Taking Our Time Getting to Tok

Gravel Turnout 101 Miles from Tok, Chistochina, AK – August 18 through 20, 2014

We filled with water before leaving the Wrangell View RV Park in Chitina. It didn’t need a whole lot, but we wanted to be full because you never know what will happen. We are both moving a little slow after our challenging glacier hike, but it’s a good slow.

Getting a late start, we made no stops on the Edgerton Highway before reaching the Richardson Highway. We had planned on spending some time in Copper Center, but after making one pass through, we decided we were done. There was a restaurant that looked interesting, but parking Big Guy and the toad was iffy, so we just went on our way.

Someone did have a big ol’ Pontiac and an Eldorado on display.

As we were leaving Copper Center making our way back to the Richardson Highway, EJ got this picture of an abandoned homestead.

About an hour before closing time we stopped at the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park Visitor Center.

Before entering the buildings, we stopped to check out a fish wheel up close. These are water powered devices for unattended fish catching.

We had the place to ourselves and they even ran the movie even though we were the only ones there. After the movie we checked out the visitor center and had a nice chat with the rangers.

As we traveled on, I had entertained the notion of driving all the way to Tok tonight, but when I missed the turn for the Tok Cutoff (the road that leads to Tok) I knew I was about done for. No sense in pushing much further. EJ drug out the Milepost and came up with a couple of possibilities. We dismissed the first one for reasons forgotten by now. The second one was paved, but had an excessive slope. The third one was just right.

As we got set up, I tried the MiFi just for grins. Well I’ll be darned. We have a 4G signal here. We are 60 miles or so from any town and that only has a population of a couple hundred. So why the great signal?

Snooping around the site later on, I discover we’re sitting on top of a fiber optic cable. But I never did spot a cell tower.

We end up hanging out here for 3 days relaxing, catching up on bills, mail, paperwork and Big Guy even got cleaned up a little.

Really dragging out our departure from Alaska, eh?