Friday and Saturday we drove the long way to Anchorage. Rather than driving straight south back down
the parks highway we decided to stay a little more east and see more of the
state since we had some time to kill. We
were in no hurry on Friday because our hotel that night would be in Tok, AK,
which was only about 180 miles from Fairbanks.
As a result we got a late morning start after eating at a great little
restaurant in town called The Cookie Jar that Chris had printed out a Groupon
for before leaving home. We had a nice
big breakfast before hitting the road.
About a half hour outside of Fairbanks we stopped at a cool
little store (which was also slightly overpriced) called the Knotty Shop. While we did not buy anything they did sell
quite a few wood carvings and other pieces of art made from wood burls. We enjoyed looking at their wood sculptures
and other stuff for sale.
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| Notice the muddy car, two days later. |
Our route from Fairbanks to Tok would take us down the Richardson
Highway and the Alaska Highway. The
Richardson Highway, like the Dalton Highway, parallels the Alaska
Pipeline. The major difference is that
the Richardson Highway is completely paved and sees considerably more traffic
than the Dalton. For anyone travelling
between the lower 48 and Fairbanks, they would more than likely use the
Richardson Highway. At a town called
Delta Junction, we stayed a little east of the pipeline and took the Alaska
Highway. The Alaska Highway is the only
route one would take between the lower 48 and Alaska. It is an all season route designed for all
modes of transportation with a good number of small towns along the way.
Since we really had time we stopped at lots of little rest
areas along the way. At one particular
rest area Chris saw a giant puddle and decided to have some fun. We think he hit the puddle at about 50 mph and
it made for a nice big splash. Just for
kicks we drove through it at high speed several other times until we thoroughly
dispersed the water to all parts of the paved rest area. We also got the car pretty well cleaned off
by doing this. It was like a free car
wash.
We also had the opportunity to visit a pottery showroom
which was a little bit of a different experience. The showroom was advertised by a sign on the
side of the highway. We drove up a dirt
road to someone’s house. We were met by
a couple of barking dogs and we saw that the showroom was off to the side in
the garage. We entered and were
surprised to find some really nice pottery, most pieces for sale and some of
them costing well over $100. What
surprised us the most was that there was no one home. However, you could buy any piece you wanted
to, all you needed to do was put the right amount of money in the box and be on
your way. We noted that Alaskans are far
more trusting than just about anyone else we have met.
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| The pottery store |
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| Some of these pieces were over $100. Pretty expensive for self-service |
At one of the rest areas we noticed what is commonly
referred to as the Alaska state bird: two giant mosquitoes in the parking
lot. We had to get a couple of pictures
of those guys. We also had a good
conversation with the lady working at the information center in Delta
Junction. She seemed pretty bored and
was very willing to talk to us. She
suggested we divert from our route for a few miles for the chance to see wild
bison. So we drove south a bit, down the
Richardson Highway, keeping an eye out for the bison herd. We didn’t see the bison but we were treated
with some really great views of the mountains in the distance.
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| Long lonely road |
We drove back to the visitor’s center where we turned back
southeast toward Tok on the Alaska Highway.
We had a lot more great scenery before we arrived at Tok, AK a little
before dinner time. We had booked a
couple of cabins just the day before at a place called Caribou Cabins. When Chris e-mailed the owner he told us that
he was about to close most of the cabins for the season but he’d keep them open
one more night for us. When we checked
in we learned that the owners were originally from a town nearby us in MA. A few years back they, like us, were on
vacation in Alaska. They liked it so
much that on that very trip they bought some land on their credit card! They sat on that for about 6 years before
finally building a house to live in and opening up the cabins that we stayed
in. We thought that was a gutsy move but
it seems to be working out.
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| The main house where we had breakfast |
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| Bedroom |
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| Upstairs loft |
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| Our cabin |
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| All the cabins |
We ventured
out for dinner and noticed an interesting business on the way out: a combined motel/liquor store and grocery
store. They sure are efficient up there. We enjoyed our night at the cabins and
decided that we would one day return to Caribou Cabins.
