Chicken, Alaska

Today we left Dawson City in the Yukon Territory. This required riding across the Yukon River on the George Black Ferry. I don’t know who George was, but he probably had something to do with ferries, at least that is how I am telling it.

Here’s a passenger’s eye view. Note almost no bugs on the window. That’s only because I just fueled up and cleaned the windows. Otherwise it would be speckled (and became so within a few miles). By the way, a note to those cry babies back in the states that think they have it bad with fuel prices. Canadians pay as much as $1.35 per liter. With the exchange rate being at $1.00 US to $1.05 Canadian and adjusting for liters to gallons, that makes it near $5.00 per gallon. I’ve been thinking about pushing one out of every five miles to get better mileage (but Sharon can’t seem to push her fair portion of 9/10 miles of that mile, so I’ve given the idea up).



Our goal for today is to make Chicken, Alaska. Here we look down on the border crossing into Alaska.





Well, we made it through the border station. The border guard that greeted me was very friendly and we talked about our diesel pickups, while the younger guard got our travel companions and grilled them. Regardless, we both got across.

No more pictures of this day. Unfortunately a recurrence of the plague of problems that have been following me has occurred, only I seem to have passed them over (temporarily I am sure) to our travel companions. One of the brand new tires on their trailer is bald on the inside, with cord showing in spots. We stop so it can be changed. Not 20 minutes later they have a flat on the other side, which shreds. They put the near bald tire back on to replace the shredder and limp on at 10 MPH while I drive ahead to Chicken to find somebody to put a new tire on the rim. Digger, the tire guy, destroys the valve stem while changing the tire and has no spares (for the most common type of rim).

So, I am thinking that Digger is a terrible mechanic and a real loser, but we are bigger ones because it is 90 miles to the next nearest service. But, a ray of luck shows up and the trailer comes limping into Chicken on its bad, but still inflated tire. With constant supervision by his customers (us), Digger is guided through the proper method of changing a tire and all is well with the world. Tomorrow we can resume our journey, more or less through this latest challenge.