Thursday 9 September 2010
This morning welcomed in Tayla’s 14th Birthday. This remote pristine spot was also a perfect spot to introduce my son, Josh to his first shave, Alaskan Style, in the waters of the glacier feed Matanuska river, it has that certain temperature that you can’t get just anywhere.
Now that the children were awake, we set forth for TOK, pronounced ‘toak’, a six hour drive plus stops. The initial drive was unbelievable up past the Matanuska Glacier and running along side the Chugach Mountains, and onto Glennallen. This more northern part of Alaska, than where we had been, was in the middle of changing into fall colours. Words could not describe the wildness of this beauty, and a picture could never do it justice.
After doing our best with the huge meal, a “Yukon Burger” at a diner in Glennallen, our next leg took us to Tok. This route goes along the northern side of the St Elias Wrangell National Park and the spectacular Wrangell Mountains, where we were shadowed by huge snow and glacier topped mountain ranges, if the scenery before was a wonder, this was breathless. We had not been along this road in previous travels and we are now entering new territory.
During the spectacular ranges, the roads rose very high, needing to ‘pop our ears’ quite often, and the road was victim to significant Frost Heaves. Frost Heaves are where the permafrost thaws in summer and produces significant rises and dips in the road. At one point, I’m sure I got the front wheels off the ground, with a response from Linda to ‘slow down’, she didn’t need to ask.
As we approached Tok, the area looked prime for Moose, and we weren’t disappointed, spotting a Cow and her Calf. As luck would have it, just past them was a pullout, sufficient for us to turn around and sneak back, hopped up and did a stalk, grabbed some photo’s (Tayla’s photo below), then the challenge to do a 3 point turn in a 30’ RV on a single lane highway with sharp drop offs at the shoulder.
Got into Tok before Dinner, did the touristy thing. Tayla had one request for her birthday, and that was a long hot clean shower (amazing how their priorities can change with the environment J ), so we got into an RV Park and enjoyed hot showers. A walk to ‘Fast Eddies’ for Tayla’s birthday dinner, where we enjoyed a huge, and I mean HUGE dinner. Just happened to mention her birthday to the waitress, who put on a free Chocolate Ice –Cream Sunday and brought all the waitresses out and they sang Happy Birthday to her. I know she hates any attention, bummer.
Clothes washed and grabbed some ZZZ’s.
Weather: Rain, rain and some sunshine spots.
Low: low 40’s High: low 40’s.
O/N: N63 20.130 W142 57.913
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