We arrived at a KOA on the Chena River in the afternoon after a drive from Denali NP. It turned out to be a fairly nice KOA. We normally avoid them as they aren’t usually very nice, but this was the exception to that rule. We spent a few days there and re-stocked up on everything we were low on or out of, mostly groceries and I even got a badly needed haircut. One afternoon, Kathy and Dusty were down by the river and saw a moose mom and baby in the river!
The second day there it started getting smokey, and by the day we left it was very smokey. We did the normal tourist traps, like the North Pole gift store and the Museum at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks also.
Kathy and I drove out to the Turtle Club, a restaurant out in the middle of nowhere along the Dalton Highway north of Fairbanks. It was an odd place, with nothing near it. As we were getting close, according to the navigation, I was thinking it was taking us to something that wasn’t there. But we came around a corner and there was a large, very full parking lot and a low building behind it. The food was good, but nothing to write home to mom about.
That last morning we filled up the fresh water tank and emptied the others for a few days dry camping at Clearwater State Recreation Area Campground, a FCFS place. We left early so we would have a better chance of finding a spot we could fit into. It was a nice campground and the town of Delta Junction was a few miles away.
Delta Junction is the northern end of the Alaska Highway. We did the usual checking out the place prior to heading out to Tok, Alaska, our last stop on the Alcan inside Alaska. While camping in Tok for a couple nights, we walked over to Fast Eddies for Halibut. It was very good!
We then headed for the long, slow drive to Discovery Yukon, about 20 miles past Beaver Creek.
On the way we had to stop at the Canadian Border check point. That was quite the bottle neck as only one lane was open and it took at least an hour for us to get to the window. Nothing special, all the usual questions we had gotten before.
We stopped at the Discovery Yukon Lodge for one night and then pressed on in the morning for 4 more dry camping nights in Congdon Creek. We again took site 9, and Larry and Sue took #2-3 this time. And that site lived up to what I had been told by a local the last time we camped in CC, it was like a wind tunnel three of the four days there. I was pretty happy I hadn’t tried it.
After 4 nights there, we headed off to Whitehorse where we had reservations at Sanchez’s Mexican Restaurant. Last time we had to sit outside as all the tables inside had been reserved prior to us arriving. Live and learn, who knew you would need reservations there. I guess it was because our favorite spot had closed earlier in the year. That was very sad news for all of us, and probably many others. I suspect the pandemic drained their bank accounts and then the labor shortage did the rest once the tourists came back.
We stayed two nights in Whitehorse instead of 5, and added those nights to Congdon Creek’s 1 night stay, making it 4 nights there.
The last morning there we packed up and headed for the relatively short drive to Skagway. What a spectacular drive that turned out to be, quite an adventure.