Sun June 8, Mon June 9, Tues June 10

Well this is Ila and we will "together" try to cover days 12, 13, 14. Sunday am we got up in Whitehorse, dressed for church and went to Tim Horton's for breakfast. (Need to watch in US for this chain) To my friend, Margaret Ademeit, they are going to run real close to Dunkin Donuts in Branson!! HA! Jaarsma is safe! We also went to the visitor center and they helped us call ahead for room reservation in Dawson City. We knew we would not have phone service so were trying to cover all bases before we left "civilization." We were going to practice being "pioneers" w/o phones and internet!!!! As we sat eating breakfast, the snow began to come down heavier, so we decided God "might" forgive us if we just had our own church in the vehicle and started on down the road. Ila seems to have gotten the "preaching" responsiblity and believe it or not, we soon ran out of the snow and the day turned out to be a little rain, clouds, and a little sun. It took us a LONG time to get to Dawson City, where we stayed at Klondike Kates in a nice little cabin. We drove to the top of Dome Peak, which Linda says was the highlight of "her" whole trip. I think emphasis should be on the "high" part. Linda parked really close to the only wall she could find and did NOT get out of the van and then we "crept" carefully down the mountain only to arrive safely at the bottom. Phyllis offered to drive but Linda vehemently said NO! It seems she has been "down this road" before. That pretty much tells that days story.

Monday, Day#13 -- we went to grocery store and purchased some fruit and peanut butter. Oh Rusty, it is healthy --no salt, no sugar -- made by Kraft! Then we proceeded to the ferry, which took us across the river to the begin our trek on the Top of the World highway heading toward the Alaskan border. We saw our first and last animal of this day when a pretty fox run up the road a ways ahead of and then disappeared into the ditch. This road was a somewhat challenging, interesting, horrible, holey (big holes), dips, bumps, dust, loose gravel, no guardrails in some places, no shoulders. We arrived at customs about 11:45 am Alaska time (that is a 3-hour time difference from Iowa). We talked with a lady who had taught at Hong Kong University (phy ed) and her husband was from Holland. They now live in one of the Canadian provinces. His brother and wife had flown from Delph, Holland and met them to travel in Alaska. Then we stopped at the "welcome to Alaska" sign and a couple from Missouri took our pictures there. To be honest, the road on the Alaska side was worse looking than the Canadian side but Linda says it was easier to drive consistently on at 15 mph. There were times when we met someone that we simply stopped and let people go by because there were warning signs that the shoulders were extremely soft. Now if you wonder just how long it took us to traverse this road, we passed a couple who were brushing their teeth. We aren't sure how long they had been on the way, but nonetheless, there they stood brushing away. We arrived at Chicken, Alaska and stopped at the Chicken Creek Cafe for, guess what, chicken soup, sandwich (they were turkey & ham). But we found fruit and dairy again, in the form of apple, cherry and blueberry pie with ice cream. When we began the final leg of this road(?), from Chicken to Tok, it was declared that if we had to go 15 mph, someone was going to walk. Tok offered some challenges in finding a motel for the night but we did finally manage to get one. Not sure what was going on in town (except for a pancake throw, which we missed finding), but the motels were pretty much all full and we were lucky to get into the last one in town that had any rooms. It was called Tok Motel -- imagine that. We learned from that experience and called ahead for reservation for tonight in Fairbanks. That proved to be a bit of challenge because a cruise boat was in the area and many of the motels in FB were already full.

Day 14 -- We left Tok about 7:30 am (that was record for us) and thought surely there would be some animals out for breakfast but, we saw a couple of rabbits, a couple of ground squirrels and some birds. We saw deep ice on the Robertson River and got some pictures. (With maybe a little luck, we will send pictures.) Then closer to Fairbanks, we stopped at Delta Meats, that is run by a couple from near Ponca, NE in USA. They raise their own meat and we sampled and purchased some of their sausage (reindeer summer sausage). After leaving there, we then stopped at Rika's Roadhouse for lunch. We had delicious potato soup and didn't indulge in any more fruit and dairy here. Then we stopped at the Knotty Gift Shop and Lodge. They had a deal if you showed their ad in the Milepost book, you could have a free ice cream cone. Then we headed on into Fairbanks. At the very edge of the Eilsen Air Force Base, just before the sign that said No Stopping, No Pictures, No Parking, the car ahead of us stopped and Linda spotted a moose. So, since Phyllis has taught the van how to do a UTurn, we did two and also got some pictures. Once we got stopped, not only was there a moose, but also a baby. It seemed the baby was inside the air base fence and the adult was outside the fence. Not sure why or how that happened but we got some pictures. Then we traveled on into Fairbanks and found our motel (Super 8). We have reservations here for two nights. Our day tomorrow begins with a wake-up call at 4:30 am and we are leaving on an Arctic Circle tour at 6 am that is scheduled to return at 10:30-11 pm. We probably will no blog until the next morning.