7/8/1991 - Monday

John:  We slept in this morning.  I first woke up at 5am to the sound of mosquitoes flying around inside the camper.  Karen and I killed them and went back to sleep until 9:00.  When we stepped outside, we got attacked by millions of killer mosquitoes!  They were crazy!  Even with every known repellent for mosquitoes on, they attacked you.  They would fly into your nose, ears between your glasses and eyeballs, everywhere.  They didn't bite (due to all the toxic substances all over your body), but they were awful!  We hurried to get our stuff together and hit the road.  The myth about how big they are is false... but there are zillions of them.  This place is the worst mosquito area we've run into.  We saw the ex-prize fighter  Harlin cruisin' down the road.  He was headed towards Anchorage, us to Tok.  I couldn't get him on the CB (don’t know if he even had one.)  We have lost Peter and Betty for good I think.  Haven’t seen them for days (since Denali).  Today at Tok I forgot to load our stool and our 5 gallon bucket and I ran over them with the truck.  (Ooooops!).  I hammered the stool back in shape and tightened it up, our bucket has a permanent crease in it... the truck was unscathed.  We bought some more  goodies at Tok.  I bought a grizzly bear that’s made out of glacier silt and clay (made in Palmer, Alaska).  We just haven’t found any nice wooden carved bears, so figured I’d better swoop on this as we will be leaving Alaska tomorrow.  (How sad, just don’t want to leave)... We are camped at a pull out somewhere on Route 5 (a dirt road that turns into the “Top of the World Highway”).  This road is something else... it is not maintained.  Top speed has been about 30 MPH.  Most of the time it’s around 15-20.  It hailed on us up here and the road turned into mud.  (My kind of road).  Our camp spot overlooks some beautiful mountains (I can’t determine any type of direction in Alaska... only between Fairbanks & Anchorage I was ok).  Not a soul has driven by since we ate supper, so will probably be very quiet here tonight.  It rained most of the day (except in Tok).  We even had to crank up the heater in the camper tonight as it’s pretty cold up here.  Total miles driven today was 198.

ODOM:  28200

Route 5.

Susan, Karen & Kari in front of the dirty truck.

John smiling about the really dirty camper!

6/29/1991 - Saturday

John:  Today we drove to Fairbanks...  A total of 269 miles.  The Alaskan Highway was pretty good today, only a couple bad spots.  We viewed the Alaskan Pipeline for the first time.  We met Peter & Betty (from the ferry) in Tok.  They were also headed to Fairbanks.  I found out from Peter that the ‘miniature forest’ is caused by the permafrost... seems like the trees have very shallow root systems and don’t develop like normal.  We caught up on our laundry today at the campground - the campground has all the facilities but the spot is pretty basic.  We saw our first moose today!  It sure is weird having daylight for 24 hours... last night Karen or I woke up nearly every hour and it never got dark!  The local birds must have it figured out, although at 3:30 AM last night one bird was singing it’s morning song,  The roof carrier is disintegrating each day.  I hope it holds together till it’s empty.  I may need to duct tape the whole thing to help hold it together.

ODOM:  27225

Kari:  We saw a big fat moose on the loose finally!  We saw another brown bunny.  We fed some chickens at the campground.

SUMMARY: After two weeks, we have spent a total of $961 cash, plus 343 on gas credit cards total.  It’s very warm & sunny today.  It’s after 10PM and the sun is still 2-3 inches over the horizon!  Pretty weird!  Total miles driven = 3363.

Alaskan Pipeline

Kari, John & Susan in Tok, Alaska