TD2 2022 Adventure - Alaska or Bust! - Part 4 - We made it! (Northeast and Central Alaska)

Hello again folks,

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Well, we finally made it to Alaska!  We took the Top of the World Hwy, which is quite scenic, but in our case, was marred by smoke from more than a hundred fires burning around Alaska.  We were told these begin with lightning strikes, and as nearly all of them are in unpopulated areas, they are just left to burn out during the not-infrequent rain.

So our pictures in Part 4 of our Alaska or Bust! Adventure will often have a bluish tinge to them, and that is very commonly caused by atmospheric dust or pollution, or in this case, smoke from forest fires.  No magic with post-processing can properly correct for this, so it just is what it is ;-).  Trust me, it’s a bummer for the photographer 😭

Shades of blue, thanks to forest fire smoke, mostly in AK

Crossing the border was very quick.  We were worried when the only RV in front of us was in active discussion with the border patrol for at least 20 minutes (he was from Canada)!  We were asked about alcohol (no), tobacco (no), firearms (no), pets (no), and firewood (no) …  and we were on our way in two minutes!

The first town we reached was Chicken, Alaska.  My B-I-L Dave explained that the gold miners couldn't agree on how to spell ptarmigan, the local grouse, so instead they called them chicken (smaller, but quite tasty, I'm told), and hence that became the name of the town.  We were hoping for a weath of chicken paraphernalia, but the places we checked out surprisingly had none.  So instead we took some pictures, because they do have chicken statues galore ;-)

You really can't miss Chicken, AK

By the time we had arrived in Tok, AK (pronounced “toke”), we were ready to set-a-spell.  Carol had not been feeling so well the last few days in Canada, so I suggested a COVID test might be appropriate.  Ding, ding, ding ... we have a ... winner?  And my symptoms had started by that point, so two winners!  On top of that, Carol started to get a rash on her back, which she later self-diagnosed as shingles, so she won the trifecta!

This all happened on a Saturday, and she contacted her doctor in Hawaii (who amazing replied within an hour) to see about an anti-viral prescription for the shingles (as they can get quite painful).  But we needed a pharmacy, which Tok does not have.  However, they did have a new clinic built for their native population, which just happened to have an after-hours triage nurse on duty, and we were over there within an hour — amazing!  Giant horse pills for anti-viral meds, plus a prednisone prescription, and it really made a difference!  The shingles cleared up pretty fast, but our COVID-coughs lasted longer.  Thankfully, no serious or long COVID symptoms (we were both double vax'd and double boosted).

With our “batteries” now recharged (literally and figuratively), we headed out for more sight-seeing, and a reprovisioning run to Costco in Anchorage.  We found a great overnight spot in the Matanuska State Park so we could see — you guessed it — the Matanuska Glacier and Matanuska River.  Quite a few pictures from this scenic stop.

Looks like the smoke has cleared for some scenic vistas

After reprovisioning in Anchorage, we checked the weather on the Kenai Peninsula (very wet), and then checked up at Denali National Park (looking better), so we headed north to see what we might see.  Denali is very frequently obscured by clouds, and sure enough, at two state park lookouts you come upon first, we couldn’t see anything.  And … cliffhanger ... we’ll tell you how things turned in Part 5.

So without further ado, here is the full set of photos and three movies for Part 4 - Northeast and Central Alaska of our TD2 2022 Alaska or Bust! adventure.  As you move your cursor over each photo, you will see a descriptive title.  If you can't read it all, hover your cursor over it and the entire title will appear in a box.

Next up we'll be heading north to the Denali National Park in Part 5 of our adventure!

And no matter where we roam, we always like keep Thistle Dew Too's motto in mind: