Today was supposed to be an easy day of driving for Stanley. We had a nice breakfast in the Talbot Arms Restaurant looking out at Klane Lake and took off with high aspirations of an easy, beautiful drive from Destruction Bay to Tok- 225 miles.
First rattle out of the box was a stop light with a sign that said we were to wait for the pilot car. 30 minutes later, the car shows up and proceeds to guide us over about 5 miles of heavy construction.
From that point to the Canadian/US border, the road was various degrees of awful. Riddled with potholes, frost heaves, and extensive gravel patches, it was a mess. It didn't hurt the scenery. Unfortunately, Stanley was so busy keeping the car out of the potholes, he didn't see much, but I was busy with my phone camera. It was all mountains, water, and plants so I'll only publish a few here, but if you want to see more, I can only say, "More is coming!"
At the US border, the road improved dramatially for a few miles and then turned just as bad as we had experienced in Yukon. Again, the scenery didn't disappoint.
We did see our first mishap of the trip. A flat bed truck with no cargo caught fire and burned. We stopped at the Rest Stop just shy of the truck and waited until the fire died down before going on. As we traveled on to Tok, we met several trucks from Alaska Forest Service on their way to the scene of the incident. The driver was uninjured and was standing a short distance from the blaze as we drove by.
Just past the truck incident, the road turned bad again. Once more Stanley was dodging potholes and negotiating frost heaves. On the bright side, we saw lots of survey markers so hopefully, we will see some construction on the way out of Alaska at the end of July.
We stopped in Tok at the Three Bears Grocery for dinner supplies, a rotisserie chicken and salad makings. Drove to our home for the evening, the Fox n Fireweed Bed and Breakfast. What a charming place. We have the Bear's Den Suite. It's the second den we've lived in on this trip. The other was the Wolf Den. This one is bigger and quieter and there are lots of treats in the fridge for breakfast.
Tomorrow is Zac's birthday so I called Sarah. Then made a call to Henry and Marcia to make plans for tomorrow and one more call to Frosty and Jill to share our info about the ALCAN and the ferry boat.
Finished off our dinner with a serving of caramel chocolate. Yummy!
¡Buenas Noches!
