We awoke to the calming cascading water as The Falls greeted us from sleep. I sent a message up our fellow Toyota Motorhome Club member in Glennallen, and then began heading north again. Right away we were in the midst of the construction that had been closed the day before.
The construction actually turned out to be a good thing because of the giant mountain we had to climb to leave the Valdez area. Due to it being gravel bumps, heavy equipment in operations, and following a pilot car we were not slowing traffic any; therefore not enjoying a good tail-gait session all the way up the mountain. 🤣 As we reached the top of the road was surrounded by snow patches in July.
After cresting the big climb we were headed back the same way we had came. In the end we both decided it had been nice to check Valdez off of our visit list, but probably would never return again. Our overall vote is that Valdez alone isn’t quite worth the trip. 🤷
We decided to stop back by our river spot to use the nice restrooms and take a moment before finally hitting Glennallen.
Then we were headed off to meet our new acquaintance at his work, and hopefully see his rig as well as show him Our Ohana. Our destination was the Bush Bottle grocery and beer store.
It was on the north side of Glennallen a little way, and when we arrived we did not receive a warm response… 😬
The line was full of ladies impulsively purchasing and opening pull tabs, and when we walked through the door the whole line looked up, frowned and grimaced at us, and spent the rest of the time doing their best to glare or ignore us. 🥶
We smiled and said our “hello”, as we always try to treat others with the kindness in the world we hope for; but in the end we selected a few items and awaited our turn to reach the register. The manager looked slightly confused when we asked about our scheduled meetup, and said, “He wasn’t on the schedule for today.“
When we got outside I sent a few pics of our rig off to our MIA Toyhome friend, wished him well, shrugged my shoulders and we got back on the road.
We weren’t sure which way we wanted to take north, Delta Junction or Tok. We ended up deciding Tok for 2 reasons:
1) If we decided to leave Alaska this way for our trip in 2 years, we wanted to know if this was the route we wanted to take.
2) Years ago I flew out to the middle of the woods for 30 days to clear (log) the border between Alaska and Canada. When we flew out to the woods, we left out of Tok- so I kind of wanted to show Laura it.
So we took a right to Tok instead of straight on to Delta Junction. Ultimately we would regret this decision.
Well… right off the bat the road had really bad pot holes and dips, but we carefully made our way until we eventually hit a large construction area. We spent a good half an hour awaiting our pilot car.
The construction area was pretty standard unpaved road. It was because of after the construction area, the majority of our drive, I give you this sound piece of advise: Don’t drive the road between Glennallen and Tok. IT IS HORRIBLE.
Our first moment free of construction wasn’t bad, we used a big beautiful pullover to look out over the expanse of muskeg and a lake. When we pulled in a diesel towing a large 5th wheel pulled out and headed on down the road. Once it cleared our range of hearing the air was dead silent.
We truly were out in the middle of nowhere.
After we soaked in a little sunshine we headed back on course- and into the fun stuff.
Laura spent a lot of time wondering who it was that lived way out here in the middle of nowhere, and how schooling and general life worked for them.
I on the other hand, did not get so much time to deeply reflect on my epiphany for the day.
When one reached this far North the roads were much more effected by frost-heaving.
Where I was used to driving on the Peninsula (and a little North) the main threats were animals, some cracks, potholes, a the occasional bump.
UP HERE THOUGH- when a road sign said bump, dip, or bad road ahead, that seriously meant WATCH OUT!
And the distance factor of how much warning time you might have also varied- with some being randomly way ahead and some being literally right before the referred occurrence.
The problem was is not only were the bumps and dips really bad, they also would be in a repetitive and tight fashion. (For example: sure my vehicle is happy to traverse one bump, but if there a many of them perfectly spaced, then by the the time you fly over one bump you are crashing into the other. Depending on bump or dip, this is either slamming your rig down or causing your vehicle to hop out of control!)
So my lesson for the day was this; If you saw what might look like one of these signs even way up ahead, you slowed WAY down to a crawl. I look back sadly on what The Ohana went through traversing this road- and will never use it again.
So like with any good essay, I will repeat the purpose of this rant again at the end and give you this sound piece of advise: Don’t drive the road between Glennallen and Tok. IT IS HORRIBLE.
During the drive we drove through a thunder storm. So in addition to white knuckle road maneuvering, we were blessed with an accompaniment of pouring rain and booming thunder. We still got a kick out of it though- because down in Homer thunder is a rarity.
Also along the way we noticed that a few Alaskan Native American towns were closed off due to covid, with large signs warning others to keep out, and reminding the town to protect their elders.
Keeping our eye on the milepost markers, we knew we were getting closer to Tok. With such, the road began to finally get a lot better. Just as we were adjusting to bit of clearer sailing we crossed a river.
Just on the other side we saw the 5th wheel from earlier pulled over. Just after that we found a gentleman with a gas can hitch hiking down the road. No way in heck were we leaving him behind way out here!
