We drove from Seward to Anchorage and filled the tank with about a hundred gallons of diesel at Costco (it was $2.65 gal, cheapest price anywhere we have traveled this year) We also stocked up on Costco groceries for the long trip home knowing there won’t be any more Costco stores till Washington state, which is many weeks away. We will be traveling the Alcan all the way back to Watson Lake where we can turn onto and then travel on down the Cassier Highway till we are close to the town of Prince George BC.
After stocking up and filling the tank we headed on out the Glenn Highway in the direction of Valdez AK. Our plan was to overnight at The Ranch House Lodge and RV in Tolsona AK (near GlennAllen) , about 150 miles north of Valdez. (everything is far away in Alaska) We had stayed there on our way out to Isabel Pass a few weeks before. Its a quirky place. An old road house built back in the 40’s with the oddest folks we have ever met, who own and run the place. That’s for a future post.
We got to the ranch house around 3 pm and setup the coach for the night. They have chili cooking for travelers all day and we went into the Road House to the bar and I had a bowl and a bottle of beer while Kathy had a glass of wine after our long drive. The couple that own it orate its history around 6 pm each evening to the weary travelers that camp with them for the night. Its a great story, and if you want to hear it you will need to stay there.. Its too long for me to write up. They do have cabins for you to stay in if you go there without an RV.
All I can say the place is a work in progress! Andy, the husband appears to work 20 hours a day. And he made a lot of progress in the few weeks since we stopped there on the way to Isabel Pass.
The next morning we were on our way to Valdez!
Turns out the road to Valdez was as rough as the road from Eagle to Chicken AK, but it was paved, but it was probably 20 times longer. That was a stretch of extremely rough road and the whole time I was driving it I was thinking it was the only way out of Valdez when we leave. There were a couple major construction projects requiring pilot cars along the way. One of them had you drive down into a deep gully where they were installing a huge pipe to channel a large amount of water from a melting glacier up on the mountain above us. Prior to heading down the Richardson Highway we had read a few horror stories from that construction area. From broken trailer hitches to completely snapped off tow bars due to the steep incline. Motorhomes usually have a fairly long overhang in the back so steep inclines either up or down and have the back dragging the ground.