Chicken, Ak to Tok,Ak--July 1

This wasn't a real eventful day but I've got to tell you that Marvin has telescopic eyes 3/4 way around his head. Mind you he is driving and is a good driver but he sees everything. He saw this moose way off to his side of the road--I finally saw it. It was way off. There have been so many fires up here because it gets so dry and most are caused by lightening strikes they say. We seen acres and acres of burned off area. The road just varies from black top to chip and seal to gravel. They say there are 2 seasons here--winter and construction.

We're getting back into some mountains. We stopped at Mount Fairplay Wayside and read some interpretive signs about the boreal forest we were in and took some pictures. Mt. Fairplay is 5,541' and you are seeing where the trees line stops. They said that above the tree line is where we would see the caribou because they feed on lichen especially. The herd was originally around 500,000 but dwindled to about 6,000 in the mid 1970's. A 4 yr. recovery program which included some wolf control has brought it back to about 40,000 now. One of the fire burns was the 2004 Taylor Complex Fire which burned 1.3 million acres. In 2004 there were 707 fires which burned a total of 6,385,496 acres. This was the largest recorded fire season in Alaska history. Sorry, I got side tracked and broke up the paragraphs but you are smart so you can figure it out. Talking of trees you have paper birch, quaking aspen,balsam poplar, black spruce, white spruce, tamarack and a lot of the scrubland is willow. We passed another area that showed a sign for a fire back in 1990 and that was the Tok River Fire and it burned 100,000 acres. The town of Tok was evacuated as the efforts of the firefighters seemed in vain until a "miracle wind" diverted the fire at the last minute.

We passed a turn off for a U.S. Coast Guard Loran-C station and signal towers. Loran stands for Long Range Aids to Navigation and this is 1 of 7 in Alaska. A set of 4 700' towers were constructed in 1976. They are used by air, land and sea navigators as an aid in determining their position.

Tok is known for 3 things. It is the only town in Alaska that the highway traveler must pass thru twice-once coming into the state and the other leaving. It is also know as the "Sled Dog Capital of Alaska" because so many residents are involved with dogs and mushing. Unofficially it is known as the "RV and Car Washing Capital of Alaska" because by the time you get here they both definitely need it and this is exactly what we did. As all 19 coaches arrived at the RV park we got our gas which gave us a wash job. So we all lined up, got out our long brushes and buckets and began to wash each coach and tow vehicle as it came by. There was one hose and two power nozzles provided and within 2-3 hours they were all significantly cleaner-not perfect but much better because they will get dirty again.

Afterwards we cleaned up, had a short meeting and went for a "LEO" which is short for" lets eat out" at Fast Eddy's next door. It was good food and good company. Went home and went to bed. The day ends.