So we picked him up, and he told us how he was moving down South, and was one of the few lucky ones to gain clearance to pass through Canada because he was permanently re-locating for work.
The 5th wheel was new to them, and due to the crazy lines at the gas pumps in Glennallen, they had chosen to push on without re-fueling.
He also had no gas in his brand new backup gas jug- so he was kicking himself for underestimating the need for gas for how long he had pushed themselves.
We let him know we were happy to help, and happy to drive him back out to his vehicle. At first he insisted he could ask someone else for a ride back out to his rig from the gas station. After I told him it would be okay, and who knew if anyone was driving back that far out that way, he eventually accepted our offer.
He even offered to fill our gas tank for us! After I thanked him for the kindness, I reminded him the damage to fill our rig wouldn’t be too bad so it wasn’t too heavy of cost to him. 😄
So after a trip in to Tok, a quick fillup, and a drive back out to his rig he was set to continue his trip.
If you ever read this sir- we hope the rest of your trip went well and your new life is a happy one! 😊
Another cruise and we were finally visiting Tok, Alaska. Laura was prepared this time though…
Since I had been here before, I had warned her there wasn’t much going on. And since Covid was active the town even lived up to that reputation that much more… She voted it still had more going on than Glennallen though. So with our arrival it added another 253 miles to our trip- putting the current trip total to 782.3 miles.
We drove from one end of town, where we got to see where I had flown out the woods from.
To the other end of town… So this is where my realization process about the sprayer actually began. Which sprayer?
The black tank sprayer sprayer I told you about a few posts back. At this point we hadn’t bought it and I was still scratching my head on the best tank cleaning solution.
We showered, dumped and re-filled our water behind this gas station. They had a nice big open area to not only do those necessities, but a nice 2 way pressure wash station too. We didn’t clean our rig here, but it would have been perfect for it. Their non potable hose was extremely long though, and had a spray nozzle. I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me until we were on the road later, it was so you could run the hose all the way around into your rig and blast it out as necessary from the inside! This was the first step in my thought process to researching a sprayer solution. But I digress…
We went up front to pay and the whole gas station was closed down due to Covid. Also, there was not place or instructions to deposit money… so after a bit we took it as a small blessing of the road and left the gas station.
It was decided that though Tok had more going on for it than Glennallen, we were going to head towards Delta Junction and try and find a nice place to cozy down. After all, if we kept chasing our dream and made it happen, we would be back here in about another 2 years.
We pulled over at a few spots to check along the way, but finally decided it was time to call it wherever we were. Right then we crossed the tallest bridge we had come across thus far on our journey.
On the other side of the bridge their seemed to be a pullover area tucked in up a hill, hopefully overlooking the river. So I turned around and we drove up to see what was up there.
It did not lead to a river overlook, just a small tightly tucked in the trees and signs posted.
Laura didn’t like the sound of active trap lines, and I didn’t like how tightly hidden in we were in this particular spot in regards to possible animal traffic. So I happily nudged us to try out a drive that had pulled out just before the bridge back on the other side.
We rolled on in a little bit and came across the sweetest little (actually not little) spot!
It appeared to be an old gravel quarry, long abandoned. It was a giant open area that had a wide gradual path that gently spiraled down to the center, where there were signs of old fire-pits.
The bare quarry floor had grown up, with lots of small plants and flowers having grown up all within.
When we had settled in I came out to see Laura sitting a little ways away on a nice large rock, reading her book. So I walked over.
Ultimately I looked back at the distance between this nice sitting spot and the RV, and asked Laura if she wanted me to pull the RV over here…
Laura here!
I was happily reading whatever book in the Red Wall series that we happened to be on at the time, with soft breeze blowing my hair, when Geoff comes up and asks me that rather odd question.
There really seemed to be no reason to move The Ohana- I mean we just got her settled!
I looked at Geoff quizzically, and tell him is isn’t an issue, I can walk back the 100 yards to the vehicle when I am done reading for the moment.
And that is when Geoff causally replies, well, I just want to make sure you can get into The Ohana faster than a bear could run after you. 🏃♀️🏃♀️🐻
That being said:
Geoff pulled the rig over and took this panoramic shot from our roof. 🤩
The area was beautiful, silent and calm with the exception of some curious small birds and the rustling from the breeze.
We hung outside a bit longer enjoying ourselves until the wind died down. Quickly we were surrounded by small whirlwinds of mosquitoes. This strongly encouraged us to head indoors for the evening. Just from entering the RV, and every small opening in any of our screens we discovered that night, we had plenty of bugs on board. Laura eventually got obsessed with taking them out and made this mistake…
The white sweatshirt I had smoked in Glennallen had survived to live another day! It had palm sleeves and when she started squishing blood filled mosquitoes it took another round of damage. Laura tried to scrub it with hand sanitizer to hopefully take it out. Hopefully it would clean up for this round too…
So this was Kalcifer’s view for the night in the end.
And with such we had driven just a little longer in our journey, leaving our trip total at 815.1 miles.
Geoff Murphy 8/27/2020