Friday morning dawns – no wait - remember the “rustic” description? I am ready to leave rustic about 5:00 am – actually before dawn. We are about an 30 minutes from Alaska and I really want to try a different restaurant for breakfast. Surely there is something by the customs area as they staff 24 hours a day. Robert agrees to the plan and off we go – down the bumpy bumpy road.
Arriving at US customs just at daybreak I am amazed we are the ONLY car coming or going. Once again we have the passports and vaccination papers ready and this time we need all three. Squirt sits patiently as we declare our goods and then we hear “Welcome to Alaska”. Almost home and look – there is a restaurant about a mile down the road that has lights on. Looking good for breakfast and what do you know we have cell phone coverage again!
We pull into the parking lot – not many cars here for a hotel but the door is open and we see someone working inside. Sauntering to the entrance with visions of eggs and bacon in our heads we peek around the corner and ask the lady if they were open. She said “Oh no…we don’t open for another hour.” Then it dawns on us - we entered a new time zone and have to set the clocks back again. Rumble Rumble – on to Tok for breakfast.
Tok – The Tok Cutoff - where we turn South and head to home (even though we went South quite a bit on the northern highway). Opening the Milepost (required for this trip) I find Tok does have restaurants and from the pictures they look busy. We leave the nice little border hotel and pick up some speed (roads are back to normal and not bumpy). The sun is just coming over the horizon and we are cruising along. Enter one of the most exciting “cut-offs“ of the trip.
Coming around a curve going at least highway speeds and there’s a moose crossing the road. Now, up close and personal when slamming on the breaks, moose are really big. From later encounters, they appear to be big in general but sliding that last 10 feet before the moose joins you in the front seat of the SUV - they are REALLY big. I would compare this specific moose to a Clydesdale except she is taller, heavier and has skinnier legs. Thank goodness we don’t hit her and no one hits us (but remember there is no traffic right now).
OK –watch for moose on the side of the road. You would think that is a very simple task but moose are incredible at camouflage. They disappear once that rump goes through the trees. (I assume they disappear if the back into the trees as well.) But this also counts the second time I have seen a moose in the wild and this one was alive (and scared by the end of the encounter).
Here’s Tok and there’s the restaurant. Look at all of the cars. Must be good. We head inside, sit down and order, warm our hands on the coffee cups and here comes the food and it IS good. Of course there's LOTS of it. We could have ordered one breakfast and had enough but we never think to share a meal. This breakfast and one more fuel stop should get us home early afternoon. Sounds like a good plan and except for the construction and a little slow down from curvey roads.
We pull into Anchorage about 2:30 Friday afternoon. We drive through town taking a couple of turns to get to our housing edition and there is our house. Everybody out – stretch – walk around a little bit. Squirt runs around through the yard (there are some unusual sniffs here!) and we are ready to go inside. We are home.
And thus starts our Alaskan adventure….
As a side note, this was the third time I have actually traveled the AlCan highway. My parents, brother and myself journeyed to Fairbanks by car in the late sixties to visit my sister. I only have spotty memories of the trip (something about my brother tossing my nose out the window somewhere in the mountains comes up at every family gathering). However, seeing what the roads are like today and the few and far between gas pumps and accommodations, I wish I remembered more and have even more respect for my parents in the fact they took us to see my sister in the first place. I recently commented to my brother about that trip and he said he kind of dropped one of the wheels off the road (remember the guard rail statement in yesterday's post?) which made everyone nervous. And I’m thinking…what do you mean “kind of”…. :) I believe they had to replace the gas tank and do some other repairs upon return…..things are definitely better!
And yes – I would drive it again. I just hope next time it isn’t at such a hurried pace so we can stop and enjoy the scenery, take pictures with a working camera and swat more pesky little black flies.
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