Safely arived in Alaska

Largest Gold Pan in the World

Tundra Swans

Young Male Moose

Some very old, very, very big moose antlers on this roof

Some of the smoother gravel road

Yay - We made it to Alaska

Murray did NOT win me a free breakfast!

Deception Bay, Yukon to Tok, Alaska. Today's drive presented the worst roads of the trip so far, and this is day 11. We finally reached an area of the northern section of highway that is affected by permafrost. Apparently the ground is permanently frozen

to a depth of 100 meters, which has terrible implications for building road surfaces upon it. When it 'melts' in summer, the road surface subsides, and then when it ices up again in winter, it swells or 'heaves', causing havoc for motorists. The road from Deception Bay to Tok was peppered with numerous sections of road that certainly shook our motorhome around. There were 2 sections of road that had workmen present, and while many of the worst bumps were flagged, many were not.

The highlight of today's drive for us was seeing a young moose feeding beside the road. Most of the animals we pass are so timid that the minute the RV gets anywhere near them, they retreat into the brush. This one stayed the whole time. He was all alone, so I hope his mum wasn't too far away. We also saw several pairs of nesting Tundra Swans in the various lakes in the area - only one pair on any one lake.

I had a moment of panic earlier today when I went to take a photo of the largest gold pan in the world. My camera's memory card decided to give up the ghost. I had cleared it yesterday and backed up all of my photos, but when I put the card in the camera, it showed the card as being full. I tried it in the laptop, and got the same story. I figured it must have had so much use over the last 3 years that it had just died. I remembered I had a spare card tucked away (but it was one from several years ago, and when I got it out realised it was only a 32MB capacity). How we have come along since then. I was prepared to buy a new card, but thankfully I thought to try re-formattin the card, and it did the trick. I now have the capacity to story over 2,000 photos again!

We crossed the border into Alaska again, and will now stay in this state until the last week in July. Our current campground in Tok (Sourdough RV) seems very nice with long pull-throughs amongst the trees. Our own Verizon internet works well here, and we have cell phone reception for those of you following us. They do have central wifi, but not at the sites. Each evening at 7pm they have a pancake tossing competition. If you win, you get a free pancake breakfast with the lot (all you can eat sourdough pancakes, reindeer sausage, pork sausage, biscuits (scones) & gravy, fruit, coffee & juice. They have a cafe here that serves breakfast, lunch & dinner. Anyone for Reindeer chili served in a sourdough bread bowl? Darn - neither of us won a free breakfast, but Marie got close.