Top of the World Highway into Alaska!!

Driving onto the ferry

June 16 Saturday Beautiful day! Got to the Dawson City ferry at 8:35am to cross the Yukon River. Not many vehicles in line, but we waited almost an hour for our turn as there were some big dump trucks and a front loader that had priority. It is a small ferry, and the trip over and back takes about 15 minutes. Had a nice visit while waiting with a couple from Binghamton, NY who were in a travel trailer in line behind us.

 

Top of the World road

Once we got across the Yukon River we drove onto the Top of the World Road- a notoriously rough, winding, steep drive on top of high mountains to Alaska. Gary couldn't wait to drive this road. About 60 miles in (which took us 2 hours!) we were at the US/Canadian Border crossing. No problems here; we got through quickly and crossed into Alaska and Pacific time, so we are now 4 hours earlier than NY. Have to say that the American side of the Top of the World is much rougher than the Canadian side. Sections of the road on the Canadian side are paved whereas the first 30 miles of the American side which takes you to Chicken, Alaska is all dirt! Pictures do not capture the height and narrowness of the road!

Beautiful downtown Chicken

After another hour or more of driving those 30 miles we finally reached Beautiful Downtown Chicken! Anything would be beautiful after driving on that road! There is a mercantile, Liquor store, Saloon and the Chicken Creek Cafe. Of course we had to have lunch at the Cafe! Lots of good food and yummy pastries. It is famous for pies and cinnamon rolls. So in addition to a barbeque (you guessed it) chicken dinner we had pie for dessert and took a cinnamon roll for the road.  

 

Wolf display in Tok Visitor Center

After checking out the gift shop we hit the road again for our next destination Tok, our stop for the night. Tok has a beautiful visitor's center and we scooped up lots of brochures about the next few areas of our trip: Fairbanks, Anchorage, Homer, Valdez etc. We then found a gas station which offered a free RV wash with a fill up so we took advantage of that of deal. Believe me after 189 miles of mostly dusty, muddy dirt roads our RV and Jeep desperately needed a bath! It took us over an hour with both of us working – Gary washing, me rinsing- to get them fairly clean. There is still dust floating around inside of both of them.

Our campsite in Tok RV Village

Our campground, Tok RV Village, was very nice as it had trees and ample room at each site. This is very different from the last few campgrounds we stayed at in the Yukon which were little more than parking lots. Since we were in a cleaning mood, we did our laundry at the campground. A fun way to spend a Saturday night?