
and think. Back at the time of the
buying and selling of these areas, the boundary was established. At the time of the gold rush, there was a
dispute on where the boundary actually was (everybody wants the gold!) It was decided by an international tribunal
as to where the boundary was located, and periodically the International
Boundary Commission comes through a clears out a swath. You could see it, a clearing, just running
the 141st meridian. Wouldn’t
it be nice if all border disputes could be handled so sensibly?
We
crossed back in to Alaska, back on Alaskan time, 3 hours earlier than Dallas,
and knew we were getting close! Tomorrow
we will reach the end of the Alaskan Highway.
It has been a long haul and we’ve learned a lot. But it’s not over yet and we’ve still got a
lot of fun ahead!!!
We
are in Tok tonight at a full service RV park.
Seems strange after all the provincial parks, but we’ll be doing some
state parks too.
Just
a little weather update for those of you that are wondering (you are wondering
aren’t you?) Even if you are not here it is. When we arrived in Tok the
temperature was about 84. As we have
traveled further north the signs that they place along the highway to let you
know what the fire conditions are has gone from low to extreme. We heard the
other day that Calgary had flooding and here in Tok it’s about to burn up. The forecast
in Fairbanks is to be in the 80s. We really enjoy the days that you can wear
shorts and a tee shirt. I don’t believe that the temperature when we arrive in
Barrows on Wednesday will be in the 80s.
There’s
much more to see and do and we really enjoy and look forward to writing in the
blog. We should have good internet service for the next week (except Barrows,
not sure that internet has arrived there yet) we’ll see. Hopefully we will be
able to send some videos. Although the stills are breath taking it does not
really capture the true beauty.
As
of this writing we have about 200 miles to Fairbanks. We have been on the road
4 weeks. When we began this trip little did we know how determined one must be
to stay focused on the destination. There is so much to see and explore that it’s
difficult to stay on task. You can only image what the real pioneers
experienced and understand why many never made it to their destination. Some
just got exhausted and others found the beauty so mesmerizing that they settled
right where they were at that moment. Like John Wayne said in the movie True Grit when he fell off his horse “I’ll camp
here!”
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