Sunday, May 29, 2011 – Got up early to be out of the RV park by 8:00. We were down at the river and ready and in line to go across on the Yukon River ferry. We didn’t think we were going to fit, but no problem! After getting off the ferry, we began our drive on the “Top of the World” highway heading west to Chicken, Alaska. It was a very scenic drive, but we didn’t realize just how bad of shape the hwy. was in—approximately 80 miles of dirt/gravel road. We were choking on the dust that was flying up even though we laid back from the rigs in front of us. And to make things worse, there were pot holes and ruts everywhere. WHAT WERE WE THINKING?? And what we were putting the motorhome through. At times, we couldn’t go faster than 20 mph, literally crawling at times. But, now we can say we drove the “Top of the World” highway on our way to Alaska but, we don’t think we ever want to do it again. One guy in our group had no idea how bad it was going to be and said had he known, he wouldn’t have done it. Because of the research we did, we knew it was going to be bad. We went across the border with no problem at around 1:30, set our clocks back an hour to Alaska time.
We finally arrived in Chicken, Alaska. We set up and had a group lunch at the Chicken Café. This town used to be called Ptarmigan after the State bird, but no one could spell Ptarmigan, so they changed the name to Chicken. After lunch, we went for a tour of “old town Chicken,” circa 1899. Later, we all went back to the café for a chicken dinner…go figure! Then, we got gold fever again and tried to pan some dirt by the creek but no luck. Some guy was cutting down branches in the woods, so of course we had to ask him what he was doing and he told us all about “diamond willows.” They make beautiful walking sticks. So of course, we had to go into the woods and we found about 6 and cut them down. Ugh…everything is so dusty from the drive!
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Motorhome on the ferry going across the Yukon River |
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Top of the World Highway heading to Alaska |
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At last, Alaska |
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Most Northerly Land Border Port in the USA |
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Inside the Chicken Bar |
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Our campsite in Chicken |
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