Haines, Tok, Anchorage and Beyond!

 

We received some very disturbing news from Neighbor Jim who is watching over our property. It was more of a picture than news, but it almost made me turned around and head back to South Dakota post haste. What is this picture you ask? What could possible change all of our plans and rush us back home? No, it was not a picture of him drinking from the bottle of my best bourbon, it was of this…..

 A #@*%ing prairie dog! For those of you who have been reading the blog for years, you know that when we bought this property it was infested with prairie dogs. I know some of you are thinking “Oh, they are so cute!” And perhaps they are if they are on someone else’s property. But if they are on yours or adjoining property, they are not cute at all.     In fact both our county and the neighboring counties will help pay you to get rid of them.

 It took us, and the neighbors on both sides of us over a year to eradicate the little buggers, and another year for the grasses to come back. We have been prairie dog-less for over 3 years only to have Neighbor Jim take a picture of this interloper?!?!

 We immediately set Operation PD in motion, calling all parties involved to take immediate action. Well, actually, it was texts and not a call and by all parties involved I mean Neighbor Jim and I. Having prepared this plan years ago in case such an emergency arose we knew exactly what to do. Picture if you will, Neighbor Jim sneaking up to the prairie dog ala Bill Murray in Caddie Shack. Picture said prairie dog mocking Neighbor Jim as he prepares his assault. What the prairie dog did not know is that Neighbor Jim is a combat veteran with countless sniper kills under his belt which have included rabbits, squirrels and the occasional chipmunk. But was he up for this challenge? Only time would tell.

 The next day I receive a coded message stating that there is no longer a threat to our properties. I am not sure how to take that. Maybe he had a heart to heart with the little feller and he decided to reside elsewhere. At any rate, Barb and I turned the truck around and again headed back up to Alaska since all is well back home.  

By this time, we were somewhere between Haines and Anchorage. Outside of Haines, we stopped for lunch at the 33 Mile Roadhouse Cafe. This was on Barb's bucket list of places to stop, so stop we did. It was good and not horribly priced. 

In order to get from one to another you have to cross back into Canada, drive several hours in both British Columbia and the Yukon before crossing back into Alaska again. That means two more border crossings. Seeing how the Skagway Customs Agent took everything that was already worth taking we had high hopes that these would go well. The crossing back into Canada went well, pretty straight forward. He was the first one to ask if we had paperwork for the dogs. We do, and handed it to him, but he did not want to read them.  One thing he did ask is where we are spending the night. We usually have no idea, but Barb was a quick thinker and said the name of a campground ahead. We were on our way pretty quickly.

The next day we filled up in Haines Junction. The road between Haines Junction and Tok is the worst we have been on so far this trip. Numerous frost heaves, potholes and gravel areas really slowed us down. If you did not slow down for some of these, you were surely to break something.  I mean like slow down to under 10mph for some of these bumps. Most people were going slow, others were passing the just flying down the road.  As we were driving, we noticed a car pulled over to the side, then we noticed the guy had a tent set up in the ditch. I thought; “That is a weird place to camp”. That is when I noticed his right back tire was pointing to the side like it was going to make a right turn. Well, that does not look right. I do not know how you break an axle or all your lug nuts on a back wheel, but he managed to do it. 

We found another roadside pull out on a lake just outside of Beaver Creek. A beautiful spot, quiet, but mosquitoey. We spent most of the evening in the camper.

 

Leaving that camping spot we continued our bumpy journey to Tok. So many frost heaves and potholes. This is worse than it was in ’16. We crossed the border back into Alaska. Our last border crossing for a while. As we approached the station, I noticed a low clearance sign for the canopy of 12’-2”. I know we are well over that, so I went into the high clearance lane only to be flagged down by a Customs Officer and waved into the other lane. They had a swinging bar before the canopy at 12’2” and sure enough I hit it. The original guy waves his arms, and another guy comes out. I am thinking “Great, we are off to a swell start”. The original guy comes out and says, “Sorry man, my bad, can you back up and go into the other lane?” After that it was “Did you buy anything in Canada?” Nope. I had a whole deal prepared in my head about the rest of the questions he was going to ask me but he handed us back our passports, gave each of the dogs a treat and said, “Have a great day.” Just like that we were off! The easiest border crossing we have ever had!

Once in Tok, we fueled up at the Cheveron $3.84, dumped our tanks and filled with water. The road between Tok and Glennallen was a little better, but not much. We spent the night on a scenic overlook that lived up to its name. It is hard to see, but that is a 16,000 mountain in the background.

Once we arrived in Anchorage, we spent the day doing laundry and restocking our stolen vegetables. I was on a mission to restock our DEF since I had just used our last spare jug. We went to Walmart.....

What the heck, is there a DEF shortage that I did not know about?!?! Then I noticed two lonely containers set off to the side. A grabbed them and ran for the door! We got some really good Chinese food at Golden Gate Chinese and spent the night at the Cabela's with a couple dozen other rigs. 

While on our way to Cooper Landing, we received a message from our friends in Ninilchik, a couple hours down the road. “We are going Halibut fishing on Thursday; do you want to come with?” You can probably still smell the rubber as we turned the truck in their direction! 

But, we still had a couple of days before Thursday, so we took our time and stopped by the Virgin Creek Falls in Girdwood as well as stopping by the Girdwood Brewing Company. 

We spent the night on a pull out where we have good luck fishing in '16 on the Kenai River. We are still a little early for the salmon and did not have any luck, but we were entertained watching the wildlife on the river. This beaver was very curious and kept coming up and seeing what we were doing on his shoreline. He would swim up really close to us, stop, stare and then slap his tail and dive.

Then there were the mergansers. This mother merganser came by twice. Not the best pictures as she was really fast and I had to drop by fishing rod, grab my phone and attempt to take pictures all within a few seconds. Notice how the one is riding on its mothers back?

 

The coolest thing was the bears though. As we watched the group of fishermen on the opposite shoreline. There were 10 of them or so lined up in the water on the other side. They were having better luck than us. Barb and I were watching them catch fish when we noticed this black bear come out of the woods behind them. At first they did not notice as all their attention was focused out on the river. Then some guy turned around and yells “Bear!”. They started yelling at it and it ran away.

 A little while later, another bear appears just down the shoreline from them and starts heading their way. Except this time, it was a Griz! Again, they do not notice it, but then it pops back into the woods, Only to pop back out again, just feet from them! I am generally not afraid of bears as they are more afraid of you than you are of them. And black bears are generally not aggressive. Grizzly’s are known to be a little more aggressive, but still afraid of humans. Until they are not! This guy was not afraid of humans at all! This picture below was before they noticed it. See how all their backs are turned to the bear?

 

They were yelling at it and it could have cared less. It walked up the shoreline nosing around. The fisherman stood their ground. The last thing you want to do is run. Mr. Griz made his way within 10’ of one fisherman, nose to the shore, found a fish the guy had caught, grabbed it and walked into the woods to enjoy a tasty little snack! Talk about pucker factor! 

I just realized that there are no dog pictures yet, so I thought I better include a couple. One picture of Zoey just chilling on her bed, one of Dakota looking at me curiously in the mirror.

This post has gone on long enough, so I will save the halibut fishing for next week. Will this be the event where I out-fish Barb? Will I catch the most? The biggest one? Will I catch any at all? Or will I be throwing up over the side of the boat? All are entirely possible. Stay tune next week for more adventures in Alaska!