Finally Newellin: There's gold in them hills!

6/12/19

Every night here at the Sourdough Campground there is a Pancake Toss. Of course we participated last night. Everyone had to introduce themselves and tell where they were from and how far they had traveled. We have traveled 4,686 miles in the motorhome since we left Paincourtville (and a few more in the truck). Then one by one each had to toss a pancake into a bucket, first toss was for practice, second toss was for a free breakfast. I missed the first and hit the bucket with the second, but no free breakfast. Forest got the first toss in the bucket but missed the second toss. But hey, he did get the free breakfast! I guess we will have another shot at it tonight.

So we started the day with FREE BREAKFAST for one. Anything on the menu. So Forest ordered the one that included two pancakes, two eggs and reindeer sausage with orange juice. Way too much for one. So I had a slice of french toast (and the two eggs from his breakfast) with coffee. It was a good breakfast.

Now off to Chicken, Alaska. Chicken is a small frontier town where gold was discovered back in 1886. Ten years later a major discovery was made and for the next two years there were about 700 miners working in the area. Current population is 23 in the summer and 7 in the winter. In 1903 the post office was established there and a few years later the two-story Chicken Creek Hotel was built. Many of the original buildings still stand today including the “Tisha’s Schoolhouse”. The Pedro Dredge was moved there in 1959 from Fairbanks and operated until 1967.

The quirky thing about Chicken is to this day, even though there are services offered to visitors, the locals still live with no city water, sewer or electric service. Yep, outhouses. They provide their own water for drinking and showers and generate their own electricity, including the electric service for their visitors at the small RV park. There are a couple of small restaurants and gift shops and the post office is still in operation (I mailed post cards from there today).

We tried our hand at Gold Panning and came home with some gold! We visited with a girl who lives in North Pole, Alaska. She told us the winters aren’t too bad but they have gotten down to minus 50. So 20 below zero can feel warm.

Forest drove to Chicken and I drove back. Not too bad a drive but some sections had gravel so it slowed our pace.

Nap time when we got home so that we could make a late night run to hunt for moose.

About 7:30 tonight we joined the rest of the guests here for another Pancake Toss. Sorry to say we did not win the free breakfast this time.

We were told there was a marshy area just down the road where the moose hang out. So at 10:00pm it was time to set out for our moose search. We spent about 45 minutes driving around but could not find a single moose. Oh well, it is only our second day in Alaska, many more days to come. Oh by the way, at mid-night it was still daylight here, maybe still too early for the moose.

Now that the washing is caught up, we have restocked the pantry and rested up a bit, tomorrow will be moving day.

It's mine, all mine....

Look carefully at the very center of the picture. Yep, 2 gold flakes!

Guess it won't pay for our trip, but it was fun!

6/13/19

Happy Birthday, Ella! Eleven years old today. We started our day seeing her beautiful face on a video call this morning. She has brought such joy to our life, we miss being able to give her a big hug for her birthday but we did sing for her. Well maybe we don’t have the best voices but it looked like she enjoyed the Happy Birthday song anyway.

After breakfast we readied everything and hit the road. We stopped to fuel up the coach and top off the propane tank then on we went. Hwy 1 between Tok and Glennallen, we were told, is not in very good condition and we were advised to take a different route so… We continued north on the Alaska Hwy to Delta Junction and turned south on Hwy 4 (Richardson Hwy) headed for Valdez. I drove the first 2 hours to Delta then pulled over at a rest area for lunch, Forest took the wheel from there. The drive down the Richardson Hwy was a bit narrow and windy and took us through some beautiful areas. Lots and lots of snow capped mountains! AND our first view of the Alaska Pipeline. We followed the pipeline for a long time seeing it on and off along the way. A couple of hours after lunch we decided to look for a stop over for the night and continue on to Valdez tomorrow.

We found the Paxson Lake Campground BLM at mp 175 (Valdez is at mp 0). The campground is 1.4 miles from the highway with 40 RV sites, some pull thru sites. We decided on #5 pull thru with a view of the lake. There was a great AT&T signal and with Forest’s Senior Park Pass (aka: Geezer pass) it only cost $6 for the night.

It is a good stop after a scenic drive. Who knows, maybe tonight we will see more wildlife. On to Valdez tomorrow.